Why protect the children? (In Armageddon)

[Thomoto]

So I see tons of people IG go out of their way to protect and kill people who kill arm kids. Why so many, in the docs and IC people will sell their kids for water and to them stealing or killing some random person shouldn't matter from age.
Discuss.

[Hauwke]

I have a lot of strong feelings on a topic like this, but the second that the 'kid' in question is a PC, that protection people seem to have for children disappears, even if the PC is 13 and scrawny. Have some consistency people.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I think it's the same reason not every PC is uproariously racist to everyone but humans.

It's just not fun to be an absolute arse to kids or to kill them or see decapitated baby heads, personally speaking.

[Dar]

Labyrinth seems to be an excellent example of that.

A lot of people there get very protective over kids when an outsider messes with them. Truth of the matter is that they dont care. But it's a perfect excuse to gain some support against an outsider.

Zalanthan are very callous people. But they're also very manipulative people. Life is harsh, you do what needs to get done. And if they choose to use some tear producting kiddo to fuck you up, you shouldnt blame them. You should find out what you can do to dissuade them of it. Believe me if some Templar swings a sword as he strolls by and cuts a kiddo down, people will notice, they will look at the corpse for awhile, and then move on. Maaaybe steal the toy that they can give to their own kid.

As for PC kids. Let's be honest. PC Kids quickly use their PC activity to demonstrate how much of a brat they really are. People not only not protect them, they're borderline want to kill them themselves.


Or maybe ... that's when I play kids. 'eyeshift'.

[Vyoko]

In a random search I found out MeTekillot is an expert on this subject.


Please see http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,39440.msg548836.html for reference.

[Bebop]

Poverty and Lack of Education

All Zalanthan commoners of city-states are not inherently psychopathic child-murders.  Most commoners make their decisions from a place of poverty and a lack of any real intellectual or fundamental education.  Healthcare, much less reproductive health care, isn't always feasible for families.  Aka mul mix, a good midwife and so forth.  Often times, decisions have to be made once a family is on the brink.  Many public slaves owned by House Borsail in Zalanthas, like gladiators or pleasure slaves, are seen sporting exquisite wealth far beyond the means of your average commoner.

It would be easier to rationalize that, yes I am selling my child so I can feed my others, but they'll have a life far beyond that than what I could ever give them.  To murder a child is seen as blatant aggression, while slavery can be rationalized.  Obviously, in our society slavery is unspeakable ethically (now, though long ago it was not).  But in this society, people are of the mind that slavery is a fact of life.  The reality, of course, is that slaves are treated inherently as property and many slaves are not treated well.  They are raped, killed, forced to fight for their lives and mutilated.  The ones that are lavished upon are in the minority and at great risk or loss of autonomy.  However, in the face of desperation humans can rationalize almost anything to themselves.

Ethics of a Society

Going off of the above, most Zalanthans are likely not going to be inherently cruel for no real reason.  Though some will.  However, you have to remember two things.  1) Anger, depression and irrationality are often times symptoms of poverty, lack of intellect and desperation.  2) Zalanthan commoners are almost constantly exposed to violence, from Arena entertainment, to public executions and fighting for resources in the desert.  So while cruelty towards children would not be actively pursued, even frowned upon - yes the average Zalanthan is going to have a higher tolerance for things like abandonment or the enslavement of children.  But these same people have learned to rationalize that things like slavery are alright while outright murder is legally questionable at worst, and ethically questionable or sad at best.  And again, they may look at slavery as a mercy, instead of an act of outright violence because autonomy is not something most peasants understand or feel they're entitled to in the face of despotism.

It's also worth noting here that by the age of thirteen most "children" are seen as very fledgling adults in Zalanthans.  So the range of time a young person is entitled to this sense of protection is quite small.

Varying Cultures

Tribal cultures have a range of ethics with different values towards children.  Many tribals do not actually live in squalor as they have learned to survive outside of despotism and many Zalanthan tribes are communal.  Wanted to point out that their concepts towards children will be different.

Moral Scapegoating

Be wary of those saying they are doing anything in defense of "the children" or "for the children."  Children always have and always will be consigned to being a convenient moral scapegoat for those pushing their own agendas.  They are a fierce bargaining tool in noble relations.  People, even people who are not slaves, are often seen as property to the nobility they serve regardless.

Moral scapegoating ranges from a micro level --- say when parents say they are staying in their toxic marriages for "children" --- to Trump saying he will ban flavored vaping liquids "for the children."  In one example, the couple is likely lost and unwilling to split from a codependency, in the other a powerful politician is likely trying to cater to their supports both financial and social.  Point being, it isn't actually about "the children."  In Zalanthas especially, you should expect the same type of diversion.  Never take things for face value.

Children Have a Way of Nabbing Us

And finally, some people are probably actually being genuine.  I have interacted with a few younger characters that have totally managed to nab my heart strings.  Obviously this happens both IG and IRL.  Let people play their characters.  Maybe someone is playing a character who was abandoned or abused and they are hinging their own hopes on a child character or all of the children.  It happens.

Conclusions/Nuance

As you can see, there are many varied reasons why someone might say or do something to justify their actions.  It's important to stay open minded about things and be the player you'd like to to play with instead of policing others.

[Hauwke]

My problem isn't so much 'oh protect the kids'

It's that people will vehemently and ruthlessly kill people for harming children. It's white knighting of the same caliber as you see for some Aides occassio ally. Though, in fairness that has not happened as much of late.

Secondly, I don't think that parents don't potentially love their own children. That is fine. What isn't fine, at least in my mind, is caring for every random kid in a city of several hundred thousand people, most of whom are more or less trashy, uneducated messes who couldn't care less for anyone but themself.

I suppose my biggest issue, is that thematically it makes little sense to get angry that someone is killing kids and seems more like an OOC driven desire for a tiny excuse to kill players.

[Dar]

Bebop. My compliments. A truly excellent post.

[Lizzie]

Kids are valuable commodities. They're not protecting people, they're protecting assets. If you kill my kid, you just killed a potential income. You now owe me the entirety of that potential.

[racurtne]

Let us not forget that it's often less about the kids than the fact that a kid killer is often perceived as a psycho killer. There is little reason to murder kids IC unless you are role playing a character who simply enjoys killing. This is less tolerated in Zalanthas than many seem to think. Nakkis have rioted more than once when Templars butchered innocents.

Aside from that, the Labyrinth is more about gang territory and asserting control over perceived territory than any other reason. Gangs IRL often feel a sense of responsibility for the people in their neighborhoods. It helps protect them and gives them legitimacy. If you can't keep outsiders from murdering people in your back yard, why should I defer to you? Respect you? Fear you?


Likewise gangs are likely to ally with gangs they have feuded
with before to attack perceived outsiders. IE two elven gangs are likely to put aside their differences to keep out humans that are encroaching on their territory. 

There are more reasons than simply "I must protect the children". People don't like wild beasts in their neighborhood either. It is dangerous.

[Shalooonsh]

This thread so far has been pretty good, but I think we can all see how it can get pretty hot blooded pretty quick.  It's walking a bit of a line, so please do take efforts to keep things civil.

Perhaps I'm just a bit more vigilant than normal, but I'm not here to stifle a discussion.  Keep it a discussion, not an argument, and not gleeful trollbaiting, and I think some interesting thoughts can continue to come up out of this.

[Hauwke]

This thread so far has been pretty good, but I think we can all see how it can get pretty hot blooded pretty quick.  It's walking a bit of a line, so please do take efforts to keep things civil.

Perhaps I'm just a bit more vigilant than normal, but I'm not here to stifle a discussion.  Keep it a discussion, not an argument, and not gleeful trollbaiting, and I think some interesting thoughts can continue to come up out of this.

I am super surprised with this thread, actually. For the topic it is quite relaxed.

[Dar]

It's only children. Barely any meat. Never any coin. The clothing never fit. No reason to get all pissy on GDB about.

[Lutagar]

There's actually an orphanage in the 'rinth which I imagine a good number of PCs use for their background.

Putting aside this means Zalanthans -do- value children enough that someone bothered to build a shelter for vulnerable ones, which is seemingly supported through donations(?) former orphans are likely going to be sympathetic to current ones.

[Armaddict]

In particular for the labyrinth, because that's normally where I see this kind of thing...

For all of its backstabbery, there are factions in the 'rinth.  A lot of the white knighting comes in the form of being vigilant against people who start going on killing sprees in the alleys like no one will care...westsiders often defend children of the west, since they are often 'farmed' by people, eastsiders often jump in to help their elfy bros against non-elves in the east.

To some degree, there can be apathy, but to the other degree, there can also be a 'what the fuck do you think you're doing, coming into our house and starting shit'.

I don't know if that's relevant to the topic at hand, or whether you mean more of a broad spectrum protectionism that I generally see only in splurges.  I think a lot of it in that broad spectrum comes from trying to instill some sense of protagonism within your character even if they're kind of a piece of shit, and defense of children is one 'good trait' that is easy to instill because it makes sense.

To be fair, I do see a lot of people who also try to instill 'hardness' in children PC's and vNPC's, it just comes under their terms instead of random joe-blow who just wanted to be a jerk to someone.  Children are easily herded under people's umbrellas.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

I believe that every human (sentient being then, ha!) has a natural survival instinct that extends from themselves to immediate family to local community etc...
Some of us may have grown up in neighborhoods that were pretty intense crime wise: drugs, gangs, prostitutes etc, Rough neighborhood, people say. But woe to the outsider that steps foot there come to harm a local. Seen this mentality in RL, and because of my belief (stated earlier) I see no reason why it should be different on Zalanthas.

If you mean a group of folks that saw Amos murder an npc kid and go on a murderkill rage chase after him, yea that's a tad over the top.

[number13]

Personally, I dislike killing PCs. I try to avoid it. I try to advocate for other outcomes in-game, as much as it's possible to do so in-character.

But killing kids? I'd have a really, really hard time justifying why some westside tough shouldn't PK that PC, and endeavor to make a brutal example out of them, because traditionally, the westside gang has been responsible for the feeding and protection of the orphanage.

By killing the NPC kids, you'd be calling the westside crew chumps that can't defend their turf. You'd be depriving them of a cultivated asset that they've sunk resources into. And you've just killed a kid in their neighborhood, someone who might have been like a distant cousin even.

If the PC doing the killing isn't Rinthi, that makes it all that much worse. An outsider. An invader. It would be like a drov-beetle wandering into Allanak and chewing up people at the Gaj. Rinthi don't need an excuse to put down invading southsiders to begin with. If they're coming in to kill rinthi, then it's a wandering monster, not a person.

[Inks]

^ Liked this post and the other ones along the same lines, notably Armaddict's and Racturne's. Hit the nail on the head about rinthi culture and attitudes.

What motivates your PC to murder kids? Do you think the locals are going to tolerate wholesale slaughter of the weak when it makes the gang(s) controlling that area look bad? By all means kill the kids if that is IC for your PC, but the world reacting to your psychopathic PC doesn't often have to go further than the PC population. The rinth is a living , breathing part of the known, not your backstab thunderdome.

[Thomoto]

Personally, I dislike killing PCs. I try to avoid it. I try to advocate for other outcomes in-game, as much as it's possible to do so in-character.

But killing kids? I'd have a really, really hard time justifying why some westside tough shouldn't PK that PC, and endeavor to make a brutal example out of them, because traditionally, the westside gang has been responsible for the feeding and protection of the orphanage.

By killing the NPC kids, you'd be calling the westside crew chumps that can't defend their turf. You'd be depriving them of a cultivated asset that they've sunk resources into. And you've just killed a kid in their neighborhood, someone who might have been like a distant cousin even.

If the PC doing the killing isn't Rinthi, that makes it all that much worse. An outsider. An invader. It would be like a drov-beetle wandering into Allanak and chewing up people at the Gaj. Rinthi don't need an excuse to put down invading southsiders to begin with. If they're coming in to kill rinthi, then it's a wandering monster, not a person.

I do think that is a very good explanation. Killing a east side or west side. BUT! Outside of the rinth and how people go out of their way to protect the kids. Like people blowing resources that they need and thats fine if only a few people do it, but its a lot of people. But when a character originally wouldn't care about people getting mugged and mudered, the kids wouldn't make much difference. One less mouth in the constant scraping for food and 'sid.

[MeTekillot]

Zalanthan humanoids aren't alien consciousnesses. They have the same instinctual urge to protect the young of their species as we do.

[Riev]

I do think Lizzie nailed it slightly, as well.

If you kill my child, that child was being used as a source of labor and was working for the family. You killing that child may have reduced mouths to feed, but now we have less sources of income, as well.

Stop killing my kids, once I have 3-4 of them in their teens, we can finally move out to that farm and really earn our keep.

[Alesan]

I don't think the population of Zalanthas is as collectively sociopathic as some of you want to believe, but I don't really want to put my foot any further into this thread than that.

[Namino]

I don't think the population of Zalanthas is as collectively sociopathic as some of you want to believe, but I don't really want to put my foot any further into this thread than that.

Agree.

Zalanthas is a rough place.

It's not so rough that nobody has ANY empathy at all.

Do y'all's PCs never have any friends with whom they share a genuine sense of companionship, either? Are you just hanging out together for the sake of increased productivity and that's all?

[Heade]

I do think Lizzie nailed it slightly, as well.

If you kill my child, that child was being used as a source of labor and was working for the family. You killing that child may have reduced mouths to feed, but now we have less sources of income, as well.

Stop killing my kids, once I have 3-4 of them in their teens, we can finally move out to that farm and really earn our keep.

The only problem with those positions is that NPC kids aren't PC's children, by policy. Staff policy on the matter is that you can have vNPC family members, which you can even describe in your apartment using the "arrange" command, and you can interact with them through emotes and such. But as vNPCs, they don't have combat stats, so someone who breaks into your apartment can then "kill" them by rearranging said apartment. You'd be fully within your rights to go after the perpetrator in such a case, and that would fall within the RP reasoning you and Lizzie are describing.

But killing rinth rat #6 in an alley is NOT a PC's child. We as players don't get to decide the history or backstory of staff-controlled NPCs. I think the closest approximation to a legit reasoning is the one saying gangs are protective of their areas and the people within it. Those are potentially people the gangs regularly shake down, or get paid "protection money" from, however little it might be. Killing those people jeapardizes their extortion rackets by diminishing their perceived ability to offer said "protection".

And in general outside of the Rinth, while life is cheap when it comes to Templars killing commoners on a whim and the population might accept that, that doesn't mean any dirtball can just go around killing whoever they want in the streets. They aren't a Templar, or a person of power embued with the authority to make those kinds of decisions.

While the "civilized" world of Zalanthas is often barbaric by our own standards, it is not some lawless frontier. The law is often corrupt, yes. But in many ways, the law is so profoundly strong as to be oppressive. Things like commoners killing commoners is still illegal, and people will care. They have enough to worry about with Templars, nobles, and soldiers often having the ability to throw them on the corpse pile. If no one cares when commoners do it too, that diminishes every single citizen's own personal security. Because if you don't care when one does it to someone else, how can you expect anyone to care when someone does it to you?

[cnemus]

I have played a wide spectrum of perspectives regarding children:

-If that kid looks at me wrong, kill them.
<->
-If someone looks at that kid wrong, kill them.

I generally believe in giving the benefit of the doubt. I assume a player has a good reason for what they are doing, whether that is killing kid x or killing kid killer y. It could be power, money, or a personal arc I am entirely unaware of.

I don't think we can expect NPCs or PCs to just let us do whatever we want without getting involved. If someone wants to be ignored, pay bribes, cover tracks, or something. What is perceived as white knighting could simply be: You gave me an excuse to extort you, I know your secret, pay up. I don't care about that kid, but someone does.

Although we may have a very good reason for doing something, that doesn't grant immunity from someone else reacting as their character would, without the obligation to explain why on the GDB.

#bringbackediblebabies