Shattered Kingdoms

Oh come on now. It's very easy turning your mode to stun before you enter a battle.

But... it's sometimes harder to -win- if you fight to stun. Important difference now, isn't it?

It needs more effort. More skill, the risk and danger increase, etc. Things that heroes cope with all the time. Yes, someone might get away, and yes, they take less damage or doesn't cut off limbs from whatever mechanics thingie I don't know myself very well. (I can only think of bstab/cleave doing less damage when on mode stun right now).

You see? All that matters, by your logic, is OOCly, for players, to WIN. If you want to WIN all the time, no matter what, if you wish to squeeze every single little advantage even if not doing so will make things more interesting, I think you're missing a very important part of enjoying an RPG.

What happens if you do stun and win?

"Oh look, that bad guy disappeared after we beat everyone up! We must catch him now!." Nice. You did drive him off, and instead of having him spending an hour re-equippiing and getting off spirit disoriente, he MIGHT be back sooner than that. Unless you catch him and drive him into hiding.

Or:

"That bad guy leader is gone. Might I have done wrong not being RUTHLESS enough to stay my hand so as not to harm good people? Was it worth it? It must be so... After all, this is what HE would have done. I am not like him. This is what makes us truly -different-. It is enough that he was driven off for now."

And as we all know, a capable PKer -can-, with some added difficulty of reasonable proportions use a quick aliased mode stun/mode kill change ready when he switches targets, or when everyone is stunned so he can finish off the bad guys. Is this not what you say, therefore, another excuse?

SKs, despite the competitiveness is an RPG, and in RPGs, when you lose, and how you lose sometimes adds to the drama and interest of the story.

I did not say that you couldn't kill the bad guy intentionally. I said you cannot go and kill innocents intentionally just because they are in the area of the bad guy.

Sure. I agree with that. That is a completely meaningless statement, however. I don't think anyone here agrees with allowing scrupulous characters to just chop up lighties nearby who just minding their own business.

The point of contention here is whether it should be "illegal" to kill a lightie who is PREVENTING you from doing your "job".

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Sure. I'm all for the "let's make it harder for ourselves but still try to accomplish the goal" approach. If I played principled characters, that's the way I'd go.

However, that's not the way of a scrupulous character. I'd like to remind everyone that I am not saying that this is how all scrupulous chars should act, I am DEFENDING their FREEDOM to LEGALLY act as such if they so choose.

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Let us say you are a vigilante against a criminal with some really heinous crimes- for instance: raping, torturing and killing women. You hunt them down and kill them, even if they haven't necessarily been proven guilty by a court (think O.J. Simpson) or they're just on the run from the law. Sorry for the very specific example, but I don't think people appreciate the actual factors that come into consideration.

What are the questions to consider here?

-Is being a vigilante a lightie action?

I'll say yes. You act UNSELFISHLY for a higher cause. The vigilante does not profit from the death of criminals- he is doing it on behalf of the victims. Is it a good way to act in a civilized society? No. However, SK is not the real world. Scrupulous chars exist because they can in SK, and can't in the real world.

-Is killing the criminal a lightie act? Shouldn't you just capture him and bring him to justice?

That would be principled behavior. The belief that the law can solve all problems and that truth will be revealed. However, in an imperfect society (which is every society), people get through anyways. If a vigilante has what they consider legitimate evidence and a hunch the criminal will get away if put on trial, I'd say he's still being a lightie by killing him.

-If a cop tries to stop the vigilante from pursuing a criminal, and the cop cannot be reasoned with or disabled in any way (i.e. he draws a gun and will shoot the vigilante unless he surrenders), would it be ok to kill him?

I'll say yes. That's within the boundaries of the scrupulous alignment. I am not approving of it as "good" action, nor am I saying that everyone should become vigilantes and take the law into their own hands. I am trying to argue for the allowance of such a char to exist under the scrupulous alignment.

Not when there's an alternative. Valuing life is part of the current help file just as much as ruthlessness. In this case, nothing prevents this character from fleeing and seeking his target another time. Not that there's any magic spell in SK that keeps someone from being disabled in the first place.

I'm not denying it's possible for lighties to find themselves fighting each other. But not for such flimsy reasons as given here. Lighties value life too much to kill without strong cause - and how much cause are two good people likely to have against each other, when they're both trying to further the greater good?

Not that people can't play dark vigilantes, but scrupulous is not a good fit. Dark vigilantes are, well, dark. Try aberrant or miscreant. Indeed, miscreant isn't a bad fit to the behavior we've been describing:

Miscreants have no reason to be chasing down criminals to begin with.


The fact that the criminal could escape and cause more death. What if the vigilante decided that more life would be lost if the criminal escaped (or that this is one of the rare moments he had a real chance of capturing the criminal) than would be lost if both died?


I also find that to be untrue. You can be a lightie and not actively try and further the greater good.

I agree with Adder - miscreants just wouldn't give a crap. However, because I have no idea who Jack Bauer is, I'm going to put this in different terms. Spawn = Aberrant. Batman = Scrupulous. Batman doesn't run around killing heroes, but if one happened to get in his way while he's doing his thing in Gotham, he'd certainly beat the crap out of them.

Spawn obliterated Batman. Then he brought him back to life. Then they telepathically shared life stories. Spawn said something along these lines to Batman, "Man, your [REDACTED] up, you got some damn issues son". If a hell-spawn ever says that to you, it must be bad.

I hate to use the term scrupulous for batman because his thing for crimefighting comes from a pshycological disorder. Pshycological disorders is usually a common theme among not only batman but his adverseries.

That is why I like to use the Robin Hood vs Superman example. Robin Hood=scrupulous and superman=principled. Spawn=Aberrent.

Adder, I said what I did because Forsooth said that scrupulous people will sometimes intentionally hurt innocents.

I would also like to put forth that I would argue that ruthlessness is already covered in the pantheon: Sargas. No one can even make a reasonable argument that ruthlessness can be covered in any of the Lightie faiths.

You are nuts. Robin Hood stole from men who earned their money and distributed it to good-for-nothing thieves who violated royal law. He's a communist freak.

All of you talk too much.