spider_minion said:
If goblins are evil just because they grew up in an evil society, then the PCs should feel guilty for slaughtering the tribe. The real crime of the goblins was being born in the wrong place, and had they got the chance to grow up among humans, they would have turned out fine. This is made worse because all the goblins the PCs have killed could concievably have been redeemed. If the opposite is also true, that the PCs are good just because their society is good, it kinda undermines their past heroics.
Huh?
This is circular reasoning. While I'm no expert on philosophical debate, I'd say having a circular argument negates the value of said argument. Basically, I think there's a flaw in your logic.
I'll have to disagree with part of Spider's statement. For instance, why should I feel guilty for slaughtering the tribe? His assumption is that the "real crime was being born in the wrong village" Whereas I'd say that contributed to the goblins being evil, they're real crime was robbing and pillaging and killing good people. Ultimately, each goblin made a choice to do evil things. They might not have realized they had a choice, but that's not my fault that they were too stupid to know that.
I kill goblins because they are a threat to Good society. They prove that threat by past actions. Like the Mutual Funds disclaimer, past performance are no indicator of future results. Since the probability of them causing more harm is greater than the probability of converting to Good, I am justified in killing them.
Now one could argue with whether I should capture them first, reform them etc, but those are functions of the social order in place. If nothing else, my statement above is a reasonable rationalization on why it's OK to kill Goblins and Orcs and such.
Now the original poster wants to know what to do, in context of his campaign. I'd suggest simply figuring out the paths of what could happen. And pick results that will be interesting to you.
The PC's choices are:
leave the babies as they are (fend for themselves)
send babies to orphanage/foster care
raise babies themselves
kill the babies
Extra questions are:
are the mothers still alive?
are the mothers still in the village (or did they flee with remaining fathers)?
do the parents/tribe want their babies back?
Are the babies Evil or Neutral (which will grow to evil with no good influence)?
In a way, it doesn't matter if the babies are evil at birth or not. Short of a "Detect Evil" spell, there's no way to know for sure anyway. So if the PCs try to raise them, it can be assumed they are trying to make them "not Evil" which might be a conversion or simply indoctrination.
As a DM, you should have figured out all four paths (and answers to my questions), since you can't be sure exactly what the players would do. If I were driving I would pick the following:
are the mothers still alive? Yes
are the mothers still in the village (or did they flee with remaining fathers)? Fled
do the parents/tribe want their babies back? Yes
Are the babies Evil or Neutral (which will grow to evil with no good influence)? Neutral
Based on that, the results of the PCs choices are:
leave the babies as they are (fend for themselves)
RESULT= parents come back and rebuild village in new location. Babies get old and seek vengeance
send babies to orphanage/foster care
RESULT= Babies grow up neutral and form a band of Goblin adventurers
raise babies themselves
RESULT=Babies grow up and adopt PC's alignment. Babies become henchmen or something. Some parent vows revenge for kidnapping and strange Count of Monte Cristo development of enemy goblin NPC develops
kill the babies
RESULT= Goblins expected this. They rebuild/join another tribe and normal goblin evilness ensues. Some people in good society find out about alleged baby killing and PC's have political scandal to deal with. Perhaps some blackmail for good measure. It doesn't matter if the babies were ugly and nasty, some bleeding hearts will think they were redeemable and make a mess of the situation, which the PCs would like to cover up.
There you go. Each path should result in something interesting beyond the immediate effect. The results of their decision will really come to fruition YEARS after the actual incident itself.
Janx
