GM/Player Style: Grey Areas & Red Lines

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I'm sorry -- that reminded me of a hideous flashback my mother had a few years ago. To keep her privacy, I'll just say it involved being loaded into rail cars on the way to the Camps by the Nazis. Jeeeezzz -- I know you didn't mean to do so, but -- ehzzzzh! I'm sure it's worse in her head, and I'm thankful that she can't remember her childhood and teens most of the time.

In this case it was really just coincidence that it's Germans - could have just as easily have been French, US, Greek or whatever troops doing it (ok, maybe not French or Greek given the game's in Poland). It was really just down to the luck of the die as to the nationality of the unit (mind you, only about 60% are actually Germans with the rest a mix of Russians, Poles, Czechs, and a sprinkling of Canadians and US).

I think the fact it's Germans in Poland doing it lends weight to the level of atrocity. In my mind at least the actions we've witnessed do make sense - can't keep prisoners when you're a small unit far behind enemy lines with limited resources, can't let them go either. It's a crappy situation for anyone to be in and characters (and players) are forced to decide what level of evil can they accept for the greater good and continued personal survival.

Atrocity without reason is where I draw the line generally, and there's usually little need to graphically detail the scene - "you see a dead body, likely killed with a flamethrower, the area around them scorched as well" is probably enough the majority of the time rather going into the details of sights and smells.

The WWII firebombing of Dresden by the allies is an example of atrocity. At the time the reasons where there, at least in allied minds. To the Germans caught in it though....
Perspective is important when discussing atrocity - in more modern times, the death of a child in a combat situation can be seen as either an unfortunate victim caught in the crossfire, or a deliberate murder. It just depends on where you're looking from.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I think the fact it's Germans in Poland doing it lends weight to the level of atrocity. In my mind at least the actions we've witnessed do make sense - can't keep prisoners when you're a small unit far behind enemy lines with limited resources, can't let them go either.

I know what you're saying, but sure you can. Very infrequently, when someone says, "I had no choice," is that literally true. I understand the unit's reasoning, and I'm not trying to start an argument, but the recon team didn't have to kill the prisoners. They could have tied them up and skeddadled, for example. Not ideal, granted, and probably riskier than killing them, but definitely less evil. To me, "I had no choice," is a cop out, and really just code for, "I made an immoral/unethical choice but don't want to admit it (to myself and/or others)."

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

It's a crappy situation for anyone to be in and characters (and players) are forced to decide what level of evil can they accept for the greater good and continued personal survival.

Agreed, but this is where IG consequences can come into play. What happens when Soviets troops find a dozen of their comrades slaughtered with knives? That German recon team, if captured, can kiss any chance of receiving quarter goodbye. If anything, the other enemy troops in the AO are going to gun for that recon team even harder. By showing mercy to the prisoners, the recon team could have earned themselves some good will.

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Atrocity without reason is where I draw the line generally.

Just out of curiosity, what reason was given for killing the prisoners with bayonets, then? Seems a slower, more terrifying, more painful death than a bullet in the brain, and therefore, more evil as well.

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[Southernap]

I think this topic will also touch on the diversity and inclusion portion of gaming now going on with TTRPGs. I know some articles and fanzines and even some social philosophy (aka social science) stuff that has talked about how TTRPGs have an horrible track record with diversity and inclusion. From the racial aspects in some fantasy games to some of the items referenced above in that BBC article.

I believe that it does come down to knowing the players and the GM. As well as stating up front as a GM, that there is a red line about character actions and players doing things outside of normal behavior. I was just reading an article in a book on how to be a better GM/DM that mentioned you set up those red lines on the opening day of the campaign. Where touching on them or crossing them will lead either to expulsion from the group or serious consequences to the player in character, (since this book was referencing a high fantasy game like DnD or RuneQuest, even having Deus Ex Machima gods kill the PC in the game).

The author also mentioned how sometimes having a soul cleaning adventure after a particular harsh session is useful. Think of going to see some town where you are well known and spending a day recreational recovering from the last major adventure plot point. If not having some sub-quest come up where its getting candy back to a little kid or doing a bunch of courier type missions (taking some love letters between two separated lovers or getting some fuel for a town so you can have some metal to repair the armor on your jeep, etc). That can help to pull the heaviness off the players for a few sessions till the bad thoughts go away.

That said, I have played games where serious consequences have popped up for our players being stupid. I had one where we were stuck between the the NA's in the Allegheny Mountains and the CivGov, during the Allegheny uprising booklet. Hated by both sides. All because one of our PCs decided to put a sniper round into the congressman we were supposed to find to lead us to the cache. Simply because he claimed in character to have hated politicians that started the war. That left us without a CivGov patron, with a bounty on our head with the CivGov and the NAs running around wanting to kill us. Our GM couldn't have us run to the MilGov because we were given a chose at the start of the game to pick a side when creating character pick either MilGov or CivGov. Since we chose CivGov, the GM ran it as if MilGov viewed all CivGov military as traitors and "Un-American" and worthy of court martial and conviction to a prison. It sucked hard and it took us a few sessions of running and being like the best hide and seek players in all time, to get away from the region and start a new campaign further to the west of the region. Also made our GM throw out that book not even a third of the way in and give our problem child of a player a pain of complicated skill checks every single time he wanted to do sometime because of that stupid act.

Thinking about it some more, the T2K game is all manner of grey areas and red lines. I mean think about how the NA is written about in the supplements. They are effectively the American Nutys party and hood wearers for GDW in the game. Those types of folks were also common enemies in most 1970s and on post-apoc fiction books. Yet, they always made my brain hurt in trying to figure a way to have them be in the game and not be over the top stereotypes or worse turn off my friends and get us in trouble with their parents when having the NA pop up as the bad guys.

I still think it comes back to having a GM who knows his players, can establish a firm and hard hand in the game play and have both out of game and in game consequences for outright dickhead and evil playing. As well, I think on the reverse that PCs need to be ready to leave a table if a GM is always pushing the boundaries of good taste and keeping the heavy on the PCs of being in an evil world where evil must be done more times than not just to get by. That is also emotionally taxing. I game to relax with friends and hopefully forget about the real world stresses for a while.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

What happens when Soviets troops find a dozen of their comrades slaughtered with knives? That German recon team, if captured, can kiss any chance of receiving quarter goodbye.

This is why great care has been taken to date to leave no evidence or plant some that points in a different direction.

Originally Posted by Raellus

Just out of curiosity, what reason was given for killing the prisoners with bayonets, then? Seems a slower, more terrifying, more painful death than a bullet in the brain, and therefore, more evil as well.

In that case to avoid making more noise that absolutely required - reinforcements were no more than 1 km away and almost certainly already enroute. Terrain was an open floodplain so if it hadn't been in the dead of night after moonset, we might have already been receiving incoming DShK and KPV fire. Those killed at the time were unconscious already (the three we took with us haven't been seen since they were handed over to the battalion HQ, and we're smart enough not to have asked too many questions about their fate).
Our withdrawal that time was along a bitumen road (there were several options available) to avoid leaving tracks.

In other contacts all care was taken to recover all expended NATO brass, link, etc and plant 7.62S and 5.45 near our firing positions (a few dozen carried in pockets, etc for that purpose).
To date there has been only one enemy escape after an intense effort to chase them down. It appears our luck has held so far and they haven't been able to provide an adequate description as currently some of those involved in the contact are in the heart of the enemy encampment finalising a trade deal.
Several survivors from that encounter have been kept alive after interrogation with the aim of releasing in about a week or so once the unit has moved on.

[B.T.]

Some quotes, I can relate to:

Quote from Rainbow Six:
"When it comes to executing prisoners, for me, I think a lot depends on context. I’ve played in games where the PC’s have been operating well away from any friendly support against some pretty blood thirsty marauders who have done some pretty unpleasant things (the marauders, not the PC’s). The PC’s were only passing through the area and did not have the resources to take and hold prisoners (nowhere to put them, no manpower to guard them, and would have to feed them from their own limited rations)."

Quote from SSC:
"... yes, I like to include moral dilemmas and ethical quandaries for the PCs and I like to let the Players have the agency to make those decisions. However the full weight of consequence hangs over them if they deliberately choose to do a bad/malicious/evil thing. Sometimes circumstances force good people to do things they would rather not do, I don't want to punish Players for that because I as GM put their PCs into that situation in the first place, specifically to cause them that dilemma.
Do you let a traitor live because he was blackmailed into becoming a traitor? What if leaving him alive will cause the injury or death of innocent people?
Do the PCs ignore a job they don't particularly feel comfortable with or do they let some group of lowlifes take the job with the chance that the lowlifes will harm a lot of innocent people?
I tend to think these situations will never have a completely right or completely wrong answer and so they are good tools for the GM to make Players think about the actions of their PCs."

Quote(s) from Legbreaker:
"I'm 100% with SSC here. Consequences are the correct answer, not restrictions on possible actions.
On occasion I'll thrown in a morale dilemma, but only to make the point of consequences. If the players have been acting in such a way as to invite retribution or retaliation, then it WILL happen.
Rape, murder, child abuse, etc is all on the table, however the details will absolutely be glossed over where possible except where absolutely necessary to describe the "wrongness" of the situation and (hopefully) encourage the players to seek another path."

"Our next question is what do you do about "slavers" who turn out to be basically prison guards putting convicted murderers, rapists, etc to work alongside POWs?
Add to that the resource the "slaves" are producing helps upwards of 100,000 people survive....
Their encampment serves as a major trading hub with the much of the regions economy reliant on the main product of the slaves as well as the additional trade.

To me, T2k must have moral dilemmas. This one started as little more than a random encounter (several really) and is turning into a major regional issue."

Well done, everybody!
I think, T2k - or any other roleplaying game - should be an enjoyable social thing for GM and players. If a party likes it rough, that's their thing - it's not mine.
But the world in T2k is gritty. Slavers, rapists, former organized crime figures, warlords and so on live in that world. The moral dilemmas for my players are part of MY way to play that game. All of my players are grown-ups, the youngest being about 30 years of age. I would label all of them "experienced gamers". The games include Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun and a million-zillion fantasy games.
I can mention all kinds of evil things, but I don't have to go into too much detail.
When PCs act extremely violent, they will have to take the consequences, just as several of you have mentioned earlier.
And to emphazise this: Know your players!!!
I know all of my players for more than 10 years, with one exception. I know, how these guys are thinking.

And one thing, that was not mentioned above: As a GM, you allways have NPCs, you can use to balance the ideas of PCs.
In my group, no one (of the player, this is!) has military experiences. I am the only former soldier (and I was "just" a conscript). The group contains several NPCs, that are part of the group. And some of these had been in charge of a platoon or company in the earlier stages of WWIII. To make this clear: From time to time, a lot of NPCs accompany the player party, but these usually leave the party at a certain point (geographically or in time). The NPCs, that are a vital part of the party are five. One is a former platoon leader of the USMC, one is a combat medic, two are drivers.
These NPCs have a vote, if the group has to make decisions. And at least the former Marine has a lot of exerience.

If one of my players is about to do something really stupid, I have the NPCs to give additional info or to adress problems, the players did not think about.

T2kshould be gritty, but I have a vague idea about my red lines.

[ChalkLine]

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation: Plato

I have some hard rules about player behaviour and they are simple:

- First off, I'm not interested in spending my spare time with people who fantasise about being war criminals. I studied war crimes in university and some of the ugly shit I read will stay with me forever.

- Second up, torture-porn is a strange behaviour people should keep to themselves.

My players are required to be soldiers first and foremost. It is a clear war crime to murder wounded, they simply have to be left to die. It's ugly and brutal but it's a hard rule for a simple reason as written above: once it starts the classification of "mortally wounded" starts to become much larger. In a campaign I ran those executed bodies would be found, the OTK units notified and the Grom Battalion come looking for the criminals and if they find them the survivors handed over to the GRU or the Wojskowa Służba Wewnętrzna (WSW) for trial. Civilians who found out about it on the grapevine would shun the PCs, stragglers would not join the group. Most people understand what a monster is.

People often say "war is brutal" but don't seem to understand what it means. It doesn't mean you will also become brutal, it means you try and maintain your humanity amongst brutality. The rules of warfare are there to stop the troops from becoming quasi-militia with better guns. I frequently shocked that some people intimately aware of those rules immediately discard them in-game, you'd think they'd be exemplars.

As a GM I will allude to atrocities, usually by a rough description and so far my players have not made the cardinal error of assuming that vengeance by atrocity makes them any better. In fact one of the players couldn't bring himself to kill a Vari (Russian mobster who had been slaughtering, raping and mutilating civilians in the Kraków area as the man was unarmed and had surrendered.

We don't actually depict any of the realities of war. We don't depict snipers blowing PC's lungs out or entire groups of players arbitrarily being killed by artillery strikes, neither of which the players can react to. Players don't simply step on mines covered by snow or mud. We give them a choice.

So it comes down to a choice.

[Raellus]

Very well said, Chalkline. I think we have very similar sensibilities re Ref'ing style.

IMHO, T2k must be gritty, but it doesn't need to be nihilistic.

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[pmulcahy11b]

First off, I'm not interested in spending my spare time with people who fantasise about being war criminals. I studied war crimes in university and some of the ugly shit I read will stay with me forever.

My degree in college was history with double concentrations in military and Latin American history, so we definitely have that in common

Second up, torture-porn is a strange behaviour people should keep to themselves.

Torture-Porn is just sick. People who do this in a game belong in therapy, and you wonder if they do it for real. Do it in a game and you will receive a head shot by that "unknown sniper" out there.