Good Vs Evil

[Dragontail]

Your party is talking with a pirate who basically tells you your going to work for him or else (expecting a fight to start...)
Party attacks...after a few rounds pirate tells party to drop weapons or the kids outside (30 of them) will all die
party keeps attacking
more pirates come in 1 has a small child with sword to throat...DROP YOUR WEAPONS OR KID DIES...
party keeps attacking... kid dies...more screams outside as other kids start dying...party keeps attacking, pirate yells again...last chance or ill have everyone on island killed...
party....ya keeps attacking....

How is that not evil?

[Dragontail]

as in party.... pirate was evil no question there....the party still attacking caused the pirate to come true with his threat...

[LordEntrails]

Well, do you believe evil is in the action or the intent?

If the action, then many PC's are evil because they attack goblins, orcs and other with no provocation.

If the intent, well, maybe they had reason to believe that if they surrendered, then the pirate would use their weapons and such to carry out more evil. So, did they believe that some had to die to put an end to evil? After all, some justifications for nation-nation-wide war are to kill an evil leader, yet how many thousands or millions die to kill the one leader? (Think of WWII and Hitler.)

Defining evil and good is actually pretty tough. You can get a doctorate in the topic and not have a definitive answer.

[LordBalkoth]

Like LordEntrails indicated, they might have thought surrendering would simply get the party killed...and then the kids would be killed right after that anyway. Now, if they didn't CARE about whether the kids died, that's evil. But they might have thought the kids were dead either way. Or thought killing the pirates had the best chance of maybe saving at least SOME kids.

[dulux-oz]

What the party did certainly wasn't Good but at best Neutral - but whether it was Evil de[ends upon a lot of factors, the primary one being (as my esteemed colleagues have said) what was the intent of their actions - and that's a hell of a lot harder to judge.

If this were my game then anyone with a stated Good Alignment, and especially Paladins and Clerics (being the direct representatives of their chosen (Good) deity) would have move a few steps towards Neutral and should probably be soul-searching - were the characters soul-searching afterwards? Were they wracked with grief for the lose of life? Were they filled with righteous fury at the pirate and his men? If so then I wouldn't call it Evil. On the other-hand, if they were pretty blar-zay about it or even joking about it then I'd say that their intent was Evil, and have the consequences to follow up for it.

That's it, I suppose - over the years I've learnt to judge the Players' intent by not only what they say and do at the time but also to how they react afterwards - its usually a good indication as to how they really] intended for things to apply.

Cheers

[damned]

How did your players justify their actions? Were they remoresful for the loss of childrens lives?
If having the players surrender was critical to your plot you could consider other ways or forcing it - a sleeping gas, bump the pirates up a few levels and have them use subdual damage, have them focus all their attacks on one player at a time, dropping nets on the players, flooding the chamber...
Damn players.
On the other hand... roll with it, have the pirates kill the kids and die, have the villages turn on the PCs or have the main pirate fleet sail into the hidden cove before the party can sleep and regain their spells, have the children begin to haunt the PCs dreams (these PCs seem like they might go "so what?" spell casters cant remember their full complement of spells? clerics find themselves cut off from their gods? mid fight the fighter sees the monster in front of him morph into an innocent child and fails to hit (no roll)) or you could take the players further down the path of "the end justifies the means"...

[LordBalkoth]

you could take the players further down the path of "the end justifies the means"...

I can see quite a few scenarios where this most certainly WASN'T a "The ends justifies the means" situation. Say Alex walks into a room where he sees Bob holding a gun to Chris's head. Bob demands that Alex surrenders or Chris dies. If Alex has good reason to think that surrendering will simply result in Bob shooting Alex and then shooting Chris anyway...Alex surrendering is just stupid. So Alex attempting to shoot Bob before Bob can shoot Chris isn't "The ends justifies the means" but rather "This is the only chance I have to save Chris."

[MarianDz]

I think all is it about "what could be more realistic possible next step" and "why we are in this situation?" "which side planed this or is it only pure accident?" "whos rights can damage malicious if I take opposite side?", "what kind of advantage/disadvantage can I have if taking join this side?" "is it moral or moralless?" like chess.
Nobody knows whats is going to happened. But all of you in short minute (tick-tick) are preparing on every options which flash you though mind only. Everyone could be potential liar of course count you in too. And exist too many other options which because short of time couldn't be considerated. As Lord Entrails writen "Intent" and I add "lesser evil" is key. You haven't more options only two, make Evil decisions or lesser evil decisions! If you don't do anything maybe it is the worst you can do and strange evil things happened. Lesser evil are considered this way as good decisions. Thanx for this thread Dragontail.

[Black Hammer]

The pirates are evil. To accept working for people so cavalier about exploiting child hostages would probably be evil or at least safely assumed to lead to evil.

The party, after all, has killed no children, and are not responsible for the deaths in any way. The pirates made a choice to impair their own combat effectiveness by relying on a strategy expecting their enemies to be not merely "good" but also weak and squeamish. Your players took the correct action and not only ensured that this group of pirates will never hurt children again, but that future opponents of the party will not rely on such a silly move.

[Blackwolf]

I agree with most everyone above, would be nice to get a little more information too. I would have to say more Neutral than Evil and Chaotic as the party choose their own interest defeating the pirates over that of the children's life's. So if you track alignment slide consider that.

[dulux-oz]

...So if you track alignment slide consider that.

And that's a perfect opportunity for me to give a little Shameless(TM) Self-Plug: if you do track alignment then the DOE: Alignment Graph Extension might be a worthwhile addition to you gaming arsenal. It's available from the relevant Forum Thread and also on the FG-Wiki. :p

Cheers