D&D 5E Dragonborn inter-species breeding?

[Bacon Bits]

I thought of another one which pretty much every DM tries at some point, particularly if there are Lawful Good party members, especially if you're playing in 3e or earlier, and doubly so if there's a Paladin in the group. Few people try it more than once, because the situation is pretty for the players, and if handled poorly can end a campaign. I was reminded by this exchange from earlier:

This does of course raise the question, is killing less of a crime than rape?

I think the way you worded the question invites the answer: You didn't ask "Is murder less of a crime than rape?"

See, because killing and murder are a part of the game all the time, and we never think twice about it because its always monsters. Except for one situation....

Orc babies.

You know the trope. You're clearing a dungeon, and your party comes across den of orcs. You clear them out. You get to the last room, where you find a group of cowering orc women and children. They're clearly non-combatants, and because of the morality system of the game they're in a Schrodinger's box where they're simultaneously irredeemably evil and purely innocent, you don't know if you should kill them or let them live. Now the players are forced with three choices: a) kill ostensibly innocent humanoids, b) release creatures who will inevitably be evil and hostile when grown, and c) arrest everybody and give them to some legal or divine authority to sort out.

DMs seem to like to add this scenario because it adds depth. The problem is, it doesn't. At best it deadlocks the game while the players argue. At worst, the party stops adventuring to play prison escort. The whole scenario is interesting to roleplay for about 5 minutes, and it inevitably takes far longer.

See, the scenario requires a type of morality that the D&D game world doesn't have. The game often says there are irredeemably evil creatures, and racial enmities which reach all the way to deities. The real problem with the scenario is that the solution to this problem would be in Paladin Training 101. Every character in the game world knows exactly what needs to be done in this situation, but the players often won't. The characters know the law. The characters know church doctrine. Worst case scenario, the players have their god on speed dial and can ask him or her what they should do. This situation should be a settled matter of doctrine. The players have no idea, however, because they weren't raised in the game world and don't know what to do. They're screwed because the DM can punish you no matter what you do by changing the way the world works after the fact. It was especially bad when you were a 1e-3e Paladin with a code of conduct. Now a character is faced with a no-win situation that cripples his character. It's injecting our shaded morality which relies on the fact that everything is subjective into a world where morality is often objective because you can directly ask a true moral authority when you have questions. In D&D, morality walks on two legs and performs miracles for creatures that worship it. It's not like we can call up Jesus of Nazareth or Siddhartha Gautama or Muhammad or Hades or Odin or Horus or Quetzalcoatl and ask how to handle no-win sitations. D&D characters can. Often literally.

"But the Kobayashi Maru is a great test of character that requires you to expand beyond yourself and redefine your character!"

F*** you, DM. My character should already know what to do. He or she does that. It doesn't bother me because I'm not my character. I wouldn't kick in someone's door, kill them, and take all their stuff. My character did that a half a dozen times before lunch and he knows he's still in good standing with a Lawful Good deity. I think my character and I wouldn't exactly see eye to eye on moral justifications.

Collapsing the orc baby evil/innocent wave function is a scenario that doesn't belong in the game. Similarly, rape is a scenario that doesn't belong in the game. They're not interesting and, worse, they're not fun.

 

[Riley37]

You know the trope. You're clearing a dungeon, and your party comes across den of orcs. You clear them out. You get to the last room, where you find a group of cowering orc women and children.

See, this is why my table doesn't have any sessions about "clearing a dungeon".

Defending a village or a caravan from attackers, investigating the restless dead, preventing the rise of Tiamat, keeping the peace between mostly-human city inhabitants and mostly-elf forest dwellers. Those are worthy challenges. Why would you spend hours of your life playing out "clearing a dungeon", when you could instead do heroic fantasy?

 

[MechaPilot]

See, this is why my table doesn't have any sessions about "clearing a dungeon".

Defending a village or a caravan from attackers, investigating the restless dead, preventing the rise of Tiamat, keeping the peace between mostly-human city inhabitants and mostly-elf forest dwellers. Those are worthy challenges. Why would you spend hours of your life playing out "clearing a dungeon", when you could instead do heroic fantasy?

Clearing out a dungeon is a great way for a party to secure a headquarters or hideout.

Additionally, clearing out a dungeon isn't the only way that situation comes up. You could very easily investigate the string of caravan ambushes and end up finding an orc camp with those helpless little ones.

 

[Sunseeker]

See, this is why my table doesn't have any sessions about "clearing a dungeon".

Defending a village or a caravan from attackers, investigating the restless dead, preventing the rise of Tiamat, keeping the peace between mostly-human city inhabitants and mostly-elf forest dwellers. Those are worthy challenges. Why would you spend hours of your life playing out "clearing a dungeon", when you could instead do heroic fantasy?

Because an Orc raiding party from the North has set up their base in some abandoned ruins, it's a fairly fortified position and they're using it to strike out against the nearby human villages. So in order to put a stop to the raids you have to "clear out" this "dungeon", but be warned, rumor tells of more than Orcs in these ancient catacombs and it's said that a greedy lord who took all his wealth to his death was buried deep within them.

So why do we clear out a dungeon?

Because:
A: Because defeating the orcs will better protect the towns than simply running off their every attack.
B: Because investigating ancient ruins with strange rumors about them is something adventurers do.
C: Because the party is generally a bunch of greedy schmucks and that guy just said the word "gold".

 

[Bacon Bits]

See, this is why my table doesn't have any sessions about "clearing a dungeon".

Defending a village or a caravan from attackers, investigating the restless dead, preventing the rise of Tiamat, keeping the peace between mostly-human city inhabitants and mostly-elf forest dwellers. Those are worthy challenges. Why would you spend hours of your life playing out "clearing a dungeon", when you could instead do heroic fantasy?

Fine.

"You've been hired by the castellan to eliminate a bandit threat. It's not clear if it's a group of orcs or hobgoblins or humans, but someone has moved into the area near the mountains, and been waylaying caravans and travellers on the road past the nearby mountains for several months, capturing or killing everyone. They're strong, they strike hard, and nobody has ever escaped from them.

Background: Although there is a nearby cave which is inhabited by a hostile orc tribe, and a small group of human highwaymen is operating in the area, neither group is the one responsible for the attacks. The real source of the attacks is a clan of vampires and vampire spawn. The vampires have made sure to always leave behind one or two corpses still intact to cover up the fact that they've been abducting people to be blood cattle."

It's trivial to wrap the scenario in a story. Don't nit pick irrelevant details.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Many years ago I played with a group of students I was in college with. We discovered that one of them, not one I was particularly fond of, was playing a female drow cleric who had infiltrated our party and was sabotaging us in a variety of ways. My character, a gray elf rogue, was all for killing her and moving on. However the DM (who was very much part of the problem), the drow and a paladin character drew this situation out for HOURS with stupid histrionics.

Finally my character walked forward and slit the drow's throat, followed by shaking his head and asking, quite innocently, "What just happened? The last thing I remember is looking into her eyes..."

The other players would not let it go and let player knowledge interfere with character knowledge. My PC was called a racist because, well, he had a racial hatred against drow. I didn't deny it and didn't feel I had to. Drow are evil and other elves hate them and kill them on the spot. It's part of the fabric of the Realms and my character behaved in no way inconsistently with what would be expected.

 

[Mirtek]

Why would you spend hours of your life playing out "clearing a dungeon", when you could instead do heroic fantasy?

Because heroic fantasy isn't everyones cup of tea?

We're playing adventurers, not heroes. In our world adventuring companies are not uncommon (quite the opposite) and mostly not well liked, as the difference between an adventuring company and a band of bandits seems to be a streak of bad luck with finding suitable ruins and dungeons to loot

 

[Riley37]

"You've been hired by the castellan to eliminate a bandit threat. It's not clear if it's a group of orcs or hobgoblins or humans, but someone has moved into the area near the mountains, and been waylaying caravans and travellers on the road past the nearby mountains for several months, capturing or killing everyone. They're strong, they strike hard, and nobody has ever escaped from them.

Background: Although there is a nearby cave which is inhabited by a hostile orc tribe, and a small group of human highwaymen is operating in the area, neither group is the one responsible for the attacks. The real source of the attacks is a clan of vampires and vampire spawn. The vampires have made sure to always leave behind one or two corpses still intact to cover up the fact that they've been abducting people to be blood cattle."

It's trivial to wrap the scenario in a story. Don't nit pick irrelevant details.

Well, that's IMO a much more interesting story than "you're clearing out a dungeon", and more to the point, it provides *context for moral decisions* which "you're clearing out a dungeon" does not.

In that story, exterminating the orc warriors and their mates* and orphans is not necessary, and not even useful. Therefore, a player has, or *can discover*, information which can guide a decision about what their PC should do. If the PCs exterminate the orcs, and the raids continue, then hey, maybe the PCs realize that they were reckless with lethal force, and maybe a lawful good deity WOULD raise questions about rules of engagement. Lawful good deities, IMO, care about rules of engagement. Lawful good deities prefer that their followers open with something like "Listen up, you primitive screwheads! You can stop raiding caravans, or we're going to kill you all right now!" Did the players bother, or did they bypass that step?

That's ethically different that the "you're clearing a dungeon" roguelike scenario previously presented, and therefore the difference is NOT an irrelevant detail.

*Are the orc warriors all male? That's how humans usually roll, but maybe orcs in the campaign setting are dimorphic like the spotted hyena.

 

[Riley37]

Because heroic fantasy isn't everyones cup of tea?

We're playing adventurers, not heroes. In our world adventuring companies are not uncommon (quite the opposite) and mostly not well liked, as the difference between an adventuring company and a band of bandits seems to be a streak of bad luck with finding suitable ruins and dungeons to loot

Okay, then you've made a choice, you're clear about that choice, and so are your PCs. They slaughter the mothers and infants, because that's convenient, and the PCs are neutral or evil, and they know what they are: one streak of bad luck away from becoming bandits. Your table doesn't have the false dilemma about "wait, I worship a lawful good deity, how is this what I do?" which a previous post discussed.

Your PCs are like Han Solo, except that when they get the reward at Yavin, they go directly into hyperspace and they don't bother making a close approach to the Death Star to save Luke. Okay, that's a viable option; you go with your cup of tea, I'll go with mine, everyone wins.

 

[Relax]

See, the scenario requires a type of morality that the D&D game world doesn't have. The game often says there are irredeemably evil creatures, and racial enmities which reach all the way to deities. The real problem with the scenario is that the solution to this problem would be in Paladin Training 101. Every character in the game world knows exactly what needs to be done in this situation, but the players often won't. The characters know the law. The characters know church doctrine. Worst case scenario, the players have their god on speed dial and can ask him or her what they should do. This situation should be a settled matter of doctrine. The players have no idea, however, because they weren't raised in the game world and don't know what to do. They're screwed because the DM can punish you no matter what you do by changing the way the world works after the fact. It was especially bad when you were a 1e-3e Paladin with a code of conduct. Now a character is faced with a no-win situation that cripples his character. It's injecting our shaded morality which relies on the fact that everything is subjective into a world where morality is often objective because you can directly ask a true moral authority when you have questions. In D&D, morality walks on two legs and performs miracles for creatures that worship it. It's not like we can call up Jesus of Nazareth or Siddhartha Gautama or Muhammad or Hades or Odin or Horus or Quetzalcoatl and ask how to handle no-win sitations. D&D characters can. Often literally.

Thank you for this. Admittedly I played with the idea of presenting my players with such a moral dilemma, but something in the back of my mind kept telling me not to. You have perfectly articulated what my subconscious was warning me from doing, which is playing the players, not the characters.

As you say, in a world where such things as Lawful Good and Neutral Evil actually exist, our own moralities don't really have a place. It's a made up world where Orc babies are, to their core, evil, and a Lawful Good character should have no qualms about dealing with them accordingly, but given that understanding, why put them in that position to begin with?

Again, thank you for your post. You've given me many things to think about, and many new, hopefully interesting plots for my game are beginning to form...