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Seriously, there's that goblin baby.
Some day, it will grow up to be a CE menace of local level 1 Commoners. A terrorist. Think Al-qaeda, sans the brains and with more torches. And we're supposed to fight such evil wherever it shows, right? That's what a proper Neutral Good would do.
It's lying on the ground, defenseless. My armored boot hovers over its tiny, football-shaped head.
If I crush it now, am I Evil? 1/10th of Evil? Chatoic Neutral with occasional "twitch"? Just fine? Or just a curious Gnome?
Of course, this isn't a serious thread, and shouldn't be taken so, or Mikaze will run in and start explaining that I should take care of that Goblin and rise him to become a LG Cleric of Iomedae... ;-)
Honestly i think it would depend on the setting. I mean HOW inherently evil are goblins in the setting?
Don't kill the goblin baby. It's your friend. Seriously, when your bard friend was slain last session he was reincarnated as a goblin. That goblin, actually.
Odin says that you should not kill that baby goblin. That baby is not a warrior, and should be allowed to find his own destiny. And if his destiny is to be evil and attack a village some day, those villagers will then have their chance to show their bravery and valor. Odin has spoken.
As for the GM who calls himself 'Utgardloki' on the Paizo forums, he will knock your alignment toward the evil and chaotic ends of the axis, because you have gone against the express commands of the gods in order to hurt someone who was not threatening you. At the very least, your alignment shall not be impeccably good, unless you atone. But this GM considers the entirety of the works that you do, and takes into account on his alignment chart whether your alignment is impeccable or borderline. Unless you are in danger of losing an alignment that you need for a class that you have, he won't even tell you about it unless you have an appropriate divination spell cast on yourself.
Some PCs in Utgardloki's campaign might be surprised if they were to cast know alignment on themselves.
Honestly i think it would depend on the setting. I mean HOW inherently evil are goblins in the setting?Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.
Actually its defualt NE and NE defined by the srd is:
A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusions that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn't have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has.
Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies.
Neutral evil represents pure evil without honor and without variation.
I would say that killing the baby isn't evil but it isn't good either, i.e. its not something a good character would do in the name of good. A neutral or evil character is free to choose and I doubt any good characters would stick up for the goblin.
The way I see the humanoids (goblins, humans, orcs, hobgoblins, et cetera), is that they are competing for finite resources, which led them at an early stage in development to kill each other when they were encountered, so as to secure more resources for themselves.
But a better way would be to cooperate and share the finite resources to achieve a better civilization. So cooperation is better than killing.
Goblins do not have to be evil, and cooperation will get you higher up on the alignment axis than killing goblin babies.
The way I see the humanoids (goblins, humans, orcs, hobgoblins, et cetera), is that they are competing for finite resources, which led them at an early stage in development to kill each other when they were encountered, so as to secure more resources for themselves.
But a better way would be to cooperate and share the finite resources to achieve a better civilization. So cooperation is better than killing.
Goblins do not have to be evil, and cooperation will get you higher up on the alignment axis than killing goblin babies.
Perhaps the best assesment of forced alignments and npcs I have ever read this is an excellent point and one I will be applying in my gming thus forth Thank you good sir.
Honestly i think it would depend on the setting. I mean HOW inherently evil are goblins in the setting?Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.Actually its defualt NE and NE defined by the srd is:
A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusions that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn't have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has.
Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies.
Neutral evil represents pure evil without honor and without variation.
I would say that killing the baby isn't evil but it isn't good either, i.e. its not something a good character would do in the name of good. A neutral or evil character is free to choose and I doubt any good characters would stick up for the goblin.
You better believe that the priests of Odin and any other characters concerned about the will of the Aesir are going to stand up for the goblin when necessary. When the laws are not upheld, the entire cosmos will come crashing down in Raganarok. Even the gods are not immune to temptation, and every time those who should know better succumb to the temptation of the easier path, yet another step is taken towards the fall of Asgard.
Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.
- Well the default is that they do these thing as adults. Being a goblin is the equivalent of wearing an enemy uniform. Sure, the person could have a reason for being in said uniform: They're really a spy for your side, they're an innocent villager who was kidnaped, put in uniform and told to walk down the road as a lemming mine detector, they're an escaped prisoner and those were the best clothes he could steal etc... but if you treat every instance as the exception to the rule you are quickly going to wind up dead.
-But most setting don't have a default success rate for trying to raise a goblin to be anything other than evil. Are they 100% evil even when raised in a good home? 99% ?
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[A modest proposal]
NE is pretty much the 'greed is good' alignment, that preaches the virtue of utter selfishness and 'enlightened self-interest.' CE and NE individuals seem like the ones you'd least want to keep alive, because they will just stab you in the back the second it seems to be a viable option (and, goblins being a bit impulsive and unskilled at long-term risk/reward assessments, a goblin would probably attempt to stab you in the back long before it was a viable option for it...).
So, basically, combined with their low carrying capacity, weak muscles, and non-existent impulse management skills, Goblins don't seem like they'd make terribly useful slaves. More trouble than they are worth, actually. Render it down for liquid pain, or put it's soul in a jar (or both), and you can sell that stuff for beaucoup shinies. (Make sure to capture the soul. Just killing it and sending it to power up Lamashtu is way evil. The Demon Queen of Monsters and Madness does *not* need to be made more powerful by your actions!)
And, as long as you're gonna kill it, it would be terribly wasteful and insensitive to the suffering of others to not also eat it, or at least offer it to other hungry folk.
Might as well minimize the waste of ending a life by making some money off of it, and feed the hungry / recycle it back into nature. Make the little blighter's short life worth something, for the greater good.
[/A modest proposal]
There's a scale of redemption. It looks like this:
humans
elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings
barbarians/lizardfolk
goblins/orcs
demons/devils/undead
far realms creatures
Creatures at the top of the list are redeemable, while creatures at the bottom are totally not.
Age is also a factor, with the younger specimens being more redeemable.
Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.
- Well the default is that they do these thing as adults. Being a goblin is the equivalent of wearing an enemy uniform. Sure, the person could have a reason for being in said uniform: They're really a spy for your side, they're an innocent villager who was kidnaped, put in uniform and told to walk down the road as a lemming mine detector, they're an escaped prisoner and those were the best clothes he could steal etc... but if you treat every instance as the exception to the rule you are quickly going to wind up dead.
-But most setting don't have a default success rate for trying to raise a goblin to be anything other than evil. Are they 100% evil even when raised in a good home? 99% ?
Thinking about this, this is another thing gnomes can do to separate them from the halflings. Perhaps goblin babies who are abandoned can be handed to a gnome organization that returns them to be raised by goblin tribes. That way, the PC's are off the hook for raising the kid, and the goblin doesn't die of starvation.
Or you could satisfy the gods by leaving the goblin baby to his fate.
Normally I assume and, unless the PCs have made a point of hunting down and killing all the female goblins they can find the PCs can assume that there are goblin females who can take care of the baby and find their way to another tribe. Typically, goblin females will melt away as they sense their tribe is in danger.
If PCs want a challenge, they could try raising the goblin to be good. It's not that hard -- they are not demon spawn. One of the human NPCs in my "Audor" campaign has three female goblin servants, and the PCs have even made contact with a "renegade" clan of hobgoblins who are neutral in alignment and worship the same patron deity the humans worship (the earth goddess called "Jorth").
There's no such thing as goblin babies, they're all exumed from mud-pits.
[A modest proposal]
NE is pretty much the 'greed is good' alignment, that preaches the virtue of utter selfishness and 'enlightened self-interest.' CE and NE individuals seem like the ones you'd least want to keep alive, because they will just stab you in the back the second it seems to be a viable option (and, goblins being a bit impulsive and unskilled at long-term risk/reward assessments, a goblin would probably attempt to stab you in the back long before it was a viable option for it...).So, basically, combined with their low carrying capacity, weak muscles, and non-existent impulse management skills, Goblins don't seem like they'd make terribly useful slaves. More trouble than they are worth, actually. Render it down for liquid pain, or put it's soul in a jar (or both), and you can sell that stuff for beaucoup shinies. (Make sure to capture the soul. Just killing it and sending it to power up Lamashtu is way evil. The Demon Queen of Monsters and Madness does *not* need to be made more powerful by your actions!)
And, as long as you're gonna kill it, it would be terribly wasteful and insensitive to the suffering of others to not also eat it, or at least offer it to other hungry folk.
Might as well minimize the waste of ending a life by making some money off of it, and feed the hungry / recycle it back into nature. Make the little blighter's short life worth something, for the greater good.
[/A modest proposal]
I was thinking that a good character might not need to save a goblin baby from being eaten by a wild animal.
However, if the animal is under the control of or called by the PC, that would be evil.
The way I see the humanoids (goblins, humans, orcs, hobgoblins, et cetera), is that they are competing for finite resources, which led them at an early stage in development to kill each other when they were encountered, so as to secure more resources for themselves.
But a better way would be to cooperate and share the finite resources to achieve a better civilization. So cooperation is better than killing.
Goblins do not have to be evil, and cooperation will get you higher up on the alignment axis than killing goblin babies.
So your view is that lawfulness leads to goodness?
Which came first? The Good or the Law? :P
There's a scale of redemption. It looks like this:
humans
elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings
barbarians/lizardfolk
goblins/orcs
demons/devils/undead
far realms creaturesCreatures at the top of the list are redeemable, while creatures at the bottom are totally not.
Age is also a factor, with the younger specimens being more redeemable.
Barbarians are a class not a race and even though they do have an alignment restriction its chaotic not evil. That aside I feel like this is an interesting idea that is probably worth applying especially the younger the more redeemable concept.
Which came first? The Good or the Law? :P
Chaos, all things came from nothing.
The way I see the humanoids (goblins, humans, orcs, hobgoblins, et cetera), is that they are competing for finite resources, which led them at an early stage in development to kill each other when they were encountered, so as to secure more resources for themselves.
But a better way would be to cooperate and share the finite resources to achieve a better civilization. So cooperation is better than killing.
Goblins do not have to be evil, and cooperation will get you higher up on the alignment axis than killing goblin babies.
So your view is that lawfulness leads to goodness?
Which came first? The Good or the Law? :P
In the D&D world, of which Pathfinder is the successor, Good and Law are real forces that existed eons before the Earth was even a speck of dust. Who knows whether Good came first, and then the Law, or whether Law came first, and then the Good.
It might make sense to ask, in the Evolution of the Human Race, which was discovered first. Did two small bands decide to cooperate because of love for each other, which would be good, or did they cooperate because they encoded into laws the mutual self interest, which would be lawful?
Did some ancient lass meet some handsome lad from another tribe, and convince the two tribes to seek the ways of peace? Or did two wise elders meet at some watering hole and one say to the other "You know, instead of fighting each other for this valuable resource, we could share it, and defend it against any tribe who came to try to take it away from us."
Maybe this first act of cooperation was even unlawful.
In some places, Odin himself came down to teach people the ways to act. In those cases, it was almost certain reverent awe of the divine visitors that lifted mankind up to the next higher level of existence. But is reverent awe good? Or is it lawful? Or is it something else, something unnamed by the scholars who named the planes of existence?
How about the paladin of Torag that has a code of conduct to wipe out the enemy of his people?
Then it would be the paladin's quandary: to be lawful or to be good.
Paladins are MORE good than they are lawful. They don't loose powers for one act of chaos, or performing acts of chaos under charm. If the two absolutely 100% conflict then they choose good, every time.
Assuming even remotely redeemable goblins, taking the goblin as his own makes it no longer an enemy, thus fulfilling both obligations.
How about the paladin of Torag that has a code of conduct to wipe out the enemy of his people?
Genocide is evil. Therefore a paladin can not have that as his code of conduct, any more than a paladin can have "protect the institution of slavery" as his code of conduct.
Genocide is evil. Therefore a paladin can not have that as his code of conduct, any more than a paladin can have "protect the institution of slavery" as his code of conduct.
Which just goes to show that you've never read faiths of purity.
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How about the paladin of Torag that has a code of conduct to wipe out the enemy of his people?Genocide is evil. Therefore a paladin can not have that as his code of conduct, any more than a paladin can have "protect the institution of slavery" as his code of conduct.
Invalid comparison. The 'institution of slavery' is not inherently evil. How it is organized and enforced certainly can be.
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Invalid comparison. The 'institution of slavery' is not inherently evil. How it is organized and enforced certainly can be.
Herp-derp.
Don't know if Trolling...
Or Stupid.
Which just goes to show that you've never read faiths of purity.
Genocide is evil. Therefore a paladin can not have that as his code of conduct, any more than a paladin can have "protect the institution of slavery" as his code of conduct.
What's in Faiths of Purity?
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Invalid comparison. The 'institution of slavery' is not inherently evil. How it is organized and enforced certainly can be.Herp-derp.
Don't know if Trolling...
Or Stupid.
He's not trolling. Nor stupid. Just because one society deems it morally repugnant doesn't speak for all societies throughout history. Some label prostitution as evil. Some may disagree. In some historical societies, it would be better to have been an indentured servant for the purpose of survival than the other options involved.
Not everything is black and white. Although some people like to play their PCs that way because they can't handle anything outside the color spectrum. Brain would hurt.
Anything with that many teeth and a cute grin can't be all bad...ouch!! The lil bugger bit my finger.
What's in Faiths of Purity?
Paladin Codes for the various "Good Guy" Deities.
@Urizen: 0.o?
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@Urizen: 0.o?
It is simple really. Seen from our modern day perspectives things such as prostitution and slavery, are evil. This is due to the modern viewpoint which generally sees these things even in their most sublime as the morally bankrupt practices that they are. This is not true in the past nor even in different cultures today.
So it was neither trolling or even an attempt to place this evil in a good light, just pointing out that there are always another way to look at a subject.
Right, cuz in it's most absolute form relativism is permissive of everything. However there are reasons why slavery isn't an institution any more.
@Urizen: 0.o?It is simple really. Seen from our modern day perspectives things such as prostitution and slavery, are evil. This is due to the modern viewpoint which generally sees these things even in their most sublime as the morally bankrupt practices that they are. This is not true in the past nor even in different cultures today.
So it was neither trolling or even an attempt to place this evil in a good light, just pointing out that there are always another way to look at a subject.
I do not consider prostitution or slavery evil either, being paid or paying for sex is not evil, unwilling sex would be..
Slavery isnt necesarily evil either, imagine criminals working off their debt to society as slaves
Right, cuz in it's most absolute form relativism is permissive of everything. However there are reasons why slavery isn't an institution any more.
yes there are, though I do not think people are against slavery perse, rather the way slavery is perceived, there are certainly conditions in which a person can give up his freedom or have it taken from him without it being evil
XD
These boards are fun. People of all shapes and sizes having armchair ethics discussions, saying that certain oppressive institutions probably weren't all that bad.
I mean hey, slaves got fed right? And housing too, don't forget housing.
And great family stability, no one was ever split up from their loved ones for profit, or bred for specific purposes.
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Right, cuz in it's most absolute form relativism is permissive of everything. However there are reasons why slavery isn't an institution any more.
Yes, because we as a society have learned that it is wrong. Growing is a process, one where you can only look back at the past and then realize what was done incorrect. If we fail to do so, or even worse ignore those lessons, this then is evil in it's purest form. Morality is not relative in my view. You should however take a wide view on these lessons from the past lest you miss something important.
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Odin says that you should not kill that baby goblin. That baby is not a warrior, and should be allowed to find his own destiny. And if his destiny is to be evil and attack a village some day, those villagers will then have their chance to show their bravery and valor. Odin has spoken.
As for the GM who calls himself 'Utgardloki' on the Paizo forums, he will knock your alignment toward the evil and chaotic ends of the axis, because you have gone against the express commands of the gods in order to hurt someone who was not threatening you. At the very least, your alignment shall not be impeccably good, unless you atone. But this GM considers the entirety of the works that you do, and takes into account on his alignment chart whether your alignment is impeccable or borderline. Unless you are in danger of losing an alignment that you need for a class that you have, he won't even tell you about it unless you have an appropriate divination spell cast on yourself.
Some PCs in Utgardloki's campaign might be surprised if they were to cast know alignment on themselves.
This is exactly how I handle it, except Simon Rex, the Crownless King, says that you shall not suffer the unclean thing to crawl and shall put it to the flame.
Of course, I don't have baby goblins. Just icky piles of rotting meat and garbage crawling with goblin-maggots (CR 1/8) that eventually give birth to tiny vicious goblins (goblin hatchling swarm, CR 1) that grow to full size after they pirhanna down a few meals. Babies are cute, and evil doesn't do cute. That's not evil's style.
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@Urizen: 0.o?It is simple really. Seen from our modern day perspectives things such as prostitution and slavery, are evil. This is due to the modern viewpoint which generally sees these things even in their most sublime as the morally bankrupt practices that they are. This is not true in the past nor even in different cultures today.
So it was neither trolling or even an attempt to place this evil in a good light, just pointing out that there are always another way to look at a subject.
I do not consider prostitution or slavery evil either, being paid or paying for sex is not evil, unwilling sex would be..
Slavery isnt necesarily evil either, imagine criminals working off their debt to society as slaves
I do consider prostitution as an evil. I feel it has been shown time and again that this is detrimental to a persons well being and mental stability.
I do not believe a chain gang will help criminals learn properly. Education and counseling as well as giving a person options for livelihood after incarceration as well as making incarceration uncomfortable will do more for the good of society than people making cheap license plates or paper weights.
Genocide being evil isn't one of our postulates here. The Torag paladin code is. You have therefore performed a successful reductio ad absurdum to prove that genocide is not evil in Pathfinder.
That's a pretty fancy word there buddy. Mind to share with the class?
Reducio ad absurdum is the means of proving a statement by taking the negation as a postulate and proving that something false follows from it.
Cute. I'd still allow a Paladin of Torag to commit atrocities.
Feels like something a holy warrior would do.
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Genocide being evil isn't one of our postulates here. The Torag paladin code is. You have therefore performed a successful reductio ad absurdum to prove that genocide is not evil in Pathfinder.That's a pretty fancy word there buddy. Mind to share with the class?
A reductio ad absurdum is a rebuttal that shows that following a line of logic leads to an absurd conclusion.
In this case Utgardloki has argued that genocide is evil, therefore it cannot be part of a paladin's code of conduct - implicit in the argument is that genocide cannot be part of the code because paladin's are good, and would not have a code calling them to do evil.
Except Torag, who is Lawful Good and has many paladins, calls on his followers to actively seek out and destroy his enemies wherever they exist. And Torag specifically does not believe in half-measures. Which is why his Paladin's Code includes: "Against my people's enemies I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families. Yet even in the struggle against our enemies, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag."
That sounds pretty much like the creed of someone eager to commit genocide on his enemies. No mercy, no surrender, scatter their families.
Which means that if a paladin can't have an evil code, and paladins in Golarion can be sworn to a genocidal war against orcs and goblins, then genocide must not be evil.
Ta da!
Torag is Lawful Neutral I thought.
Either way, I kinda find it funny that players play in a more progressive setting than what is initially given.
Makes me appreciate Warcraft's setting a little more.
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Torag is Lawful Neutral I thought.
Nope, lawful good.
Either way, I kinda find it funny that players play in a more progressive setting than what is initially given.
Except they really don't. They think they do, but all they're really doing is contributing to the phenomenon of murdering hobos.
For example, Mikaze thinks his group is playing a far more progressive game than others (because he recognizes orcs as people), but if you read his Kingmaker campaign journals he and his group bushwack a bunch of human bandits and kill them with no chance to surrender, despite having no legitimate authority in the land.
So really all he's accomplished by muddling the alignment system is to make the heroes of his campaign into a bunch of murderers who justify themselves by claiming to be more civilized than the people they're killing.
For example, Mikaze thinks his group is playing a far more progressive game than others (because he recognizes orcs as people), but if you read his Kingmaker campaign journals he and his group bushwack a bunch of human bandits and kill them with no chance to surrender, despite having no legitimate authority in the land.
That is a matter of law/chaos, not a matter of good and evil.
Genocide being evil isn't one of our postulates here. The Torag paladin code is. You have therefore performed a successful reductio ad absurdum to prove that genocide is not evil in Pathfinder.That's a pretty fancy word there buddy. Mind to share with the class?A reductio ad absurdum is a rebuttal that shows that following a line of logic leads to an absurd conclusion.
In this case Utgardloki has argued that genocide is evil, therefore it cannot be part of a paladin's code of conduct - implicit in the argument is that genocide cannot be part of the code because paladin's are good, and would not have a code calling them to do evil.
Except Torag, who is Lawful Good and has many paladins, calls on his followers to actively seek out and destroy his enemies wherever they exist. And Torag specifically does not believe in half-measures. Which is why his Paladin's Code includes: "Against my people's enemies I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families. Yet even in the struggle against our enemies, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag."
That sounds pretty much like the creed of someone eager to commit genocide on his enemies. No mercy, no surrender, scatter their families.
Which means that if a paladin can't have an evil code, and paladins in Golarion can be sworn to a genocidal war against orcs and goblins, then genocide must not be evil.
Ta da!
I would say that Odin would have some disagreements with this Torag guy.
However, my GM'ing says that Odin and all the other gods are not above the existential nature of Good and Evil, which are not matters of opinion, but matters of being existentially aligned with the forces of the Great Wheel Cosmos.
Of course, the official Pathfinder setting probably does not use the Great Wheel Cosmos, and so the version of Torag who has paladins killing goblin babies exists in a totally other multiverse. Utgardloki can not say anything about that.
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For example, Mikaze thinks his group is playing a far more progressive game than others (because he recognizes orcs as people), but if you read his Kingmaker campaign journals he and his group bushwack a bunch of human bandits and kill them with no chance to surrender, despite having no legitimate authority in the land.That is a matter of law/chaos, not a matter of good and evil.
Murder is most definitely a matter of good and evil.