Conflicting Disads - Cannot Harm Innocent's and Honesty

[Kalzazz]

A situation that came up in game

A character was jumped by slavers, and defended herself in the process knocking out and capturing some of them

The Law is that captured slavers are to be summarily executed

An Honest person wants to follow the law

A person with Cannot Harm Innocent's does not want to hurt people who are not trying to do them serious harm. An unconscious slaver is obviously not trying to do them serious harm

How do you handle such a thing?

[Anders]

Make a Self-Control roll for Honesty. If he succeeds, he kills the slavers and feels horrible about it. If he fails, he does not kill the slavers and feels horrible about it. On a critical failure, he drowns himself in the Seine river and his body is later found by the Paris police.

[zorg]

This is a prime opportunity for roleplaying - the character has to decide which ideal he values more highly, and then live with the consequences. I don't think you can have a rules-based decision here. As long as the character makes an honest effort to reconcile his disads, any decision he comes up with would be legit, imo.

[downer]

Roleplay it. In the end, you will suffer some kind of mental anguish over what you did, but which way you go is up to you. You could go for some kind of random resolution, I guess, but if I were your GM I would prefer you play it out, telling a confidant about your issue, asking you fellow characters for advice. This way, you can make your disadvantages part of your play, and give the GM some hints at how to react to your breach of morals.

Alternately, you could find a loophole. Leave the unconscious slavers somewhere they are bound to be noticed, and have other people "capture" and execute them. This way you wouldn't have to kill them, and wouldn't really be breaking the law, since I presume it doesn't say that the slavers have to be executed by the very person that captured them. Or you could ask another PC to do it for you, since you can't get yourself to.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

A situation that came up in game

A character was jumped by slavers, and defended herself in the process knocking out and capturing some of them

The Law is that captured slavers are to be summarily executed

An Honest person wants to follow the law

A person with Cannot Harm Innocent's does not want to hurt people who are not trying to do them serious harm. An unconscious slaver is obviously not trying to do them serious harm

How do you handle such a thing?

Catch 22. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. There is no win condition. All available choices screw the player (unless they get luck and the self-control check for Honesty comes up in their favor); hope the GM doesn't consider it bad roleplay (because you ignored one of you disadvantages) and dock you awarded CP for the session.

[jacobmuller]

Sorry, but, "Cannot Harm Innocent's"? They're slavers, caught in flagrante, they ain't innocent...
Only in self-defense, yes, I can see the conflict - hand them over to the authorities. If you can't pass the buck, fight a series of duels with the deal for the slavers being win the fight, win your life - then you get to kill in self-defense...
Oh, and self-defense night allow you to just kill them anyway - letting them go would allow them to harm innocents, possibly your friends, family, etc. You could always have a basic trial - interrogate each "slaver" and see Why he does it. Maybe they ain't all mad-dog evil folk and letting some go would be a good thing?

[Akicita]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Sorry, but, "Cannot Harm Innocent's"? They're slavers, caught in flagrante, they ain't innocent...

Count another one for this opinion.

[BrockNicholson]

Cannot Harm Innocents doesn't imply to me that the opponent must be actively trying to harm you at that moment. After all it allows you to start fights. I would think that a person with Honesty from a civilization that believes in summary execution would have little problem carrying out that execution. But then again, that is how I would roleplay the character, not necessarily how your player would.

[downer]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

Cannot Harm Innocents doesn't imply to me that the opponent must be actively trying to harm you at that moment. After all it allows you to start fights. I would think that a person with Honesty from a civilization that believes in summary execution would have little problem carrying out that execution. But then again, that is how I would roleplay the character, not necessarily how your player would.

That isn't the issue. It doesn't matter whether they are harming you now, what matters is that they intend/intended to cause you serious harm. Capture is explicitly not serious harm, thus slavers are technically innocent under the disadvantages description. I might be willing to play it loose, were I the GM, but by the book the pacifist character would violate his moral code.

[ChemIisan]

You could always have them remove one of their disadvantages and give them depression or something. If you had a Pacifist player who had to kill to save someone's life, you'd give them Paranoia or similar, depending on how their character is played. Should the player already be suffering the symptoms of the mental disadvantage, give them a stigma. After all, if you just saw your pacifist friend kill someone in an... irregular way, you'd be pretty creeped out. The player's religion may publicly excommunicate him, so forth.

...aren't Slavers evil anyways?