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Now I just have to get you to understand that killing off evil monsters and marauders is a good act, and has been in every version of D&D prior to PF. You know, save the kingdom/princess/poor villagers from an evil scourge? Yeah?
I can assure you that even in 1st Ed. most players understood a difference between a child goblin slave tied in a chair helpless and a fully enraged orc warior in a raiding band resting for the night, and slitting the throat of each was not the same moral action.
Take explanation and intent out of a moral discussions (HOW and WHY are you doing an action) pushes it into absolutes.
Killing CAN be good. Yes, killing an orc with his sword raised and about to come down upon an innocent pregnant woman is a very good action.
[Real world example: A cop shoots a gang banger about to open fire in a crowd of bystanders]
Killing CAN be evil. Murdering a sleeping pregnant woman in her sleep just because she's a member of a non-[Evil] race that is usually evil, for example.
[Real world example: A cop shoots a gang bangers pregnant wife, though she is not a criminal and never has or will harm anyone she is okay with what the gang does, because it will prevent her from giving birth to who might or might not join next generation of gang bangers]
Killing CAN be neutral. Having to kill a misinformed innocent because htey're about to do an act on behalf of an evil party, due to trickery, but you have less than 1 round to cease them or their act will harm dozens.
[Real world example: A cop has to shoot a child gang banger about to commit a violent act. While it is perhaps unfair the child, not old enough to udnerstand their actions in the fullest, has to die because of the actions and words of evil men who influenced him, it is also unfair to let innocents die or be harmed because of the childs actions.]
Pushing morality to absolutes is a great way to justify attrocities (or at the least, attrocious callousness) on either side.
Morality is a combination of WHAT you did, HOW you did it, and WHY you did it, each applied to varying degrees, and then applied to PF/RPGs, it is also how the GM feels about it. [Which in this case was stellar, though that is just IMO]
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In which case I again strongly recommend you talk to him about retiring that character & bringing in one who works better as a lieutenant-type character.
Asking him to retire the character wouldn't change much. This is his usual mode. He's played several characters over the four years we've been running this campaign and he plays every single one of them the exact same way; same personality, same alignment, even when he played a fighter. I'd have better results swapping his brain with a chimpanzee. Besides all that, I'm moving away in three weeks so changing his PC at this point isn't worth the trouble.
In which case I again strongly recommend you talk to him about retiring that character & bringing in one who works better as a lieutenant-type character.Asking him to retire the character wouldn't change much. This is his usual mode. He's played several characters over the four years we've been running this campaign and he plays every single one of them the exact same way; same personality, same alignment, even when he played a fighter. I'd have better results swapping his brain with a chimpanzee. Besides all that, I'm moving away in three weeks so changing his PC at this point isn't worth the trouble.
Hence my recommendation of a lieutenant-type character. If he is most comfortable pursuing someone else's plan, than encouraging him to create & play a character who functions that way might potentially help everyone. The basic difficulty seems to be that he does not handle a self-directed character well. I myself am often better at pursuing a course of action someone else has developed than a)having the plan, b) developing the plan, c) contemplating the likely consequences of the plan & finally implementing that plan.
I'm not saying that him making up a different character would eliminate his particular play-style quirks, I'm saying that making up a different character that plays too those quirks might help him in improving the game experience for everyone.
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@ShoulderPatch - I agree with most of your points. However, when you compare genocide IRL to genocide in a fantasy world, you have to remember that in a fantasy world it's possible for an entire race/species/creature type to be irredeemably evil by nature. This changes the argument. It is not a given that demons have the same rights as humans. If drow in the setting are basically humanoid/mortal demons, incapable of redemption, the morality of killing drow is different from the morality of killing humans IRL.
The alignment of acts is pretty strictly defined, because there is a class in the game called Paladin, that has a pretty detrimental class-feature tied into the alignment of the acts he commits, thus necessitating an objective, easy-to-understand alignment system.
In theory.
In practice: Paladin threads.
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Just for fun, assume your character is a dwarf...or elf...a non-human race...and you grow up near...say...Cheliax.
All humans must be evil, right? They all need to die, and it doesn't matter how you do it. It's for the safety of MY people.
What alignment is the character in question? All the humans he's ever encountered were evil...abusive...
At least the player didn't skin them and use them as lamp shades, right?
.....RIGHT!?!
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I'm not saying that him making up a different character would eliminate his particular play-style quirks, I'm saying that making up a different character that plays too those quirks might help him in improving the game experience for everyone.
His fighter character was basically exactly what you describe (in fact, he even said the character was a former junior officer in an army) and he still had the same issues whenever he was separated from the group.
I understand what you're suggesting but, the thing is, every one of his characters is already essentially played that way. None of the other players ever look to him to make the plans or big decisions regardless of what class he's playing, ever, and he's happy with that. It's when the party splits up and leaves him unsupervised that causes the problems. He's the Lennie to the partys' George.
The drow slave situation actually came up because he was following orders. The other players pointed him toward the quarry and said, "Go attack the driders guarding the slaves while we sneak through this tunnel. If you get overwhelmed, take as many of them with you as possible." (There might have been some collusion on the other players' parts to send him on a suicide mission.) He had two NPCs with him, but he chose not to tell them what he was doing or even ask whether he should gas the drow. All he asked was if the NPCS thought the drow needed to die.
The player could write up an NPC-class Warrior with INT, WIS and CHA of 8 whose only job is to poke things with a spear and keep his mouth shut and there will still be times he gets split off from the party and/or has to decide what to do for himself.
Ah. Wow.
Ok, I got nothing.
Just for fun, assume your character is a dwarf...or elf...a non-human race...and you grow up near...say...Cheliax.
All humans must be evil, right? They all need to die, and it doesn't matter how you do it. It's for the safety of MY people.
What alignment is the character in question? All the humans he's ever encountered were evil...abusive...
If you grew up in Cheliax though, you would know Cheliax has a lot of enemies. If you can get out, you could joint those groups, many of which are human, and fight the evil Chelaxian humans and their dark summons.
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Just for fun, assume your character is a dwarf...or elf...a non-human race...and you grow up near...say...Cheliax.
All humans must be evil, right? They all need to die, and it doesn't matter how you do it. It's for the safety of MY people.
What alignment is the character in question? All the humans he's ever encountered were evil...abusive...
I've actually seen this concept. And depending on exactly how it's executed, the character could easily be neutral or even good-aligned. Here's the deciding factors:
1) "It doesn't matter how you do it" can't include torture. Killing may be justified in some circumstances, but torture is evil. This is what contributed to the evilness of the OP's situation - the PC killed the drow using a particularly cruel method. Killing a helpless human is not a dealbreaker.
2) The character should attempt nonviolent solutions first, before deciding to kill all humans - hiding from the humans or creating fortifications for defense would be preferable to leading an attempt at exterminating nearby humans. The latter would only be acceptable if defensive measures had been tried and failed - or if it were obvious that the humans were endangering a third party which was incapable of defending itself.
3) If the character encounters obviously nonevil humans, they need to revise their views, start offering humans a chance to surrender and redeem themselves, maybe set up orphanages for human babies in the hopes that it's human culture that's evil and not human nature. Bonus points for good for trying to raise human babies as nonevil before encountering independently nonevil adults - and if this fails I can't fault the character for wiping out humans in the future.
Character who follows all three I would accept as good-aligned if their other behavior was consistent with that alignment.
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Just for fun, assume your character is a dwarf...or elf...a non-human race...and you grow up near...say...Cheliax.
All humans must be evil, right? They all need to die, and it doesn't matter how you do it. It's for the safety of MY people.
What alignment is the character in question? All the humans he's ever encountered were evil...abusive...
I've actually seen this concept. And depending on exactly how it's executed, the character could easily be neutral or even good-aligned. Here's the deciding factors:
1) "It doesn't matter how you do it" can't include torture. Killing may be justified in some circumstances, but torture is evil. This is what contributed to the evilness of the OP's situation - the PC killed the drow using a particularly cruel method. Killing a helpless human is not a dealbreaker.
2) The character should attempt nonviolent solutions first, before deciding to kill all humans - hiding from the humans or creating fortifications for defense would be preferable to leading an attempt at exterminating nearby humans. The latter would only be acceptable if defensive measures had been tried and failed - or if it were obvious that the humans were endangering a third party which was incapable of defending itself.
3) If the character encounters obviously nonevil humans, they need to revise their views, start offering humans a chance to surrender and redeem themselves, maybe set up orphanages for human babies in the hopes that it's human culture that's evil and not human nature. Bonus points for good for trying to raise human babies as nonevil before encountering independently nonevil adults - and if this fails I can't fault the character for wiping out humans in the future.
Character who follows all three I would accept as good-aligned if their other behavior was consistent with that alignment.
It's all rather a bit sticky, but I tend to agree...and that's rather my point. Actions are somewhat subjective, even in the most objective world. Now...I can see the argument going the other way...but it's awful humanocentric, and I really don't think the reverse argument makes it quite as interesting a world to play in....but I don't just call it 'wrong', either.
"He hates and loves the Ring, as he hates and loves himself. He will never be rid of his need for it."
"It's pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had a chance!"
"Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. And some that died deserve life. Can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many."
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
Or to more directly answer the LotR quote, there are also those who deserve to live and yet may be killed. Can you keep them alive? Yes, by killing those who would kill them.
It's not happy, and it's not pretty, and it's not ideal, but who lives in a perfect world?
I would liketo hear more about the situration...perhaps a PM.Listen I understand you play ther game differently than I do...that is cool. But I'll ask again why are you offended...or mocking because people play diffrently than you?I suppose now would be a bad time to start a thread about the hobgoblin children situation we're being faced with now.
Dito.
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In case anyone is interested, the mystic theurge got something of a comeuppance during our last session (he's the lizardfolk on the ground.)
Granted, the party agreed to reincarnate him but he rolled Halfling. I think the ghosts of those drow were blowing on the dice.
I think its funny all the people calling the theurge a nazi, cause thats what we have been calling him. ;p
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
Or to more directly answer the LotR quote, there are also those who deserve to live and yet may be killed. Can you keep them alive? Yes, by killing those who would kill them.
It's not happy, and it's not pretty, and it's not ideal, but who lives in a perfect world?
I agree with you...but sometimes the good person defeats evil by not killing it.
Sometimes the best way to defeat evil is with a hug...not the sword.
In case anyone is interested, the mystic theurge got something of a comeuppance during our last session (he's the lizardfolk on the ground.)Granted, the party agreed to reincarnate him but he rolled Halfling. I think the ghosts of those drow were blowing on the dice.
Karma.
I think its funny all the people calling the theurge a nazi, cause thats what we have been calling him. ;p
Well the whole "helpless people unwittingly being lead into the gas chamber" thing does lend itself to that image.