JCC AD&D & YJCC

I have never claimed the bard is "sure" of Asta's intent, nor is that even necessary. I explicitly stated that to the bard, the intent doesn't matter. The bottom line is that Asta killed an innocent prisoner who had already been neutralized. Stop trying to shift the goalposts on behalf of your character. If you really liked this thieving way of life so much, you wouldn't have to come up with absurd contortions to make yourself feel better about it.

 

You are confused, because the bandit had not been neutralized.

And yet at every chance you get, your character makes these huge speeches condemning her. Every time you open your mouth, it is to complain about the halfling, who has barely at all interacted with the bard.

Also, you continue to fail to separate player info and character info.

I am constantly arguing with you about this, because it is fun for me to argue with you about it. Asta is perfectly oblivious to your bard's antics, and the notion of stealing has still not crossed her mind. She is a perfectly innocent creature.

 

In my character's opinion, he was. Characters are allowed to have beliefs about the world and the people in it.

Yours, for instance, believes it is somehow acceptable to be a terrible worthless thief.

 

Well in everyone else's opinion, you were hugging him. So obviously he was still a threat that needed to be dealt with. It was known. The bard's tantrums are, frankly, bordering on lunacy at this point.

This is a species trait. She doesn't believe anything. She knows that there's no such thing as stealing because she knows there is no such concept as ownership.

 

Wocky, let's just bring things back down to reality.

The men literally attacked you when you offered to treat with them.

Where, precisely, does "innocence" factor into it?

 

Because one is innocent until proven guilty, and the Guard Captain has not even had an opportunity to process this new prisoner. Because he died before a conviction in a court of law, he died innocent. QED.

 

I feel like you are not grasping the concept that this is not a modern western civilization. These are murderous bandits, and we have been hired to defend the caravan from exactly that. Their lives are forfeit in the eyes of the law.

I feel like if you're playing a lawful good character you should at least be a tiny bit familiar with the law.

 

I feel like you are not getting that we are servants of the Guard Captain. There is an actual state with actual laws, not whatever some stupid criminal wants to do.

 

We are not servants of the guard captain. We have been hired by the caravan. The guard captain has nothing at all to do with us.

There is a state with laws. But maybe you should read those laws, because you are applying, as usual, only your perspective from the real world. You have not a single time actually thought about the world these characters are inhabiting.

 

That is only a pretext. We would never have come this way at all if we had not sworn an oath to help the guard captain.

Ironic that you would accuse me of substituting my own outlook for that of my character, when it's so abundantly clear that Asta's disdain for the Guard Captain comes directly from you, the person. Shameful.

 

OK, so, um, I'm ok if people attack Wocky. It seems he wants out, but without saying as much.

 

I have expressed no disdain for the guard captain, and Asta is not even so much as aware of the guard captain. We are heading in the same direction we were heading before we even visited the town containing the guard captain. The guard captain didn't ask us to swear an oath, and none of us did any such thing.

You had the power to end this. No one would have know it came up 5. No one had to ever know.

 

I failed you.

But yeah, I mean, this is a largely lawless time. You were hired to defend the caravan. You defended it from people whose mens rea and actus reas screamed "MURDER BLOODY MURDER" at all times. Asta, being of a childlike people, would have been too fight or flight to have done much differently.

Wocky, I've enjoyed how much you vex the party but I must objectively state, as DM, you are metagaming a bit.

 

I nearly double over laughing at the bard's suggestions that I give a flying **** about his stupid human morals. I make it a point to indicate him with my index finger to non-verbally communicate: oh man, great joke, you sir are a card.

"Hahahaha oh do please excuse me. Hahahaha."

The notion that in a moment he won't even remember what I find so amusing merely contributes to the response.

 

I'm going to give Wocky the Highlander speech.

"Bard... why does the sun come up? Or are the stars just pin holes in the curtain of night, who knows? What I do know is that because you were born different, men will fear you... try to drive you away like the people of your party... but you can choose to end this madness. Recognize that we here -- all of us -- are on a path towards greater good. Some may achieve those goals in manners in which you would prefer not to associate with, but the greater good will be satisfied by our good deeds (the greater good...)... if you travel with those you view as less noble, as Iellonicus no doubt thinks of everyone he meets, then know that it's far nobler to do good with bad than allow evil to succeed as you do nothing.

Ask not what your party can do for you. Ask what you can do for your party."

also, Knibb High School football rules!

 

"It is a good thing we came this way. Do you all see this? It seems that the killers have struck again, on an even broader scale! We have to catch these awful murderers before they strike again."

OOC: I don't really know that I'm meta-gaming at all, Ender. Pre-modern societies actually had quite complex rules about the treatment of the dead, be they friend or foe. The Zulus, for instance, felt a duty to disembowel enemies so that evil spirits would not get trapped within the bodies. Muhammad forbade his men to mutilate enemy corpses, and refused to ransom the body of a high ranking officer instead of giving it back as a courtesy. Between the two, supposing that deceased humans are just pieces of meat ready for ransacking, and that, further, there is no such thing as theft--or that anyone would be tolerant of such a belief in a society not likewise oriented--is actually the far more ahistorical option. Likewise, the presumption of innocence extends back to Roman law.

That's what's been an interesting element of this adventure. It would be perfectly possible to conduct our business peaceably. The reality is that's how most of the world operated, even in ancient times. But what you are arguing for is not actually the feudalizing of this story. You are first arguing for the feudalizing of feudalism. Rather than account for the world as it was, you project backwards to a supposedly savage, violent time that conveniently justifies your desire to exercise savage, violent impulses. The flaw is not in the nature of the fictional world, but buried inside your own heart.

 

I know that you enjoy playing ignorant, and also that there was no real need to engage the initial band of ruffians in combat--even though they were wanted dead or alive (but mostly dead) and had expressed their intent to continue kidnapping and brutally experimenting upon others--but these people currently engaging with us initiated the attack.

 

Hey, Wocky...

 

It wasn't specific to this. My character doesn't even remember the issue.

I am just saying, as a general observation, that people play this game to act out violent impulses. It's just a series of situations that conveniently justifies whatever extreme brutality they should take a liking to.