Player Dilemma

[haakon1]

In last nights game we came across a goblin village and found a hut full of goblin children. As a Paladin I decided to spare teh children lives. My plan was to try to enlighten them at a later date. The p[roblem is one of my companions a dwarf who has the feat 'Foe Hunter' with goblins been his foe also found teh hut. I warnbed him off, but once i had left he snuck in and killed the all the goblin kids. He is know going around calling my Palidin a girl and boasting about the killings.

The problem I have is that I am not sure how to respond. My first thoughts are that my paladin does not want to carry on with the group due every one else not taking sides. I had hoped that in a party of supposidly good characters someone would have backed me up. Or do i try to reason with the dwarf and try to get hiom to see reason. But hesees his feats means that he needs to kill all goblins on sight. He has all ready killed two goblins who were surrending instead of questioning them.

Please can i have some advice.

You're a paladin -- see that justice is done. If there's no authorities to turn the dwarf into for punishment, kill him where he stands.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The goblin kids are evil. Evil! EVIL!!!
The 'faintly' bit just means they are low power (low level, not clerics/undead/outsider/etc).

If they are evil enough to detect as evil (slightly bad creatures would be neutral), they are evil enough to deserve smiting.

Of course, a Lawful Good undead radiates evil.

A Lawful Good creature with the [Evil] subtype radiates evil.

A Lawful Good creature who is the subject of a Misdirection spell might radiate evil.

A Lawful Neutral cleric of a Lawful Evil deity radiates evil.

And then, there are campaign-dependent alignment effects. For example, let's say I've spent the last five years being evil, but I've just realised the error of my ways and have (sincerely) resolved to do only good from now on. Is my alignment, immediately after making that decision:

1. Still evil. I have to perform good deeds to make up for my past wickedness.
2. Neutral. I'm no longer evil, but to become good requires demonstrable progress.
3. Good. It's what's inside that counts.

If 1, then do I deserve smiting? I'm trying to atone! Don't I get a chance to redeem myself?

-Hyp.

 

[haakon1]

But anyway, I've considered kicking the dwarf player out, but most of the group is against it to varying degrees- their argument is that since he is new to our group we need to give him a chance to get used to us and how we play. Maybe they're right *shrugs*

I had a similar problem on the FIRST day when I started my campaign.

It nearly killed the whole campaign right there -- a barbarian halfling killing prisoners, with the other PC's being a paladin who was upset about it, and a bard played by a woman who'd never played an RPG before.

I was none to pleased at the player annoying my other two players, and in game, they had hooked up with some Viking-type warriors to do the Caves of Chaos. They had chosen the paladin as their leader. The SECOND time the halfling tried to kill a prisoner, a fist fight started between the paladin and the halfling, and the NPC Vikings sided with the leader paladin -- the halfling was, I believe, at -17 hp in one round, as the Vikings just piled on him and kept attacking even after he fell -- they are Vikings after all. The player was never seen again (he's probably still mad!), but I never had any problems with (to me) morally repugnant role-playing again.

I think I made the right call -- from that one hard day, my campaign grew into, hmm, 4 separate inter-related campaigns with hmmm, a total of about 15 players (not counting the one timer halfling) since 1996. And best of all, the two other players, who respectively had never played and hadn't played in 3 years, have been hard core gaming ever since (harder than me), and got married to each other! Sometimes, a dead bad halfling is a good thing!

 

[haakon1]

IDestroying Evil is a Good act, and in many D&D campaigns, goblins are evil, irredeemably evil, even. Under such circumstances eliminating future goblin raiders is to be praised. It's the same as smashing demon larvae, or destroying a giant ant nest that will inevitably swarm a nearby town in the near future. Unless your campaign is set up with modern sensibilities, where young goblins/orcs/kobolds are fostered with human families and raised to be good, killing goblin children is no evil.

Killing the goblin children may be the most merciful thing an adventuring party can do, having killed the adults. Otherwise you're just leaving them defenseless to wait for the next wandering troll/dragon/ankheg/umber hulk/owlbear/etc. to eat them alive.

I make a (big) distinction between "usually" evil in the alignment stat and "always" evil. Goblins are only "usually" evil -- it's in their culture, and perhaps in their being, but like Drizzt, they are not irredeemable.

That makes their kids more or less innocent, not to mention defenseless. I like what Ellie did with having them detect as faintly evil -- that sounds about right. Somewhat corrupt by nature, but mostly by nurture.

So, killing a devil is always good, but killing a goblin is only usually good. Killing an innocent defenseless intelligent creature of any species, without a good reason, it always wrong. No moral relativism in my campaign.

I think the "depends on the circumstances" moral relativism stuff is more of the modern outlook that absolute right and wrong.

That said, I would not do an alignment change to evil for abandoning the goblin kiddies -- that seems more of a neutral act to me. For gleefully killing them, I wouldn't do an alignment shift either -- I wouldn't even warn the player it's an evil act, though I consider it such. But I would use the campaign to deal with it -- law enforcement may or may not care about it, but it might do something like start a bigger war with the goblins. Consequences to actions is good role-playing, I think.

For a paladin, that would be totally wrong, and I wouldn't mind him following my advice to see that justice is done, one way or another.

 

[haakon1]

Unless there is a law in your City that says it's illegal to kill GOBLIN children, I don't see what good it will do for the Paladin to bring the Dwarf in for justice. Are the city authorities really going to take this seriously? It might be morally wrong to the Paladin because they are only children, but that's the Paladins problem. I can't imagine goblins & orcs are protected under the same laws as man unless the campaign is designed to have men cities & monster cities working together in the world.

That's up to the DM. The power center may be default Neutral don't care, or it may be something else. The power center may also be concerned about stoking another war with the goblins -- say, the goblins assault the village the next day, and the elder might get mad.

Either way, the paladin "brought the dwarf to justice", which is all I think is needed.

 

[Storyteller01]

*sighs* Believe me I *want* to kick him out. But the rest of the traitorous bunch threw a fit about it last time I tried to discuss it with them. Either they opposed it, or they sat on the fence, and refused to get involved or offer an opinion (our resident dwarf was not present for these discussions, I hasten to add). Then they complain about him again, I suggest kicking him out again, and once more they're up in arms about it and insist he should be given a chance. I will never understand men!!

Ellie.

Have you tried basing an adventure off of this?

*The characters are stuck in the -some situation- to which only a group of local goblins can solve the problem -stuck in a mine that only the goblins know very well; need a plant that only the goblin tribe grows, and their not telling the location regardless of torture (who says goblins can't have a spine once in a while?).*

Even if the character doesn't change, his being good gives a legitimate reason for him to not kill the *helpful* buggers. If he promises not to kill them, but does anyway he's on his way to an alignment shift, chaotic or not (hatred and anger are the path to the Dark Side ).

 

[Hammerhead]

Whenever I find myself in a moral dilemma of any kind inside a D&D game, I ask myself one simple question:

What Would Wulf Ratbane Do? (WWWRD?)

There are many reasons why killing them IS the moral thing to do...without their parents, they'd probably starve to death or something. However, it seems to me that you're just dealing with a kill-crazy player. I know what that's like...

Anyway, why not avoid using goblins in the future so he can calm down and not indulge in so many mass slaughters?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I make a (big) distinction between "usually" evil in the alignment stat and "always" evil. Goblins are only "usually" evil -- it's in their culture, and perhaps in their being, but like Drizzt, they are not irredeemable.

Fair enough. As I said, there are many things a paladin player needs to get rulings on before a campaign starts. The morality of killing goblins and goblin children is one of them.

That makes their kids more or less innocent, not to mention defenseless. I like what Ellie did with having them detect as faintly evil -- that sounds about right. Somewhat corrupt by nature, but mostly by nurture.

But if this is true, there should be Neutral or Good goblin settlements out there. Every goblin tribe cannot be Evil, unless it's inherent to their nature. So in your campaign, I'd expect the paladin to be able to find a neutral goblin tribe with which he could leave the goblin orphans.

If there is no such tribe, if invariably a group of goblins getting together will turn to evil, then there's nothing "usually" about it.

So, killing a devil is always good, but killing a goblin is only usually good. Killing an innocent defenseless intelligent creature of any species, without a good reason, it always wrong. No moral relativism in my campaign.

"Without a good reason" makes it morally relative, I'm afraid.

I think the "depends on the circumstances" moral relativism stuff is more of the modern outlook that absolute right and wrong.

Absolutely right. But it's an outlook that you yourself, even if unconsciously, are practicing. "Depends on the circumstances" is moral relativism. Otherwise killing goblin children would either always be right, or always be wrong, just as killing human children is always wrong.

That said, I would not do an alignment change to evil for abandoning the goblin kiddies -- that seems more of a neutral act to me.

How is killing children by starvation and exposure any different, morally, from killing them with a knife? In either case, you're killing them. The only difference, AFAIAC, is that the adventurer who chooses to kill by exposure is squeemish and a coward, while the adventurer killing with a knife is at least honest about what he's doing. And more merciful besides. Dying from exposure can take days.

For gleefully killing them, I wouldn't do an alignment shift either -- I wouldn't even warn the player it's an evil act, though I consider it such. But I would use the campaign to deal with it -- law enforcement may or may not care about it, but it might do something like start a bigger war with the goblins. Consequences to actions is good role-playing, I think.

Logical consequences to actions makes for a good campaign, yes. Trumped-up, unbelievable consequences to certain actions the DM doesn't like, with no warning or explanation, never makes for a good campaign.

 

[genshou]

But if this is true, there should be Neutral or Good goblin settlements out there. Every goblin tribe cannot be Evil, unless it's inherent to their nature. So in your campaign, I'd expect the paladin to be able to find a neutral goblin tribe with which he could leave the goblin orphans.

From the 3E Monster Manual (because I'm a loyal Cultist to the end):

Alignment
This entry gives the alignment that the creature is most likely to have. Every entry includes a qualifier that indicates how broadly that alignment applies to the species as a whole.
[...]
Usually: The majority (more than 50%) of these creaturers have the given alignment. This may be due to strong cultural influences, or it may be a legacy of the creature's origin. For example, most elves inherited their chaotic good alignment from their creator, the deity Corellon Larethian.

A society is not a character, so it cannot have an alignment. What a society can have is individual tendencies toward a specific alignment. This is what the goblin's alignment entry of "Usually neutral evil" means. I would consider non-evil goblin settlements to be infrequent and not likely understood as such by the outside world, loathed by their evil kin, and forced to fight even their own to survive. Such a society would likely have adopted the worship of a deity other than Maglubiyet. In my own campaign, I would develop a story behind this tribe involving a Neutral goblin cleric of Maglubiyet who fell out of grace with his deity and was forced to flee his tribe.

As they do not have an "Always" alignment entry, goblins can change alignment. Their tendencies may be toward evil, but what the paladin was seeking could certainly have been a possibility. The difficulty in finding a neutral goblin tribe, however, makes this too much of a daunting task for the paladin. A truly merciful act on the paladin's part would have been to find another goblin tribe of any alignment to give the children to. Sometimes the helping of a creature with Evil alignment can be a Good act.

 

[Corben Willemne]

What a confused mess????

Right if we're going to berrate the Dwarf then shouldn't we also berrate the Paladin for not stopping him?
After all the Dwarf is acting on his definition of the rules, the alignments and his feat. Why isn't the Paladin using more emphatic means to prevent this kind of behaviour?

As for the whole good evil axis thingy well I'm glad that I am not cursed with the general outlook of people here!!!! Since when do you find Paladin's using a pre-emptive strike to destroy the future leaders of a rebel group before they become a major threat? This is the whole point to be good you can't have your cake and eat it!!! Its about sacrifice. If the Paladin is truely good then the fact that people may become upset with him for doing the right thing is inconsequential!!! As for the Dwarf well if he kills Goblin's because there's no better Gobo than a dead one then he is evil or neutral at best! A good outlook may still voice this opinion and may be less reluctant to kill a Goblin than say a Dragon but it should never become matter of course alse the character is EVIL!!!!!
Evil takes the rouote of least resistance. It is the fastest and most brutal method of gaining power. Good is more philosophical, after all who heard of anyone being ingraciated for killing a killer? Unless it is preventing an immediate evil act then the use of force so casually should make any DnD character evil. This is what annoys me about the game, too many bloomin computer hack and slash players. If all you want to do is beat up stuff then go back to your console and grow up!!!!!!

I should probably point out that I am one of the players in this group, Elven Rogue NG, and that whilst everyone else strode confidently into a entire Goblin village because they couldn't see anyone about to attack them!!!, remained in watch over the village from the top of one of their huts. Therefore in character I have no knowledge of this fraccar and assume that the Dwarf's taunts are just that Taunts!!! From Corben's perspective the Paladin talks well but does little to enforce his words and the Dwarf is a drunken fighter who think about as well as the rock he used to mine!!!!