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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4657315" data-attributes="member: 58197">Dragons fall a lot closer to the "always evil" area for me. (No, I don't have metallic dragons in my campaigns. Ugh.) The way I run them, they're forces of chaos and destruction; greedy, remorseless, and playfully cruel, like a cat with a mouse. They have no more conscience than a crocodile, though a lot more intellect. I doubt I would condemn a paladin to fall for killing a dragon hatchling, although part of that would be due to the hatchling actively trying to eat the paladin's face.But in any case, I don't run campaigns about the PCs kicking in dungeon doors to score loot, and I don't even use XP any more - the PCs level up when I say they do, usually after achieving some important objective, and it doesn't matter how many monsters they fought on the way.Even when I run a campaign for evil PCs, they usually have bigger plans afoot than mere plunder. The closest my games come to that type of thing is where the PCs have to go retrieve some sort of MacGuffin and defeat the monsters in between them and it.*shrug* Or you could let the PCs deal with the occasional dilemma. You've just taken out an orc settlement, killed the hostile warriors and rounded up the noncombatants; what are you going to do with the latter? Turn them loose to try and survive on their own? Try to find a local lord or temple open-minded enough to take them in? Take care of them yourselves? Or just butcher them all and accept the stain on your conscience?Personally, I find choices like that, used sparingly, add a new level of interest to the game and give the players a chance to explore their characters. Obviously, not every adventure can or should be a big moral challenge; most of the time, it's "Here's your quest, there's the MacGuffin, monsters will probably jump you and try to eat you between here and there, defend yourselves as best you can." But once in a while, it's good to give the players a little more scope.If you don't like it, though, then why do the PCs need to encounter orc settlements? Unless they intentionally set out to hunt the settlements down, they can just fight orc war parties and kill them all without a qualm.</blockquote>

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