D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[Remathilis]

So... mass murder of sapients based on who they were born as?

So if a portal to the Abyss opened in the center of Waterdeep and began an invasion of Faerun, would killing every demon on site be the mass murder of sapients based on who they were born as?

Similar question: the classic War of the Worlds/Independence Day scenario of an alien species coming to Earth to conquer and steal it's resources. We nuke the Mothership to save our planet, effectively committing genocide on the aliens. Are we the equally as bad?

I ask because most people don't wake up and decide to genocide orcs as a campaign goal. Often the orcs slain are in defense against orcs being raiders and pillagers. It's a defense against aggressive action. Now I get people wanting to humanize orcs and other human-like races (that's not my debate here) but I'm curious where the line between defending my home against an invasive species and "genocide of sapients" falls.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

New plan: goblins are enchanted to polymorph anyone who kills them permanently into goblins.

Ooooh that's quite a good adventure hook as a general concept, nice.

What I've never really got, though, is why "goblins" or whatever are needed for people to enjoy "killing bad guys". If you look at games/movies/books etc. it's clearly not the case there. In general in media "bad guys" get slaughtered for opposing the "heroes", and there's no need for them to be "born bad" or whatever.

 

[Maxperson]

It is, perhaps, poor wording.

But consider - if you just paint some figures as Evil and Stompable... how much moral content is there going to be in the resulting play?

We were told upthread that much of the point was to distance the players from the heavy needs of everyday moral decisions, to stop thinking about that stuff for a while! So, yeah, while we can note that "bankrupt" was a colorful term that might push buttons, in honestly we should not expect the resulting play to have a whole lot of moral value.

This is not saying that the players are morally bankrupt overall. The instances of play are a small part of their overall lives. But those instances of play aren't going to be fodder for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood either, now are they?

Just because you have a race that is inherently evil(goblins in this case), doesn't make okay to murder them after they've surrendered. The fact that they are inherently evil just makes the moral choice harder, not easier. Anyone can make decision to not murder someone that only might be evil or that they know isn't evil, but was an enemy. It's much more difficult to make moral choices when the enemy is an inherently evil race. Dealing with inherent evil can lead to a truer test of morals.

 

[Oofta]

...
So... mass murder of sapients based on who they were born as?

Since that's never come up in any campaign I've ever run, I'd have to think about it if it did happen.

 

[Cadence]

So if a portal to the Abyss opened in the center of Waterdeep and began an invasion of Faerun, would killing every demon on site be the mass murder of sapients based on who they were born as?

Similar question: the classic War of the Worlds/Independence Day scenario of an alien species coming to Earth to conquer and steal it's resources. We nuke the Mothership to save our planet, effectively committing genocide on the aliens. Are we the equally as bad?

I ask because most people don't wake up and decide to genocide orcs as a campaign goal. Often the orcs slain are in defense against orcs being raiders and pillagers. It's a defense against aggressive action. Now I get people wanting to humanize orcs and other human-like races (that's not my debate here) but I'm curious where the line between defending my home against an invasive species and "genocide of sapients" falls.

Doesn't the Geneva convention differentiate between combatants and civilians?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What I've never really got, though, is why "goblins" or whatever are needed for people to enjoy "killing bad guys". If you look at games/movies/books etc. it's clearly not the case there. In general in media "bad guys" get slaughtered for opposing the "heroes", and there's no need for them to be "born bad" or whatever.

Yep. This is the thing I’ll never get. I blame the alignment, it seems to make any discussion about building conflict dumber.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Truer words...

Actually it's overly materialistic in my opinion, we are more then flesh and bone, that is just our vechile for the material universe. Confusing ourselves with meat, even beautiful meat, is as bad as equating the value of someone with their car.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

effectively committing genocide on the aliens

This seems to misunderstand what "genocide" is.

It's not "killing a lot of some type of being". It's "attempting, specifically, to wipe out a specific kind of being". Blowing up a ship with a lot of aliens on it because it was your only way to defend yourself, and their intentions were known and very bad is pretty much never going to be genocide, because your goal isn't, well, genocide.

Successfully defending the planet, then flying back to THEIR planet and finishing off any remaining ones, or if their entire population was on the ship, pursuing it and ensuring it was destroyed, the first would definitely be genocide and the second might well be.

 

[Reynard]

Actually it's overly materialistic in my opinion, we are more then flesh and bone, that is just our vechile for the material universe. Confusing ourselves with meat, even beautiful meat, is as bad as equating the value of someone with their car.

User name checks out.

 

[Remathilis]

Ooooh that's quite a good adventure hook as a general concept, nice.

What I've never really got, though, is why "goblins" or whatever are needed for people to enjoy "killing bad guys". If you look at games/movies/books etc. it's clearly not the case there. In general in media "bad guys" get slaughtered for opposing the "heroes", and there's no need for them to be "born bad" or whatever.

I mean, plenty of media has disposable mooks that can be destroyed by the heroes, but is there really any daylight between goblins and Stormtroopers insofar as they are raised from infancy to be Evil and only a few ever break the cycle (Finn for example)? Isn't blowing up a battle station of them basically an evil act? (Lord knows how many other Finns got destroyed by Luke in A New Hope)