Quote:
Originally Posted by C.W.Richeson
As it stands there's one way to go about it, and all characters are judged by that scale. I doubt most mages feel sinful for retaliating against an attacker using magic, and many Guardians have few problems with altering the minds of others in order to keep their secrets or maintain the Labyrinth. Yet the system will force Wisdom degeneration checks on those characters, whether they feel sin or remorse or not.
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As I see it, they're judged by the
human scale (with additional considerations due to their special powerz). When a character on a WoD Morality-equivalent track "sins," one of two things happens: either they feel remorse, or they become increasingly callous and eventually lose the capacity to feel remorse for that action. The first is what happens when you pass a Wisdom check; the latter is when you fail. Guardians who have few problems being stereotypical Guardians are the ones with low Wisdom, which ties nicely into their whole martyrdom complex.
Does that mean there's no room for subjectivity? I'd say no, but it's not a cop-out free-for-all like V:tM, either. Murder wounds
all people psychologically. They either feel deep remorse or grow callous, but either way it's some
heavy shit and you can't ignore its impact. Now, one's personal definition of what exactly constitutes "murder," well... Murder is universally condemned by all human societies, as are theft and so forth, but the specifics vary. Is killing the insane/sick/handicapped/foreign/infidel/heretic murder? Many people throughout history didn't think so. Jewish scripture states "Thou shalt do no murder" and then proceeds to prescribe death for all sorts of infractions. Is capital punishment murder? Millions of people think so. There's a small but quite vocal minority who consider abortion to be murder. Some say that eating meat and wearing fur is equivalent to murder. Now, what about vampires? . . .
See what I mean? Murder is wrong. Period. But what exactly is it? That's where individual perceptions come in.