What's the Extent of your character's CAK?

[nexus]

If your character has a Code vs Killing does it have any exceptions? If you have several characters pick your favorite, make an "average" assessment or list them in a post if you please.

Poll to follow

[nexus]

My two characters with CAKs:

Valkyrie and Eve: Everything sapient counts and Eve will try as hard as she can to avoid hurting non sapients.

[ngc7293]

We had a lot of characters, a lot of games and a lot of GMs. Code vs. Killing was as popular as Hunted by VIPER :) I don't recall anyone having exceptions though.

[Nagisawa Takumi]

Technically, MACH 5 doesn't have a CaK. He doesn't kill because bounties are wanted alive only.

[braincraft]

Well, some characters have bigger CAKs than others, and some don't have CAKs at all. Some CAKs have a peculiar bent to them. If following a CAK isn't difficult, it's not really a disadvantage; having a CAK should be hard. It should be a big deal when someone breaks their CAK. Occasionally, characters lose their CAKs, which is always traumatic.

We should all keep in mind that though this is a game, very real ethical exploration can be made through the evolving narrative. Be respectful of your CAK even when you're having fun with it.

I have a pretty average CAK myself, but I haven't had any complaints.

[fbdaury]

Character I played in a Fuzion Champs game, called Hairtrigger, was interesting in that he was a living weapon with CKA total but only vs. Living Humanoids- on several occasions he was forced to go completely one man army to save his less lethal classmates- champs high campaign. Wiped out humanoid-esque bugs, vampires, zombies and robots but never a human.

[AnotherSkip]

Undead have allready HAD a life and lost it. Bang! Go away.

[bubba smith]

supernatural entities ai's and the undeads a last resortfor tuff-man
the first two only as a last resort

[Pariah]

ColdFire: Her Code vs. Killing (CvK) only applies to human beings. Aliens and extradimensional entities (like the Ice Demon Lord who's the bastard father of her daughter) are exempt and can be summarily dispatched. That said, she is extremely dedicated to protecting human life--even if those humans happen to be DEMON agents or the like. It's caused conflict with her teammates in the past.

Wild Card: His CvK is total (although if he ever meets Jack Fool again, he may reconsider).

Amethyst: She has only the default CvK; she spent her Disad Points on other Psych Lims (like Protective of the People of Earth). She was trained from young childhood to fight a war against alien invaders. When they arrived, she had no problems whatsoever killing as many of them as necessary to protect the planet. She and her teammates killed A LOT of them.

Morningstar: No real exceptions, though her commitment to her CvK is Strong rather than Total. She tries not to kill in a fight, but if a Genocide agent just happens to fall to his death, she's not too broken up about it.

Onyx: No exceptions. He's a Boy Scout.

Magnetite: All sentients are included in her CvK. She's met a lot of aliens.

Pariah: Standard CvK, but Strong rather than Total. The Greater Good is sometimes more important than saving an individual life. He uses lethal force only with the greatest reluctance, though.

[Peregrine]

Peregrine: No CvK in wartime; will not kill routinely in other combat situations but understands that "combat = potentially deadly" is an equation that usually cannot be cheated; will accept surrender

[nexus]

Well, some characters have bigger CAKs than others, and some don't have CAKs at all. Some CAKs have a peculiar bent to them. If following a CAK isn't difficult, it's not really a disadvantage; having a CAK should be hard. It should be a big deal when someone breaks their CAK. Occasionally, characters lose their CAKs, which is always traumatic.

We should all keep in mind that though this is a game, very real ethical exploration can be made through the evolving narrative. Be respectful of your CAK even when you're having fun with it.

I have a pretty average CAK myself, but I haven't had any complaints.

It was kind of a long trip but, all in all, I think it was worth it.

Repped. :)

[Peregrine]

Well, some characters have bigger CAKs than others, and some don't have CAKs at all. Some CAKs have a peculiar bent to them. If following a CAK isn't difficult, it's not really a disadvantage; having a CAK should be hard. It should be a big deal when someone breaks their CAK. Occasionally, characters lose their CAKs, which is always traumatic.

We should all keep in mind that though this is a game, very real ethical exploration can be made through the evolving narrative. Be respectful of your CAK even when you're having fun with it.

I have a pretty average CAK myself, but I haven't had any complaints.

Which means that CAK/CvK should only appear on the character sheet if you want it to be a significant story issue; otherwise, it's just roleplay.

[Zed-F]

Soulbarb as a teen or young heroine does not have a CvK. She can and will kill when she feels it's necessary, most particularly repeat offenders who the system has not been willing/able to bring to justice, or those who pose a threat to innocents so dire as to call for taking no chances. She's confident her Soulsight will prevent her from making any serious mistakes, as long as she's careful. Her campaign city is a grim-and-gritty Gotham-clone.

As she gets older, her outlook changes somewhat, and she comes to the conclusion that she doesn't have the moral right to bypass even a flawed justice system. Instead she focuses her efforts toward cleaning up the justice system so that it has a chance to do its job. Her campaign becomes a bit brighter in tone and she develops a CvK (Strong) against Unsanctioned killing. Although she doesn't particularly relish killing and will look for alternatives first, if someone with the legal authority to declare war or otherwise take the kid gloves off against a particular foe or class of foes gives the word, she is still willing to kill if that's what it takes. She just won't do it on her own initiative any longer.

Soulbarb at this point in her career is more about developing a working relationship with law and government in her game world, rather than working outside of it and not trusting it. As such, part of the assumptions of the game world is that the authorities will most times be reasonable and realistic about when to take off the kid gloves. In Soulbarb's game world, if an army of zombies were to try to attack the campaign city, the military would be called in and they would be using lethal weapons to try to stop the zombies; Soulbarb would see herself in a similar light as far as potential rules of engagement go.

That said, Soulbarb does have a significant mystical background / education and her Soulsight, and can usually tell with a fair degree of accuracy whether any given foe has a soul, is redeemable, and otherwise merits consideration for a CvK. This includes having a good idea what will probably happen to them if their physical body is 'killed' in the case of supernatural entities, the undead, etc. If something does not have a soul at all, it's probably fair game for exclusion from a CvK; she hasn't really considered the case of AIs, but she wouldn't be terribly surprised if a sufficiently advanced self-aware AI did in fact have a soul of some sort.

Sylph is in more of a 4-colour game world, and has a regular CvK (at Strong IIRC.) Normally she avoids killing at all, and takes a dim view of others who would use lethal tactics. She allows that the possibility of a scenario where a villain must be killed could theoretically exist, but finds it hard to imagine such a scenario occuring in practice as she has a lot of options at her disposal. She prefers to use non-lethal attacks such as entangles, NNDs, etc., though if push comes to shove she will use her TK to entrap someone where a fall could have potentially severe consequences should they try to escape from it. (Her CvK isn't to the point of protecting villains from their own suicidal urges, though she will certainly try to heal them afterward if they are insane enough to risk the fall.)

However, her Maenad side is much more cavalier about potentially lethal actions. She's tossed unconscious villains from the roof of a building to be picked up by law enforcement officers at street level, doesn't generally hold back on her attacks, and doesn't much concern herself about collateral damage. She's also killed in the past -- a serial killer who was in the process of attempting to murder a child and herself -- and under the right circumstances would do so again. Generally it takes a lot even for Maenad to go that far deliberately, however.

Eventually Sylph and Maenad's personalities will merge closer together, and at that point Sylph will come to have an Ancient Code of Heroes, rather than a true CvK. So long as a potential foe behaves with a certain modicum of honor and restraint, Sylph will do likewise, and Maenad's recklessness will be curtailed by Sylph's gentleness. Against the truly evil or blasphemous, however, Sylph will no longer be motivated by her inherent gentleness, and she won't hold back... though she still wouldn't deliberately kill under most circumstances.

Regarding exceptions to the CvK, Sylph doesn't really have any; anything sapient counts and she prefers not to kill anything alive, with a few exceptions for common pests like mosquitos.

[braincraft]

Character I played in a Fuzion Champs game, called Hairtrigger, was interesting in that he was a living weapon with CKA total but only vs. Living Humanoids- on several occasions he was forced to go completely one man army to save his less lethal classmates- champs high campaign. Wiped out humanoid-esque bugs, vampires, zombies and robots but never a human.

... your CAK is on a Hairtrigger? That must be rough.

[Naanomi]

One of my teammates is an Advanced AI, a coldwar era mothballed war robot that was repaird and reactivated by a retired Navy Engineer...

He has CVK: All except Communists

[CrosshairCollie]

My CVKs apply to 'all sapients'; sentient robots and undead are safe, but automatons aren't.

[bubba smith]

My CVKs apply to 'all sapients'; sentient robots and undead are safe, but automatons aren't.
by "automatons"you refer to remote controled robots?

[CrosshairCollie]

by "automatons"you refer to remote controled robots?

Basically, yes. Not necessarily remote controlled, but robots that aren't self-aware and can't truly think. Mindless undead would also qualify as automatons.

[assault]

I've been toying with using genre appropriate Heroic Codes rather than CvKs for a lot of my characters, but it's very hard to define them.

Anyway, I listed the first four. My Golden Age characters would be likely to exclude Nazis and the Japanese after they enter the war. Italians and other Axis allies too, if appropriate. Of course, if my characters were dealing with spies or saboteurs, they would prefer to take them alive for interrogation, so it wouldn't just be random mayhem.

[Karma]

I have many characters. So here's some:

Fore-eyes: Total. If it can think and reason no killing (usually the one to stop his team-mates). He would draw the line at unthinking robots and zombies.

Hardball: None. If it's trying to kill him, he's damn well going to return the favor. He's an equal opportunity killer though, he won't target any one ... on second thoughts do the Mafia count as living?

Watts: "My programming states that I must neither endanger a human nor allow one to be endangered either through action or inaction... you are not human... you are endangering humans... My programming states that I *must* endanger you." (kills non-human if alone. 'accidentally' allows non-human to be endangered if team-mates around)

[DusterBoy]

I went for undead and the supernatural as the absolute exceptions

My characters (the Centurions) have the "lethal force only in extremis" CvK in verying strengths. For example, Scrapper (leader and brawler) would kill if she thought she wuld be saving lives by doing so. Maze (the mentalist) would still try to find another way.

[Doctor Agenda]

I sometimes take it at a 15-point 'Won't Murder' level, that is, would not set out to kill an individual person, but an enemy soldier, demon, undead, or automaton would be fair game. Killing someone in super combat is acceptable if it is truly unintentional or unavoidable. On the other hand, would regard apparently sapient aliens and robots as individual persons, not to be killed unless they are enemy soldiers or otherwise in combat. Would also not allow someone else to commit murder, although I suppose that might do at a 10-point version. Roughly equivalent to 'will not commit illegal homicide' with a reasonable broadening of the term 'person'.

The ONLY circumstance under which he would undertake an assassination would be in time of war by the command of military leaders he owed allegiance to, or under a 'dead or alive' warrant where alive wasn't doable. Would still have to make an Ego roll to actually do it.

In most games, in practical terms, this translates to a traditional CvK, unless a war comes up. Having super powers usually means you have other options than killing, and 'I'm tired of this guy always escaping and laughing in our faces!' won't lead a 'Won't Murder' character to 'take the S.O.B. down'.

[Spence]

For:

Supernatural Entities (demons, djinn, spirits etc) since they generally pure evil entities that have murdered and tortured anything for centuries plus, killing them is generally a good thing.

Undead (vampires, ghosts, zombies, etc) Already dead, so not a problem.


Artificial Intelligence (sapient robots, computers, androids, clones, etc) Depends, Skynet is sentient and a far cry from Data…. I would break the category in to, AI’s that are fully developed and AI’s that can reason but lack any ethics/emotions.

[Matt the Bruins]

Technically none of my characters has a code vs. killing, but Super Model has the normal aversion to using lethal force unless in an extreme situation where she or innocent bystanders might die if she doesn't use it. I think she'd be less worried about preserving the lives of sentient machines, "monster"-type aliens, and supernatural creatures.

By contrast, Kurzhaan the Conqueror's attitude can be summed up as "Try not to splatter my enemies' blood on anything too difficult to clean."

[Vulcan]

Where my characters would fall on these issues depends a lot on the characters themselves. A mystic who hates necromancers may have no problem snuffing intelligent undead, but hesitate at killing an attack dog. A hardcore computer geek might have more sypathy for an AI computer than the jocks who tormented him as a kid.

It just depends far too much. :thumbup:

[Trebuchet]

Zl'f would probably reluctantly kill a vampire (she's actually done it), but it would still cause her a lot of mental trauma afterwards (which it also did; although the grisly method of the killing - she hammered a stick through its heart in combat* - was undoubtedly part of the trauma). A demon; that's a pure supernatural evil and as a devout Christian she'd probably be OK with it. Androids and aliens, no. She's met many of both and even had an android as a teammate. They're just different kinds of people so far as she's concerned.


* See my short story La faune nocturne de Paris (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46582) for further details.

[Ghost Archer]

Ghost Archer:
"While I do not have a CAK 'offically' by my nature one exists. I have always tried to keep any form of injury to a minimum no matter who my opponent might be. There are a few, however, that I have no trouble trying everything I can to kill."
"Unfortunately, one is actually an old friend and teammate that has allowed his 19th century prejudices free rein and those prejudices have led to his takeover of a part of Genocide. He managed to escape me once more in the aftermath of the Battle of Death Valley a couple of years ago and has been laying low licking his wounds. He knows his life isn't worth a plug nickel when I catch up to him."
"The other times I have no problem with 'killing' involves the undead. I have absolutely no compassion for vampires, no matter how the movies or fiction portrays them. Sparkly or not, they are undead and as evil as any wraith or ghoul."
"The last thing I would kill without thought is beyond my means or he would have been dead years ago but how can one kill a being so powerful he can destroy the known universe? So I have to hope his love for a dear friend of mine keeps him on the straight-and-narrow as I see it. In a way, I wish he'd move his damn tree out of my Valley but then I'd miss her."

[Badger]

Badger- No CvK officially. Will be very reluctant to kill women or children unless they are powerhouses who pose extreme threats.