Yes, KOS is Kill on Sight. Includes mind flayers, drow in most worlds, kuo toa in nearly all worlds. Generally includes trolls and ogres and probably half of orcish tribes as well as a few human cultures.
Apparently I overestimated how pervasive the acronym was.
Ah right. Thanks.
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Wow I never expected so many replies. Hot topic I guess. The party is raiding an area that contains a lot of bug bears. A colony I guess you would call it. The women and children were in a nursery/feeding area where there weren't any weapons or armor and it came as a total surprise to the bugbears. The colony was not on any kind of alert and hadnt been attacked before. They actually pleaded for the party to spare the lives of their children.
Wow I never expected so many replies. Hot topic I guess. The party is raiding an area that contains a lot of bug bears. A colony I guess you would call it. The women and children were in a nursery/feeding area where there weren't any weapons or armor and it came as a total surprise to the bugbears. The colony was not on any kind of alert and hadnt been attacked before. They actually pleaded for the party to spare the lives of their children.
You know, I could see that crossing a few lines maybe... Like I said earlier Genocide is usually pretty far on the evil scale, and when they're women and children unarmed and pleading for their live well... yeah.
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Well, you are playing up these monsters as if they were just another race, like Halflings or Elves.
To understand Golarion Bugbears, see here.
Wow. For those who can't be bothered to click the link,
Bugbears tend to be loners, utterly devoted to the hunt with no time for anything else even family. According to one myth this may be because of their origins, this legend states that the first bugbear was born of goblin parents. Soon after birth the bugbear proved too dangerous even for goblins, torturing fellow children and murdering many members of the tribe and so it was banished. Some claim these mysterious births still happen with adventurers finding entire goblin villages completely deserted but showing hints of atrocious violence. Bugbears seem to loathe the company of all other creatures and are not even that keen on other bugbears. While they do sometimes form groups these are strained communities that rarely last long. Still these small groups have given way to some odd social practices, scarification is almost universal amongst bugbears, after particularly impressive kills the bugbear scars itself creating a unique scar, somehow other bugbears can "read" these scars learning of the bugbear's achievements.
Well I can add to the conversation, I'd like to point out that the bugbears are universally sadistic monsters and the Dwarf's player may or may not have known this knowledge before hand. Obviously a mess was created when bugbears showed up that he may or may not have known where innocent and he began a genocide against them. When the GM pulls out creatures that act against the expected norm its hard to react properly, and they should be expected to shoot first and ask questions later even if they are of a lawful alignment.
That said... When they started crying for mercy and it became obvious he was slaughtering a nursery with nothing but unarmed women and children it went way against the norm and its hard for people who weren't there to see or know what happened. I have had a player in the past who has had sociopathic moments like this and its hard to deal with, for both sensative players and the DM.
Its probably best to have a talk about expectations and try not to step on any toes or be overly aggresive. If its making players feel uncomfortable talking it over could help, preferably over a fine desert so its hard to argue and such. Expectations are big in character creation and action, and after this its good to settle down, cool off, and talk about what may be a problem or not.
When they give birth it it usually to twins or triplets, sometimes more, although the births get more dangerous with each additional child. Mothers frequently die during child birth but this proves little hindrance, their children's bloodthirsty instinct are strong from birth and most are happily hunting humans by age two, reaching their full size by five. Even if their mother survives childbirth young bugbears are abandoned soon after, only those who show no fear and complete brutality survive to adulthood. Adult life is equally short and violent, most bugbears only live twenty or so years, though the most deadly can kill hundreds in this short span
If the party had searched around the area more closely, they would have probably found a large patch of wacky tobacky. That would explain the bugbears' passiveness...they were all stoned.
Stuff! Addressing a MrSin.
Actualy tempest, read Macgreine's post. The bugbears were much different than those out of the beastiary, which is why I said having a talk about expectations might help. Preferably involving something sweet and rich, such as a strawberry cheesecake. Thats my bribe of choice anyway. Shared of course!
In defense of the GM, his Golarion (if that is actually the setting he is using) does not need to be like every body else's. The rules are just a guideline, unless you are in PFS. If he wants to run some evil races that can be a bit more "human", then he is fully within his rights to do so.
Having made that point, IF that is actually his intention, he needs to let his players know, especially if they have experience playing in a more typical Golarion campaign, that things are not the same. If this is the case, I think the way to resolve what happened, is get the group together, and tell the players to give each other a mulligan, because the setting was not properly explained.
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Wow. For those who can't be bothered to click the link,
Bugbears tend to be loners, utterly devoted to the hunt with no time for anything else even family. According to one myth this may be because of their origins, this legend states that the first bugbear was born of goblin parents. Soon after birth the bugbear proved too dangerous even for goblins, torturing fellow children and murdering many members of the tribe and so it was banished. Some claim these mysterious births still happen with adventurers finding entire goblin villages completely deserted but showing hints of atrocious violence. Bugbears seem to loathe the company of all other creatures and are not even that keen on other bugbears. While they do sometimes form groups these are strained communities that rarely last long. Still these small groups have given way to some odd social practices, scarification is almost universal amongst bugbears, after particularly impressive kills the bugbear scars itself creating a unique scar, somehow other bugbears can "read" these scars learning of the bugbear's achievements.
Here's the thing:
All of this talk about what bugbears are is irrelevant if it doesn't apply to the OP's setting.
The OP was running a setting where the mothers were begging for the lives of their children.
Honestly, I'd be put off by the game suddenly turning into Baby Murder Adventures too. I know whenever it's happened to me as a player it's come as an unwelcome shock, pretty much leaving me confused about how the hell I was supposed to play the good character I wanted to play in such a group and generally unexcited about continuing to play in future sessions.
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In defense of the GM, his Golarion (if that is actually the setting he is using) does not need to be like every body else's. The rules are just a guideline, unless you are in PFS. If he wants to run some evil races that can be a bit more "human", then he is fully within his rights to do so.
Having made that point, IF that is actually his intention, he needs to let his players know, especially if they have experience playing in a more typical Golarion campaign, that things are not the same. If this is the case, I think the way to resolve what happened, is get the group together, and tell the players to give each other a mulligan, because the setting was not properly explained.
This is not placed in Golarian and is a pathfinderized (rules) version of an old set of D&D modules. But I see peoples point. The bugbears should have probably tried to kill the PC's rather than protect their young. I am not really as "up" on my bugbears as I should be.
Honestly, I'd be put off by the game suddenly turning into Baby Murder Adventures too. I know whenever it's happened to me as a player it's come as an unwelcome shock, pretty much leaving me confused about how the hell I was supposed to play the good character I wanted to play in such a group and generally unexcited about continuing to play in future sessions.
I've had it happen to me several times actually. Its a moment where you really have to slow things down and talk things over. Baby murdering isn't for everyone. I play evil characters who'd leave a guy who does that kind of thing, bad mojo.
And MrSin, I agree... cheesecake is a good way to discuss anything. Well, you can discuss... I'll eat cheesecake.
Somehow I feel like I'm being used to get free cake...
Yeah, well, can't do things proactively at the moment. Thats sort of why I suggested talking things over. Talking about expectations can really help kill a lot of problems before they ever come up. Just need to use a bit of honesty, let people know what they're in for, and consider what other people think. Otherwise you run a good chance of running a player off with a twist of some sort, or worse they leave with bad feelings.
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Okay.
Now you have a slew of other problems.
You have no history, ecology, or society laid out for this race.
Is it evil?
Nobody knows, and nobody has a basis for seeing it either way.
Hell, these Bugbears could be descendants of Unicorns as far as anyone knows.
This was likely something you did not see as needed info, but the moment you put the "unarmed women and children" there, you needed it.
Okay.
Now you have a slew of other problems.
You have no history, ecology, or society laid out for this race.
Is it evil?
Nobody knows, and nobody has a basis for seeing it either way.
Hell, these Bugbears could be descendants of Unicorns as far as anyone knows.
This was likely something you did not see as needed info, but the moment you put the "unarmed women and children" there, you needed it.
+1
This puts it as less of a player issue or a character issue, but a world-building issue.
The bugbears were acting similar to how you'd expect a fantasy version of a human barbarian tribe to act. The hunters defend against an unprovoked assault while the women try and fail to protect the children, begging for mercy and getting slaughtered.
If your bugbears are really just furry humans, then slaughtering them like that is clearly evil.
However, that's not normally what bugbears are like. Normally they're psycho killers where any sort of unarmed plea for mercy is going to end with a knife in your back when you turn away.
The players are running their characters consistent with different views of the world. Sometimes that can be fun, but not when the players think that their characters' views of the world are correct.
If the player running the dwarf thinks that bugbears are irredeemable sadistic monsters, he's going to be frustrated with other players trying to stop him from eliminating pure evil on the basis of 'goodness'.
On the other side, the rest of the party sees a group of furry human-like creatures their party member slaughtered and those players don't want to get drawn into a morally ambiguous campaign where they're expected to put up with killing innocent children for some nebulous 'greater good'.
IC, those tensions can lead to good RP. OOC, those tensions lead to frustrated players. The campaign needs clarification and possibly a retcon based on it.
That's like having the PCs slay a Lich, then find out it was a redeemed Paladin Lich, and they are now horrible monsters for killing it.
I mean, from a player's point of view.
Thought the OP said they were screaming for mercy and women and children. I don't know if that was visible or apparent to the player, but that could be much different than suddenly finding a redeemed paladin lich.
A Lich can cry for mercy.
I'm not sure if this conversation should get to the point we discuss whether a lich has working tearducts or not... I'm not sure if he can, but I have yet to find a crying lich to know.
I posted my advice to the OP way at the top of this page I think. Talk things over, expectations are important! As is a fine desert to talk over.
Its up to the GM in this case to make the Dwarf player aware of the non evil nature of Bugbear non combatants.
Its also up to the GM to explain to the other players... In standard Golarion Bugbear babies will eat your face laugh and poop you back on you and laugh and then go an murder somebody for the fun of it.
So the Dwarf was acting well within his expectations of what Bugbears are, but now the miscommunication has been resolved, you should retcon it as it is unfair on the dwarf player.
Then again if the party didn't kill the non combatants they doomed them to horrible deaths anyway... either through starvation or other less nice monsters eating them or killing them for fun anyway.. the females would probably kill their offspring to make survival easier...plenty more where they came from.
So by not killing them quickly and mercifully then its a long horrible slow death for the non combatants. I would judge the other players as more evil...
I would run the juvenile bugbears like sentient sadistic Piranhas and made them a swarm.
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Then again if the party didn't kill the non combatants they doomed them to horrible deaths anyway... either through starvation or other less nice monsters eating them or killing them for fun anyway.. the females would probably kill their offspring to make survival easier...plenty more where they came from.
So by not killing them quickly and mercifully then its a long horrible slow death for the non combatants. I would judge the other players as more evil...
...there are a multitude of other options PCs can take beyond "commit genocide" and "let them starve to death". It's not one or the other.
Heck, Champions of Purity is going to have a section dedicated to exactly that.
Huh, orphanages for monsters. Thats... interesting. Not what I see usually!
And yeah, genocide isn't usually on my list of options.
... Thats a thread? Well then... Thats rather disturbing.
Last time I ran into the whole murder the whole nursery thing I ended up getting shot by the gunslinger and saving the lot of them. Left them all with the matron to take care of their kin. Can't believe he let the Gunsligher crit me over it, but eh, had to do something before things got to ridiculous. I left the group later and they actually failed a module where you get a tremendous number of boons for being good people. Apparently they weren't so good people, but you can't change the way people play I guess.
Fine deserts don't solve all problems I guess.
Then again if the party didn't kill the non combatants they doomed them to horrible deaths anyway... either through starvation or other less nice monsters eating them or killing them for fun anyway.. the females would probably kill their offspring to make survival easier...plenty more where they came from.
So by not killing them quickly and mercifully then its a long horrible slow death for the non combatants. I would judge the other players as more evil...
...there are a multitude of other options PCs can take beyond "commit genocide" and "let them starve to death". It's not one or the other.
Heck, Champions of Purity is going to have a section dedicated to exactly that.
I am the James Jacobs school of thought when it comes to monsters... They are evil to the core.
Good versions of evil monsters, are so rare its it a one in a million chance of one occurring and if it isn't killed by its fellows then, the rest of the world will probably kill it by mistake.
Evil monsters are born with the viciousness and skills to survive in the wild, like wolves and crocodiles. If it cant survive then it doesn't deserve to.
Meh, depends on how Bugbears are in the setting. Otherwise let the players work it out together both in and out of character.
On the broader issue, how do you do morality? How important is allignment? How "real" are monsters or are they just bundles of hp wrapping the sweet sweet xp that comes from murder?
Bugbears killed some of his family at one time.
It's easier to make a list of monsters that haven't killed a PC's family isn't it?
First off, what innocents? Unarmed women and children does not immediately equate to innocent. Bugbears, as a race, tend to evil. Can there be exceptions, up to the GM. But simply being female, or being young, does not make the creature an innocent. I refer again to the bestiary entry for the bugbear.
"They prefer smaller-scale mayhem that lets them keep their favorite acts (murder and torture0 on a more personal level." There is even a section on that same page for The Nature of Goblinoid Evil. "Yet the evil personified by the bugbear may be the most terrifying, for they actively seek to inflict pain and suffering in the most destructive ways possible (...) When a bugbear holds its blade, it kills only when it can be assured that the murder will cause maximum pain and suffering to those its weapon does not touch; to a bugbear, the true goal of murder is to strike not at the victim, but at those who held the victim dear."
This is not a race to be treated with kid gloves. I would not make a character even quiver on the Lawful Good side for having done the same thing. Redeeming evil is greater than vanquishing it, but not redeeming it does not make vanquishing it wrong.
Bugbears are effectively a race of psychopaths and sociopaths. I am not a psychologist so I do not know how to properly qualify them, besides the fact that they are not human, and do not think like humans, or need to be treated like them.
And youth alone does not equate to innocent in our world either.
There is a big news story in my area where two young teenagers attempted to rob a mother out walking her child in a stroller. When she told them she didn't have anything, they shot her, and they shot the child in the face. Pause for a moment. They are young, they are not innocent. Even if they go somewhere unarmed they do not suddenly regain a status of innocence.
Now,...
This whole post reminds of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin murder. Didn't Zimmerman's brother rant about this case?
http://news.yahoo.com/george-zimmermans-brother-says-twitter-rant-mistake-0 32522332.html
This is also why I don't use alignments in games, and having whole races be "evil" doesn't jive with my notion of realism. Just makes absolutely zero sense to me as a human being.
This is also why I don't use alignments in games, and having whole races be "evil" doesn't jive with my notion of realism. Just makes absolutely zero sense to me as a human be
The thing is Bugbears are not humans and physically, morally and spiritually do not conform to the human norm.
They are twisted monsters birthed and blessed by Lamashtu and Rovagug.
Right form birth they are equipped to carry out evil, that is their job.
The horror of it is the young so resemble our own and yet are bloody in tooth and claw, killers spawned of a Demon Queen....
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This is not placed in Golarian and is a pathfinderized (rules) version of an old set of D&D modules. But I see peoples point. The bugbears should have probably tried to kill the PC's rather than protect their young. I am not really as "up" on my bugbears as I should be.In defense of the GM, his Golarion (if that is actually the setting he is using) does not need to be like every body else's. The rules are just a guideline, unless you are in PFS. If he wants to run some evil races that can be a bit more "human", then he is fully within his rights to do so.
Having made that point, IF that is actually his intention, he needs to let his players know, especially if they have experience playing in a more typical Golarion campaign, that things are not the same. If this is the case, I think the way to resolve what happened, is get the group together, and tell the players to give each other a mulligan, because the setting was not properly explained.
Contrary to apparently popular opinion, you are not expected to memorize the entire set of Pathfinder rules before becoming GM. You can only be expected to do your best. Sounds like that's all you tried to do.
Further, if you're running from module and doing your best to interpret the layout of how the characters work from the module -- first, it doesn't matter if the Bestiary (published after the module in your case) describes bugbears in a certain way, one is usually advised to go with the specifics of the module rather than the general of the rulebooks. Certainly as GM you're welcome to alter the module as you see fit.
Now, if the bugbears (or any creatures) in the module are different from bugbears in core, and the players reacted according to their player-knowledge of bugbears in core, then you've actually got a metagaming issue. When my players start assuming what a creature is like (including irrevocably evil and therefore to be killed on sight), I make them roll a standard creature knowledge check (appropriate Knowledge skill DC 10 + CR or 15 + CR if creature is rare; a bugbear would I think be something like a Knowledge (Local) DC 12 check). If they fail, you say, "You don't know whether these creatures are irrevocably evil or not, actually, you've barely heard of them." If they succeed you can provide more information, from the module or whathaveyou as you see fit. Even if the player-knowledge is correct, I still want to check character knowledge and make it clear to the players that player knowledge of creatures and character knowledge are two different things.
Just some advice for next time, to take or leave.
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Now, if the bugbears (or any creatures) in the module are different from bugbears in core, and the players reacted according to their player-knowledge of bugbears in core, then you've actually got a metagaming issue. When my players start assuming what a creature is like (including irrevocably evil and therefore to be killed on sight), I make them roll a standard...
A character whose backstory includes hatred of bugbears can be assumed to have knowledge of bugbears.
Wow I never expected so many replies. Hot topic I guess. The party is raiding an area that contains a lot of bug bears. A colony I guess you would call it. The women and children were in a nursery/feeding area where there weren't any weapons or armor and it came as a total surprise to the bugbears. The colony was not on any kind of alert and hadnt been attacked before. They actually pleaded for the party to spare the lives of their children.
Why did you put them there? What did you expect the party to do with them?
In defense of the GM, his Golarion (if that is actually the setting he is using) does not need to be like every body else's. The rules are just a guideline, unless you are in PFS. If he wants to run some evil races that can be a bit more "human", then he is fully within his rights to do so.
Having made that point, IF that is actually his intention, he needs to let his players know, especially if they have experience playing in a more typical Golarion campaign, that things are not the same. If this is the case, I think the way to resolve what happened, is get the group together, and tell the players to give each other a mulligan, because the setting was not properly explained.
This was my advice given on the first page. Now it has become even more clear this is the right thing to do. The DM set ups moral trap for the party, even if he didn't intend to. He likely thought that the players could read his mind or shared his real-world mind-set and that "of course" they'd spare the baby bugbears.
But instead, they were roleplaying- in a medieval fantasy world, where such things as abolute evil are part of the game.
A good example of a trap is when my last DM set up a bunch of innocent creatures from the underdark with poisoned blades, had them draw them on us and threaten us, didn't let any of them speak common so we didn't even know what they were saying, and was shocked that we almost massacred them. The GM's girlfriend berated the monk and told him he should fall for a few hours after that. Thats much much worse than whats going on now I think, and this is much easier to just sit and talk about and fix up a bit.