Legal Absurdities and your Fake Morality

[skrylar]

I have to wonder (aside from the obvious answer that the hardcore players are just bored and like picking on normal people) why anyone believes any of this "morality" malarky that higher end players use as justification for killing. If you're a bandit and kill for the fun of it, just own up and say you're a bandit and kill people because it's amusing. Trying to pin morals because you found a clue of a crime (which the current system leaves the game completely broken in that regard, tracking a person is an involved process thats currently distilled to a homing beacon) is really pathetic. If you're tracking outlaws "for the greater good", you should take a moment to think about the way legal systems usually work. If a town was raided with thievery scents everywhere and the village chief/remaining people want something done then by all means it's the "right" thing to do (by classical morality), however I've never seen a case where death was an appropriate sentence for trespassing anywhere in the modern world (except for maybe military bases). Even in mideval eras theft was generally punished by amputation of the hand (or in more recent eras fines and/or the equivalent of KOing someone a few times), so this isn't even a proper vail.

tl;dr: Stop cowering behind self proclaimed morality, if you're going to be a killer then be a killer and stop waving pathetic excuses around.

[Vattic]

I can sort of see what your saying but when someone robs you you can either do nothing, knock them out or kill them. It's not exactly a lot of options. If someone knocks your stone walls down to rob you then they leave you no choice but to kill them, in the hope that they have low tradition, otherwise they can come back at any time. Oh and you cant summon someone for trespassing.

edit: strange strange use of you / they.

[Jackard]

YMS: Your 'Morals' Suck

[Colbear]

I have to agree with this.

I mean, I'm the carebeariest of carebears, and have fun playing with newbies and planting grapes and junk, but I still find it the height of hypocrisy for someone to try and take a moral high ground to justify their OWN committal of a crime or violation of the rules (and I'm thinking of that guy who said "exploits are okay as long as they're for a good cause, otherwise they're EVIL", here).

While I don't like thieves, and personally I wouldn't steal from anyone, I do have some modicum of respect for a thief that, when asked why he's taking my pickaxe, will say, "Because I want to", or "Because it's valuable" -- because at least then, he's being honest, and I'm being treated with some level of respect as a person. I mean, yeah it sucks but still.

On the other hand, I really do have a problem with people who make up arbitrary excuses -- "he stole from someone so I will kill him, and I will be in the right", especially in the case where a friend was stealing from their buddy (with permission, either looking around or borrowing something -- which I always let my friends do, even if I'm not near enough to kin them) and someone executed him for it. No, you're not in the right. You're a murderer -- you might be a murderer with an arbitrary code of law, but you're still a murderer, and you need to admit that.

This is like the people who think that Dexter's a good guy just because he only kills serial killers. No, he's not. He's a sociopath and he's dangerous and also a really bad guy -- he's just charismatic. The show's kind of deviating from that, but ultimately, he is not a good person and he deserves to be in prison and if he couldn't find serial killers, he'd just kill what he can get his hands on -- the neighbor's cats from when he was a kid, etc.

[copyannon]

You say that you have three choices, though. Killing is only one. What exactly is wrong with knocking them out a coupla times? They know that you can find them, they've lost some hhp, but they haven't lost the whole character; that seems like a pretty good deterrent that's unlikely to cause an army of alts to spammageddon your stuff. In fact, I might be tempted to say that a death sentence for every crime is one of the main reasons that thieves use untraceable alts to hide their gear.

I admit that I play kind of carebear, so take it with a grain of salt. I just don't understand why, in a game that clearly allows for theft-in which there's an entire skill tree devoted to it-murder is the first, and apparently only, option.

Now, if you're just looking for an excuse to pk, that's part of the game too; so go crazy, I guess.

[Jackard]

all vigilantes are lying scum

[Colbear]

I can sort of see what your saying but when someone robs you you can either do nothing, knock them out or kill them. It's not exactly a lot of options. If someone knocks your stone walls down to rob you then they leave you no choice but to kill you, in the hope that you have low tradition, otherwise they can come back at any time. Oh and you cant summon someone for trespassing.

You're right. And I don't find anything wrong with that. But if you hunt someone down and kill them, you are a murderer. You may be justified, but you're still a murderer breaking the rules of "polite society", and you have to own up to that. You can't say, "I killed him because he stole my stuff." but when you diverge into "I killed him because he stole a total stranger's stuff", that really becomes "I killed him because I had the power to summon him at his hearth", which is just a longer way of saying, "I killed him because I can", which is a standard antisocial response.

I think a lot of these rangers are being overzealous here. It's one thing to answer an appeal for help -- but it's another thing to go around LOOKING for excuses to kill people, which I feel crosses the line between "justified criminal acts" and "violence because I can, to show off".

And I really don't like the latter.

[Mules]

I think a lot of these rangers are being overzealous here. It's one thing to answer an appeal for help -- but it's another thing to go around LOOKING for excuses to kill people, which I feel crosses the line between "justified criminal acts" and "violence because I can, to show off".

I love this.

[Erik_the_Blue]

Unfortunately, we're currently living in an era of "might makes right". Until in-game societies determine for themselves that this is not acceptable, and have the force by some means to enforce their laws and ethics on the land surrounding the village's direct control, there's basically nothing that can be done besides organizing black lists and hit lists, and hoping the strong men eventually get around to taking care of those picking on the weak men. Of course, internet anonymity and the safety of alts don't help matters.

[copyannon]

I still think that the alts are symptomatic of the death penalty for every crime, though. Even the smallest thing will get you killed, so if you want to be a thief, which is part of the game and needs testing, you have to bend the rules. I've read here that the developers say that "help is on the way" for thieves, and I hope they mean it, because it seems like right now the only way they can get by is to exploit the system.

Also, on the "might makes right" thing, I assume that combat is getting a severe look at. If there were a penalty for fighting multiple opponents at once, villages could be made capable of defending themselves from nearly every attack. I can't imagine any good reason from a gameplay perspective for this not to happen, apart from people don't want to be held even remotely responsible for bullying strangers on the internet, which, I guess, is kind of the point of this thread.