Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037034Why do we even need orcs? Why not kill humans? Or demons?

I'm good with killing whatever the DM throws my way, so long as it has treasure.

In tonight's game...

AD&D1e game, session #6

OPEN GAME TABLE - every Wednesday 7-10pm at GoodGames Melbourne

"The only apes I know of are those of Allirog and his cursed wicker towers. Their evil has spread to every city. Two or three years ago it was just another ape cult, now... they're everywhere. It is said that they are deceivers... they murder people in the night... I know nothing. "
"Wicker towers?"
"The Wicker Tower... of the Ape!"

Oook, oook.

Well I generally don't fuck when I use goblins and orcs when playing Beyond the Wall.

I have night goblins (cruelty incarnate) murder the village children in their beds for kicks and shiggles and the worg riding orcs (bloodlust incarnate) impale the local shepherd and burn/devour the flock while the bugbear (harbingers of death and disease) throws a diseased animal upstream from their river, poisoning the village water supply.

If any of the PCs get too philosophical about killing orcs and goblins, more innocent people get brutally tortured and murdered.

Motivations of the PCs: save the village, get revenge, use whatever they find to see the village through the winter and keep the young widow fed.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037034While the SJWs miss the forest for the leaves, even a racist clock is right twice a day.

The D&D world is an incredibly warped and twisted one where it is socially acceptable to engage in mass murder simply because the targets are "evil." Not evil in the sense of real world morality, but aligned with evil as defined by the game and this is usually inherent to their bloodline. Most of these targets tend to be dressed in stereotypical tribal getup and are often led by "shamans" and "chieftains," because that style and that terminology is seen as a short hand for "barbarism." The only positive example I can recall off the top of my head is in the barbarian character class, and then only because it is available to PCs and the game assumes PCs are good.

Similar criticism could be level at a lot of mass media. Western cultures tend to glorify violence.

Why do we even need orcs? Why not kill humans? Or demons?

It's not like this happens in a vaccum. I'm sure someone could dredge up a counterexample from one of the old modules, but orcs are usually up to something bad, not just walking around with a nametag that says "Chaotic Evil".

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1037035Yes. The entire thing is the creation of designated enemies (the entire point) and it breaks down under intense scrutiny. And people have been making the mistake of doing so for 40+ years.

If that standard is a "mistake," then what is correct?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1037035The reason we need orcs is so that our PCs aren't killing humans. Again, the point.

Why shouldn't the PCs kill humans? Don't humans have the capacity for evil?

What about wild animals like the chimera or the hydra?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1037076It's not like this happens in a vaccum. I'm sure someone could dredge up a counterexample from one of the old modules, but orcs are usually up to something bad, not just walking around with a nametag that says "Chaotic Evil".

Then why not use humans? Why do we need a race that is more or less born evil?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037085Why shouldn't the PCs kill humans? Don't humans have the capacity for evil?

What about wild animals like the chimera or the hydra?

Because they're not people. That's fundamentally what it's all about. There's a reason virtually every legal system on the planet deals with crimes against people differently to crimes against non-humans, because personhood is more important than mere existence. It also jibes with some basic psychological mechanics about in-groups and out-groups.

I can kill insects on reflex, with no calculation or decisionmaking involved, if they're in my space in a way that annoys or threatens me, they die. I feel no remorse and don't even think about it afterwards. Were that a person, my natural reluctance to harm another human being (something the majority of people have, and have to overcome in order to do that) would kick in.

We humans are very good at killing things which are not human, and often have little regret afterwards. However, while we also have a capacity to kill other humans, that is not without overcoming restraint and feeling remorse and regret afterwards (again for normal people).

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037085Then why not use humans? Why do we need a race that is more or less born evil?

Not everyone goes with the "born evil" angle.
And how would killing humans who aren't "born evil" make it any better?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1037087Not everyone goes with the "born evil" angle.
And how would killing humans who aren't "born evil" make it any better?

#BornThisWay
#WhoIsGMLadyGaGa?

Some of us play the game as a treasure hunt.  You're down in the dungeon looking for treasure when the inhabitants take exception to this and attack.  Self defense is a right.

Sometimes the current inhabitant is a giant spider whose web you disturbed.  Sometimes it's a group of humanoids of some type that don't like strangers.

Considering the number of us who play neutral characters and hired orcs and goblins as troops, and negotiated with chimerae, and ogres, and other "monsters" -- well, if the default game is "kill everything that moves," you're playing a different game.

KATM goes back before computer games, by the way, though computer games did help spread it because it's easier to program.

I also call it "vending machine gaming."  NPCs are all vending machines; you insert alcohol to get a plot coupon, or you insert gold to get adventuring gear, or you insert swords to get XP.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037034... Why do we even need orcs? Why not kill humans? Or demons?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1037035... The reason we need orcs is so that our PCs aren't killing humans. Again, the point. As to demons, what does turning the orc into a demon do to improve the situation? Make them more clearly designated-evil?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037085Why shouldn't the PCs kill humans? Don't humans have the capacity for evil?
...
Then why not use humans? Why do we need a race that is more or less born evil?

Wait... WHAT?

How many D&D players have a problem killing humans, provided the humans somehow warrant being fought?

In TFT, orcs and goblins are just other humanoid races like humans and elves. Orcs are nasty and violent and hated by elves and dwarves so they are often opponents, but human opponents are the most common type of opponent, and PCs regularly kill human opponents. My GURPS Fantasy Folk etc books are buried ATM, but it seems to me GURPS orcs are just other races, not Evil demons or corrupted minions of Sauron, and again, humans tend to be the main opponents and get killed left, right and center.

Do D&D players actually tend to have moral qualms about killing humans, or is it just that orcs are a no-brained by comparison along with anything of the Evil alignment (including humans)?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037085If that standard is a "mistake," then what is correct?

Not scrutinize the convention too hard.

QuoteWhy shouldn't the PCs kill humans? Don't humans have the capacity for evil?

What about wild animals like the chimera or the hydra?

Then why not use humans? Why do we need a race that is more or less born evil?

Quote from: Skarg;1037096Wait... WHAT?

How many D&D players have a problem killing humans, provided the humans somehow warrant being fought?

I think you both have the concept reversed. No one (to my knowledge) has ever suggested that you can't use animals or monsters on one end or humans you've established as evil on the other. The question is whether you get to instead (if you want) use a pre-defined 'villain' type race that you can kind of assume is up to no good and thus if you see some coming down the road you don't have to establish that they are in fact bad guys. The whole thing is basically allowing you to have hydras that use swords.

QuoteDo D&D players actually tend to have moral qualms about killing humans, or is it just that orcs are a no-brained by comparison along with anything of the Evil alignment (including humans)?

That's the basic concept, yes. Mind you I'm just explaining it. I tend to prefer the 'everyone is morally grey, including the PCs' approach vaguely like what Gronan described, and I've already established that I think this whole debate is just a cyclic type of philosophical navel-gazing that shows up on forums every random increment.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1037085Then why not use humans? Why do we need a race that is more or less born evil?

Because people like to spice it up and to have a variety of enemies different than humans in there D&D games. It's that simple, really. Killing the same enemy for the 10th time.. sound boring to me, especially in such a *cough* "limited" game like D&D.

It's the same reason why we have dozens of monster manuals published in the past and more than 1000+ different monsters.

From a game play perspective, consider the "mental shorthand" aspects of deciphering what is going on based on nothing but GM verbal descriptions and adjudication.  I'm talking about game handling, not questions of psychology, as relevant as those might be.  You've got roughly these categories of things as possibilities:

A. "People" - might be good, might be bad, probably often somewhere in the mushy middle.  You need some information before you go after them, or even if you go after them, unless they attack you on sight, or at least dress up or carry a banner in a way that you can identify as an unambiguous enemy.

B. "Critters" - of various temperaments and tendencies, that don't necessarily have what we would call a "People" society, probably don't use tools, may not have much in the way of language, etc.  Mostly, prudence is your guide.

C. "Hazards" - might be biological, but there is not interaction beyond touch it and it burns, corrodes, etc., e.g. green slime.

D. "Anti-people" - have a society, use tools, use language, but for whatever reason are at a state of permanent war with "People".  Or at least there are no rules for a "truce" beyond staying out of each others' way.  

E. "Myth Critters" - often smart, speaking, sometimes even tool users, but notably different in physiology compared to "humanoids".  All the rules for "People" and "Anti-People" can apply here, except it's more complicated and situational, and their attitudes and motivations are often radically different, sometimes even bleeding into ...

F. "Alien Critters" - have their own kind of intelligence higher functions, but languages often incomprehensible, and tools often arcane.  From the perspective of trying to understand them, combine all of the worst traits of the previous categories.

There is no particular reason why you must have "Anti-People" in a setting or in a game.  Everything they do can be handled by one or more of the other categories blended with setting information.  That is, if People X always attack, and are easily identified by dress and regions, and have nasty tendencies Y and Z, and don't really get along with anyone, then they can serve the same purpose.   However, you'll note that the first three categories are fairly straight-forward.  Whereas the last two tend to complicate the game.  "Anti-People" is a category that simplifies game functions to make up for the complication of the last two.  

Also, as with all such things in a list of monsters, there are far more provided than you need.  If you don't want any "Anti-People," no one is making your GM use them.  They can easily be swapped for something else, especially if you know what they represent.  Or if you don't want easily identified "kill on sight" humanoid creatures, then you'd need to adjust the source material anyway.  If it is your own game, then of course you can use what you want.  

TL;DR version:  It's a thoughtless complaint, on par with, "Why does the Monster Manual have all these things in it that I'll never use?"

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1036826Why do we even need orcs? Why not kill humans? Or demons?

Why is this an 'All or Nothing' argument?  In my games, my players assault humans, orcs, giants, goblins, dragons and demons, should the need arise, mostly in self-defense.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1037123Why is this an 'All or Nothing' argument?  

Because some people want to play the game and some would rather wax poetical about the philosophical underpinnings of that same game but not actually play it.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1036826I don't know about you folks, but I don't like being falsely accused of participating in an intrinsically racist hobby.

In fact, on reflection, I think I would like to tell everybody who makes such an defamatory accusation to fuck off, keep fucking off until they get to a wall saying "no fucking off beyond this point", then climb the wall and fuck off some more.

I'm going to have to re-quote this for posterity and agreement.

Quote from: jeff37923;1037129Because some people want to play the game and some would rather wax poetical about the philosophical underpinnings of that same game but not actually play it.

True, and speaking of, I gotta go run an AL session.

Happy Gaming, folks.