Re: Standards of behaviour

On May 9, 1:13 pm, gleichman <fox1_...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On May 9, 12:04 pm, Will in New Haven
>
> <bill.re...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > We had often discussed the Vlad Taltos novels of Steven Brust and we
> > both like them.
>
> Never read them. Just looked them up at Wiki and no real information
> there about the nature of his targets.

Most of his targets are members of the dominant species, not the same
as his own. The assassinations come in several varieties and these
"elfs," as he calls them, recover from most of them. Also, he has good
reason to hate them as a group. However, Brust shows them to be
individuals and many of them are admirable. There's a little bit of
class struggle involved also. This is to be expected as Steven is a
Trot. As Vlad recovers from the horrors of his childhood and finds
himself friends with some of them, he finds it harder and harder to
live with being an assassin. Also, sometimes his targets are human and
they _never_ recover. So he's pretty miserable.
>
> There's of course the "in good cause" assassin, James Bond and Jack
> Bauer come to mind as modern examples and these are very appealing to
> people. No idea if this Vlad can be grouped with them.
>
> What would you have done if she had killed the child?

Made her live with it, as long as the setting let her live. PCs don't
have much immunity and magical CSI is really very good, especially
with a Duke prodding it, so assassins are not all that long-lived a
group. Also, the cut-off who hired her has very good reason not to let
her get into the hands of the law alive. And he would make a big
profit if she died. And there's no honor among THESE thieves.

Meanwhile, she killed a LITTLE GIRL. Dreams, memories, etc are not
things we choose and she would have had to live with those I sent her.
What she will tell her friends is another story. She knows some
powerful people who would help her if she can figure out an
explanation that doesn't include 'I killed a child." She might not
live very long anyway, because she has made some powerful enemies but
at least her friends will help her and she doesn't have the face of
that little girl in her dreams. Or not in a negative way.

This player has made choices that led to the death of her own long-
time favorite character when the character was one who wanted to do
the right thing and the right thing was likely to lead to death, so
she isn't completely motivated by survival.

Will in New Haven

--