Re: Last question...for now.

David Johnston wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:58:47 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
<_mwryder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Captain Jack Spunky wrote:
So my character's going to be a semi-Pacifist, the crimefighter kind
who 'Cannot Harm Innocents'. I still have a couple of questions about
the specifics, if you'd kindly clarify for me. First, a technical
question...If, for whatever reason, my character is forced to or
unknowingly harms an innocent, is there a specific penalty as there is
for the 'Cannot Kill' version? Second, an ethical question... Is it
alright, in your opinion, to allow an innocent to be harmed if doing
so will prevent harm or at least likely prevent harm to many other
innocents? And the reverse of that question, is it alright to save an
innocent if doing so causes or at least threatens to cause other
innocents to be harmed?
A lot of this is how you want to play the character, not in some rules, verbal or written. If he had the choice in shooting through a person to stop a serial killer from escaping and maybe continuing his rampage, or holding fire and hoping to catch him before any others suffer what would he do? What if the person in the way was the village bully? Or a child? You can either play a character that puts his own beliefs above those of others and will not kill an "innocent" under any condition or one that puts the good of the many above his own.

Well no. If you wanted the option of lethal pragmatism, you shouldn't
have taken Pacifism at that high a level.

So you are saying that if the character is driving down a road and a school bus pulls in front of him giving him the choice of hitting it or plowing into a group of Nazi sympathizers he is screwed? Either way he is going to harm an innocent. There are times when a choice has to be made. Using your definition the only thing the character can do is tie an anchor onto himself and jump off a ship and hope not to hit a diver on his way down. People are going to be hurt, it is a part of life. And how do you define not harming an innocent? Does this mean that you do not ever say or do anything that may cause them physical or mental harm? What about if your eating dinner causes some poor person to starve?
I think the point value should mean that the character tries to abide by the vow and doesn't violate it if possible. In the case of the monster, not stopping the monster is going to violate the vow as innocents are going to harmed. The character, and maybe the GM, have to decide what is appropriate. That is part of role playing.


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