GMs running good Campaigns, how do you handle all those orphaned kids?

[Oxylepy]

Or dead, as the case may be. When the party goes out and fighta/kills goblins, hobgoblins, giants... how do they cope with the fact that they are either killing possible parents or children?

I have actively held family dynamics in every game I have run for enemies where it would be applicable and have watched evil characters thwart eachother in an attempt to save the innocent, and I have seen people of the cloth murder children because the stat block says they tend to be evil, without even checking to see if they really are.

So how do you guys handle these situations, or do you just sweep it under the rug?

[Black Hammer]

Depends on the tone of the game. Generally speaking, the fluff for a lot of trash humanoid monsters has them maturing quickly and not taking great care of their young for long. "Orphaning" a goblin who grows up inside three years and may well not be around his parents for half of that is a different animal than if that process takes twelve years and the doting attention of his entire tribe.

That aside, I generally avoid giving players a good reason to go into a goblin village and depopulate it. Being ambushed by goblins isn't terribly loaded; sure, they may be fathers, and there's the occasional fresh-faced juvenile recruit clutching his pointy stick in his shaky green hands who gets blown away with fireball backblast or a convenient cleave, but they did pick up weapons and start a fight.

If I'm going to put players in a moral situation, it's the result of a choice, either mine to trigger a little thought about character morality, or theirs to muck about in loaded territory.

Now, you specify a "good" campaign; is this merely in contrast to the "evil" campaign, or is it as explicitly good as the evil campaign tends to be evil? If your adventurers are supposed to be strong, moral folk out to better the world, and not just mercenary murder hobos who find it more convenient to be nice for business purposes, then I would throw moral situations at them regularly.

As a player, I once had a monk (religious, not punch-punch) leave adventuring and open an orphanage to alleviate the carnage left by his comrades, recognizing that while their work was for the greater good, once that good was accomplished he still had responsibility for the side effects of their actions. Also had a kobold who recruited all the leftovers from the kobold tribes the party shattered for his own personal fief, though I'm not sure becoming a kobold pirate king with an army of orphans fits with the "good campaign" thing.

[Deadmanwalking]

What orphans?

I've almost never had or seen a game where players go to a humanoid creature's home village and kill every adult in the place. That's...not really a thing that occurs. And not really very heroic for the most part.

They certainly kill humanoid foes, but it's usually more of a 'we kill the raiding party or warband' than 'Let's do the whole f%!$ing village!'.

That being the case...there's presumably a village out there that lost many of its adult warriors. But the parents who stayed home are still alive, so there aren't super high numbers of orphans.

In the few cases this does come up, I recommend taking them to orphanages.

All of the above, of course, assumes a non-Evil game. Though my LE Drow Bard was actually all for sending the children of his enemies to orphanages, too (to be indoctrinated into his new empire's philosophies). He was a very effective villain...

[KujakuDM]

Cross_Roads_Between_Antipaladin_Castle_and_Burning_Orphanage

Seriously, this isn't an issue in worlds where morality is a divine mandate. If you put your PC's in this situation however they handle it is the right situation. But you really shouldn't put them in this situation to begin with.

It's not hard for a GM to say, "They don't have any children at the camp, its between birthing seasons" or "The children all seem to have been taken away."

Don't actively look for ways to "Make a Paladin Fall" as it were.

[quibblemuch]

My rug is lumpy with the corpses of goblin orphans.

[Oxylepy]

Oh, no, I am asking. There is no maliscious looking for means to make people's classes fall, however in our group killing children may be a direct death sentence, or so I have cultivated it after the direct murder of an infant. So PCs tend to be wary of even unnecessarily orphaning kids, except in evil campaigns. The only place I really find that the characters may be reticent toward killing enemy humanoids is in a good campaign. I suppose there is no restriction, but a no holds barred view of evil tends to be either shrug or kill the kids too.

[MeanMutton]

I don't find those stories to be at all interesting (and frequently upsetting) so I don't include orphaned monster children in my campaign.

[DM_Blake]

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

[Deadmanwalking]

DM_Blake wrote:

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

This doesn't follow logically at all in a world with objective morality. It happening does indeed follow logically, it being societally approved ditto.

But things can be societally approved and still be Evil. And in any game where there's objective morality, the murder of children is Evil. If it isn't, then throw out alignment, because you've made it utterly meaningless.

DM_Blake wrote:

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

They shouldn't be anything resembling Good after killing children. Nor would I want to play in any game where that was considered an act heroes would perform.

[Oxylepy]

See, this is why I made this topic. Discussion is amazing for this sort of thing, despite both sides potentially getting heated.

In my most recent game the party was sent to "send a message" to the lizard folk because they had "attacked the gripplis" due to a quarrel between their chiefs. They scared one, killed another, then survived some traps up a path to a village with 3 hide tents, each was a family. They waited until dusk, the one who has issues with killing humanoids was coerced into joining. They snuck into the first tent and he rolled a nat 1 on stealth, the other two dispatched the awaked child and then the adult male, the one PC jumped ship, the female got out and alerted everyone else, they set the tent on fire and bolted. All over a dispute about a game of cards.

The chief was thrilled, the one with issues about killing humanoids had immense character growth, as did the others. But the end result brought up some issues of morality, hence positing this topic.

[DM_Blake]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

They shouldn't be anything resembling Good after killing children. Nor would I want to play in any game where that was considered an act heroes would perform.

My point was that you already do: Earth is such a world. Look at Psalm 137.

If it can be acceptable on Earth, why not on Golarion? Heck, at least in Golarion is almost always portrayed as a case of "heroes" killing children of creatures that are racially evil so there is rationalization for it - which is an advantage earthlings don't have.

[Black Hammer]

Murdering kids over a gambling dispute. Sounds like like a normal day in rival tribal politics.

If it were my game, nobody in that group has a good alignment anymore, and aside from the one who dissented over murdering lizardman villagers in their sleep, they are on the fast track to Eviltown, population them and some dead, charred, defenseless lizardfolk.

I like situations similar to this as a GM. It gives the players a way to let their alignments stand out a bit. All too often the only difference between a LG character and a LN one is how much they donate to the temple. Neutral characters are a lot more willing to rack up the occasional "collateral damage" than good ones.

[Oxylepy]

Black Hammer wrote:

If it were my game, nobody in that group has a good alignment anymore, and aside from the one who dissented over murdering lizardman villagers in their sleep, they are on the fast track to Eviltown, population them and some dead, charred, defenseless lizardfolk

No one is good in this campaign to begin with.

[Black Hammer]

Oxylepy wrote:

Black Hammer wrote:

If it were my game, nobody in that group has a good alignment anymore, and aside from the one who dissented over murdering lizardman villagers in their sleep, they are on the fast track to Eviltown, population them and some dead, charred, defenseless lizardfolk

No one is good in this campaign to begin with.

The "GMS RUNNING GOOD CAMPAIGNS" bit led us astray, then.

[thejeff]

DM_Blake wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

They shouldn't be anything resembling Good after killing children. Nor would I want to play in any game where that was considered an act heroes would perform.

My point was that you already do: Earth is such a world. Look at Psalm 137.

If it can be acceptable on Earth, why not on Golarion? Heck, at least in Golarion is almost always portrayed as a case of "heroes" killing children of creatures that are racially evil so there is rationalization for it - which is an advantage earthlings don't have.

There may well be characters living in the world thinking it's perfectly acceptable, that doesn't mean they're right.

It's a game with objective morality, even if it's essentially GM defined. If the GM is happy with killing the babies being good in his game, it's good.
I'm just not interested in playing in that game.
Barring some particularly clever rationale for doing so. Some magically evil or particularly alien creatures might qualify. Not going to have any qualms about torching xenomorph eggs, for example.

[What's in the box?]

Something like this actually came up in one a campaign I was playing in SEVERAL years ago.

I, the bard (geisha), had been enslaved by this HORRIBLE Halfling woman who trapped my soul within a peacock (she did this with several people/birds) and had elaborate contracts with multiple genies.

At the climactic battle the party released my soul from the peacock (yay!), released the genies from their binds (any wishes the had already granted the woman were still good, but they were released from FUTURE service), and then we fought the Halfling lady

Now up until this point my character had been SOLELY dedicated to a support role, healing, and battlefield control. I had designed her to cast ONLY non-damaging spells. So while I was a great assistant to the party THEY were the ones who did all the actual work (did I mention that I was a bard?)

The Halfling chick went down fairly easy BUT her in place wish had her reincarnated as a baby.

My instinct was to KILL THE BABY... because it was, after all, this HORRIBLE person who was pro-slavery and evil deeds and very bad stuff (murder/slavery/theft... etc. but do you NEED an etc.?)

Well the rest of the party were VERY ambivalent AND they operated out of an orphanage and I had sorta dedicated myself to the player that had released my soul (the party as a whole were necessary but one fighter ACTUALLY did the act- and was the one who killed the Halfling chick) so I just sorta agreed.

(then possibly went invisible stole the child away from the orphanage and gave it to some Djinnis who knew how to handle the possible slaver chick)

The point is... Some babies ARE (or WERE) evil and I felt no particular reservations about eliminating it.

As for the leftovers of your particular group of murder hobos?... Wow... I have NO idea. In general players respond to murdering creatures (even evil creatures) with a far more cavalier attitude than would normally be expected from people.

[justaworm]

Oxylepy wrote:

Or dead, as the case may be. When the party goes out and fighta/kills goblins, hobgoblins, giants... how do they cope with the fact that they are either killing possible parents or children?

I have actively held family dynamics in every game I have run for enemies where it would be applicable and have watched evil characters thwart eachother in an attempt to save the innocent, and I have seen people of the cloth murder children because the stat block says they tend to be evil, without even checking to see if they really are.

So how do you guys handle these situations, or do you just sweep it under the rug?

You don't. This is a game. Monsters are bad; kill monsters ...

[Deadmanwalking]

DM_Blake wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

They shouldn't be anything resembling Good after killing children. Nor would I want to play in any game where that was considered an act heroes would perform.

My point was that you already do: Earth is such a world. Look at Psalm 137.

If it can be acceptable on Earth, why not on Golarion? Heck, at least in Golarion is almost always portrayed as a case of "heroes" killing children of creatures that are racially evil so there is rationalization for it - which is an advantage earthlings don't have.

I do not live in a world with objective morality (or not one we know about and can magically check anyway). I don't care what people within the game world believe about killing children (well, I do, but only in an in-game sense). No, what I care about is what the GM/game world as a a whole endorse as objectively correct behavior.

Because that's more or less what you're doing by allowing the murder of children to not make one Evil: You're saying that, in this world, doing so is objectively correct and people who object to it are delusional and factually wrong. That's a deeply f$$&ed up thing to be saying, and not a world I wish to participate in. It's very much like the campaign world where women are objectively stupider and weaker than men to the tune of -4 Int and Str. That's clearly objectively true and mechanically enforced in that world...but that world is unpleasant, uninteresting, and possibly implies ugly things about whoever wrote that rule. I see no way in which saying 'Murdering children is objectively okay' is any different from that.

Or, alternately, you're saying, as I mentioned previously, that the alignment system means nothing, because it isn't objective and has no actual relation to what any internally consistent moral code would actually consider right and wrong. And if that's the case, you're no longer playing Pathfinder as written even remotely, and this needs to be an explicit house rule. And, frankly, you should've ditched Alignment altogether making this whole discussion point meaningless.

Additionally, I do not actually live in a world where such actions are held up as those heroes would perform. Nobody in the societies I consider remotely reasonable brags about their baby-killing these days. I live in a world where such things were considered acceptable once, and are currently so considered only by a very few fringe societies that everyone else considers awful. That's quite a different thing.

[Oxylepy]

Black Hammer wrote:

The "GMS RUNNING GOOD CAMPAIGNS" bit led us astray, then.

Oh, I mean how do you guys handle it, especially with good parties/campaigns. A number of kids could easily wind up as orphans because of a bunch of murder hobos running off and committing a purge on their people. Even then, you have to figure there are gunna be kids in tribes as they don't mature within a year, so you may not see them because their somewhat caring parents had them hide, or they were all visiting grandma... but that doesn't really change that they may exist.

It's effectively Clerk's Death Star statement, revisited for the wake of creatures left defeated by the PCs

@Deadmanwalking I believe DM_Blake may be playing devil's advocate using the bible as what is determining "hero" status. As a heads up during this debate

[thejeff]

Oxylepy wrote:

Black Hammer wrote:

The "GMS RUNNING GOOD CAMPAIGNS" bit led us astray, then.

Oh, I mean how do you guys handle it, especially with good parties/campaigns. A number of kids could easily wind up as orphans because of a bunch of murder hobos running off and committing a purge on their people. Even then, you have to figure there are gunna be kids in tribes as they don't mature within a year, so you may not see them because their somewhat caring parents had them hide, or they were all visiting grandma... but that doesn't really change that they may exist.

Why are you "committing a purge on their people"? That's the base question.

Did the GM set up slaughtering the village as the right thing to do and have every adult there attack and fight to the death? Then it's on the GM. Did the party just see an orc village and attack in hopes of loot and kill everything in sight? Then it's on them.

If there's a conflict with the orcs and they have to kill some of them, then there likely will be orphans, but if they don't slaughter entire tribes, the kids can be left with the survivors. They'll have relatives there and there will likely be plenty of noncombatants and surviving warriors to both raise and protect them. Not an issue.
Any more than if some human raiders from a nearby tribe attacked and you killed some of them. There would likely be orphans there too, but they'd just stay with their relatives.

[Jiggy]

Quote:

I mean how do you guys handle it, especially with good parties/campaigns. A number of kids could easily wind up as orphans because of a bunch of murder hobos running off and committing a purge on their people.

In good parties/campaigns, they aren't murder hobos running off and committing a purge of their people.

You keep trying to ask "How do you handle X situation?", but the answer (for me, and clearly some others) is "We don't, because X doesn't happen."

[Oxylepy]

Again, I'm positing the question to others to find out how people feel about these NPCs or the murder hobos actions in lines with whatever they are engaged in. It isn't a situation with one clear set circumstance, it's more a discussion on the topic at hand, which is essentially the unintended collateral damage created by the PCs. I have yet to hear anyone mentioning revenge, but there has been a solid ethics debate based on objective morality vs real world characters viewed as heros

[Weirdo]

Not sure if you saw Jiggy's post above yours, but it explains why you're having problems getting opinions on the specific issue raised.

Speaking more generally about handling unintended collateral damage with a good party:

You could certainly have Inigo Mongoblin come looking for the six-fingered adventurer who killed his father, and that could be a fun plot. Of course, you could also have a revenge plot where someone comes after the party for imprisoning their father, or foiling their father's evil plan - the fact that the party has made enemies doesn't mean the party has done anything wrong.

Having an agent of good come after the party because of some collateral damage packs slightly more punch if you want them to reconsider a careless action. Alternatively a supernatural agent could hold the party to judgment or apply some karmic punishment or quest. My party did once end up in a demiplane of judgment in which we were held to task. Of course, because it was an actual good party our actions were less "wantonly creating orphans" and more "falsified documents in order to prevent a war."

In my experience, when a group actually really wants to play Good characters, it's enough to show them the consequences of their actions and if appropriate give them an opportunity to make recompense. In one game, out group ended up taking a drow noblewoman prisoner in the course of an espionage mission. We weren't in the position to hold her long-term and didn't want to kill her, so we ended up handing her over to some allies of ours for "ransom." Unfortunately one of her political enemies was willing to pay more than her family was, and we discovered later that she had been tortured and killed. It was a very grim moment, especially for my idealistic character who ended up donating the money we'd received for the mission to... a foundation for war orphans.

[zainale]

You have your cleric contact the church and request assistance for an orphanage dedicated to child labor. In the name of the church the children will be spared to create holy symbols, robes, really cool cloaks, and the ever popular high soft leather boots. They will be raised to become missionaries that spread the word of the church while aiding villages that have been raided by monster races. They will bring hope for a new generation in racial relations, and it would serve double use as these towns are most likely to have more recrui..errr... orphans soon.

[zainale]

is it like killing a nest of rats? or would you just kill all of the adult rats and leave the under aged rats to grow up and infest your grain silo at a later date? or would you kill the adults and take the under aged rats out into the woods where they would most likely die or give them to the pet store where they will die anyways to feed the other animals.killing goblins is like the rats killing them all is distasteful and leaves you twisting in your sleep from killing the children but goblin children grow up to be goblin mothers and fathers and adult goblins are like the nest of rats in your grain silo are a menace and you have to kill them all or enough that they leave the general area. but since goblin and kobalds are playable races and killing the neighbors and their kids that just moved in next door is bad so don't do that unless they are stealing your lawn tools and eating your food.

[Oxylepy]

By that logic you need to also kill all the humans. They constantly infest everyone else's grain silos, steal from the other races, and generally act antisocial.

Also the halflings will take your stuff and eat your food too.

[Weirdo]

Which is why good parties don't decide to just go and purge all the goblins.

[zainale]

my point

[Gisher]

DM_Blake wrote:

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

But the god Yahweh clearly has an Evil alignment. The authors had him commit one act of horror after another: genocide, infanticide, mind control, murder, torture, endorsing slavery, attempted murder, etc. I don't think you could find another character in all of fiction who is more abhorrent. If such a deity were created in the Golarion mythos, no one would ever think that its alignment might be Good.

The followers of this Evil magical creature engage in much the same behavior (albeit on a smaller scale). This might make them "heroes" in the eyes of other followers of the same Evil god, but it doesn't make those "heroes" Good. Voldemort's Death Dealers were revered (and feared) by his weaker followers, orcs in the LotR looked up to the Nazgul, and I'm sure lots of Stormtroopers were glad to have Vader fighting on their side, but none of those "heroes" would qualify as Good under the Pathfinder alignment system.

DM_Blake wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

They shouldn't be anything resembling Good after killing children. Nor would I want to play in any game where that was considered an act heroes would perform.

My point was that you already do: Earth is such a world. Look at Psalm 137.

If it can be acceptable on Earth, why not on Golarion? Heck, at least in Golarion is almost always portrayed as a case of "heroes" killing children of creatures that are racially evil so there is rationalization for it - which is an advantage earthlings don't have.

Such behavior isn't acceptable to everyone on Earth.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

I raise them to be my loyal soldiers.

[Davor]

DM_Blake wrote:

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

I'm actually going to argue against this point. Humanity is not the hero of Scripture: God is. Humanity, time and time again, does things that are really, truly terrible; that go against the very purpose for which we were designed. In the end, even when given the means to reach our salvation, we fall short EVERY TIME. Otherwise, the sacrifice of Christ is meaningless. We are not the heroes: in fact, we're arguably the villains. We just get to live happily ever after anyways.

Basically, just because the Jews committed genocide in the Bible doesn't mean it's a good thing.

[DonDuckie]

Judging by many character backgrounds, that's how murder-hobos... I mean... adventurers are made.

[thejeff]

Davor wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

I'm actually going to argue against this point. Humanity is not the hero of Scripture: God is. Humanity, time and time again, does things that are really, truly terrible; that go against the very purpose for which we were designed. In the end, even when given the means to reach our salvation, we fall short EVERY TIME. Otherwise, the sacrifice of Christ is meaningless. We are not the heroes: in fact, we're arguably the villains. We just get to live happily ever after anyways.

Basically, just because the Jews committed genocide in the Bible doesn't mean it's a good thing.

<Writes post analyzing God in the Bible. Deletes it.>

Let's just leave the evils or lack there of in real world religions out of this, please.

[MuertoXSky]

Killing innocent = Bad, bad people inspire people to arms ...

So generally, when players do stupid stuff such as depopulating an area, I punish them with vengeance. If they survive or not is another thing, but generally, the Hobgoblins try their vengeance, the goblins and the orcs aswel, and if they made the mistake to assault more than one tribe ... there is the high chance this tribes come to an agreement for vengeance.

[thejeff]

MuertoXSky wrote:

Killing innocent = Bad, bad people inspire people to arms ...

So generally, when players do stupid stuff such as depopulating an area, I punish them with vengeance. If they survive or not is another thing, but generally, the Hobgoblins try their vengeance, the goblins and the orcs aswel, and if they made the mistake to assault more than one tribe ... there is the high chance this tribes come to an agreement for vengeance.

Proving of course that they were right. The filthy humanoids are dangerous. The only problem is that there are sill more of them. The solution is obvious.

[Gisher]

Davor wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

I'm actually going to argue against this point. Humanity is not the hero of Scripture: God is. Humanity, time and time again, does things that are really, truly terrible; that go against the very purpose for which we were designed. In the end, even when given the means to reach our salvation, we fall short EVERY TIME. Otherwise, the sacrifice of Christ is meaningless. We are not the heroes: in fact, we're arguably the villains. We just get to live happily ever after anyways.

Basically, just because the Jews committed genocide in the Bible doesn't mean it's a good thing.

But the myths say that Yahweh was the one who ordered them to commit mass murder and genocide on many occasions. A king who ordered his men to slaughter all Halflings, even infants, in his kingdom would be considered Evil even if he never actually lifted a weapon himself.

Not to mention the many time that Yahweh commits these acts himself: the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the slaughter of the Egyption firstborns, etc. How many toddlers would have died in those cases? Were they Evil toddlers? A Golarion god who committed such acts would definitely be considered to have an Evil alignment.

[Nox Aeterna]

First thing to check is: Does you GM play a black and white world or does he play a world with shades of gray.

If the world is black and white , then kill everything that the book says is evil , even the kids , because they are also evil and will grow to become worse.

If the world works in shades of gray and being of race X doesnt mean you are evil , then save them.

Usually my good PCs will atempt to take care of said kids and escort them to a place they can be safe , like an orphanage. Hell one of my current PCs that is playing in a game where the GM gives plenty of gold actually build an orphanage among other "good" service buildings/organizations.

Chances are if my PC is neutral he wont care enough to take any action towards them and same can be said about an evil PC , that might actually kill the kids if there are benefits to be had.

[thejeff]

Nox Aeterna wrote:

First thing to check is: Does you GM play a black and white world or does he play a world with shades of gray.

If the world is black and white , then kill everything that the book says is evil , even the kids , because they are also evil and will grow to become worse.

If the world works in shades of gray and being of race X doesnt mean you are evil , then save them.

Usually my good PCs will atempt to take care of said kids and escort them to a place they can be safe , like an orphanage. Hell one of my current PCs that is playing in a game where the GM gives plenty of gold actually build an orphanage among other "good" service buildings/organizations.

Chances are if my PC is neutral he wont care enough to take any action towards them and same can be said about an evil PC , that might actually kill the kids if there are benefits to be had.

And when the GM tells you it's a realistic world with shades of grey and then has the kids you took to the orphanage grow up enough to slaughter the nuns and the rest of the children...

But more seriously, as I keep harping on, if it's really a shades of grey type of world and the humanoid races really are just people with some different ideas, why did you slaughter all of the adults, so the kids needed to be taken to an orphanage? Did every single adult orc attack and fight to the death? Isn't that a sign that they're really not much like regular people?
If you want the players to treat the monster races like people, you have to present them like people. If they're just little chunks of xp to be slaughtered, then you can't expect the kids to be handled differently.

[Davor]

Gisher wrote:

Davor wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

History on earth is full of humans killing infants of their human enemies. In the name of god, no less (it's a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, for example).

I take my lesson there from the Bible - plenty of "good" characters from the Bible managed to kill human babies for no other reason than that they lived in a different country and the "good" guys' god wanted them to kill the babies. And they still maintained their "good" status in the eyes of their own countrymen and presumably in the eyes of their god (since they're a hero in the Bible, not a villain).

If that's possible, then a game hero should be able to kill non-human typically evil creatures, even babies, without calling into question their "good" or "hero" status.

But I find the whole notion distasteful (in the Bible as well as in the game) so I generally just avoid it. However, I'm a sandboxy GM who lets the players drive the story, and if the story goes there, then that's what happens and we move along without dwelling on it. Although, I have been known to have such PCs encounter NPCs with more unforgiving attitudes about those kinds of actions - makes for a fun encounter where the "good" PCs have to encounter a "good" enemy who is seeking to punish them for presumed atrocities.

I'm actually going to argue against this point. Humanity is not the hero of Scripture: God is. Humanity, time and time again, does things that are really, truly terrible; that go against the very purpose for which we were designed. In the end, even when given the means to reach our salvation, we fall short EVERY TIME. Otherwise, the sacrifice of Christ is meaningless. We are not the heroes: in fact, we're arguably the villains. We just get to live happily ever after anyways.

Basically, just because the Jews committed genocide in the Bible doesn't mean it's a good thing.

But the myths say that Yahweh was the one who ordered them to commit mass murder and genocide on many occasions. A king who...

And that's a fair point, but spirituality in the real world also works completely differently than Golarion's mythology. I won't derail the topic any more than that. My main point was in saying that something happening in Scripture doesn't make that thing good.

[Nox Aeterna]

thejeff wrote:

Nox Aeterna wrote:

First thing to check is: Does you GM play a black and white world or does he play a world with shades of gray.

If the world is black and white , then kill everything that the book says is evil , even the kids , because they are also evil and will grow to become worse.

If the world works in shades of gray and being of race X doesnt mean you are evil , then save them.

Usually my good PCs will atempt to take care of said kids and escort them to a place they can be safe , like an orphanage. Hell one of my current PCs that is playing in a game where the GM gives plenty of gold actually build an orphanage among other "good" service buildings/organizations.

Chances are if my PC is neutral he wont care enough to take any action towards them and same can be said about an evil PC , that might actually kill the kids if there are benefits to be had.

And when the GM tells you it's a realistic world with shades of grey and then has the kids you took to the orphanage grow up enough to slaughter the nuns and the rest of the children...

But more seriously, as I keep harping on, if it's really a shades of grey type of world and the humanoid races really are just people with some different ideas, why did you slaughter all of the adults, so the kids needed to be taken to an orphanage? Did every single adult orc attack and fight to the death? Isn't that a sign that they're really not much like regular people?
If you want the players to treat the monster races like people, you have to present them like people. If they're just little chunks of xp to be slaughtered, then you can't expect the kids to be handled differently.

Well chances are some of the human kids will grow to become evil and who knows , maybe one will decide to kill the others. That doesnt mean every single human kid in the orphanage is evil. Same can be said about the ones you saved.

Humans for a long time , hell even today , look to other humans in our world and think of them being inferior for reasons X, Y and Z , it isnt dificult to imagine this happening in a pretty much medieval world with actually different races lols.

So i dont think it is hard to break said monster like they were "humans" but with a really different culture , one that might even drive them to always attack humans.

But culture is a barrier one might bypass depending on how he goes about it with a kid. Might being the key word. Still my good PCs would be willing to try.

One can assume if the GM is making a gray world , then there will be a path , even if a hard one to save said kids.

Anyway like others said , it isnt often that a situation comes up that you need to hunt every single adult to the last in a place , usually you just kill the war parties.

[Oxylepy]

Davor wrote:

 I won't derail the topic any more than that

From the topic creator: Feel free.

I don't consider any of this to be derailing to the topic at hand. It is a reality/gaming debate on morality which can very much shape different gaming worlds, it fundamentally handles the topic within the confines of any world which is not black and white. Good and evil acts are kind of the broader version of this topic, and I have been greatly enjoying both sides of this subtopic.

Although, can you guys stop quoting XD it no longer even works it just gives ellipsis

[Gisher]

Davor wrote:

And that's a fair point, but spirituality in the real world also works completely differently than Golarion's mythology. I won't derail the topic any more than that.

Since I don't believe that magic exists in the real world, it's all just mythology to me. So I was comparing them purely as one literary work against another. It's the same way that I might compare DC characters to Marvel ones.

Davor wrote:

My main point was in saying that something happening in Scripture doesn't make that thing good.

On that we can definitely agree. I would never look to scriptural texts, particularly those from the Abrahamic traditions, for moral guidance. Or any other type of guidance for that matter.

[thejeff]

Nox Aeterna wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Nox Aeterna wrote:

First thing to check is: Does you GM play a black and white world or does he play a world with shades of gray.

If the world is black and white , then kill everything that the book says is evil , even the kids , because they are also evil and will grow to become worse.

If the world works in shades of gray and being of race X doesnt mean you are evil , then save them.

Usually my good PCs will atempt to take care of said kids and escort them to a place they can be safe , like an orphanage. Hell one of my current PCs that is playing in a game where the GM gives plenty of gold actually build an orphanage among other "good" service buildings/organizations.

Chances are if my PC is neutral he wont care enough to take any action towards them and same can be said about an evil PC , that might actually kill the kids if there are benefits to be had.

And when the GM tells you it's a realistic world with shades of grey and then has the kids you took to the orphanage grow up enough to slaughter the nuns and the rest of the children...

But more seriously, as I keep harping on, if it's really a shades of grey type of world and the humanoid races really are just people with some different ideas, why did you slaughter all of the adults, so the kids needed to be taken to an orphanage? Did every single adult orc attack and fight to the death? Isn't that a sign that they're really not much like regular people?
If you want the players to treat the monster races like people, you have to present them like people. If they're just little chunks of xp to be slaughtered, then you can't expect the kids to be handled differently.

Well chances are some of the human kids will grow to become evil and who knows , maybe one will decide to kill the others. That doesnt mean every single human kid in the orphanage is evil. Same can be said about the ones you saved.

Humans for a long time , hell even today , look to other humans in our world and think of them being inferior for reasons X, Y and Z , it isnt dificult to imagine this happening in a pretty much medieval world with actually different races lols.

So i dont think it is hard to break said monster like they were "humans" but with a really different culture , one that might even drive them to always attack humans.

But culture is a barrier one might bypass depending on how he goes about it with a kid. Might being the key word. Still my good PCs would be willing to try.

One can assume if the GM is making a gray world , then there will be a path , even if a hard one to save said kids.

Anyway like others said , it isnt often that a situation comes up that you need to hunt every single adult to the last in a place , usually you just kill the war parties.

Even beyond war parties, every adult in the village shouldn't be throwing themselves on the party's swords, some of them should be running away or trying to protect the kids or get them away.

While humans have certainly often treated other groups of humans as horribly, that's not the kind of behavior I'm going to label good, nor is killing all the adults of such a group and taking their kids for re-education. Maybe a death-cult or something like that, but not your average village. Even if raiders live there.

And if the GM is having the orphans grow up and slaughter nuns and other children, that's not just "chances are", that's the GM applying his "shades of grey" morality to punish you for being good. No good deed goes unpunished.

[Davor]

Oxylepy wrote:

From the topic creator: Feel free.

Sure (Okay, I quoted, but I cut the quote down :P). *Preface: I fully admit I could totally be wrong about all of this, but this is my best interpretation.

Whenever I see people talk about how monstrous and amoral God is, I find that God is often treated as another human being. While there is some correlation between us, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) God, and the spiritual realm, exist separately from the physical universe, or at the very least God himself does. This is an important distinction. While we perceive things in a predominantly physical context, God perceives the entirety of his creation both from within AND without. This is important because:

2) When we talk about death, we speak of it in absolute terms. When someone dies, they are "gone." Scripture, however, depicts a very different outlook; that, while our bodies are present in the world, humans are more than flesh and blood. However, God is above death and decay: he proved as much when he died and returned from death. Additionally, the entire premise of scripture is that, before there was time or existence, there is God.

What this means is that, in a divine sense, death means something very different. It isn't something that is final: That's why the final judgment is alluded to as being the penultimate fate of humanity. Consequently, if death is NOT final, and is merely one aspect of mortality (at least, earthly mortality), then death is more of a slap on the wrist than anything else in a divine sense (Paraphrased 1 Corinthians 15:55 - Where then, Death is your sting?). And so, since God is above death, and death is not final, then punishment by death as far less cosmically severe than it seems.

At this point, there is a great temptation to belittle the pain of death, and subsequently to entirely devalue life, but that is where our humanity comes into play. Because we are bound by death whilst mortal, and death is subservient to the will of God, we have no power over it. To say "We ought to kill because death is meaningless" is to fail to understand our place in the universe. Rather, it is our privilege to celebrate life, and to comfort those to whom befalls tragedy, for doing so glorifies God, and disregarding the life which he gives as a gift is to spit in the face of God.

Now, I realize there are other issues besides death that have been mentioned, such as Scripture endorsing slavery, etc., but to be honest in all my reading I've never seen ENDORSEMENT of villainous acts. I've seen God blessing people in SPITE of their failings, but never endorsing cruelty, and always following through on his promise to Abraham. If I'm wrong in that regard, please let me know. :P

[Oxylepy]

This brings up an extremely important topic within Pathfinder as well, death is seldom final, the parents who die are granted some form of afterlife, almost regardless of means of death. This is evident in True Resurrection, as well as certain planes being the place spirits go. So this leads to a sense of gray within some religious doctrines, where killing the children may be more a mercy than subjecting them to the torment of living aside from their families.

Whether this alters the topic or some acts which PCs may get into is still up to the GMs of the games, but it does expand upon one series of actions that may occur within a world which has shades of grey.

[Davor]

Oxylepy wrote:

This brings up an extremely important topic within Pathfinder as well, death is seldom final, the parents who die are granted some form of afterlife, almost regardless of means of death. This is evident in True Resurrection, as well as certain planes being the place spirits go. So this leads to a sense of gray within some religious doctrines, where killing the children may be more a mercy than subjecting them to the torment of living aside from their families.

Whether this alters the topic or some acts which PCs may get into is still up to the GMs of the games, but it does expand upon one series of actions that may occur within a world which has shades of grey.

But see, that's where Pathfinder has issues, because objective good and evil DO exist in the setting. We just (to the knowledge of even the gods) don't have any sort of physical manifestation of elemental goodness and evil. There are Angels, Demons, and even aligned gods/goddesses, but all of them are in some way flawed. So objective good and evil exist... but nobody knows what they are. (To be fair, that mirrors reality somewhat, but at least we have SOMETHING on which to go.) There are guidelines (just check the core alignment rules), but not much else.

[thejeff]

Davor wrote:

Oxylepy wrote:

This brings up an extremely important topic within Pathfinder as well, death is seldom final, the parents who die are granted some form of afterlife, almost regardless of means of death. This is evident in True Resurrection, as well as certain planes being the place spirits go. So this leads to a sense of gray within some religious doctrines, where killing the children may be more a mercy than subjecting them to the torment of living aside from their families.

Whether this alters the topic or some acts which PCs may get into is still up to the GMs of the games, but it does expand upon one series of actions that may occur within a world which has shades of grey.

But see, that's where Pathfinder has issues, because objective good and evil DO exist in the setting. We just (to the knowledge of even the gods) don't have any sort of physical manifestation of elemental goodness and evil. There are Angels, Demons, and even aligned gods/goddesses, but all of them are in some way flawed. So objective good and evil exist... but nobody knows what they are. (To be fair, that mirrors reality somewhat, but at least we have SOMETHING on which to go.) There are guidelines (just check the core alignment rules), but not much else.

Within the game, there are a lot of ways to tell - far more than exist in the real world. There are ways to detect alignment. There are acts that cause a paladin to fall. There is the phylactery of faithfulness that will warn you of alignment changing actions.

Now, individual GMs (and groups) will have to determine for themselves where things fall within those guidelines, but that's a metagame thing. Within the gameworld there are still blurry lines, but things are far clearer than the real world.

[ccs]

thejeff wrote:

And when the GM tells you it's a realistic world with shades of grey and then has the kids you took to the orphanage grow up enough to slaughter the nuns and the rest of the children...

Then it's a lot like watching the 11pm news.

[HWalsh]

Well...

In a realistic "gray" world the GM must make serious changes. One of those main ones being that the species needs to be aware of this danger of adventurers. If they aren't, and don't take steps well in advance for it, then "realistically" they'd be dead already.

So... To start... You don't have raiders come from villages that actively have children. That would be species suicide.

Instead you'd have hub villages. Shake and bake colonies of, for example, Goblins. They store up 12 years (Goblin maturation) worth of supplies, set up a shanty village, then repoulate the Warriors. They don't ever raid, or even participate in attacks.

Alternatively villages would have evacuation plans well in advance. In case of attack all the non-combat flee in all directions caretakers designated to take children.

It's important to realize that in a realistic setting these things aren't human. A Goblin child, in Goblin society, that gets bullied by other Goblin children probably doesn't have adults step in and tell Goblin kids to quit it. They have different societal values.

Goblins actually mature only slightly faster than humans. I think it even addresses this fact in the Lore that Goblins have mega cities and the surface Goblins are shoved out due to overpopulation.

That said... Rarely would good adventurers venture out to slaughter entire villages, including the non-combatants realistically. Good characters tend to be reactionary rather than proactive.