Killing in Glorantha and Pavis
- Thread starter taxboy
- Start date
Mixster said:
If they are attacking you or pose an immediate threat (which apparently the befuddled NPC didn't) I would call that self defence. Anything else is murder regardless of justification.
Saturday night just gone, I think was the first time in my campaign that the PC's didn't kill any NPC's! So I have no problem with what happens in a game.
soltakss said:Oh, if they are Dara Happans then that's OK
Dara Happan hospitality is not the same as the Orlanthi version. Social rank is more important than being a host. If the PCs are nobles then they can pretty much do as they please to commoners.
But, there could still be consequences. If they killed Orlanthi then they have opened themselves up to being the targets of a HeroQuest (Orlanth kills Yelm, perhaps).
I'm no expert on Dara Happan culture but this sounds a bit like the feudal Japanese custom of 'Kirisutegomen' literally translated as "killing and going away." Basically if someone of peasant rank offends you then you can kill them with impunity.
Surliness, discourtesy, and inappropriate behaviour are considered grounds to do this, but legally the peasant is allowed to defend themselves and the Samurai would loose honour if he were defeated. The peasants need not be even armed or aware they have offended to be attacked... I can recall a scene in the TV series Shogun where a samurai cut off a peasants head as he walked past just because he was a fraction of a second too slow in lowering his eyes (actually that was the excuse, in reality he did it to show the Portugese pilot who was there that he could just do as he wanted...).
Although this situation was different in the game, with a different culture involved, I though the above might show that there are some cultural and historical examples of higher social classes having a casual disregard for the lives of lower ranks when they offended. In fact, not acting in a certain way may even have eroded your authority.
I think that illustrates something I've thought for a while now. The regard that western society has for life, and the psychological issues that this gives many westerners with violence etc... are social things. Social influences.
Other societies can and have treated violence in vastly different ways.
I'm in Afghanistan right now for example.
Two recent incidents here I think illustrate how different people here see violence.
One was a group of Afghan Army guards all getting high on opium at their post and letting a group of twelve-year olds ( average ) take their weapons and have fun shooting them. NATO attention is drawn by the kids firing off assault rifles and RPGs at buildings nearby in the town.
The kids, of course, saw nothing wrong with their behavior.
Another was an attempted assasination. Of a bride-groom, by the bride's brother and a friend of his. Because he didn't approve of the bride-groom as a new family member.
Would you reconsider your bride at that point if it were you? :wink:
Different people can be very different in their perceptions of violence and how much it bothers them. And what they view as a moral reason to engage in it. Or how it is perceived even casually.
I think this assumption that 'everyone' has these same western 'bleeding heart' reactions to violence is based on assuming that our conditioned cultural norms/responses to violence are nature instead of nurture. Because people would rather think that.
Other societies can and have treated violence in vastly different ways.
I'm in Afghanistan right now for example.
Two recent incidents here I think illustrate how different people here see violence.
One was a group of Afghan Army guards all getting high on opium at their post and letting a group of twelve-year olds ( average ) take their weapons and have fun shooting them. NATO attention is drawn by the kids firing off assault rifles and RPGs at buildings nearby in the town.
The kids, of course, saw nothing wrong with their behavior.
Another was an attempted assasination. Of a bride-groom, by the bride's brother and a friend of his. Because he didn't approve of the bride-groom as a new family member.
Would you reconsider your bride at that point if it were you? :wink:
Different people can be very different in their perceptions of violence and how much it bothers them. And what they view as a moral reason to engage in it. Or how it is perceived even casually.
I think this assumption that 'everyone' has these same western 'bleeding heart' reactions to violence is based on assuming that our conditioned cultural norms/responses to violence are nature instead of nurture. Because people would rather think that.
Vagni said:
On a similar note. In the Icelandic sagas, there is a story of a danish King, who saw a man dragging a plow and moving plowing his fields while stretching his neck so all the scenes and muscles in his neck were visible.
The king promptly drew his sword and cut of his head saying:
"He was so well aligned for a cut" (direct translation of the danish sentence: "Han stod så godt for hug")
Vile
Banded Mongoose
If you really want to know how acceptable or not this kind of thing is in the relevant Gloranthan society, you could always Ask Greg Stafford. 8)
I can't, because they don't allow @gmail.com email addresses to register. They have something against "webmail", despite the fact that nearly all email providers now have a web interface, and nearly all webmail services also have POP3 and SMTP access. I wonder how they will block Google Apps email addresses, which can be anything (my phil at hibbs dot me dot uk address uses Gmail)Vile said:
PhilHibbs said:
Far easier, and far more likely to get a response from Greg or the other Moon Design Glorantha writers, is just to post the question to the World of Glorantha YahooGroup, or wait until the Moon Design forum site is activated with its Ask About Glorantha forum.
Jeff
richaje said:
Yes, I suppose I should have joined the World of Glorantha, lets see if I can do it without creating another Yahoo account. *edit* Done! Looks like I had already registered as philhibbs once before and that is now unavailable so I'm philrhibbs. I wonder what Yahoo will do in 100 years time when all the obvious, normal names are in use by dead people.
Vile
Banded Mongoose
Well, they're D&D collectors, you can't expect them to move with the times. :lol:
As for Greg's response time, it's pretty phenomenal when you look at the dates on thread. Presumably he's subscribed to it or something. But, yeah, forgot about the Yahoo! group, though I'm not keen on them myself (talking about moving with the times).
As for Greg's response time, it's pretty phenomenal when you look at the dates on thread. Presumably he's subscribed to it or something. But, yeah, forgot about the Yahoo! group, though I'm not keen on them myself (talking about moving with the times).
duncan_disorderly
Mongoose
Vile said:
Yahoo groups are better than forums, because they mail you a digest, so you don't have to keep remembering to go and look at the forum to see if there is anything new - it automatically appears in your inbox. I'd much prefer lists to fora...
alex_greene
Guest
Nope. Just right.taxboy said:
You see, killing on a mission is one thing. It's like a combat situation. You've got your job to do - to clear out some Chaos hive of monsters, or to investigate some ruined temple that's supposed to have an item you need for some purpose, and your GM will throw at you random monster encounters and pit you against the various entities whose mission is life is to make your guys' lives as short as possible if they roll better than you.
Sometimes, you're on the combat mission because you're told to go and fetch something or someone - usually for pay from the person who's hiring you - and sometimes it's a mission you're on because you're initiating it - such as attacking the stronghold of the group's greatest enemy. But these are missions, and the morality is clear - it's you or them, and it's an exclusive OR. Not a problem with killing on missions.
But this is different. This was a situation where you offered hospitality to guests, one an apparent innocent ... and the character murdered the one guest who was not offering any aggression.
Defending yourself when a guest takes advantage is one thing. In Glorantha, there are probably few consequences arising if the characters need to prove that their guest violated hospitality laws. These things happen.
But the other guy's death was a clear violation of hospitality laws on the player character's part. The non-resisting guest was not aggressive, not putting up a fight, and apparently did not cause, or was in any way connected to, the first guest's sudden burst of aggression. So until he drew sword that person was still a guest.
And that makes it murder, even in the most primitive barbarian cultures.
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