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Well, so far my players haven't killed anything that hasn't tried to kill them first, so I guess my Grey vs Grey campaign has been successful in avoiding the murdering hobo effect.
Damnedest thing, but our games have been running with a lot of shades of grey too along with real good and evil in the mix and good orcs, and we haven't had the murder-hobo problem either. Or inescapable moral quagmires.
Maybe we're doing it wrong?
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I use alignment.
Some orcs act like monsters and some act like people. They cover the full spectrum. My players haven't had any problems being morally consistant, because their morality isn't based on judging by race. They go by deeds.
After all, some humans act like monsters as well.
I would say then that you as a GM prefer to present your demi-humans as People. For me, it comes down to whether a creature of a particular type is redeemable or not. Some of them might not be, but if a significant portion are then those creatures are People.
Personally, I prefer orcs as less of a race and more as a force of nature - a seething tide of war and violence that occasionally rises and needs to be put down. I admit that situation gives itself more towards a type of Iron Age kind of us vs. them heroism which is not particularly realistic. It's a different play style.
And that's fine. It's not what I would want to play in, but I don't begrudge someone their game. It's just race-based us vs. them and inherently evil mortal races have never been something I've been comfortable with. I also really prefer having a wider range of races beyond the LotR set, not to mention the "human-looking" set, so yeah, I defenitely roll with the "People" classification.
I pretty much always leaned hard on all those "Usually", "Often", and "Always-but-not-really-always" alignment descriptors. That and Planescape was my favorite of the classic campaign settings. ;)
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Well, so far my players haven't killed anything that hasn't tried to kill them first, so I guess my Grey vs Grey campaign has been successful in avoiding the murdering hobo effect.Damnedest thing, but our games have been running with a lot of shades of grey too along with real good and evil in the mix and good orcs, and we haven't had the murder-hobo problem either. Or inescapable moral quagmires.
Maybe we're doing it wrong?
I tend to always assume I'm doing it wrong, and continually look for ways to improve.
Damnedest thing, but our games have been running with a lot of shades of grey too along with real good and evil in the mix and good orcs, and we haven't had the murder-hobo problem either. Or inescapable moral quagmires.Maybe we're doing it wrong?
Same here. In 14 years of playing without alignment I've only seen a problem arise once. The murdering hobo is a basically a straw man. Some people really like alignment and to defend their position they just pretend that people need to be controlled or they will do bad things. Its kinda like the "athiests can't be good arguments." Though, admittedly not quite that bad :)
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I tend to always assume I'm doing it wrong, and continually look for ways to improve.
Heh. If I knew one month ago what I know now I never would have tried to start a chase scene from a cold stop.
Same here. In 14 years of playing without alignment I've only seen a problem arise once. The murdering hobo is a basically a straw man. Some people really like alignment and to defend their position they just pretend that people need to be controlled or they will do bad things.
Thing is, I actually like alignment for the most part and use it without any real problems. It's just some of the things that get done with it when it's pushed to absolute extremes that turns me off, as well as the assumption that if not every individual of a race matches its alignment in the book then someone is doing it badwrong.
God, now I'm remembering that damned medusa thread and that is not a happy place I want to go tonight.
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I've never been comfortable with the idea of race alignments either. You know Dritz once said something along the lines of, "I wish people would just my character and not the color of my skin." That is a major slap in the teeth. The one good drow.
Or Eilistraee! :)
(I only judge her because she won't put some damn clothes on even when you're using the nice furniture)
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Well, so far my players haven't killed anything that hasn't tried to kill them first, so I guess my Grey vs Grey campaign has been successful in avoiding the murdering hobo effect.
Well, keep in mind, I did say that the murdering hobo effect is caused by DM's running Grey vs Grey for players who want Black vs White, and especially so by DM's running Grey vs Grey in an unmodified classic D&D adventure with players playing Black vs White. Not by DM's running Grey vs Grey for players who want Grey vs Grey.
I'm going to guess that you probably don't run adventures like Keep on the Borderlands. It's entirely possible (though much harder) to have heroic characters in a Grey vs Grey setting, as long as they're always reacting to evil acts, and never acting as the aggressor.
When I run KotB, which is a favorite of mine to kick off new campaigns, I always run it with the players as the aggressors. They are intentionally seeking out the Caves of Chaos and "kicking the hornet's nest." And the primary motivation is to rid the land of a great evil and allow for further expansion of the kingdom - expansion guided by the PCs explorations in the lands beyond the Caves of Chaos. Which brings me to...
Gold River Valley lies on the Gold Coast, in a hidden bay near the Devil's Horn. At the mouth of the Gold River, which gives the valley its name, lies the city of Blade Bay.
Blade Bay was initially an extensive set of ruins, left by an ancient and forgotten people, that became a safe harbor for pirates hunting near the Devil's Horn. Over the years the ruins were cleared and many pirates began settling the area, many of them embracing a radical anarchist ethos that left the city with no functioning government. Eventually a powerful cabal of pirate captains, the Pirate Princes, raised some hell, busted some skulls, and turned the city into something approaching a legitimate city-state. These pirates, suddenly gone legit, styled themselves the Merchant Princes. People went along with it because the new laws weren't oppressive, the Merchant Princes created a lot of honest work, and people were getting wealthy. But then two things happened.
The first was the Summer of Slaughter, when wave after wave of beastmen came pouring out of the valley, wiping out settlements, slaughtering farmers, and laying siege to the city itself. Most of the city's residents were able to flee aboard the pirate/merchant fleet, but hundreds were killed and the city was razed.
The Merchant Princes responded by returning the next year with thousands of mercenaries from all over the world, and for the next few years they fought a bitter campaign to purge the lower valley of beastmen. Many of these mercenaries stayed and became the new backbone of the city. While not necessarily good men, they were definitely of a different quality than the pirates that came before them (many of whom returned), and more accepting of law and order.
The second thing that happened was Phegias Galt. Galt was a true merchant prince, and had secretly negotiated deals with the pirate princes to keep his own ships free from predation while targeting his enemies lines. It was he who convinced the pirate princes to go "legit" by bringing them on as partners. It was also Galt who funded the mercenary army that retook Blade Bay, and who paid for the construction of the Border Keep.
But his price was steep: deed to all of all of the lands west of the Gold River, from Border Keep to the Blackfang Mountains. This violated the free land law of the old pirate settlers who had returned; the free land law said all the land was free until a man worked it and made it productive, but no man could claim deed to land he didn't work.
Galt began importing the poor and wretched of the Old World nations, offering them jobs as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, company lumberjacks and miners. He built a series of towns (the shamelessly named Copper Hills, Silver Streams and Golddust -- all are squalid pits where people labor like slaves for Galt's nearly worthless wooden coins, but they sound great in a sales pitch). This further angered the original pirate settlers, some of whom formed the Old Salt Society to work against Galt's ambitions in the region in a very by any means necessary sort of way.
That's the situation the players enter. They start in Copper Hills, a few miles from the Border Keep, having come in search of adventure. They meet in a bar where many adventurers congregate on their way towards the Keep, but from there I pretty much let them do whatever they want. They can go with the flow and get their classic D&D on by heading to the Keep and then out in search of the Caves of Chaos, or they can get involved in the complicated mess of local politics, they can go explore the ruins under Blade Bay, or they can head off in any direction to go explore.
If they want grey vs grey, its there in the struggle between Pheigas Galt and his rather ruthless capitalist ambitions (lawful neutral) and the not quite but almost terrorist Old Salts (chaotic neutral).
But if they want to say "screw politics" and just go kill some orcs and not feel guilty about it, then there's that to do there to. After the Caves of Chaos are cleared, there is more Chaos-tainted ruins further north, and a whole megadungeon under the twin lakes (that mountain in the middle of the lake is the uppermost layers of the dungeon). All full of irredeemably evil things that have nothing better to do than spend eons worshiping horrific gods and plotting to kill every last human on the planet.
Anyways, with that set-up, I can't have orcs (or goblins, beastmen, minotaurs, etc.) be redeemable. Because if they're just upset natives defending themselves from the imperialist humans and acting out of primitive and undeveloped social structures, then they're sympathetic, and then there is no respite from the grey vs grey morality and the damned if you do, damned if you don't nihilism that such morality encompasses.
That's why I like to take a kind of Moorcockian view of fantasy morality. There are some races born to Order (Law/Creation/Life/Good), some born to Entropy (Chaos/Destruction/Death/Evil). And there is always war between the two, with no possibility of peace. That dynamic must exist, and is beyond questioning. The very universe is constructed out of that dynamic, and it's reflected in the very construction of the multiverse, with planes of pure evil and pure good that are almost mirrors of each other.
And from a certain enlightened stance, the mirrors are reflections of each other, each bent on destroying the other completely, both willing to kill fellow sentients by the millions, but no amount of enlightenment changes the fact that the eternal war between Order and Entropy must go on, because if that conflict stopped, the universe would cease to exist in some sense, it would become a real world without magic or meaning. It would become a place where epic adventure is impossible.
So genociding the orcs? Not evil. Good. Because they're Evil, and being Good is synonymous with destroying Evil.
But at the same time, while there is this cosmic war between Good and Evil, fought between pawns of the great powers, there is also a second tier of alignment, which is like alignments within alignments.
So humans are Lawful and Good by their nature. Pawns of Order. That's their predisposition. Even an evil human, like the lawful evil Phegias Galt, is still capable of seeing himself as a lawful and good person. He may ruthless manipulate and exploit others so that he can have more power and wealth than he actually needs, but he is also a powerful force for creation - a major driver of the Gold River Valley's economy, who in using his wealth to protect his assets also protects the growing civilization of the valley. Even in his greed and callousness, you can still see a drive towards Lawful Good in his behavior - and he would be shocked and insulted if you called him evil, insisting you were just some anarchist rabble with a grudge against the wealthy and prosperous.
But now think about Orcs. They are Chaotic and Evil by their nature. They create nothing, only living to destroy what others create. They hate what we consider beautiful, and love what we consider horrific. Phegias Galt may be too self-absorbed and petty to ever stop and enjoy a flower, but he could enjoy a flower. And if you gave him the choice of spending the night in a greenhouse full of orchids and a charnel house full of mangled carcasses and bloody bones, he'd pick the greenhouse without hesitation! But not the orc. The orc has nothing but hatred for the flower and revels in watching it die, but feels safe and at home in the abattoir.
To an orc, a lawful and good orc is an orc who takes the time to bite the head off a human woman's babies before he rapes her. So that its extra awful. To an orc, a chaotic evil orc is the whiny, mewling little coward who tries to weaken the tribe by suggesting they could gain something by talking to humans. To the orc that is their idea of a criminal and a crime, and orc justice is a swift and brutal death.
You can't redeem that. At best you could hope to capture the entire population and selectively breed them for domesticity, and you replace its natural inclination with entirely new ones. But you'd be destroying the species all the same, because what you would produce would no more be an orc than a dog is a wolf.
At least, that's my take on it.
I've never been comfortable with the idea of race alignments either. You know Dritz once said something along the lines of, "I wish people would just my character and not the color of my skin." That is a major slap in the teeth. The one good drow.
Or Eilistraee! :)
(I only judge her because she won't put some damn clothes on even when you're using the nice furniture)
In my own world, the elven pantheon consists of The Mother of Elves (who's also the mother of Drow), the Father of Drow (Who's also the father of Elves), and their two children. The son is a nature type who's NN and tries to have nothing to do with the family squables. The daughter is a drow who's NG. Unlike Eilistraee though, she is much more likely to run around in chainmail with an elven curve blade kicking people in the teeth. :)
Oh, there's also a CN demigod who raised himself up to godhood by eating the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Life and Death. He was a runemage (word magus) thief, and the rest of the elven/drow pantheon sort of try to pretend he's not elven. :)
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At least, that's my take on it.
Sounds like a lot of grimdark to me. And when I want that, then I certainly want Paizo's bugbears, with their irredeemable murderousness.
But I run Shackled City, and I like my characters to be able to banter with their foes. Maybe even regret that they have to fight. It makes it more interesting than "wipe them out...all of them" all the time. So when you run into that actual avatar of evil, it's so much more meaningful.
I do get funny looks from one of my players when I tell him the half-orc mercenaries raise their fists in greeting when the party stops by.
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In my own world, the elven pantheon consists of The Mother of Elves (who's also the mother of Drow), the Father of Drow (Who's also the father of Elves),
Okay, now I have to ask about what was behind the title switcharoo. ;)
Unlike Eilistraee though, she is much more likely to run around in chainmail with an elven curve blade kicking people in the teeth. :)
That actually sounds like an awesome alternate deity choice for Sandwich Stoutaxe, for the imagery and all.
As long as we're posting positive homebrew vibes:
I actually use Eilistraee herself in my homebrew(with a few select preexisting gods along with an original core pantheon), as the goddess of all elvenkind. She has the Maiden/Mother/Crone thing going, though it's closer(and later influenced by) the Asari arrangement of that theme from Mass Effect.
Her drow are just simply dark elves. Still the same general appearance, but they traded the underground for the deepest, darkest forests and the backstabby evil for a mildly fearful isolationism. They're the keepers of elvenkind's ancient culture, but they're also more than a bit behind the times compared to almost everyone else on the planet.
MY PLAYERS DON'T READ:
This planet's sole goddess managed to defeat it and seal it away, but was fatally wounded in the process. As she died, she sealed away her three child races, placing them in stasis, as they were woefully unprepared to fend for themselves without her. The planet was left uninhabited except by this single dying goddess that to human eyes would basically look like miles and miles of tentacles. She also managed to seal most of the planar entries and boundries leading to her world, so that getting on and off that world through means other than being born or dying were incredibly difficult.
Millenia later, as obscure legends of a source of deific power made their way around the planes, a race for that treasure was set off that led to a number of planeswalking beings, ranging from angels to mortals to fiends to rilmani, finally making their way to the planet(and essentially winding up trapped there). A struggle between various factions kicked off that wound up weakening the seals holding aforementioned abomination at bay.
One of the planeswalkers, a planetar finally discovered the barely living body of the planet's orginal deity, who pretty much explained the situation with the abomination and her sleeping children she was trying to protect. Said deity entrusted the planetar with all of her power, finally dying and being fully absorbed into her successor. Planetar shares what she knows about the abomination(but keeps the matter of the original inhabitant races to herself and those closest to her) then splits her divinity between the remaining planeswalkers who she managed to gather together against a common enemy, elevating all of them to godhood.
They throw down and manage to seal the thing away once more, but the seal wasn't quite as strong this time. So before their alliance falls apart due to differences in philosophy, goals, and morality, most of them manage to cooperate long enough to call in some older gods to bring their own child races to seed the planet with new people: humans, dwarves, goblins and the like. These races, through their own power and their worship, would serve as a sort of immune system against the abomination, further strengthening the barriers holding it back.
As far as Eilistraee is concerned, she was strongly encouraged to take her place as that world's god of elvenkind and to give her chosen people a fresh start on at least one world.
Fast-forwarding to the modern age: That planetar, now the central deity in a trinity of good deities(covering the CG-NG-LG range) is coming close to giving birth to the reincarnation of the world's original goddess, and neither she nor those few other beings in the know are sure if she'll survive the process. The chambers holding the original races in stasis are also beginning to stir, and one of the races has already fully awakened. Few in number, this race was meant to safeguard and usher in the revival of their sibling races into a world that they are woefully unprepared for, and they desperately need help to do it.
There are a ton of conflicting legends about exactly what came before the current pantheon and the nature of the god and peoples of those times, as well as what is left over from that age. Quite often these tales take on an apocalyptic air, assuming those beings to be eldritch horrors that would surely mean the end of their world as they know it. A few are more hopeful, but for the most part no one really knows what will happen when the awakening occurs. Most people don't even suspect such a thing could ever happen.
And leading up to this awakening, there are a lot of folks and factions looking to unearth the secret history of the world, and some looking to exploit it. A few gods are hungry for more of that deific power that the planetar so sparingly gave, and both the reborn goddess and her children would be prime sources for it. And that abomination is stirring again, with mad cults eager to see it let loose.
Meanwhile, life goes on as usual and the usual fantasy world stuff is going on. Cue the PCs that may or may not find out that a new age is rushing their way.
Also, Kord and Gruumsh are the dueling gods of the orcs. Yuan-ti splinter race worships a semi-Phaoroh-like purified marilith who doesn't even know there's a conspiracy amongst the upper planes to get her elevated to true godhood partially in order to see if it'll work.
In my weekly campaign we came across a clan of ogres. Exploring the house led to a scene from a horror film with skin couches, lamps, etc. These Ogres were a pretty sick bunch. Now, my dwarves are considering killing every single ogre we come across, no quarter. They are Lawful Neutral, would this affect their alignment?
To quote the Aquabats: "we will hunt down those pirates and stop them with violence/To make the oceans safe once again!"
There ya go, it's all right there. The fierce midget pirates of Willygoat are evil to the core and must be stopped. 'Cause that's just how the game works.
note: if you wanna treat with the little buggers go ahead, but it's so much more fun to kill 'em. All of 'em!
In my own world, the elven pantheon consists of The Mother of Elves (who's also the mother of Drow), the Father of Drow (Who's also the father of Elves),Okay, now I have to ask about what was behind the title switcharoo. ;)
He was a warrior and maker, but a gruff kind of guy. She was caring and tender. So the elves worshiped both, but tended to prefer her, and built many grand temples to her, and he grew jealous over the ages, until finally his jealousy drove him to attack his own wife. Their daughter, the drow goddess, interfered in the duel and scarred her father, driving him away cursing her for interfering in the duel. Drow originally meant 'Self Exiled' as he took his followers and worshipers with him underground (turning their back on the sky and sun, which the elven goddess was the goddess of).
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Well, keep in mind, I did say that the murdering hobo effect is caused by DM's running Grey vs Grey for players who want Black vs White, and especially so by DM's running Grey vs Grey in an unmodified classic D&D adventure with players playing Black vs White. Not by DM's running Grey vs Grey for players who want Grey vs Grey.
I'm gonna put a big ol' +1 on this statement. I've been there - specifically I'm remembering a group of players in a 2nd ed. game I ran. I tried to include local politics and different dukedoms with competing interests to see how the characters' loyalties would shake out and how they would balance the needs of the various NPCs against their own interests.
My players wanted to to kill things and take their stuff, and anything else got short shrift from them and eventually violence became their first resort to problem solving. I'm amazed that game lasted as long as it did before I gave up in frustration. I still remember the breaking point: when the party leader decided it was easier to kill a peasant who was questioning his authority rather than waste time talking to him.
My current campaign is more of a sandbox, and I've been developing multiple story-lines and plots so that the characters can choose what kind of game they want to play. Most recently they had the choice of either heading south to help fight in a small war that directly affects a number of NPCs who they know and which could change the face of local politics; or of heading north and following a dubious treasure map into a monster-infested wilderness to raid an ancient dungeon.
I'll give you one guess which way they went.
I have seen alot of similar arguments in the past regarding this idea. One thing that was pointed out to me was the difference between [EVIL] and evil. [EVIL] is a tangible force in Pathfinder and it's ancienter Dungeons and Dragons in the same way something is positively or negatively charged; that type of evil is what is the make up of demons and devils and such, however then there is evil; which is subjective, take for instance the case of the mind flayer; wile they maybe [EVIL] if you took that away would they still be evil? Yes they need brains of sentient creatures to survive and reproduce but that is simple biology.
So first one must separate these two things which is not easy at the best of times, after all we have never seen anyone argue over alignment have we? First there is subjective evil actions. Killing is wrong; this statement seems to be at the core of most human civilizations the exceptions are what proves the rule; unless defending yourself; for your nation and so on. Wile the exceptions become increasingly convoluted the core premise remains. This however is subjective. Say for instance we came from a different animal group. One that focused on mass breeding we were born in clutches. As we all skittered off to avoid being eaten by our siblings we then grew and developed, after which we found ourselves competing for resources due to over population something that can happen quite quickly for us so we simply eat some of the members of society until equilibrium is restored.
An alien outlook to be sure however these is biological, if in D&D we would put the label evil on this. Why? Because it is a quick fix, goblins are evil as are orcs and many other races; easy done. So these are subjective evils, not tangible to degrees. So to destroy an 'evil' race is indeed evil why because we are imposing our wills in the most aggressive of ways. “I have seen your people kill people before so I will wipe you out” would we tolerate such people in reality ;even Godwin is looking at this and saying reducing to one very quickly.
However then comes the [EVIL] side of the argument, beings of pure malice, rage and hatred such as Devil and Demons who are literally evil manifested into the real. Well I am unsure how Galeran works in the regards of the realms beyond prime plane. So I can not comment; as to that however, with Planescape it was said that the planes themselves were evil if you wiped out all of the demons you would simply become them and give rise to a new kind.
But ultimately this leads to this question, is the destruction of evil good. One at first glance would think yes ofcorse however with closer examination look upon this. The elimination of greed and envy would seem like good things yes? How many stories of greatness come from theses corner stones? Inventions undiscovered, products unmade and children unborn. The elimination of evil as we know it would simply spawn new evils. Less ones until ultimately we are no long what makes us human and that is rather cthulian if you ask me.
Do they have a permit for ogre extermination, filled out in triplicate?
[cynic]
Is your deity ok with it? If so, you're set.
[/cynic]
I think philosophically it depends on what YOU believe.
I suspect that people who believe that there is true EVIL in the real world tend to view the dynamics diffently then those who belive there are BAD people or that some people make bad decisions in the real world.
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
In Pathfinder can look at a guy and know for sure if he's seriously evil. (I don't consider the level 4 non-divine-class fighter to be seriously evil, but you might.) Nobody actually has that ability in the real world.
Whether or not you believe the real world has stark black and white morality, Pathfinder is a game that, out of the box, does.
I think philosophically it depends on what YOU believe.
I suspect that people who believe that there is true EVIL in the real world tend to view the dynamics diffently then those who belive there are BAD people or that some people make bad decisions in the real world.
At the risk of offending you, that's utter nonsense. I don't believe in Evil in the real world -- I believe there are evil people and evil deeds (note the small e's) because I've studied far too much history to think that there isn't; there's plenty of stuff that goes beyond "bad people making bad decisions) and if you don't believe me...turn on the news, man. Note that I do not look at, for example, John Wayne Gacy and go from there to "all clowns should be killed because they present a clear and present danger." Though they totally do, because they're clowns.
But Evil (capital E) -- something supernatural, for lack of a better term? No, not a bit of it. I feel like it's absurd on the face of it.
However, different rules apply to games. In Pathfinder, Evil exists. There's no argument about it, it just does. You can house rule it so it doesn't exist, but officially, it does. And officially, some races are born with an excess of it to the point that those who reject it and embrace some other moral standpoint are a vanishingly small minority. This too is not subject to argument, it just IS. This is not an argument for genocide against ogres or orcs or drow or whatever, because I recognize the moral and ethical dilemma such a course presents, and I recognize that there isn't a good solution or a Good solution, merely a choice of bad (not necessarily evil or Evil) ones.
Now note that I am capable of differentiating between real world and fantasy world. My real-world views do not dictate my game-world views.
But Evil (capital E) -- something supernatural, for lack of a better term? No, not a bit of it. I feel like it's absurd on the face of it.However, different rules apply to games. In Pathfinder, Evil exists. There's no argument about it, it just does. You can house rule it so it doesn't exist, but officially, it does. And officially, some races are born with an excess of it to the point that those who reject it and embrace some other moral standpoint are a vanishingly small minority. This too is not subject to argument, it just IS. This is not an argument for genocide against ogres or orcs or drow or whatever, because I recognize the moral and ethical dilemma such a course presents, and I recognize that there isn't a good solution or a Good solution, merely a choice of bad (not necessarily evil or Evil) ones.
Now note that I am capable of differentiating between real world and fantasy world. My real-world views do not dictate my game-world views.
Nobody has said they houserule [Evil] (big E) does not exist. What they have said is that evil [little e] races are not 100% evil. You are conflating the two. The only creatures that are 100% Evil (BIG E!!!!) are outsiders and other creatures with the [Evil] subtype, like vampires and mind flayers and such. Please do not conflate the two. When you do, you come across as talking down to us and display that you do not understand the difference between Evil (BIG E!) and evil (little e).
Within the core rules, races that are humanoids, like Drow, Duerger, Svirneflem, etc are evil (little e!), which means they are not, even in the core rules, 100% evil. Outsiders like Demons and Devils, on the other hand, are [Evil] (BIG E!!!!) and ARE 100% evil.
@ OP - Yeah, probably....
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At least, that's my take on it.Sounds like a lot of grimdark to me. And when I want that, then I certainly want Paizo's bugbears, with their irredeemable murderousness.
Depends on how you define "grimdark." In Warhammer circles, the term grimdark specifically refers to the way Warhammer is presented as the ultimate in Crapsack Worlds, where no matter how hard you struggle, good always loses. Grimdark, in that context, isn't Black vs White or Grey vs Grey - it's Black vs Black.
Having run variations on this campaign model many times, I don't think its "grimdark" at all, because the humans are clearly the good guys, and good can prevail over evil. That's classic heroism. If the world I'm presenting to my players is "grimdark," then its no more so than Tolkien's Middle Earth.
But I run Shackled City, and I like my characters to be able to banter with their foes. Maybe even regret that they have to fight. It makes it more interesting than "wipe them out...all of them" all the time. So when you run into that actual avatar of evil, it's so much more meaningful.
I'm completely unfamiliar with Shackled City, so I don't know what it means that you run Shackled City. I have no idea what the core conflict is in that adventure/setting.
I'm a little bit peeved by some of your language -- "more interesting" in particular, since the automatic implication is that having no enemies available that can't be killed without engaging a moral quandry is automatically more interesting than having some enemies available that can be killed without such quandaries.
But that's only more interesting if that's what the players are interested in, which is far from a universal. Personally, as a player, I really hate the idea of redeemable orcs and the absence of any enemies that can be killed without reservation. I enjoy gaming for the ability to escape the never ending moral quandries presented by the real world, and a DM forcing those considerations on a game doesn't make it more interesting to me, it makes it a tedious exercise in moral relativism.
Earlier you said that all killing is evil. Which I believe is true in the real world, but there are implications of that statement that you may not be considering very deeply. Heroism, as in righteous action taken against evil, is always, inevitablely a form of evil once one embraces that worldview. For instance, the Nazis were huge believers in heroic morality - which is why they managed to get 100 million people killed and are now considered the clearest and strongest example of unmitigated human evil.
I play D&D because, hey, I want to engage in Heroism without having to worry about the consequences for other people. In the real world I have to be willing to compromise and negotiate with my conservative brethren, because acting out of frustration and just shooting Rush Limbaugh would be wrong. And I don't really want to replicate that sense of endless frustration and compromise in a game.
This is why applying modern moral relativism to orcs and other creatures created specifically for the purposes of allowing the existence of Same vs Other conflicts without falling prey to moral nihilism. If morality functions the same way in the game that it does in real life, then to be moral in the game you have to be moral the same way you would be in real life. Which means that if you're an adventurer of any sort, chances are high that you're a bad guy.
Now, like I said, I don't know what the conflict is in Shackled City, but if both sides of the conflict are grey, then chances are pretty good that you're players aren't playing heroes in the classic sense of moral paragons, they're playing heroes in the fascist sense. Either that or (and I doubt this is the case) they're playing shopkeepers.
I also take objection to the implication that having irredeemably evil orcs makes it impossible to banter. Orcs may be evil, but they're far from mindless, and when played traditionally they can be a great source of amusement and entertaining banter. Orcs range from hateful brutes to conniving schemers, and some of them are downright Affably Evil.
It's only the mindless constructs of evil - skeletons, zombies and the like - that don't banter.
Nobody has said they houserule [Evil] (big E) does not exist. What they have said is that evil [little e] races are not 100% evil. You are conflating the two. The only creatures that are 100% Evil (BIG E!!!!) are outsiders and other creatures with the [Evil] subtype, like vampires and mind flayers and such. Please do not conflate the two. When you do, you come across as talking down to us and display that you do not understand the difference between Evil (BIG E!) and evil (little e).Within the core rules, races that are humanoids, like Drow, Duerger, Svirneflem, etc are evil (little e!), which means they are not, even in the core rules, 100% evil. Outsiders like Demons and Devils, on the other hand, are [Evil] (BIG E!!!!) and ARE 100% evil.
No, not true. Individuals with the [Evil} subtype can be Good, and individuals with the [Good] subtype can be evil. That's now celestials can fall. James Jacobs and others have stated that there are Good-aligned vampires, werewolves, and other creatures. It's probably less common to have a Good-aligned demon, for example, than a Good-aligned vampire, which in turn is probably less common than a Good-aligned ogre. But, as others have pointed out, rare exceptions are still exceptions.
My main point in the post in question was to refute the spurious suggestion that one need to believe in Evil in the real world in order to believe that destroying an entire species was not necessarily an Evil act. Everything else contained in the post was cited to support that point.
Stuff
Ok, I withdraw the objection then. I didn't read it the way you apparently meant it. One of the joys of the internet. :)
As to Good races with [Evil], no, per RAW in the RPG books, you can't have that.
Per fluff for Golarion (a world setting!) you can have a fallen angel that was [GOOD] but became evil.
However, there are no mechanics for it in the game. So by base rules, once something has the [Good] or [Evil] or [Lawful] or [Chaotic] subtags, they are those and can't change.
As I posted earlier, in my own world, that can happen, but only on the mortal plain in that world. But per RAW for the game system, there's no mehcanics provided to change alignment if you have the alignment subtags.
StuffOk, I withdraw the objection then. I didn't read it the way you apparently meant it. One of the joys of the internet. :)
As to Good races with [Evil], no, per RAW in the RPG books, you can't have that.
Per fluff for Golarion (a world setting!) you can have a fallen angel that was [GOOD] but became evil.
However, there are no mechanics for it in the game. So by base rules, once something has the [Good] or [Evil] or [Lawful] or [Chaotic] subtags, they are those and can't change.
As I posted earlier, in my own world, that can happen, but only on the mortal plain in that world. But per RAW for the game system, there's no mehcanics provided to change alignment if you have the alignment subtags.
Hmmm. Yeah, that's true. I wonder if they're going to address that little issue at some point? :-)
It's interesting, though, that in RAW -- the erinyes writeup is one place, though I'm sure there are others -- it is said to HAVE happened. So it must be possible.
KIIL THE OGRES!
I can't believe someone here suggested doing missionary work to teach them right and wrong. Great if your suicidal.
It really grinds my gears that some people on the boards try to apply liberal views to discussions like this. This is a world that has Ogres worshipping a Demon Lord named Lamushtu! If that is not enough to keep your kids indoors, when Ogres hit puberty they go on a skull hunt to kill and bring back as many humanoid skulls as possible.
They make their lairs close to civilized areas so they can raid for goods. They do not possess skills to craft anything, bc they don't really care to.
Unrepentant evil is what an Ogre is by nature.
KIIL THE OGRES!
I can't believe someone here suggested doing missionary work to teach them right and wrong. Great if your suicidal.
It really grinds my gears is that some people on the boards try to apply liberal views to discussions like this. This is a world that has Ogres worshipping a Demon Lord named Lamushtu! If that is not enough to keep your kids indoors, when Ogres hit puberty they go on a skull hunt to kill and bring back as many humanoid skulls as possible.
They make their lairs close to civilized areas so they can raid for goods. They do not possess skills to craft anything, bc they don't really care to.
Unrepentant evil is what an Ogre is by nature.
May I point out that your rant is directed at people who are apparently not posting in this thread? Since everyone I've read that posted about non-evil ogres posted concerning homebrew locations, not Golarion?
Your point is valid for PFS play, and home games set in Golarion using RAW, but your rant is not valid for anything else, and it is getting as old as you claim other's positions to be for people to rant about how people are 'playing the game wrong' in their own home games.
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Speaking of Golarion itself:
There are references to the rare orc paladin.
The existence of risen fiends and good (intelligent)undead are acknowledged in Classic Horrors Revisited.
One AP features a neutral goblin who is an honorary member of a certain hardcore LN/LE faction.
One of the Empyreal Lords is the son of an evil Archdevil and a presumably neutral fire elemental.
There are gods of good hellbent on redeeming various gods of evil.
Celestials, devils, and demons sometimes work together against a common foe, daemons.
** spoiler omitted **In my own world, the elven pantheon consists of The Mother of Elves (who's also the mother of Drow), the Father of Drow (Who's also the father of Elves),Okay, now I have to ask about what was behind the title switcharoo. ;)
Ah, nice turnaround from the Corellan/Lolth norm. :)
KIIL THE OGRES!
I can't believe someone here suggested doing missionary work to teach them right and wrong. Great if your suicidal.
It really grinds my gears is that some people on the boards try to apply liberal views to discussions like this. This is a world that has Ogres worshipping a Demon Lord named Lamushtu! If that is not enough to keep your kids indoors, when Ogres hit puberty they go on a skull hunt to kill and bring back as many humanoid skulls as possible.
They make their lairs close to civilized areas so they can raid for goods. They do not possess skills to craft anything, bc they don't really care to.
Unrepentant evil is what an Ogre is by nature.
May I point out that your rant is directed at people who are apparently not posting in this thread? Since everyone I've read that posted about non-evil ogres posted concerning homebrew locations, not Golarion?
Your point is valid for PFS play, and home games set in Golarion using RAW, but your rant is not valid for anything else, and it is getting as old as you claim other's positions to be for people to rant about how people are 'playing the game wrong' in their own home games.
I was directing my rant to the first two members on this thread. Looks like it has evolved into another conversation.
I have the opinion that there are people who do play the game wrong. They homebrew the game into something unrecognizable and pass it off to others as D&D. Just one mans opinion and I'm not afraid to share it no matter how old it gets.|
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KIIL THE OGRES!
I can't believe someone here suggested doing missionary work to teach them right and wrong. Great if your suicidal.
It really grinds my gears is that some people on the boards try to apply liberal views to discussions like this. This is a world that has Ogres worshipping a Demon Lord named Lamushtu! If that is not enough to keep your kids indoors, when Ogres hit puberty they go on a skull hunt to kill and bring back as many humanoid skulls as possible.
They make their lairs close to civilized areas so they can raid for goods. They do not possess skills to craft anything, bc they don't really care to.
Unrepentant evil is what an Ogre is by nature.
May I point out that your rant is directed at people who are apparently not posting in this thread? Since everyone I've read that posted about non-evil ogres posted concerning homebrew locations, not Golarion?
Your point is valid for PFS play, and home games set in Golarion using RAW, but your rant is not valid for anything else, and it is getting as old as you claim other's positions to be for people to rant about how people are 'playing the game wrong' in their own home games.
I was directing my rant to the first two members on this thread. Looks like it has evolved into another conversation.
I have the opinion that there are people who do play the game wrong. They homebrew the game into something unrecognizable and pass it off to others as D&D. Just one mans opinion and I'm not afraid to share it no matter how old it gets.
Huh.
Do note that the taglines for the Pathfinder RPG and Pathfinder campaign setting are respectively "It's your game now!" and "It's your world now!"
KIIL THE OGRES!
I can't believe someone here suggested doing missionary work to teach them right and wrong. Great if your suicidal.
It really grinds my gears is that some people on the boards try to apply liberal views to discussions like this. This is a world that has Ogres worshipping a Demon Lord named Lamushtu! If that is not enough to keep your kids indoors, when Ogres hit puberty they go on a skull hunt to kill and bring back as many humanoid skulls as possible.
They make their lairs close to civilized areas so they can raid for goods. They do not possess skills to craft anything, bc they don't really care to.
Unrepentant evil is what an Ogre is by nature.
May I point out that your rant is directed at people who are apparently not posting in this thread? Since everyone I've read that posted about non-evil ogres posted concerning homebrew locations, not Golarion?
Your point is valid for PFS play, and home games set in Golarion using RAW, but your rant is not valid for anything else, and it is getting as old as you claim other's positions to be for people to rant about how people are 'playing the game wrong' in their own home games.
I was directing my rant to the first two members on this thread. Looks like it has evolved into another conversation.
I have the opinion that there are people who do play the game wrong. They homebrew the game into something unrecognizable and pass it off to others as D&D. Just one mans opinion and I'm not afraid to share it no matter how old it gets.Huh.
Do note that the taglines for the Pathfinder RPG and Pathfinder campaign setting are respectively "It's your game now!" and "It's your world now!"
Not trying to ruffle the Homebrew crowds feathers. I guess I'm a traditional type of gamer. To each their own. Mikaze, how does your homebrew world/game differ?
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Not trying to ruffle the Homebrew crowds feathers. I guess I'm a traditional type of gamer. To each their own. Mikaze, how does your homebrew world/game differ?
Golarion in our home games:
Mostly the same as written with some areas more fleshed out through play and development and with alignments for mortal races being pushed less as an absolute. No mortal races are inherently any alignment, just as mentioned in the Bestiary itself.
The major differences are:
1. The (slim) majority of the population of Nirmathas are mostly CN/CG orcs that get on well with their human countrymen, share a grudging respect with Lastwall, and are staunch enemies of the hordes of Belkzen and expansionist Molthrune, the latter of which promises them protected standing within society at the cost of freedom. Currently compiling and further developing all my notes on this area to release as a fan project for those GMs and players that would like to finally have a book that actually supports good/non-villain orcs. Text completion: 80% Art completion: 15%
2. There's a city located in the mountain-ringed desert valley between Thuvia, Osirion, and the Mwangi Expanse called Atah-Ouahe. Also being compiled, temporarily kept on the side while the orc project is on.
3. The Bekyar people are split along cultural lines. Those most commonly seen in the Inner Sea Region are the descendants of those that turned to demon worship following the birth of a sort of reverse-Worldwound within their homeland in Southern Garund. Those Bekyar are the ones currently ruining the name of the people in the Inner Sea, while the mostly neutral homelanders have been busy fighting to preserve their culture in the face of both the rift and their pervasive demon-worshipping kinsmen.
4. Nantambu is a small nation in the Mwangi Expanse rather than just a city.
Original Homebrew: Secret history spoilered here.
Multitude of races, none of which are inherently any alignment. There are leanings, but no more than that. Some lands are fully egalitarian, some areas are rampant with racism. Orcs, goblins, kobolds, and hobgoblins are core races along with many other humanoids.
Orcs are often percieved as a young race and as such generally feel they have something to prove, making them the most tenacious race on the planet.
Goblins latch onto whatever the predominant society, frequently serving as cheap labor, slaves, and salvagers.
The hobgoblins' glory days are past, they former great empire a memory and their current scattered status a wound to their pride.
Kobolds, when integrated into other populations, serve as go-betweens between human and draconic society. More than a few of them have shaken off what they see as servitor status and have set off to make their own place in the world among other humanoids, while traditionalists cling to the old ways.
Drow are simply dark elves, noted in the link above.
One of the major forces for good in the world are a band of undead privy to the secret history of the world and tasked with protecting the current inhabitants from fiendish infiltration and other supernatural threats.
There are no "badguy" races, but there are "badguy" organizations, nations and cultures. There is still plenty of good vs. evil. There's also gray vs. gray, law vs. chaos, blue vs. orange, old vs. new, idealism vs. cynicism, and everything else. If someone wants a black and white good-vs-evil campaign, there are places where it can easily happen. They just don't involve genocide of mortal races as an option for Team Good.
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It all depends on your game world. In the pre-eberron days it seemed to me there were no 'against the grain' members of evil races, drow and orcs and ogres and such where irredemable baby eaters. You killed them took their stuff and never batted an eye.
It started way earlier, in my experience in Forgotten Realms, with Drizzt the good drow (and tons of players coping him).
There was even a tribe of good orcs in FR.Even before that you had the Alu Demon in the MMII (first ed. AD&D), daughter of a demon and a human. Those that were born from non evil humans had a chance to be neutral and even good.
Nowadays people seem to like moral choices in their games, and they like to add shades of grey to the alignment scale. Personally I wouldn't mind that, its about time we shed this damned alignment system completely. But for a moment I think in a world where there are walking evil detectors this is a pretty simple situation. Herd enemies into a 60ft cone, cast detect evil, concentrate, start picking off enemies until the paladin's evil meter eases up.
Won't work. Creatures with 5 HD or less will not register unless they are clerics, outsiders or undead.
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There is a fun little thing about the orcs being potentially of any alignment.
It make the humans the future elves.
To clarify that: in most game world the elves were once the (or one of the) dominant race of the world, with higher magic and technological knowledge. Then men came. Initially they were savages but a bit through contact with the elves, dwarwes and so on, a bit by themselves, they civilized.
As the human breed faster than elves and dwarwes they did become the dominant race pushing those races on the sidelines.
But the orcs breed even faster than humans and can potentially be almost as intelligent as humans. So if they were to develop a stable and reasonably peaceful civilization they would start to out breed the human and encroach in their territory. After a time they will start to push the human to the borderland, taking away their territory for the simple need for food and land, without any malice.
In the end the humans would become the "once proud rulers of the world now reduced to some scattered refuge", like the elves ar in most game world.
Fun and a bit ironic.
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So you agree with me :)
You do not believe there is Evil in the real world and you believe that evil in the Game world is just a simple thing to get around (thus Good demons and Evil Solars).
To be in disagreement with me you would have to believe there WAS EVIL in the real world and have the same view of in game redemption as you do.
My theory was that people who do not belive there is EVIL in the real world tend to view Evil in the game world as more optional.
Basicaly people view their game through the prism of their RL beliefs.
For the record I think there is real EVIL in the Real world.
I don't think he's saying what you think he's saying.
Unless you're saying that you believe in Supernatural Evil in the real world, and that disbelief in Supernatural Evil in the real world leads to people not using the concept of Supernatural Evil in their games? Which I would say is also a poorly reasoned argument, by the way. The nature of evil in the game's own terms is vastly different from how evil is viewed in real life, even by the standards of those who believe in Supernatural Evil in the real world. The two concepts are totally disconnected.
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'Always evil' does not necessarily mean 'hey let's kill all of these without even bothering to study them'. Perhaps an offshoot of the race has changed? Suppose one Chaotic Neutral drow exists - can you now continue to exterminate an 'always evil' race?
Going on a quest to destroy evil and exterminating a race like vermin seems incongruous as a matter of fact; I wouldn't necessarily argue that Neutral guys pursuing a perceived blood debt are in fact doing 'evil', but they assuredly not doing 'good'. If we're playing with the primitive sort of 'kick in the door, kill guys and take their stuff' ideal of D&D, sure, going on a goblin killing spree is fine, but you're running a real world where players are expected to behave as, well, people, it becomes far murkier.
That said, 'good' and 'evil' in D&D and by extension PF are not as relativistic as in the real world - ie. there are objectively good, save-the-children-peace-love-and-orphanages deities and objectively evil, crush-everyone-and-eat-their-puppies ones. This does not imply, however, that one can walk into an Asmodean stronghold and just kill everyone indiscriminately - bear in mind that there are apparently Paladins of Asmodeus (don't recall the source), and while misguided, are still 'Good'.
The 3.5 Monster Manual posits that all succubi, for instance, are 'Always Chaotic Evil' but apparently succubus paladins can still happen - or, for a less kitschy example, take Fall-From-Grace in Planescape: Torment. Neither are chaotic evil, but if you simply went around committing genocide on all succubi, you might kill them too.
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In my weekly campaign we came across a clan of ogres. Exploring the house led to a scene from a horror film with skin couches, lamps, etc. These Ogres were a pretty sick bunch. Now, my dwarves are considering killing every single ogre we come across, no quarter. They are Lawful Neutral, would this affect their alignment?
Sorry, don't have time to read all the answers just now.
My answer would be : possibly !
My belief is you must judge everyone by their own actions. If all the Ogres are Evil, yeah you may be right. All long as there is ANY doubt otherwise, then no you must judge everyone on a case-by-case basis.
So you agree with me :)You do not believe there is Evil in the real world and you believe that evil in the Game world is just a simple thing to get around (thus Good demons and Evil Solars).
To be in disagreement with me you would have to believe there WAS EVIL in the real world and have the same view of in game redemption as you do.
My theory was that people who do not belive there is EVIL in the real world tend to view Evil in the game world as more optional.
Basicaly people view their game through the prism of their RL beliefs.
For the record I think there is real EVIL in the Real world.
I guess I don't follow your argument. I'm not saying that Evil in Pathfinder is a simple thing to get around -- I'd say it's a damnably (ha! I made a punny!) difficult thing to get around, and the greater the intensity of it in the race in question, the more difficult it is for any given individual to get around. It's easier for an orc to overcome its inherent evil than it is for a vampire, and it's easier for a vampire to do it than for a demon. Examples do exist in canon, but they're just that -- exceptions, and exceedingly rare ones at that. The fact that the exceptions are that rare would indicate that the process of overcoming one's inherent nature is a difficult thing indeed.
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One of the major forces for good in the world are a band of undead privy to the secret history of the world and tasked with protecting the current inhabitants from fiendish infiltration and other supernatural threats.
Even your undead can be potential good guys?
I really can't imagine how I could ever enjoy a game set in a world like that. It'd be impossible to just go out and have adventurers, unless I played an evil character. In fact, in a world like the one you seem to be describing, I would pretty much have to play an evil character to have any fun at all.
You guys must go session after session after session without combats. Great if works for you, but just sounds tedious as hell to me.
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Even your undead can be potential good guys?
See, to understand how silly I see that statement, replace 'undead' with 'humans'.
Do you not have fun when your characters come into conflict with human characters? Have you never had a combat encounter against humans?
You complain that there are no creatures that you can kill without reservation, but my games totally have that. You know what those creatures are?
Evil creatures.
Unless you're complaining that you can't tell which creatures are Evil just by their race?
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One of the major forces for good in the world are a band of undead privy to the secret history of the world and tasked with protecting the current inhabitants from fiendish infiltration and other supernatural threats.Even your undead can be potential good guys?
I really can't imagine how I could ever enjoy a game set in a world like that. It'd be impossible to just go out and have adventurers, unless I played an evil character. In fact, in a world like the one you seem to be describing, I would pretty much have to play an evil character to have any fun at all.
You guys must go session after session after session without combats. Great if works for you, but just sounds tedious as hell to me.
Deathless from Book of Exalted Deeds/Eberron Campaign Setting. Baelnorns from Monsters of Faerun. Good Liches from Libris Mortis. Et cetera.
Not being able to indiscriminately slaughter a creature because its stat block says 'always chaotic evil' may be a hindrance for 'kick in the door'-style campaigns, but it's really not that difficult to establish a character as 'evil'. Blackguard tells you that he's going to kill you and then your family? You can kill him. Cultists spreading a horrible disease in the streets? You can kill him. Vampire turning people into his spawn in the hopes of taking over the city? You can kill him.
This isn't to say 'no ethical concerns, fight some monsters and take their stuff' isn't a valid (or fun!) way to game, but it doesn't strike me as boring to have to think before stabbing.