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Hello, once my players killed an orcs clans. After clawing through the barbarian chieftain his witch wife and his warrior concubines, they found three orcs toddlers. And the PC barbarian simply killed them.
Considering orcs are naturaly evil, that's not an evil act, but they were small kids, anyway.
So it was plague control or terrible crime?
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Orcs aren't naturally Evil, they just have a high predisposition towards it.
Source: Every non-Evil orc ever
What's it matter if the act was Evil or not?
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It was evil, because the toddlers were defenseless and innocent.
They could have grown up to be evil (or good), but now they're dead.
I do hope this barbarian feels proud, murdering babies after butchering their parents.
Its evil in my campaigns, not evil in my buddies.
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inb4 Mikaze's Social Defense Force
Killing the babies is probably a terrible thing to do, no matter what, but that doesn't mean the party itself had the time or the patience to do the right thing themselves. It's not like the villagers would take orc babies in anyway.
Those kids were pretty much destined to die or, at best, raise themselves in the wilderness after you killed their parents, which was a distinctly good act considering their crimes. In effect, your Barbarian was just cutting to the chase.
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For me, it's an evil act. But the PC argued the Bestiary says orcs are bad people. Also I remembered reading drow could only by Evil, so I supposed the same happended with orcs.
Are ther examples of non-Evil orcs in Golarion? All I've seen are evil, AFAIK.
This is the problem, did the barbarian do a knowledge local skill check to determine that? If i am not mistaken the bestiary doesn't exist.
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inb4 Mikaze's Social Defense Force
Killing the babies is probably a terrible thing to do, no matter what, but that doesn't mean the party itself had the time or the patience to do the right thing themselves. It's not like the villagers would take orc babies in anyway.
Those kids were pretty much destined to die or, at best, raise themselves in the wilderness after you killed their parents, which was a distinctly good act considering their crimes. In effect, your Barbarian was just cutting to the chase.
Why punish the babies for the crimes of their parents?
Also, Mikaze is awesome. You're not doing yourself any favors mocking him.
A lot of dm's make the mistake of when a knowledge local check that they tell them "they're orcs" instead of giving them info on the race such as the race is predominately evil, but there are many exceptions.
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Orcs do not have the Evil sub-type. Neither do the drow.
They are NOT always evil, even if an evil alignment is common among them.
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inb4 Mikaze's Social Defense Force
Killing the babies is probably a terrible thing to do, no matter what, but that doesn't mean the party itself had the time or the patience to do the right thing themselves. It's not like the villagers would take orc babies in anyway.
Those kids were pretty much destined to die or, at best, raise themselves in the wilderness after you killed their parents, which was a distinctly good act considering their crimes. In effect, your Barbarian was just cutting to the chase.
Its just to bad that the barbarian killed the one orc baby that was going to find the cure to all STDs. The brothels would of been safe. But nooooooo. Had to cut to the chase.
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It is just pest Control.
See the fable of the Scorpion and the frog.
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I'm not mocking Mikaze, his/her topics are cool, they're just an easy target and this is exactly the kind of thing they get excited about.
Like I said in my post, killing the babies was almost certainly evil, I didn't dispute that. I'm just saying 9/10 parties, Good or not, won't waste time finding a proper home for orc babies because that's not an adventure. It's thankless babysitting for kids that don't like you and a world that wishes they didn't exist. It can be a compelling story, but that's not what a lot of people asked for when they became an adventurer. Depends on the group and what they wanna tell a story about.
Not so. In Paizo's own book on good characters they do say that killing goblin babies can be a good act. However, individual character predispositions on the issue matter. Thus, it's up to the character.It was evil, because the toddlers were defenseless and innocent.
They could have grown up to be evil (or good), but now they're dead.
I do hope this barbarian feels proud, murdering babies after butchering their parents.
What specific book is this?
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My groups vary enough that I won't throw these kind of scenarios around willy-nilly. But if it were up to me, the Good-aligned characters have to actually display some benevolent behavior at times. Murderhobos get really boring rather fast.
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To me that sounds like an evil act.
Those orc toddlers hadn't been shaped into aggressive warriors.
Granted, what DominusMegadeus said about villagers not taking in orc babies is logical, fact remains they could have had the potential of being raised to at least N given the right circumstances.
I'm making a reference to the PREDATOR movies.
Despite being the most brutal humanoid killers, they adher a code not to kill non-combatants, especially children.
The 2nd movie at the subway murders, 1 of the cops shooting (combatant) gets killed and the Predator was about to kill the female cop who was shooting (combatant). However, it saw via infrared she was with child and let her go.
Sounds like the barb is more murderhobo than them in that aspect.
Have the toddlers haunt him, or his deity making him repent for this child murder. :)
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Not so. In Paizo's own book on good characters they do say that killing goblin babies can be a good act. However, individual character predispositions on the issue matter. Thus, it's up to the character.It was evil, because the toddlers were defenseless and innocent.
They could have grown up to be evil (or good), but now they're dead.
I do hope this barbarian feels proud, murdering babies after butchering their parents.
If I'm not too mistaken JJ denounced that piece of text.
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If I'm not too mistaken JJ denounced that piece of text.Not so. In Paizo's own book on good characters they do say that killing goblin babies can be a good act. However, individual character predispositions on the issue matter. Thus, it's up to the character.It was evil, because the toddlers were defenseless and innocent.
They could have grown up to be evil (or good), but now they're dead.
I do hope this barbarian feels proud, murdering babies after butchering their parents.
Cheers to James Jacobs for that!
I found the post I was thinking of. Take from it what you want.
So, the following passage is found in Champions of Purity:
One of the many quandaries good-aligned characters face during their adventuring careers is what to do about the progeny of evil humanoids. For example, shortly into their adventures, an adventuring party encounters a group of goblins who have been raiding a village, leaving a swath of death and destruction in their wake. The PCs track them to some caves and kill them—but the dead goblins leave behind babies. What should the PCs do with those? Kill them? Leave them be? What is the best and most appropriate thing for a good character to do in this situation?
Just as there are varying good alignments, there are different solutions to this problem. One good character might believe the children are not inherently evil, that their behavior is learned, and round up the young ones to take them to a higher power like a church, a monastery, or an orphanage set up to deal with the issue of raising humanoid children. Alternatively, he might decide to raise them himself! This could be viewed as the most saintly thing to do. Another character might decide not to do anything, leaving the children to the whims of nature—either the children will survive in the wild on their own, or they will not. Lastly, a good character who believes the younglings can never overcome their innate evil might kill them all outright, viewing the action as good, just, and the most merciful option.
The bolded part concerns some people, as an endorsement of the death of what amount to children/genocide of monstrous races as a canonical Good act. Now, that doesn't strike me as what the author of that passage probably meant...but I can see where people get that idea and it seems an unfortunate and problematic attitude, and is being cited elsewhere on these forums as Paizo's 'official' take.
So...three questions:
1. Basically, what was the intent behind the bolded section? Just to give GMs some in-print support for whatever decision they make on the issue, or to present the issue but leave the answer to the readers, or what?
2. In your own games, would killing children, even of a monstrous race, generally be a Good act? To clarify I'm talking Goblin or Orc babies/children here, not something made of supernaturally pure Evil or anything like that.
3. While you obviously can't speak for the other people at Paizo do you think they'd generally regard this as a Good act in games they were GMing?1) I would actually agree that the bolded part seems out of place in a book about good guys. If I were developing that book, I would not have included that section at all, and would have instead had the good guy put the "irredeemable children" into some sort of orphanage or the like geared toward minimizing their evils. Even that starts to feel non-good though, and since the idea that some children are born evil is a compelling story element (It works great for movies like "The Omen" after all), it SHOULD be a part of the setting. THAT'S what I suspect the bolded quote is talking about... and in cases where you're faced with a reincarnated devil or the like using a child's body as armor... killing that child may just be a necessary evil. And in fact, the devil doing so might just WANT good characters to take that step in order to make them loose their purity. It's not playing fair, but that's what evil's all about. But that should be pretty rare, and by putting it into a book aimed at players it makes it feel like it's more common than it should be.
2) Killing anything isn't a good act in my games. It's not necessarily evil though... ENJOYING the act of killing is. Killing itself is a neutral act; animals do it all the time and they're neutral. It's when you attach agendas to the act that it turns evil or whatever. But as for those orc babies? That brings to mind "True Detective" and its claim that bad men are important because they do things that the good men don't do but still need to be done.
3) As a general rule, I'd say that pretty much everyone at Paizo would qualify child killing as an evil act, with exceptions when it comes to situations where the child is something like a devil incarnate or the like, and even then that'd be a plot we shy away from in print. Pen and Paper tabletop gaming isn't really able to explore those much more mature storylines without backlash, alas.
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Wait, how is having a kid who is evil incarnate a mature story element?
As much as I appreciate JJ being against baby killing, some of the stuff in that post makes no sense to me.
More mature in comparison to the way stories like that can go. Good guys don't have an easy out, they have to kill a child.
Yes, it is absolutely the devil. No, it doesn't turn into a monster, it still looks like a kid. No, it cannot be redeemed. Yes, it has parents that love it. You have to take the neutral path of killing it, because the alternative is the evil act of letting it live.
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Cynicism isn't synonymous with maturity if you ask me...
Warhammer 40k is one of the darkest series I know, but it sure as hell doesn't feel very mature.
Wait, how is having a kid who is evil incarnate a mature story element?
As much as I appreciate JJ being against baby killing, some of the stuff in that post makes no sense to me.
Most games don't force you to make the choice of the lesser of two evils or put you in a very difficult moral decision. That is what I think the means by "mature", since in most games the path is pretty easy with regard to the morally "right thing to do".
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I prefer moral ambiguity over "always right" and "never right" scenarios.
Being a hero shouldn't be easy, but making it impossible is also undesirable as an outcome.
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I prefer moral ambiguity over "always right" and "never right" scenarios.
Being a hero shouldn't be easy, but making it impossible is also undesirable as an outcome.
But sometimes, that's just how it is. And dealing with that means growing up. Maturity.
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But sometimes, that's just how it is. And dealing with that means growing up. Maturity.I prefer moral ambiguity over "always right" and "never right" scenarios.
Being a hero shouldn't be easy, but making it impossible is also undesirable as an outcome.
Growing up to be what, a bitter teenager?
It's less mature to consider everything horrid than learning that the world can be both ugly and beautiful.
True maturity comes from wisdom and experience with the world and the people in it, for all the good and the bad that comes from it.
Looking at only one side of the coin, you'd think it's a one-sided object. That's how I see maturity at the core. Then again, I've become convinced that maturity is a subjective term.
I prefer moral ambiguity over "always right" and "never right" scenarios.
Being a hero shouldn't be easy, but making it impossible is also undesirable as an outcome.
I think situations where there is no perfectly good answer and both answers cause harm ok if use occasionally. It should not be something Paizo or a GM uses for every story.
The barb was fighting bad guys, and kept going through the kidds...
What did he know about orcs (seriously... What did the barb know... Not what did the player read in the bestiary)?
How did the barb see orcs as a race?
Even if you declare it an evil act, so what?
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Barbs are generally known to be below average in education... He is fighting another race, and find young kids. He know he can't take care of the kids, and decide it'd easyer to kill the now than let them starve to death. Bringing them to some1 who CAN AND WILL take care of 3 orc babies is to much work...
What is orcs? Enemies that must be destroyed at any cost? Animals? Potential partners? A wounded animal and an enemy is good to be killed...
In Pathfinder they are no longer assumed to be illiterate, and if you can have shamans with wisdom in tribes then being able to rage should not take that away, but I do think your idea is ok for a character, but not for an entire class.
But sometimes, that's just how it is. And dealing with that means growing up. Maturity.I prefer moral ambiguity over "always right" and "never right" scenarios.
Being a hero shouldn't be easy, but making it impossible is also undesirable as an outcome.
Growing up to be what, a bitter teenager?
It's less mature to consider everything horrid than learning that the world can be both ugly and beautiful.
True maturity comes from wisdom and experience with the world and the people in it, for all the good and the bad that comes from it.
Looking at only one side of the coin, you'd think it's a one-sided object. That's how I see maturity at the core. Then again, I've become convinced that maturity is a subjective term.
I didn't say everything has to be grimdark to teach maturity. I said you have to deal with grimdark at some point.
If you think maturity is seeing both the beautiful and the ugly, then the ugly has to be acknowledged at some point. Because that's reality. In reality, sometimes everything does work out perfect, or as close as anything can be to perfect, but a lot of the time it doesn't. In reality, there are no-win situations. Not all the time, but it happens.
But sometimes, that's just how it is. And dealing with that means growing up. Maturity.I prefer moral ambiguity over "always right" and "never right" scenarios.
Being a hero shouldn't be easy, but making it impossible is also undesirable as an outcome.
Growing up to be what, a bitter teenager?
It's less mature to consider everything horrid than learning that the world can be both ugly and beautiful.
True maturity comes from wisdom and experience with the world and the people in it, for all the good and the bad that comes from it.
Looking at only one side of the coin, you'd think it's a one-sided object. That's how I see maturity at the core. Then again, I've become convinced that maturity is a subjective term.
I didn't say everything has to be grimdark to teach maturity. I said you have to deal with grimdark at some point.
If you think maturity is seeing both the beautiful and the ugly, then the ugly has to be acknowledged at some point. Because that's reality. In reality, sometimes everything does work out perfect, or as close as anything can be to perfect, but a lot of the time it doesn't. In reality, there are no-win situations. Not all the time, but it happens.
I do not disagree with that. I do disagree with the people who make the mistake of ignoring one side for the other.
There's a reason why there is such a trope as "True Art is Angsty". Some think maturity only comes from the darker side of life.
It depends.
Its evil if orcs = funny looking humans.
Its not evil if orcs = monstrosities which kill and maim on instinct.
In the first case, then there is such a thing as orc children, in the latter there are no orc children just monstrous spawn which don't differ from the adult forms except in size.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The orcs (as written in the Bestiary) do NOT have the Evil subtype. They are NOT always Evil.
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The orcs (as written in the Bestiary) do NOT have the Evil subtype....It depends.
Its evil if orcs = funny looking humans.
Its not evil if orcs = monstrosities which kill and maim on instinct.
In the first case, then there is such a thing as orc children, in the latter there are no orc children just monstrous spawn which don't differ from the adult forms except in size.
Nor does a bear with rabies have the Evil subtype. It's not even evil at all. It should still be put down.
I actually agree with you Icyshadow - but there is a valid argument to be made in certain settings for each side.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The orcs (as written in the Bestiary) do NOT have the Evil subtype....It depends.
Its evil if orcs = funny looking humans.
Its not evil if orcs = monstrosities which kill and maim on instinct.
In the first case, then there is such a thing as orc children, in the latter there are no orc children just monstrous spawn which don't differ from the adult forms except in size.
Perhaps in this GM's particular setting orcs ARE always evil. Just like a golden dragon could be evil and a red dragon can be good. Just because the Bestiary does not state they are always evil does not mean that in a specific setting they always are evil.
Personally, I feel there could have been a better solution than murdering unarmed toddlers, monstrous race or no. However, every situation is different. I was not there, I do not know the setting. My first inclination is to say, yes, that was a pretty horrible act.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The orcs (as written in the Bestiary) do NOT have the Evil subtype....It depends.
Its evil if orcs = funny looking humans.
Its not evil if orcs = monstrosities which kill and maim on instinct.
In the first case, then there is such a thing as orc children, in the latter there are no orc children just monstrous spawn which don't differ from the adult forms except in size.
Nor does a bear with rabies have the Evil subtype. It's not even evil at all. It should still be put down.
I actually agree with you Icyshadow - but there is a valid argument to be made in certain settings for each side.
Im not quite sure that us a good example. As a bear with rabies that are diseased and sick and violent is different from a non violent baby sucking on its jaw tusks.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The orcs (as written in the Bestiary) do NOT have the Evil subtype....The subtype is for outsiders.
A material plane race can also be entirely and wholly evil. But they would not be tagged with that subtype because it is reserved for outsiders. The tag is more about how spells and certain abilities interact with outsider creatures.
In the end, when someone is designing a setting, its their call as to what the basic nature of the creatures are. Some might have variable alignment, some might be entirely evil without exception, the bestiaries don't define that.
If, on the other hand, we are talking about Golarion, then you can answer the question as the developers have decided those things already.
I recall a line from either the Core Rulebook or the Bestiary that disagreed with that statement.
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Im not quite sure that us a good example. As a bear with rabies that are diseased and sick and violent is different from a non violent baby sucking on its jaw tusks.
That's my point. In this particular setting orcs may be nothing but creatures who are basically infected with killing and violence. (Tolkien style.) If that is the case - it isn't evil to put them down.
In Golarion it would be evil though.
Good and evil depend entirely on the setting.
In Golarion - the place where any use of undead whatsoever is universally evil - it's actually an evil act, because they're redeemable.
In your homebrew or in Faerun or Eberron or whatever, who knows.
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I'm glad we've come to an agreement here, or rather, discovered that we were both arguing the same thing after all.
The issue now becomes the orc babies, as usual. More than just 'what would a Good person do' (because we all know the answer is 'find them a home'), we have to ask ourselves 'what would a gaming group do?' You can make a good story out of it, but your entire previous campaign is now basically worthless, because you have to care for orc babies. The villagers the Orcs were raiding? Not gonna be too cool with that. Giving them to another Orc tribe is knowingly giving them to someone who will raise them Evil.
I always liked Sarenrae for this kind of stuff. Drop the babies off at one of her temples. The Clerics or Monks or Paladins do their best to raise them, and if it fails, they take the canonically Good path of brutally slaughtering irredeemable Evil. Praise The Sun.