Morality in D&D
Hey FJ, me again. Last time I was with you it was a silly story about a character abusing what should have been a joke item because I underestimated PC ingenuity. This one will be slightly more serious.
A little backstory on my campaign world- I created it myself, I put so much love and work into it, and one of the reasons I love this party so much is because they're willing to explore and let me show off my creations. My own pantheon, governments, continents, politics, the works. This story takes place while our party is discovering a plot to destabilize the only unified nation(the rest of the world being feudal strife and monster attacks pretty much constantly), and it's fairly early in terms of overall campaign plot even though the characters are around level six or so, because they agreed they wanted to explore, level, and be laid back for a few levels before things got serious. I had a few mostly comical or inept villains until that point, but I decided that time was over.
I introduced a character, unnamed to the party at first(for ease of writing I'll call him Darius, the party discovers his name later on) that completely shocks my party. Fortunately for the party he works alone or they would have been properly boned. In their first encounter, the party is entering a narrow pass that leads into Azuratiel, the aforementioned stable nation. The only reason they didn't do worse was because Roland, a fairly experienced D&D player, expected a trap and had a good perception roll that got the party out of the way of a magically(not that they knew it yet) induced landslide. This blocked the pass and they were forced to double back and find another route- a narrow, winding pass that lead near the mountain's summit before descending again. They expected another ambush the entire way, and I didn't oblige their paranoia. By the time they were back on level ground they were running perilously low on food(no game for hunter in mountains), but happy to not have died in a blizzard or avalanche. They stopped in by the closest farming village for provisions. Sovexis went to shop for cured meat and pickled veg. Approaching the first farmer he saw, he asked about the price of food. The farmer answered him normally enough... except for, when Sovexis was close enough to shake the man's hand, the poor bastard exploded into millions of pieces and various chunks of meat. Speaking of chunks, that's what happened to Sovexis's health- it was chunked. He must have lost about 1/5 of his relatively large(and magically enhance) pool.
Sovexis: WHOAH, holy **** . Christ, let me tally that and get out the battle grid for you, this seems like an encounter coming up.
Me: Also, one second.
I rolled a dice against his will score, trying to see if he would take any penalties from the sheer horror of watching an innocent get gibbed. He didn't, luckily for him.
S: What was that for?
Me: What makes me think I'll tell you?
Roland: Ok, I think I liked you better when you were a cute and cuddly dm. Anyway, damage report. Healer is hurt moderately, but we have some pots, so that's not too much of a problem. More importantly, some mysterious force is watching us, has been for possibly some time, has rigged at least one trap for us and almost certainly more in the village, and we have literally no other way to go. It's non-negotiable, we need food and water. **** .
Galeas: Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go in, bow strung and arrow nocked. If we're doing this, let's do it properly. Saving these guys is important enough to risk annoying the local guard.
The party agreed, and they set off towards the collection of houses, swords, daggers, staves, axes, knives, and bows and all sorts of other **** waving in the air as they charged. They arrived in town, people screamed, expecting bandits.
S: Wait! Please! We're here to help! We're afraid that there might be evil magic at play in this village!
It must be noted that Sovexis was not the type to learn from his mistakes without repeating that mistake several times. He approached a peasant woman to try and convince her... only to have her explode with an icy blast, freezing his feet in place for a round. This didn't make our party look too good.
Guards: You bastards! We'll kill you for this!
We were charged by a group of guardsmen, that unfortunately didn't seem to be affected by the magical explosions. Even so, at our party's level, they were pitifully weak and had no chance.
S: **** , **** , **** , this is bad, this is so bad. We're causing civilians to die and actively killing defenders of the peace. This is so ****** up, man.
Thermin: It's not our fault, we shouldn't blame ourselves. At this point all these people are already moments from death anyway. If we want to have any chance of doing this peacefully the rest of the time, we need to make sure there's no witnesses.
S: Absolutely not. We can save them.
R: I'm inclined to agree, that's unspeakably vile.
A little backstory on my campaign world- I created it myself, I put so much love and work into it, and one of the reasons I love this party so much is because they're willing to explore and let me show off my creations. My own pantheon, governments, continents, politics, the works. This story takes place while our party is discovering a plot to destabilize the only unified nation(the rest of the world being feudal strife and monster attacks pretty much constantly), and it's fairly early in terms of overall campaign plot even though the characters are around level six or so, because they agreed they wanted to explore, level, and be laid back for a few levels before things got serious. I had a few mostly comical or inept villains until that point, but I decided that time was over.
I introduced a character, unnamed to the party at first(for ease of writing I'll call him Darius, the party discovers his name later on) that completely shocks my party. Fortunately for the party he works alone or they would have been properly boned. In their first encounter, the party is entering a narrow pass that leads into Azuratiel, the aforementioned stable nation. The only reason they didn't do worse was because Roland, a fairly experienced D&D player, expected a trap and had a good perception roll that got the party out of the way of a magically(not that they knew it yet) induced landslide. This blocked the pass and they were forced to double back and find another route- a narrow, winding pass that lead near the mountain's summit before descending again. They expected another ambush the entire way, and I didn't oblige their paranoia. By the time they were back on level ground they were running perilously low on food(no game for hunter in mountains), but happy to not have died in a blizzard or avalanche. They stopped in by the closest farming village for provisions. Sovexis went to shop for cured meat and pickled veg. Approaching the first farmer he saw, he asked about the price of food. The farmer answered him normally enough... except for, when Sovexis was close enough to shake the man's hand, the poor bastard exploded into millions of pieces and various chunks of meat. Speaking of chunks, that's what happened to Sovexis's health- it was chunked. He must have lost about 1/5 of his relatively large(and magically enhance) pool.
Sovexis: WHOAH, holy **** . Christ, let me tally that and get out the battle grid for you, this seems like an encounter coming up.
Me: Also, one second.
I rolled a dice against his will score, trying to see if he would take any penalties from the sheer horror of watching an innocent get gibbed. He didn't, luckily for him.
S: What was that for?
Me: What makes me think I'll tell you?
Roland: Ok, I think I liked you better when you were a cute and cuddly dm. Anyway, damage report. Healer is hurt moderately, but we have some pots, so that's not too much of a problem. More importantly, some mysterious force is watching us, has been for possibly some time, has rigged at least one trap for us and almost certainly more in the village, and we have literally no other way to go. It's non-negotiable, we need food and water. **** .
Galeas: Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go in, bow strung and arrow nocked. If we're doing this, let's do it properly. Saving these guys is important enough to risk annoying the local guard.
The party agreed, and they set off towards the collection of houses, swords, daggers, staves, axes, knives, and bows and all sorts of other **** waving in the air as they charged. They arrived in town, people screamed, expecting bandits.
S: Wait! Please! We're here to help! We're afraid that there might be evil magic at play in this village!
It must be noted that Sovexis was not the type to learn from his mistakes without repeating that mistake several times. He approached a peasant woman to try and convince her... only to have her explode with an icy blast, freezing his feet in place for a round. This didn't make our party look too good.
Guards: You bastards! We'll kill you for this!
We were charged by a group of guardsmen, that unfortunately didn't seem to be affected by the magical explosions. Even so, at our party's level, they were pitifully weak and had no chance.
S: **** , **** , **** , this is bad, this is so bad. We're causing civilians to die and actively killing defenders of the peace. This is so ****** up, man.
Thermin: It's not our fault, we shouldn't blame ourselves. At this point all these people are already moments from death anyway. If we want to have any chance of doing this peacefully the rest of the time, we need to make sure there's no witnesses.
S: Absolutely not. We can save them.
R: I'm inclined to agree, that's unspeakably vile.
G: And kind of evil... I'll actually feel bad, OOC, if we do this.
(inb4 sensitive neckbeard fag[he was sensitive, yeah, not the other things as much])
Franziska: Ok, OOC for a second even though i hate myself for it and we'll all go right back to RP, I see your point, but my character can't do that. She's a kid, that's too ****** up. I'm astonished she isn't traumatized by all this.
She should have been. They were just, unknowingly, doing well on will defences.
T: Hear me out. We cannot save these people, we don't even need to touch them for this magic to activate and kill them, which means we're- and by extension, the village- is watched. If they already have this charm set up they can kill everyone here at a whim, the only reason they wait is so the explosions can harm us. The only way to get justice down the line is to get dirty here.
S: No way. We can do better than this, we have to.
F: This is your way of getting back at me for blowing up that statue, isn't it, you monster? Anyway, I have to agree with Sovexis, we have to at least try.
G: Yeah, guys... I don't like this, but I also can't ignore Thermin's point... Roland, you're being awfully quiet, what do you have to say?
R: ....guess if one is for, two are against, and one is undecided, this is a proper *********** . Time to make a command decision. I'm going to hate myself for it, but we're going to have to do what Thermin says.
S: No! This is ****** up, this is evil, this is how we fall if we were paladins.
R: But we're not. If we cause enough superficial destruction, kill anyone who sees our faces, maybe the rest of the town will be spared. We can talk to the authorities in the next major city or capital we come across and try to sort this mess out. If we do it this way, it's minimul destruction. If we try to save them, every time they come within two feet of us they will die for certain and we'll be left extremely vulnerable. I say take the supplies, burn some houses, make like brigands and run. That way, people stay inside their homes in fear, we can hopefully incapacitate guards without killing them and without them getting a good look at us. I think less will die this way, and we'll be able to solve this later. If I'm wrong, if this ***** us, I accept responsibility. Take any shares i'd get from quests, or loot, or whatever.
T: Thank you for being rational, as usual. Galeas, what do you say?
G: Well... ok.
I think Sovexis lost a bit of faith in humanity at that moment, when Galeas agreed with Roland, making a 3/2 majority. Then again, being Eladrin, he probably didn't have too much faith in humanity to begin. Very much against his judgement, he went to steal supplies, muttering 'sorries' every time i added things to the party inventory, and he tried to ignore my description of Roland casting lightningbolts at the poor villager's thatch roofs and igniting them(Until he actually described IC what he did I didn't think he'd have the heart to do something like that), while Franziska and Thermin torched houses with, you know, torches. Galeas was trying to figure out the escape route that would let us leave with the least amount of people seeing us, while also sending villagers along the roads cowering with warning shots. At this point, while searching for his escape route, Galeas rolled his first nat 20 of the session.
G: Oh, great. Please give me some sort of tunnel we can use to get away from this madness.
Me: No such luck, I'm afraid. However, at the same time you find an alley that leads out of town with nobody there to see you, you also notice something on the edge of the forest that should not be there. There is a figure, entirely wrapped and cloaked from head to toe in gray robes, facing the carnage. Even though his face, from this distance, cannot be seen, you feel as though he is staring directly at you.
As I described what would eventually be known as Darius, there was a collective holding of breath from the table, released only when I finished speaking.
R: Well, crap. There's our BBEG.
G: What?
R: Big Bad Evil Guy. You know, the Darth Vader.
G: But Vader served Palpatine, dude.
R: Shut it, you know what I meant.
F: No, actually, maybe he is just a more dangerous pawn. That's a disturbing thought, it implies that if he is there's someone more powerful controlling him.
G: Wait, but do we make it out?
Me: Yeah, I'll rule that with your crit you can make it out with no survivors seeing your face.
S: Ok. Death toll. Tell us how bad it is.
Me: The first guy, those three guards you killed to start off, and that woman, five. Three more accidents as you escaped from explosions, two more burn or crush from fires. Ten total.
Sovexis stayed silent, simmering and glaring at Thermin.
Me: ...and that's a wrap for this session.
There was a collective " ************ !" from the table, but I had to go. The mystery would continue next session, and things would only get more morally divisive from there.
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