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Goonthegoof
2011-01-10, 10:40 PM
I just started DMing a game in which all the players are supposed to be good aligned and after the first session I'm wondering whether the actions of the party would bump them down to neutral or even evil. To summarise quickly:

Pixie feeds a flask of acid to the half-dragon knight/vassal of bahamut's drakkensteed, half dragon chases pixie and burns him to death with his breath weapon.

They head out into the desert then when they realise that they brought no protection and the day is really hot they pitch a tent, dig a hole under it and have the druid fill it with water. A bunch of desert orcs sneak towards them and then a sand dragon pounces the orcs and starts killing them, at which point the party immediately jumps into battle and starts slaughtering the orcs.

The orcs are scared but hold their ground and fight back, their ashworm riding leader ends up in a duel with the dragon while the party kills the orcs. There are a few juvenile orcs with the group, most of which die fairly quickly.
One of the young orcs(around 13 years old) is shoved out of the way and yelled at to run for it by an older orc, who is cut down from behind by a party member while doing it. The young orc (by this point unarmed) then screams and blindly rushes at the party barbarian who did it and starts sobbing and pounding on the barbarian's chest with his fists, doing no damage and incurring an attack of opportunity which the barbarian uses to kill him.
The party then loots the bodies and goes to help the dragon kill the ashworm riding orc, and that's where the session ended.

The players don't know that the dragon has been attacking everyone in the area for months, with the (usually peaceful) orcs slowly starving to death as the dragon swoops in and steals their livestock and any lone orcs it can find. In the situation above, the desperate orcs were planning an ambush for the dragon, knowing it would probably come to raid the party. The players didn't know that but they never really made an effort to find out either but instead rushed in immediately and started slaughtering the orcs.

Now, the big question: Was all that morally justified, or by the d&d reckoning of alignment did they act in an evil manner? If so, was it evil enough to change their alignment? I ask because I'm unsure and I think I'm a little too close to the problem to see it clearly.

monkeysammich
2011-01-10, 10:43 PM
If you have to ask...

An Enemy Spy
2011-01-10, 10:48 PM
They're monsters that attacked the party. Thus, there is nothing evil about killing them. It's called self defense and it is perfectly justified.
Why do people always forget that the whole point of D&D is fighting monsters. I am sick and tired of people worrying about the moral ramifications of stopping monsters from killing them simply because the monster might have just been trying to support his family. It's stupid.

Ytaker
2011-01-10, 10:48 PM
1. Yes, they seem to not care about being good.

2. They may or may not be evil. They may simply see it as your job as DM to determine evil for them, and put it in front of them so they can kill it.

3. It's not obviously enough to knock them down a level. If they only revel in killing often chaotic evil creatures, they are acting like most players. This webcomic started with lawful good paladins slaughtering a village of goblins and not falling. Immense consequences resulted, but no fall.

Holocron Coder
2011-01-10, 10:50 PM
They're monsters that attacked the party. Thus, there is nothing evil about killing them. It's called self defense and it is perfectly justified.
Why do people always forget that the whole point of D&D is fighting monsters. I am sick and tired of people worrying about the moral ramifications of stopping monsters from killing them simply because the monster might have just been trying to support his family. It's stupid.

Umm.. re-read. It was the PARTY that attacked, not the orcs. The orcs were self-defending.

Either the party is evil, or they're meta-gaming by assuming orcs are always evil.

Boci
2011-01-10, 10:54 PM
Either the party is evil, or they're meta-gaming by assuming orcs are always evil.

Wait, are you suggesting its impossible for a character to reach the conclusion ingame that all orcs are evil?

Ytaker
2011-01-10, 10:58 PM
You should make any morality tests obvious for purposes of fairness. The moral calculation "orcs are evil, therefore by killing them I am preventing harm to many people" while not boed material, is a very understandable position for a lawful good person to take. If you want to dissent you should change it so that orcs are obviously good in many ways, and make the rumours about orcs lies.

FMArthur
2011-01-10, 10:58 PM
Orcs are traditionally evil creatures. In many mythologies such as the omnipresent Lord of the Rings series, they are unquestionably and irredeemably evil. So it's really not too hard for players from all over to not really "get" that Orcs in D&D can just be peaceful nomads or just savages who don't know any other life. Your players were just really confused about what was going on. You should probably provide some way of letting them know of the mistake they made. And in the future, before the battle if possible.

One of the big things I've learned recently about DMing is that putting down clues for your players to "discover" the plot on their own initiative doesn't work. If you don't thrust important plot points in front of them, they won't find them. Dumb luck at having knowledgable people, artifacts, and other such things are a genuine fantasy adventure staple in almost every book, movie and cartoon, without which most adventures would actually stall. A good author at least hides the Hand of Fate well, but it's there and you need to be it.

Cealocanth
2011-01-10, 10:59 PM
Either the party is evil, or they're meta-gaming by assuming orcs are always evil.

Or they're specieist and just kill Orcs because that's the stereotype that's laid out in front of them. That doesn't make it morally right though...

Grendus
2011-01-10, 11:06 PM
Obviously, they're "chaotic neutral".







Orcs are "often chaotic evil" and "believe that to survive they must conquer as much territory as possible", which certainly makes it very easy to perceive them as evil, doubly so since they were sneaking up on the party. The orcs as noble savages kick is more of a recent thing, they've almost always been evil. So it doesn't necessarily mean they're evil because they attacked.

That said, I think your party is pretty stupid for not considering that the dragon might be evil as well. Why doesn't the paladin have a Phylactery of Faithfulness? The lawful good action would be to use that to figure out if attacking either party would be evil (BTW: why not have the paladin fall for attacking the orcs, since they were trying to legitimately defend themselves from the dragon when the party attacked), or at least use his freakin' at will Detect Evil before you start smiting.

Zaq
2011-01-10, 11:06 PM
That was in no way a good act. With some fast-talking, you might convince me that it was neutral, but no, that sounds pretty evil.

That doesn't mean that the party is evil. It's possible that they didn't even realize "oh wait, orcs are people too, and they didn't actually attack us" (which would, if you think about it from the characters' perspectives, be pretty evil, but which is forgivable at least once if you filter it through the lens of players being careless and/or lazy) before hearing the siren song of "roll initiative!" If they seriously call their characters good, I would at least gently point out (out of game) to them that what they did was pretty ruthless and uncalled-for. I can easily believe that the party was just rolling dice without thinking about the consequences of their actions, and it's possible that this might serve as a wake-up call for them. (As an anecdote, I remember once explaining to a partymate that his practice of using Suggestion and Lesser Geas to get women to sleep with him was less "picking up chicks for casual sex" and more "treading terrifyingly close to FATAL territory" . . . at which point he stopped, horrified, because he hadn't thought of it like that and genuinely didn't want that to be the kind of thing his character did. Perhaps your players are similar.)

Now, if they continue with the hack'n'slash-style slaughter after you point out that that's really not the kind of thing that capital-G Good folks do, then yeah, you've got at least a casually evil party on your hands. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt just once, though, and see if they keep doing that sort of thing once you point out what it is that they're actually doing.

awa
2011-01-10, 11:12 PM
yes the pcs did in fact attack the orcs but sand dragons are neutral and orcs are evil (typically) so the pcs made a logical if incorrect decision. yes they did technically attack first but the orcs were sneaking up on their camp and thus again they could logically if incorrectly assume they were the target of the ambush.
In regards to trying to figure out who is in the right that is vastly easier if you give them the opportunity to do it before the dice start rolling expecting the party not to engage in a fight which appears to be quite straight forward is foolish.

In regards to the young orc if they had ran him down while he was fleeing that would be more damning but the battle was still on and (orc reach maturity faster than humans 13 is probably a young adult a half orc are playable at 15)anyway the orcs were stupid to bring noncombatants into an ambush.

in regards to the pixie it looks like the pixie was in fact evil aligned if it preformed a "prank" that caused damage

Goonthegoof
2011-01-10, 11:14 PM
That said, I think your party is pretty stupid for not considering that the dragon might be evil as well. Why doesn't the paladin have a Phylactery of Faithfulness? The lawful good action would be to use that to figure out if attacking either party would be evil (BTW: why not have the paladin fall for attacking the orcs, since they were trying to legitimately defend themselves from the dragon when the party attacked), or at least use his freakin' at will Detect Evil before you start smiting.

Mostly because the party doesn't have a paladin.
Anyway thanks for the advice guys. I was considering announcing their characters were all neutral now, but you made a lot of valid points, and one evil act done out of carelessness rather than true malice now doesn't seem enough to change their alignments.

I am however planning the have them stumble on the orc encampment later, the one that is close to doomed now that the last of their fighters has died. Assuming they realise they've done a bad thing by killing the orcs and don't slaughter the rest of the tribe too, what would be appropriate reparations?

As an aside to the opportunity to figure out what was happening before the dice stopped rolling, I sort of did but it turns out none of the players speak orcish and since they were a nomadic desert tribe with no contact with the outside world I didn't think it made sense for the orcs to speak common.

Ytaker
2011-01-10, 11:16 PM
"Hey look guys more orcs. Let's roll for initiative!"

You should make it clear that they shouldn't be killing orcs before they get to the camp. Have some humans say that orc hunting skills supply most their food, and they love orcs. Or something.

Goonthegoof
2011-01-10, 11:19 PM
There's pretty much no way to do that and have it make sense in game. They're going to run across an encampment of scared and emaciated women and children and it's their choice as to what they do next.

Ytaker
2011-01-10, 11:21 PM
That's a definite recipe for trouble.

There aren't any wandering human tribes in the desert or any traders, or anyone who could tell them that maybe killing orcs is a bad idea?

Edit. Treating a hack and slash game as a moral puzzle without telling your players that the assumptions they use are wrong is pretty harsh.

Grendus
2011-01-10, 11:23 PM
I misread the knight/vassal, thought it was a paladin (especially with the drakkensteed, seeing as they're friggin expensive... unless your a paladin and can get one for free).

That said, I'm always suspicious about creatures like that, especially since my DM likes to set up characters that turn against us at a moment's notice, which is really irritating and makes every game like Paranoia-against-DMPC's (luckily the party doesn't turn on each other, which helps). I guess that's just me though.

However, if they had no prior experiences that might suggest that a group of orcs sneaking up on them might not be evil raiders, assuming that they were wasn't a bad assumption.

TheWhisper
2011-01-10, 11:26 PM
The players don't know that the dragon has been attacking everyone in the area for months, with the (usually peaceful) orcs slowly starving to death as the dragon swoops in and steals their livestock and any lone orcs it can find. In the situation above, the desperate orcs were planning an ambush for the dragon, knowing it would probably come to raid the party. The players didn't know that but they never really made an effort to find out either but instead rushed in immediately and started slaughtering the orcs.

Now, the big question: Was all that morally justified, or by the d&d reckoning of alignment did they act in an evil manner? If so, was it evil enough to change their alignment? I ask because I'm unsure and I think I'm a little too close to the problem to see it clearly.

What you can do is stop seeing the characters through the lens of the dumbed-down alignment rules, and start seeing the players.

They are clearly not understanding the type of game you are trying to run.

They're expecting the typical Tolkien-derived morally black and white fantasy hack and slash. "Orcs attack us, orcs bad, kill orcs. Yay victory." Not only that, it is fair of them to expect that, because most games are like that.

They don't look any deeper because they haven't gotten any notice that there's anything to find.

If you are filling in more detailed and sophisticated motivations for NPCs in your game, that is great and I salute you. Gaming needs more GMs like you. But before you go expecting your players to find and appreciate it, you must give them some indication that if they look, there will be something there for them to find.

As in any game, the actions of players are restricted to what the game allows for. If they think they're in a game where good people slaughter orcs because orcs are bad, then you need to tell them otherwise before holding them accountable.

Morality is not absolute, it is context-dependent, regardless of what RPG publishers who think they are philosophers may write in their books.

Cerlis
2011-01-10, 11:30 PM
except for the players trying to kill each other, i dont see any problem other than the fact that maybe the players didnt know that Orcs arent all evil. Pretty much every DnD player knows (as fact or as a trope) that Kobalds, Goblins, orcs are always evil and always XP fodder, and you have to make sure (unless you got a really nice set of players) to ingrain in their heads ahead of time "not everything you think is evil, is evil" and "This isnt kick in the door, i have everything set up to simulate if this where actually happening" ergo just cus someone is bad, doesnt mean you should kill em.

The problem i see is that. "orcs are all evil and to be killed" thus even the teenager is Xp fodder.


If you explained this to them before hand , then maybe the characters are evil, piloted by players who dont care for diplomacy potential games.

Pink
2011-01-10, 11:31 PM
Make sure you carefully describe orc camp as "Women, children and the elderly preparing small portions of food without an adult male in sight." because player mindsight will generally assume "Stakes with the heads of their opponents embedded upon them, Axes being sharpened, the screams of the innocent barely muffled by cloth tents."

Weasel of Doom
2011-01-10, 11:56 PM
To some extent it depends on the sort of game you run and what you expect the party to enjoy.

If it's a simple hack-and-slash game with Always CE orcs then I think murdering the orcs is justified. Partly this is because the party can reasonably assume the orcs attacked the dragon and they are preventing the orcs evil actions in the future but mainly because this sort of game wouldn't be improved by the moral dilemma.

If, on the other hand, you want to dm a more realistic game where it's wrong to kill orcs simply because they're orcs then I think this would be evil. They entered combat prematurely and appeared to "simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms", two of the srd's descriptors for evil acts. This one act wouldn't be enough to turn them evil, there'd need to be a pattern of evil behaviour.

It's extremely important to make sure that the party know what sort of game they're playing in though. Talk to the players about whether they see their actions as evil and how they want alignment to work in your game.

Rasman
2011-01-11, 12:22 AM
Lack of Information Clause: If you don't know your actions are evil, then you can't exactly be held accountable, unless you gain the knowledge of what your actions caused and feel no remorse.

I wouldn't call them evil, they're just following the tropes. Orcs tend to be the "bad guys" when it comes to this stuff. Frankly, I'd just have the Dragon kill them. I mean, the Orcs were actually there to help them, and they offed them without thinking, make them pay the penalty.

Fenryr
2011-01-11, 01:34 AM
If a young orc runs towards my character, it would shock him/her. The tears, the frustration! That's not normal in an orc. Of course the character is not gonna hug the orc but at least he/she would stop and think. "Hey, are they even evil?" And an orc sacrificed himself for another. I think it's a lil' clue.

Maybe it's a mistake and the players don't think a lot about morals. It's up to you to correct them or let them continue.

Strawberries
2011-01-11, 01:58 AM
Well, while I'd say that to start attacking and killing the orcs on sight may be not necessarly evil (possibly stupid, tho), I think this



One of the young orcs(around 13 years old) is shoved out of the way and yelled at to run for it by an older orc, who is cut down from behind by a party member while doing it. The young orc (by this point unarmed) then screams and blindly rushes at the party barbarian who did it and starts sobbing and pounding on the barbarian's chest with his fists, doing no damage and incurring an attack of opportunity which the barbarian uses to kill him.

pushes it firmly in evil territory. That may be just me,tho. I could see the argument that the barbarian, being a barbarian, was not completely lucid at the moment. However some of his/her more level-headed friends should have prevented the killing.

Hawriel
2011-01-11, 02:40 AM
Goonthegoof

Did you explane the setting? what are the relations between humans, orcs, dragons, and what ever? What role in the comunity do the characters have? Are they in a town just passing through? Are they from that town? What infor mation are the characters supposed to know? Why didnt the characacters know that there was a dragon that raided tribes and villiges?

So far it sounds like the players just defalted to orcs evil kill and loot.

Yukitsu
2011-01-11, 03:11 AM
The first and most important question is, why are your orcs peaceful? Because you think it's original? Or because you want the players to try empathizing with everyone first? Depending on why you think orcs are peaceful, will really alter my answer here.

TaintedLight
2011-01-11, 03:13 AM
They're monsters that attacked the party. Thus, there is nothing evil about killing them. It's called self defense and it is perfectly justified.
Why do people always forget that the whole point of D&D is fighting monsters. I am sick and tired of people worrying about the moral ramifications of stopping monsters from killing them simply because the monster might have just been trying to support his family. It's stupid.

Frankly, this is a narrow and flawed analysis of the situation and D&D in general.

The point of D&D is whatever you want it to be. Whole campaigns can start and end without a single attack roll ever being made and that doesn't make them "less D&D" because of it. The traditional model does indeed call for heroes to kill evil monsters, but it is by no means the only way to play.

I'd say that you can't really hold them accountable for information they didn't have. If they didn't know that the orcs in question were usually peaceful or that the dragon was killing innocents, how could you expect them to see anything other than orcs fighting a dragon? It's unreasonable to expect them to assume something that is, in their characters' world, highly improbable; namely, that the orcs might not be evil, since it is highly common for orcs to do quite a lot of evil. Unless, of course, it is the norm in your campaign world for evil orcs to be significantly less ubiquitous.

The self sacrifice and the pounding and screaming thing? Evil creatures can still love and form bonds of loyalty. If they had chosen to have mercy on the orcs, that would have been an unequivocally Good act. The pitiful sobbing doesn't absolve them of all evil automatically, especially if, like you said, the intent of the orcs was to sneak up on the party and do them harm. It just means that someone is upset, which is neither good nor evil. Seeing as they just killed the orcs who were going to attack them, they defended themselves. That's not good or evil.

Zaq
2011-01-11, 03:13 AM
I don't think that just showing them the helpless women and children is the best response. I think that this should be brought up before the game starts, before they're fully in "game mode." Don't harp on it or get all preachy, but don't be subtle about it either, since you're basically checking whether or not they're aware of what they did (and, importantly, making them aware if they aren't already). Simply showing them the innocent orcs probably won't give them the moment of clarity we're hoping for at this juncture.

Now, of course, there's no guarantee that they'll go "holy crap, you're right, what have we done?!" and be forevermore mindful of innocent NPCs. You just want to make certain that they have the chance to do so before you break out the alignment shifts.

Goonthegoof
2011-01-11, 04:10 AM
What I'm getting from a lot of people is I should explain more to the group. The group has a fair amount of information about the setting, but I don't see what explaining how I'm playing the game would achieve- How I'm playing it is very obvious from the way the game flows. Likewise I don't see the point in having some metagame discussion with them about whether the orcs are evil.

As to why the orcs are peaceful, they're peaceful because I couldn't see why they shouldn't be.



pushes it firmly in evil territory. That may be just me,tho. I could see the argument that the barbarian, being a barbarian, was not completely lucid at the moment. However some of his/her more level-headed friends should have prevented the killing.

Barbarian wasn't raging at the time.

TaintedLight
2011-01-11, 04:17 AM
What I'm getting from a lot of people is I should explain more to the group. The group has a fair amount of information about the setting, but I don't see what explaining how I'm playing the game would achieve- How I'm playing it is very obvious from the way the game flows. Likewise I don't see the point in having some metagame discussion with them about whether the orcs are evil.

As to why the orcs are peaceful, they're peaceful because I couldn't see why they shouldn't be.



Barbarian wasn't raging at the time.

You don't have to explain how you're running each civilization and your intentions behind those actions. You just have to tell them enough such that they can reasonably be expected to know that a significant number of orcs are not evil. Secondly, the orcs approached with the intent to do the party harm. This is a very bad way to foster sympathy.

Ultimately, the party could be (theoretically) expected to make perfectly moral decisions only if they have perfect information. It really comes down to establishing details of the world that are unusual and that the players are going to be expected (by you) to know.

It also occurs to me to mention that killing young orcs should not necessarily ding the party's alignment. Self defense is a legitimate tactic and when you are being attacked there is not a lot of time usually to make careful moral decisions.

Ytaker
2011-01-11, 05:04 AM
What I'm getting from a lot of people is I should explain more to the group. The group has a fair amount of information about the setting, but I don't see what explaining how I'm playing the game would achieve- How I'm playing it is very obvious from the way the game flows. Likewise I don't see the point in having some metagame discussion with them about whether the orcs are evil.

It's obvious to you, at least. You had them sneak up on the party, indicating they are hateful beings, and you even had their child attack the barbarian with his fists. That is blatantly not obvious to your players that you aren't playing them as violent.

The point is they'd then know what sort of game to expect before you changed their alignments for them and annoyed them, and they'd be able to adjust their playing style.


As to why the orcs are peaceful, they're peaceful because I couldn't see why they shouldn't be.

If the orcs are peaceful then they should know that as background knowledge.

Kaww
2011-01-11, 05:05 AM
It also occurs to me to mention that killing young orcs humans should not necessarily ding the party's alignment. Self defense is a legitimate tactic and when you are being attacked there is not a lot of time usually to make careful moral decisions.

This would be cited in many police brutality and accidental shooting incidents. It does not changed the fact that you hacked a barehanded kid that was hitting your armor and crying because you slew it's loving parent...

Goonthegoof
2011-01-11, 05:08 AM
This specific group of orcs are peaceful, some are violent. Just like humans and pretty much any race. Turns out none of the party took knowledge: local either.
I'm not making them shift alignment because I deliberately left room for confusion in the encounter. The reason they're all now a little closer to evil than they were is that they did have a chance to work out what was going on and they blew it.

Ytaker
2011-01-11, 05:25 AM
If orcs were not "often chaotic evil" that's a general piece of social knowledge that everyone would know.

You said you are not going to work any clues into it. They didn't have much chance to work it out because you have offered them only negative evidence which opposes the idea that the orcs are non violent so far.

Edit. Here's a scenario that would support your idea.

They see a group of orcs outside.

"Noble warriors, we ask your help in slaying this evil dragon! Please, we implore the good in your hearts!"

kco_501
2011-01-11, 05:25 AM
One question if you would allow, how well do you know your players? Did they play d&d before? With you and/or other masters? That is very important in telling what the expectations are.

If a DM i know nothing about has some orcs sneaking up on my and my band my Good character would also attack. Why? Because all in-universe friends that tried to welcome sneaking orcs in their midst with open arms are dead, killed by marauding savages and their bones bleach in the sun. It makes no practical sense in-character to wait to be slaughtered by other beings who

a) historically shown great potential for cruelty
b) we do not understand and have no way of talking to
c) are sneaking up on me.

Being good does not mean being suicidally naive or a born pacifist.

Also most good characters i know are loyal and protective of their friends, so it makes sense that a character whose mount (who in D&D is a very close and loyal friend) is attacked to try and deal with the threat. And giving acid is pretty painful and evil and can expect to have the intent to kill

TaintedLight
2011-01-11, 05:33 AM
This would be cited in many police brutality and accidental shooting incidents. It does not changed the fact that you hacked a barehanded kid that was hitting your armor and crying because you slew it's loving parent...

It is not reasonable to ask a non-Exalted character to keep their eyes peeled for the welfare of their enemies and any sign, however slight, that there is a layer of complication for which no precedent exists. Would you honestly stand still and take it if you saw someone in a hysterical rage rush you with fists raised? It's stupid to assume that the character will reason through everything that happens in a battle. That's not to say the barbarian can't regret what he did if he learns at some point in the future what exactly was happening. At the time, his available information and plausible thought process was as follows:

Orcs are pretty much all evil.

These orcs snuck up on us with the intent to harm us.

There is an orc rushing me.

He is hysterical. I am not taking the time to focus on his particular mood because it could get me killed if I let my guard down.

He is hitting me.

Things that hit me are usually trying to kill me.

What follows from that? I think it's obvious.

Kaww
2011-01-11, 05:41 AM
Orcs are pretty much all evil.

Requires knowledge history/local/nature to know. What you are talking about is metagaming.

What I, the barbarian, perceive is humanoids fighting a dragon. If there is no way for me to know who is good and who is bad I shouldn't interfere, or I should make a cry for them to stop fighting, since I'm a good character. Also I can stand quite a few hits with an axe. An unarmed 13 year old kid can't match an axe or his parents would've slaughtered us by now.

TaintedLight
2011-01-11, 05:47 AM
Orcs are pretty much all evil.

Requires knowledge history/local/nature to know. What you are talking about is metagaming.

What I, the barbarian, perceive is humanoids fighting a dragon. If there is no way for me to know who is good and who is bad I shouldn't interfere, or I should make a cry for them to stop fighting, since I'm a good character. Also I can stand quite a few hits with an axe. An unarmed 13 year old kid can't match an axe or his parents would've slaughtered us by now.

While a strong case can be made for that to be considered metagame knowledge, it is far from inappropriate. You might as well extend that reasoning to requiring a character to have at least a rank in knowledge nature to know what trees are, since no ranks in a knowledge skill apparently means that you know NOTHING of the subject, not even a basic and widely disseminated idea or concept.

To assume that orcs are evil is as natural and reasonable as assuming that a hungry wolf will eat you. There's a more than decent chance that you're correct and it's not unreasonable to choose not to take chances when your life is potentially at risk.

What I see when the dragon and the orcs are fighting is a group of armed humanoids with the clearly expressed intent to kill something.

EDIT: To lend a little more credibility to the assumption that orcs are evil, other sentient races are quite likely to have stereotypes and myths about orcs if there has ever been contact between them and there is no garuantee that they are accurate, but it makes as much sense to penalize players for assumptions that you haven't corrected as it does to tell them that "by the way, the sand is all purple. Don't assume it's brown."

Kaww
2011-01-11, 06:09 AM
What I see when the dragon and the orcs are fighting is a group of armed humanoids with the clearly expressed intent to kill something.

While true that orcs have expressed intent to kill something, so have you. You don't know who started the fight. You have at least one exalted character in a party, who by definition will not start a fight unless he knows who is the bad guy.

Also why is it equally common knowledge that something is evil and that it bites when hungry? (alignment is not printed on persons forehead) It leads to conclusion that a wolf is more evil than orcs because it wants to bite me and (intelligent) orcs are willing to trade with me.

Ytaker
2011-01-11, 06:14 AM
While true that orcs have expressed intent to kill something, so have you. You don't know who started the fight. You have at least one exalted character in a party, who by definition will not start a fight unless he knows who is the bad guy.

Also why is it equally common knowledge that something is evil and that it bites when hungry? (alignment is not printed on persons forehead) It leads to conclusion that a wolf is more evil than orcs because it wants to bite me and (intelligent) orcs are willing to trade with me.

There are almost no recorded incidents of unprovoked attacks from wolves on humans throughout history, barring ones with rabies. They are a remarkably safe creature to be with. And wolves may well be willing to hunt with you, like dogs.

yldenfrei
2011-01-11, 06:22 AM
What I, the barbarian, perceive is humanoids fighting a dragon. If there is no way for me to know who is good and who is bad I shouldn't interfere, or I should make a cry for them to stop fighting, since I'm a good character. Also I can stand quite a few hits with an axe. An unarmed 13 year old kid can't match an axe or his parents would've slaughtered us by now.

Huh. I'm not sure standing out there in plain sight and attracting the attention of either the orc party and/or the sand dragon is a healthy thing for the barbarian or the party.

That said, without Knowledge (Local), a character would not know what in the nine hells a clearly armed orc party is doing tagging juveniles along. Or if said smaller orcs are juvenile at all. In the middle of the fight, an orc shoves a small one out of the way and shouts something unintelligible. Calling for reinforcements? The bigger orc cut down, the smaller one in a raging (albeit ineffectual) fit flies at the barbarian, who at this point is still in the middle of the fight, and this little runt, while not directly a threat, is nonetheless a hindrance. Cue looting and the ganging up on the ashworm riding orc leader.

Irresponsible, yes very much so. Evil, not really. Possibly chaotic.

I am more interested in what happened after the party killed the leader, what happened between them and the sand dragon. I think I'm going to cry if the sand dragon leaves them alone right after the incident. Especially since this intrepid party stole his kills.

So, unless you clearly ordered your players to be the light of goodness in this bleak world, moving their alignments will not go over well.

Kaww
2011-01-11, 06:46 AM
What party members did to each other is evil. A good character poisoning an intelligent creature, and an exalted character burning a fleeing opponent alive.

As for battle itself I don't play brutes, I'm usually the intelligent guy who thinks twice about how to avoid an encounter. Also there is a number of ways to determine who is evil.

Pixie has one of them...

umbrapolaris
2011-01-11, 06:52 AM
when i read all this, i really feel good to play an evil manipulator character, i can do what i want, when i want, where i want and how i want, without thinking too much about the consequences.

hamishspence
2011-01-11, 06:53 AM
Orcs are "often chaotic evil" which means less than 50% of orcs are chaotic evil.

And in one of the later MMs (MM IV or MM V) it states that the most common alignment after Chaotic Evil, is Chaotic neutral.

So a significant portion of orcs are not Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, or Lawful Evil.

Quite apart from the issue that Evil alignments vary- some can be very malevolent, some only mildly so.

Starbuck_II
2011-01-11, 09:11 AM
If a young orc runs towards my character, it would shock him/her. The tears, the frustration! That's not normal in an orc. Of course the character is not gonna hug the orc but at least he/she would stop and think. "Hey, are they even evil?" And an orc sacrificed himself for another. I think it's a lil' clue.

Maybe it's a mistake and the players don't think a lot about morals. It's up to you to correct them or let them continue.

It is normal for evil. Evil is like the Dark side of the force: you can have feelings, friends, Namaka, and allies.
They can still be evil and cry.

Can you explain why the orcs were sneaking?

hamishspence
2011-01-11, 09:15 AM
Can you explain why the orcs were sneaking?

Going by the description:



The players don't know that the dragon has been attacking everyone in the area for months, with the (usually peaceful) orcs slowly starving to death as the dragon swoops in and steals their livestock and any lone orcs it can find. In the situation above, the desperate orcs were planning an ambush for the dragon, knowing it would probably come to raid the party. The players didn't know that but they never really made an effort to find out either but instead rushed in immediately and started slaughtering the orcs.

what they were doing, was sneaking up to ambush positions, to ambush the sand dragon that they expected to come and attack the party.

Kylarra
2011-01-11, 09:19 AM
Given that half-orcs can start adventuring at 15, 13 is hardly a youngling.

hamishspence
2011-01-11, 09:25 AM
People still didn't think 13-odd year old padawans, even ones with lightsabers, being killed by Anakin and the clone troops- could ever be excusable- seeing it as a Moral Event Horizon.

So "early teens" doesn't necessarily mean "treat as a full combatant".

Kylarra
2011-01-11, 09:38 AM
Maybe, but that's different than encountering one in a supposed "warband" "trying to kill attack you" while on the cusp of proposed "maturity".

Frankly I just see this as a situation where yes, the party did knee jerk things, but in the majority of generic D&D worlds, assuming the orcs are in the wrong is probably the safe bet when they're fighting a neutral dragon, and taking an AoO on an attacking orc isn't [necessarily] an EVIL act.

The pixie thing is obviously very dumb and closest to EVIL.

Sipex
2011-01-11, 10:18 AM
This is a hard subject to throw at a party who doesn't know what sort of universe they're in and you need to tread lightly at first. I did the same thing with my party at first, I introduced goblins who were attacking locals who entered the forest. The PCs are hired to kill goblins and they go off and do so (especially with none of them understanding goblin).

After defeating the small goblin warcamp they uncovered they find a note (written entirely in goblin) and thus leads the entire intrigue.

In the end it turns out the goblins were being run out of their homes because other humans (a cult the PCs now fight) were deforesting the area and burning their homes down. The goblins didn't know any different and were lead by a zealous leader who wanted to drive all humans from the forest.

I didn't punish my players for killing the goblins because they didn't know, as they began to learn that goblins weren't evil (There were lots of hints as the story continued, like the goblins always being peaceful and people commenting on it. Also goblins willfully surrendered.)

If my PCs started doing something that would be perceived as evil I usually gave them a second chance like "Are you sure you want to torture the goblin? That doesn't seem very good aligned." so they knew what they were doing.

I've only had to change an alignment once and that was with our Rogue, I bumped him down to Neutral for a few less than good actions (Ripping the eye out of an adversary and leaving him to die, killing his brother in cold blood after he had knocked him into the negatives).

Callista
2011-01-11, 10:35 AM
Remember not to judge them by what YOU only know. They don't know the orcs were starving, they don't know anything about the dragon other than it attacked them. They probably didn't see anything about that thirteen-year-old orc other than the fact that it attacked them. (Thirteen for an orc is probably about seventeen for a human, so it wouldn't even have been obviously young. Thirteen is very nearly maturity for an orc...)

I have no idea why one adventurer would kill the other's mount. Animal cruelty, yes, but more nonsensical than anything else. Anyway, that PC is dead, so that's beside the point now.

They saw a dragon fighting some orcs and jumped into the battle. They didn't have any background on why they were fighting. I would call this impulsive and ill-advised. But the player's perspective: "We're adventurers; they're orcs. If we side with the dragon, we might get a dragon ally." And they don't have any guidance one way or the other.

What I see most of all is poor role-playing. They're not RPing Good or Evil; they're just killing things for XP.

Mordaenor
2011-01-11, 10:53 AM
If there is an established culture that percieves, "ALL Orcs are evil" and the PC's believed themselves to be the targets of a pending Orcish attack, I don't think that inherently makes them evil. It happens in real life, and it is a tragedy when it occurs, and while the perpetrator may deserve to be punished, it doesn't make one evil, just mis-informed. I think the TRUE test of the would be what happens when the PC's DO learn the truth. Do they show remorse at mis-reading the situation? Do they attempt any sort of atonement? Or do they say, "Screw them. They were orcs, we had every right to kill them." In that case, yeah they're evil.

Chilingsworth
2011-01-11, 10:55 AM
Whatever alignment they are, they don't sound Exalted to me. That Vassal of Bahamut should get, at the very least, a stern warning from his diety. Likewise the other characters is the have Exalted PrC's or feats.

BlackSheep
2011-01-11, 10:58 AM
There's pretty much no way to do that and have it make sense in game. They're going to run across an encampment of scared and emaciated women and children and it's their choice as to what they do next.

Make sure you beat them over the head with details about how sad and pathetic the orc refugees are. If the party makes even the tiniest gesture of charity toward them, sell them on how relieved and grateful the women and children are. Then let them stew in their own guilt.

If they don't sit still long enough to get the picture and just attack by reflex, don't have the orcs organize a resistance, have mothers shielding children from the monstersPCs and generally fleeing.

You don't have to spoon feed every single detail to the group. The "show, don't tell" rule still applies, though.

obliged_salmon
2011-01-11, 12:36 PM
DM: You approach the orc camp. There are...
Knight: We ride in, killing every orc we see, for justice!
DM: Uhh...
Knight: Are there any human prisoners that need to be rescued?
DM: No...
Knight: The savages! They killed all the prisoners! Well, I find their bodies and give them proper burial.
DM: There aren't any bodies, but...
Knight: No bodies? The monsters ate the bodies! How barbaric! I burn the camp to the ground as a warning to all of orc kind.

Seriously, though. You should be setting the stakes clearly. You don't just say "the young looking orc runs at you and begins pounding your chainmail with his ineffectual fists in fury, and weeps bitter tears."

You say all that, then give the player the choice up front, "what are you going to do about it? You have an attack of opportunity to use. Do you kill the youngling who just lost what could be his father? He can't possibly hurt you like this. You could just cut his throat though...avoid the consequences of your previous actions. What do you say?"

Goonthegoof
2011-01-11, 12:47 PM
Except that sharply limits the options of the players. I prefer to give them a world and let them react to it naturally. Giving them a set list of options or explaining the consequences of every action they take before they take it would make the game a whole lot duller.

Sipex
2011-01-11, 12:50 PM
It would but you have to let them know the world runs by those rules. If you just go off spouting "You're evil now because you didn't get my hints." your players aren't going to revere you, they'll just be pissed off.

edit: To clarify, I'm a big fan of making them feel guilty about it now. If they don't feel guilty or reconsider their actions in the future then maybe it's time for some alignment shifting.

If 'morally complex' isn't a game they want to play you may need to reconsider what you play with this group and find a different bunch of people to play your deeper games with.

Strawberries
2011-01-11, 12:50 PM
The self sacrifice and the pounding and screaming thing? Evil creatures can still love and form bonds of loyalty. If they had chosen to have mercy on the orcs, that would have been an unequivocally Good act. The pitiful sobbing doesn't absolve them of all evil automatically, especially if, like you said, the intent of the orcs was to sneak up on the party and do them harm. It just means that someone is upset, which is neither good nor evil. Seeing as they just killed the orcs who were going to attack them, they defended themselves. That's not good or evil.

You are absolutely right (except for the part where the intent of the orcs wasn't to do the party harm, but that's a thing they couldn't know). In my post I wasn't using the example as a proof that the orcs weren't evil, just that the barbarian killed a person that wasn't a threat and had no way of harming him. The orc could have an evil alignment and nothing would have changed in my mind, as I am of the firm belief that mercy should be a hallmark of Good. That said, I don't think the act is enough to shift them to Evil. It's a sort of warning bell.


Barbarian wasn't raging at the time.

I didn't assume that he was raging. I meant that, at least stereotypically, a barbarian is usually more hot-headed than, say, a knight. I don't know if that's the case for the specific characters, tho.

Pink
2011-01-11, 12:58 PM
One thing I'm wondering about is, did the Barbarian actually know that the young orc couldn't hurt him?

I mean, if we're to follow the standard line of events on this, it would go this way:

1) The Young Orc moves/charges the Barbarian
2) The DM announces that the Orc, tears streaming down his face and shouting, is using an unarmed strike, and provoking an AoO, and would the Barbarian like to use it
3) The Barbarian, seeing the incoming attack and not knowing how ineffectual it is, chooses to use his AoO.

I mean, unless it was presented firmly otherwise, there's a rational to it on the Barbarian's side. As said before, a 13 year old orc is pretty beefy at that age. Tears and an ill-conceived charge could be just as much choosing to fight to the death (a rather sterotypical game orc thing to do), as anything else all things considered.

Sipex
2011-01-11, 01:00 PM
Also paranoia, many experienced PCs will be expecting that orc to pull out a poisoned dagger the second he shows mercy.

Ytaker
2011-01-11, 01:22 PM
Except that sharply limits the options of the players. I prefer to give them a world and let them react to it naturally. Giving them a set list of options or explaining the consequences of every action they take before they take it would make the game a whole lot duller.

You're making the world act naturally like a world where orcs are chaotic evil. In a real world where a group of people were non violent they would find many clues to this, as their non violence would have many impacts on the world.

They have next to no way to find out the consequences of their actions before they face the consequences, because of the way you are writing your story.

TheWhisper
2011-01-11, 01:56 PM
Except that sharply limits the options of the players. I prefer to give them a world and let them react to it naturally. Giving them a set list of options or explaining the consequences of every action they take before they take it would make the game a whole lot duller.

Explaining what your design considerations went into your game world isn't the same as issuing orders, or constraining them to a list of options.

The players simply do not understand that you have created your world with more realistic, nuanced view of morality than vanilla D&D generally has.

That's awesome, and they'll probably thank you for it. I know I would. But you can't blame them for not assuming it's there without some sort of hint from you.

Comet
2011-01-11, 02:22 PM
Their actions were Evil, yeah.

Now you need to tell them that, but without actually shifting their Alignments. Sort of a warning that the world isn't quite as black and white as they thought. After that they can make their own decisions on whether or not they want to keep up doing stuff like that.

Players like to be in control of their characters. A thing like changing your Alignment is a big deal, it should never come as a surprise.

Some metadiscussion is required. The game is a group effort, after all.

Chilingsworth
2011-01-11, 02:28 PM
One thing you could consider: If anyone in the party is a paladin, or has an Exalted PrC, or Exalted feats, you could require them to recieve an atonement spell to regain the benefits of the class. This doesn't mean that their alignment is changed, but at least affects them abit.

obliged_salmon
2011-01-11, 03:45 PM
Setting stakes limits options? Perhaps I didn't make my point coherently. In my experience, the more the player knows about what's going on in the world, the more choices he actually has to engage it with his character. The more decisions he himself is allowed to make for his character.

My example may not have been the best, since it's a mid-combat sort of thing. However, if the PC is good aligned, or dragonborn of Bahamut, or whatever, you're within your rights to say "you're going to kill an unarmed opponent? a fleeing opponent? you can do that, but you should think about it first."

addendum: players kill unarmed and fleeing opponents because they've been taught to avoid recurring villains at all costs. if you reward sparing lives (with experience, in-game favors, etc.), they'll do that more often.

for instance, "if you spare that orc's life, you'll get 200 xp" now it's a choice, with game mechanical value.