Quote from: Skarg;914023There were many things about D&D that always seemed ridiculous to me. Alignments and sharply defined Good/Evil with many Evil and Good creatures was one of them. In our games (TFT) goblins, orcs, and almost everything else were just different races with different traits.

Yeah, the whole 'evil race' thing never sat well in my mind. Less because of it feeling like some old colonial ideology than my own refusal to buy in on the concept of anything being objectively EVIL... a fantasy than holds no interest for me.
But I can accept the idea of devices and creatures created/bred/trained to be purely destructive... which is still not the same as 'evil'.

Quote from: Doom;914038Trouble is, it comes up in the published modules.

That sort of trouble has two really obvious solutions.

Does Keep on the Borderlands say what's likely to happen if the players spare the children?

In TFT, there's an interesting section on children that describes how they can be particularly tricky to deal with, but it's more about how parents and communities are likely to respond if people mess with children, and not about exterminating children.

This is partially why I don't use Alignment in D&D as part of their stat-blocs. Just play your character.

It's become it's own vehicle to justify PC's not actually playing their ostensible Alignment. Sure you're Lawful Good until you come across a creature in the MM that has the Evil Alignment descriptor - KILLLL IIIITTTT!!!

Of course I use "alignment" when it matters - whether someone/something is can detect some alignment element, but I see zero use in pretending that PC's need to play under the auspices of some category of behaviors that rarely go beyond Basic D&D's concept of their use.

Like Estar said - there are some things that inherently evil as a matter of Cosmic disposition. Goblins kids? Aren't. Does that means they're not evil by behavior? Maybe. Maybe not. Does that mean if you roll up on them and decide to murderize them on some political principle or some moral rationalization - that's on you. Most of the time it won't matter in my game other than if the story gets out - depending on the narrative of the circumstances, the social ramifications will be the only outcome.

Now the real question, in my game, is "Would it make *you* 'evil' to go kill a bunch of goblin children that aren't some immediate threat to you?"

And does it matter to YOU if it did?

Edit: as Skarg implies, it would be a pretty interesting situation to try an save the children and do something with them rather than kill them. I had this *exact* situation happen in my last Pathfinder game (cept it was Gnolls not Goblins). The solution was the players gave them to this half-illithid/elf Enchanter. She ended up farming them like cattle and made them more intelligent but would use selective breeding on them for sustenance. But overall their Gnoll tribe prospered... moral/ethical nightmare? You bet. Good gaming. Everyone felt good and creeped out with some guilt - others not so much.

Quote from: Bren;914041That sort of trouble has two really obvious solutions.

Absolutely, there are obvious solutions.

You could also simply not play the game in the first place. BUT, seeing as it does keep coming up in the game, it's fair to ask "what happens?"

And no, Little Keep doesn't offer any solutions, simply presents nurseries, even schoolrooms, filled with younglings.

It's a game, not real life. If you want to kill everything, do it. If you don't, then don't.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;914030"Anybody up for discussing whether killing goblin children is evil?"

No.  Not now, not ever.

It's a shitass thing for a referee to put in the game, period.

Basically this.  Gary really shouldn't have put combat statistics for them in the Monster Manual.

This is why my dungeons are generally military outposts not homes.

Quote from: danbuter;914070It's a game, not real life. If you want to kill everything, do it. If you don't, then don't.

Ive heard this kind of response for a lot of gaming ethics questions and don't buy it. When roleplaying we are acting out a certain reality. It may be a really weird, funky, out there reality but to the characters involved its the real world. To ignore the ramifications of decisions and actions within those realities seems ..I don't know, lazy maybe. I think it takes something out of the game if they can kill the shopkeeper, whiz on the Grand Wizard's cloak or run naked through the King's thrown room without consequences.

Quote from: rgrove0172;914082Ive heard this kind of response for a lot of gaming ethics questions and don't buy it. When roleplaying we are acting out a certain reality. It may be a really weird, funky, out there reality but to the characters involved its the real world. To ignore the ramifications of decisions and actions within those realities seems ..I don't know, lazy maybe. I think it takes something out of the game if they can kill the shopkeeper, whiz on the Grand Wizard's cloak or run naked through the King's thrown room without consequences.

It isn't lazy, people just come to the game for different things. Some groups just want to blow off steam and have leeway to act out a bit, or be a little over the top. I think a lot of it depends on the feel and tone of the campaign. I've been in all kinds of groups, those where we take a granular look at local economies, those where there are real world-like consequences for actions, and those where players strut naked in front a king with little real consequence. I wouldn't describe any of them as lazy or inherently better than the other games. It was just about what we wanted, what we wanted to focus on, etc. In the king scenario, things were just playing more like Black Adder or something, but a good deal of effort went into other aspects of the campaign. It wasn't laziness, it was that adding in those kinds of real world consequences would have changed the feel of the campaign in a way we didn't want at the time.

Considering how much race matters in D&D, I'm surprised it's still a thing in this political climate.

Quote from: Kyussopeth;913942My Lawful Neutral Fighter/M-U tells the other characters that killing the younglings after the death & destruction of their parents is a mercy. The good characters object, but they turn away to begin looting the dead I declare that I'm about to start doing it when the DM tells the good PCs that they are in violation of their alignments if they allow this. So I got stopped, politely, and told not to do it. I agree & we instead captured the little snots.

And in doing so the DM made a moral decision for the players and the game about the younglings. Because now the focus is on figuring out what to do with them.

Quote from: Kyussopeth;913942I think the killing of goblins is the killing of vermin & is ethically neutral.

I guess that depends on your definition of vermin

On the other hand, killing fictional characters is always ethically neutral.

Quote from: rgrove0172;913974We had a coyote snooping around our place years ago. Killed my wife's pup and spooked horses etc. A buddy told me he saw it hanging around a bridge down the road. I tracked it and baited it, it died. Then I found its litter. They are coyotes, can't be made pets. If the grow up the become predators and a nuisance if not a danger. I killed them. I'm not evil.

A practical and even compassionate decision based on what you believe to be true.

Quote from: rgrove0172;914000Its sort of like calling slave owners racists. They didn't know any better, it had been going on for generations and they were raised that way. You can call them all kinds of things based on today's ethical standards but if you were playing a game in that period, owning slaves wouldn't be an act of evil.

I can't count an act of ignorance as evil, but I can an act of unnecessary cruelty and unwillingness to amend that ignorance. And American slaves were considered at worst (lower than) livestock and at best deeply inferior humans, which is the very definition of racism regardless.

Quote from: rgrove0172;914008If these humanoid races are instead truly evil and taking one home would probably end up in murder, well you have no choice... my coyote again.

But how can they make a moral choice based on information they don't have? If the goblins grow up only to murder children themselves, did the PCs do the 'right' thing?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;914030"Anybody up for discussing whether killing goblin children is evil?"

No.  Not now, not ever.

It's a shitass thing for a referee to put in the game, period.

I'm of the opinion that these kinds of dilemmas make RPGs less accessible, and I've seen players leave games due to the presence of 'tough' choices like this.

That said, I prefer RPGs which challenge me on that level.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;914085It isn't lazy, people just come to the game for different things. Some groups just want to blow off steam and have leeway to act out a bit, or be a little over the top. I think a lot of it depends on the feel and tone of the campaign. I've been in all kinds of groups, those where we take a granular look at local economies, those where there are real world-like consequences for actions, and those where players strut naked in front a king with little real consequence. I wouldn't describe any of them as lazy or inherently better than the other games. It was just about what we wanted, what we wanted to focus on, etc. In the king scenario, things were just playing more like Black Adder or something, but a good deal of effort went into other aspects of the campaign. It wasn't laziness, it was that adding in those kinds of real world consequences would have changed the feel of the campaign in a way we didn't want at the time.

It's not that I'm lazy, I just haven't felt like cutting the grass for the past two months, that's just not the weekend I wanted at the time.  

Nah, I was just working hard and wanted to kick the fuck back.  I was lazy, which was my right.  Lazy might be an incorrect term to apply to a person as a whole, and sure as hell is stupid when used to apply to a ethnicity of people, but as an adjective to a particular way of doing things, or a specific decision, especially when it describes "you just don't feel the need to put the work in", it's just fine, and doesn't have some kind of built-in value judgement.

The proper response to One-True-Wayism isn't to institute the PC Police. (Playstyle Correctness)

Quote from: CRKrueger;914087It's not that I'm lazy, I just haven't felt like cutting the grass for the past two months, that's just not the weekend I wanted at the time.  

Nah, I was just working hard and wanted to kick the fuck back.  I was lazy, which was my right.  Lazy might be an incorrect term to apply to a person as a whole, and sure as hell is stupid when used to apply to a ethnicity of people, but as an adjective to a particular way of doing things, or a specific decision, especially when it describes "you just don't feel the need to put the work in", it's just fine, and doesn't have some kind of built-in value judgement.

The proper response to One-True-Wayism isn't to institute the PC Police. (Playstyle Correctness)

Probably a pointless detour but I just don't agree with you on this. Laziness is a trait and arises from wanting to avoid work. There is a difference between not doing something because you don't feel like putting in the effort and not doing something because you don't care about it. If someone doesn't cut their grass because they are locked in their basement working on a novel, I wouldn't call it laziness. I'd just say they probably don't give a shit about lawns. Generally speaking I think 'lazy' is becoming a lame and overused criticism. And I don't think it particularly applies here. Whether people are talking about 'lazy' writing or 'lazy' gaming. If the issue is, someone wants more realism in a game, then I get that as a critique, to say its lazy....I can't really say I see the connection there. Unless it genuinely arises out of laziness.

Quote from: Bren;914041That sort of trouble has two really obvious solutions.

Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a while for new players and DMs to realize they can use those kinds of solutions (assuming you mean things like "change the module" or "don't use modules")--and until they did, this kind of scenario really does seem to have soured a few people on the game.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;914088Probably a pointless detour but I just don't agree with you on this. Laziness is a trait and arises from wanting to avoid work. There is a difference between not doing something because you don't feel like putting in the effort and not doing something because you don't care about it. If someone doesn't cut their grass because they are locked in their basement working on a novel, I wouldn't call it laziness. I'd just say they probably don't give a shit about lawns. Generally speaking I think 'lazy' is becoming a lame and overused criticism. And I don't think it particularly applies here. Whether people are talking about 'lazy' writing or 'lazy' gaming. If the issue is, someone wants more realism in a game, then I get that as a critique, to say its lazy....I can't really say I see the connection there. Unless it genuinely arises out of laziness.

But if you are talking about english gardening and don´t cut the grass, then the focus jumps back to laziness.
In an adventure obviously designed as a military operation and tactical challenge the question "but what if there where babies" is off range. In the sandbox that the keep in the borderlands adventure they are already an established part of the setting and thus on the table of exploration.

Quote from: Doom;914068You could also simply not play the game in the first place.

Hint: the game is not the problem.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;914089Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a while for new players and DMs to realize they can use those kinds of solutions (assuming you mean things like "change the module" or "don't use modules")--and until they did, this kind of scenario really does seem to have soured a few people on the game.

BINGO!


It certainly was easier if one was fortunate enough to have started playing and DMing without any modules.