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D&D: Proud of How Many Got Away
Nov. 6th, 2022 11:23 amOur D&D group has had a recurring tension for a while now, of when to use or avoid lethal force—brought up, largely, by the fact that I keep playing neutral good monks. >.> But even Shade-Of-the-Candle follows the piratic tradition of giving defeated foes the option of signing up instead. If it was good enough for Sun Tzu, it's good enough for my angsty murdercat.
This tension has been in RPGs for as long as I've played them. When I was in high school, CHAMPIONS included whole sections on the Code vs. Killing disad, and the legal ramifications of superheroes just slaughtering henchmen. But a lot of gamers have as part of their fantasy "I get to kill people as part of my job." It's just a thing. For me, "I get to beat up bad guys" fills that slot nicely, with the desire to actually kill anyone usually not present. Maybe it's growing up on Saturday Morning Cartoons, who knows. But also, I love recurring villains! How can you have a meaningful rival/enemy/frenemy/enemies-to-lovers situation if you just KILL everybody who opposes you?
My first monk, Kihai, was extremely pacifistic in nature, making a point to do nonlethal damage to even the lowliest goblin. At one point they were attacked by some kind of big predator (I forget what it was, something like a giant crab maybe) and the rest of the party was like "YARR! KILL THE MONSTER!" while Kihai was like "Guys, we just walked into its house. It's not going around menacing the countryside, it was just hanging out here. How would you feel???" (Let's face it, Kihai was not suited to be a D&D character. But I still don't think he was wrong.)
My current monk Aurora doesn't have as much of a hang-up on the issue—she was trained by dragons, after all, and they're notably not pacifists—but she is still neutral good, with a strong Wisdom score. She prefers not to kill somebody she can subdue or drive off instead. So last night, when confronted by a gang of toughs on the Neverwinter docks, she spent most of the combat shoving them into the bay. The rest of the party pretty much did the debuff-and-gank routine on the gang's crimelord boss (with a local noble's blessing), but Aurora didn't kick up a fuss about it, and neither did I. The boss had giant "It's okay to kill this guy!" flags pasted all over him, and 1/3 of the party is archers, who generally aren't great at nonlethal damage. XD On top of that, the current scenario has all been a prologue to get us off into Spelljammer anyway, so the chances of said crimelord being important later are effectively zero.
BUT, and this is the part I'm pleased with, most of the gang actually ran away. It was a brawl rather than a murder spree, and that's totally my jam. And unlike some of our other outings, I didn't have to cajole or argue with the rest of the party about it, it was just a natural outcome of the scenario. By throwing them into the bay, Aurora rendered the thugs mostly a non-issue, so the rest of the party didn't have any reason to go after them. In her own way, Aurora considers those thugs "rescued," because without her there, they would have probably ended up taking an arrow, warhammer, or acid spray to the face.
Some D&D characters growl and fume when an enemy escapes. I may be weird in that I cheer about it. But I'm proud of how many got away.
-TG
This tension has been in RPGs for as long as I've played them. When I was in high school, CHAMPIONS included whole sections on the Code vs. Killing disad, and the legal ramifications of superheroes just slaughtering henchmen. But a lot of gamers have as part of their fantasy "I get to kill people as part of my job." It's just a thing. For me, "I get to beat up bad guys" fills that slot nicely, with the desire to actually kill anyone usually not present. Maybe it's growing up on Saturday Morning Cartoons, who knows. But also, I love recurring villains! How can you have a meaningful rival/enemy/frenemy/enemies-to-lovers situation if you just KILL everybody who opposes you?
My first monk, Kihai, was extremely pacifistic in nature, making a point to do nonlethal damage to even the lowliest goblin. At one point they were attacked by some kind of big predator (I forget what it was, something like a giant crab maybe) and the rest of the party was like "YARR! KILL THE MONSTER!" while Kihai was like "Guys, we just walked into its house. It's not going around menacing the countryside, it was just hanging out here. How would you feel???" (Let's face it, Kihai was not suited to be a D&D character. But I still don't think he was wrong.)
My current monk Aurora doesn't have as much of a hang-up on the issue—she was trained by dragons, after all, and they're notably not pacifists—but she is still neutral good, with a strong Wisdom score. She prefers not to kill somebody she can subdue or drive off instead. So last night, when confronted by a gang of toughs on the Neverwinter docks, she spent most of the combat shoving them into the bay. The rest of the party pretty much did the debuff-and-gank routine on the gang's crimelord boss (with a local noble's blessing), but Aurora didn't kick up a fuss about it, and neither did I. The boss had giant "It's okay to kill this guy!" flags pasted all over him, and 1/3 of the party is archers, who generally aren't great at nonlethal damage. XD On top of that, the current scenario has all been a prologue to get us off into Spelljammer anyway, so the chances of said crimelord being important later are effectively zero.
BUT, and this is the part I'm pleased with, most of the gang actually ran away. It was a brawl rather than a murder spree, and that's totally my jam. And unlike some of our other outings, I didn't have to cajole or argue with the rest of the party about it, it was just a natural outcome of the scenario. By throwing them into the bay, Aurora rendered the thugs mostly a non-issue, so the rest of the party didn't have any reason to go after them. In her own way, Aurora considers those thugs "rescued," because without her there, they would have probably ended up taking an arrow, warhammer, or acid spray to the face.
Some D&D characters growl and fume when an enemy escapes. I may be weird in that I cheer about it. But I'm proud of how many got away.
-TG
