D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[Cadence]

Admittedly, it was a minor in Phil, Major in English, but still, I got my paper that lets me argue on the internet.

It sounds better if you say "I'm almost ABD". I mean, you're only two years of grad school from being able to be ABD in some programs, so it kind of feels true.

 

[Cadence]

Develop a dogma that normalizes how it is okay to hurt her until you're allowed to kill her and feel satisfied by it.

That feels really bad.

I was kind of going for something in the spirit of the trolley problem and it's variants. And with none of the endings involving feeling satisfied.

 

[HammerMan]

Is it just me or is the honest answer for most people for the trolley problem be "panic, freeze and not be able to do anything fast enough to make a difference."

 

[Oofta]

So the mission is clear: kill that little girl?

That can't possibly be what you want us to take from that, but in the context of 'born evil' as half an excuse to eradicate a people, that's kind of where it goes.

Hopefully because they caught it early enough that with appropriate therapy they can help rewire her brain. I was just pointing out that some actual, real, people are born what we would call evil. That there's no reason to believe that since humans can be born that way that another species couldn't be as extreme or more so.

As far as what to do about it, that's up to each table. I've never run a campaign where the players went out to kill goblins for the sake of killing them. I can't say it's never happened in my experience but I can't remember a time when we did. I do get tired of this strawman dressed up as a goblin though.

 

[MNblockhead]

I am currently once again playing Civ 5.

I am a mass murdering religious tyrant like the world has never seen. Best not think what happens when I send an inquisitor to a freshly conquered City and with one click the previous religion just vanishes.

Well, the population doesn't drop, so I guess I only torture and brainwash them

What, you don't raze the cities? And you call yourself "a mass murdering religious tyrant like the world has never seen."

;-)

 

[Vaalingrade]

and he can self res... he is a biokenetic (omega level) that can give an cure cancer at will... so you know, kinda writing into a corner for the X office... also known as a day that ends in Y.

Not that curing cancer is an issue in 616. Norman Osborne has had the cure for years but kept it around in bullet form (!!) just to have an ace in the hole against Deadpool.

I'm not sure he can actually self-res though. Then again, Cypher learned the literal cheat codes of the universe via the power to know every language. X-folk don't play. Elixir's peers were Female T-1000, an actual pschopomp, kid Purple Man, Wolverine's clone, 'What if Ben Grimm and Deadpool had a baby' and 'If Imhotep got to be cool all the time in the Mummy Trilogy'.

 

[Cadence]

Not that curing cancer is an issue in 616. Norman Osborne has had the cure for years but kept it around in bullet form (!!) just to have an ace in the hole against Deadpool.

It used to be.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I was just pointing out that some actual, real, people are born what we would call evil.

Mental illness is not evil.

I'm being serious here; please do not spread this kind of harmful stigma. Especially not to try to make a point about a game of pretend with extra steps.

 

[Scribe]

I am currently once again playing Civ 5.

I am a mass murdering religious tyrant like the world has never seen. Best not think what happens when I send an inquisitor to a freshly conquered City and with one click the previous religion just vanishes.

Well, the population doesn't drop, so I guess I only torture and brainwash them

In Stellaris you can build out a race that will conquer a planet, enforce slave labor, and then eat the population you havent worked to death. Its uh....something.

 

[MNblockhead]

Sure. And I don't have hard time imagining that humans would treat somewhat intelligent humanoids who they find mildly annoying utterly horribly. It just is that it is the humans who would be bad guys (or at least not good guys) in such a scenario. Such conflicts are perfectly plausible. What I don't get is the need to justify such behaviour by inserting cartoony moral system in it. Just accept that a medieval fantasy world is a a brutal place, your character is not a paragon of virtue, and go stomp some goblins if that's what you want. The desire to paint such behaviour as laudable is what I find distasteful.

Seriously, humans have found reason to fight and kill each other as long as we have existed. No inherent evil and good factions needed, comes to us perfectly naturally. I have no reason to think the same wouldn't be true if sapient non-humans existed.

I don't know. The "axis of evil" is more simplistic than the 9-alignment system.

Seem like we insert cartoony moral systems into the real world to justify our behavior. At least in a game, its just a game.