Thoughts on the OOTS goblin predicament

[hamishspence]

I don't think the intent was poorly communicated, but I notice that many gamers didn't actually read the rule books. Or the articles and letters in Dragon magazine that explored alignment and the "orc baby" debate.

Considering that Pathfinder - a 3.5 spinoff written by the same people that owned Dragon Magazine for a while - suggests that it's within Good alignment, for some Good characters to solve the "orc baby debate" with "Kill" - that would suggest that whatever Dragon Magazine said about it, it wasn't unambiguously "Killing would be wrong".

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-d...itional-rules/

Ethics For Adventurers
If complicated ethics that challenge a character’s concept or force her to make difficult moral decisions is an element of play you would rather avoid, discussing this with your GM is important. It makes for a better game when everyone knows the expected boundaries in terms of what is considered fun. Some players, in fact, do not want to have anything that too closely resembles real life appearing in their fantasy games! Decide together what your group considers to be fair game.

One of the many quandaries good-aligned characters face during their adventuring careers is what to do about the progeny of evil humanoids. For example, shortly into their adventures, an adventuring party encounters a group of goblins who have been raiding a village, leaving a swath of death and destruction in their wake. The PCs track them to some caves and kill them—but the dead goblins leave behind babies. What should the PCs do with those? Kill them? Leave them be? What is the best and most appropriate thing for a good character to do in this situation? Just as there are varying good alignments, there are different solutions to this problem. One good character might believe the children are not inherently evil, that their behavior is learned, and round up the young ones to take them to a higher power like a church, a monastery, or an orphanage set up to deal with the issue of raising humanoid children. Alternatively, he might decide to raise them himself! This could be viewed as the most saintly thing to do. Another character might decide not to do anything, leaving the children to the whims of nature—either the children will survive in the wild on their own, or they will not. Lastly, a good character who believes the younglings can never overcome their innate evil might kill them all outright, viewing the action as good, just, and the most merciful option.

[danielxcutter]

Let's see.

Wha happens, tha dwarf wins cuz 'e's gotta better armor an's been eatin' better food 'is whole life!
Thor: I mean... yes, that's true. We didn't plan it on purpose... but I guess we didn't really prevent it either.

Considering Thor is a literal god, and while OotS gods are not omniscient they have considerably better mental stats and more ways of learning things than the average mortal, yes I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be true.

I mean yes, there are works of fiction where it's totally okay to stomp on the faces of the opposing side and most aren't really that problematic. The thing is, OotS isn't one of those works.

[arimareiji]

Ethics For Adventurers
If complicated ethics that challenge a character’s concept or force her to make difficult moral decisions is an element of play you would rather avoid, discussing this with your GM is important. It makes for a better game when everyone knows the expected boundaries in terms of what is considered fun. Some players, in fact, do not want to have anything that too closely resembles real life appearing in their fantasy games! Decide together what your group considers to be fair game.

Transpose this to a story where there are no players per se, the only person with agency is the GM/author (but readers can observe), and it seems simple. The GM decides what kind of story he/she wants to tell, there is no "decide together". That said, readers have the same choice a player would if they're the only one in the group who doesn't like XYZ -- they're not forced to stay.

One of the many quandaries good-aligned characters face during their adventuring careers is what to do about the progeny of evil humanoids. For example, shortly into their adventures, an adventuring party encounters a group of goblins who have been raiding a village, leaving a swath of death and destruction in their wake. The PCs track them to some caves and kill them—but the dead goblins leave behind babies. What should the PCs do with those? Kill them? Leave them be? What is the best and most appropriate thing for a good character to do in this situation? Just as there are varying good alignments, there are different solutions to this problem. One good character might believe the children are not inherently evil, that their behavior is learned, and round up the young ones to take them to a higher power like a church, a monastery, or an orphanage set up to deal with the issue of raising humanoid children. Alternatively, he might decide to raise them himself! This could be viewed as the most saintly thing to do. Another character might decide not to do anything, leaving the children to the whims of nature—either the children will survive in the wild on their own, or they will not. Lastly, a good character who believes the younglings can never overcome their innate evil might kill them all outright, viewing the action as good, just, and the most merciful option.

I can't argue vehemently against what I bet some people will think about the above, i.e. "They're trying to excuse 'nits become lice'". But my money is on "Decide this for yourselves, leave us out of it."

[danielxcutter]

Yeah that sounds about fair. It's a complicated issue enough that trying to lay down the specifics more than necessary will have a couple of major flaws one way or another from the perspective of a game designer.

That being said, being good for a game is not necessarily good for a story and vice versa. A large part of DStP would be considered a load of minotaur crap at most tables if you ask me.

[Fyraltari]

That "orc babies" dilemma rests on the assumption that the adventurers have killed literally every adult in the orc village/community/tribe/what-have-you, right?

Because if that's the case, it sounds like the adventurers were already on mission of extermination.

[Severance]

They're not unrelated - quote 2 was a reply to quote 1.

And the point being made, is the attempt to dismiss the situation of goblins as a whole as irrelevant, and shift the discussion to "only the situation of the goblins and hobgoblins serving Redcloak and Xykon".

Oh that's the conclusion he got from those words? Huh.

Let's see.

Considering Thor is a literal god, and while OotS gods are not omniscient they have considerably better mental stats and more ways of learning things than the average mortal, yes I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be true.

I mean yes, there are works of fiction where it's totally okay to stomp on the faces of the opposing side and most aren't really that problematic. The thing is, OotS isn't one of those works.

Frankly that phrase was the pinnacle of Durkon's stupidity. In what universe fictional or otherwise are armies not trying to gain military superiority over their enemies? And keep that state going mantaining advantages and better weapons and stuff to increase their odds at winning?
What kind of moronic society wants armies to always be "on equal footing" with a 50:50 of win or lose everything?
"OotS isn't one of those works"... and you count this as a positive?

And why the heck would you want to prevent that? Thor's IQ went down to a single digit with that answer, for real.

[Jason]

Considering that Pathfinder - a 3.5 spinoff written by the same people that owned Dragon Magazine for a while - suggests that it's within Good alignment, for some Good characters to solve the "orc baby debate" with "Kill" - that would suggest that whatever Dragon Magazine said about it, it wasn't unambiguously "Killing would be wrong".

Or that Paizo didn't read or didn't care about all of the earlier debates on alignment and wanted to tell their players "just do whatever you want."

Maybe I'll have to dig up some of those old debates from the Dragon archive.

[woweedd]

Oh that's the conclusion he got from those words? Huh.



Frankly that phrase was the pinnacle of Durkon's stupidity. In what universe fictional or otherwise are armies not trying to gain military superiority over their enemies? And keep that state going mantaining advantages and better weapons and stuff to increase their odds at winning?
What kind of moronic society wants armies to always be "on equal footing" with a 50:50 of win or lose everything?
"OotS isn't one of those works"... and you count this as a positive?

And why the heck would you want to prevent that? Thor's IQ went down to a single digit with that answer, for real.

The criticism being made is of the Gods. How they set up the world to have, as one might put it, “uneven starting conditions”. TFW goblins get ****ty land and ha e to work hard every day of their life to gain access to the same wealth that dwarves basically got by luck of starting conditions. It creates a self-perpetuated cycle: the goblins have poor starting conditions and, thus, will keep falling behind. And the Gods do have motive for this injustice. More wars, after all, mean more souls.

[Jason]

I never got the impression that Jason thought the storyline with the paladins was bad or poorly written or anything, just impossible according to D&D rules, but he still understood that stories are stories and not campaigns. Tell me if I’m misunderstanding, though, my only exposure to this topic was OotS and Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide, where the paladin was specifically arguing that killing a goblin child was fine because goblins are evil creatures, and everyone else basically scoffed.

Edit: heck of an autocorrect of undrentide lmao

Yes, you have the right of it.
The Neverwinter Nights designers apparently did know about the "orc baby" meme.

[Fyraltari]

And the Gods do have motive for this injustice. More wars, after all, mean more souls.

Fewer souls, actually. Dead people don't reproduce. Although, Thor and Durkon's discussion basically says that higher level souls are more filling.

[SavageWombat]

Rich is neither the DM nor the Gods of the world we're seeing. He is the writer of the webcomic.

When he says 1) Non-combatants are innocents, and killing them is Evil - and 2) LG paladins killed them but didn't fall - he's not being self-contradictory. He's saying that the Gods (or DM) of this world failed to hold the paladins accountable for an obviously evil act, because to THEM killing goblins isn't Evil. Which is wrong.

[Worldsong]

Rich is neither the DM nor the Gods of the world we're seeing. He is the writer of the webcomic.

When he says 1) Non-combatants are innocents, and killing them is Evil - and 2) LG paladins killed them but didn't fall - he's not being self-contradictory. He's saying that the Gods (or DM) of this world failed to hold the paladins accountable for an obviously evil act, because to THEM killing goblins isn't Evil. Which is wrong.

I believe the issue is that in 3.5e paladins are supposed to be judged by the cosmic forces of Good and Lawful, not whichever deity they happen to worship.

Which still boils down to the DM, but according to Jason a DM (or writer) who doesn't make paladins fall for the kind of stuff they've done in the Stickverse isn't following the rules for what Lawful Good means.

[danielxcutter]

Also "judged" may not be the right word considering that Rich's stated the forces of alignment are about as sentient as the force of gravity or something.

Which may explain a few things, I dunno.

[mjasghar]

Yeah making good use of what you have and whatever advantage card life dealt you is not "oppression" or something that should be fixed.

Man, oppressor-oppressed narratives are so low-key shallow.

By that logic no one should give to charity. And Charity is one of the official aspects of Good alignment in d&d

[Severance]

By that logic no one should give to charity. And Charity is one of the official aspects of Good alignment in d&d

Charity by its very nature requires the person not to to be forced nor to carry any obligation or duty in practicing it. Apples and oranges.

[Worldsong]

Also "judged" may not be the right word considering that Rich's stated the forces of alignment are about as sentient as the force of gravity or something.

Which may explain a few things, I dunno.

Honestly, that just makes things more confusing. If a paladin's powers are reliant on nothing but their ability to access the cosmic forces of Law and Good, with there being no judgement from a sapient source involved, then by all logic the only qualifier for using that power is to be Lawful Good, since that would align you with those cosmic forces.

However, the PHB is clear that aside from being Lawful Good the paladin must also keep following a specific code of conduct. Which, if there's no judgement involved, kind of makes it sound like the most reasonable take is that the code of conduct a paladin must follow is some kind of continuous ritual to call forth that power and which needs to be primed through atonement if it's ever interrupted by messing up the ritual.

...5e has a warlock archetype whose patron is the energy of the Positive Plane.

Paladins are Lawful Good warlocks.

[SavageWombat]

Which still boils down to the DM, but according to Jason a DM (or writer) who doesn't make paladins fall for the kind of stuff they've done in the Stickverse isn't following the rules for what Lawful Good means.

Exactly. Rich can be right and the fictional DM wrong, without causing a story problem.

[danielxcutter]

I believe Rich's explicitly said there's no "DM".

[SavageWombat]

I believe Rich's explicitly said there's no "DM".

It's probably in the quotes thread somewhere, if so.

[mjasghar]

Charity by its very nature requires the person not to to be forced nor to carry any obligation or duty in practicing it. Apples and oranges.

Charity is Good
Duty is Lawful
By definition charity is a duty for those who are Lawful Good

[Severance]

Charity is Good
Duty is Lawful
By definition charity is a duty for those who are Lawful Good

Hahahahahaha ....no. Being lawful good doesn't mean being forced to practice every ascribed lawful good action in the book.
{scrubbed}

[danielxcutter]

Oh, and you think you're LG?

[Jason]

However, the PHB is clear that aside from being Lawful Good the paladin must also keep following a specific code of conduct. Which, if there's no judgement involved, kind of makes it sound like the most reasonable take is that the code of conduct a paladin must follow is some kind of continuous ritual to call forth that power and which needs to be primed through atonement if it's ever interrupted by messing up the ritual.

That would be a workable approach. Rather than some higher power judging whether or not they are in compliance, a paladin's code is just the "recipe" for what makes a paladin, the same way that the various spells are the recipes for specific magical effects.

Paladins are Lawful Good warlocks.

Except warlocks require a patron of some sort. Paladins do not.

[Worldsong]

That would be a workable approach. Rather than some higher power judging whether or not they are in compliance, a paladin's code is just the "recipe" for what makes a paladin, the same way that the various spells are the recipes for specific magical effects.

Except warlocks require a patron of some sort. Paladins do not.

I was referring to a specific pact in 5e where a warlock basically has an energy source as their patron, which would be similar to how paladins draw their power from the cosmic force of Lawful Good.

5e Unearthed Arcana: Light, Dark, Underdark!

EDIT:
Scroll down to Warlock Patron: The Undying Light

[hamishspence]

While not all paladins have intelligent patrons, those which don't, get their powers from "the divine forces of law and good". All paladins get their powers from something divine, be it deities, or forces.

[danielxcutter]

Also do note that it's entirely possible to get divine spells from abstract concepts or such without a specific deity.

[Dion]

Oh, and you think you're LG?

Oh no! I, like the overwhelming majority of people I know, am neutral stupid.

[Rrmcklin]

Charity is Good
Duty is Lawful
By definition charity is a duty for those who are Lawful Good

I'd phrase it more like being "charitable" is a duty for those who are Lawful Good, but that's probably just nitpicky semantics on my part.

Regardless, while charity can never be said to be a hard obligation, I think most people agree a person who spits on the very concept of charity would have a hard time qualifying as either upper or lower case good. And while we might not have gone to those explicitly levels, a large part of the schism here seems to be that certain people define "good" as just meeting the minimal moral obligation possibly, when it seems like others (and the story) expect that good, by definition, aims for a higher standard than that.

[Dion]

The most unrealistic part of D&D isn’t hitpoints.

The most unrealistic part is that people know their own alignment.

If you ask 100 people what their alignment is, probably 90 of them will say “good”, 5 will say neutral, and 5 will say evil.

But objectively, most of the people who think they’re good are neutral, and some are even evil.

So, there’s a really strong tendency for people to both think that they’re good, and to argue that whatever they do in a specific situation Is good.

Which leads to some interesting message board discussions. (Never mind that good and evil are subjective, and people are often willing to argue endlessly that their subjective opinion on what is “good” is the only valid opinion.)

[Severance]

Oh, and you think you're LG?

No, but neither I am a Lawful Stupid paladin who goes around with a list of "Obligatory Paladin Action of the Day" to check boxes off.
That's the stuff of bad, bad roleplay and fundamentally wrong view of what alignments mean.