D&D 5E Player agency and Paladin oath.

[HomegrownHydra]

I would disagree with this completely. Fairness means in accordance with the rules or equitable. In particular with respect to equitable if said prisoners would kill you in a similar postion then it is only "fair" that you kill them.

I undersstand the arguement that it is inherently evil to murder prisoners who surrendered (although it is debatable) I do not agree that it is "unfair".

Also for people that say killing prisoners is absolutely always evil I have two questions:
1. If this is really evil are you similarly duty bound to try to revive an enemy that fell in combat. RAW they are not "dead" unt9il they fail three saves. So as the last Goblin that ambushed you is struck down should you not render aid on any that are not dead?

2. To expandnd on #1 - If you are not required to render aid then presumably some of them are going to pass three saves and thereby live ... what do you do about that. A LG character obviously can't leave the evil Goblins to continue raiding, looting etc. So this a quandry, while they may not have to help any, they would need to at least take those that survive on their own prisoner.

3. What about Vampires you capturred, or Vampires that are defeated and regnerating in their coffins? Is it evil to killsuch helpless beings? If Strahd surrenders to you in the final battle is a good character duty-bound not to kill him? I

I have no interest in arguing about how to treat make believe creatures in a fantasy game. The issue I see is that you keep bending over backwards to defend and justify the actions of the players of the chaotic PCs but will not do the same for the Paladin player. It seems that your general antipathy towards paladins means that you see any problems cropping up between PCs as necessarily the fault of the paladin player. That is what's unfair.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Most action movies don’t have a whole race as the easily identifiable bad guy anymore for a reason.
And again...no one but you is bringing up your home game.
A change to the default alignment of orcs doesn’t affect your home game in any way.

D&D shouldn't have a default, anyway. Every game should be unique.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would disagree with this completely. Fairness means in accordance with the rules or equitable. In particular with respect to equitable if said prisoners would kill you in a similar postion then it is only "fair" that you kill them.

I undersstand the arguement that it is inherently evil to murder prisoners who surrendered (although it is debatable) I do not agree that it is "unfair".

Also for people that say killing prisoners is absolutely always evil I have a few questions:
1. Are good characters similarly duty bound to try to revive an enemy that fell in combat. RAW they are not "dead" until they fail three saves. So as the last Goblin that ambushed you is struck down should you not render aid on any that are not already dead? When you play good characters do you do this after every battle?

2. To expand on #1 - If you are not required to render aid then presumably some of them are going to pass three saves and thereby live on their own ... what do you do about that. A LG character obviously can't leave the evil Goblins to continue raiding, looting etc and he can't kill such helpless creatures. So this a quandry, while he may not have to help them live, some are going to live anyway and they would need to at least take those that survive on their own prisoner. So after every battle do you wait to see who revives on his own so you can take them prisoner and turn over to the authorities?

3. What about Vampires you capturred, or Vampires that are defeated and regnerating in their coffins? Is it evil to kill such helpless beings? If Strahd surrenders to you in the final battle is a good character duty-bound not to kill him?

Even a vampire that acts in a good way is an abomination created by profane magic, a walking corpse with a will. It’s absolute nonsense to compare that case to murdering living prisoners.

1. Yes. But our games also don’t make any moral distinction between goblins and halflings or humans. If we are fighting them there is a reason, and how we treat them will depend on that reason, and on their conduct. If the bandits took shots at downed characters, they’re dead. If they fought reasonably, we will stabilized them, and usually negotiate some manner of deal with them. Ie, “we aren’t interested in murder or in seeing your face behind a bandit’s mask again. Give us a third option.”

 

[Maxperson]

I would disagree with this completely. Fairness means in accordance with the rules or equitable. In particular with respect to equitable if said prisoners would kill you in a similar postion then it is only "fair" that you kill them.

So then I would expect that no one would ever surrender in your game. Why surrender if you're just going to get killed anyway?

I understand the arguement that it is inherently evil to murder prisoners who surrendered (although I do not agree with it in all cases). I do not agree ever that it is "unfair".

Usually surrender comes with, "If we surrender, you won't kill us, right?" Otherwise there would be no point in surrendering. Creatures surrender in order to live. Do you think that it's fair to kill them after you've told them you wouldn't?

1. Are good characters similarly duty bound to try to revive an enemy that fell in combat. RAW they are not "dead" until they fail three saves. So as the last Goblin that ambushed you is struck down should you not render aid on any that are not already dead? When you play good characters do you do this after every battle?

RAW is that generally it's only special NPCs that get three saves.

"Most DMs have a monster die the instant it drops to 0 hit points, rather than having it fall unconscious and make death saving throws.

Mighty villains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the same rules as player characters."

2. To expand on #1 - If you are not required to render aid then presumably some of them are going to pass three saves and thereby live on their own ... what do you do about that. A LG character obviously can't leave the evil Goblins to continue raiding, looting etc and he can't kill such helpless creatures. So this a quandry, while he may not have to help them live, some are going to live anyway and they would need to at least take those that survive on their own prisoner. So after every battle do you wait to see who revives on his own so you can take them prisoner and turn over to the authorities?

You could go with the Gygax school of thought that it's perfectly LG to kill them anyway.

Personally, I don't worry about it. The DMs I play with follow the above method of NPC death. Common goblins are not going to be getting back up and I can handle the rare special NPCs on a case by case basis.

3. What about Vampires you capturred, or Vampires that are defeated and regnerating in their coffins? Is it evil to kill such helpless beings? If Strahd surrenders to you in the final battle is a good character duty-bound not to kill him?

Undead are generally different. They're like Demons and Devils and not generally subject to the same sorts of considerations that mortals are. If it's one of the very rare good undead, then it would probably be evil to murder it in its sleep.

 

[Maxperson]

Most action movies don’t have a whole race as the easily identifiable bad guy anymore for a reason.
And again...no one but you is bringing up your home game.
A change to the default alignment of orcs doesn’t affect your home game in any way.

It's a False Equivalence to equate movies with RPGs. They aren't the same medium and don't have the same reasons for doing things. But just for the sake of argument, the last time I saw an entire race as the easily identifiable bad guy was only 3 years ago with Alien: Covenant, and again only 3 years before that with The Hobbit: The Battle of 5 Armies, which used orcs. No, wait. It was only 2 years ago with The Quiet Place.

It's uncommon, but not rare for it to happen in movies. It just happens with non-human races like orcs and aliens.

 

[Oofta]

Most action movies don’t have a whole race as the easily identifiable bad guy anymore for a reason.
And again...no one but you is bringing up your home game.
A change to the default alignment of orcs doesn’t affect your home game in any way.

Many movies, games and fiction have easily identifiable bad guys. Star Wars does it by putting troopers in armor. At that point what species they are is no longer relevant.

It basically hangs a sign around their neck saying "it's okay to shoot me." Others do it by putting them in Nazi uniforms, making them henchmen, demons, vampires, zombies, the list goes on.

In a fantasy world where gods and magic are real, I don't see an issue with that label being put on orcs.

But go ahead and start with and end with "saying orcs are evil is racist". For me? They're just the henchmen of the BBEG or the equivalent of the zombie horde we see everywhere.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Many movies, games and fiction have easily identifiable bad guys. Star Wars does it by putting troopers in armor. At that point what species they are is no longer relevant.

It basically hangs a sign around their neck saying "it's okay to shoot me." Others do it by putting them in Nazi uniforms, making them henchmen, demons, vampires, zombies, the list goes on.

In a fantasy world where gods and magic are real, I don't see an issue with that label being put on orcs.

But go ahead and start with and end with "saying orcs are evil is racist". For me? They're just the henchmen of the BBEG or the equivalent of the zombie horde we see everywhere.

And...none of them use a whole race, and even when a nationality is used if it’s done uncritically it tends to get backlash.

 

[Maxperson]

And...none of them use a whole race, and even when a nationality is used if it’s done uncritically it tends to get backlash.

Orcs. Aliens(in many movies with aliens). Zombies. Goblins. Huts. Klingons(initially). Romulans(initially). There are tons of movies and TV shows where a whole race are the bad guys.

 

[TheSword]

It's about as fair as coming up with a few exceptions to what I said and trying to apply those exceptions in a general way.

Oh, and using "not entitled to legal protection" as an excuse to murder is evil.

You made a blanket statement about killing prisoners being unfair. The reality is that prisoners are killed all over the world and have been for thousands of years. What makes it fair or not is whether they deserve it.

An outlaw... a person who’s crimes have rendered them outside the law. They aren’t made that way through no fault of their own. The punishment was always death.

 

[Oofta]

And...none of them use a whole race, and even when a nationality is used if it’s done uncritically it tends to get backlash.

Yet they all (with the exception of Nazis I suppose) share one thing in common. They don't exist. They're imaginary creatures. They serve a role in the fiction, and that's all.

But I just piped in because I get tired of the whole going from orcs are evil to supporting genocide accusation. Other than that it's the same loop. Either orcs are people and dehumanizing them is wrong because dehumanizing people is wrong or orcs are not people and you can't dehumanize something that is not human. The rest is simply justification and fluff.

Have a good one.