Making D&D morality less repulsive.

[FatR]

This is tangential, but Stubbazubba's morality just shifts the blame onto the courts instead. They really should've figured out the Joker wasn't going to stay incarcerated sometime around the fifth time he broke out. Given that the Joker is a terrorist who is undeniably guilty of his crimes, they should probably have rushed him through the execution process the first or second time he was apprehended.

The thing is, normal law enforcement in DC-verse won't ever dare to give a death sentence to a recognized member of the supervillain club. Not because other supervillains even like the Joker, they just take offence at being given harsher sentences than imprisonment on principle. Justice League had major problems when they decided to use mindwipe on one particularly disgusting sack of shit, and unlike them a muggle judge isn't a demigod and don't have demigod buddies.

[Stubbazubba]

Conversely, Aragorn and King Arthur weren't exactly big on non-lethal combat either, but are still considered heroic.

Everyone Aragorn killed was a creation of the Dark Lord Sauron, it's very life-force was evil, that is canon. Tolkien was just using the black and white morality of the Norse epics that inspired much of his writing. Aragorn didn't kill people who were just trying to feed their families, he killed the armies of darkness who lusted after human death. As has been discussed, the campaign notes justified his actions from the get-go.

And then there's King Arthur. Trail of Bodies? Apparently yes. Non-lethal? Apparently yes.

[Stubbazubba]

Heroism is a lot different than morality.

The reason that it's a lot easier to kill than not in games is that it is obviously easier to kill people when hitting them with a sword or axe than to reliably incapacitate people when hitting them with a sword or axe the game mechanics say it is.

Fixed that for ya. Go play any super-hero RPG, even if you're using lethal weapons, the guys are assumed to be alive even after you win, and you have to do something differently in order to kill them off. Ever wonder why Leonardo never cut through Shredder's mid-section and spilled out his guts? This is why.

[Chamomile]

Conversely, Aragorn and King Arthur weren't exactly big on non-lethal combat either, but are still considered heroic.

Everyone Aragorn killed was a creation of the Dark Lord Sauron, it's very life-force was evil, that is canon. Tolkien was just using the black and white morality of the Norse epics that inspired much of his writing. Aragorn didn't kill people who were just trying to feed their families, he killed the armies of darkness who lusted after human death. As has been discussed, the campaign notes justified his actions from the get-go.

You forget the Haradrim. There's a scene in the Two Towers where Faramir wonders aloud whether a Haradrim he's just killed was in it for the spoils of war, or if he was a good man indoctrinated by the enemy. Presumably, Aragorn killed a few of them at the Black Gate, too. Even if not, the book version of Faramir was decisively heroic himself.

[hyzmarca]

This is tangential, but Stubbazubba's morality just shifts the blame onto the courts instead. They really should've figured out the Joker wasn't going to stay incarcerated sometime around the fifth time he broke out. Given that the Joker is a terrorist who is undeniably guilty of his crimes, they should probably have rushed him through the execution process the first or second time he was apprehended.

Dude, killing the Joker is the absolute worst thing to do if you want to neutralize him as a threat. If you do that you'll just end up with Black Lantern Joker or King of Hell Joker. Actually, you'll probably end up with both at the same time.

So your no-nonsense solution to the problem of one prolific killer in one city on one backwater planet turns into an existential threat to the entire universe.

Comic book death is just as much a revolving door prison as Arkham is, unless your name is Uncle Ben. But death is much worse of a prison, because you don't gain cosmic-scale demonic superpowers while your in Arkham, while it is extremely common for death characters to come back with gigantic power-ups.

This actually applies to D&D, too, since there is a real evil afterlife where dead evil people are rewarded for their deeds with superpowers and there are real resurrection spells and there are real undead.

So you killed the Dark Lord Pants-on-his-Head. That's great. Asmodeus was so pleased with his darklordship that you now have to deal with Archdevil Pants-on-his-Head and his infernal army. Nice job breaking it hero.

[kzt]

Fixed that for ya. Go play any super-hero RPG, even if you're using lethal weapons, the guys are assumed to be alive even after you win, and you have to do something differently in order to kill them off. Ever wonder why Leonardo never cut through Shredder's mid-section and spilled out his guts? This is why.

Umm, is this is the thread on morality in comic books?

[tzor]

I can't comment on Aang's scenario, but I've thought long and hard about Batman, ...

Comic characters change drastically as they are passed from one writer/artist to another, but they often retain a vestage of their original idea. Batman is often considered to be a vigilantee, like say the Green Hornet, but he was not designed that way. He is a detective, under the genre of Sherlock Homes and originally ran in the "Detective" line. This fundamentally explains his position; he (much like Homes did) assists the local law enforcement system in doing their work. The only difference is because of the mask he needed many years to be accepted by the law enforement agencies (or rather to have the readers accept that the law enforcement agencies accept some wacko with a mask helping them).

We can use this minor notion to divide three well known characters:
Batman - Masked detective
Green Hornet - Masked Vigilantee
Lone Ranger - Masked law enforcement officer (he really was a ranger)

[echoVanguard]

the Dark Lord Pants-on-his-Head

Awesome.

echo

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Fixed that for ya. Go play any super-hero RPG, even if you're using lethal weapons, the guys are assumed to be alive even after you win, and you have to do something differently in order to kill them off. Ever wonder why Leonardo never cut through Shredder's mid-section and spilled out his guts? This is why.

Umm, is this is the thread on morality in comic books?

Also, Leonardo did in fact decapitate Shredder. Unless you want saturday morning cartoon morality?

[Omegonthesane]

Fixed that for ya. Go play any super-hero RPG, even if you're using lethal weapons, the guys are assumed to be alive even after you win, and you have to do something differently in order to kill them off. Ever wonder why Leonardo never cut through Shredder's mid-section and spilled out his guts? This is why.

Umm, is this is the thread on morality in comic books?

Also, Leonardo did in fact decapitate Shredder. Unless you want saturday morning cartoon morality?

Presumably he does - the original TMNT comics were excessively violent for most morality play purposes.

To be fair, Shredder probably got decapitated in the reboot, but he was a robot piloted by an alien so it doesn't count.

[Chamomile]

Dude, killing the Joker is the absolute worst thing to do if you want to neutralize him as a threat. If you do that you'll just end up with Black Lantern Joker or King of Hell Joker. Actually, you'll probably end up with both at the same time.

I was mostly thinking of the Joker from the Dark Knight trilogy, actually. It was explicitly stated by the Joker himself that he'd be out of Arkham in no time. In comic books if you actually look at the effects super heroes literally have on the world, they're useless, and sometimes worse than useless, because by stunning coincidence every single hero just so happens to be opposed by a rogues' gallery of equally powered villains in the exact same area, whose crimes will be far more high profile than expected and whose defeat will likely involve more property damage and, depending on the writer, more casualties. No matter what you do, all of these villains will return eventually (and it probably won't take too long), and immediately be up to exactly the same sort of hijinks as they were before. If you gained superpowers and used them to serve only yourself, no rogues gallery of villains would spring up to oppose you, and you'd probably be benefiting the world in the long run. Comic book morality does not practically make any kind of sense, because the entire universe is run on a series of plot contrivances that become egregious to the point of absurdity after you try to construct a universe-wide history lasting any longer than five years.

[tzor]

I was mostly thinking of the Joker from the Dark Knight trilogy, actually. It was explicitly stated by the Joker himself that he'd be out of Arkham in no time.

That's the movies, IIRC, which I should point out is literally decades after the entire series has been re-re-hashed to the point where it is mind numbingly boring and predictable. More over the whole series has a deliberate dark gothic feel to it which was not the style of the original series. (The original series was more ganster style and I think there were probably far more uglier villians on Dick Tracy than on Batman.)

The original Joker was clearly quite not rational (the classic proof was his notion that poisoning fish with his classic "joker" smile would easily convince the pattent office to give him an exclusive pattent on his "Joker fish" so he could get a royalty for every fish sold in the city) but unless you were one of the few unfortunate victims in his little idea of the moment he was probably somewhere in the middle of the problems that the police faced in a given city with a large and established criminal population. The Batman (yes, originally he was the definitive article) generally had to deal with most ordinary criminals who often than not wound up in jail. Joker, etc were exceptions.

[Stubbazubba]

Presumably he does - the original TMNT comics were excessively violent for most morality play purposes.

To be fair, Shredder probably got decapitated in the reboot, but he was a robot piloted by an alien so it doesn't count.

The original TMNT comics were also a parody of the overtly dark and edgy way that comics were going at the time, and the fact that it really took off surprised the creators as much as anyone else. The comics' TMNTs weren't designed to be heroes; they were more like D&D characters.

[FatR]

If you gained superpowers and used them to serve only yourself, no rogues gallery of villains would spring up to oppose you, and you'd probably be benefiting the world in the long run.

Doesn't work, as Deadpool can testify . You'll still get a rogue gallery of people who are just out to fuck with you for whatever reason.

Anyway, if we try to talk of this without breaking the fourth wall, most heavyweight superheroes have pushed back at least one Earth-shattering threat that was there regardless of their existence, so while living in a world where real power has de-facto slipped from elected governments to groups of superfreaks blows, because unwritten codes by which superfreaks play with each other do not really protect muggles, the alternative is not living at all, or maybe being enslaved to whatever evil overlord rolled into town first.

[PoliteNewb]

Presumably he does - the original TMNT comics were excessively violent for most morality play purposes.

To be fair, Shredder probably got decapitated in the reboot, but he was a robot piloted by an alien so it doesn't count.

The original TMNT comics were also a parody of the overtly dark and edgy way that comics were going at the time, and the fact that it really took off surprised the creators as much as anyone else. The comics' TMNTs weren't designed to be heroes; they were more like D&D characters.

So fucking what? You raised TMNT as an example of dudes with sharp weapons that don't kill people...totally ignoring the fact that they were, mostly, dudes with sharp weapons that DID kill people.

And let's face it...even as kids, we knew that shows like TMNT and GI Joe and such that showed guys with real weapons that never killed anyone were retarded. That was not a selling point; it was something you had to consciously overlook in order to enjoy the media. It was bullshit when you were a kid, and it's even more bullshit when you're a grown-up person.

[MGuy]

Fixed that for ya. Go play any super-hero RPG, even if you're using lethal weapons, the guys are assumed to be alive even after you win, and you have to do something differently in order to kill them off. Ever wonder why Leonardo never cut through Shredder's mid-section and spilled out his guts? This is why.

Umm, is this is the thread on morality in comic books?

Quoting this because I'm starting to wonder the same.

[tzor]

And let's face it...even as kids, we knew that shows like TMNT and GI Joe and such that showed guys with real weapons that never killed anyone were retarded.

I'm going to object and raise you the "A-Team." The massive effects without anyone even getting injured were classic comedy priceless scenes, rolling on the floor laughing your ass off in scale. Explosions, bullets, cars flying in the air and everything.

But if you don't think so ...

[Stubbazubba]

The game should default to non-lethal damage. Yes, I know it creates the 'I knocked the orc out with my +2 Reaving Longbow' silliness, but if you give players the default assumption that their enemies live if defeated and that you actually need to go out of your way to kill them, players will be a lot more thoughtful about it.

This is where the comic book morality schtick came from, it's in the OP, hence, yes, this thread is about that. All I'm saying is that there is a basis for that, childish though it may be. Your other options are to A) Make every opponent non-sentient creatures/robots (a la TMNT cartoon series), or B) Make ACE sentient races (who thus aren't really sentient, are they?) who can be killed on sight without needing to prove guilt.

The elephant in the room, of course, is to have the "heroic" characters deal with the wanton and frequent slaughter they engage in, or maybe even account for it somehow when they wipe out a Hobgoblin hunting party. This is the best option, and there are ways of making killing people matter that encourage heroes to be 'good,' and I agree that eliminating that ability by defaulting to non-lethal or making all opponents soulless bags of meat would hamper the system and the possibilities of the narrative.

What Lago is complaining against is the campaign notes of most D&D settings, which could easily make killing anything but combatants in war a big deal, they usually just don't. People responded saying that the idea that swords and such dealing non-lethal damage makes the game too silly to contemplate, to which I would reply, so does the idea that fighters can take 20 hits with a sword completely unscathed, then collapse when an arrow nicks him for his last HP, or the fact that his sword is dealing damage to that dragon at all. Watching the events of a high-level D&D encounter would be just as comedic as dealing non-lethal sword damage, since both, when narrated right, are no longer as ridiculous as they first sound.

To say that D&D shouldn't emulate Saturday morning combat is one thing, but to say that D&D would be unrealistic to do so is willful ignorance of many other, far grosser crimes against realism that are accepted in D&D because of precedent and, ultimately, the Rule of Cool.

[MGuy]

The game should default to non-lethal damage. Yes, I know it creates the 'I knocked the orc out with my +2 Reaving Longbow' silliness, but if you give players the default assumption that their enemies live if defeated and that you actually need to go out of your way to kill them, players will be a lot more thoughtful about it.

This is where the comic book morality schtick came from, it's in the OP, hence, yes, this thread is about that. All I'm saying is that there is a basis for that, childish though it may be. Your other options are to A) Make every opponent non-sentient creatures/robots (a la TMNT cartoon series), or B) Make ACE sentient races (who thus aren't really sentient, are they?) who can be killed on sight without needing to prove guilt.

The elephant in the room, of course, is to have the "heroic" characters deal with the wanton and frequent slaughter they engage in, or maybe even account for it somehow when they wipe out a Hobgoblin hunting party. This is the best option, and there are ways of making killing people matter that encourage heroes to be 'good,' and I agree that eliminating that ability by defaulting to non-lethal or making all opponents soulless bags of meat would hamper the system and the possibilities of the narrative.

What Lago is complaining against is the campaign notes of most D&D settings, which could easily make killing anything but combatants in war a big deal, they usually just don't. People responded saying that the idea that swords and such dealing non-lethal damage makes the game too silly to contemplate, to which I would reply, so does the idea that fighters can take 20 hits with a sword completely unscathed, then collapse when an arrow nicks him for his last HP, or the fact that his sword is dealing damage to that dragon at all. Watching the events of a high-level D&D encounter would be just as comedic as dealing non-lethal sword damage, since both, when narrated right, are no longer as ridiculous as they first sound.

To say that D&D shouldn't emulate Saturday morning combat is one thing, but to say that D&D would be unrealistic to do so is willful ignorance of many other, far grosser crimes against realism that are accepted in D&D because of precedent and, ultimately, the Rule of Cool.

Those other crimes are discussed in other threads. This thread is about one particular idea that should be a crime and why it would wouldn't fit in DnD. The absence or abundence of "other crimes" is not relevant to the discussion of "this" crime.

[Chamomile]

If you removed all of the crimes against reality D&D commits, you would no longer be playing D&D. No, dragons with scales stronger than steel and the capability to do magic will never, ever be a CR-5 encounter for any actual human being. No, magic is never going to make sense by the laws of physics, because that's the point. Sorry to disappoint you, but Elves are not real.

[tzor]

If you removed all of the crimes against reality D&D commits, you would no longer be playing D&D.

[accent="Marvin the Robot"]Reality. Don't talk to me about reality.[/accent]

I mean really don't talk to me about "reality." Every time someone argues from a realism point of view I start to wonder exactly what the color of the sky is where he lives. In the "real world" people can fall from airplanes and survive and they can fall off a 5' ladder and die. In the real world people have been hit by lightning and survive while a person gets hit from basically an exploding oil flask and dies horribly from the burn wounds. Or how about when the British army found out you can be fatally killed by knife wielding opponents whom you just fatally shot?

Combat is as equally wacky. Don't even try to get started on the purpose of various weapons. 18th century canons in combat were basically large bowling ball throwers that would bounce a ball into a line killing anyone in the way and hopefully scaring the crap out of any green line in the process. (Expert troops breathed a sigh of relief and kept moving forward.) 20th century (WWII) auto fire weapons (machine guns) were asically used for "cover fire" in that they were massively inaccurate but they kept people from sticking their heads up. Up until the advent of antibiotics, the principle killer on the battlefield was infection and you could just as easily get that from a bad encounter with a very large nail.

Like I said, don't talk about reality.

[sabs]

In the Real world:
People who are descendants of people who got and survived the Black Plague, are immune to AIDS.
People who have the genes for sicle cell anemia, are immune to Maleria.

One person gets shot in the foot, and at most loses a toe. Another person dies of shock. The GM for Realworld(tm) is a dick, with arbitrary rules that make the game unfun. Unfortunately for us, it's a game we have to play, as the only way to stop playing is to die.

[Stubbazubba]

Those other crimes are discussed in other threads. This thread is about one particular idea that should be a crime and why it would wouldn't fit in DnD. The absence or abundence of "other crimes" is not relevant to the discussion of "this" crime.

But the Appeal to Realism keeps coming up for some reason.

From a narrative standpoint, it is absurd to believe that there will ever be a point where killing people is no harder than nonlethally disabling them. I know how to fight people both lethally and non-lethally on a very basic level. So in order to get the proper power discrepancy, let's assume I'm fighting a nine year old girl who is also a serial arsonist, or whatever. I am entirely capable of subduing her non-lethally, and even without doing much damage. But it will be harder. Pulling out a knife is always going to be the easier option unless I am fighting Stephen Hawking, and if I'm more skilled than my opponent by a wide enough margin that I'm confident I can disable them nonlethally even though they're trying to kill me, they're not a level-appropriate encounter. Similarly, in D&D a level 15 Warrior can tear through as many Orcs without killing them as he wants, because a -4 is just not a big deal anymore.

The reason that it's a lot easier to kill than not in games is that it is obviously easier to kill people when hitting them with a sword or axe than to reliably incapacitate people when hitting them with a sword or axe. It's also lacking in verisimilitude if cutting a guy down with a sword or axe or shooting them full of arrows resulted in them getting knocked out for 2 hours.

Bolded for emphasis.

All I have said is that because of the fantastic nature of D&D (i.e., all those other crimes), realism is a non-issue; there must be a reason that dealing non-lethal damage must be harder than dealing lethal damage besides reality.

Basically the remaining argument is that the game is "cooler" or "funner" when it's default lethal. That is subjective and unprovable, but a perfectly viable playstyle. So is defaulting to non-lethal. That sounds like an item for a house-rule depending on your campaign notes, not a system-wide mechanic.

Moreover, to analyze one aspect of the game while willfully ignoring the rest of the game seems a bit short-sighted to me.

Edit: To make it clear, I'm perfectly fine with the crime against reality that is D&D, I highly enjoy every moment of physics-defying magic and steel-plated dragons and men apparently made of rubber, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too. If it's a fantastic world where fireballs are as easy as expert swordsmanship, then you cannot cry foul when dealing non-lethal damage with a sword is just as easy as dealing lethal damage, at least not based on reality.

[Chamomile]

Side note: The original argument from realism was someone arguing that it was absurd to believe that someone with superpowers would be unable to wield their weapons in such a way as to be non-lethal. This argument fails even if you assume realism is a viable goal of game design, because while you can defeat an enemy non-lethally if you're sufficiently more powerful, it's always going to be a handicap.

[Stubbazubba]

Side note: The original argument from realism was someone arguing that it was absurd to believe that someone with superpowers would be unable to wield their weapons in such a way as to be non-lethal. This argument fails even if you assume realism is a viable goal of game design, because while you can defeat an enemy non-lethally if you're sufficiently more powerful, it's always going to be a handicap.

Hence the super hero genre, where heroes come under great public scrutiny just for being vigilantes, let alone if they start leaving a trail of bodies. The problems that come with killing people are real repercussions in those fictional universes, there's no reason they couldn't be in a medieval age, as well. It might not be the Dark Ages of Europe, but it could certainly be the Han Dynasty. The acceptability of lethal damage over non-lethal is a setting-specific item, not system-specific.