D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[Maxperson]

As modern dwellers of developed nations with ubiquitous police presence, that makes sense.

But then, our developed nations with ubiquitous police presence don't generally have packs of vigilante adventurers roaming the countryside handling threats to the life and limb of the common folk. So, maybe that viewpoint needs to be adjusted for the relevant situation?

I think it has been adjusted. Adventurers usually aren't hauled in and jailed for roaming the countryside risking themselves for the common folk. Murder of a helpless inherently evil, sapient creature, though? That could easily go either way, depending on the players and DM. I think that a moral group of adventurers would try to bring that helpless creature in. I think an immoral group would just kill it.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

I think it has been adjusted. Adventurers usually aren't hauled in and jailed for roaming the countryside risking themselves for the common folk. Murder of a helpless inherently evil, sapient creature, though? That could easily go either way, depending on the players and DM. I think that a moral group of adventurers would try to bring that helpless creature in. I think an immoral group would just kill it.

You could not have a more blood thirsty group of PCs than mine and even they take prisoner's and opt to avoid violence when they can - even in the middle of combat.

 

[Umbran]

I think it has been adjusted. Adventurers usually aren't hauled in and jailed for roaming the countryside risking themselves for the common folk.

Well, no. But, we are talking about a situation where there is insufficient enforcement of public safety, necessitating vigilante action. Simply put, if there were sufficient forces to put the party in jail, the party wouldn't be necessary.

Murder of a helpless inherently evil, sapient creature, though?

What does it mean to be "inherently evil" and "sapient"?

 

[Filthy Lucre]

What does it mean to be "inherently evil" and "sapient"?

1.) Predetermined/Predisposed/motivated toward evil ends, (evil would require further definition).
2.) Anything that has qualia.

 

[Oofta]

Except we failed at step 1.

You can't be a sapient being with the ability to make choices and also be 'inherently' anything. That's not how any of those words work.

Are you creating the fiction for every campaign? Last time I checked you aren't the author of @Reynard's campaign world.

It's a magic world. There's no reason to believe that such things are impossible. Then again even in the real world I disagree. We've never met a species as intelligent as we are, we have no idea if other species are hard wired with the same moral compass that we have. It's likely because of convergent evolution but not guaranteed.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Do you feel that by doing so you're being judgmental about your fellow gamers who do feel it's just a game? There's certainly a degree of it all through this thread.

Right now, it looks to me like you're expressing some ambivalence. You aren't going to stop so any problematic aspect of doing so, any creepiness/juvenileness you see, is only of limited value in changing your own behavior. Yet you suggested a degree of judgement as well. Do you really think slaughtering the goblins under the justification that it's a game is problematic? Under what justification is it not problematic? Is this even something worthy of the philosophical discussion?

If you told somebody the trolley problem, and they shrugged and said, "You throw the switch and kill the one person. Why is this even a problem?" wouldn't you find it a little...strange?

I think it's fine to arrive at one answer or the other (in either the trolley problem or the killing goblins problem) after giving it some thought, but to deny there's even a moral dilemma, and to have no uneasiness about your choice? That's just creepy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

According @Vaalingrade's argument, anyone with a gender isn't sapient, because you can't have both free will and predetermined anything relating to your personality or the way you think.

That would be true if it were anything approaching my argument.

 

[Alzrius]

It's a magic world. There's no reason to believe that such things are impossible.

I agree. I've heard many people throw shade at various games because (some part of) the premise/setting doesn't match up to their vision of how things (should) work - the one that comes to mind is that the Outer Planes in the Great Wheel cosmology are infinite, and yet their respective gate-towns can be physically traveled between - and it always sounds like an inadvertent confession of a failure of imagination on the part of the speaker.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are you creating the fiction for every campaign?

Yes.

 

[Weiley31]

Looks to the left, looks to the right and then back in this topic.

There is a surprisingly lack of milestone, Wilds Beyond the Witchlight, and "orcs/drow are problematic" players in this thread and I'm kinda shocked.

Especially after reading a number of posts/threads on there.

Also: I can't believe Reynard is Goblin Slayer!