Player Dilemma

[Hypersmurf]

I'm talking about a D&D world in which killing human children is always wrong.

Even evil human children?

-Hyp.

 

[haakon1]

Where the Paladins own code is more important than the safety of defenseless commoners - many yet to be born!

The road of the paladin can be a lonely one, and hard one. Evil is the easier path. Insert various Yoda quotes.

End of the day -- excuses don't matter. Paladins don't do evil, even if it can be rationalized or no one will know.

 

[haakon1]

I have decided to carry on playing my paladin, but i am going to try to get the party to become more cohesive and to select a leader. Once we have a leader selected i will then try to get the party to sit down and discuss what as a group we believe is the right thing to do. This isn't my idea , one of the other group member's has come up with it, but he is playing his character as a stay at the back and not get involved, so i will becoame the spokeperson.

Sounds like a good solution. Let's hope it calms things down for your group.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Even evil human children?

In an earlier post, I'd assumed that the overwhelming majority of DMs ruled that killing human children was morally [Evil] in their campaigns. But for this question, I won't make any assumptions, and merely reply with how I rule it in my campaigns.

When I use the word "children" I am referring to children young enough to be unable to take care of themselves. i.e. children who would die of exposure if left to their own devices, as opposed to those old enough to take care of themselves, or seek out aid. Let's say <10 years of age.

At such an age, I don't think a human can gain the Evil alignment. They simply haven't lived long enough, and been through enough life experiences. But let's say, for the sake of discussion, that we're talking about human children who had, through extraordinary circumstances, been given enough moral choices to clearly earn an Evil alignment. It's still Evil to kill them. Why? Because they have a great potential for change. That is, in the end, what makes the difference. Humans are (at least in every instance I've ever participated in or heard of,) always capable of change. Goblins, like Demons and Devils, are not always treated so. The killing of goblin children has a different moral imperative depending on campaign assumptions about the nature of goblins.

Note that in a campaign where goblins were treated just the same as humans--i.e. with the same potential for change and breadth of alignments--it'd be just as wrong to kill goblin children. Only in the "standard" campaign, where goblins are naturally evil, does their killing lose the immoral certitude that human childkilling claims.

The short answer: IMC, yes, killing evil children is still always evil.

 

[Hypersmurf]

At such an age, I don't think a human can gain the Evil alignment. They simply haven't lived long enough, and been through enough life experiences. But let's say, for the sake of discussion, that we're talking about human children who had, through extraordinary circumstances, been given enough moral choices to clearly earn an Evil alignment. It's still Evil to kill them. Why? Because they have a great potential for change. That is, in the end, what makes the difference. Humans are (at least in every instance I've ever participated in or heard of,) always capable of change.

The short answer: IMC, yes, killing evil children is still always evil.

So if killing human children who have been given enough moral choices to earn an evil alignment is always evil because humans are always capable of change, doesn't that mean it's always evil to kill human adults who have been given enough moral choices to earn an evil alignment?

-Hyp.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Yup. In my campaign, there's been neutral orc tribes (twice) and there's a neutral goblin trader who travels between the goblinoids and the humans. There's also a very old bugbear king (ruling goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears) who is evil, but has made a treaty with the humans of the Keep on the Borderlands not to attack in exchange for a cow a week. When he dies, his evil daughter will seize power and go to war to show her authority, but for now, giving the kiddies to him to raise would be a reasonable course of action.

No, it would not. Delivering the goblin children into the hands of a group that will only ensure that they grow up to be evil goblins is unacceptible. Indeed, I'd consider it irresponsible, since you're guaranteeing that those children will become future raiders, doing their best to kill human farmers and shepherds.

Not an issue IMC, since there are non-evil goblins, but even if there are not entire TRIBES of non-evil humanoids, there's still the possibility of an exceptional individual turning to good. For example, IMC, a character long, long ago began try to convert Lizardmen. So, there are now a few LG lizardmen clerics of Heimdall. But no whole tribes have converted yet.

It's absolutely an issue. It comes back to, "what the heck is the paladin going to do with these children?" If he can't find a group of goblins who aren't evil to take them in, what would your answer to this question be? Apparently, it's "turn them over to other evil goblins, and hope that they turn out to be like Drizz't." :\

I don't consider the "Just War" theory moral relativism. But we're not supposed to get into real world religion.

Did you read my response to another poster upthread? I've amended my statement regarding your point about moral relativism, somewhat. I'm not going to argue the "Just War" theory, because in the real world all morality is relative. But I do admit that in the D&D world, the "Just War" theory can be morally absolute, if the DM so decides.

- Legally speaking, Manslaughter (neglience resulting in death) or versus 1st degree murder (intentional planned killing)/genocide (murder of a whole group because of racial, ethnic, or religious characteristics). The first can get you up to about 7 years, the second can get you the death penalty or your own special court at The Hague.

I'm not going to discuss all of your examples, because I find them beside the point. But this one I think is important. Note that your example mentions "negligence" with regards to the lesser charge of Manslaughter. Are you arguing that if one kills the parents of small children, then leaves those children to die, that's merely negligence on the part of the killer? I think you'd find that any competent DA could make a fairly good case for murder, under those circumstances. And that's what I'm arguing. If you kill the parents, you're killing the children. Doing it by leaving them in the house to die of starvation is not less morally reprehensible than quickly knifing them.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

So if killing human children who have been given enough moral choices to earn an evil alignment is always evil because humans are always capable of change, doesn't that mean it's always evil to kill human adults who have been given enough moral choices to earn an evil alignment?

The campaign setting comes into this. In my campaign, yes. If you aren't defending your life, and have taken a group of evil humans prisoner, it's evil to then kill them. They can change their ways, and there are prisons (horrible as they are) in the world where these people can be incarcerated, and perhaps find their way back to the Light.

In the campaign I play in, the Free Holds are locked in a mortal struggle with the Evil Empire (not exactly the most original premise, but fun. ) The law of the Free Holds sentences any Imperial soldier found on FreeHold lands to death, and in such a struggle for survival, the DM has ruled that putting enemy soldiers to death is not evil. I play a paladin in this game, and when we captured human Imperial soldiers at one point in the campaign, the paladin demanded to be the one to execute the prisoners. He made certain it was as merciful as possible, offering the soldiers the chance to write letters to their loved ones, making the death as painless as it could be, and seeing the bodies returned to their families.

 

[Shining Dragon]

Unless I'm willing to deal with the fallout, as a DM I would not present the Players with such a conundrum ("Oh what to do with these children of evil races - are they evil, can they be guided onto the path of righteousness, is it nature versus nurture, are we such bastards to have denied these children their parents, etc...").

It will always come down to picking one side over another and can have serious repercussions on the whole game because you can never assume that both parties will act like mature adults.


This said (and now I'm probably going to say something likely to be inflammatory):

A Paladin's job is to smite evil. The goblin children radiated evil with the use of the paladin's sense evil ability - thus it behooved the paladin to act upon the information gained from their god-given ability and smite the little shits until they were no longer evil - questioning the abilities given to you by your god was not an option.

Really. DND is meant to be a fun game and if you all wanted to play a deeply philosophical game that covered subjects such as "nature versus nurture", either don't play DND since that isn't the default play mode or inform the players of your intention to run that kind of game.

 

[Hypersmurf]

In my campaign, yes. If you aren't defending your life, and have taken a group of evil humans prisoner, it's evil to then kill them.

So it isn't evil to kill evil human children if you're defending your life?

-Hyp.

 

[Elf Witch]

After reading all of this I have come to the conclusion that if anyone is at fault here it is the DM. if she is going to throw a moral dilemmas at the players she needs to give her players several ways to handle the situation.

For example if she didn't want the players to kill the kids and she wanted to see what the paladin would do she needed to give him options like knowing of a place that would take the kids in.

I do see a diffcult road ahead for the paladin and the dwarf. If I played the paladin I would never trust the dwarf again.

I really think the player of the dwarf was wrong here. He is a cleric of a lawful good god which means he should have some respect for the paladin. He could have played like all right try but the minute I sense one of those buggers is about to betray us I will take his head off.

Instead he chose to go behind the paladin's back and kill the kids.