Pacifism: cannot harm innocents

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by CraigM

Bingo. The "cannot kill innocents" response to a Gestapo officer forcing them at gunpoint to shoot a peasant is to try and shoot the Gestapo officer, even if it's suicidal to do so.

If a player insisted on ignoring the disadvantage, I'd probably swap it out for a combination of callous, nightmares, bad reputation and such.

Agreed. If one has Cannot Kill Innocents, they should not be able to do it. If theatened with death, they should resist, either passively or actively.

[hal]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Agreed. If one has Cannot Kill Innocents, they should not be able to do it. If theatened with death, they should resist, either passively or actively.

Ultimately, what I as a GM probably SHOULD be doing, is set up the scenario such that the player doesn't automatically FAIL regardless of what they do. But in a way, this scenario that I'm seeing unfold - is largely an instance of "Hey, there's a wild lion there in front of you. It would be BAD if you tried to put your head in its mouth as if it were a trained lion." and then having the player say "But I've got faith that it won't eat me." and putting the head in the lion's mouth anyhow.

For what it is worth, the game is Traveller, and the circumstances are such that the player characters are dealing with a high control high tech world where the government is an impersonal bureaucracy. The world's leaders are corrupt to where they have rigged it for those who are pro-government get rich, and everyone else can suffer the consequences. The world's underground rebellion is attempting to change this, but they're unaware that the government's high tech monitoring of their daily activities is leaving them open to a Government purge.

Enter the player characters. The one player character in question, was a Fighter Pilot in the Imperial Navy. In his past, he had training as an ONI operative who spent time undercover gathering information on how technically proficient the Sword World governments were when it came to fighter technology. Even then (as a part of the background story), the character was almost caught and escaped being captured...

So, this is the scenario as it unfolds...


Ex Imperial Navy Fighter Pilot with some ONI training, gets involved with a 22 year old young daughter of an Industrialist who owns a defense industry on the world in question. After a wild night with her (fade to black kind of wild), the character becomes heavily enamored of her, and realizes that she intends to try and escape her father by coming over the XT line (heavily fortified - Think Berlin Wall style) to be with him. When he receives a message to the effect that he's won third prize, a high efficiency fridge - he wonders if she's crazy enough to use it to smuggle herself across the XT line. He puts two and two together when he receives frantic calls from the head of security for her private security detail asking if he would be willing to help recover her before her father finds out.

Other background info: The Star Port Authority governor placed the Star Port in lock down after the local government's secret police attempted to abduct an Imperial Noblewoman at gunpoint - this after her Brother (also noble of course!) was shot by a lone sniper whom the government conveniently despite its draconian control levels, was unable to apprehend, or even have a clue of the identity of. That another noble had to take control of an Imperial Marine squad and extract the Imperial Noble woman at gunpoint from the Local Secret Police - was cause for an interstellar incident. So, no trade was permitted to pass the XT lines on Governor's orders for four weeks while the world was declared under emergency Amber zone alert.

And finally, back to the player character in question...

He arrives at the XT line, steps over it into the guard station between both sides of the XT line entrance (which has a HUGE fortified wall surrounding the starport, and attempts to bribe the lone guard to let him pick up his "winning" and take it back across the XT line. The Guard lets him, thankful for the extra money, and only too aware, that the Imperial Guards at the other side of the XT guard post won't let him pass with the Fridge. He even offers to sell a hand dolly to the player character in an apparent effort to be helpful. Sure enough, the fridge is refused by the guards at the other end, and player character realizes that he is literally stuck in no man's land with a young woman who may need help getting out of the fridge, especially if it really is a high efficiency fridge that is sealed tight!

So, long story short, he opens the fridge within the lane/tunnel between the two guard posts under the wall, panics when she's not breathing (She was using the fast drug to slow her metabolism) The bribed guard then realizes the trouble he's in, calls for reinforcements, and attempts to subdue the traveler with a stun batton. Ex fighter jock then launches a karate kick to guard's chest, and knocks him out. He then panics sufficiently to try and take the unconscious young woman across the XT line towards the Imperial side, where the Guards level their rifles at him and demand he halts. Then the other guards show up, see their downed comrades, see the traveler with rifles trained upon him, make the decision to open fire at the poor guy.

In the end, the Imperial Authorities question him briefly, then send him back to the planetary authorities. He was placed in a room barely big enough to lie down in, with high glare lighting, and discovered that if he laid down, the floor would shock him with increasingly higher voltages until he stood up again...

[whswhs]

I'm not sure I see how Cannot Harm Innocents comes into this. Who are the innocents and how were they harmed? And how was the character the agent of their harm?

Bill Stoddard

[hal]

So, after a full night's run, the Ex-fighter pilot finds himself charged with:

Striking a Law enforcement official (guard) in the performance of his duties
Aiding and Abetting a criminal attempting to evade Visa Laws
Strike a Prison authority while incarcerated.

Add to the mix, his buddies (who were in contact with the rebel underground) getting blackmail information on the DA prosecuting the case and delivering the potentially damaging blackmail material directly (via anonymous means) with a cryptic message "Verdict for <player character name>: innocent" along with the name of the DA's wife (Implying things without specifying what the implication might be - leaving it up to the DA's imagination of what was planned.

So...

Secret Police get into the act - using "Good cop/Bad Cop" routines, offer to bribe the ex-fighter pilot 100,000 credits as a sign of good faith, release him of all charges, and then offer him a further bribe of 2 million credits if he would give them actionable information/intelligence of rebel activity and identities. This because...

The secret police had discovered the identities of the fighter jock's co-workers aboard the ship he worked upon. People whom the Secret Police had reason to believe were involved with the underground.

Then, to gain even further leverage? Since they knew the identity of the young girl whom the player character had tried to smuggle across the XT line, the trumped up charges against her father that he was somehow involved with the rebels and was taken away on suspicion of treason. The implicit message being "do what we want, or your girlfriend's father gets it."

Enter the potential problem...

Player offers information to his pals that he was suborned to turn quisling against the underground rebellion (which he is not a part of) and he suggests that he could become a double agent helping the rebellion against the secret police.

This is when as GM, via an NPC whom the player characters trust, warned the player characters "this is a world where they routinely place people in a room with hidden sensors that act as a lie detector apparatus without being obvious that the person is undergoing a lie detection session." The only way the player characters can get past this, is if they undergo "conditioning training" where they are hypnotized as well as subjected to drugs/electronics that induce a relaxed state when ever a given topic is brought up that could cause them to tense up. Just like a pavlovian response to bells could cause a dog to salivate, a pavlovian response to certain topics could be induced in humans to relax when a certain topic is brought up. This would in game terms, offer a +2 bonus against interrogation via sensors. Nothing more, nothing less!

That is also when the NPC warned the player character who wants to be a double agent "These men are ruthless. They may take you to a known or suspected rebel agent, and have you execute the individual to prove your reliability. In reality, they will do it to have more leverage on you in the future." That is when the player himself suggested that perhaps his character could be brain washed ala Jason Bourne...

Did I mention, that in order to keep the Star Port Authority from turning his girlfriend over to the local police, he married her in order to confer Imperial Citizenship upon her? (and yes, in my Traveller Universe, there is a difference between an Imperial Citizen and an Imperial Subject. Subjects are citizens of their own world, while Imperial Citizens are technically citizens of Capital (the emperor's capital).

So - this is the train wreck I'm seeing unfold before my eyes as a GM.

The player character in this case running the Ex-Fighter Jock, may end up causing the death of MANY rebel underground people trying to get their current government to be less repressive AND less corrupt, all the while dealing with the fact that a PC's brother may be involved with aiding the rebellion, not to mention the fact that the PC's brother's wife (a nurse) is actively involved in the rebellion as an operative.

So, my goal as a GM is not to pre-ordain results for the players for which they can't win - but they KNEW what they were getting into as the story unfolded, and despite this, are heading into the eve of either a massive Government purge of known/suspected rebels, or the spark of a rebellion that results in a civil war where the world slips from Amber zone rating into Red Zone rating.

One careless move on the part of a player character, and things could get ugly fast... :(

[Ejidoth]

Here is how I handle any mental disad that says you 'can't' do something:

1. I remind the player that they took a disad that says they don't have a choice in this situation. You don't get to go, 'Well, I'm going to ignore that just now' any more than you get to choose to ignore One Arm or Colorblindness or something.

2. Self-Imposed mental disadvantages do have a special rule that they can be bought off at any time. If you have the character points, you can buy it off. If you can't afford it, I'll still let you do it but you're getting some new (and not self-imposed, so you can't get free of them the same way) mental disads instead.

3. If you don't want to buy it off but you want to break it just this once, well, a single use advantage is 1/5 cost and ignoring a disad is similar to having an advantage that cancels it out, so I might be convinced to let you do it for the price of 1/5 the disadvantage's character point value.

As a reminder, for the Cannot Kill variant of pacifism specifically, the rule is that you cannot do anything that seems likely to kill another. Unless the player's doing something to bend the rules like I outlined above, he just can't do it. If he tells you he's taking an action that seems likely to kill someone, you ignore it (and possibly question him or remind him of his disad) the same way you ignore a player without Flight telling you his character's going to fly somewhere. The 3d6 days of grief are specifically if they somehow kill someone despite NOT taking any actions that seem likely to cause a death, or if they feel responsible for a death despite intellectually knowing it wasn't their fault (which I'd leave up to the player, mostly.)

Finally, I might allow a player to buy a perk that says, more or less, 'Except this guy. I really, really want him dead.' If there's an NPC that killed several of his loved ones or otherwise really earned his wrath. Doesn't apply to your situation though.

[hal]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm not sure I see how Cannot Harm Innocents comes into this. Who are the innocents and how were they harmed? And how was the character the agent of their harm?

Bill Stoddard

The "can not harm innocents" will potentially come into play, when the Government's secret police, attempt to have the player character execute a known/suspected rebel sympathizer or known/suspected rebel operative.

At this point, the secret police will have more leverage upon the player character (from their point of view) and make him more compliant to their wishes.

The player character in question, is going to be placed in the position where:

Either he plays along or:

• his newly made father in law may be executed
• his ability to function as a double agent is compromised
• he himself could be executed

Either I tone down the villainy of the NPC Secret police and avoid placing the character in that situation, or, despite the warning having been given repeatedly in the characterizations of the Secret Police and the advice of an NPC friendly - subject the player to that situation.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

Here is how I handle any mental disad that says you 'can't' do something:

1. I remind the player that they took a disad that says they don't have a choice in this situation. You don't get to go, 'Well, I'm going to ignore that just now' any more than you get to choose to ignore One Arm or Colorblindness or something.

<snipped stuff>

As a reminder, for the Cannot Kill variant of pacifism specifically, the rule is that you cannot do anything that seems likely to kill another. Unless the player's doing something to bend the rules like I outlined above, he just can't do it. If he tells you he's taking an action that seems likely to kill someone, you ignore it (and possibly question him or remind him of his disad) the same way you ignore a player without Flight telling you his character's going to fly somewhere. The 3d6 days of grief are specifically if they somehow kill someone despite NOT taking any actions that seem likely to cause a death, or if they feel responsible for a death despite intellectually knowing it wasn't their fault (which I'd leave up to the player, mostly.)

Please don't think I'm disagreeing with you - buuuuuutttttttttttt (you knew there'd be a but right?)

Strict reading of the rules in GURPS CHARACTER page 148, suggests that only TWO of the Pacifism rules permit the player character to kill despite their pacifism bent. Of those two, the penalty is 3d6 days of being morose and being unable to offer any violence during those 3d6 days unless they can make a will saving roll to do so. Otherwise, strict reading of the rules specify that the individual just can not do it.

The problem is - in real life, until the head is on the chopping block (so to speak), people may THINK they can do something, but find that in reality, they can't. This may fall under those circumstances, or perhaps deep down, the character really DOES know that he can't do something, but will deceive themselves right up until the last moment. Unfortunately, this is not spelled out in the rules as written.

So, I agree with your statement, but I also know that players being players - or this player in specific, is going to infer that failure to live up to pacifism ideals merely results in being emotionally incapacitated for 3d6 days (assuming the best possible reading of the rules in his favor) or is going to be unhappy with the GM overruling his ability to break his pacifism mind set. After all, if he can buy off the disadvantage in game play via character points during down time, why can't he attempt to violate the disadvantage (ie buy it off) during game play?

To that, I have no real answer other than "because the rules say so". Since I have two weeks between every game session, I can attempt to prepare ahead of time :)

Heck, it probably won't happen any time soon - since traveller's Jump space mechanics will not likely result in the player characters returning to that world any time real soon in real world time (maybe two or more game sessions). But, I like to be prepared when/where possible.

[Ejidoth]

I did provide for buying it off in play two ways: notes 2. and 3. in my post.

As for which pacifism rules have penalties for killing:

* Cannot Kill has a penalty because it's possible to kill by accident or neglect, where a death occurs despite the player not being able to choose actions that seem likely to cause it.
* Reluctant Killer has the same penalty in some situations because it's a 'lite' version of Cannot Kill, and works similarly.
* Cannot Harm Innocents, Self-Defense Only, and Total Nonviolence are different in that unlike the previous two, they're about your inability to take certain violent actions (meaning it restricts player choices, but it's not possible to accidentally violate them), rather than your unwillingness to accept certain violent results (which might be to some degree out of your hands).

EDIT: I realize Cannot Harm Innocents feels odd in that circumstance, because obviously you can accidentally harm an innocent. However, the disadvantage just precludes taking actions that threatens to harm the uninvolved or seems likely to kill someone that isn't trying to kill you. Superheroes that have Cannot Harm Innocents and such generally also have a Sense of Duty to protect the innocent and, probably, Guilt Complex so they angst when they fail.

[Ashtagon]

As a way to resolve this, if the PC's captors can convince the character that the rebel alliance are not "innocents", then the PC once more has free choice in the decision.

The character might discover only once it is way too late that they weren't all innocents (or hey, maybe the rebels and captors both are scum), but as long as the character believes they have caused harm, they become a fair target. Perhaps their rebel strikes have caused significant collateral damage, for example.

[whswhs]

Did you ever see the old film Billy Jack? There's a scene where the hero's girlfriend has been taken hostage, and the hero confronts the hostage taker.

Hostage taker: You'd kill her—just like that?
Billy Jack: No. You'd kill her—just like that. Then I'll kill you—just like that.

If the secret police cause that sort of harm, then it's not the PC who is harming innocents. Rather, he's been put in a situation where he either harms an innocent, or does nothing and watches the secret police harm innocents. His personal code is going to have to treat the two situations differently.

That's not even that esoteric. In California's criminal code—and I imagine those of other jurisdictions—if you are accused of a crime, and you can show that you were ordered to commit it under threat of death, that's a defense. But it's not a defense if you've killed someone. You don't have the legal right to choose your life over another person's in that particular case.

Of course, the character could always commit suicide. That's the John Galt solution in Atlas Shrugged: About to be captured by the government, he tells Dagny Taggart that if his captors suspect his love for her, they'll torture her to force him to cooperate, and to prevent that, at any threat to her, he'll kill himself, rather than live with having watched her tortured.

Really, there are two paths. The character can maintain his integrity and his code of conduct, refuse to cooperate, and face severe penalties. Or the player can have the character lose his integrity. If he loses his integrity easily, by a simple decision, that's a failure to roleplay a disadvantage, and it calls for getting no eeps. In fact, I might suggest getting no eeps in any future session where his actions lead to anyone being harmed—say, he turns in a member of the resistance and they get arrested. If he roleplays the anguish of betraying his conviction, I might waive the penalty—but it should be treated like the consequences of an actual failed Brainwashing roll: You as GM get to inflict any new disadvantages on him that you like. I would suggest that a plausible level would be twice the value of his Pacifism.

Bill Stoddard