Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

[Evil Toki]

Well I have been running a teen super being game, based in an Aberrant inspired world,, very much Iron Age and gritty. The kids work for the United Nations and have been trained to counteract other superhuman threats often with extreme prejudice if they have to. If terrorists decide they want to try and destroy a building, then the response will be quick, and lethal. There team is called Legacy.

 

Not all the way Authority, but pretty close.

 

Now the heroes just slid into another universe, one that is very four-color and almost late Silver Age/Bronze Age in feel. They run into another teen team, Teen Justice, that fights crime, and unlike the heroes don’t get paid to do it. They avoid confrontation and even end up fighting alongside these heroes against a team of super villains bent on using a toxic nerve gas to poison the whole city and kill everyone, a plot by Ares to spur the nation to war for another terrorist act.

 

In the midst of the battle the leader of the super villains is killed by one of the teens from Legacy, accidentally, but he still killed him nonetheless. Now this hero has killed before when terrorists attacked him and he fried them with a cosmic blast, but the Teen Justice teens react with shock!

 

In fact the leader, Nightchild, pretty much berates him for killing the leader saying that no matter what Teen Justice does not kill. They could have taken him down without killing him. The bomb had just been deactivated in the same round of combat but the damage was done. I enjoyed the clash of ideals and the fallout is great.

 

Just wondering if others have had similar scenes between a clash of ideals… and I guess wonder where do there heroes draw the line for killing, or do they never draw line and always take down their foes without killing them. Or is killing acceptable and they don’t have too many moral compunctions with taken down a foe if they pose that great a threat…

[Chuckg]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Well, being the intellectual lazy-ass that I am (kidding!), I try not to waste skull sweat pondering vast philosophical questions if people in the real world have already done so for me.

 

Which is why I generally use the FBI Rules of Engagement re: lethal force as a guideline. Some characters of mine go above that to Total CvK (for genre purposes), and some go well below (for characterization purposes), but that's my philosophical benchmark.

[Evil Toki]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Makes sense... I tend to be in the middle and it depends on the game... usually my characters have no compunctions using lethal force if the cause is great enough... or if he is dealing with a complete psychopath.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Fortunately, we have people who grasp the concept of 'heroism' around here, so we don't have people who intentionally try to kill people (with one exception, of course, but he never wins the arguments).

[Evil Toki]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Fortunately' date=' we have people who grasp the concept of 'heroism' around here, so we don't have people who intentionally try to kill people (with one exception, of course, but he never wins the arguments).[/quote']

I am curious so do you think the teen was unheroic in killing the terrorist trying to murder millions?

 

I admit the act itself is well violent, but is it unheroic as well?

[Chimpira]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

I ran a game once that had branched out of a solo. It seemed that something had attached itself to a research spacestation. A player was sent up to investigate and see if it was sentient as it was in some sort of stasis cocoon. While on the station it awakens and begins to slaughter everyone inside. The hero is knocked out and left for dead. He awakens and manages to get off the station with a handful of people. He calls the team together. The team goes up and after much hunting and fighting, they are able to barely beat it into unconsciousness. Then, the debate begins. Half the group believes that they should imprison it and the other half want it dead. Usually my players up to that point had never contemplated killing before but the thing was just that dangerous. In the end they contained it and took it back for study.

[TheEmerged]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Speaking as someone from the minority on this board that believes that some people deserve to be killed, we've never had this kind of argument in our gaming group either -- because each of the players and myself could kill that terrorist and not think twice.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

One of my cardinal rules of superheroism is NO KILLING unless it is, literally, absolutely necessary. Since they *could* have taken him down without killing him (by the admission of the team leader), he should not have been killed.

 

This is where superheroics differ from real life. There's always a way besides killing someone, and that way should always be used. The 20pt Code vs Killing is an 'industry standard' for my games; if you don't have it, there should be a very good reason why not.

[nexus]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

I am curious so do you think the teen was unheroic in killing the terrorist trying to murder millions?

 

I admit the act itself is well violent, but is it unheroic as well?

 

My beef with the act is that it wasn't required. If I read things correctly, the threat was neutrilized and the guy didn't have to be killed. Its like if a cop had a choice between tasering the perp and taking him down but instead decided to shoot him in the head. It seems pretty clear cut to me or did I misread the situation?

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Ghost Archer:

"My morality is variable with the law of the land, or in my case, world. In a more civilized wolrd, like Earth, I will kill only when absolutely necessary. I believe in using just enough force to exceed that of my foe and no more. In a less advanced world, I can be just as brutal as my foes and think nothing of snuffing them out in droves."

[Acroyear]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

These questions are always character based for me. I have a character that would have smoked ALL the terrorists and not thought twice about it.

 

I also have a character that would have actively defended the terrorists if I identified the attacks being used by the heroes as something that could have caused serious bodily harm. This character has no problem (and has on occasion) restraining other player characters and even pursuing their imprisonment.

 

And this is where I'll make some of the people around here stain their shorts. I've got a character that has killed another PC for being an obstacle to that PC's version of justice. "With me or against me. Choose."

[Badger]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Actually had clashes like that in games I played (thanks in part to me)

 

Actually in one of 2 campaigns I have played my namesake, we were all pretty much reformed criminals so killing was always a possibility for me and the 3 other main characters.

 

I recycled that character in another campaign as his reformed criminal self with mostly do-gooders as teammates. Made it real fun for me. My character had to fight the temptation to kill more than the others. Because if I did then as a reformed killer the public backlash would be worse on me than what it would have been if it was one of the others. Would occasionally nearly come to blows with the resident boy scout of the team.

 

Basically the first I mentioned was more fun because the people I played with were good friends of mine. But the second one was more interesting to the "angst" if you will.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Superheroes killing anyone, either accidentaly or on purpose, has been very rare in the games I have played in. When it has been accidental, the response has been almost universally the same: shock, dismay, and a gathering of forces as the team decides what, if anything, they can do to prove that it was both accidental and unavoidable.

 

On the two occassions I can recall when it has been intentional, one was during a battle, but it was definitely intentional. After the fight was over, the other superheroes basically tackled the superhero who did the lethal deed and turned them in to the authorities.

 

On the other occasion, the superhero would-be killer (not the same superhero as above) snuck into the villain's base (the base of the master villain the villain-to-be-killed was working for, actually) and killed them in their sleep. Everyone, including the master villain for whom the "victim" worked, looked the other way for that (which was easy to do with so little evidence, although several people suspected the truth).

[palehorse]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Well, here's my thing... When I started my most recent supers campaign, I sat down with the players and said "OK, I know you guys are interested in doing a supers game, here are a few ideas I have." The folks who are playing in it are all my age, and have fond memories of the old Silver Age comics, so that's the flavor we decided to go with. So this sort of thing has simply never been an issue, because of that agreement: they wouldn't go around killing people, and I wouldn't put them in situations where killing is the only solution.

[Lupus]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Many of my characters end up sharing my own sensibilities - that unless there is no other option, you aim to capture. Seeing the terrorist on trial at the Hague would be a much better end, in my opinion. (In the world I play in, at least, the Hauge - in response to rising international violent/terrorist-related crimes in superpowered worlds - has permanent jurisdiction over international terrorist activities. Individual countries may prosecute, if they wish, but the Hague can hear such cases without special dispensation.)

 

'Course, I did have one character who would have put a bullet through his head (or fed him cyanide and said 'he must have had a false tooth') because there's a chance that such public trials can go wrong, and he wouldn't want to take that chance. I don't qualify that character as a 'superhero', however, despite him having superpowers and /generally/ being on the right side of conflicts.

 

But on the most part, like they said in The Negotiator... 'You're not getting off that easily.'

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Just wondering if others have had similar scenes between a clash of ideals… and I guess wonder where do there heroes draw the line for killing, or do they never draw line and always take down their foes without killing them. Or is killing acceptable and they don’t have too many moral compunctions with taken down a foe if they pose that great a threat…

 

In the games I run and play in, killing is basically something that is not done. Sometimes a "special adventure" will be run that is not unlike a graphic novel or miniseries from the source literature, where these rules are relaxed, but that is stated before hand.

 

In actuality killing has only happened twice while I've been playing/GMing.

 

First was a plot I concocted for Blackcat. Blackcat was a Darkforce enhanced martial artist, and I wanted her to become a regular MA, and lose her powers.I came up to the GM and said "Hey can we run a Cat dies, comes back from the dead possesed by her powers, goes evil, kills someone, goes to jail, gets redeemed, comes back plot" To which the GM said "Okay". It was worked in over a years, and was really great. The thing about it, the killing was while the sentience that was in control of her powers was in control, but she still felt it was her.

 

The other was while I was GMing, and it was one of those graphic novel kind of things I mentioned earlier. Now in this game each player had 2 or 3 characters, so I could do the "everyone split up" kind of stories, or the kind you find in the legion, with lots of different plots going on with different subteams. . I decided to let the hero team actually completely stop a villian team.So I introduced PSI. As nasty or nastier than in Mind Game. I kept escalating thier atrocities. Certain characters were getting very irritated.

So during the invasion of Chicago by demons they found out where PSI was and a group of the darkest PCS (one from each player) went down and took them out. Psimon was killed, as was Inquisitor, Mind Slayer and a couple others were vegatablized. One of the characters, a warbeast from another dimension who kept wanting to eat things (including downed villians - it became a running gag) was allowed to eat some of PSI. It was blamed on the demon invasion when found.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

I'm more Parking Meter Reader, Pencil Pusher, and Court Stenographer.

[Wanderer]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

I tend to use the following rough guideline for my heroes: people who are responsible of really severe crimes (roughly genocide, mass murder, serial killing, child rape, torture, first-degree murder, terrorism against civilians, crimes against humanity, really severe harm to nature that significantly endangers community or future generations, maybe willful gross negligence that results in the deaths of many) and are actively unrepentant or a clear danger may be summarily executed by the heroes. Killing to save or protect an innocent from grevious harm is acceptable, so it is killing in self-defense, or in a war situation if the opponent had a decent chance. Repentant evildoers should be given another chance, and killing should not be the first option, except when it is the by far most efficient way to protect the innocent/mankind/Earth. Laws are generally not a meaningful or important concern for the kind of character I prefer.

[JmOz]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Last session I actualy had a player pay down his CvK to "Soldier" level (15 points). He is currently leading a faction in a civil war of an alien culture.

 

End of session, as per the laws of his people, he executed one of his rivals for the throne. When I say execute: The individual had been subdued, they got a TP to broadcast it out, and he broke the guys neck...

[jackalope]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Just wondering if others have had similar scenes between a clash of ideals… and I guess wonder where do there heroes draw the line for killing' date=' or do they never draw line and always take down their foes without killing them. Or is killing acceptable and they don’t have too many moral compunctions with taken down a foe if they pose that great a threat…[/quote']

 

That depends entirely on the type of character I am trying to play. My two primary characters, Iron Demon and Peacekeeper, could not be more different in this respect.

 

Peacekeeper would find the concept of being "Judge, Jury and Executioner" completely antiethical. He is a cop, it's his job to bring criminals to Justice, not to take it into his own hands. While he does not have a CvK, he does abide by something like the FBI rles of engagement, and he is fully aware of the fact that the vast majority of Earth weaponry simply can't harm him in his battlesuit, plus he carries an array of non-leathal weapons (stun blaster/martial arts). So, there really is never a need to kill. He has never taken a human life.

 

Iron Demon on the other hand, is a killer who never gives death a moments thought. Death is unreal and somewhat meaningless to Iron Demon, and so he doesn't mind dealing it out with aheavy hand. He generally only kills criminals - on purpose. He's sloppy though, and that's dangerous when your main power is the ability to hurl bombs at people. He's tossed bombs into crowds of bystanders to ail fleeing crooks, etc. But he won't kill cops that are pursuing him (well, there was that one helicopter...I don't think those guys survived).

[Victim]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

The tone of the game was more Bronze/Iron than anything else; almost all super powers do lethal damage by default.

 

To be fair, the character in question has had problems with "incapacitated" foes getting back up. In his last mission, he Ko'd one enemy who quickly recovered from the non-lethal version of his attack. Others on the team nailed their primary target with powers that kept him from acting for a short time, then claimed to have him ready for capture. Those powers lasted pretty much until the team got the villain outside the building where they had planned to contain the battle. The main villain was recaptured with some difficulty. In other words, recent experience told the character that his group's non lethal options were unreliable.

 

Nexus, the threat was by no means neutralized, however, your analogy is still appropriate. Essentially, 2 full hero teams clashed with 4 villains against the backdrop of 2 gods fighting. The battle went something like this:

----------------------------------

PC fails to get bomb away from villains. The guy that dies successfully uses mind control on her (order: kill your friends). NPC speedster climbs onto the nerve gas bomb. A whole bunch of ineffective attacks and misses follow. An NPC on the PC team uses a Drain Body on the enemy brick; it doesn't kill him, but leaves him more vulnerable. NPC heals another NPC. Another miss, then someone whipped up a gadget to do something to the bomb. The PC brick badly injures the enemy brick. The character in question tears the mind control guy in half. The now formerly mind controlled character blinds the last healthy enemy, then the enemy brick is knocked out. A hidden enemy withdraws. A lot of people waste actions in shock or by yelling at the killer. The last enemy surrenders, but is knocked out anyway.

----------------------------------------------

While the situation and tides of battle up to that point strongly favored the PCs (massive numbers advantage, one enemy badly hurt), the battle wasn't really certain. The PC group, with one exception, ranges from very vulnerable to mostly vulnerable against mind control. With mind control on the right one or two people, it's a whole new ball game. For example, if the mind controlled victim got off her original MC'd action, several characters and the nerve gas bomb would have been blasted by lightning, Flashed, and EMP'd by her super MPA.

 

However, the character did choose to his more lethal attack over his equally damaging subdual attack. Still, most of the other characters use the same type of attacks. Also, given the difficulty of actually killing someone, a "lethal" attack is more likely to just injure - most of the time, actually killing someone requires a seperate coup de grace. Probably the only reason the target ended up dead was because the character's HtH damage shield acted as the finishing strike.

[Evil Toki]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Thanks Victim for making the situation all the more clear I appreciate it.

[Victim]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

Well, being the intellectual lazy-ass that I am (kidding!), I try not to waste skull sweat pondering vast philosophical questions if people in the real world have already done so for me.

 

Which is why I generally use the FBI Rules of Engagement re: lethal force as a guideline. Some characters of mine go above that to Total CvK (for genre purposes), and some go well below (for characterization purposes), but that's my philosophical benchmark.

 

Where can the FBI rules of engagement be found? I didn't find them searching on their site, and general Google searchs are flooded by discussions of Waco and Ruby Ridge.

[Chuckg]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

It used to be longer, but they revised their FAQ recently and now this is the only answer they got up there:

 

What is the FBI's policy on the use of deadly force by its Special Agents?

 

FBI Special Agents may use deadly force only when necessary--when the Special Agent has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the Special Agent or another person. If feasible, a verbal warning to submit to the authority of the Special Agent shall be given prior to the use of deadly force.

 

http://www.fbi.gov/aboutus/faqs/faqsone.htm#anchor463575

(and scroll down)

[Slim_McCoy]

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

 

It used to be longer' date=' but they revised their FAQ recently and now this is the only answer they got up there:[/quote']

 

Good reference, and surprisingly well-written for a government guidline. Leaves a fair amount of leeway for personal evaluation of the situation, which is absolutely vital, IMO.