Quote from: flyingmice;218633I'm goggle-eyed at the statement about PCs being all too ready to kill unconcious opponents... After many years of running a system that makes stunned and unconcious opponents much more likely than dead ones, I've never seen this...

You've honestly never played D&D where a wizard casts sleep on a bunch of orcs, and then the rest of the PCs slit their throats? Or are we assuming Laws is only talking about modern-day RPG settings here?

As a GM I've seen lots of pc's kill helpless/unconscious npc's and have done so myself as a player.

Examples:

The MU casts sleep on the room full of orcs.  What are you going to do with them?  Waste all your rope tying them up and then leave them behind you as you press on into the dungeon, ready to ambush you on the way back?  I don't think so.  Stick a sword in them.

Your modern day team of black ops commandos fires a hellfire missile from their helo into the bad guys penthouse lair and then drops in through the skylight.  There are 2 guards lying sprawled on the floor.  They might be dead, they might be unconscious, they might be simply stunned- who knows.  You don't really have time to find out and running up to check the pulse of an armed adversary is likely to get you dead anyway.  Fire a couple bullets into them and get on with the mission.

Quote from: Haffrung;218896You've honestly never played D&D where a wizard casts sleep on a bunch of orcs, and then the rest of the PCs slit their throats? Or are we assuming Laws is only talking about modern-day RPG settings here?

Shit, that's what Sleep is for.  It's the most powerful spell in low-level D&D.  Fuck Magic Missile, I'm all about Sleep.

Wouldn't that be an instant alignment shift to chaotic evil?

Ehhh...young whippersnappers..I oughtta...

Hell, I remember a day where the Paladin was considered derelict in his duties if he didn't kill the sleeping orcs.  My gods, man - they are the embodiment of chaotic evil. What more reason does one need?

Ehh? What's that? time for my dinner? It's 2:30 PM already?

Quote from: Saphim;218925Wouldn't that be an instant alignment shift to chaotic evil?

That's how we played.  Killing sleeping Orcs would make your character evil.

We also played with a "no evil PCs" rule -- so if your character became evil, they also became an NPC.

Quote from: Saphim;218925Wouldn't that be an instant alignment shift to chaotic evil?

Probably not. Killing prisoners and enemies who aren't directly trying to kill you is pretty common in historical warfare, and we don't treat people who do so as automatically evil, vicious people.

A player's choices in that situation really depend on the game's tone. If I, as a PC, know that if I tie up the orcs they're going to escape and come back to try and kill me when I'm not expecting it then it's only common sense to finish them off. On the other hand if I can rely on them running off into the sunset (or otherwise "fading out" after defeat) without bothering me then it's reasonable to let them go.

The selection of certain in character actions need to be set in relation to the world in which you live. If Orcs are seen as evil vile cancer on the face of the planet then killing sleeping ones is probably okay. I mean we will sleeping rats with gas or whatever.
I have played Lawful Good Paladins that actively support slavery, polygamy and even incest (well okay it was this one lawful good paladin in a psuedo-Egyptian game) because these are the social norms and laws of the world he is in. Of course he treated his slaves very well and chose not to take a wife himself as he had a vow of chasity but by the gods he would he would defend anyone's right to do any of these things (well you have to be royalty to marry your sister but you get the idea).
I think if you were playing a goodly priest who watched the party finish off the human (or insert same race of your choice) bandits that attacked the caravan train out of desperation to gather enough food to feed their starving families who were under the heal of the wicked overlord then that would probably be a more evil act than the paladin that finished off the evil orcs.

Quote from: Saphim;218925Wouldn't that be an instant alignment shift to chaotic evil?

Orcs are monsters. Evil monsters. If they could, they would slay, enslave, or devour every human, dwarf, and elf in the world. Shit, if there were a dwarf in the party and he didn't kill all the orcs I would call out the player for shitty roleplaying.

Well...

A least we're all agreed that Laws' was whacked about tasers...

Sleep can take out many more enemies than magic missile.  I always thought the down-side to sleep was that it wasn't "Burninate" or "Kill Storm"... it was "Sleep".  If you have a good character they can't just kill the sleeping enemies - so there's a difficult / interesting choice there.

I don't have it with me, but there's a bit in the Moldvay book about alignment and the characters debating whether or not to kill some captives.  The illustration shows a Gobliny looking chap.  The guy in black wants to knife him, the Neutral Knight just stands back and minds his own business, and the good character is trying to stop the knifing.

I think that would be applicable to the Sleep situation as well.

Ah, but the orcs you just cast sleep on aren't captives, at least not yet.  They're temporarily disabled enemies.  They haven't surrendered and will likely attempt to kill you at the first opportunity.  Who knows, maybe their not even all sleeping.  Perhaps a few canny orcs saw their fellows pass out and decided to play possum.  Look at it this way, if your lawful character trips an orc, does he have to wait for him to get back up before continuing his attack?  What if the fiend drops his sword?  Is the defender of law required let him pick it back up?  Fair play and all that?

Quote from: Haffrung;218957Orcs are monsters. Evil monsters. If they could, they would slay, enslave, or devour every human, dwarf, and elf in the world. Shit, if there were a dwarf in the party and he didn't kill all the orcs I would call out the player for shitty roleplaying.

Ah, but as a paladin or simply a good character would you not need to stay above their level? If you sink to their evil, you are no better than them...

Bill

Quote from: Saphim;218925Wouldn't that be an instant alignment shift to chaotic evil?

When I played D&D, that was the rule. Killing helpless anything was a chaotic evil act.

-clash

Quote from: Haffrung;218896You've honestly never played D&D where a wizard casts sleep on a bunch of orcs, and then the rest of the PCs slit their throats? Or are we assuming Laws is only talking about modern-day RPG settings here?

I was talking about semi-modern settings - I play 95% in renaissance to future - but it applied to the days I ran D&D as well.

-clash