Exterminate the orcs! (or some other cannon fodder monster)

[Frozen_Feet]

How do game masters use the traditional cannon fodder race?

I make a place, then I decide [weird being X] happens to live there, then my players' characters stumble upon them and do whatever.

[Weird being X] includes humans.

How do players perceive and interactive with the traditional cannon fodder race?

Typically, they torture, murder or otherwise abuse them with little to no second thought.

And I don't need to prod them to do this. I don't need to give them excuses by, say, having them raid or pillage anything. My players are happy to come up with their own. In my experience, even if it's just [weird being x] women and children cowering in a corner because some armed hobo just busted their door in, the player characters will be happy to throw someone down an elevator shaft if they think it'll get them somewhere.

In short, I'm very much convinced that most roleplayers, especially new roleplayers, are perfectly happy to play antisocial murderhobos and do horrible things to fictional people completely on their own accord. Genre convention and "obviously evil" species (I mean, goblins and orcs are obviously evil, 'cause they're ugly and stuff. Duh.) can make them more likely to go that way, but even if you start a game with words "you're at the market place of a happy and peaceful village", one of them will go "cool, let's beat someone and take his stuff!"