Killing in the Game

[toturi]

As for leaving no traces...

Yes, a lot of bodies there - if you go that route.

Richard

Not really. If you are smart about it, the girl would have not have seen your faces. Or at least be able to identify the real you.

But of course if the GM has a hard-on to punish the characters for ruining the moral dilemma he has spent hours and hours on crafting (that light at the end of the tunnel is really a train, you are on a railroad), you can't really do much about it.

[bitterpill]

As Red Court Vampires do not count for the first rule of magic you could kill the character of with a 'freak storm' considering how much the authorities like reasonable explanations for the supernatural they would just right of the entire case even if it seems improbable for a person too get hit by lightning 10 times in a row. Or there is accidentily crushed by falling tree and very unlikly direct hit by meteorite, if you had high enough conviction you could do a mcoy and bring some space detritis down on her head.

[Richard_Chilton]

Not really. If you are smart about it, the girl would have not have seen your faces. Or at least be able to identify the real you.

But of course if the GM has a hard-on to punish the characters for ruining the moral dilemma he has spent hours and hours on crafting (that light at the end of the tunnel is really a train, you are on a railroad), you can't really do much about it.

The story seed wasn't "peasants seek you out because Lord Blah likes them young" - it was "you stumble over a young girl in the woods".

So your PCs stumble over a young girl in the woods and immediately make sure that she doesn't see their faces? Before they know who she is or that there is a problem? As for spending hours on something, it was one of 101 story seeds - the author might have spend hours putting them all together but I really doubt he spent hours on that one.  As for railroading - I fail to see how presenting a world where the powerful have power is railroading.

The question was asked what made Harn different, the answer is basically it's the deadly combat system and realistic setting.  It's a setting where killing is often as inappropriate as it is in modern life... 

Since I tracked down that file again, here's the story seed I summarised:
The Wild Child…
As the PCs march through the woodlands, or are ready to pitch camp, they come across a young girl who looks to be about 12 years old. She sits in the crook of a tree crying, and doesn't notice the PCs. Next to her is a burlap sack with food, water, and a blanket.
Her father, trying to save her from the lord of their village, dropped off the girl. The lord has taken an unnatural attraction to the young girl, and has a history of molesting the young girls of the village; including the girl's mother. While the girl has yet to be touched, the lord has made quite clear his intentions to the parents.
1) If the PCs let the girl alone, or she runs away (if the PCs are too intimidating and flees), they will not see her again.
2) If the PCs approach her in a friendly manner, she will tell them what has happened, though she only knows she was abandoned and knows nothing of the lord's intentions.
3) If the PCs offer to take the girl home, she can help them with general directions, but she rode with her father for almost two full days on a mule and is somewhat lost. A skilled tracker could follow the mule tracks with relative ease.
4) If the PCs make it to the village the girl will lead them to her cottage, which is on the outskirts of the village. Some villagers will glare at the PCs in anger, as they know why the girl was taken away. The mother will be very angry at the PCs though happy to see her daughter. She will bid the PCs to take the girl back to the woods. She will beg, plead and even offer to pay what pittance she has.
5) If the PCs accuse the mother (or even make a snide comment) of abandoning her daughter, she will pull the PCs aside so her daughter is out of sight and show them fresh lash wounds given by the lord when he found out the daughter was missing. She will then tell them the full story in angry sobs. About this time the father will have returned from the fields, having gotten word from a friend. He too bears wounds and will implore them to leave quietly with their daughter. Subtle questioning of some other villagers will find some verifying and others denying. Overt, public questioning will result denial from all asked.
6) If the PCs let the lord know about the girl, they will be paid 50d for returning a run away serf. He will be very concerned, acting in a very different manner than the parents have described. The lord is the foul molester as accused, and the little girl has a horrid future to face. Due to his power, position, the subtle nature of his assaults, and the social status of his victims, there will be little the PCs can do unless they wish to risk physically harming him. The ramifications will be severe in that case.
7) If the PCs do sneak the girl back out, they must do so quickly and quietly. The lord will hire bounty hunters and levy charges against them if he finds out. PCs who get away quietly must now either adopt or abandon the girl, though there is probably a Peonian establishment somewhere nearby who would accept her given the situation.
If the PCs leave the girl at a nearby village, the bounty hunters will find her about a week later and return her.

[Bruce Coulson]

I thought the point of the system was 'Actions have Consequences'.  Even good actions.  If doing 'the right thing' was easy, everyone would do it, and there would be no problems, no conflicts...and no game.

In a lot of fantasy RPGs, actions have no real consequences.  Kill people, leave them alone...it comes out the same.  But in a world where you want your characters to have an effect on the society...to be fair, that society should also have an effect on your characters.

[Richard_Chilton]

I thought the point of the system was 'Actions have Consequences'.  Even good actions.  If doing 'the right thing' was easy, everyone would do it, and there would be no problems, no conflicts...and no game.

Exactly.

And Harn is a S&S setting where actions have consequences - just as the modern world is.

Richard

[toturi]

The story seed wasn't "peasants seek you out because Lord Blah likes them young" - it was "you stumble over a young girl in the woods".

So your PCs stumble over a young girl in the woods and immediately make sure that she doesn't see their faces? Before they know who she is or that there is a problem? As for spending hours on something, it was one of 101 story seeds - the author might have spend hours putting them all together but I really doubt he spent hours on that one.  As for railroading - I fail to see how presenting a world where the powerful have power is railroading.

Why not? A paranoid PC group may well have 1 Face PC well disguised. The rest well hidden, with weapons ready covering the girl. The point here is that if the PCs have ways of short circuiting that power and the GM insists on foiling them, would that not be railroading?
While doing 'the right thing' was not easy for everyone, it could easy for the PCs. Hence there are still problems, there are still conflicts and there is still a game. The point of the system was 'Actions have Consequences' but those consequences could be good ones.

[Richard_Chilton]

Why not? A paranoid PC group may well have 1 Face PC well disguised. The rest well hidden, with weapons ready covering the girl. The point here is that if the PCs have ways of short circuiting that power and the GM insists on foiling them, would that not be railroading?
While doing 'the right thing' was not easy for everyone, it could easy for the PCs. Hence there are still problems, there are still conflicts and there is still a game. The point of the system was 'Actions have Consequences' but those consequences could be good ones.

The story seed did cover what happened if the PCs looked menacing - the little girl runs away and the rest of the drama is skipped.

As for 'foiling' the GM's plot, that seed I pasted covered several possible endings of the story seed.

Killing the Lord would mean that no more girls were assaulted.  It could also look like a peasant rebellion - something that would bring very negative consequences.

Just like, okay, say there's a Sheriff who - or maybe his boss... Okay, let's pull out the Dukes of Hazard.  The "authority" on that show was corrupt county official supported by a corrupt sheriff.  The pair of them bootlegged and did all sorts of nasty things that the Duke boys railed against.  The Duke boys occasionally called in higher authorities and when they did the corruption was hidden.

Everyone in town seemed to hate Boss Hog and the Sheriff, so why didn't the Duke boys just waste those crooks? Because if they did then would have been repercussions.  For starters the state troopers would have come in and if there was a high reward offered I'm sure that someone would have fingered the Duke boys.  Sure, the state troopers would have stumbled over Boss Hog's crimes, but the sentence for shooting a corrupt cop is generally the same for shooting an honest one.  Cops just don't turn their backs on that.

And in the middle ages, killing a lord was killing a lord.  If it wasn't a peer on the battlefield then it was bad for all lords.  The lords might not have been good at math (they had clerks for that), but it doesn't take a genius to see that the peasants out number the lords and men-at-arms.  Any sign of a revolt had to be crushed fast unless it spread.

That option is always there, but (to quote the guy who wrote the seed): "there will be little the PCs can do unless they wish to risk physically harming him. The ramifications will be severe in that case."  Just as they would be severe if the Duke boys blew away Boss Hog.  Just as it would be severe if Dresden started blowing away people because they were crooks.  Or breaking the accords just because some red court vamps bit his girlfriend when she crashed their party.

"The ramifications will be severe..." - that's a great quote to use when bystanders are killed in a Dresden game.

Richard

[toturi]

That option is always there, but (to quote the guy who wrote the seed): "there will be little the PCs can do unless they wish to risk physically harming him. The ramifications will be severe in that case." 

Richard

You see... the point here is that the guy who wrote the seed has already fixed the outcome of a certain course of action - if the lord is physically harmed, the ramifications will be severe. So no matter how the lord is killed (likely made to appear like an accident), the "ramifications will be severe".
You are playing it like Diablo, a straight up brawl to kill the level boss. Think Hitman, maybe the lord has a heart condition, maybe he likes to keep his edge by sparring with his swordmaster... Maybe he has a likely successor with similar kinks, perhaps the PCs can arrange for the successor to wake up in the bedroom with a bloody knife.
If Dresden killed the RCVs sans witnesses or have witnesses on his side declaring that it was th RCVs who first broke the Accord, he could have wasted them all without them being able to have an excuse to declare war.

[newtinmpls]

For me, it's all about flavor.

In the Harn-seed-runaway-serf scenario, I think the oppotunity was to explore ideas such as things aren't aways what they seem, and power already has corrupted. If I'm GMing a group who is thinking in terms of "she never saw our faces" and "we have arrows trained on her from the woods" ... and this is vs a 12 year old peasant? This is not a group I'm going to be DMing for long. Too paranoid, too angry, too entitled.

In the Dresdenverse, I think the overt emphasis on the laws attempts to function as a sort of external conscience (sorry can't spell this morning); which I find grating only because the quality of players I DM don't need it. However it does offer plenty of opportunities for giving "some" information that if the PC's run with it too hastily, they can make some big mistakes.

Sure, they are the heroes of the story - as long as they act like heroes - and there is always someone or something out there:
1-tougher than they are
2-that needs help and won't get it
3-that has power and is abusing it
4-that they would like to help, and cannot.  If the problems were easy - there would be no point to playing

[sinker]

The laws can be used as an external conscience, or they can be a great source of drama. Dresden himself is a great example. He killed someone with magic and nearly constantly he worries about how that shaped him, about whether he might kill (or has killed) again. I had a character that was a neuromancer studying under one of the circle. She was all grey magic (nothing technically against the third or fourth law) and honestly believed she could use it to help people. Then there was a point where people she cared about had been hurt, and so she reached out in anger and crushed the mind of the person responsible. It was very dramatic and changed the way she viewed everything (for the worse actually, I wound up transferring her to antagonist the next time I was the GM). Anyway you can look at the laws as a way to keep the players in line, or you can look at them as great ways to really role-play fallible and fragile human characters.

[BumblingBear]

The laws can be used as an external conscience, or they can be a great source of drama. Dresden himself is a great example. He killed someone with magic and nearly constantly he worries about how that shaped him, about whether he might kill (or has killed) again. I had a character that was a neuromancer studying under one of the circle. She was all grey magic (nothing technically against the third or fourth law) and honestly believed she could use it to help people. Then there was a point where people she cared about had been hurt, and so she reached out in anger and crushed the mind of the person responsible. It was very dramatic and changed the way she viewed everything (for the worse actually, I wound up transferring her to antagonist the next time I was the GM). Anyway you can look at the laws as a way to keep the players in line, or you can look at them as great ways to really role-play fallible and fragile human characters.

This is a good way to put it.

I really don't think the laws are a good conscience for player's though.  A player can still pretty much do what they want.  They just cannot blast vanilla mortals with magic.

For instance, your wizard could blast a mortal with raw force, taking them out.  However, the player could choose to have the person knocked unconscious.

The player then could slit the mortal's throat with a pocket knife.  The mortal is not dead, and not killed by magic.  Knocking someone out with magic is not against the rules - I mean, Harry does it occasionally with his force rings.

However, doing this would mean the player has used up a box of mental stress.  This is kind of a big deal.  Badguys have multiple magazines of 10-30-100 rounds each.  A wizard really only has 2-5 evocation attacks before taking consequences.

As such, even the most pragmatic, steely eyed killer wizard is less likely to use magic to take out mortals.

I think the game mechanics promote fair behavior to mortals as much as the wizard laws do.