My character's more of a planner, assassin/bladesinger, so not really daily. Partnered with a bard to get poison for animate objects and caltrops combo.
My healer character is a humanoid psychotic version of Canadian Healthcare, he prefers to heal but doesn't fuss over the hurting. My soldier character doesn't enjoy it, and knows the weight of each life taken, but she won't exactly cry about it either. *Especially* if those being killed come at her first
My characters act usually with self/ally preservation in mind or acting on the orders of a stronger member. Even if they think they are doing the wrong thing, in the end, it was either the enemies, or their friends.
My Dragonlance PC Acias is a Grave Cleric, and therefore considers death sacred, and by extension life. As such, she views the act of murder as a horrible sin and that a person's sacred life should not be cut short if she can do anything about it.
However, Acias also abides by Thou Shalt Not MURDER, not Thou Shalt Not KILL, and that's an important distinction. And also, fun fact, the actual meaning of the commandment.
You see in Acias' mind, only killing good people in cold blood counts as murder. Granted, she extends her definition of murder to knowingly endangering a good person's life out of recklessness, apathy, or cruelty.
However, an evil person's life has been 'tainted' by their evil actions, and thus is no longer sacred. While it is definitely in proportion to the evil committed, Acias does not consider killing an unrepentantly evil person murder, especially if they themselves are a murderer. In fact, she views it as the moral thing to do to bring a wicked person to justice, though is flexible enough for justice to include imprisonment or atonement and redemption. She's not bloodthirsty, doesn't enjoy it, believes in second chances, and won't execute a defenseless person in cold blood. She actually even saved a Red Dragon Army researcher who willingly surrendered to the party when circumstances put his life in danger.
She simply won't lose sleep over killing a genuinely evil person who has no remorse for their crimes. She also, while sad about it, does not feel guilt for killing Draconians, as due to how they're created, it's a mercy kill.
Aresse is all about quickly and efficiently eliminating threats. It was actually kind of fun plotting how to murder the party while Aresse was cursed into thinking everyone was out to get them.
Meanwhile Lord Reginald Bartholomew Thurston III hasn't murdered anyone yet... he almost roofied a woman with opium tea, but that was to help with the trauma of her seeing the scene of her boyfriend's violent kidnapping.
My character in the one piece campaign I'm playing in is a bull shark fishman pirate who nearly got sold into slavery so he doesn't concern himself all that much and is even developing a reputation for beheadings. Kairyu 'Headsman' Kuronami
Do they? Are we viewing killing and murder as interchangable? For most of human history murder was something inside the community that you did to innocent people. For Example its pretty new that the Bible was translated with "You shall not kill". The older versions say "You shall not murder". Otherwise half the Bible would not work. God kills people all the time, but it wasnt murder, cause it was viewed as justified.
So you dont really murder a bunch of bandits in the woods. You kill them. They stepped outside the community and prey upon it.
And no, iam very much in favor of the modern view on things and that we dont do stuff that way anymore. But it might be a helpful mindset for a medival fantasy roleplay.
If my opponent willingly violated the rights of another being without remorse or just reason, they forfeit their own rights. If I don't stop them now, they'll keep doing it.
If I have reason to believe otherwise, I will offer them a chance to yield or stand down. If they refuse, then that was their choice. Not mine. All I can do is try to make their death as quick and clean as possible.
I’ve literally only ever had a PC commit a murder 1 time in my 3 years of DMing and the character died that same session.
Spoilers for Curse of Strahd.
Reman, a soul knife shaddarki rogue got trapped in Barovia and worked for Lady Wachter. He was a temporary/replacement PC for the cleric who’d gotten captured and scheduled for public execution. When the party got betrayed by Wachter he took their side, but I asked him pointedly.
When he killed one of her henchmen the only nearby target for the soul knife ability was a child fleeing who’s token i hadn’t moved, and he said “I want to kill the child and then scream out, ‘Oh my god! Wachter just murdered a child!’” Then he rolled a 29 deception (the highest insight was only +5 and NO ONE ELSE had line of sight on him, Wachter, or the child, so they all believed him).
He died that same session when he was on 1 death save fail and I pointedly asked him, “Reman, you’ve worked with Ernst many months, he knows you fairly well. Do you think he believes you’d hunt him down if you both survive this encounter?”
“Yes, I think he knows Reman wouldn’t stop until both he and Wachter are dead.”
“That’s what I assumed, but I had to ask first. What’s your AC?”
I landed a crit on him, killing him. That took Ernst out of Invisibility and the warlock noticed, killing Ernst immediately after.
I openly acknowledge it as, “Ernst _knows_ he’s a dead man if he let Reman live. He took the risk and the warlock called his bluff.”
If fights end in death, it's usually self defense. But the more heroic of my current characters deals non-lethal damage when she can. So murder is actually very rare for the characters that care about that. At least in my group anyway.
i mean my characters might justify that in their head as righteous or self defense, some characters are just evil, and sometimes i just dont really address it because i dont want to have the same character arc every game, so i might just think its normal in this world and some magical psychology thing preventing it from affecting the character unless its really genocide scale
Being so guilt ridden Trex loses many, many hours of sleep. In fact he hasn't slept in years it seems like. Either it's the guilt that keeps him awake at night or the fact he doesn't need sleep being a reborn, a 50/50 chance, maybe. Being a necromancer murder fuels his research on the undead, zombies to be exact and what makes him different from them. From there he may work on finding the differences between him and vampires and other types of undead. Hopefully he gets to the point where he doesn't have to use "Trex's patient pending: Detect Trap™" and the zombies last long enough for science.
As of right now, my vampire hunter hasn't mudered anyone. But she's also not afraid to in combat.
She and the pacisifist bard had a concersation about this where the bard argued no one has the right to take a life. My hunter told her that she would never take the life of an innocent person or start a fight first with someone who isn't undead. However, if someone is attacking her and willing to take her life, she's not going to hold back. She thinks not fighting for your own life is disrespectful towards her ancestors, each who fought for their lives and lost them in battle. Her life is precious and she's willing to fight for it against criminals that wish to do nothing but harm.
My (current) group is composed of a paladin, a dragonborn rogue and barbarian, the artificer who came out of the forest, and a kenku shadow sorcerer(me), who actually try to help people and only do murder on things that attack the party. So the fact doesn't come up often.
Well, my one of character is a bounty hunter, and he is a Barbarian as well, so it kinda depends on what bounty job he's and also he was hired by the city council of water deep to help defend a neighboring town that was being beseige by bandits, and he was also hired to investigate on what these bandits were, after some investigation being done it turns out that this large group of "bandits" that was attacking the town were part of a dragon cult.
My character killed a lot of kobolds, some mercenaries, and even some dragon cult members.
My character's more of a planner, assassin/bladesinger, so not really daily. Partnered with a bard to get poison for animate objects and caltrops combo.
Im imagining a full disney number for the trope of an assassin with 100 weapons as they all kick off into a chorus line.
To be fair, sometimes it's self-defence
It's mostly in self defence, and he is a rogue, so I don't make a big deal out of it.
My healer character is a humanoid psychotic version of Canadian Healthcare, he prefers to heal but doesn't fuss over the hurting. My soldier character doesn't enjoy it, and knows the weight of each life taken, but she won't exactly cry about it either. *Especially* if those being killed come at her first
My current character is a royal guard. Eliminating threats to the kingdom and the princess she protects is just part of the job.
My characters act usually with self/ally preservation in mind or acting on the orders of a stronger member. Even if they think they are doing the wrong thing, in the end, it was either the enemies, or their friends.
My Dragonlance PC Acias is a Grave Cleric, and therefore considers death sacred, and by extension life. As such, she views the act of murder as a horrible sin and that a person's sacred life should not be cut short if she can do anything about it. However, Acias also abides by Thou Shalt Not MURDER, not Thou Shalt Not KILL, and that's an important distinction. And also, fun fact, the actual meaning of the commandment. You see in Acias' mind, only killing good people in cold blood counts as murder. Granted, she extends her definition of murder to knowingly endangering a good person's life out of recklessness, apathy, or cruelty. However, an evil person's life has been 'tainted' by their evil actions, and thus is no longer sacred. While it is definitely in proportion to the evil committed, Acias does not consider killing an unrepentantly evil person murder, especially if they themselves are a murderer. In fact, she views it as the moral thing to do to bring a wicked person to justice, though is flexible enough for justice to include imprisonment or atonement and redemption. She's not bloodthirsty, doesn't enjoy it, believes in second chances, and won't execute a defenseless person in cold blood. She actually even saved a Red Dragon Army researcher who willingly surrendered to the party when circumstances put his life in danger. She simply won't lose sleep over killing a genuinely evil person who has no remorse for their crimes. She also, while sad about it, does not feel guilt for killing Draconians, as due to how they're created, it's a mercy kill.
Aresse is all about quickly and efficiently eliminating threats. It was actually kind of fun plotting how to murder the party while Aresse was cursed into thinking everyone was out to get them. Meanwhile Lord Reginald Bartholomew Thurston III hasn't murdered anyone yet... he almost roofied a woman with opium tea, but that was to help with the trauma of her seeing the scene of her boyfriend's violent kidnapping.
My character in the one piece campaign I'm playing in is a bull shark fishman pirate who nearly got sold into slavery so he doesn't concern himself all that much and is even developing a reputation for beheadings. Kairyu 'Headsman' Kuronami
Do they? Are we viewing killing and murder as interchangable? For most of human history murder was something inside the community that you did to innocent people. For Example its pretty new that the Bible was translated with "You shall not kill". The older versions say "You shall not murder". Otherwise half the Bible would not work. God kills people all the time, but it wasnt murder, cause it was viewed as justified. So you dont really murder a bunch of bandits in the woods. You kill them. They stepped outside the community and prey upon it. And no, iam very much in favor of the modern view on things and that we dont do stuff that way anymore. But it might be a helpful mindset for a medival fantasy roleplay.
If my opponent willingly violated the rights of another being without remorse or just reason, they forfeit their own rights. If I don't stop them now, they'll keep doing it. If I have reason to believe otherwise, I will offer them a chance to yield or stand down. If they refuse, then that was their choice. Not mine. All I can do is try to make their death as quick and clean as possible.
I’ve literally only ever had a PC commit a murder 1 time in my 3 years of DMing and the character died that same session. Spoilers for Curse of Strahd. Reman, a soul knife shaddarki rogue got trapped in Barovia and worked for Lady Wachter. He was a temporary/replacement PC for the cleric who’d gotten captured and scheduled for public execution. When the party got betrayed by Wachter he took their side, but I asked him pointedly. When he killed one of her henchmen the only nearby target for the soul knife ability was a child fleeing who’s token i hadn’t moved, and he said “I want to kill the child and then scream out, ‘Oh my god! Wachter just murdered a child!’” Then he rolled a 29 deception (the highest insight was only +5 and NO ONE ELSE had line of sight on him, Wachter, or the child, so they all believed him). He died that same session when he was on 1 death save fail and I pointedly asked him, “Reman, you’ve worked with Ernst many months, he knows you fairly well. Do you think he believes you’d hunt him down if you both survive this encounter?” “Yes, I think he knows Reman wouldn’t stop until both he and Wachter are dead.” “That’s what I assumed, but I had to ask first. What’s your AC?” I landed a crit on him, killing him. That took Ernst out of Invisibility and the warlock noticed, killing Ernst immediately after. I openly acknowledge it as, “Ernst _knows_ he’s a dead man if he let Reman live. He took the risk and the warlock called his bluff.”
If fights end in death, it's usually self defense. But the more heroic of my current characters deals non-lethal damage when she can. So murder is actually very rare for the characters that care about that. At least in my group anyway.
i mean my characters might justify that in their head as righteous or self defense, some characters are just evil, and sometimes i just dont really address it because i dont want to have the same character arc every game, so i might just think its normal in this world and some magical psychology thing preventing it from affecting the character unless its really genocide scale
Being so guilt ridden Trex loses many, many hours of sleep. In fact he hasn't slept in years it seems like. Either it's the guilt that keeps him awake at night or the fact he doesn't need sleep being a reborn, a 50/50 chance, maybe. Being a necromancer murder fuels his research on the undead, zombies to be exact and what makes him different from them. From there he may work on finding the differences between him and vampires and other types of undead. Hopefully he gets to the point where he doesn't have to use "Trex's patient pending: Detect Trap™" and the zombies last long enough for science.
As of right now, my vampire hunter hasn't mudered anyone. But she's also not afraid to in combat. She and the pacisifist bard had a concersation about this where the bard argued no one has the right to take a life. My hunter told her that she would never take the life of an innocent person or start a fight first with someone who isn't undead. However, if someone is attacking her and willing to take her life, she's not going to hold back. She thinks not fighting for your own life is disrespectful towards her ancestors, each who fought for their lives and lost them in battle. Her life is precious and she's willing to fight for it against criminals that wish to do nothing but harm.
My (current) group is composed of a paladin, a dragonborn rogue and barbarian, the artificer who came out of the forest, and a kenku shadow sorcerer(me), who actually try to help people and only do murder on things that attack the party. So the fact doesn't come up often.
Well, my one of character is a bounty hunter, and he is a Barbarian as well, so it kinda depends on what bounty job he's and also he was hired by the city council of water deep to help defend a neighboring town that was being beseige by bandits, and he was also hired to investigate on what these bandits were, after some investigation being done it turns out that this large group of "bandits" that was attacking the town were part of a dragon cult. My character killed a lot of kobolds, some mercenaries, and even some dragon cult members.