D&D 5E Player agency and Paladin oath.

[doctorbadwolf]

Many if not most vampires are created unwillingly by other vampires. If being evil is not a reason to kill them, then why is the fact they were "created" through something other than live birth a reason? They are sentient beings.

I could agree with this if we were talking about zombies or skeletons or other mindless undead, but I think this logic runs dry on Vampires ... or liches for that matter.

Vampirism literally removes your will and replaces it with Evil. Strahd is an unredeemable psychotic mass murderer, and there is no authority one could ever even take him to.
You’re trying to force people into absolutist arguments that you can then find a way to soundly refute, but context matters. I’m not going to engage in Kantian rhetoric to find a maxim by which to judge every interaction. IMO, to do so is beyond unreasonable. It’s wholly untenable absurdity.

If the bandits took shots at downed characters "they are dead" .... so then there is no imperitive that you can't kill them? What if they didn't take shots so you revive them and they say - "nope we are going to rape, burn and pillage as soon as you let us go"

Absolutely unbelievable behavioral absurdities like this don’t happen in our group.

These are tough moral questions and that is the point and why such arbitrary absolutes are not viable, especially in a game where Vampires and Devils walk the earth, much of the rules and gameplay are centered on killing people and many abilities are specifically to enable you to do it more effectively.

Vanishingly few people on the “don’t murder prisoners” side of things are dealing in anything like “arbitrary absolutes”.

Saying, “it’s Evil to murder surrendered foes” isn’t absolute. We don’t need to explicitly state every potential nuance and exception every time we make a general statement.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Either orcs are people or they are not. They're not real so either can be true. If orcs are people, dehumanizing them is wrong. If they are not people then you can't dehumanize something that was never human in the first place.

You seem to assume that orcs have free will to the same extent as humans. I don't.

I was responding to a post that stated that orcs are people. Period, end of story. Oh, and genocide is wrong. The former is up to the DM and campaign, the latter is a straw man.

So...still just gonna not a dress the question at all. Okay.

 

[Helldritch]

In 1974 OD&D orcs don't have a fixed alignment. Like ogres and minotaurs, they can be Neutral or Chaotic. Goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, gnolls, and trolls are always Chaotic tho.

View attachment 124184

You must point out though, that the ODD was about civilizing an unexplored countries/areas. The "taming the wild" aspect was omnipresent. Orcs, because they were not an organized lot, could also work outside chaos not because they could be good. But because in neutrality, it was seen as a stand off between wild and civilized people. You can notice that the elves, dwarves and gnomes could go from civilized to neutrality. Simply because the scenarii where men were encroaching on these races territories were there! Goblins and Hobgoblins were the organized lot that were actively fighting civilization to come into their zone. Where the orcs were reacting with violence. The goblinkins were actively fighting civilization with preemptive strikes. They were not simple raiders but they were conquerers. The game was still in its infancy and was pretty much a battle simulation. The aspect of good vs evil only came later with AD&D. A few articles and editorials in Dragon Magazines explained that the creator(s) did not want to force good or evil onto the players. History sided with those that wanted a good vs evil axis in their games. It could even be argued that RP was pratically nonexistent in many games.

 

[Oofta]

So...still just gonna not a dress the question at all. Okay.

I had a longer answer but what question, specifically?

Because I've stated my opinion and why I do what I do in my home campaign umpteen times.

 

[Oofta]

So...still just gonna not a dress the question at all. Okay.

Just to be clear I really don't have a clue what you're asking. Do I mention what I do in my campaign? Yes. I also talk about other campaigns?

You’ve never explained it. You’ve never engaged at all with my question. I ask it every thread because it’s frustrating to read the same thing in every thread.

Why do you respond to discussions about what the official books should say with defensiveness about your home game? No one went, “and everyone who uses orcs differently from how we are saying the core should be written is racist!”, and yet you continue, literally every time, to come in an get preemptively defensive as if someone has said that. Why?

So what are you trying to get at? That I shouldn't mention home campaigns? I explain my POV on orcs - that they can be always evil or just like humans, it's up to the DM and the campaign.

So what's your goal? Every time this topic comes up someone posts about racism. You literally just have to go back a couple of pages to see it.

I'm not defensive of my home campaign so what you're saying just makes no sense. I simply have no problem with orcs filling the same role as Storm Troopers or zombies. They're generic bad guys. The fact that the entire species fills that role doesn't change the role or the purpose they serve in the fiction of the game. That doesn't apply to all campaigns, it happens to apply to mine.

 

[Doug McCrae]

@Helldritch The orcs and goblins in 1974 OD&D derive largely from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit respectively. Orcs are divided into tribes and there is "inter-tribal hostility". They can have "strong leader/protector types" - fighting-man, magic-user, balrog, ogres, or trolls. The first two are found with orcs that live in villages (defended by ditch, palisade, tower, and catapult), the last three with orcs that live in caves. Wandering orcs escorting wagons may also be led by a fighting-man or magic-user, but not by a monster.

Goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, and gnolls are all basically the same creature. "Treat these monsters [kobolds] as if they were Goblins". "[Hobgoblins] are large and fearless Goblins". "[Gnolls] are similar to Hobgoblins". Goblins, hobgoblins, and gnolls are stated to be led by a king of their own kind. The same is presumably true of kobolds.

The reasoning for different alignments may have been:
1) Orc tribes of different alignments are more likely to fight one another.
2) Human-led village/wagon orcs are neutral and monster-led cave orcs are chaotic (though the text doesn't specify that). The village and wagon orcs seem likelier candidates to be considered "civilised".

EDIT:
3) Orcs associate with a wide variety of other beings, including humans and monsters. That's easier if they can be of more than one alignment.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Well, first I think we need to look at what racism is and it's place in our reality.

1. The world is made of atoms. However, if I only look at atoms, we will never see find table, chairs, or pairs of glasses. Those things may not exist in reality in the way I perceive them. Nevertheless, I do perceive something, and it functions like a chair, table, or pair of spectacles. By interpreting that information and acting appropriately according to my perception, memory, and testimony of others, I can exist in the world that I perceive.

2. Dictionary definitions are subjective. However, most definitions attempt to point at something - whether physical or conceptual.

3. Racism exists: both as the belief that one race is superior to another and in the Mariam Webster sense. They exist in the mind as beliefs. Beliefs exist. I have them. You have them. Everyone else has them, too.

4. Moralities are also beliefs. Like all beliefs, they need not exist outside the mind in order to exist inside the mind.

5. I consider milk tasteless. Others love it. However, tasteless and love are attributes not of the milk, but of the individual who has a belief about milk.

6. Different people have different opinions as what they consider racist - just like finding milk tasteless or pleasant. The sense of something being racist is an attribute of the individual, not the object.

7. Therefore, something cannot be racist. It can only be considered racist.

8. The fact something cannot be racist (once again, in the Merriam Webster sense) and can only be considered racist is not an excuse to intentionally offend or harm others. Humans exist in societies. Those societies require cooperation to sustain themselves. Collapse will likely result in the loss of human life and well-being, which I consider a bad thing.

Oh, so racism is all just in my head? Thanks for clarifying that.

(I'll bet the founders of the postmodernism would be distraught to see their analytical tools used this way. While I reject 4E's "logic" in this case, it makes me chuckle to see the tables turned like this.)

Also: does anybody want to start placing bets on how many more posts slip in before @Morrus shuts down this thread, too?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The reasoning for different alignments may have been:
1) Orc tribes of different alignments are more likely to fight one another.
2) Village/wagon orcs are neutral and cave orcs are chaotic (though the text doesn't specify that). The village and wagon orcs seem likelier candidates to be considered "civilised".

Background:

D&D General - The Birth Of Alignment: The Rise of the Nine-Point System

With some trepidation, I have been following a little bit of the thread about alignment. And it's gone off the rails a bit ... you can almost say that it's out of, um, alignment. Anyway, since past is prologue, I thought I'd go into a little bit of the history of the alignment system we have in...

www.enworld.org

There is a simpler explanation; under the original alignment system, there are two "primary" alignments (Law/Chaos, roughly Good/Evil). The existence of neutral orcs would have provided for mercenary orcs.

It could be an artifact of the Arnerson/Gygax translation.

 

[Helldritch]

@Helldritch The orcs and goblins in 1974 OD&D derive largely from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit respectively. Orcs are divided into tribes and there is "inter-tribal hostility". They can have "strong leader/protector types" - fighting-man, magic-user, balrog, ogres, or trolls. The first two are found with orcs that live in villages (defended by ditch, palisade, tower, and catapult), the last three with orcs that live in caves. Wandering orcs escorting wagons may also be led by a fighting-man or magic-user, but not by a monster.

Goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, and gnolls are all basically the same creature. "Treat these monsters [kobolds] as if they were Goblins". "[Hobgoblins] are large and fearless Goblins". "[Gnolls] are similar to Hobgoblins". Goblins, hobgoblins, and gnolls are stated to be led by a king of their own kind. The same is presumably true of kobolds.

The reasoning for different alignments may have been:
1) Orc tribes of different alignments are more likely to fight one another.
2) Human-led village/wagon orcs are neutral and monster-led cave orcs are chaotic (though the text doesn't specify that). The village and wagon orcs seem likelier candidates to be considered "civilised".

EDIT:
3) Orcs associate with a wide variety of other beings, including humans and monsters. That's easier if they can be of more than one alignment.

And? You're essentially saying the same thing as I. So what is your point?

Also: does anybody want to start placing bets on how many more posts slip in before @Morrus shuts down this thread, too?

If people continue to bring racism in these posts; it will not be very long. I am already surprised that it hasn't shut down already...

D&D General - The Birth Of Alignment: The Rise of the Nine-Point System

With some trepidation, I have been following a little bit of the thread about alignment. And it's gone off the rails a bit ... you can almost say that it's out of, um, alignment. Anyway, since past is prologue, I thought I'd go into a little bit of the history of the alignment system we have in...

www.enworld.org

There is a simpler explanation; under the original alignment system, there are two "primary" alignments (Law/Chaos, roughly Good/Evil). The existence of neutral orcs would have provided for mercenary orcs.

It could be an artifact of the Arnerson/Gygax translation.

I'm pretty sure that you are right on that one.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I had a longer answer but what question, specifically?

Because I've stated my opinion and why I do what I do in my home campaign umpteen times.

I have never asked you anything about what you do in your home campaign.

I asked a very direct and simple question. At this point, you’re intentionally avoiding it.