Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
Uh, ok. Start with G1, G2 and G3 for such non-imaginary "imaginary" adventures. And, again, it wasn't done so that they could be morality traps. Hell, G1 actually makes it more a matter of using the evil (yet enslaved) orcs, or the isolated troglodytes as cannon fodder to be manipulated by the PC's into exacting what would be virtually ensured suicidal revenge upon their own captors and intimidators, the giants. So, perhaps not so much to be just wiped out by the PC's but made available to be cavalierly used up against the PC's more significant opponents the giants. But yeah, each of those modules presents multiple rooms with monsters categorized by male, female and young. In the case of G1 and the "young" troglodytes they had 2 htk each for what were 2 hit DICE monsters, so you can draw your own conclusions. But the word used was indeed "young" and not children or babies. And not being meant as morality traps means that they weren't there for PC's to torture their own souls about the correct REAL WORLD morality of ridding the world of them, NOR was it for them to be little horror movie children with blood dripping from their knives to induce nightmares in the players, nor was it - as noted previously - so that deviant players could vicariously indulge their personal Charles Manson fantasies. At least no more than any other D&D game adventure does simply because it happens to feature A LOT of characters and creatures hacking each other with swords and axes.
The females and "young" are just the same evil monsters as the MALE orcs, goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, bugbears, ogres, hill/frost/fire giants, etc, etc. They just come in different sized packages with accordingly lower ability to hit and absorb damage. There's no reason to FREAK OUT about killing the evil females or the evil "young" monsters, because doing the same thing to the larger males, and to the still larger versions of such bipedal monsters with ever more height and ever more hit dice is no less disturbing. If you have problems about slaughtering evil orcs because it, you know, involves slaughter then D&D and most other fantasy RPG's are surely not the games you should play, but if you don't mind the concept of slaughtering male orcs and goblins and yada yada, then slaughtering female or younger and smaller versions of them just isn't any different - ESPECIALLY in a game setting where the morality is black and white and unequivocally discoverable by spells and innate class abilities, and not the real world's innumerable shades of peaceful and eminently more realistically ethical grey.
