Re: Traditions

> > One side breaks
> > them,
> > and out the door they go.
>
>Not necessarily.  Even when part of ones army violate the "rules" most
>of the army will generally follow them (there are numerous historical
>examples of this, as well as capable commanders who violated the rules
>coming to be despised by their own people).
>


You're using humans as an example, and we're talking about a universe with
multitudes of races, all with different natures than humans - just as orcs
have a certain alignment tendancy, so to do humans.


> > Unless they had to for some reason, asn as soon
> > as that
> > reason was gone they'd throw the rules to the wind.
>
>The "rules" are there because you want the other guy to folow them and
>you don't want to be labeled as "rogue", "pirate", or whatever.


The rules are there because groups use those rules to their benefit.  The
average space traveler would enjoy the benifit of not dying.  I seriously
doubt peer pressure, and not wanting to be labeled a "rouge" would be much
motivation for an illithid.  An illithid would use rules to try and impose
it's evil desires upon others.  A chaotic evil being would not depend on
rules to impose its will, but would use force.  A neutral human merchant
would use the rules to make his trip through space more easy and safer, so
he culd ply his wares, and imposing evil desires would not come into it.


>Why do
>armies take prisoners when its a huge pain in the ass?  Because they
>want their surrender to be accepted when they have to give it one day.
>Why treat prisoners well?  Because you've got friends who're prisoners.


Sometimes they just take them because those are the orders they are given,
and those orders are given by politicians with political reasons.  The
Mongolians took no prisioners, they just leveled the entire village and
killed every man woman and child.  They found that when they did this the
word spread and the next ten villages all gave up completely with no
fighting whatsoever.  They saved a lot of Mongolian lives and avoided extra
fighting that way, but the price was that they had to keep thier word and
kill everyone if the village fought back.

It does no good to take prisoners for the reasons you give when they enemy
does not reciprocate.  Taking a Mongolian prisoner wouldn't have made them
start taking your people prisoner instead of killing them.  We don't take
terrorists prisoners now because we think their buddies won't kill us if we
do this.  We take them prisoners for our own reasons, and what they think or
do has nothing to do with it at all.  It doesn't even come into the
equation.

> >  Maybe some rules
> > of
> > conflict between elven ships and dwarven ships, according to
> > tradition or
> > treaty, and among human ships.
>
>I'm not talking about specific treaties, I'm talking the "civilized
>norm" every nation recognizes similar to the way the European powers
>operated for centuries.
>


My point is that there can never be a norm everywhere, just in certain
regions, among certain groups.


> > I'd imagine the rules about showing your colors and passing on a
> > certain
> > side were European rules created by the English, French,Spanish, et
> > al.
> > They probably did not hold in Asian seas during the same time frame.
>
>Sure they did.  For European ships.


Well, duh.  That goes without saying.  Among a specific group, not among
everybody.


It seems to me that you think I am saying there is no use to make these
rules and customs for the SJ universe.  I don't know where you came to that
conclusion, I never said that.  I just pointed out the rules would only work
among certain groups.  Pointing that out in no way implies that its not
worth the effort to come up with some customs and rules of spacefarers to
spice up our SJ campaigns.  No details ever detract from a good campaign.
The more details the better.  And applying shipping customs and rules of
etiquite to certain groups and not to others is even another detail, to add
even more flavor to your campaign.

- Coyote, the Desert Dog

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