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We'll have to disagree on that, Hama. I still ascribe to the belief that a human being is infinitely superior to a mere animal. I'd throw the switch and electrify every last panda on earth if it was what it took to save one morbidly ill human child even if she wasn't going to live out the year. I'd do it without a thought.
But lets agree to disagree on that one. I don't want to open that kettle of fish in this particular fish market.
We have enough fish. I'm expecting Crazy Eddie to pop out and start throwing them around boomerang style.
And to respond to the flower murder thing, I still disagree with that. Its an issue of distinction in terms.
Murder isn't about the killing. All killing isn't murder.
Its about the unlawful killing. Depending on what you view as the intrinsic morality behind it is where things come into play.
We don't murder cows to make hamburger. We slaughter them. Its entirely morally lawful to kill an animal for food. Your particular moral outlook might differ from mine, admittedly.
But thats where the rub comes in.
We all have differing beliefs, but in Pathfinder at least (lets not get too drummed up on real life), those beliefs have a moral pole-star. The DM gets to decide.
He might conclude that killing flowers is illegal. Or cows are sacred beings and must not be interfered with. He might conclude that the grand moral order dictates that goblins are an affront upon reality itself to have even their children's heads bashed in.
Trying engage with this in a 'real life' morality way results in us arguing real life morality, and there's a reason dozens of churches line the avenues of the world.
The question of this thread is to kill NPCs and Monsters. This brings up two issues. One moral. One legal.
It might be legal to kill the goblin. The morality is what we're all getting into here.
Under the first definition, is it murder if its legal to kill goblins? No.
But the second one, ah the second one is where the real issue arises from. Then we need to start asking questions like 'Who are the goblins,' 'why murder them' etc, and this gets us into questions of that campaign's worlds cosmology, its ethics, what happens after death, utilitarian vs other ethics, and so on.
Its hard for us to answer the second question (which is the primary question), until we know the specifics. Otherwise we assume our world as a baseline. And if we assume our world as a baseline, we should toss aside the 'goblins, orcs and centaurs' and head to a philosophy forum to discuss when killing people is moral.
Right. You subscribe exclusively to the lawful/chaotic spectrum of murder.
Cows into hamburger is the good/evil spectrum of murder, and it's not necessarily evil (and I personally don't think its evil), but is murder.
We don't need a separate thread to discuss exclusively the good/evil spectrum of goblins being lawfully or morally murderable. The OP's opens up this conversation in the thread.
Murderhoboing is where gms think of players as runnign around killing things in ways that aren't just legally justifyable, but morally justifyable as well, sometimes on moral grounds as light and fluffy as 'I wanted his loot' which may be legally fine but is morally pretty odd to consider fine.
Just as odd as using the argument that killing it for food makes it fine.
If we are legally sanctioned to kill goblin babies then we're on the side of law.
If we eat the goblin babies we kill we're on the side of goo... er.... ew.
He might conclude that killing flowers is illegal. Or cows are sacred beings and must not be interfered with. He might conclude that the grand moral order dictates that goblins are an affront upon reality itself to have even their children's heads bashed in...
But the second one, ah the second one is where the real issue arises from. Then we need to start asking questions like 'Who are the goblins,' 'why murder them' etc, and this gets us into questions of that campaign's worlds cosmology, its ethics, what happens after death, utilitarian vs other ethics, and so on.
You can create a game world where killing goblin infants is the morally correct thing to do. At least, in that game world, paladins won't fall for killing goblin infants, no one has to erase a G on their character sheet and replace it with an N or E if they kill goblin infants, etc.. The question is: should you create such a game world?
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Because people having fun doing something doesn't mean it should be done.
Duh.
I like worlds where we treat killing goblin babies like picking flowers.
You arrange them in a nice bouquet for your special lady friend.
Dead goblin babies are a girls best friend!
Maybe a corsage...
Downright necessary for weddings. Something old, something new, dead goblin babies... something blue...
Throw a few skillpoints into profession: dead goblin baby ikebana
Lawful Good I tell ya. Pure as the driven snow.
We do things a little bit differently here in happy town.
You can create a game world where killing goblin infants is the morally correct thing to do. At least, in that game world, paladins won't fall for killing goblin infants, no one has to erase a G on their character sheet and replace it with an N or E if they kill goblin infants, etc.. The question is: should you create such a game world?He might conclude that killing flowers is illegal. Or cows are sacred beings and must not be interfered with. He might conclude that the grand moral order dictates that goblins are an affront upon reality itself to have even their children's heads bashed in...
But the second one, ah the second one is where the real issue arises from. Then we need to start asking questions like 'Who are the goblins,' 'why murder them' etc, and this gets us into questions of that campaign's worlds cosmology, its ethics, what happens after death, utilitarian vs other ethics, and so on.
I guess there are a few questions I'd have with this.
1. Where do you draw the line? Monstrous humanoid infants you do not kill .. would the world use anything that is 'born evil' -- and yes, I know there are many that do not care for that concept. Do you then opt out of using certain creatures that are pretty much irredeemable like xenomorphs or being from the cthulhu mythos or whatever?
2. As a GM -- and as a player -- what are the plans for the wagon train of little beings that you are now morally responsible for? Are the players willing and interested in running back and forth with 1-1000 small creatures that they have to house and feed somewhere? On one hand, it will certainly eat up some of the resources they have on hand and they won't have to worry about buying those pesky magic items, but on the other side ..
Anyway. There are some things to think about and discuss within the group with any world choice. This looks like a big topic to talk about within the group to see if it is something that everyone is interested in dealing with; not everyone is looking for a game of dealing with the orphans they've created.
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2. As a GM -- and as a player -- what are the plans for the wagon train of little beings that you are now morally responsible for? Are the players willing and interested in running back and forth with 1-1000 small creatures that they have to house and feed somewhere? On one hand, it will certainly eat up some of the resources they have on hand and they won't have to worry about buying those pesky magic items, but on the other side ..
Anyway. There are some things to think about and discuss within the group with any world choice. This looks like a big topic to talk about within the group to see if it is something that everyone is interested in dealing with; not everyone is looking for a game of dealing with the orphans they've created.
The logistics of dealing with large numbers of orphans after you slaughter their families doesn't justify infanticide.
Edit: there's a sentence I never thought I'd have to say.
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The logistics of dealing with large numbers of orphans after you slaughter their families doesn't justify infanticide.2. As a GM -- and as a player -- what are the plans for the wagon train of little beings that you are now morally responsible for? Are the players willing and interested in running back and forth with 1-1000 small creatures that they have to house and feed somewhere? On one hand, it will certainly eat up some of the resources they have on hand and they won't have to worry about buying those pesky magic items, but on the other side ..
Anyway. There are some things to think about and discuss within the group with any world choice. This looks like a big topic to talk about within the group to see if it is something that everyone is interested in dealing with; not everyone is looking for a game of dealing with the orphans they've created.
I second this.
Being Good isn't easy.
If you believing in killing people for reasons of expediency the queue starts over there on the wide and wavy road paved with good intentions.
Also I take the law/not lawful angle because its tied in with the definition of the word. The question is whether to follow human legal code, or some sort of more cosmic justice. Thats why its tricky.
"Born evil" is something that generally should be reserved for something a little less 'normal.' I don't believe kobolds, goblins and their ilk are 'born evil.' Even stuff like those vulture-man bastards who shout 'Doom!' They might have horrible dispositions, but will can overcome disposition.
That being said, a DM shouldn't make his players live in a world of constant moral questioning. I always find myself coming back to the G'kar quote for this
"We were good, they were evil, and they made such a satisfying thump when they hit the floor."
DMs who spring this stuff on their players are usually (in my experience) inflicting "teachable moments" on their friends. Some people can do this, some players like it, but if I show up having heard promises of being able to beat up horrible monsters, rescue princesses and earn loot. I'd be miffed if all of a sudden I've got a smirk behind the DM screen when he springs the all Orcish-Orphans brigade on me.
2. As a GM -- and as a player -- what are the plans for the wagon train of little beings that you are now morally responsible for? Are the players willing and interested in running back and forth with 1-1000 small creatures that they have to house and feed somewhere? On one hand, it will certainly eat up some of the resources they have on hand and they won't have to worry about buying those pesky magic items, but on the other side ..
Anyway. There are some things to think about and discuss within the group with any world choice. This looks like a big topic to talk about within the group to see if it is something that everyone is interested in dealing with; not everyone is looking for a game of dealing with the orphans they've created.
The logistics of dealing with large numbers of orphans after you slaughter their families doesn't justify infanticide.
Edit: there's a sentence I never thought I'd have to say.
No, of course not. But it is something that the players and GMs will have to take into account. You wander into a dungeon and go through a few fights. You now have fifty goblin babies, twelve orc babies and two eggs from some giant lizards. Now what?
If the group is going to just handwave it away and not actually deal with the ramifications of the issue, then don't bother to have non-combatants at all in the game.
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So you get to decide how people play the game? Who do you think you are?
As flattering as it is for you to imply that I'm some special arbiter of morality, I'm just the messenger. Basic moral reasoning is what says you oughtn't play pretend that infanticide is a good act.
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So you get to decide how people play the game? Who do you think you are?As flattering as it is for you to imply that I'm some special arbiter of morality, I'm just the messenger. Basic moral reasoning is what says you oughtn't play pretend that infanticide is a good act.
A sign of a healthy mind is the ability to acknowledge a thought, and examine it, without actively holding it.
Trying to envision a society where something horrible is allowed, or even lauded isn't a bad thing. It helps to give us a view into what makes those sorts of people tick.
The trick is when we start justifying it, or go 'mmm, orc babies are probably delicious afterall, maybe just once...'
As a DM I routinely have to explain the reasonable reasons behind villains and evil societies and their absolutely horrific philosophies and practices. Doesn't mean I condone them.
That being said, if the idea of murdering innocent people and torturing people is your idea of a good time, there might be some issues there. But if I play a sith and decide to punch some guy who irritates me, it might also just be catharsis.
That whole 'I can't punch people in real life, I try to bea good person. But Darth Catharsis doesn't give a damn. I'm punching that dude, then stealing his donuts, and then I'm going to run the mileage up his car. That'll show him!"
A sign of a healthy mind is the ability to acknowledge a thought, and examine it, without actively holding it.
Trying to envision a society where something horrible is allowed, or even lauded isn't a bad thing. It helps to give us a view into what makes those sorts of people tick.
Sure, but that's not what's going on. I don't think there's anything wrong about creating a game world where people in-universe believe that horrible things are good. That's actually quite realistic. What I'm objecting to is creating game worlds where you try to make horrible acts morally virtuous.
That whole 'I can't punch people in real life, I try to bea good person. But Darth Catharsis doesn't give a damn. I'm punching that dude, then stealing his donuts, and then I'm going to run the mileage up his car. That'll show him!"
Sure, I don't think there's anything wrong that. In particular, you recognize that punching someone, stealing their donuts, etc. isn't a good thing to do. The problem would be if you wanted the game world's enforced morality to justify punching that dude and stealing his donuts as the right and virtuous thing to do.
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Just because i play evil characters who do horrible things in game, doesn't mean I'm a horrible person in real life. I can separate game and life.
Sure, play an evil character who does horrible things. I don't have a problem with that. Just don't try to justify your character's horrible acts as morally virtuous. Kill the goblin infants, but don't pretend it's a morally permissible act.
Your character can think it's acceptable to kill goblin infants, but there should be a realization from the people playing the game that it isn't.
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Where was it specifically mentioned that killing goblin babies was morally virtuous? It was said that the entire race is Evil, because magic, and that killing babies was justified as they were going to grow up being horrid and depraved, just like their parents. Nobody said anything about morally virtuous...
There us a huge difference between justified and virtuous...
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If you are getting caught up on the distinction between virtuous and justified, then replace all instances of "virtuous" in my above posts with "justified". The same point stands. Infanticide is neither virtuous nor justified and you shouldn't play pretend that it's either.
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I agree. I don't make a paladin fall for picking flowers. I don't think anyone reads that from my posts, and I wouldn't sit at a table that played like that either. The people who don't like the fact that picking flowers is actually flower murder are simply the folks who only want the word murder to be a binary act of evil, so in fact they want a definition of the word that's more 'black and white' than I do. A level of black and white that is essentially 'lets choose not to call picking flowers murder because murder should always be a word that means 'alignment changingly evil' which I don't think is an authentic reflection of reality. I prefer acknowledging the reality and understanding that just because something is murder and murder is bad doesn't mean you're going to hell for picking flowers. I like my gaming to be as much about navigating the grays between black and white as real life is. Making it black and white takes away one's ability to explore the ideas and takes away a certain gravitas to a lot of scenarios. This view tends to send games into simple gamist crunchfests and I don't enjoy those games as much.
When my players start hungering for a game with less moral dilemmas they'll make a party where everyone's neutral on the good/evil spectrum or we'll fire up a zombie apocalypse combat festival against the undead or a palladium/rifts campaign where the alignment tropes are at least a little more specifically defined.
Redefining the word "murder" doesn't change the moral issues in the slightest.
You debate over whether this "murder" is "alignment changingly evil". I debate over whether this killing was "murder".
Murder is a legal term, meaning roughly some types of unlawful killing of humans. In common use that's extended to most immoral killings of humans. In SF/Fantasy context it's natural to extend that to other sapient species. A very small handful of animal rights activists extend it killing animals. Even among those who think killing animals for...
^This.
In my opinion murder is something more then just a common place event.
Sorry wanted to say more but couldnt put it into words.
Its like when people willy nilly expand the definitions of any other word, sexism, racism, murder, what have you - words have meanings and when you water down that meaning you water down the name for a thing with an overly expansive definition, you water down the concept as well.
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If you are getting caught up on the distinction between virtuous and justified, then replace all instances of "virtuous" in my above posts with "justified". The same point stands. Infanticide is neither virtuous nor justified and you shouldn't play pretend that it's either.
Again you don't get to tell me how I should or shouldn't play the game. You don't have that right.
What you can say is that you disapprove of that gameplay style. That's pretty much it.
Infanticide on earth is most certainly a monstrously evil act and every person who does it should spend the rest of their existence in unspeakable torment.
Infanticide of a race created by an evil god to be his instrument of destruction on that world, who are all evil and cannot be redeemed is a wholly different thing.
Now some people may feel very uncomfortable with that kind of morality issue, and I say that that is fine. That race can spring from the air or be grown from mud, or be made from adult members of other races.
But if players don't find it uncomfortable to kill evil babies, who are you to tell them how they should play the game?
Maybe there is something seriously wrong with them mentally. Maybe they are just acting characters who find it completely normal.
Bottom line, you don't get to decide on other people's morality or their character's morality. Or to tell them what is wrong and what isn't.
They get to decide that themselves.
The only thing you can do is express your opinion and disapproval. But without telling anyone how to do things.
Bottom line, you don't get to decide on other people's morality or their character's morality. Or to tell them what is wrong and what isn't.
They get to decide that themselves.
I don't know why you keep bringing me into this like that, as if I have some magical power to force you to do what I say. Again, I'm just the messenger.
People shouldn't not play pretend that infanticide is justified, not because I say so, but because it's an abhorrent thing to do.
Infanticide of a race created by an evil god to be his instrument of destruction on that world, who are all evil and cannot be redeemed is a wholly different thing.
Go look at some real world arguments why infanticide is wrong. How many of them have as a premise that babies aren't created by an evil god to be instruments of destruction? I'll give you a hint: none. No one thinks that the reason infanticide is wrong is that babies aren't irredeemable creations of evil. Since that's not why infanticide is wrong, that means that if babies were instruments of destruction, we still wouldn't have that it's okay to kill them. Arguments why infanticide is wrong aren't tied to the actual world. They go through in other possible worlds. This isn't hard.
Just out of curiosity, at what age does killing the goblin child chewing on your leg become acceptable?
More generally, even assuming goblin children could be brought up right and turned into contributing members of society (by the same pinkskins who murdered their parents), I'd assume that's only a true from a certain point, right? The littlest babies would have the best chance and those close to adulthood would be the most damaged by their upbringing and least likely to be able to overcome it. All but the very youngest are likely to try to kill their captors and/or escape at any opportunity.
Is lethal force ever acceptable against these poor orphan children?
Could I get a break from being the conscience of everyone in this thread for a while? I feel like it should be possible to think about these things without querying me as an oracle of some kind. I don't have special access to moral reasoning that is beyond anyone else.
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This is not the real world.
This is a game where an evil god can and will create beings that have no choice, no free will, and can be evil and malicious from birth. No amount of cuddles and cookies are going to get them to stop trying to eat your face.
What you see as a baby is a small version of an adult, with all the maliciousness and depravity of the adult, with less hit points.
This isn't hard. There can be some beings in games that you don't let live. They exist to exterminate other species and do whatever it is that their creator decided.
People should not play pretend that their way is the One True Way. There are variations and shades to this game. This is not a representation of 21st Century morals, likes and dislikes.
Finally, while this is all well and good from an armchair quarterback position, one should consider whether trying to have a Very Special Episode of Pathfinder in which the Heroes learn a Very Important Lesson is what your players want every week. If so, then there you go. I'm not sold that most, or even many, tables are interested in this on an ongoing basis.
Bottom line, you don't get to decide on other people's morality or their character's morality. Or to tell them what is wrong and what isn't.
They get to decide that themselves.
I don't know why you keep bringing me into this like that, as if I have some magical power to force you to do what I say. Again, I'm just the messenger.
People shouldn't not play pretend that infanticide is justified, not because I say so, but because it's an abhorrent thing to do.
Infanticide of a race created by an evil god to be his instrument of destruction on that world, who are all evil and cannot be redeemed is a wholly different thing.Go look at some real world arguments why infanticide is wrong. How many of them have as a premise that babies aren't created by an evil god to be instruments of destruction? I'll give you a hint: none. No one thinks that the reason infanticide is wrong is that babies aren't irredeemable creations of evil. Since that's not why infanticide is wrong, that means that if babies were instruments of destruction, we still wouldn't have that it's okay to kill them. This isn't hard.
Isn't the question of whether or not they have moral agency a relevant one? There are serious arguments about the differences between, for example, sentience and sapience - they are not the same thing, of neccesity - and the presence or not of that moral agency makes a difference.
Well, the question from the OP is strictly is it murder.
Legally the answer is 'whatever your gm tells you is legally murder'... end of line.
So the 'discussion' then becomes is it morally murder.
IMHO, yes it is. If murder=intent+success then its absolutely morally murder even if he deserves it.
End of line. My opinion on it isn't up for debate. My opinion of it is not a functional gaming discussion thats relevant to anyone except at my table. I'm not here to tell people what their own definition of murder is, or that sticking to a legal definiton only is wrong or requiring a moral definition is right. None of that is relevant.
The table is what's relevant.
I could make a campaign where picking flowers is illegal. I don't think anyone would want to play in it, but I don't think the opposite is necessarily true. For me personally a campaign where killing goblin babies is both legally and morally defined as 'good' is also one I personally wouldn't sit down to. Plenty of gamers out there willing to go that way though and more power to them.
The question is 'where do you draw the line' and you draw the line at the point where people start leaving your table over it. I'm lucky. There are plenty of folks in my area that are interested in character actions being labeled as good having to carry a little more moral weight. Other tables are completely fine with free wheeling infanticide and call it good because well...
'Convenient for my paladin' is 'good for my paladin'
'Inconvenient for my paladin' is a 'horrible thing to do to me as a player'
Killing NPCs and monsters... murder?
I don't know - nor care - about any other groups, but my particular group happens to make a distinction that depends on "who started it".
And this whole idea that logistics, expediency, or convenience has any impact whatsoever on what's good/right/moral is laughably ridiculous.
If you are getting caught up on the distinction between virtuous and justified, then replace all instances of "virtuous" in my above posts with "justified". The same point stands. Infanticide is neither virtuous nor justified and you shouldn't play pretend that it's either.Just out of curiosity, at what age does killing the goblin child chewing on your leg become acceptable?
When he's old enough to consistently be able to murder on his own and understand his actions, of course.
More generally, even assuming goblin children could be brought up right and turned into contributing members of society (by the same pinkskins who murdered their parents), I'd assume that's only a true from a certain point, right? The littlest babies would have the best chance and those close to adulthood would be the most damaged by their upbringing and least likely to be able to overcome it. All but the very youngest are likely to try to kill their captors and/or escape at any opportunity.
Is lethal force ever acceptable against these poor orphan children?
I don't think much of this is true, AFAIC.
But then again (much like a whole host of things), 3.5 did it better - in this case by noting "Usually", etc. in alignment descriptions, to cover these sort of things. ("Usually" denoting society impacts - easily weaned out of child/infant goblins.)
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Go look at some real world arguments why infanticide is wrong. How many of them have as a premise that babies aren't created by an evil god to be instruments of destruction? I'll give you a hint: none. No one thinks that the reason infanticide is wrong is that babies aren't irredeemable creations of evil. Since that's not why infanticide is wrong, that means that if babies were instruments of destruction, we still wouldn't have that it's okay to kill them. Arguments why infanticide is wrong aren't tied to the actual world. They go through in other possible worlds. This isn't hard.
I...just...do you even read what you write?
YES, infanticide on earth is wrong. because it's killing babies, babies who might become incredibly good or evil people. The thing is that we do not know what will they become. And if they become an irredeemable monster...well usually they run for office, but the point is then their killing is justified.Now imagine this. This is a FANTASY world, with FANTASY races and FANTASY gods. And there is this one god, who is an evil bastard, who decides to create a race of evil monsters to conquer the world with it. Those creatures are always evil. From the moment they come out of the womb, to their final breath. ALWAYS EVIL IRREDEEMABLY SO. Essentially they are sentient vermin.
Killing their young just spares you having to kill them when they are stronger and capable of killing you.
People who do it might not like it, because those babies are still babies, but they have no choice.
If you cannot comprehend that such a world or creature might exist somewhere in some setting, i feel sorry for your imagination.
What does infanticide on Earth have to do with infanticide of an irredeemably evil race in a nonexistent world?
But then again (much like a whole host of things), 3.5 did it better - in this case by noting "Usually", etc. in alignment descriptions, to cover these sort of things. ("Usually" denoting society impacts - easily weaned out of child/infant goblins.)I never read "usually" that way. I assumed that "Usually" meant: had a strong innate tendency towards that alignment regardless of societal impacts. Obviously reinforced by a society of that alignment and could be overcome by strong social conditioning, but would still tend more towards their native alignment than other creatures raised similarly.
Huh.
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Killing NPCs and monsters... murder?
I don't know - nor care - about any other groups, but my particular group happens to make a distinction that depends on "who started it".
And this whole idea that logistics, expediency, or convenience has any impact whatsoever on what's good/right/moral is laughably ridiculous.
The point (or question) I was trying to raise, perhaps badly or muddled, was that if you choose to look at any murder of infants/young as horrible then the players and GM should start thinking of how they plan to handle the young. Do they leave them to fend for themselves and come back in Kill Bill 3? Do they take them and raise them? Do they set up orphanages or farms for them to frolic? Because, and this is my view and you are welcome to yours, if you are killing the parents then you get to be responsible for what happens to them, which raises its own questions.
Of course, this assumes that you have the moral right to kill any creature, or that the treasure you are stealing back from them shouldn't go wholly to the kingdom from whence it came -- sorry, Mr. Wizard, that staff goes to the kingdom to be sent to the rightful owner or heir.
Again, it is a matter of what game you and yours are interested in. One can start playing Morals and Monsters where every choice leads to a trap or a decision that has devastating impact on your characters. For some that may be the bees knees. I'm not seeing a lot of support, however, in comments for that.
Making the goblin infants evil and beyond redemption because of the touch of something so corrupt and vile that the inherent 'wrongness' of it carries through the generations can truly make for something horrifying if used properly.
Welcome to Warhammer
Thats actually a really good point. GM's are always harping on about how they should be having fun too, so make sure whatever call is the one that will upset you the least based on how you know your players react to such things.
I mean the answer at the end of the day is what kind of game do your players want to play. It's a bad idea to give a table a goblin baby situation if they're
If you want baby goblins to live, don't put them in the path of a party that has a hard time not stabbing everything they come across no matter what their alignment block says. They might be the kind of players who stab baby goblins just to spite you for putting them in the situation where they might have to feel a pang of guilt. How dare you. Burn them all.
Contrariwise if your table likes spending time solving problems that can't be solved by rolling dice and making things bleed, then having more complicated and flavorful and meaningful legal and moral structures in your campaign is a great idea.
Couldnt agree more. You can't hold your players to a higher standard than mindless killbot if as a gm you run all the encounters as mindless killbots
Yay! We all agree and there was much happiness in Paizoville.
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Taking prisoners is always fun. As a DM it also ups the tension on the players, especially if they realize their prisoners eventually add up to more then 1-2 goblins, and end up as more 2-40. When they realize there are (potentially) 40 sets of eyes looking for any of them to slip up...
And then the murder arguments turn into murder by proxy arguments.
My players in my campaign had this arise. the Paladin actually cut the bonds of the prisoners when he realized that the situation was rapidly degrading for everyone.
He couldn't account for the safety of the confined, helplessly bound prisoners and letting them go without weapons on their own recognizance was the only option available to him. Essentially he left them food, supplies (of a non-insulting, genuinely useful variety) and told them to go and sin no more, or he wouldn't be as inclined to be forgiving again.
The ogre prisoner who proclaimed that he delighted in murder and cannibalizing his victims though, got what was essentially a field execution though.
The paladin offered him a chance, the ogre refused it, and the paladin reasoned that someone who had eaten people, showed no remorse for eating people, and proudly declared he would continue eating people deserved to die. He checked with his phylactery of faithfulness and then with its confirmation he executed the ogre. Mind in the situation, they were in the literal medium of nowhere.
The paladin wanted to take him back to the authorities, but as they were in a lawless wasteland, he determined that here he was those authorities.
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...I agree. I don't make a paladin fall for picking flowers. I don't think anyone reads that from my posts, and I wouldn't sit at a table that played like that either. The people who don't like the fact that picking flowers is actually flower murder are simply the folks who only want the word murder to be a binary act of evil, so in fact they want a definition of the word that's more 'black and white' than I do. A level of black and white that is essentially 'lets choose not to call picking flowers murder because murder should always be a word that means 'alignment changingly evil' which I don't think is an authentic reflection of reality. I prefer acknowledging the reality and understanding that just because something is murder and murder is bad doesn't mean you're going to hell for picking flowers. I like my gaming to be as much about navigating the grays between black and white as real life is. Making it black and white takes away one's ability to explore the ideas and takes away a certain gravitas to a lot of scenarios. This view tends to send games into simple gamist crunchfests and I don't enjoy those games as much.
When my players start hungering for a game with less moral dilemmas they'll make a party where everyone's neutral on the good/evil spectrum or we'll fire up a zombie apocalypse combat festival against the undead or a palladium/rifts campaign where the alignment tropes are at least a little more specifically defined.
Redefining the word "murder" doesn't change the moral issues in the slightest.
You debate over whether this "murder" is "alignment changingly evil". I debate over whether this killing was "murder".
Murder is a legal term, meaning roughly some types of unlawful killing of humans. In common use that's extended to most immoral killings of humans. In SF/Fantasy context it's natural to extend that to other sapient species. A very small handful of animal rights activists extend it killing animals. Even among those who
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VT, I'm not disagreeing with your moral stance, per se. But you are essentially redefining murder in a way that doesn't actually distinguish it from any form of killing.
The point (or question) I was trying to raise, perhaps badly or muddled, was that if you choose to look at any murder of infants/young as horrible then the players and GM should start thinking of how they plan to handle the young. Do they leave them to fend for themselves and come back in Kill Bill 3? Do they take them and raise them? Do they set up orphanages or farms for them to frolic? Because, and this is my view and you are welcome to yours, if you are killing the parents then you get to be responsible for what happens to them, which raises its own questions.Killing NPCs and monsters... murder?
I don't know - nor care - about any other groups, but my particular group happens to make a distinction that depends on "who started it".
And this whole idea that logistics, expediency, or convenience has any impact whatsoever on what's good/right/moral is laughably ridiculous.
I'm with you at least this far.
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I'm with you at least this far.The point (or question) I was trying to raise, perhaps badly or muddled, was that if you choose to look at any murder of infants/young as horrible then the players and GM should start thinking of how they plan to handle the young. Do they leave them to fend for themselves and come back in Kill Bill 3? Do they take them and raise them? Do they set up orphanages or farms for them to frolic? Because, and this is my view and you are welcome to yours, if you are killing the parents then you get to be responsible for what happens to them, which raises its own questions.Killing NPCs and monsters... murder?
I don't know - nor care - about any other groups, but my particular group happens to make a distinction that depends on "who started it".
And this whole idea that logistics, expediency, or convenience has any impact whatsoever on what's good/right/moral is laughably ridiculous.
This raises another one of those 'fun crap Spook has had to deal with' things, and I apologize for the off-topic.
I got accused of inflicting a 'Lost Generation' on Orcs, Kobolds and the like in my campaign setting due to a habit of this.
The authorities over their history of 'dealing with' belligerant humanoid encampments, institutionalized the idea that you take the now parentless children, raise them within your culture, teach them their prior culture was a collection of evil savagery that resulted in pain and anguish (which it did) and the children, grant them equivalent rights, responsibilities and protections to your citizenry (as they are now your citizenry) and their descendants grow up to be normal citizens (criminals and atavists aside).
Apparently to some who've heard of my campaign setting, this makes my countries evil as sin for the crime of 'murdering their culture.'
I honestly think you just can't please some folks.