Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;981508Do you leave a wounded enemy in an unsafe area to die by misadventure, or do you finish him cleanly?

Depends on how much I hate him.

Quote from: Dumarest;981358Can't even begin to answer. What are the laws where this happened? Usually murder is defined as the unlawful premeditated killing of one elf/hobbit/dwarf by another elf/hobbit/dwarf. Was this unlawful and premeditated?

Back to what I said on page one.

Quote from: jhkim;981541So from what I'm understanding, it isn't just the character's personal convictions that are at issue. He wants to be a good citizen, and apparently this killing was a crime according to dwarf society.

What is the law in this case? i.e. If he was being a good citizen, what does the law expect citizens to do with downed attackers? Are they expected to heal them, take them prisoner, and bring them in to the police for trial? Or are they expected to let them go?

The law says to bring him in for trial. Letting him go would also be an offence; he's a criminal. Killing him as he did, if all were revealed and believed before the court, would not be premeditated murder, probably what we would call manslaughter. The whole thing occurred in the Westwood. The Kingdom claims the Westwood but almost no one in the area are citizens, most of them are Elves, so things like this would not come to the attention of the authorities. However, Buttons is a citizen and the two Dwarfs in the party are citizens and Buttons was going to have them turn him in. I believe that they talked him out of it. The rivalry between the two Factions and the influence of the attackers' faction on the courts is another factor.

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Quote from: WillInNewHaven;981609The rivalry between the two Factions and the influence of the attackers' faction on the courts is another factor.

Uh? So the halfling is upset because he finished off assassins from a faction that has a strong hold over the law system? Also. Why is it ok to kill the other attackers but not the one that was hanging on to life? Was he really hanging on or just bleeding out?

The PCs might want to look into wether or not this was a set-up. The possibility this whole morbid situation was arranged and planned to discredit or disgrace the side the PCs are on.

Quote from: Omega;981613The PCs might want to look into wether or not this was a set-up. The possibility this whole morbid situation was arranged and planned to discredit or disgrace the side the PCs are on.

Well they could question the attackers...if only  someone hadn't killed the last one.

Quote from: David Johansen;981536Patch him up and send him home for a show trial and public execution.

"Now back to Rome for a quick wedding and some slow executions!" -- Miles Gloriosus, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"

Quote from: Pyromancer;981537So in this society, healers are supposed to heal people even if those same people tried to kill them 30 seconds before?

Yeah, this is the point where logic is starting to fail me.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;981846Yeah, this is the point where logic is starting to fail me.

Could be. There are people who believe that our world, so there might be a group of people with a moral code like that in a fantasy world. Though it doesn't sound like that is exactly the case from what the OP has said.

Quote from: Bren;981840Well they could question the attackers...if only  someone hadn't killed the last one.

Party. "Ok suspiciously surviving assassin. Is this a set up by your faction?"
Suspicious assassin "nope!"
Party. "Drat!"

US combat medics always heal enemy wounded. Pacific Island campaign in WWII was an exception where this was not almost universal. An old man in my neighborhood when I was a kid was a medic and was almost attacked by some marines when he was healing a prisoner. He went through with healing him. No one in Vietnam ever objected to healing the NVA. Most of the world's militaries do the same. Almost no police force in the world would allow a criminal to bleed out when treatment was available.
So I don't know why anyone finds this far-fetched.

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Quote from: WillInNewHaven;982002US combat medics always heal enemy wounded. Pacific Island campaign in WWII was an exception where this was not almost universal. An old man in my neighborhood when I was a kid was a medic and was almost attacked by some marines when he was healing a prisoner. He went through with healing him. No one in Vietnam ever objected to healing the NVA. Most of the world's militaries do the same. Almost no police force in the world would allow a criminal to bleed out when treatment was available.
So I don't know why anyone finds this far-fetched.

They're talking about a pseudomedieval fantasy world full of dwarfs.

Quote from: Dumarest;982038They're talking about a pseudomedieval fantasy world full of dwarfs.

And I in particular hate the kind of pseudomedieval fantasy world that is "a Renaissance Faire with magic"; that is, people look, act, talk, and think like 21st century American science fiction fans and fantasy geeks, but the world has monsters and magic an' shit.

WillInNewHaven - Your examples are of medics are in the modern world, which are based on international cooperation like the Geneva Conventions (in the case of war) or an established professional police force.


Historically, these sorts of agreements in war were generally applied among opponents that both respected them. For example, the Germans in WWII generally followed the established rules of war among European countries for the treatment of wounded and prisoners. However, the Japanese in WWII did not respect these conventions, and in response the U.S. gave less respect to Japanese wounded and prisoners than they did to Germans. I could see that there might be such a code among dwarves. If the PCs were overcome by their attackers, might they have been healed, captured, and ransomed? If they weren't, and they expected to be murdered if they fell - then responding in kind would be more the norm.

Likewise, respect for the rights of criminal murderers is a product of having a safe society with constitutional rights and a professional police force. In the absence of these social structures, it's far less likely for there to be a code of treating attacker's wounds. (Also, in practice, cop killers tend to be dealt with particularly harshly.) Medieval societies usually worked around citizen enforcement of laws rather than professional police, and the enforcing citizens were not held to the standards of modern police.

Quote from: jhkim;982055Medieval societies usually worked around citizen enforcement of laws rather than professional police, and the enforcing citizens were not held to the standards of modern police.

Ding!  Winner!

Quote from: jhkim;982055WillInNewHaven - Your examples are of medics are in the modern world, which are based on international cooperation like the Geneva Conventions (in the case of war) or an established professional police force.


Historically, these sorts of agreements in war were generally applied among opponents that both respected them. For example, the Germans in WWII generally followed the established rules of war among European countries for the treatment of wounded and prisoners. However, the Japanese in WWII did not respect these conventions, and in response the U.S. gave less respect to Japanese wounded and prisoners than they did to Germans. I could see that there might be such a code among dwarves. If the PCs were overcome by their attackers, might they have been healed, captured, and ransomed? If they weren't, and they expected to be murdered if they fell - then responding in kind would be more the norm.

Likewise, respect for the rights of criminal murderers is a product of having a safe society with constitutional rights and a professional police force. In the absence of these social structures, it's far less likely for there to be a code of treating attacker's wounds. (Also, in practice, cop killers tend to be dealt with particularly harshly.) Medieval societies usually worked around citizen enforcement of laws rather than professional police, and the enforcing citizens were not held to the standards of modern police.

To be fair, the surrounding human societies find Glon' rather odd in this respect. So I guess they are more in line with the thinking on here. However, Glon' is "pseudomedieval fantasy world (nation, really) full of Dwarfs," so I don't see how "back then" arguments apply to it. In some respects, the Dwarfs of Glon' are ahead of their time but basically, the whole world is off the real-world timeline. Has been since 1981.

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