He seems to be missing a key point that we're supposed to be weighing things against the cost, not just declaring 'there's cost, nope can't do it!' Maybe the weighed result is that we need a better way to do these things.
Madness string 85896
There seems to be this underlying expectation that the players are largely a bunch of simple-minded, morally righteous but extremely violent thugs who are willing to believe just about anything put in front of them and never question whether a fight was necessary or avoidable or what it says about them that they chose to kill everyone hostile yet again once things got a bit tense.