Between D&D, video games and even movies, we're used to the idea that every fight is a fight to the death. For a lot of gamers, it's a hard mental adjustment to make. I have trouble with it myself sometimes. It's just something that's got to explained.
I actually like when that happens once in a while, but not all the time of course. Versimilitude is an illusion, and little random bits like that enhance the illusion. When the enemy does it, it sucks, and you may want to make adjustments for the sake of the story. When one of your own does it, then it is cool. It is what turns Grogs into Heroes, maybe worth their gaining a Confidence score and evolving into a companion character.
If fact, there is a middle ground between kill and be killed. For many, though I admit not all, of the antagonists you list surrendering/being captured and held for ransom is not only an option, it is also a perfered one. A dead man is worth the weapons and armor he carries, minus the price of a continued blood feud with his kinsman. A live man is worth the weapons and arm he carries, plus the ransom price his kinsmen will pay.
Forget morality, taking prisoners has a solid economic benefit.
Very true, and I am not talking about killing prisioners if you have the option of taking them captive. This is not always an option, but if it is, then this is much prefered. But in the heat combat, you don't have the option of being dainty and delicate. Sure, there are some spells you can use to knock people out or restrain them, but if you are being mobbed on all sides, you don't have the option of putting them all to sleep one by one. You need flash and flare, to cower them into submission and force their surrender. One or more enemies may need to be killed before they get the point.
The goal in combat is always to render the enemy incapable of further combat, not necessarilly to kill them. However, death is often a side effect of the force required to end the combat.
Agreed, but death need not be the only result, much less a necessary result. If both sides know that capture and ransom are acceptable, even desireable, options than a wounded warrior (say someone with a Medium or Heavy wound, or even multiple Light Wounds to put things in game terms) may yeild, or at least drop his blade, lay on the ground and groan, rather than continue to fight to the death.
With that understanding, death is certainly still possible, depending on how the dice fall, but it becomes less likely simply because it is ceases to be the only circumstance that will end combat.
We just need to break the "gamers assumption" that every combat must end in death and instead allow, even encourage, surrender.
There are also times that taking others captive is not a viable option. It is a seven day trek accross the desert, and you only have four days worth of food for you and the two guys with you. What do you do with the three assasins you captured? If you release them, they will come back at you later that same day. If you take them captive, you all will die of starvation (or someone will, anyway). It is sort of cruel to execute them after they surrender. The only option is "take no prisoners".
That was the order the gave my grandfather in WWII when he was island hopping. Clear the island shore-to-shore by dawn, take no prisioners. Prisoners will slow the advance, and any delay will result in getting the platoon killed. If fact, after he was injured and laid up in the Army hospital in Australia, his entire dividion was wiped out.
War is not pretty, War is not fun. Sometimes killing is what needs to be done.
(just for post)
Maybe your prisoners have their own supplies... it can help.
But, yes, i agree with all that.
My magus often forget death is not the only one option 
scenario A)
- non lethal solution: desert scenario - CrHe or Cr Animal Moon duration spell
- assassins scenario: make them drunk (to get a headstart) and take their knives. Cut off their little fingers. Make it clear to them that each further attempt costs a finger or similar bodypart.
Scenario WWII)
What was the point in island hopping? It was dropping two nuclear weapons that decided the war in the Pacific.
- Your grandfather could have refused the draft and gone to jail.
- He could have pretended to search the island (because a few unarmed Japanese on an island wouldn't have made any difference at all)
- he could have pretended to be crazy
- he could not have used Mentem magics to reprogram the Japanese - but that's the great thing about an rpg - you usually have options.
Yes, there are situations in which killing may be justified (and in an rpg this can even be fun: I'd love to see Marie kill Andorra's fire giant) - but very, very few - and I think a good Storyguide is always open to the third way if a player finds it.
This is not a question of heroism: Talking about WWII (great)grandfathers. One of mine refused to cooperate with the nazis and died in a Konzentration Camp (that is a story with hero potential). His son took a group of Americans prisoner all by himself on the Italian front - and then surrendered to them so no one was killed.
Handy spell to have, but neither your character nor mine has such a spell nor the ability to spont it (JM and I are in a PbP game together)
To me that just seems cruel. Better an honorable death in combat than forced mutilation. But I see your point. If you think hard enough, there are options. However, in the heat of combat, you don't often have that luxury. Yeah, you the player are calm and relaxed, but realistically the character is hyped up on adreniline and fighting for his life.
Incorrect. This was a few years before the bomb, and that bmb was used as a solution to the endless island hopping. If they has that bomb in 42, there would be no need for island hopping
Not an option. Remember, to him, that would have been the Immoral choice. This wasn't Vietnam. And his father was a WW-I vet who immigrated to the US from Sparta. You have to keep in mind the specific circumstances of the individual.
One night when he was on point patrol, carrying a B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifel), he stumbled upon a cam of seven Japaneese soildiers gathered around a campfire eating dinner. Remember, he was a scared nineteen year old kid being shot at daily, seeing close comrades blown to pieces every day. Scared $#!+-less, he opens fire and kills all seven. That memory haunted him until his dying day. .On his death bed, he claimed he could see the seven soildiers, standing there waiting for him in Heaven. They told him that he did his dudty, and that they died with honor while serving their duty. All is forgiven.
What's to pretend> You should have met the man!
He wanted to join the military. He tried to join the Navy but they were at quota for the month, so the Army drafted him.
You do, but not all options are always available.
Why? What did he ever do to you? I think you mean the Efreet, because the local giant is more of the frost & storm variety. The Efreet is totally a Dk, he deserves a good killing.
War and combat are not for every character. Certain magi specialize in it, wgereas others have no combat ability at all (nor do they desire any). One issue I have is that players tend to design every character to have some form of combat effectiveness, which I think is unrealistic.
Other German WWII Heros -
- Claus von Stauffenberg, the Nazi officer who intended to kill Hitler. He knew that things had gone terribly wrong, and if he would have succeeded, it would have been a most noble killing.
- Irwin Rommel, who refused to execute Jewish POWs captured from the British. He had no problem killing soldiers in battle, because that was honorable, but soildiers do not execute other soldiers. He refused, turning the POWs over to the allies, which is one of the main reasons he fell from favor.
Neither one of us were in WWII, and it happened long before either of us were born. If it is a sensative issue for you, I apologize. But realize that I idolize my grandfather as a great war hero. That's my family, they taught me that bravery in battle was an honorable virtue. Did I mention our anscetors were Spartans?
Yes, there are many options to killing, but these are not always available. There are circumstances where honor demands that you sacrifice your own life. Sometimes there are no options, and it isn't a question of morality.
And, do note that in the saga of mine you are in, with all these Flambeau around you, there has yet to be even a drop of blood shed or a single hair singed. Violence is not something engaged in indiscriminately. It is a tool applied for specific purpose. Not something you take pleasure in, it is a grim duty indeed.
Yeah, I am playing my first pacifist mage. She has almost no offensive punch (a single spell that hold people still for a short time) to allow people time to escape. She has a few defensive spells, some escape spells and a lot of healing spells. She just got tossed into a combat situation with all her allies and guards stripped from her. If she doesn't get very lucky, she is going to be torn to shreds.
It sometimes happens that you get caught and you lose.
That is totally not my fault. The Beta SG (Scott) stuck you there. I am sure that there is much more than meets they eye 
. It is a faerie regio after all.
YMMV, but, Creo spells being non-nourishing, they might die in a few days despite that.
With me? They'd feel sated, but die of starvation nonetheless.
OTOH, medieval europe being what it is, I think it's fairly logical if most magi teach their apprentices to defend themselves in one way or the other.
This does not mean offensive capacity: An invisibility spell might suffice.
I hear what you're saying, (especially about Rolemaster, as my party risked a TPK from shrews... not giant shrews... shrews) but at the same time, we're supposedly looking at a world wherein great heroes are spoken of in song and folklore, where chivalry and knighthood are a big deal. I do want the feel of the middle ages to be at home, with its attendant grit and grime, but is it incompatible with having a character who is made for combat? Do we just shrug and take it when he is laid to the grave by a lucky bandit?
People can look at Ars Magica's setting and take many things out of it. IS combat dangerous? Yes?
Is it SO dangerous that combat-focused companions and mages are a foolish thing to see survive in a long-term saga?
A lot of this comes down to game philosophy - "Why do you game?" What are you trying to get out of it? When I run a game, want to tell a good story. I don't want to see a bunch of random events loosely tied together merely because they happen to one group of "characters. So, to avoid undesirable results in the story by extreme dice rolls, I usually* hide the dice - and I use them as a "guide" for the results, but not an absolute.
(* The only time I do not is when it does not matter, or I am willing to let the dice determine the outcome 100%. If a grog wants to charge the ogre, I'm happy showing there is no "prejudice" when the ogre crushes him, or if the ogre botches and the grog lasts one more round.)
If a serious botch or an explosion can happen about 1/100 rolls, then that will happen several times in a night's gaming. I don't work hard to create a good story so it can be ended by bad luck (and that includes "good luck" that solves all the problems for the PC's.)
It's true that "luck evens out" - but only over an "infinite" amount of time. And if the bad luck kills a character (or ruins a story) sometime before "infinity", then we never get to see the end of that "evening" effect, do we?
If it happens with the Players dice, that's harder to address, but rarely impossible. But a SG will ~probably~ make more rolls than all their players combined - so keeping their dice hidden covers more than 50% of the problem.
Everyone runs a game differently - the trick is to keep the players from ~feeling~ that this is what's going on. It's not freeform, it's not ignoring the rules or the dice, but it is knowing when to interpret a result and not follow it blindly to some dull dead end.
Either you have a very long night, or you are rolling many more dice than I expect in a session; not that there is anything wrong with that, of course.
I kind of expect about a dozen spells to be cast (some of which are formulaic cast under non-stressful conditions), and for there to be about two-dozen combat rolls (if there is a combat at all) and perhaps another couple of dozen rolls for Abilities during a night's gaming.
I suppose it probably depends a bit on the number of players in the troupe.
Depends on where you are. A stressful situation in faerie aura or infernal and you are rolling 3-5 botch dice every time you roll a casting stress roll. Much greater chance of botches.
Consider 1 attack, 1 defense per round of combat per person + various spont spells and some stressful formulaics and you can easily have 100 rolls in a night (we average about 20 total but we are fairly low key most nights). A major fight though should expect a botch and a couple good 10% of the rolls with a 1.
But then you are not in a 1/100 botch anymore 
I follow the same philosophy. The dice are secondary. Sometimes we run whole scenes where we just compare the characteristics plus ability of the characters, and assign bonuses tied to roleplaying. (IIRC that is what Amber was all about, right?).
Still we like dice rolling, specially for magic and combat, 2 things that are not absolutes at all but extremely random. Dice help create this randomness, and makes characters wary of doing stupid things like charging the group of knights straight on because "since this is not the climax of the season the main characters cannot die". Sometimes it is true. Sometimes a prized companion goes down and sometimes they are slaughtered. or were slaughtered: they tend not to do that anymore.
Cheers,
Xavi
Which is why I specified collaborative effort between the storyguide and the players. In my book, there are two ways for a PC to die.... dramatically with the approval of both the Player and the Storyguide... and stupidly, which only requires an idiot player. Dice are not needed for either case, and often times will roll opposite of what is dramatically appropriate.
Now I mainly use this approach when running a Narrativist RPG such as Ars Magica. When running D&D I tend to go with the dice no matter what... because D&D is more of a Gamist RPG.
One of my Players once said something about rolling dice which has stuck with me.
"Deus Ex is so maligned a concept. However if the players are bloody idiots and by their own free will chose to put themselves in harms way, then you can feel free to let the chips fall as they may."
A