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Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire.
Very similar things happened in nearly every war the US military was involved in, over the last years. So your point is?
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Very similar things happened in nearly every war the US military was involved in, over the last years. So your point is?
Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire.
The point is that it is monstrously evil. Doesn't matter who does it to who.
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And you know gingerbread man because I Assume you have been in all those wars with the us military right? I mean I recall my time in Afghanistan quite clearly still, and I certainly don't recall gunning down people fleeing and surrendering.
It takes some serious head to sand insertion to deny that things like this happen.
Anyone who says no is wrong.
Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire. Then as small children ran out of a building fleeing in different directions, they were all shot down. Just because some other tribes may be cannibalistic does not mean it would be ok to slaughter this one as it begs for its life.
Disagree if you like, it really only speaks as to your comprehension of right and wrong
EDIT* that wasn't directed at you Garg, just using the closing of your last statement as an opportunity is all
The game does NOT work like real life. In real like you can't just go around killing people and taking their stuff. Even if you kill them in self defense it is still stealing, but the game does not consider it to be stealing.
Anyone who does not realize you can't always use real life comparisons is wrong.
The laws are different from one place to the next, world to world, game to game, but morals are universal unless specifically outlined.
I never said you can ALWAYS use real life comparisons, I said you can use them here. Putting words in someone's mouth makes you wrong buddy
You guys make fair points. The GM handled it as badly as the players, I can agree with that. But still, creatures running and begging as they are slaughtered should be enough to immediately question whether they are evil or not. They should have stopped and evaluated the situation, but they didn't and the paladin should certainly pay the price for that. I suppose it does sound like everyone handled it poorly, and I also suppose that I can see an explanation to both sides, though neither is good enough to justify their actions lol.
I disagree about comparing to real life though. If not compared to real life, then what standard is there? Nothing solid
So running away equals not evil now, really? O.o
I have my bad guys run away when they are getting their butts kicked Some of the AP's suggest the GM's have bad guys run once their hit points get below a certain point or X number of their buddies are killed.
So tell me with GM's like myself and the official games using the same idea, but still having the bad guys be evil, how does your point stand?
PS: If the PC's get a surprise round in my bad guys might retreat so they can regroup, so not fighting back is by no means a sign of "not evil", ESPECIALLY, among creatures that do nothing but cause trouble.
I don't know, does running away equal not evil? I think you've quoted the wrong person cuz I never said that. Or are you just putting words in my mouth again... I said it was enough that they should have paused and reevaluated the situation.
You know if you gotta keep taking what someone says out of context or twist their words to make a point maybe you don't actually have a point and you just like to argue
Very similar things happened in nearly every war the US military was involved in, over the last years. So your point is?
Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire.
oh I'm quite aware. Its pretty evil when it happens in real life as well. My point was to make it more relatable. Goblins in a game dont matter, but if it did matter it might be taken more seriously
oh I'm quite aware. Its pretty evil when it happens in real life as well. My point was to make it more relatable. Goblins in a game dont matter, but if it did matter it might be taken more seriouslyVery similar things happened in nearly every war the US military was involved in, over the last years. So your point is?
Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire.
That was my point. It isn't taken seriously in real life. In the game at least you can prevent it. Either as the GM by some kind of intervention or as a comrade by protecting the innocents.
That was my point. It isn't taken seriously in real life. In the game at least you can prevent it. Either as the GM by some kind of intervention or as a comrade by protecting the innocents.oh I'm quite aware. Its pretty evil when it happens in real life as well. My point was to make it more relatable. Goblins in a game dont matter, but if it did matter it might be taken more seriouslyVery similar things happened in nearly every war the US military was involved in, over the last years. So your point is?
Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire.
I simply answered your question "so yur point is?". But I disagree, some people take it seriously in real life. Perhaps those are the same people who take it seriously in a game as well I guess
You guys make fair points. The GM handled it as badly as the players, I can agree with that. But still, creatures running and begging as they are slaughtered should be enough to immediately question whether they are evil or not. They should have stopped and evaluated the situation, but they didn't and the paladin should certainly pay the price for that. I suppose it does sound like everyone handled it poorly, and I also suppose that I can see an explanation to both sides, though neither is good enough to justify their actions lol.
I disagree about comparing to real life though. If not compared to real life, then what standard is there? Nothing solid
So running away equals not evil now, really? O.o
I have my bad guys run away when they are getting their butts kicked Some of the AP's suggest the GM's have bad guys run once their hit points get below a certain point or X number of their buddies are killed.
So tell me with GM's like myself and the official games using the same idea, but still having the bad guys be evil, how does your point stand?
PS: If the PC's get a surprise round in my bad guys might retreat so they can regroup, so not fighting back is by no means a sign of "not evil", ESPECIALLY, among creatures that do nothing but cause trouble.
Especially since goblins are rather infamous for running away if the battle isn't going there way. As I recall from GMing RotRL myself, the tactics section for every goblin includes information on when they'll break and run.
Also, found the following info from the Bestiary (P. 156) interesting in the context of this thread: "Written words are hated. Goblins believe that writing steals words out of your head, and as a result of this belief, goblins are universally illiterate."
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That was my point. It isn't taken seriously in real life. In the game at least you can prevent it. Either as the GM by some kind of intervention or as a comrade by protecting the innocents.oh I'm quite aware. Its pretty evil when it happens in real life as well. My point was to make it more relatable. Goblins in a game dont matter, but if it did matter it might be taken more seriouslyVery similar things happened in nearly every war the US military was involved in, over the last years. So your point is?
Imagine if American troops went over to Africa and slaughtered a small indigenous tribe that they couldn't communicate with but refused to fight back. There elder was on his knees pleading with them, and just because they couldn't understand him, they threw him into a fire.
That's funny cause I was there and can count quite a few UCMJ actions against people. You wont find numbers online anywhere, but its pretty callous to assume that soldiers run about willy nilly and kill whatever they feel like.It is taken seriously in real-life, very seriously I can promise you that. And guess what, charges are harsher for those in the line of service who break laws and rules. Use a better example.
You of course can believe however you wish, but there is a reason why PTSD is a thing, There are reasons why countless soldiers have a hard time adjusting to life after combat. Running around slaughtering innocent people is not something that occurs regularly, despite the movies take on things.
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Back to the original topic, regarding ideas on what should happen, two children goblin survivors. Siblings, even. They get seperated from each other in the chaos. Erastil tells him to take the one as a squire, as well as helping to restore the village. The other is filled with grief and hate, and is approached by a "sympathetic" evil planar.
Give it levels in Synthesist summoner, flavored as a guardian born of hatred.
... I might use this.
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The thread has already been derailed long enough. So I'll only add an answer to TheNine with a single example:
I'm not speaking about movies. Except if you want to call the footage recorded by a helicopter gun cam shooting down civilians as movie. Or the second strafing run in which they shot down those trying to pick up the wounded and dead with a van? A van in which there were children.
Or the testimony that the soldier who, later, declined to bring the rescued children to a medical hospital. His reasoning: They were civilians and only because they had been hurt by military personnel didn't lead to them deserving treatment in a military hospital.
Edit: It was military command who had the children sent to the public hospital.
The original footage, uncut, unchanged, was open for everyone to see on wikileaks.
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The problem here is that there are two different strands to this thread:
1. Should the party, within the context of the game, be blamed for their actions as presented to us by the OP?
2. Is what the OP is telling us the whole truth?
I'd suggest that the party were in the wrong if they acted as described. Were I put in that situation as a player, it wouldn't take long for me to realise that something was amiss. I think most other parties composed of appropriately-played good characters would find some other way to subdue them, or at least have qualms about wholesale slaughter.
However, it appears that the OP is not being entirely transparent. Past evidence points to a deliberate alignment trap. If this is the case, and he obviously didn't mention it in the initial post, I would have real doubts as to whether this encounter went the way he claims.
So, the slaughter was wrong but the GMing may well have been even more wrong. It shouldn't be the paladin that falls and has to atone, but the GM.
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The thread has already been derailed long enough. So I'll only add an answer to TheNine with a single example:
** spoiler omitted **
As was said enough sidebarring, it does s sound like the opportunity should have said something earlier. Ignorance of wrongdoing by no means forgive it
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The GM is the means that information is communicated to the Players about the game world/environment.
The GM failed to communicate relevant information to the Players via the goblin expert in the area, Shalhu(sic).
Past threads from the OP lead me to suspect an ulterior motive for doing this, ie the GM wants the Paladin to fall and engineered the events so that it happened.
I believe that the Paladin shouldn't fall as it was an engineered situation and the GM failed to give the full story via NPCs.
If the paladin player ever reads this thread (which I doubt they will, prolly been "banned" from the forums by the GM) I suggest they get a Phylactery of Faithfulness to prevent such manipulation again.
I also believe the GM will do whatever he wishes and will ignore any advice given.
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Second, the party's fifth member (a bard) chose to stay behind in Town. This character also speaks Goblin, and was meant to translate the Goblin babbling into pleads for mercy for the party.
As I said on a different thread, if you want to tell a story that isn't subject to modification through player actions, write a book, not a game scenario.
From what you say, the only way that the party could have learnt what was going on relied on a single party member being present, the only way to be 'successful' was to do things exactly as you had planned. That is known as railroading.
The player chose not to leave town but he could have been absent for any number of reasons, or even decided on a change of character. As the GM, you are expected to be able to go with the changes as they occur, not sit back and punish the party because they haven't followed a script.
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Irrelevant. This post is about how a Paladin can regain his powers within the rules of Pathfinder!
I think you know about the Atonement spell already.
You were asking about whether you were bullying your player. I think the answer to that is as clear as your knowing about how a fallen paladin regains his powers with the Pathfinder rules.
Rule ONE of GMing Communicate with your players.
If you are going to vary the alignments of monsters from what is listed in the stats in the Bestiary -TELL THE PLAYERS BEFORE YOU ROLL UP CHARACTERS.
Otherwise you are playing with thier expectations and trust.
Meh.
That's shallow and silly. I'm not going to go to the effort of creating something wild and unique, then tell everyone about it. That takes out the discovery, exploration and reduces the campaign back to being common.
Screwing with expectations and trust is how I illicit an emotional response. It could just have easily have been wonderment at the existence of a constructive tribe of Goblins as it could have been this depressing scene.
The issue here, is exactly HOW does the Paladin recover from this within the rules of Pathfinder? The rest will be written into the story.
It's actually not shallow and silly at all.
No one is saying that pre-session you state "Ok, there's some nice goblins that don't fit the typical goblin in this campaign, you've been warned".
What people are saying is when starting the campaign "I'm not obligated to hold monster to their initial alignment, especially of they're sentient creatures."
This could/should have been stated long prior to the good goblins being introduced. I get why you don't want to remove discovery, and illicit an emotional response.
That said, I also understand why most of your group would have found this fun/ entertaining. Will any of the other party members be losing all of their abilities until they've repented? For them this is an "oops killed innocent peoples, that sucks, I totally didn't see that coming at all, I wonder what the repercussions will be". For the Paladin its more akin to "Almost fell because GM thought gambling/not buying friends drinks was fall worthy, guess I shouldn't be surprised he finally duped me".
I don't think you really need advice for what to do with the paladin, it seems like you've been waiting to have him fall for a very long time already. Well congratulations, you made the worlds easiest to fall class, fall.
Here are some suggestions on how to improve your GMing which I think in turn will remove alot of these issues:
- roll sense motive ahead of time so players don't metagame and roll it after every statement made by every NPC always. This way their characters will sense lies when they catch on, and will miss out when they wouldn't have caught on.
- Set clear expectations at your table, and if you have house rules lay them out. You've already made a ton of documents (45 you said right?) what's another page of expected house rules? Simple things like: Paladins must have an explicit code written out, or I can vary alginment on creatures as I see fit, don't assume that I won't reskin old creatures so that you'll never know their abilities.
- Make sure players have a chance at success, albeit never guaranteed. I would argue that they were a bit set up. They encountered nothing but evil sadistic goblins up to this point, no one ever mentioned the famous good goblins that even made a deal with the government. Without meta-gaming there was no reason for the players to doubt the women who approached them. (especially when you consider that Sandpoint offers money for "goblin ears"). After all of that the only one who could have helped them was off in lala land. (based on the previous thread about this character, you should have a talk with him about group cohesion and making his character care about plot hooks).
- Make sure you communicate clearly. I'm sure you thought that you made it obvious that the goblins were not resisting/ trying to surrender, but what is clear to a GM is not necessarily clear to the players.
Especially when we consider that the goblins in ROTRL are encouraged to do crazy stuff all the time. Like the opening battle when some are stuffing food down their pants rather then fighting.
Those types of scenes can dirty up the image you were trying to portray and it's possible that the PC thought they were just intimidating a bunch of evil weak goblins, maybe the goblins were running to arm themselves, maybe they had some secret weapon they were going to grab.
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Well first of all I'd like to give kudos to Mulet for engaging with me , if I'd been slammed as hard as I did Mulet, odds on I'd wouldn't have responded like that.
To address you individual responses:
First,I gotta say that I'm flattered that my post was memorable enough for you to bring it up.
No need to flatter yourself. I never read anything you've posted before stumbling across this thread (and trust me after this thread I won't be repeating that mistake). That being said your initial couple of posts in this thread smelt... wrong... and as a historian (sorry blowing my own trumpet here), I shouldn't post without examining as much of the picture as I can determine. As you should be able to tell, I wasn't impressed with your earlier musings. anyway...
Second, the party's fifth member (a bard) chose to stay behind in Town. This character also speaks Goblin, and was meant to translate the Goblin babbling into pleads for mercy for the party. That player wound up spending the session in Ad-lib territory, and missed all XP from the encounter because he *resisted* a story hook.
Stop with the idea that ad-libbing is bad or that characters need to be punished for not picking up on story hooks. You may think that you can foretell what the players will and should do, but your thoughts aren't holy rite. Sure you think you designed the perfect encounter that the bard could bypass no worries, but did it ever occur that you might need to mod the encounter when the bard declined to take part? Na that's the players problem...
Third, try to calm down a little. Whenever I'm uncertain about how to DM, I ask the forums for advice. Which often helps a great deal. Nobody has quit our game, or even threatened to do so. On the evening this set of events played out, all the players hung back till 3:00am talking about it, saying how much they enjoyed this session.
If you and your player players are having fun that all that matters, and I'll totally butt out. If I was in your game you'd know exactly where you good goblins could dwell, and I would have walked away. I've played too many games over the years where I took bad stuff from GMs and/or other players and sucked it up because 'I wanted a game'. It took me a long time to learn otherwise. Maybe you shouldn't ban your players from your threads so we can learn what they think. At their age I would have sucked up your style. Today not so much...
The purpose of this event, was to make them HATE Naulia. Because the vanilla campaign does nothing to stir emotion. Of course, it also went too far, but this is the result of player choice and player action.
O, its all the players fault. Nothing to do with you.
We are playing a very harsh campaign, and this was decided upon before it began by all of us.
Again, my mistake. If this is true the losers, sorry the players, screwed up totally. Yea everyone of the murder hobos should be chaotic evil RIGHT NOW. You should line up all the players and spank them firmly because they've totally failed you super gaming experience. Why do you put up with them???? You're so lucky to have a bunch of masochistic suckers for you to wail on. I hate to tell but great campaigns aren't defined by how much you spend on mood lighting, or how much needless prep you do, or how many accents you put on, or how many spreadsheets or, or, hey forget it.
Get a grip. Its not all about you, you don't have to right all the time. Its about everyone having fun. If the players aren't following your lead its because they either don't want to and you can't really change that, or they haven't worked it out.
Whilst that is true, part of the GM's job is to make sure that plot hook will snag the party. We don't know what the OP considered a suitable hook but it evidently wasn't one that the bard player could get interested in.
I've encountered similar failings with inexperienced GMs before - they assume that their scenario is perfect and refuse to alter it to go with the play.
If the player isn't taking the plot hook then the way to fix that is to throw something into the ring that works, not passively-aggressively let the rest of the party go off without him, knowing that he is essential to the 'correct' script.
The DM didn't fail COMPLTELY at providing info for the party. Sure Shaelelu should have told them about the goblins, it was a big mistake not to. She is the goblin expert in the area. Its pretty much impossible for her to have never heard of a whole tribe of good goblins in her area. However, he did have a goblin speaking member in the group. That member chose to stay in town. The DM can't force him to go with. And even without communication, begging and sobbing looks the same in every language.
I would advise the DM put more thought into his customizations next time, but either way there should be dire consequences for the paladin here. A trap is not the same as entrapment. A paladin must he ready to make good decisions no matter what, not make bad ones and then look for something to blame
Whilst that is true, part of the GM's job is to make sure that plot hook will snag the party. We don't know what the OP considered a suitable hook but it evidently wasn't one that the bard player could get interested in.
I've encountered similar failings with inexperienced GMs before - they assume that their scenario is perfect and refuse to alter it to go with the play.
If the player isn't taking the plot hook then the way to fix that is to throw something into the ring that works, not passively-aggressively let the rest of the party go off without him, knowing that he is essential to the 'correct' script.
This is one area that I am sympathetic towards Mulet about. ROTRL has a fairly straight forward plot, and reasons for why things happen. I'm of the opinion that if you sign up to play an AP, you should have a character who's interested in advancing that story. The bard in question is playing the "my characters not interested in that, therefore I'll show my good RP skills be not going".
That's not good roleplaying, since you're now creating division within the group for no reason. good RPing is finding a reason your egocentrical character would go on this adventure, even if it's a round about way of getting there.
What I'm saying mostly applies to AP's, since they have a pre-built story, and are fairly rail-roady (did I just invent a word?). Other more sand box type games, don't really apply, nor do homebrew games where the GM can make the story up as they go.
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The DM didn't fail COMPLTELY at providing info for the party. Sure Shaelelu should have told them about the goblins, it was a big mistake not to. She is the goblin expert in the area. Its pretty much impossible for her to have never heard of a whole tribe of good goblins in her area. However, he did have a goblin speaking member in the group. That member chose to stay in town. The DM can't force him to go with. And even without communication, begging and sobbing looks the same in every language.
I would advise the DM put more thought into his customizations next time, but either way there should be dire consequences for the paladin here. A trap is not the same as entrapment. A paladin must he ready to make good decisions no matter what, not make bad ones and then look for something to blame
I agree the paladin should fall here, and that it's not the GM's fault that the Bard stayed in the town.
However why should a paladin necessarily care about begging sobbing goblins. This same scenario could happen to a group of CE murderous band of goblins faces the Paladin realizing that he's far superior to them, and they're about to die. A paladin needn't show mercy to creatures who's purpose in life is to murder, kill, and cause pain to other living beings. In fact in the AP they're playing the town offers gold to players to bring back goblin ears. (you'd think the AP would mention if a Paladin should fall for this act).
Now, the paladin in question to his detriment wasn't killing evil goblins, he was killing innocents. He probably didn't realize this, and that sucks for him.
So, let me see if I understand. These are good goblins, working with the leadership of Sandpoint to bring peace to the area, and NONE of the goblins speak any words in Common?
Even the evil goblins speak Common, and they don't need to.
Those goblins are REALLY good at ad-libbing.
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My two cents:
Did the GM set the paladin up to fall? Yes. As others have pointed out, you create a supposedly well-established good goblin tribe out of whole cloth and don't tell anyone, that's not playing fair. However, this may be irrelavant (see below.)
Given the circumstances, should the paladin fall? Yes. It makes NO DIFFERENCE that the paladin believed the tribe was evil as is typically the case for goblins. A paladin's behavior should never be dictated by the moral code of others, but by his own. The goblins did not deserve to have their village put to the torch, their leader burned to death and their children slaughtered simply by existing. The nation of Cheliax is listed as Lawful Evil; would this paladin feel justified in murdering any of its human citizens on sight?
But isn't the fact that the goblins had no language in common with the PCs a mitgating circumstance? No. You can't tell me that a language barrier makes it okay to slaughter children or burn elders alive.
Assuming the paladin fell, how should he atone? I'll skip the specifics, as I don't have a better idea than several that have already been posted, but I'm firmly in the camp that believes it shouldn't be as easy as casting a spell and paying a fine. That character needs a story arc to redemption, not a "time out."
Tangential thoughts on the TV show "Arrow" follow
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Why on Earth would the King of Varisia care about a small tribe of Goblins enough to make them a state secret? Why should he care if they were good? Goblins, while a sentient race, are generally viewed as intelligent sword-wielding vermin by most other races.
Did this tribe manage to rescue the King's only child and heir from pirates? Did the tribal witch doctor concoct a cure for his gout? Is the king just eccentric and loves little green, smelly fiends? Why does he care?
About the only exception to that would be if on the meta level the player thought they were operating under a "Some monsters, including goblins are irredeemably evil and deserve nothing more than destruction". The bounty for goblin ears does kind of hint in that direction, though it could just mean that the local authorities think so and aren't particularly good themselves.
I can certainly see a case being made for a paladin being pre-cleared to destroy undead, evil outsiders and evil dragons on sight; he gets his smite evil bonus against those.
Sentient humanoids with any sort of society, not so much. I think you have it right with the bounty just being something the locals started, and suggests the town as a whole isn't Lawful Good (despite having a retired paladin on the town council.)
@Sub_Zero He should care because he's a paladin, he cares only about good triumphing over evil, especially within himself. Things like race and the views of other should mean nothing to a paladin. There is no way for good to continually triumph unless with an unbiased outlook.
Not all crimes committed by evil characters are worthy of death. Because of this a paladin cant just slay evil on sight, though its more than reasonable to allow exception for creatures with the evil sub type.
I do realize some campaigns probably don't follow these guidelines, but these ARE the guidelines that govern a paladin. Allowing a setting to veer doesn't change this, it just means the writers sacrifised the paladins morals for the sake of their story, to allow the paladin more action and to make him easier to play. Playing a paladin correctly is no easy task
My two cents:
Did the GM set the paladin up to fall? Yes. As others have pointed out, you create a supposedly well-established good goblin tribe out of whole cloth and don't tell anyone, that's not playing fair. However, this may be irrelavant (see below.)
Given the circumstances, should the paladin fall? Yes. It makes NO DIFFERENCE that the paladin believed the tribe was evil as is typically the case for goblins. A paladin's behavior should never be dictated by the moral code of others, but by his own. The goblins did not deserve to have their village put to the torch, their leader burned to death and their children slaughtered simply by existing. The nation of Cheliax is listed as Lawful Evil; would this paladin feel justified in murdering any of its human citizens on sight?
But isn't the fact that the goblins had no language in common with the PCs a mitgating circumstance? No. You can't tell me that a language barrier makes it okay to slaughter children or burn elders alive.
Assuming the paladin fell, how should he atone? I'll skip the specifics, as I don't have a better idea than several that have already been posted, but I'm firmly in the camp that believes it shouldn't be as easy as casting a spell and paying a fine. That character needs a story arc to redemption, not a "time out."
Tangential thoughts on the TV show "Arrow" follow
** spoiler omitted **...
Nailed it