Well, Gianna met Santa for the first time...
Seems like they got along!
I really enjoyed that PCs engaged in a moral and ethical discussion. It might not have strictly been wise under the circumstances, but I think we can overlook that.
Knapp's comments were borne from my own personal experiences. Ian and I were in a Morrow Project (post-nuclear holocaust) RPG about 10-15 years ago. Our team ambushed a convoy of bandit vehicles. My character, a demolitions expert named Thanh, was ordered (not by Ian) to blow up an armoured bus where the last holdouts were making a stand. We didn't have a lot of time but we couldn't leave armed hostiles in the area. We knew most of those on the bus were children but were told by locals they were vicious, inbred, mutants (etc.) and the lot needed to die. Thanh went ahead and pulled the trigger. They were, after all, "bad guys". Over time I decided that while par for the course in RPGs this wasn't really a morally defensible choice. We knew there were mainly non-combatants aboard the bus, we only had the word of our local allies (their enemies) to go on regarding their fundamental character, and perhaps there were other options available we didn't consider. (Were I the GM, I would have considered having the bodies of dead children rain down along with the debris to drive home the point.) For the sake of NPC motivation I imagined that Knapp had undergone a similar situation and harboured her own doubts. (I in no way condemn the PCs for mowing down the waved of Trogs who attacked them; this was clearly a situation of self-defence and the use of deadly force was justified and unavoidable.)
Tony