Paladins and Good Aligned Folk In War - Are Orc Children Slain?

[Dr. Harry]

No, it's not preposterous, because we're talking about D&D.

If you want to change the core assumptions of the game world, that's another matter. But D&D is very specifically designed to demonstrate a clash of Good and Evil. It suffuses the entire design. You may deviate from this design to present your players with complex moral conundrums, but that isn't the default. (Compare D&D alignment with D20 Modern allegiances-- very different.)

Assuming we're back on the same frame of reference, what you're essentially suggesting is that a lion raised by sheep will learn to eat grass.

Again, that may be true in your campaign-- not for me to judge. But unless you change the frame of reference, I'd say you were being silly.

You seem to be identifying as a core assumption that "evil" creatures are inherently evil; that to a kobold/goblin/orc etc., raiding, raping, murdering, etc., are as ingrained and natural as a lion's carniverous biology. That could be done, I suppose, but it would mean that these creatures don't really have anything remotely resembling free will (since these things they do are what they *have* to do), so they might not even count as sentient.

You seem to be explicitly saying that the ideas that a humaniod can have any sort of moral compass besides what you've decided that they have is equivalent to the idea that lions could be trained to live on grass, and then you call that silly.

This might be true in your campaign, but whether this is one of the core assumptions of the game is (I feel) quite weak, underscored by the emphasis in 3E that only inherently extreme creatues (angels, devils, intelligent undead) have absolute alignments.

 

[Dr. Harry]

It's funny that you accuse folks who want heroic heroes of being modern, politically correct, moral relativism, modern values, yadda yadda.

I think it's the opposite -- PLAYERS who want to have their PC's rape, torture prisoners, murder kids, etc. are getting treated with the modern values, politically correct, moral relativism (but the orcs were terrorist), politically correct kid gloves. "It's just a game." "I was playing my character." Well, I'm not interested in excuses. I'm a moral absolutist of the old school -- do evil stuff that's repulsive to me, and I don't care if it's in character -- I don't want to associate with people whose fantasy is to be do evil. Having justice served in character and then not inviting you to roll up a new character seems appropriate to me.

I normally disregard "me too" posts (and everyone feel free to disregard this one), but I wanted to say that I'm perfectly alright with this post.

 

[haakon1]

My players have never had a point in which this has happened because even the craziest orcs in my world don't leave the kids sitting out on the hillside while they go rampaging, nor do they fight until every last one of them is dead.

Nod. You'd think there'd be some adult females alive, since they are not warriors, at least in sources like "The Sunless Citadel".

 

[Sundragon2012]

If Tolkien wrote about Legolas and Aragorn as baby-killers, I don't think his books would have sold.

It's funny that you accuse folks who want heroic heroes of being modern, politically correct, moral relativism, modern values, yadda yadda.

I think it's the opposite -- PLAYERS who want to have their PC's rape, torture prisoners, murder kids, etc. are getting treated with the modern values, politically correct, moral relativism (but the orcs were terrorist), politically correct kid gloves. "It's just a game." "I was playing my character." Well, I'm not interested in excuses. I'm a moral absolutist of the old school -- do evil stuff that's repulsive to me, and I don't care if it's in character -- I don't want to associate with people whose fantasy is to be do evil. Having justice served in character and then not inviting you to roll up a new character seems appropriate to me.

Before you allow your emotional reaction to overcome you and read into what I actually wrote, I must clarify that I wrote I don't see Aragorn and Legolas or Gimli for that matter rescuing wandering orphan orc children in fact I believe they would leave them to the fates to deal with....ie. wolves, weather, whatever. They may not ride them down with their horses hooves but they would not go out of their way to feed and cloth them.....to what possible end?

Where do you put the 25 orcish orphan's....in Gondor? Amongst the elves? The dwarves? I read the novels including the Silmirillion and seen the movies and I do not see any culture that would raise one finger to help orc children. If anything in Tolkien's work orcs are more intrinsically base than in core D&D. I can't recall any good orcs mentioned by Tolkien but I may have forgotten as it has been awhile. If not one is mentioned do you think that means anything?

I hate evil campaigns for the most part. My argument is that it can be necessary for good folk to put orcish villages to the torch to make sure that in 10 years another horde does not rise and it is the personal code (chivalric for example) that could prevent certain characters from killing the young or non-combatants of any race, not only the anthropomorphic ones mind you. I don't however believe this is merely a question of good or evil.

In a previous post I indicated that the dwarves of FR have been genocidally slaughtered by orc horde after orc horde and until recently were on the brink of extinction. I am so sorry if I feel that good guys that willingly allow orcs to breed like rabbits next door to them threatening their own children and womenfolk are STUPID and guilty of a greater evil than the utter annihilation of a species that seems, nearly to a one, hell bent on destroying you and everything you love.

I am sorry if your tender sensibilities are so easily offended but if there is a better way than to crush cockroaches and destroy their nests I haven't seen one in the majority of fantasy millieus. I am not promoting evil gaming, I am arguing that in a fully realized, believable setting full of the amount of violence so apparent in D&D that there are very reali consequences to war and sometimes good guys do a lesser evil to prevent a greater evil. In grittier settings the world isn't so easily reduced to 1s and 0s and though hero are heroic they sometimes have to make hard choices for the sake of the good they serve.


Chris

 

[Falkus]

In a previous post I indicated that the dwarves of FR have been genocidally slaughtered by orc horde after orc horde and until recently were on the brink of extinction. I am so sorry if I feel that good guys that willingly allow orcs to breed like rabbits next door to them threatening their own children and womenfolk are STUPID and guilty of a greater evil than the utter annihilation of a species that seems, nearly to a one, hell bent on destroying you and everything you love.

Then perhaps the Dwarves should be adopting the assimilation method of warfare, whereby enemy towns and villages are occupied, rather than razed, and made part of your nation. And then, in a couple of orcish generations, the Dwarves would have their own orcish horde at beck and call.

 

[Sundragon2012]

You seem to be identifying as a core assumption that "evil" creatures are inherently evil; that to a kobold/goblin/orc etc., raiding, raping, murdering, etc., are as ingrained and natural as a lion's carniverous biology. That could be done, I suppose, but it would mean that these creatures don't really have anything remotely resembling free will (since these things they do are what they *have* to do), so they might not even count as sentient.

You seem to be explicitly saying that the ideas that a humaniod can have any sort of moral compass besides what you've decided that they have is equivalent to the idea that lions could be trained to live on grass, and then you call that silly.

This might be true in your campaign, but whether this is one of the core assumptions of the game is (I feel) quite weak, underscored by the emphasis in 3E that only inherently extreme creatues (angels, devils, intelligent undead) have absolute alignments.

I am saying that using human nature as a baseline might be a foolish assumption and that as I said before:

" It is important to note for the nature vs. nurture question that a useful model to consider would be that culture doesn't just mold character, it reflects the natural character of the race in question forming a vicious cycle in which members of a race that is intrinsically cruel and violent has these natural qualities reinforced throughout its entire life by others around them.

The entire culture exists to support and reinforce the worst qualities of a already violent nature."

What evidence is there that entire species who have been, for millenia, evil that somewhere deep inside is anything remotely human in regard to intrinsic nature and capacity for love, compassion and empathy? There is no reason to assume this. In fact there is every reason to assume that there is something different regarding temperment and instinct that makes these creatures tend toward a cruel and warlike nature. I think my argument is bolstered by the fact that in fantasy settings these creatures are 95% likely to be evil and have always been this way and have dieties who actively promote that state both psychologically and culturally.

All arguements against this are using human nature as a baseline but I see that as an error because the creatures we are discussing have, in all settings I am aware of, been utterly wicked and cruel. Claiming that deep inside a orc child is a sweet, loving human child is demonstrated nowhere in gaming or literature and is countered by the very reality of these creatures being nearly universally evil no matter where they appear (with very few exceptions).


Chris

 

[Sundragon2012]

Then perhaps the Dwarves should be adopting the assimilation method of warfare, whereby enemy towns and villages are occupied, rather than razed, and made part of your nation. And then, in a couple of orcish generations, the Dwarves would have their own orcish horde at beck and call.

If their well earned hatred for these creatures and prejudice could be overcome maybe they should. Or maybe, ages ago, they tried and even those raised amongst them turned and bit the hand that fed them.

Interesting thought really and I wonder, if you thought of that right now, if the dwarves thought of that already, tried it, and failed. Maybe.


Chris

 

[tonym]

...PLAYERS who want to have their PC's rape, torture prisoners, murder kids, etc...

Whoa whoa whoa. I'm all for murdering evil babies who can't defend themselves. But I draw the line at rape and torture.

Killing evil babies is Lawful Good, if done properly. Rape and torture are terribly Evil.

Tony M

 

[Falkus]

The fact that I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not worries me.

Personally, I think it's quite obvious why orks, goblins, kobolds, etc. are evil. These bands of the so called good races (humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc) regularly sweep through their territory and butcher defenseless goblinoids, which causes the survivors to have an understandably bitter outlook on life.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

When I was running the Sunless Citadel I think there were about 40 or so Kobalds living in the Citadel. They were all EVIL! Evil I say!!! And thus they were slain.

Orcs..well as Tolkien's orcs spraing from Morgoth and were forever tainted by his evil thus were Greyhawk's orcs forever tainted by Grummish's foul evil and thus slayable.