you know your players best, but my advice in threads with these titles, generally is 'if you have to ask, its probably a bad idea'
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I think part of it is going to depend on how you play it.
If the invading force is invading - not fleeing, not asking for help, but coming in to the new space weapons drawn and killing people and taking their stuff - then the fact that they're refugees is kind of incidental.
Their motivation becomes understandable, but they're still wrong, and while the adventurers may decide to go back to the homeland to stop the greater evil, the adventurers shouldn't feel bad about killing them.
Now, if you want the PCs to attack them and then find out they're refugees without them attacking first? Then you definitely need to tread lightly. Perhaps the PCs hear rumors that there is an Orc horde massing, and they decide to go stop them before they get to the town/city the PCs are defending. In which case, assuming the PCs do any sort of scouting at all, make sure to stress how much the "invading" force doesn't seem to be invading.
Call out the fact that they seem downtrodden. Call out that they have children with them. Make a point that there may be some of them openly carrying weaponry, but some of them are not. Emphasize that they aren't beating war drums or chanting, with eagerness for the fight and bloodlust in their eyes, but that they are plodding, talking in low voices if at all, eyes cast down.
If the PCs attack the second type of group, they deserve the guilt for slaughtering refugees. But if you start them off with the invading force hungry for blood, and then try to say "Well, they were refugees," expect the PCs to be unsympathetic.
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My best advice with all this is take steps to make the different bands and reactions known. My experience is that unless someone is a Paladin of Sarrenre, most CE monsters with low INT are going to get utterly destroyed without so much as a second thought. My solution would be to have the goblins of one warband be a local tribe that is known to the townspeople to a great degree. And then have your refugee warbands start to displace those local ones or get into conflicts with them and the townsfolk while the incoming tribes try to not upset the humans as much due to survival being a current goal.
Sounds fine to me.
The paladin player will probably be happy with lots of evil orcs around. Better them than stinking plants and constructs.
It wholly depends on the tone your players like to play with.
Personally, I'd love it, but I'm all into dubious morality and making anti-heroic or even villainous characters. Someone seeking a more heroic character fantasy might be upset, but even then, it would be a good catalyst for character growth.
Sounds fine as long as you are not planning a gotcha moment for killing the poor orc refugees.
Finding out that there is a bigger evil behind the problem just solved is a fairly standard trope. Some of the earliest D&D published adventures did this: A series (slavers) followed by the G series (giants) followed by the D series (drow).
The A series was a prelude to the G series? dammit, I passed that by... and you forget that the whole concludes withn module Q1 where you get to try and slay a goddess/demon princess on her own plane
The A series was a prelude to the G series? dammit, I passed that by... and you forget that the whole concludes withn module Q1 where you get to try and slay a goddess/demon princess on her own plane
I didn't forget, but Q was not a hidden evil. It really was just D3.
point to you.
depends, the great invasions (4th-6th centuries AD) seem to have been a chain of barbarians pushing each other, starting in China and ending in Spain and North Africa... some went farther than others for instance, if the Chinese Xiung-Nu are indeed our Huns, they seem to have gone from Turkestan to Norther Italy/Eastern France.
Similarly, the earliest Celts (Hallstatt) lived in Modern Germany and Czech republic, later Celts (La Tène) were Swiss, and by the time they enter written history, they lived in Gaul and the British Isles, their earlier territories having been taken over by Germans and Slavs.
For your players, it most likely will be a meaningless distinction. If the end result is orcs killing farming families and taking or burning villages, it doesn't matter the reason behind the 'invasion'. Unjust action will be met with reaction.
If I was in your campaign, my response to the reveal would be somewhere between "Interesting. So once we defeat the orcs, we got a bigger threat to deal with." to "So these orcs are refugees? Tell that to dead Farmer Jeb, his wife and three daughters." In short, don't be surprised if your players' response is "so what? - they came killing and pillaging. We will deal with them and then deal with the bigger threat later."
If you set aside the dice, then an RPG's draw is allowing players to make informed decisions. If you want players to experience true moral dilemmas then the players have to have full knowledge of what they are doing and the decision can't be forced.
This is most definitely not a universal axiom. It may be what draws you and/or your players to the table, but it is by no means the assumed default from which any deviation demands government-mandated disclaimers. Trickery, deception, intrigue, and moral dilemmas have been a part of tabletop RPGs as long as there have been tabletop RPGs.
well, in a campaign, I put the characters facing a disproportionately large band of orcs immigration onto civilized lands... I put far too many orcs so they would not just destroy them and walk on, because the story is that they have been chased off their traditional huntiong grounds by an undead epidemic, the goal of the campaign is for the characters to unmask and defeat the necromancer... I still have time to decide what hints I'll drop.
It is a universal axiom. RPGs are about decision making, once you set aside the dice. If you don't understand that, then you're not understanding the difference between RPGs and other games. Hyperbole about government-mandates is just that, hyperbole.If you set aside the dice, then an RPG's draw is allowing players to make informed decisions. If you want players to experience true moral dilemmas then the players have to have full knowledge of what they are doing and the decision can't be forced.This is most definitely not a universal axiom. It may be what draws you and/or your players to the table, but it is by no means the assumed default from which any deviation demands government-mandated disclaimers. Trickery, deception, intrigue, and moral dilemmas have been a part of tabletop RPGs as long as there have been tabletop RPGs.
Eppur si muove. Evidence suggests you are mistaken--many people enjoy surprises and less-than-omniscience in their games and will continue to do so in spite of your declaration.
Employed by the GM, trickery and deception are elements of story telling. What is abundantly clear from years of GMs posting on forums is that some subset of GMs put their enjoyment first. They employ tools meant to stress the players and have little thought as to whether it actually makes the experience enjoyable for the players. Creating situations where players are induced to feel morally bankrupt for actions that the GM compelled them to take, is an example of bad gaming and smacks of GMs who simply want to see the looks of anguish on the players' faces.
Moral dilemmas are only valid if the players understand the consequence of their actions and have a choice. There is no moral dilemma if I have to open a door, only to find out it killed defenseless puppies.
If my character opens a door only to find out that it killed defenseless puppies, depending on the character, she might be horrified by the idea that her action triggered the result, but for most characters I play it's more likely that she'll be angry at whoever put a deaddog's switch on the door. You're correct, there's no moral dilemma in the situation you give, but there is an unintended consequence, which is in and of itself valid. Whether it's enjoyable is--and I cannot stress this enough--subjective.
Decision making is the cornerstone on which RPGs are built, once you remove the dice.
And players make decisions based on the information their characters are given, which is often limited.
In this situation, the GM is creating a situation where players are compelled to fight i.e. no real choice. Then, s/he will tell them the victims of their attacks are refugees from some greater evil and s/he specifically asks if "how much of a jerk would I be for this?" The only reason to ask this question is if s/he already suspects its a dick move.
But as you've correctly pointed out, there isn't a moral dilemma during the 'compelled to fight' phase so it's not a 'dick move.'
The interesting roleplaying comes after the PCs talk to the refugees and discover their plight. That's when we get to see if the players' moral compass induces their characters to change their behavior given more knowledge.
By meting out knowledge slowly, the GM is able to introduce moral dilemmas later in the game. I love it. I want to play this game right now.
Eppur si muove. Evidence suggests you are mistaken--many people enjoy surprises and less-than-omniscience in their games and will continue to do so in spite of your declaration.As is the case with many forum debates (in general), you're taking something I said out of context and attempting to convert it into something that it is not.
"surprises" and "less-than-omniscienece" have nothing to do with informed decision making. Nor does "informed" mean perfect information.
Not intentionally; I must have misunderstood. We can agree that informed decisions are important, and it seems that we can agree that this doesn't always mean perfectly informed. We (seemingly) disagree that all decisions must be informed--sometimes, especially on the battlefield, decisions must be made with no way to tell what's right other than through the filter of one's experience, and the rest left to the whims of fate. So long as the GM isn't literally changing the outcome on the fly to screw with the players (e.g., "refugees if they kill them, bloodthirsty Hitlermonsters if they don't"), there's room for the technique. Naturally, it's an art, and it can be performed poorly. I just have a sensitive badwrongfun reflex. : D No bad faith argument intended.
In this situation, the GM is creating a situation where players are compelled to fight i.e. no real choice. Then, s/he will tell them the victims of their attacks are refugees from some greater evil and s/he specifically asks if "how much of a jerk would I be for this?" The only reason to ask this question is if s/he already suspects its a dick move.
The GM is talking about creating a situation where the players are acting as would be expected, only to find out some truth and "hate the revelation." This suggests the GM expects the players to be feel guilty or mortified by their actions. The players aren't given an real choice as to their actions and aren't given any information prior to committing the act. IMO, that isn't good story telling or GMing. If that's what you like to do and your players enjoy it. More power to you.
Sometimes one is compelled to fight. I mean, the players could have retreated, attempted surrender or diplomacy, etc., but most players would choose to fight in that circumstance. Fair enough.
The later revelation, however, gives the players a chance to explore their characters' motivations. Does the PC feel mortified by killing refugees? Do they rationalize that the refugees, while victims, could have tried other means than violent invasion to alleviate their situation? Do they accept that "war is hell" and that sometimes there is no viable alternative to fighting? Do they attempt to reconcile the opposing forces into a combined resistance against the greater evil? Do they keep on killing orcs because, hey, screw those damn orcs, I like killing 'em, and Old Tom Rask pays a 10 gp bounty on orc ears? Do they shrug the whole thing off as "not my problem"?
There's no railroading here; the players' decisions can take the game in any number of directions from that point. Sounds like good gaming to me.
We could go on about what is and isn't railroading for days. Suffice it to say that reading the original post, I can see no reason to think that players are being deprived of agency in such fashion as to call it "railroading". They have just as much agency with or without the refugees angle--there's an externally-triggered situation (orcs are invading) and they have the opportunity to decide how to act given the situation (fight back, organize defense, parley, etc.) "Slaughtering refugees" gets to the heart of OP's concern. It's a good concern to have--it demonstrates that OP wants to avoid railroading or stepping on player toes--but in this case I don't see a problem. "If you have to ask", while pithy and sometimes useful, is not a logical answer for every question.
We're just going to have to disagree on this one, particularly since you're putting a lot of words in my mouth (and OP's), and I'm not in the mood to defend against a Gish gallop.
I would say that you should make it clear from the get go that the orcs are fleeing- as such, their damage should show that fact.
This is simple- the party first gets involved because they are sent to investigate the orc attacks. The investigation is necessary because the attacks are unusual- the orcs rush in, take food and other critical supplies, and they leave without paying attention to slaves or needless slaughter.
This course of action is fairly reasonable for the orcs- they need food so they can survive, and they do not need more mouths to feed or to waste time 'playing around' (slaughter).
You can also influence things by allowing the party to find the slower children and elderly first. A simple pattern to follow is that the main caravan has the weaker members, while the stronger members are out gathering supplies from the nearby areas.
Once you make it clear that the group is not just a bunch of pillagers, you can then shift the party into stopping the pillaging sub group (of course... with young, strong orcs, 'diplomacy' means you have to bloody some noses first).