In game ethical questions

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

not true KODT has pack apes... trained gorrillas who are not only torchbearers, but trained combatants.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

and Hackmaster, which is based on the above, so not really different.

[Captain Morgan]

Skar

Hardly.  There are far more alternatives to open battle than killing innocent civilians.  

Destruction of materiel for example is far more damaging to an oppressive government than the death of its citizens. (an oppressive government does not care about its citizens after all)  And if you're using terrorism to rebel against a non-oppressive government, killing innocent civilians gains you nothing but more enemies and a populace who doesn't like you either.  Distinctly less-effective.

While it is true you can take the peacful route to try to topple a government, it hardly ever is effective.  Also terrorism isn't just about attacking "innocent civilians". One of the three dictionary entries you entered included property, and two of the three said people or state and public. Remember the USS Cole is classified as a terrorist act, and it was against our military. Hence if you are going to conduct voilence to toople the corrupt government, it would be considered terrorism. Using guerilla tactics against the military, destorying government or public facilities, assassinations, killing innocent civilians are all considered terrorism and for the most part is called terrorism today. Although I would say to be a terrorist or to insicite terrorism, you would have the objective to cause terror for political cause. While property damage is much more useful in many case in a rebellion, it is still under todays definition considered terrorism. Look at enviromentalist extermist that destroy power lines and oil rigs becuase of what those objects do to nature. Our news and government classifies those acts as terrorism.

We need a new word that describes the kind of things rebels do to inflict damage on an oppressive government with the aim of toppling it but does not target innocent civilians.

Hear, Hear, I think they should just be called rebels and leave it at that. Lets leave terrorism and terrorist to the real world, and let player characters be the heros that free a nation!

[Oseleon]

heaven forbid the thought that the author of Dictonary entries MIGHT have a political belief and/or agenda

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

That's a ridiculous accusation! Daniel Webster CERTAINLY didn't write the first dictionary of American English with the idea in mind of separating us linguistically from our British colonizers! The very thought! Goodness!

</heavy sarcasm>

[Oseleon]

So just be carfull with using Dictionary definitions to define matters of opinion or political belief.  Ref. Newspeak

[Skar]

While it is true you can take the peacful route to try to topple a government, it hardly ever is effective.  

I say again in a different way, there are many things that a rebel can do that are not targeting innocent civilians but are still not the "peaceful route" that hardly ever works or open battle.

Also terrorism isn't just about attacking "innocent civilians". One of the three dictionary entries you entered included property, and two of the three said people or state and public. Remember the USS Cole is classified as a terrorist act, and it was against our military. Hence if you are going to conduct voilence to toople the corrupt government, it would be considered terrorism. Using guerilla tactics against the military, destorying government or public facilities, assassinations, killing innocent civilians are all considered terrorism and for the most part is called terrorism today. Although I would say to be a terrorist or to insicite terrorism, you would have the objective to cause terror for political cause. While property damage is much more useful in many case in a rebellion, it is still under todays definition considered terrorism. Look at enviromentalist extermist that destroy power lines and oil rigs becuase of what those objects do to nature. Our news and government classifies those acts as terrorism.

I agree that there are a wide range of possible meanings of the word, which is why I called for a new word to allow us to separate violent acts with a political goal that target civilians and those that don't.   I maintain that there is a line between violently rebellious acts that are acceptable if you believe your cause is just and acts that are NOT acceptable even if you believe your cause is just.

[Captain Morgan]

The Thought Police are going to be after me for my thoughtcrime. I know it! I must hide even though Big Brother is watching me. (This is more true then you could possibly know) Since newspeak is all I pretty much have to work with and anything that might contain oldspeak is long since gone from my household, I don't have much of a choice but use a reference that the author may have been politcal/religiously motivated to write about. Since the dictionary is something we can all find and see what better reference to use to in defence of our statement then a definition I decided to use that no one else will have access to. With that being said...

I sincerely apologize for stealing the thread's main topic of in game ethics, and going deeper into what exactly constitutes terrorism.  I can get carried away with a side topic and take it to the exterme. That said if we want to continue and decided what the definition of a terrorist is and a good term for a rebel that is fighting a curropt government, then we should start a new thread. Other than that, let's carry on! Cheers mates.

[Oseleon]

http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1105543271;start=0  Started a thread about deffinition

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

we get off topic all the time. We're not as worried about that as many other forums are. The only time it becomes a problem is when people want to talk about the new subject AND the old subject still. Which appears to be the case. Just an FYI.

[Captain Morgan]

While it may be more acceptable here to hijack the thread from time to time, it is not something that I like to do when creating a new thread is so easy. (And yet here I am continuing it still. <sigh> That's why I apologized. However, it will not stop me from doing it in the future, and I do like talking to people as laid back as I am. I was just trying to be polite, which for people who know me would get a chuckle from that. where am I going with this? I don't remember anymore.

[Nicadymus]

In a Star Wars campaign that involved Rican, Moredew, and Cpt. Morgan playing Jedi in the Old Republic around the time of Episode I, and subsequently Episode II, ethical questions were quite common.

One of my favorite situations, yet undiscussed in the outline I am working on, but worth mentioning here, was as follows:

While fleeing some powerful bad guys, Moredew's Nautolin Jedi , Kree-Lorn Gwar, hopped into a taxi and told the guy to floor it.  The Cabby refused saying that he would not break the law.  Kree-Lorn then used his jedi mind trick and said, (and I quote) "You will break the law."  Moredew rolled an incredibly high roll to succeed (something like 2 nat 20's followed by a 17 adding his skill which was around a +12 if I remember right), and the Cabby critically botched (rolling 2 nat 1's in a roll follwed by a 4).  The result was that the Cabby went on a vehicular homicide rampage trying to mow down children (averted by the combined telekinetic force of all 3 Jedi (Kree-Lorn, Ryze (played by Morgan) and Eeth (played by Rican), and successfully killing their mother.

The question then became, "Should Kree-Lorn receive a Dark Side point?"  Ethically, he himself only manipulated a person, and only intended a minor infraction, speeding.  However, the result cost the life of an innocent, and invoked another to disobey cultural guidelines.

Any thoughts how the GM's out there would address that issue?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think I'd give him a dark side point for not considering the consequences of his action. He could have said "You will speed" rather than "You will break the law" and avoided that unpleasant consequence.

[Fellfrosch]

I agree with Eric--the guilt alone should be enough to warrant a dark side point. That's pretty cool, though, and would have been fun to roleplay.

[Nicadymus]

It was a lot of fun, although the role-playing "suffered" a bit when everyone involved started cracking up when the GM began describing the actions of the cabby, and a brief interlude portraying an exhcange between Yoda and Windu regarding the impressions they were feeling regarding the actions of these Jedi.

Needless to say, it has become a classic moment in our gaming group that we have a good chuckle about still.

I felt it was a great battle of ethics.  While the Jedi's intentions were good, his actions, while in and of themselves were not evil, brought about an evil act.  What I found esecially challenging was when the Jedi, after "creating" the rampaging cabby, tried to prevent him from harming others, while simultaneously trying to avoid harming him as he was, by definition, an "innocent" acting under the influence of a "more dangerous and powerful entity;" aka a Jedi.