Honey, I Summoned a Demon

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Nope, it is not charity if it is your duty or obligation.

A duty and a sense of duty aren't the same thing.

[AlexanderHowl]

A Duty is a formal obligation while a Sense of Duty is an informal obligation. If you are obliged, either through formal means or informal means, to act, it is not charity to act in that fashion. You are penalized if you do not act in accordance with your Duty or Sense of Duty, so it is pain avoidance, not charity, that compels you to act, so it is not a pure motivation. Healing your Ally or your Dependent is also not an act of charity as not healing them has negative consequences for the character. Healing an Enemy, as long as it was not to preserve them for a worse fate or to compel them to stop being your Enemy, would be a charitable act though.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A Duty is a formal obligation while a Sense of Duty is an informal obligation. If you are obliged, either through formal means or informal means, to act, it is not charity to act in that fashion. You are penalized if you do not act in accordance with your Duty or Sense of Duty, so it is pain avoidance, not charity, that compels you to act, so it is not a pure motivation. Healing your Ally or your Dependent is also not an act of charity as not healing them has negative consequences for the character. Healing an Enemy, as long as it was not to preserve them for a worse fate or to compel them to stop being your Enemy, would be a charitable act though.

That seems like an unfair characterization of the situation. The player may be penalized for not acting in accordance with a Sense of Duty or not healing a Dependent, and even the character in a meta sense, but in-universe, that logic doesn't really hold up.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A Duty is a formal obligation while a Sense of Duty is an informal obligation.

Duty is external, while Sense of Duty is internal.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A Duty is a formal obligation while a Sense of Duty is an informal obligation.

No it isn't. A duty is an external obligation, a sense of duty is an obligation to yourself.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You are penalized if you do not act in accordance with your Duty or Sense of Duty

There are no penalties to not acting in accordance with a sense of duty, other than the normal meta-game penalties associated with not playing your disads, which has no effect on the character's motivations.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A Duty is a formal obligation while a Sense of Duty is an informal obligation. If you are obliged, either through formal means or informal means, to act, it is not charity to act in that fashion. You are penalized if you do not act in accordance with your Duty or Sense of Duty, so it is pain avoidance, not charity, that compels you to act, so it is not a pure motivation. Healing your Ally or your Dependent is also not an act of charity as not healing them has negative consequences for the character. Healing an Enemy, as long as it was not to preserve them for a worse fate or to compel them to stop being your Enemy, would be a charitable act though.

That's a little too Doylist for me. As a GM, I would certainly make Sense of Duty separate from Duty, and as a Player, a GM penalizing me in that manner for acting in-character (as opposed to applying plausible consequences for doing something stupid, which is expected and reasonable) would be a check in the column of 'Maybe I don't want to play in this person's game.'

A Sense of Duty disad is an example of 'being a good person,' IMHO, and so should count as being pure good in intent. Two of the possible levels of Sense of Duty are 'Entire Race [-15]' and 'Every Living Being [-20].' By your logic, someone with the highest level could never be free of the risk of summoning a demon while casting a healing spell, which is just plain silly.

[AlexanderHowl]

I do not agree that Sense of Duty makes an individual a good person and acting to protect and/or help your focus does not make you a good person. There were SS officers in WWII who probably possessed Sense of Duty (Germans) and who committed crimes against humanity that they felt were protecting and/or helping the German people. Similar types of people have existed throughout history, people who committed atrocities against one group because they had a Sense of Duty towards another group.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I do not agree that Sense of Duty makes an individual a good person

It doesn't have to, but it's not opposed to being a good person.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I do not agree that Sense of Duty makes an individual a good person and acting to protect and/or help your focus does not make you a good person. There were SS officers in WWII who probably possessed Sense of Duty (Germans) and who committed crimes against humanity that they felt were protecting and/or helping the German people. Similar types of people have existed throughout history, people who committed atrocities against one group because they had a Sense of Duty towards another group.

But that's not the issue. I would not rule out a healing spell as being pure good just because you had a sense of duty to, for example "all sick people". While a sense of duty doesn't automatically make you a good person it doesn't preclude purity of intent either.

[AlexanderHowl]

Which is a deontological point of view, which is a valid ethical position, though I tend to come from a more virtue ethics point of view. It is character, not duty or obligations, whether external or internal, that determines the goodness of an individual and that leads to the actions take by an individual. Either Duty or Sense of Duty can lead to horrific atrocities against the 'other', it takes people of good character to stand against tyranny of duty and obligations.

When it comes to demons who are summoned by accident, I believe that they should implicitly understand every facet of an individual so that they can better destroy the individual. If the character possesses a Duty, the demon should infiltrate that institution so that the character will receive orders that will condemn their soul. If the character possesses a Sense of Duty, the demons should corrupt their focus so that the character will be forced into actions to help and/or protect their focus that will condemn their soul. It is so much more interesting than having a demon just attack the PCs...