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@ Secret Wizard
But the game has to be Horde/Alliance = Good/Evil lest we all have to meta-game. If I play a Dwarven paladin and in the course of our adventure decimate an Orc tribe leaving no survivors must I atone and lose my class features despite my worship of a diety who is against orcs and being raised in Dwarven society where due to a history of war we are taught how to take them down specifically? With this genre of game the goal is to be someone else. It is not to play through your morality but your character. To say it is an evil act despite a character upbringing saying it was the right thing to do is to force us all to play through the game not as our characters, but as 3rd person overseers.Yes. You should atone. Or maybe not even be able to.
There is nothing in any of the Dwarven writeups saying all orcs must be killed on sight. Yeah, you don't like orcs. You won't trust them. You're good at killing them when they attack, as they always do. You still don't have to kill all of them. Even your dwarven god doesn't command killing every orc. I know that, because he's not an evil deity. Which I know because you're a paladin.Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
That line was removed from Inner Sea Gods, you know. It's been retconned, just like Asmodean Paladins and some other things.
That line was removed from Inner Sea Gods, you know. It's been retconned, just like Asmodean Paladins and some other things.@ Secret Wizard
But the game has to be Horde/Alliance = Good/Evil lest we all have to meta-game. If I play a Dwarven paladin and in the course of our adventure decimate an Orc tribe leaving no survivors must I atone and lose my class features despite my worship of a diety who is against orcs and being raised in Dwarven society where due to a history of war we are taught how to take them down specifically? With this genre of game the goal is to be someone else. It is not to play through your morality but your character. To say it is an evil act despite a character upbringing saying it was the right thing to do is to force us all to play through the game not as our characters, but as 3rd person overseers.Yes. You should atone. Or maybe not even be able to.
There is nothing in any of the Dwarven writeups saying all orcs must be killed on sight. Yeah, you don't like orcs. You won't trust them. You're good at killing them when they attack, as they always do. You still don't have to kill all of them. Even your dwarven god doesn't command killing every orc. I know that, because he's not an evil deity. Which I know because you're a paladin.Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
Gonna need a source on that.
@ Secret Wizard
But the game has to be Horde/Alliance = Good/Evil lest we all have to meta-game. If I play a Dwarven paladin and in the course of our adventure decimate an Orc tribe leaving no survivors must I atone and lose my class features despite my worship of a diety who is against orcs and being raised in Dwarven society where due to a history of war we are taught how to take them down specifically? With this genre of game the goal is to be someone else. It is not to play through your morality but your character. To say it is an evil act despite a character upbringing saying it was the right thing to do is to force us all to play through the game not as our characters, but as 3rd person overseers.Yes. You should atone. Or maybe not even be able to.
There is nothing in any of the Dwarven writeups saying all orcs must be killed on sight. Yeah, you don't like orcs. You won't trust them. You're good at killing them when they attack, as they always do. You still don't have to kill all of them. Even your dwarven god doesn't command killing every orc. I know that, because he's not an evil deity. Which I know because you're a paladin.Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
No where in that code does it say orc babies who only have suckled at their mommas teets are enemies.
Also killing babies does not bring honor.
I would even say that strategy in the above circumstance would be to raise the babies in the tenents of Torag. To hate the evil attrocities of their forebare. To bring a revolution to the orc species where their character becomes that of good and honor.
Someone's going to complain about cultural genocide soon...
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The thing I don't get, is if these evil orcs are such a warrior tribe, why weren't their women and children fighting? Like fremen in Dune, their children should be knifing the players that fall and their women should be on the front lines.
Are these orcs really raiding the the "good" lands, or has your party gone out of their way to murder enemies which don't actually threaten anyone's safety.
Evil wise, I think killing orcs because they are orcs fits into the neutral or lawful neutral perspective. It is most certainly not good, but they aren't doing it in a particularly cruel manner. This is especially the case if the local government is opposed to the existence of orcs and has laws which allow killing orcs because they are orcs.
Evil would be telling the orc toddlers that one would get to live and having them fight to the death to see which one would get spared. (Dark Knight reference, but it is a good one here.) Might even take it up a notch and kill the one that survives.
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A good comparison is weeding your yard. If the PCs honestly view the orcs as weeds, then removing them isn't evil or good, it just is. Them being small or large weeds doesn't play into it.
As for genocide, you have to consider the species to have value as life for genocide to be evil. Removing invasive plants from a garden, insects from a home, and so forth could all be considered genocide if you value the plant and insect life as life.
Mind you, one person's evil is another person's kindness.
A good comparison is weeding your yard. If the PCs honestly view the orcs as weeds, then removing them isn't evil or good, it just is. Them being small or large weeds doesn't play into it.
As for genocide, you have to consider the species to have value as life for genocide to be evil. Removing invasive plants from a garden, insects from a home, and so forth could all be considered genocide if you value the plant and insect life as life.
Mind you, one person's evil is another person's kindness.
For me that is not a good comparison. A weed grows where its seed falls. They do not have a chance to purposefully save or take lives.
Gonna need a source on that.That line was removed from Inner Sea Gods, you know. It's been retconned, just like Asmodean Paladins and some other things.
Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
Gwen's actually quoting Inner Sea Gods, page 150. The original text from Faiths of Purity discussed scattering families, which is what's been retconned out - probably because of too many players/GMs assuming that meant the lawful good deity approved of genocide. (As usual, I am going to link to Sherman's March to the Sea as an example of what I would expect to be Torag-kosher tactics. "Scatter their families" does not mean "kill them all" but too many people seem to have trouble grasping that, so Paizo took the line out.)
The key line is "I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag."
Pulping helpless babies doesn't bring honor to any non-evil deity. =P
A brief overview of the Torag section indicates that Torag strongly supports defense over offense - being so tough that no one screws with you in the first place. If the orcs attack your walls, then yeah, you kill the hell out of them, but Torag doesn't really see a point to following the orcs back to counter-attack unless there's a dire need for it.
Quick question about the RotRL goblin "nursery" - in the Anniversary Edition the nursery's by default empty, but the adventure calls out that the GM could stick goblin babies in there if he wants to see how the players deal with. Was the nursery populated by default in the original version of the Burnt Offerings?
@ Mudeater - the orcs in question are very young - toddlers was what the OP said. Yeah, orcs older than that in a normal orc society are probably going to be violent - orcish society kills the ones who aren't.
Viewing sapient creatures as nonpersons is... well. "_______ aren't really people, you can do whatever you want to them" rarely ever sounds good =P
It is necessary to kill them.
Unless you wish, as a group, morality tales to be a big part of the game, because it will start to dominate the campaign in time. You can only drop off so many babies in so many orphanages before that becomes the game you are playing
Kill them off camera and move on, IME.
Someone's going to complain about cultural genocide soon...Because the orc culture of murdering & pillaging should be protected? Lol.
I kid you not, that happened in another thread around here...
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Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
Yes, because clearly small children are your people's enemies!
Wait. No, no they aren't, and this paragraph thus does not remotely apply to them.
The extra work of saving the children can tkae 30 seconds.
As far as the rules are concerned the line from Champions of Purity covers it. The act of killing the young of generally evil races isn't considered an out of character or evil act necessarily.
For games played at home, which is 99% of them, feel free to rule this as you wish. But also let your players know ahead of time.
In my games I don't bring in innocent children to cause moral quandries because I'm not interested in them and neither are my players. We prefer much more black and white games because were not there for a debate about morality. If for whatever reason they do appear, I would consider killing them to be neutral. Ensuring their survival would be good a good act. Torturing, causing a cruel death, and slavery would all be evil options. The same as virtually any other characters you encounter.
Also, may I remind everyone that good and evil are objectively set by the gods of golarion so it cannot change based on different characters interpretations. It will however change based on how your GM interprets the gods ideas of good and evil.
Champions of Purity is not part of the Core Rulebook, and can thus be ignored. James Jacobs condemning that one line concerning the killing of baby goblins as a Good action also helps.
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Whee! We're debating whether murdering the children of sentient races is immoral! How far our species has come.
I don't think that scenario exists just to make the game less fun.
While it doesn't work for some groups, it DOES work for others, you know.
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In a game where good and evil were mere societal construct you'd be correct.
Once upon a time it was, for example, often considered a good or at least neutral thing to kill Native Americans.
Pathfinder and D&D in general use a more objective standard for good and evil. The genocidal killer still pings the paladin's evil meter, even if his culture thinks it's just fine.
Well, a paladin is a good character, whose actions are judged by their good diety. I wasn't saying the action was good. I was saying this is something a lawful neutral or just neutral character would do.
Though in regards to paladins, instead of weeding, he could apply the same mentality that allows him to "slay" undead. No one's accusing the paladin of being a genocidal killer, even when they go out of their way to kill every undead creature they can find. Doesn't matter if the undead are mindless or intelligent, the paladin will cut them all down and feel good about it.
It is the attitude of viewing life, creatures, or objects, as things which exist for a singular purpose which creates the ability for humans to preform "mass removals" of a species or creature type. They dismiss moral or emotional attachments, and decide that the thing serves a single purpose, which in the case of genocide, is an unwanted purpose.
Slavery has very similar justification, which morally revolves around the idea the exist to serve/submit. Slavery fails when a people's moral basis for said slavery crumbles and they begin to see their slaves as equals, or at least as fellow creatures.
I'm not intending to advocate either, nor am I discouraging the paladins destruction of the undead, just explaining the mentality that allows it to happen.
I will note with regards to genocide, it really isn't feasible that the PCs will live long enough to commit genocide on orcs. Orcs just reproduce too quickly and are already far too numerous for the PCs to remove the entire race.
For me that is not a good comparison. A weed grows where its seed falls. They do not have a chance to purposefully save or take lives.
Yes, like children, the weeds grow where they are born. Insects in your home are the same, especially given their rather short lifespans. If the spot they occupy isn't ideal, you can move or destroy them.
This is most certainly a selfish action, as it is your desires which are being given more importance than the desires of the weed/insect/child.
Regarding moving Vs destroying, it depends how feasible each is. Moving them can mean a slow death, so one can argue that the quick death is less torturous. If the means exist to relocate the children to a location where they can live, then that is the moral road.
In the case of orc children, where are they welcome? And more so, how can the adventurers which just destroyed an orc camp approach any orc child friendly location?
In the example, I am under the impression that the PCs killed them swiftly. They viewed the orcs as an obstacle, not as creatures which have lives that they lived. They dismissed the hardships the orcs endured to get where they are, and focused solely on their evil reputation. The PCs view killing orcs akin to self defense, given that they view the orcs as beings that will maim good people if given the chance, without reason, and this is core to being orc and has nothing to do with how non-orcs treat orcs...
This is selfish and ignorant, but not evil.
Though the not accepting surrender part still bothers me.Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.Yes, because clearly small children are your people's enemies!
Wait. No, no they aren't, and this paragraph thus does not remotely apply to them.
"Except when strategy warrants" gives a huge amount of leeway.
You could rephrase that as "I'll accept surrender when it's a good idea."
Though it very much gives a paladin of Torag the leeway to respond to an offer of surrender with "No. I am going to kill you for your crimes. You can pick up your weapon and go out fighting, or you can accept a swift execution at my hands."
A Stonelord of Torag is on my to-play list, one of these days...
Unless that dwarven god is Torag:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
"I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag."
Seems like even followers of Torag don't get a free pass.
Champions of Purity is not part of the Core Rulebook, and can thus be ignored. James Jacobs condemning that one line concerning the killing of baby goblins as a Good action also helps.
I respect James quite a bit, and on matters of Golarion lore he is the authority. I often agree with him. But his opinion is in conflict with the closest thing we have to an actual rule about it.
And it's fine if you want to run your game that way.
But honestly, I couldn't agree more with thejeff. The only times I've really seen resolving what happens with children play out is that it turns into a big mess that distracts from the real goal of the campaign. Generally when I've seen a GM put it in there, it's a trap, usually for a paladin. No one else really cares much about the morality, because the majority of classes aren't depedent on maintaing a good alignment.
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Kill Bill: Vol. 1 CLIP - Your Mother Had it Coming
Specifically around the 1 min mark.
Kill the evil parent. Leave the kid. It's not your responsibility to raise the kid or anything, but certainly there's no reason to kill it for it's parents misdeeds or what it MIGHT do in the future. Hell, even if you assume all orcs (or w/e) are evil, you can't punish them for evil deeds they haven't committed yet.
Leave the kid to die of exposure, suffering for what is left of it's life. On the side of the angels, we are.
I generally avoid the "races are always evil" trope. It actually takes a lot of pressure off my party (especially the Paladin), because they just treat everyone like they are the core races. And, it also prevents the "Drizzt" syndrome of being the one good "X".
The extra work of saving the children can tkae 30 seconds.Or multiple sessions if your GM wants to be obnoxious about it. Which is likely, since he forced the situation in the first place.
I forget that in an rpg you should go through an entire life time without ever coming across a child or a moral dilemma. Because overcoming adversity without actual moral dilemmas is how we get to be heroes/villains. Might as well just call them adventurers.
"Hey mom, when I grow up I want to kill little kids smaller than sissy."
"Now son.. you can't do that. Kids like you don't exist in the real world."
might have missed it but.
did the Barb eat the bodies? or at least make decorations out of there skulls?
Because if he didn't he's just killing for sport, and that is wasteful.
LOL
Religious dogma and other quoted passages about baby goblin killing aside, this is evil without a doubt. In no situation would I ever consider the slaughter of unarmed children to be even close to neutral. No neutral or good character would look at a child and consider it a threat unless it happened to be a spawn of yog-sothoth.
You can try to bring relativism into it. But all you are doing is rationalizing unnecessary murder.
LOLmight have missed it but.
did the Barb eat the bodies? or at least make decorations out of there skulls?
Because if he didn't he's just killing for sport, and that is wasteful.
It's okay to kill a goblin baby as long as you use the whole baby.
I for one am amazed this has gone to almost 200 posts.
I saw the title, and I thought, "Yup", and figured it would be like seven people saying "Yep. Why ask such a thing? Next, you'll be asking if the sky is blue, or gravity always makes things fall down," and then, you know, obscurity.
Oh, internet. I underestimated you.
I for one am amazed this has gone to almost 200 posts.
I saw the title, and I thought, "Yup", and figured it would be like seven people saying "Yep. Why ask such a thing? Next, you'll be asking if the sky is blue, or gravity always makes things fall down," and then, you know, obscurity.
Oh, internet. I underestimated you.
Welcome to the internet. Roll a d100.
Encounter Table:
1-8: Pictures of Cats
9-100: Internet Troll
I for one am amazed this has gone to almost 200 posts.
I saw the title, and I thought, "Yup", and figured it would be like seven people saying "Yep. Why ask such a thing? Next, you'll be asking if the sky is blue, or gravity always makes things fall down," and then, you know, obscurity.
Oh, internet. I underestimated you.
Welcome to the internet. Roll a d100.
Encounter Table:
1-8: Pictures of Cats
9-100: Internet Troll
That's wildly inaccurate.
There's plenty of porn out there, too.
I for one am amazed this has gone to almost 200 posts.
I saw the title, and I thought, "Yup", and figured it would be like seven people saying "Yep. Why ask such a thing? Next, you'll be asking if the sky is blue, or gravity always makes things fall down," and then, you know, obscurity.
Oh, internet. I underestimated you.
Welcome to the internet. Roll a d100.
Encounter Table:
1-8: Pictures of Cats
9-100: Internet TrollThat's wildly inaccurate.
There's plenty of porn out there, too.
Yes, but for the sake of it not taking up 1-99 of the random encounter table. I just assume it's everywhere.
Does this type of things need to be said often? Or is it pretty rare?
The thing that gets me about this type of dilemma, is that it usually seems that the PC's are the first sentient creatures in the game world to encounter it.
Either it just never came up for any other adventuring party, ever, or no one other than the PC's ever had any moral qualms about killing the babies or leaving them for dead.
I mean, if it it's the sort of thing that happens (and it should, unless the PC's are the first adventuring party in the world) from time to time wouldn't there be some sort of custom regarding it?
If "good" people are expected to drop the kids off at a conveniently located orphanage or church, then that implies that there are full blooded orcs (and goblins and kobolds) that have been raised among the core races.
Which begs the question - why can't I play one?
Which in turn leads to the inescapable conclusion:
If I can't play an Orc, then it's OK to kill orc babies.
Who says you can't? (Unless you're in PFS, but you know what, as I'm wont to do, I spit on PFS's arbitrary rules.)
I have literally had that adopted orc with the raised-in-a-church-orphanage-parents-were-murdered-by-adventurers backstory in my party.
The thing that gets me about this type of dilemma, is that it usually seems that the PC's are the first sentient creatures in the game world to encounter it.
Either it just never came up for any other adventuring party, ever, or no one other than the PC's ever had any moral qualms about killing the babies or leaving them for dead.
I mean, if it it's the sort of thing that happens (and it should, unless the PC's are the first adventuring party in the world) from time to time wouldn't there be some sort of custom regarding it?
If "good" people are expected to drop the kids off at a conveniently located orphanage or church, then that implies that there are full blooded orcs (and goblins and kobolds) that have been raised among the core races.
Which begs the question - why can't I play one?
Which in turn leads to the inescapable conclusion:
If I can't play an Orc, then it's OK to kill orc babies.
So if your GM decides not to allow you to play humans it's ok to kill human babies?