D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[Older Beholder]

Just on the topic of computer games that make you consider if you're actually the hero or villain, I wanted to give a quick shout out to Shadow of the Colossus., which did a great job of this.

Also of interest, it does away with the 'kill a thousand things before reaching the boss fight' and just leaves the boss fights.

I don't want to get any more spoilery than I already have, but it could be quite an emotional experience where you actually feel bad for what you're doing.

 

[Charlaquin]

Tossing this out there, if we are going to take this into consideration...

And what happens when you find that "pest" animal is actually a race of sapient beings? Creatures that are wise, sane, perceptive...etc can be found around us.

If we are using Sapient, quite a few animals could fall under that idea such as Dolphins, Dogs...and RATS. Rats are considered to be rather intelligent, emotional, and very into community. They are puzzle solvers and can figure things out using intelligence rather than their animalistic qualities. This is one reason they have survived in many instances, despite many attempts to wipe them out. They are also considered a pest.

Pigs are another creature that we tend to kill on a massive scale. Pigs are incredibly a lot like Humans. They are intelligent, being smarter than dogs and most other creatures, building attachments similar to humans, having emotional and characteristic ranges as wide as humans (so yes, sadistic pigs, loving pigs, etc), and even physically being close enough to humans that we can use different body parts of theirs in transplants for humans. We can grow those body parts (pig blood, hearts, ect.) to be replacement parts for humans.

We eat bacon, hot dogs, and a ton of other things from these intelligent creatures.

It seems that people have an EASY time considering creatures in a fantasy game as being things we need to treat like humans, but when it comes to REAL LIFE examples of things that actually have some intelligence or show qualities of humanity and intelligence in real life...we discount what we are doing and the killing we participate in (many times, everyday).

If your argument is that the way our society treats animals is immoral, you’ll get no disagreement from me.

 

[Charlaquin]

You are wrong.

Exhibit A: Satan

Satan is about as un-nuanced as a character can get. Unless you’re talking about non-canon depictions like Paradise Lost that reinterpret him as a fallen angel, which I would argue are not depicted as inherently evil.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was kinda hoping it would be a love fest of gamers describing the joys of playing morally bankrupt murder hobos stomping goblins.

While the philosophy debate club this thread has spawned led to some interesting conversations, I was hoping to learn about more ways to stomp goblins.

I think that’s a potentially fruitful conversation to have, but I don’t think the framing of this thread invited it.

I'm in a creative rut and don't have much to contribute, perhaps because I'm the DM running a game with a city of Orcus-worshiping goblins and have exercised much more creativity in curb-stomping PCs with overpowered, evil gobbos.

I mean, you’ve got the Orcus-worshipping part, so your gobbo crushing seems sufficiently justified to me. If they were Lathander-worshipping goblins, killing them might seem a bit less righteous. And if every last goblin in your world worships Orcus, that seems like a strange world building choice.

To add something to this conversation, I will say that as a DM, I love setting up encounters with groups of low-level, weak, but sneaky, clever, and nasty creatures. Goblins, kobolds, gremlins, mephits, imps, and mites. Trust me, give me any group of arm-chair moral philosophers and have them run a group of PCs through one of my goblin caves or mite lairs. They'll be stomping them with relish before the night is done---well, those they can actually hit before they run away rethinking their life choices and cursing bounded accuracy.

I have no doubt I would! You might not guess it from the way I post, but I do love me some good old fashioned hacking, slashing, dungeon-delving escapades.

 

[Reynard]

Satan is about as un-nuanced as a character can get. Unless you’re talking about non-canon depictions like Paradise Lost that reinterpret him as a fallen angel, which I would argue are not depicted as inherently evil.

Ah, "no true Scotsman" defense.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Satan is about as un-nuanced as a character can get. Unless you’re talking about non-canon depictions like Paradise Lost that reinterpret him as a fallen angel, which I would argue are not depicted as inherently evil.

Also not arguably evil in the context of his source material as he is the Adversary tasked to tempt humanity and test their worthiness by God. He's literally doing the job given to him by the arbiter of good and evil in his context.

 

[theCourier]

Ah, "no true Scotsman" defense.

That's not what that means

 

[Maxperson]

Also not arguably evil in the context of his source material as he is the Adversary tasked to tempt humanity and test their worthiness by God. He's literally doing the job given to him by the arbiter of good and evil in his context.

He and the other angels and demons wouldn't be inherently evil or good, either. If they were, then the fall could not have happened.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's not what that means

Calling logical fallacies like mistranslated anime attacks is par for the course on these boards.

 

[Scribe]

He and the other angels and demons wouldn't be inherently evil or good, either. If they were, then the fall could not have happened.

I seem to remember an arc where thats the question. Does Lucifer have free will, or did God create him to deny him.