D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[Reynard]

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)

Moreover, does it matter? Only if the people involved decide it matters, at which point it becomes a "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" situation.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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?

This is a question better asked by someone that doesn't think this would improve FR substantially.

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?

Mmm, that's some good shifting of goalposts. We're no longer killing them for just being aliens. we're self-defensing them to death in a way D&D characters rarely do. But here's the real question: what if there were survivors of the ship crashes that surrenders? Is the half an excuse provided still an excuse?

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.

This is a thread called 'I Really Love Stomping Goblins'.

Also, the line between 'defending my home against an invasive species' and 'genocide of sapients' is literally the sapient part. Like if you're calling sapients (and let's get this clear: sapient is not the same as sentient, which most people are using to justify castigating us for eating delicious pigs) 'invasive species', there's the problem right there.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

Independence Day (a true masterpiece in modern sci-fi) treats the aliens as having no home world but traveling in their ships from planet to planet "like locusts" to strip the planet of resources and move on. While it is possible their are other fleets out there, the movie insinuates the mother ship IS their home and everyone on it is all that exists of their species. Blowing up the ships is eradicating thier homeland and people, even the "non-combatants" if that even exist.

Does that change the answer?

 

[Vaalingrade]

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)?

You... didn't watch the third movie did you?

 

[Umbran]

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.

Could you go into why it is harder? Does not the "rabid dog" analogy come in to simplify your choice?

 

[Remathilis]

You... didn't watch the third movie did you?

Regrettably, I did.

I know you're referring to the band of ex troopers on Endor. Compared to the sheer number of stormtroopers in the galaxy, that is certainly "a few". Comparable to the number of "good drow" PCs and characters from Salvatore novels. I wouldn't use them as the exception that makes Luke or Poe a mass murderer though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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

Look, we're trying to contrive a scenario that allows one ot slaughter an entire species on sight not only guilt free but feeling good about it. There can't be civillians. There can't be castes or classes or artisans or cooks. Only soldier drones with sword-ready organs and cartoon motivations we disagree with.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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)

You asked about genocide.

Genocide is a specific term with a specific meaning. Blowing up a station full of X will never be genocide unless it is part of a campaign (organised or otherwise) to do away with X, and where X is something people can't choose whether they are or not (usually a race or species).

There's a bit of morality that I don't know the exact term for (perhaps a philosopher can help us out), where the morality or ethics of behaviour is subject to what's happening to you, and what choices you have. With your specific Death Star example, the Death Star had, already been used to perform mass slaughter (possibly genocide, I know nothing about the composition of the people who lived on Alderaan) of an almost unimaginable scale. There was no conventional military solution. The Death Star was so massive, so heavily armed, so superior to the forces opposed against it that it could not simply be "taken" or defeated in a conventional way.

The only avenue available to the rebels was to cause it to explode. I'm sure some of them had relatives, maybe friends aboard said Death Star. But the choices were:

A) Allow the Death Star to destroy our base AND then to proceed to destroy whatever else the Emperor wishes.

or

B) Attempt to cause the Death Star to explode, undoubtedly killing some civilians, people forced and brainwashed to work there, and so on.

There was no:

C) Simply defeat the Death Star and overwhelm it, then decide the fate of the people manning it.

 

[Fifinjir]

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.

It’s a question of atmosphere. Fighting people who went down the wrong path and fighting outgrowths of the fundamental wrongness of the universe should, if done properly, feel like incredibly different experiences.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It’s a question of atmosphere. Fighting people who went down the wrong path and fighting outgrowths of the fundamental wrongness of the universe should, if done properly, feel like incredibly different experiences.

That's the problem though.

None of the races mentioned by the OP are "outgrowths of the fundamental wrongness of the universe". They're essentially just different-looking human-types. Human bandits and goblin raiders are far more similar than say, human bandits and zombies/vampires, or human bandits and psychic crystal machines who destroy the world by their mere presence or something.