Light, Grey and Dark; or morality for great power

[MartinHarper]

How about:
Light: Diplomacy
Grey: Bluff
Dark: Intimidate
(you could also switch Bluff and Intimidate, depending on the moral position of each).

If you can describe how the little girl attack would be done by a good character, then we could calculate out how many dark marks are generated.

Well, this random story from google can serve as a template. Hopefully the act of searching for "child rape stories" hasn't set off too many automatic alarms for my local police force. We'd need to drop the age of the victim down to "little girl".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/sep/08/gender.uk

So, I'd charge 2 Dark points for each of the acts of rape (in the absence of explicit guidance), and a Dark point for the dishonesty. He would get a further Dark point for causing pain if the rape was physically painful, or if the victim was very scared, both of which seem more likely for an underage victim. The steward gets 1 Dark point for apathy.

I wonder if other folks would charge Dark differently. The rules might give explicit points for rape. You might also have a modifier for actions against "innocents" (notably children) and another for actions against "military targets".

[Quantumboost]

Rape necessarily includes removing the victim's freedom of choice, so each act itself is worth 2 Dark marks at least.

[Judging__Eagle]

Every instance of mental trauma also counts as 'pain'.

The character will literally suffer dark points each and every time the victim has a flashback, relives the memory or gets uncomfortable when someone touches them. Rape is probably one of the worst things that can happen.

I'm considering some acts to have continual dark points accumulating on a person.

I'm also considering having enough dark points to be something that will dog you until you try to make it right, or are killed. I also, don't really want to talk about this topic, it really bothers me, but it's something that needs to be fixed.

So I'll have to shelve that part of this project for now, and even make a special note of cases like this; going so far as to say "either give the character a dark point per scene, or whenever you feel that the victim would recall or have to remember the event; don't really bother about holding back; and give at least one dark point per session until the character is dead or until the victim has gotten over the attack (never normally) or the character tries to be forgiven by the victim (maybe, but it will be obviously difficult).

I might make a special case and turn it into a sum of all of its crimes (pain, restriction of freedom, etc.) and then also apply a continual amount of dark points per scene or per session; maybe 1 per scene, or 5 per session; whichever is greater in each session. Or perhaps removal of white marks, without removing dark marks.

I think that I'll have to put in a rule where if a character has no white marks and is dark-souled, they become an NPC.

The premise being, that the character can no longer control themselves, ever. Making them useless as a free willed agent in the world (aka a PC).

Does anyone have any problems with a rule like that?

[Roy]

Sounds way too much like the Star Wars wank, so yes.

[MartinHarper]

I suppose a problem with explicit rules support for rape is that it might make some players think that it is an acceptable option, where most groups have an implicit or explicit "no rape" agreement.

Rape necessarily includes removing the victim's freedom of choice, so each act itself is worth 2 Dark marks at least.

True. So does murder. So does taking a hostage or kidnapping, or sending an evil person to prison. Come to that, when the general orders his troops into battle, does she gain a shed load of Dark points? I guess that line needs clarification or rethinking.

I'm also considering having enough dark points to be something that will dog you until you try to make it right, or are killed.

Paladin's system keeps track of Dark animus (which goes up and down) and violations of the code (which generate Dark animus). While you can easily spend the Dark animus you get for killing someone, removing the violation is much harder work. That seems like a useful split.

The character will literally suffer dark points each and every time the victim has a flashback, relives the memory or gets uncomfortable when someone touches them.

This is leading towards judging acts by consequences, rather than intentions. So, if you murder parents, you get hit by continual Dark points as their orphan children suffer increased hardships over their lives, unless you go out and ensure that they are looked after. However, you seemed to dislike a consequences-based approach earlier - changed your mind?

I think that I'll have to put in a rule where if a character has no white marks and is dark-souled, they become an NPC.

The premise being, that the character can no longer control themselves, ever. Making them useless as a free willed agent in the world (aka a PC).

I would prefer to make Dark characters have less free will, before saying that Pure Dark characters have no free will. How to do that, though?

[Judging__Eagle]

The idea of a different "Track" is a good idea. Maybe "slashes" instead of marks? [I'm not stuck on the word, so anything good would work; or perhaps rename the marks to something else?]

Maybe for every "slash" your character _must_ perform one dark act per session?

And have marks given out for certain acts, and slashes given out for more severe acts?