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Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?

Usually its impossible to extinction a race as the PCs scope of activity tends to not quite get to the global scale.

But have had PCs try to put a sizable dent in a race population on occasion. Usually one of the more troublesome chaotic evil races.

As a player in BX it was first bugbears. And later gnomes that we ran into increasing trouble with for god unknown reasons. But whatever it was. In that campaign gnomes were a threat and steadily expanding their kingdom.

In AD&D it never really came up. An area might get cleared. But there was allways more of the things out there somewhere.

Spelljammer though was where we made a concerted effort to exteminate the Arcane after Not one, but two major events involving them. The second being the Astrodomini incident where things came to a head and everyone realized the real threat the Arcane posed.

Yes, in a Traveller campaign.  The ship I was captaining was a drugrunner smuggling swag from the Cute Bunny Race that was on the losing side of a WWI-tech conflict against the Badger People We Didn't Like Because They Were Effing Up Our Deal.  A few kinetic strikes from orbit, non-judicious use of airraft lasers, radiological bombs, all was serene.

Quote from: RPGPundit;871114Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?

Nearly.

Rogue Trader: Found a world rich in minerals, with a primitive xeno population that didn't want to mine for us and got pissy when we did it ourselves.

Some virus bombs and sealed environmental domes later, we had all the minerals we could want.

I feel left out. My players have never even attempted genocide. We never even properly did the orc babies thing.

A long-standing clash has existed in my homebrewed campaign between two native human ethnicities: the Gothric and the Walstanians. The Gothric have a very long and sordid past with the Walstanians, enacting brutal pogroms to control their population while propping up popular Walstanians as puppets in local government.

Meanwhile, the Walstanians carry out terrorist actions, creating "pyreshot" (otherwise black powder) weapons. They've blown up local bazaars on faire day, destroyed bridges and held hostage/killed the families of Gothric officials.

My players have played both sides of the war, where no clear party is either right or wrong and all are uncertain of who really started it (or how to end it).

Not even close. My campaigns typically don't get to the point where players have that kind of power. Now they have wiped out particular tribes or organizations before but even then outside help was typically involved.

Quote from: RPGPundit;871114Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?

No, but no one's tried. Murder, regardless of scale, is not really our thing.

No, which is surprising, they haven't even tried, which is even more surprising.

In Albedo that pretty much is the goal of the ILR regarding any non-lapine species and was just short of the fate of any planets they took. Non-lap prisoners were either killed en-mass or shipped off to concentration planets to work till they die.

After a point genociding the SOBs was about the only option left if things escalated out of control. War is Hell.

Quote from: RPGPundit;871114Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?

One of my Angel play groups managed to help the Fenris Wolf destroy an entire parallel universe.Does that count

In case anyone asks  normally this would result in the Ragnarok rebirth scenario but the players stole the worlds "life song" to save their own.

Quote from: RPGPundit;871114Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?

Yes, and unsurprisingly, these were elves.

Does it count if they kill the last surviving individual of a species?

In Traveller, yes. High tech vs. low tech = lots of death on low tech worlds, especially when the PCs engage in biological warfare.

In any other RPG, not yet, unless you count the slaying of the last of a monster race. That happened a couple times in D&D and T&T.

Nope, they haven't tried. Closest to that that I remember was "having it in for" certain groups, such as a crime gang, or the Good Samaritan's club, but that only really extended to going after the ones they met, not hunting them down.

Well not an entire species - but they did manage to set off a volcanic explosion that killed off 1.5-million drow (and half of a dwarven city - about thirty-thousand or so there).

They also accidentally helped an NPC created a fungal necrotic disease that affected only drow... and let it loose. The bodycount definitely counted as genocide. On the plus side they did get an antidote and saved five-hundred from one house. It would have been a thousand, but one of the PC's dropped half of the antidote on the ground.

Yeah.

Did I mention the players are not well liked by the Drow?

Sadly, not yet.

My "allies" won't let me finish off those damned Flumphs!

The concept is anachronistic to a pseudo-medieval mindset. It would be absurd for a group of 3-6 adventurers to pull off anyways, even with individual armies of hirelings, unless the species was somehow already veryvery endangered.

I was talking to friend about this and he just finished playing in a campaign where the PCs were on a quest to slay every dragon in the world. The conceit is they belonged to a dragon slaying order with many members across the globe and the necessity was prophesied return of a Dragon goddess who would be empowering her children to eat everyone.

The campaign ended in a TPK of the PCs and most of their order. Oops. So I guess a genocide is coming for the two legged meat snacks instead!

Hmm, Genocide.  That's a weird topic, would hardly ever come up.  I suppose in a Fantasy campaign there could always be 'The Last Whatever" that if you kill it, you've essentially wiped out a species.  In Sci-Fi it would be a lot more prevalent in settings where you can destroy planets and have available killer viruses, etc.

Players in my Shadowrun campaign were heavily invested in destroying all Insect Spirits and Horrors, but they are invaders from other dimensions, so Genocide isn't really possible. Ditto trying to get rid of the Xiticix in Rifts, Genestealers in 40k or Daemons, Demons, Devils or Demodands in AD&D.

I guess "Kill all X on sight" could be called genocidal, but if it's a personal motivation (like vengeance) and not a systematic plan, not sure if it qualifies.

So, basically, no.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872102The concept is anachronistic to a pseudo-medieval mindset.

Ever heard of St. Brice's Day Massacre (http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/st-brice%E2%80%99s-day-massacre)? It was engineered to completely eradicate the Danes from England. The destruction of Carthage was considered to be the first genocide in history.

In fact, the concept of genocide is far more prevalent in times of Antiquity than people may realize. Check out the Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies; it's on Amazon.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;872319Ever heard of St. Brice's Day Massacre (http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/st-brice%E2%80%99s-day-massacre)? It was engineered to completely eradicate the Danes from England. The destruction of Carthage was considered to be the first genocide in history.

In fact, the concept of genocide is far more prevalent in times of Antiquity than people may realize. Check out the Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies; it's on Amazon.

I guess I'm using "genocide" with the meaning "deliberately make the species completely extinct", rather than the more general "any mass violence specifically targeting a racial/religious group".

I had a party who accidentally set fire to a city and killed a few thousand people once, does that count?

There were a couple of Conan stories where he killed the last member of some ancient reptilian race. I always wondered, if there's just one left and you kill him, does that count as genocide?

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;872319Ever heard of St. Brice's Day Massacre (http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/st-brice%E2%80%99s-day-massacre)? It was engineered to completely eradicate the Danes from England. The destruction of Carthage was considered to be the first genocide in history.

In fact, the concept of genocide is far more prevalent in times of Antiquity than people may realize. Check out the Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies; it's on Amazon.

I think that a lot of people are badly confused as to the definition of "genocide."

In a 20-minutes-into-the-future Cybernetic Federal Marshal's game I ran a few years ago, the PC's discovered pig farm that had been taken over by genetically modified intelligent pigs who were using the remaining humans to breed a pig-flu that would kill off enough people for them to take over.

It wasn't more than a few dozen pigs, but I had half expected that they might want to spare some of them for scientific research or to prove that humanity was better than the pigs thought (the pigs assessed that if they were discovered, they'd be promptly annihilated).

Nope.

Bacon all the way around, without even slowing down to discuss.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872328I guess I'm using "genocide" with the meaning "deliberately make the species completely extinct", rather than the more general "any mass violence specifically targeting a racial/religious group".

Your definition isn't what "genocide" means, since by it, nobody has ever committed genocide successfully. Or you'd have never been able to write this post:).

Quote from: Ravenswing;872349I think that a lot of people are badly confused as to the definition of "genocide."

Indeed;).

Also, I think I managed to find the Last Elf and assassinate him. It was like 300 years after the war of the Elves against the Sapient Races, but so what?
The bounty was still good, maybe because he was something like a necromancer that would have needed killing anyway:D.

Quote from: AsenRG;872724Your definition isn't what "genocide" means, since by it, nobody has ever committed genocide successfully.

What a bizarre line of logic.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872729What a bizarre line of logic.

It's a basic logical approach that you're probably familiar with to explore the implications of what is written.

And you wrote "the whole specie". Exterminating the whole specie of humans on Earth would mean exterminating every single living person, including whoever is doing the killing.

I think you guys are confusing two things. The term genocide is new. But that doesn't mean it doesn't point to a pre-existing phenomena that extends back into history. People in the past may have not consciously thought of themselves as committing genocide, but they still could have been doing so. What historical events qualify is a matter of debate though.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872731I think you guys are confusing two things. The term genocide is new. But that doesn't mean it doesn't point to a pre-existing phenomena that extends back into history. People in the past may have not consciously thought of themselves as committing genocide, but they still could have been doing so. What historical events qualify is a matter of debate though.

Ok so what's Genocide?  Systematically killing a group of people with the intent to eliminate them.  Textbook definition is pretty clear, I think.  Where the muddiness comes in I think as far as what people think of as "genocide" is on what scale.

For example, if I do my research to find out every person living in Whatevertown of CertainPeople descent, then I systematically go around offing them one by one, until there are no more CertainPeople in WhateverTown, then that fits the textbook definition.  It also fits the definition and behavior of several historical serial killers.

Genocide is one of those "Three Evils" words that no one wants to see, hear or speak and as such is used to demonize and shut down conversation.  For the whole "Dark Side of the Hobby" people, genocide is one of the common accusations thrown at D&D.

If the people of Clearwater Valley hire adventurers to get rid of the large number of Orcs that have moved into the Silverlode Hills, and PCs succeed in exterminating all orcs in the area, is that genocide?

What about hunting down all Chaos cultists in a Warhammer town?  Is that a religious genocide?

From what I understand about the legal definition (like the UN leveling the charge) the "systematic" and "intent" portions are the areas where the arguments are made one way or the other.

In a Traveler campaign I could see PCs wiping out entire star systems without "intent". :duh:

Quote from: CRKrueger;872738Ok so what's Genocide?  Systematically killing a group of people with the intent to eliminate them.  Textbook definition is pretty clear, I think.  Where the muddiness comes in I think as far as what people think of as "genocide" is on what scale.

For example, if I do my research to find out every person living in Whatevertown of CertainPeople descent, then I systematically go around offing them one by one, until there are no more CertainPeople in WhateverTown, then that fits the textbook definition.  It also fits the definition and behavior of several historical serial killers.

Genocide is one of those "Three Evils" words that no one wants to see, hear or speak and as such is used to demonize and shut down conversation.  For the whole "Dark Side of the Hobby" people, genocide is one of the common accusations thrown at D&D.

If the people of Clearwater Valley hire adventurers to get rid of the large number of Orcs that have moved into the Silverlode Hills, and PCs succeed in exterminating all orcs in the area, is that genocide?

What about hunting down all Chaos cultists in a Warhammer town?  Is that a religious genocide?

From what I understand about the legal definition (like the UN leveling the charge) the "systematic" and "intent" portions are the areas where the arguments are made one way or the other.

In a Traveler campaign I could see PCs wiping out entire star systems without "intent". :duh:

It can certainly become an overly political discussion, where people use the term to end debate about something that happened in the past. It is a little like terrorism where it gets tough to define. Personally I am not interested in debating historical incidents that may or may not have been genocide, because I think that will get political quickly. But in terms of definition I think the key element is scale and the attempted elimination of an entire people (or at least the near elimination). I will let others debate the precise meaning. My only point was that just because a term is new, that doesn't mean the thing itself is. If the word points to something real, then it definitely could occur in the past, so having it happen in a fantasy campaign seems reasonably fair to me. I know I've applied that kind of thinking to some of my campaigns. I think what would be anachronistic is the characters themselves thinking of it as genocide (still it might be a useful enough word that you would just go ahead and have them use it anyways).

Ultimately if you describe something in the campaign setting as Genocide, your players (or your readers) will need to be the ones convinced that it qualifies. I think wiping out a small group of orcs or a religious cult doesn't really rise to that level (I am unfamiliar with Warhammer so maybe the chaos cult is a much more extensive thing). Personally I'd view an isolated event at a single town like you describe more as a pogrom.  Wiping out all the people of Heaven's Vale might be a genocide though. Systematically killing all halflings or all Galvon Adherents in your kingdom would probably qualify.

Quote from: CRKrueger;872738Genocide is one of those "Three Evils" words that no one wants to see, hear or speak and as such is used to demonize and shut down conversation.  For the whole "Dark Side of the Hobby" people, genocide is one of the common accusations thrown at D&D.

 

I get that. And I understand because I remember the 80s. But I think we are stupid if we let it drive what we do at the table or in our books. If genocide can feature into a campaign in a way that adds to the enjoyment at the table, I think it is fine. Obviously it is a potentially touchy area so any GM doing that is going to want to be more mindful of how people are reacting. But if we can slaughter orcs, summon demons and bring the forces of darkness to bear on an entire land, I don't see why genocide should be taken off the table.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872750I get that. And I understand because I remember the 80s. But I think we are stupid if we let it drive what we do at the table or in our books. If genocide can feature into a campaign in a way that adds to the enjoyment at the table, I think it is fine. Obviously it is a potentially touchy area so any GM doing that is going to want to be more mindful of how people are reacting. But if we can slaughter orcs, summon demons and bring the forces of darkness to bear on an entire land, I don't see why genocide should be taken off the table.

Right, I'm not suggesting it should.  Hell, you could make an argument in some settings, like Rifts or 40k, that it may even be justified, and the right thing to do.

We'd just gotten to a "that's not genocide"/"you don't know what genocide is" point in the discussion, so figured it was time to determine what people think of the definition.

Quote from: AsenRG;872730It's a basic logical approach that you're probably familiar with to explore the implications of what is written.

And you wrote "the whole specie". Exterminating the whole specie of humans on Earth would mean exterminating every single living person, including whoever is doing the killing.

No the bizarre line of logic is that someone would have had to have succeeded at it for the word to exist.

By that logic, the word " immortality " shouldn't exist or can't actually mean to live forever.

But anyways, species isn't the only thing I said. There have been attempted genocides against Jews, Palestinians, Roma, homosexuals, and Yezidis in our lifetime, just to name a few. The fact that all of those people are at least for the time being still in existence suggests very few attempted genocides of groups of humans have been successful so far. I'm sure there are tribes of Native Americans that are no longer in existence, though.

And if someone wants to argue genocide means something else, then I think we need a specific word for what I'm talking about.

Well the OP asks...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?"

Not...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever committed Genocide?"

There is no Attempted Genocide vs. Successful Genocide, you either try or you don't.

So despite the title of the thread itself, Genocide might be a bit of a Red Herring.  For example, if the PCs did manage to kill off an entire race or species without intent through systematic means (like killing a beast they didn't know was the "Last of it's Kind") then they aren't fitting at least some definitions.

So to answer specifically...

No.  No fantasy PC ever managed or attempted to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid.

The old Nethack game had the Scroll of Genocide.  In some D&D games way back I had those, as super-rare artifacts of course, and my players had some interesting debates. Not about the moral dilemma of genocide itself but of what monster race they should completely wipe out if they can only pick ONE.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872775No the bizarre line of logic is that someone would have had to have succeeded at it for the word to exist.

Which is not what I said. I said "if anyone had ever committed genocide on Earth, according to your definition which only includes "specie" as opposed to the "more general one", you'd never be able to write that post".
And seriously, that's way too much attentions being paid to your definition. Sorry for my part in attracting it! I should have just said "this definition is wrong and here's why (http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/index.htm#text)", and moved on:).

Quote from: CRKrueger;872780Well the OP asks...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?"

Not...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever committed Genocide?"

Yeah, when the title and the text of the OP differ, you always have to pick which one to answer;).

Quote from: AsenRG;872821Which is not what I said.

That is EXACTLY what you said:

Quote from: AsenRG;872724Your definition isn't what "genocide" means, since by it, nobody has ever committed genocide successfully.

Quote from: CRKrueger;872780Well the OP asks...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?"

Not...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever committed Genocide?"

There is no Attempted Genocide vs. Successful Genocide, you either try or you don't.

So despite the title of the thread itself, Genocide might be a bit of a Red Herring.  For example, if the PCs did manage to kill off an entire race or species without intent through systematic means (like killing a beast they didn't know was the "Last of it's Kind") then they aren't fitting at least some definitions.

So to answer specifically...

No.  No fantasy PC ever managed or attempted to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid.

I had a campaign where the elves were basically fantasy Nazis and created a hierarchy of scum, where they first went after the halflings, then the gnomes, then the humans. I think they only accepted dwarves and lizard men for some reason (they must have viewed the dwarves as useful). But the party managed to teleport in and kill the supreme leader before they could finish their goals (this was way back in 2003-04 under the 3E rules, so we might have had a few optimized PCs tilting things in their favor).

In Ravenloft Vlad Drakov is basically a combination of Vlad Tepes and Hitler (demihumans are branded and oppressed in Falkovnia). I had a campaign where the party time traveled into the future and I decided to do a WWII type scenario with Vlad finally, if just briefly, achieving his aim of conquest. It was actually kind of fun having Zeppelins and tanks in Ravenloft for a bit. It didn't really feature into the campaign that heavily but in the background there was a demihuman genocide occurring (it was never completed though).

Nitpicking aside, if you set out to kill all the members of a defined group of people then, to me, that is genocide. Whether that group is a race, species, member of a religious group, people with a certain ethnicity or even the clan next door, it doesn't matter.

Have you succeeded if only a handful are left? Probably, if not strictly by the letter of the law.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872835That is EXACTLY what you said:

Le sigh...:)

Do you mean to imply that there's never been a successful genocide in human history? Because that's what follows from the post I was objecting to, which refers to killing off a specie.
If you agree there has been successful genocides, and the specie of Homo Sapiens still exists, your definition is wrong.

Of course, if you think that there has never been a successful genocide, I'd recommend telling a Rwandan Tutsi, a Jew, or an American Indian, that what has happened to their people was only attempted genocide, and then reporting what his or her answer was;).

Quote from: soltakss;872864Nitpicking aside, if you set out to kill all the members of a defined group of people then, to me, that is genocide. Whether that group is a race, species, member of a religious group, people with a certain ethnicity or even the clan next door, it doesn't matter.

Have you succeeded if only a handful are left? Probably, if not strictly by the letter of the law.

Actually, killing only a part of the population is a genocide, and a successful one, according to the article 6 of the Rome Statute of the ICS, so your approach is actually confirmed by the letter of the law:D.

Quote from: AsenRG;872984Le sigh...:)

Do you mean to imply that there's never been a successful genocide in human history? Because that's what follows from the post I was objecting to, which refers to killing off a specie.
If you agree there has been successful genocides, and the specie of Homo Sapiens still exists, your definition is wrong.

I don't mean to imply anything. Its a definition of the word, and the only definition that matters to the thread if someone is actually responding to the OP, which made the definition Pundit was using pretty clearly exactly what I said. I have no idea what argument you're trying to make, because as I said to you from the start, the "success" of something in the real world has never been a condition for defining any word, ever. It's just a completely bizarre statement.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872989I don't mean to imply anything. Its a definition of the word, and the only definition that matters to the thread if someone is actually responding to the OP, which made the definition Pundit was using pretty clearly exactly what I said. I have no idea what argument you're trying to make, because as I said to you from the start, the "success" of something in the real world has never been a condition for defining any word, ever. It's just a completely bizarre statement.

OK, no point in trying to communicate on that point, moving on. Your definition is still wrong, though:).

Pundit, do Fantasy in Space games like WH40K count:D?

I doubt we are going to resolve a debate about the definition of genocide here.

Quote from: AsenRG;873098Pundit, do Fantasy in Space games like WH40K count:D?

I suppose so!

Quote from: RPGPundit;873837I suppose so!

Then I can add multiple counts of genocide in Dark Heresy, though I wasn't party to those by virtue of not liking the setting:).

I know of at least one other group who recommended "cleaning out" a world to cover their own tracks, though. Cue scenes with the Death Star attacking a peaceful world;).

My DCC players wiped-out the entire race of Cyber-Dragons by going back in time and accidentally resulting in their annihilation at the hand of the normal dragons.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874252My DCC players wiped-out the entire race of Cyber-Dragons by going back in time and accidentally resulting in their annihilation at the hand of the normal dragons.

Apropos of time travel, my players' characters were once brought to a Dying Earth style future of my world. Horses were extinct in that future, and when they returned, they brought back (against all NPC advice, although the NPCs didn't know what would happen and the PCs didn't try to find out) the magical devices that were used as substitutes for horse transportation. Unfortunately, these were carriers for the disease that exterminated the horses, and horses became increasingly rare and expensive. They didn't mean to do it, and horses weren't all killed before the campaign ended, and the horses were just animals, and I'm not sure they could be entirely blamed since it was going to happen anyway. So probably not a genocide, but the closest I've had.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874252My DCC players wiped-out the entire race of Cyber-Dragons by going back in time and accidentally resulting in their annihilation at the hand of the normal dragons.

You should give them bonus XP.

Quote from: AsenRG;874470You should give them bonus XP.

They got the most XP they are allowed to get.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874948They got the most XP they are allowed to get.

Yeah, my point was I'd give them 5+ points for that, and IIRC the chart of XP per encounter goes only up to 4 according to the DCC corebook.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;871197A long-standing clash has existed in my homebrewed campaign between two native human ethnicities: the Gothric and the Walstanians. The Gothric have a very long and sordid past with the Walstanians, enacting brutal pogroms to control their population while propping up popular Walstanians as puppets in local government.

Meanwhile, the Walstanians carry out terrorist actions, creating "pyreshot" (otherwise black powder) weapons. They've blown up local bazaars on faire day, destroyed bridges and held hostage/killed the families of Gothric officials.

My players have played both sides of the war, where no clear party is either right or wrong and all are uncertain of who really started it (or how to end it).

That sounds like loads of fun.

RE the main topic

No attempted genocides against monsters in my games.
But I , as the player of a  lawful evil high priest, instigated a holy war against a chaotic good sect of hippy type moon worshippers. Many, many flower children perished.
That was in a campaign played in (TSR's) Birthright campaign setting.

Quote from: AsenRG;874949Yeah, my point was I'd give them 5+ points for that, and IIRC the chart of XP per encounter goes only up to 4 according to the DCC corebook.

I just gave them 4. Limits is limits. It's not like they did the killings with their own hands. They just spoke shit about them to Tiamat, who then wiped them out before they could get powerful.

Actually, my high school AD&D group were quite inspired by Dark Sun, despite never having played it. When they heard that the actions of the sorcerer kings had resulted in certain player races being unavailable, they launched a single-minded crusade against gnomes (I'm not sure why; gnomes were always deeply unpopular). They effectively removed gnomes from the game, though probably not from farthest reaches of the game world. Does that count?

Quote from: Majus;875841Actually, my high school AD&D group were quite inspired by Dark Sun, despite never having played it. When they heard that the actions of the sorcerer kings had resulted in certain player races being unavailable, they launched a single-minded crusade against gnomes (I'm not sure why; gnomes were always deeply unpopular). They effectively removed gnomes from the game, though probably not from farthest reaches of the game world. Does that count?

That sounds like a clever bunch.