oldgeezer
Level 3 Conjurer
Original Blackmoor Participant
Posts: 70
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Post by oldgeezer on Jul 16, 2008 12:44:02 GMT -6
See in our campaign the humanoids are intelligent creatures but they are supernatural creatures at the same time. Goblins are formed out of the Stygian blackness in the dark places of the earth and are made out of all that is evil. There are no little goblins running around and no amount of evangelizing is going to change them either. This. Kobolds are not a species of natural creature; in the dark places of the earth, amidst the crack of rock and the inexplicable sounds in the deep places, Kobolds come into being, primordial fears of Man made manifest. But I read as much Joseph Campbell as I can.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2008 11:53:59 GMT -6
IMC humans and demihumans can be Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic. Monsters tend to be Chaotic but can also be Lawful or Neutral. Keeping in mind that Lawful does not mean Good and that Chaotic does not mean Evil. IMC almost all monsters and some humans/demihumans are always the enemy. This does not mean that encounters are going to end in combat. The monsters don't want to die anymore than the PC's do and negotiation is part and parcel of my campaign. I do have orc (etc) villages and the pitty pitty patter of little orc feet. I, however, don't introduce moral dilemmas intentionally, although some players choose to inflict that on themselves.
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Post by irdaranger on Sept 3, 2009 14:46:20 GMT -6
Look, either way it's the Lawful Team vs. the Chaotic Team. You're just changing out Green Skins for Green Shirts. Is it murder to kill an Imperial Storm Trooper? What about when you blow up the Death Star (or a Star Destroyer) and kill the janitors too?
But here's a question for Green Shirt-land. If you kill the orcs (who are actually Chaotic), and there's some orc babies in Cave #2, who's gonna raise them? The PCs? Are they gonna stop adventuring to adopt orc babies? Do you think there's any orphanages for orc babies? I hope you know a nice orc village somewhere that will take them in, because I doubt the humans or elves will feed them when they have their own kids to feed.
But why would you do that to your players? I play D&D for relaxing escapism. Geez. I'd blow off your game for wasting my time. Sorry, but there it is. I get plenty of nuance in real life.
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 6, 2009 23:08:43 GMT -6
Maybe this is why I liked Monsters! Monsters! so much. Someimes it's just plain fun to eat, kill, and scare the hell out of Elves, Dwarves, and those pesky humans!
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Post by James Maliszewski on Sept 7, 2009 14:14:41 GMT -6
In my Dwimmermount campaign, I've largely opted for the "supernatural" approach to humanoids (and some demihumans too). Orcs and gnolls and the like aren't natural beings. They're, to varying degrees, agents of Chaos whose existence is alien to the world and antithetical to it. They don't reproduce naturally and haven't the capacity to change, for better or for worse. They are what they are and no amount of moral qualms on the part of Man will alter that fact.
I know that some people think this approach is a cop-out and perhaps it is on some level, but I've found it actually imparts a certain mystique to monsters like bugbears or hobgoblins and the like, which would otherwise just be faceless goons to fill out a humanoid Hit Dice progression table. That it also eliminates the issue of the rightness of slaughtering them without compunction is an added bonus.
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Post by ssfsx17 on Sept 9, 2009 18:55:20 GMT -6
I handle the issue like this: Those humanoids which are so-frequently classified as "monsters" simply lack free will. They are intelligent, they can think, they make plans, they have children, but they cannot behave in any manner which is not in accordance with their magically-imbued nature. They are classified as "monsters" and "evil" because they repeatedly do things which would cause any human to be given the same label. In my campaign, I try to make them more threatening by having them rationalize away their behavior in a manner similar to how humans have justified evil in the past, then taking this logic to the extreme. By being all-too-familiar, perhaps the PCs shall be even more inspired to kill them than ever before.
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Post by ssfsx17 on Sept 12, 2009 20:27:23 GMT -6
Looking over Original D&D, I see that the party was never obligated to slaughter greenskins. Going strictly by the books, there was a good possibility of getting orcs, kobolds, etc. as hirelings upon running into them, provided that the enmity between Law & Chaos was not too insurmountable.
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Post by James Maliszewski on Sept 15, 2009 14:03:30 GMT -6
Looking over Original D&D, I see that the party was never obligated to slaughter greenskins. Going strictly by the books, there was a good possibility of getting orcs, kobolds, etc. as hirelings upon running into them, provided that the enmity between Law & Chaos was not too insurmountable. As with anything related to OD&D, there are no definitive answers and I know that many of the early campaigns featured humanoids and monsters and hirelings and henchmen, for example.
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Post by coffee on Sept 15, 2009 14:13:08 GMT -6
Looking over Original D&D, I see that the party was never obligated to slaughter greenskins. Going strictly by the books, there was a good possibility of getting orcs, kobolds, etc. as hirelings upon running into them, provided that the enmity between Law & Chaos was not too insurmountable. And according to Men & Magic, p. 9, Orcs and Ogres could be either Chaotic or Neutral.
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Post by aldarron on Sept 15, 2009 20:18:46 GMT -6
Here is an exalt for Jim for a brilliant, no nonsense post. One thing I would add to this discussion is that D&D and all the rest are wargames at heart. Conflict is inherent to the game. What's bothering Akiyama is the idea of an enemy that is also a thinking, feeling creature that cares about its young. I agree that players who attack an orc den just because they can might be an act of very questionable morality in some campaigns, but what some seem to be missing here is that in the typical medieval fantasy settings, humans are usually at WAR with goblins, orcs, kobolds, etc. for their very survival. These monsters are intent on raiding the human villages, attacking travelers, and driving humans out of thier lands. In such a world, a preemptive strike against a den of foul beasts is a good thing (for people at least). There are no innocents and no "live and let live" in such a world.
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