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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:12 am
by Anaximander
Yes, Miligan is a threat to the Masquerade. Yes, he's human slime. I'm not arguing those points. I'm saying they don't matter.
Patty and Julius both threaten the Masquerade. You are given the option of killing them to shut them up forever. In each case, if you take that option, you lose humanity. It is the exact/ same with Simon Miligan. You can tell him to run away. If you're Ventrue, you can Dominate him into forgetting the whole thing. Or, you can send him to Pisha to be devoured. The last option is tantamount to murder. You don't put a gun to his head and force him to go, you just convince him that there's no real danger when you know for a fact that there is. Based on what you tell him, he goes back to where Pisha is waiting to eat him. If you didn't tell him to go back into the abandoned hospital, he never would have. That makes you directly responsible for his death.
It's the same with Cooper. You don't have to rip him off or send him after LaCroix, Nines, or the President. You have the option of being upfront and honest with him. Instead, you deliberately decieve him. Again, based solely on what you tell him, he rushes off to face LaCroix, Nines, or the president. You had the option to tell him that killing the head vampire wouldn't work. If you did, he would have given up on that idea and lived on, at least for a little while.
You're right that they have a choice. Miligan doesn't have to go back to the hospital. Cooper doesn't have to go after LaCroix, Nines, or the president. But based only on what you tell them, they decide to do so. That puts responsiblity for what happens to them as a result directly on your shoulders.
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:26 am
by gonin
my good fortune
I dont know why but i can slaugter tons and i never will lose humanity. I only ever lose it when i drain someone dry( which is by accident).
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:14 am
by Acleacius
Well Dominating him forces him to go which is completly different.
I am talking about the options of tellling him it was a joke, he chooses on his own to go back we do not make him or force him in anyway.
I agree that Patty and Julius are both threats, tricking Patty to leave town is all I have ever done with her, sure not worth losing anything over her.
Julius had no clue, therefore not his fault and is trustworthy to leave and not repeat the problem, whom ever sired him should lose Humainty and Masqurade for leaving him clueless.
Milligan is maybe the same for you and your choices how you handle it which is why different solution have different conequenses as Trokia designed the game and they clearly disagree with you if you are saying we deserve a Humnaity hit for telling him it was a trick, it's exactly the same as tricky Patty which does Not get a hit.
You don't get Humainty hits for tricking people even out of their money from them, like Copper, no matter how much you want that to be a Humanity hit it isn't.
This is a grey area in games as I have listed all P & P games have this grey area that I can think of atm.
Humanity is different it's for killing innocents.
I agree it can be applied to nonhumans but you can't force hit for not killing, not only are you changing the game you are changing the rules forcing everyone to play by your new rules whether not they agree or not, well technicially Wesp is by changing it but your defending it.
I know there are different choices thats why each one comes with a different reaction, you are acting like everything is one size fits all, like I said before your playing it as a goodie two shoes Paladin.
Which is fine for your personal game change the rules game but not everyone wants to play by your new rules, if we as customers what to play by the VtM rules that Trokia included in the game, we bought why should we play Paladin rules in a Vamprie game?
Games intentionally have grey areas, killing innocents is an act of evil and gets humnaity hit, tricking them doesn't, it's plain and simple no kill no hit.
The way you are playing this we are responsable for anything that happens after a converstation, so if Patty gets hit by a truck or eaten by allagators on the way to the new town we get a Humanity hit, right?
Edit
For that matter if Milligan gets hit by a truck because it studiply doesn't look both ways in crossing traffic do we still get the hit?
According to you yes becasue we sent him to Pisha, right?
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:32 pm
by Anaximander
The way you are playing this we are responsable for anything that happens after a converstation, so if Patty gets hit by a truck or eaten by allagators on the way to the new town we get a Humanity hit, right?
For that matter if Milligan gets hit by a truck because it studiply doesn't look both ways in crossing traffic do we still get the hit?
According to you yes becasue we sent him to Pisha, right
No. Absolutely not. Those are unforseeable consequences. We would have no way of knowing that those things would happen. We DO know that Pisha is waiting at the bottom of the abandoned hospital, and that she will kill and eat any mortal that enters it. That is why we get a humanity hit for sending people down there. Because we KNOW what will happen to them, but we do it anyway. It is this knowledge that makes us directly responsible for what happens to them. If you went before a court of law with this, you would be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. It's like hiring a hit man. You don't pull the trigger yourself, but you are equally guilty of the crime.
I am not playing as a "goodie two shoes Paladin," as you put it. I send both Patty and Miligan to Pisha every time. I also murder Julius and send Cooper after LaCroix. My vampires are predators, not paladins. I rarely finish the game with a humanity rating higher than 4.
Now, you're right that Wesp has changed the game here. It's just my opinion that this change makes more sense. There have always been alternative ways of dealing with Miligan. You don't have to send him to Pisha. You can tell him to run away and never come back. This option just doesn't protect the Masquerade. Your character is faced with a dilema here. Uphold the Masquerade by forever silencing Miligan, or show compassion and let him go.
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 2:58 pm
by Acleacius
Well that is what I am saying anything could happen you don't know this ahead of time.
First place he drops his business card, don't you think Pisha would find this and find him, his addy is on the card.
You are giving the hit wihtout knowing if he gets hit by a truck before making it to Pisha.
We are not directly responsable unless we force (domiinate) or kill him our selves, that is direct responsably, not making a comment it was a joke.
It wasn't intended to work this way, it's explicit in the game design through traning, dialogues and Loading Tips.
Your welcome to play your game as you wish, but changing (err defending) it so your personal vison, instead of the game designers intended is wrong.
I forgot to respond in your last post about;
Of course you can't kill goons or civies in a Masqurade zone, you couldn't kill Milligan in one either without taking a hit.
I certianly don't disrespect your oppinion here, it's not about what I think or you or Wesp, it's about the intended game design and while I do what ever I can to help Wesp out this is one thing we disagree on.
Well actually I forgot him changing the books, too.
Come to think of it we really haven't had a VtM expert way in on this but the game is clear that killing not tricking or being mean gets a hit.based not intent, though I guess it is all based on which ST you have running the game, and in this game to me Troika is the ST.
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:09 pm
by Anaximander
Well that is what I am saying anything could happen you don't know this ahead of time.First place he drops his business card, don't you think Pisha would find this and find him, his addy is on the card.
How can you NOT KNOW that Pisha is going to kill and eat this guy? She tells you so herself. You
knowingly send him to his death. You are as guilty here as if you killed him yourself.
Sure, Pisha could find the business card and track him down herself. So why don't you let her? Tell Miligan to run away, let Pisha track him down herself. Instead, you send him
right to her!
Well, enough of this. I'm not going to concede this point and I'm not going to keep arguing it here. I think I'll follow Pisha's advice instead: "Do not waste time debating the morality."
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:59 pm
by Acleacius
No way, you can't be guilty of killing someone for telling them false info, becasue no one is making them believe the info or forcing them do it.
If someone tells you that Bank guards never showup for work, turn off the cameras and leave the safes open on Tuesdays, would you believe them and go try to grab money out of the safe?
"Tell Miligan to run away,"
As I said, imo at least there is no way you could trust this guy to leave or not try to personally profit from this, i.e he is a slime.
He doens't do this to help any one, he is not trying to do the right thing, and he is not fighting some inner demon as do others we encounter, he is unique in this way.
He doesn't (afaik) have any humanity I can see. only self perpetuation and perservation.
Hehe, I keep picturing you and Wesp trying to convice some judge that someone is guilty of murder, cause they lied to someone and that person believed the lie.
Hey maybe we should talk about the patch, oops.
Edit
Well now that I think about this is actually about patch changes.
Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:40 pm
by Anaximander
I'm sorry, I just couldn't let this one go.
Hehe, I keep picturing you and Wesp trying to convice some judge that someone is guilty of murder, cause they lied to someone and that person believed the lie.
From a legal standpoint, you have actually committed two crimes: Conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder. Each of which carry extreme penalties, up to and including imprisonment for life. If prosecutors had a wire tap of your conversation with Pisha and your subsequent dialogue with Miligan, no jury in the world would fail to render a guilty verdict on both counts.
You can't say that it's Miligan's fault he's dead because he was so gullible that he believed your lie. You can't blame the victim for his own murder. That's absurd. It doesn't matter how stupid or gullible Miligan was to believe you. It doesn't change the fact that, if not for you, he would never have set foot in that hospital again. If not for you, he would have lived. At least for a little while, until Pisha found him herself.
Pisha asks you to send Miligan to her. She tells you that she's going to eat him... eventually. She even suggests to you that you tell him the whole thing was a big joke. And you agree to do this. By this agreement, you enter a conspiracy with Pisha to kill Simon Miligan. By following through with it you become an accomplice in his murder. You cannot escape your guilt or your responsibility in this matter.
"Tell Miligan to run away,"
As I said, imo at least there is no way you could trust this guy to leave or not try to personally profit from this, i.e he is a slime.
He doens't do this to help any one, he is not trying to do the right thing, and he is not fighting some inner demon as do others we encounter, he is unique in this way.
He doesn't (afaik) have any humanity I can see. only self perpetuation and perservation.
I don't know why you keep bringing this up. I've already said I'm not arguing those points. They simply don't matter. The fact that he is corrupt may help you feel less guilty for what you have done, but it does not absolve you of responsibility.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 8:21 pm
by Acleacius
Hehe, no problem.
"From a legal standpoint, you have actually committed two crimes: Conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder.'
Not true you would need to know he was murdered and a body to even get charges even close to that near a judge.
"If prosecutors had a wire tap of your conversation with Pisha and your subsequent dialogue with Miligan, no jury in the world would fail to render a guilty verdict on both counts."
So let me get your theroy strait. prosocuters stick a wire up my butt, then I wonder in to slughter of 5 or 6 people one escapes I talk to the murderer, make a deal, go talk to the one that escaped, tell him his firends were playing a joke.
So without any boides, murderer or proabale cause just the recording in my butt a jury or a judge wouldn't fail to convict?
Ahh, ok I think I understand.
No saying who's fault Milligans or Pisha's, what I am saying is, it's not a Humanity hit becasue we don't kill him.
All we did in one of the seneros of the game which does Not involve us killing was give incorrect information.
He was not required to believe, he was not forced to believe and he was not forced to go back at that moment or any other.
What if he had gone back while Pisha wasn't there or he got hit by a truck?
Once again you are using information you do not have to make that determination, i.e. you are using spolers to based your case which is illegal.
I am not bringing it up, I am however responding to you when say why don't you let him go?
So you stop bringing it up.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:06 pm
by Anaximander
I was merely drawing an analogy, Acleacius. You said you kept picturing Wesp and I standing before a judge trying to convict you for convincing Miligan to go to Pisha. I simply followed up on that. My argument assumed that we were already at the trial stage. That would logically imply that there was already enough evidence found to get you there. The wire tap I spoke of would have been additional evidence on top of that.
But you are right - the way things pan out in the actual game, Pisha eats Miligan. His body is therefore neatly disposed of. No body, no apparent motive, no crime. This case, if it were real, would probably remain forever unsolved.
This does not invalidate the point I was trying to make. Pisha asks you to help her kill Miligan. You agree. That is the very definition of conspiracy to commit murder. You then go ahead with the plan that you work out with Pisha and convince Miligan to go to her. That is accessory to murder. You don't kill Miligan yourself, but you are the murderer's accomplice.
Let's forget about all that for the moment, though. I was looking through the dialogue today, and I saw something that I found to be quite interesting. Nosferatu and Malkavian characters obviously get a different dialogue with Miligan than other clans do - Nossy's because they're hideous, and Malk's because they're insane. What's interesting is that in their unique dialogue, it looks as though the humanity hit should be handled differently too. One line checks to see if their humanity is 6 or higher. The other checks to see if it is less than 6. Strangely, both of these lines take the dialogue to the exact same place.
Now, in the PnP game, whether or not you lose humanity for something like this would depend largely on what your humanity rating already was. So, how about this: Use the same scheme seen in the Nossy/Malk dialogue. Check to see if the player's humanity is higher than 6. If so, they lose a point of humanity for this. If not, they don't. I would find this an acceptable compromise. Would you?
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:07 pm
by forgedude
The big problem...
...with the whole Pisha thing is that there is no way to continue the Pisha subquests (and getting that neat blood chalice!) without sending Milligan to his death at Pisha's hands (and gastric juices). I think there should be some way of accomplishing this- say, by convincing or intimidating him to leave town and then telling Pisha that he wouldn't return and you "finished the job yourself".
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 2:52 am
by Wesp5
forgedude wrote:...with the whole Pisha thing is that there is no way to continue the Pisha subquests (and getting that neat blood chalice!) without sending Milligan to his death at Pisha's hands (and gastric juices). I think there should be some way of accomplishing this- say, by convincing or intimidating him to leave town and then telling Pisha that he wouldn't return and you "finished the job yourself".
This is already possible with the unofficial patches.
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:13 am
by forgedude
ok, I'll bite...
...How is it possible? Every time you go back to Pisha she just gives you that thousand-mile stare and talk about sending you on a mission to get rid of the kine and get on with it.
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 8:13 am
by Acleacius
" Pisha asks you to help her kill Miligan."
It's possible to have the conversation with Pisha without knowing she will eat him, she never says I will kill him or eat him under certain dialogue paths, including she also never ask you to help kill him,
Well I do play a Malk always and maybe why I see different dialogue lines than you, during our conversation.
I obviously don't disagree with you on 90% of the cases but on 10%, I do.
My point is only that it's possible to achieve this in a small select case without a humanity hit by not killing him.
I believe the intent of the dialogue you speak of checks Humanity to allow a dialogue choices based on a concern (though I could be mistaken) , since if there was a question of innocence it would concern you at certain level of Humanity.
If we shifted the usage of the check, I believe it would be used differently than in the rest of the game, if I understand you correctly, though I think it is a creative idea.
Now I personally really couldn’t say if you would lose a Humanity in the P & P, since I am not experienced with that game, though honestly I didn't know/feel it was automatic loss at a certain level Humanity.
As I mentioned I am trying to base this on clearly intended set of parameters Troika setup, which btw seem to fit to me personally, with the experience I do have from playing D & D, i.e. the grey area I spoke of.
Even a Chaotic Good could pull this off not to mention all the Net aliments, without it being an act of evil.
No one is arguing, well not I, that this isn't a touchy issue, but this was intended by the Devs (well imo) which shows how well they can design quest.
The parameters are clear and in at least one scenario and conditions exist where you can send him without killing him, which is the defining parameter.
Now if you are saying this doesn't exist in P & P well that is certainly possible, I I wouldn't know at this point, but not only does this fit what Devs intend and setup with words and definitions, it also fits in other P & P games I have played.
I am not trying to make everyone use the same dialogue selections or to force everyone to do something they don't want to do, just that the condition clearly exist for those whom wish to choose it.
forgedude
Well as far as I can tell, the reason you can't do this is that he is a slime and not trust worthy as some of the others we encounter, wheter they are Human or Vamp.
He would exploit this for his personal gain and profit casuing disaster, including deaths of innocents.
Wesp
Think he means without killing Millian and complete Pisha's quest.
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 9:38 am
by Anaximander
In the PnP game, humanity is much harder to gain and hold on to. The higher your humanity, the harder you have to work to maintain it. A character with a humanity of 10 has reach a zen-like state of harmony with all living things. At this level, you would lose a point of humanity for just thinking about hurting someone.
In a situation like this one with Miligan character with above average humanity would probably lose a point for taking the morally questionable path of sending Miligan to Pisha. But it is morally ambiguous - hell, we've been arguing the morality of it for days now - so they might get to roll to see if there is a humanity hit or not. Characters with lower than average humanity would just shrug this off. They've already done few morally questionable things already, or their humanity wouldn't be so low. It would take more than this to knock their humanity down a little further.
Oh, the two lines I mentioned for Nossy's and Malk's are actually the exact same line:
"They're all waiting for you int he hospital basement. It was joke. This is a mask. Boo." Humanity 6 & G.Pisha_Desire == 1
"They're all waiting for you in the hospital basement. It was a joke. This is a mask. Boo." Humanity -6 & G.Pisha_Desire == 1
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:38 am
by Wesp5
forgedude wrote:...How is it possible? Every time you go back to Pisha she just gives you that thousand-mile stare and talk about sending you on a mission to get rid of the kine and get on with it.
You can dominate, dementate or intimidate him to leave town and tell her about it, exactly like you suggested. It's already in the game
...
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:53 am
by forgedude
Wesp5 wrote:You can dominate, dementate or intimidate him to leave town and tell her about it, exactly like you suggested. It's already in the game
...
I know, but if you go that route, can you still get the sub-quests from Pisha? (That odious chalise is real purty...)
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:36 am
by Acleacius
"At this level, you would lose a point of humanity for just thinking about hurting someone."
Isn’t it odd that the idea of cause and effect are not taken in to consideration at all?
Now in the next line I an not attacking/talking about you but the rules and boundaries you listed.
Certainly other factors matter but to completely ignore the end results is ridiculous.
If, I could use your stated rationales, went back in time killed Hitler as an innocent youth, I would lose Humanity.
Yet I just saved 100 million innocent deaths, torture, suffering and catastrophic destruction to social, economic and industrial infrastructures.
So to me the rules you stated and are applying don't fall into line with basic and fundamental principals of Humanity.
They maybe accurate in VtM, but certianly don't apply to real world Humanity as there is a thing called reasonalbe aggression.
I.e if a child walks out in front of a car, casuing me to grab and jerk her so hard it breaks her arm but saved her life from being hit by a car, I don't get a Humanity hit for injuring an innocent.
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:33 pm
by Shizz
What is taken into account, however, is your _intention_ standing behind the act.
In case of this whole tiresome Pisha-thing, you send Milligan away _to be eaten_. Yes, he is a slime bag. Yes, you don't exactly know what will happen after you've sent him down. But your intention is simple: You are telling him a lie in order to manipulate him into walking into mortal peril. You intend him to die. And please, don't say "you don't know that for sure", as the bloodline story shows that your character is not lobotomized, and your posts show that neither are you. ;-)
As for the rules: Any gamemaster who is worth his salt (and wants to avoid being lynched by his players) won't give you a humanity hit for saving a little girl and breaking her arm in the process. As for the Hitler thing... it's an extreme example (you tend to use extreme examples, by the way), but.. well, here it is difficult. This has a simple reason: Real humanity - empathy, warmth, understanding towards others - will decrease whenever you take a life, even in self-preservation; it might even be decreased when someone is seriously injured, be it psychically or physically. Soldiers will return from wars with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder, having troubles readjusting to society, often reacting violent. And this, although none of the people they killed was, in the Bloodlines meaning of the word, an innocent (or so we hope). People who have killed others in self-defense, out of pure necessity, often are riddled with guilt and even start questioning their ethical or religious views - although they won't lose humanity in a Bloodline-like scenario. This being as it is, I think that the rules are still rather generous towards humanity losses and moral guidelines (especially since I doubt thtat anyone could slaughter as many people as the Bloodlines protagonist does without developing some sort of psychical disorder).
Just my two cents...
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:53 pm
by haydox
Shizz wrote:What is taken into account, however, is your _intention_ standing behind the act.
In case of this whole tiresome Pisha-thing...
I agree with you here, the game does make some odd decisions!
P.S. I think you meant physically (bodily) or psychologically (mentally) not "psychically or physically". Just thought i would say that!