Making D&D morality less repulsive.

[Swordslinger]

Then it would be the players, not the game, to blame for the players bastardry.

The game has rules that enable you to walk up to peasant child X and stab them in the face to death. As long as rules exist for killing, that will always be possible. The game is not at fault if someone does this.

Yes.

If people do this kind of stuff, then it's pretty obvious that they didn't want to play heroes in the first place. No rules are going to fix that, unless you really want to have it set up like a video game where you are prevented from attacking certain targets entirely.

It shocks me how many people here expect the rules to cover for bad players and bad GMs.

[tzor]

With default D&D you can have an evil character and a good character in a party and by the end of the day if you take out all the fluff and gloss it is hard to even tell them apart.

Bullshit. A good (not alignment but quality) DM can do that in a hearbeat, it's actually qute simple to separate the good characters from the evil characters; throw in non combatants. That's really the key element to a real fantasy campaign world. Good characters will risk more to save others, they will not always seek the most profitable path to persue the goal for the greatest good. Evil characters will always go to the path of greatest advancement.

[Lago PARANOIA]

but that has to be handled on an individual level. trying to force everyone into "but don't you feel bad about the orc orphans" isn't even going to work at all for a lot of people because they're in no way real; the average gaming group doesn't spend a whole lot of time pondering the poor life choices that led to the orc tribe's lamentable and fatal meetup with the party. some will, certainly, but trying to find a way to make everyone play that way? that's just silly.

That's my point. The vast majority of people don't even care about what they're doing in the game. The decision of 'should I kill every orc in this village' ISN'T be decided by in-universe considerations of right and wrong, it's decided by metagame decisions like 'will I gimp myself of experience and treasure if I don't kill every orc in the village'. Literally the only thing that decides whether or not the child soldiers will live through this fight is whether nonlethal damage will give them a -4 penalty to the attack or not.

People find compartmentalization a lot easier than putting up with inconvenience, especially people who do strictly see D&D as a game. Sad, but true. So the only thing you can really do if you don't want to have players kill orc children without resorting to heavy-handed methods such as calling down bolts of lightning is to make it so that people actually have to make the mental tickmark of 'kill this guy' AND at least make 'kill this guy' no harder than 'don't kill this guy'.

Caim the dragon-riding sociopath or Tommy the wiseguy sociopathy killing hordes of faceless goons doesn't really disturb me because these characters would actually make the choice of 'kill this kid' even if asked to consider it. People who play Batman or Aang or Ryu being encouraged by the game--implicitly or no--to make the choice of 'kill this kid' is disturbing.

As soon as you have actual goals other than "kill all the monsters and get their delicious kill XP", players will start min/maxing towards those goals instead of asking how much XP they get for smashing kobold eggs.

Well, sure, but even if you do that I can easily see people asking for a heaping helping of violence no matter how they accomplish their overall goals now and then. So you have to make some provisos for that, too, since violence is pretty much inevitable. Casually killing 20 faceless punch-clock goons isn't as bad as killing 2000 of them, but Dudley Do-Right and Superman aren't supposed to be killing any.

[tzor]

Actually Largo, it's really easy to tweek the system to eliminate the desire for players to kill orc babies; set up the experience system so that trivial kills gives you no experience. (No risk, no gain.) As a matter of fact you can adopt this system to have interesting effects. Say you have a village complex of orc leaders, orc warriors and orc worthless peons, along with women and children. The peons might be below your experience getting threshold. If you leave the peons, women and children alone they might even like you because orc leaders and warriors treat the peons like shit.

That's the key to success. Nationbuilding sucks. If you tune the system so that players go for the main threats while leaving the other threats simply not worth the time or the effort, then they will be off to fight another vile baddie and leave the lower levels alone.

[Fuchs]

I don't want to play superman. I want to play a fantasy hero in the style of the old greek, not a comic code approved hero. I don't want to play "me (or someone with my values) in fantasy land".

[Lago PARANOIA]

That's only a partial solution, tzor, there's still the sadly-common situations of 'you meet an orc hunting party on their way back to town' or 'faceless goons are guarding the door to the Dark King's throne room'.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I don't want to play superman. I want to play a fantasy hero in the style of the old greek, not a comic code approved hero. I don't want to play "me (or someone with my values) in fantasy land".

You do realize that playing Joshua or Hercules or Kratos in a party of Aang or Vash or Batman is going to do nothing but either lead to an intra-party fight or the latter group behaving out-of-character right?

If D&D actually advertised the game as 'play as anti-heroes/evil bastards who have no problems racking up a bodycount for no reason', like Shadowrun or WH40K does, then your complaint would be understandable, but for fuck's sake you're supposed to be playing idealistic heroes who are not hypocrites in their moral outlook.

[Username17]

Removing kill XP for noncombatants is a start. But if you straight up remove kill XP altogether the PCs will avoid combat and parlay a lot more.

And if you make captives more valuable than corpses, the players will be incentivized to take captives. If you institute diplomatic repercussions for atrocities, there will be disincentives for slitting throats.

It really is that simple. The significant majority of players will have their moral decisions made by whatever appears to be favored by the incentives at hand. Honestly, if people get more "points" for not killing orcs, that's what they'll do in most instances. D&D fills up with immoral behavior because the scoring system rewards immoral behavior.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

You do realize that playing Joshua or Hercules or Kratos in a party of Aang or Vash or Batman is going to do nothing but either lead to an intra-party fight or the latter group behaving out-of-character right?

I don't want to play D&D with batman in the party. And I'd rather not play with Aang, I dislike playing with kid characters. Vash... would only work with DM support anyway, so his morals work out in the world he is in. Without plot armor and tools he'll not work anyway.

If D&D actually advertised the game as 'play as anti-heroes/evil bastards who have no problems racking up a bodycount for no reason', like Shadowrun or WH40K does, then your complaint would be understandable, but for fuck's sake you're supposed to be playing idealistic heroes who are not hypocrites in their moral outlook.

I am supposed to play knights, wizards and rogues. People with their own morals, not our morals. My knight will kill for his honor, despite that being fucked up from our point of view, for example.

I want to play heroes of a fantasy age, like odysseus, achilles, and the others, not batman who never kills.

[Fuchs]

It really is that simple. The significant majority of players will have their moral decisions made by whatever appears to be favored by the incentives at hand. Honestly, if people get more "points" for not killing orcs, that's what they'll do in most instances. D&D fills up with immoral behavior because the scoring system rewards immoral behavior.

We don't have a scoring system in our campaign. No Exp or points.

[Username17]

It really is that simple. The significant majority of players will have their moral decisions made by whatever appears to be favored by the incentives at hand. Honestly, if people get more "points" for not killing orcs, that's what they'll do in most instances. D&D fills up with immoral behavior because the scoring system rewards immoral behavior.

We don't have a scoring system in our campaign. No Exp or points.

Of course you have a scoring system. It may not be as formalized as giing out N XP for Y kills or whatever, but your campaign awards success or failure for specific things. If you get the victory music when all the orcs are dead instead of getting the victory music when you negotiate a favorable peace, then your scoring system is encouraging you to face stab.

-Username17

[tzor]

That's only a partial solution, tzor, there's still the sadly-common situations of 'you meet an orc hunting party on their way back to town' or 'faceless goons are guarding the door to the Dark King's throne room'.

I still don't see what the problem is. The orc hunting party is not hunting the king's deer. The faceless goons working for the dark king aren't blissfully igrorant of all the war crimes that the dark king has committed. And if push came to shove, they would love to carve you up for experience.

Those orcs returning from hunting probably raped a couple of females before they butchered the men, and then butchered the females and any children. And those faceless goons are probably the Dark King's elite forces who got to their position because they killed anyone who would have gotten in their way.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I am supposed to play knights, wizards and rogues. People with their own morals, not our morals. My knight will kill for his honor, despite that being fucked up from our point of view, for example.

Seriously, when was the last time that D&D really said that a hero like Joshua was okay? I'm talking warts and all, not just 'cool' traits like ultraviolence. Here is a list of bad traits that are found in D&D that are nonetheless features of 'classic' Iron Age heroes.

[*] Looting (very hypocritically applied)
[*] Racism
[*] Sexism
[*] Xenophobia
[*] Slavery
[*] Exploiting the underclass (very hypocritically applied)

If you transplanted one of those classic heroes into a more modern version of D&D, no one would have any problem identifying them as a villain and a disruptive dick that shouldn't be the default position of a PC. This pretty effectively neuters the whole '
I want to play heroes of a fantasy age, like odysseus, achilles, and the others,' already; so what's with the double-standard? Why aren't you going 'man, I'm not allowed to rape people who aren't on my side without being called an evil monster this is BULLSHIT' without most people who play D&D calling you a dickhead?

I have some modern Conan the Barbarian comics where he actually acts like an Iron Age hero and we can totally see him beating up people because they didn't suck up to him, holds arbitrary standards of stealing, totally forgives a mass-murderer because he fought bravely, and actually tries to rape a (miniaturized) frost giant and then brags about it at a bar. While it's still kind of a cool comic, I think you're selling me a load of bills by telling me that most people would rather play this jackass than a hero that plays to modern sensibilities.

[FatR]

Maybe that's just my local specific, but I've never encountered "genocidal playstile" boogeyman. Not even read about actual instances of it often on the net. In fact, I remember far more net examples of GMs sodomizing PCs for much milder offenses, like ganking bad guys right in the latter's bed or refusing to take prisoners after being attacked by an enemy patrol in the middle of enemy territory. People on Paizo forums tend to react with various degrees of disbelief and rage, when I say that lots of races in Golarion are nothing but blight on the world and exterminating them, then annihilating their souls is the only ethical solution, within the confines of their God-forsaken grimdark setting (because yes, Golarion ogres, and bugbears, and whatever, are written as genetically programmed to kill and torture everyone they can).

That said, I completely agree, that writing normal mortal races, not controlled by the devil, or required to brutalize others by their lifecycle, or something, as inherently evil, is bad. Even worshipping evil gods is a poor excuse, as it still requires races of hats.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Those orcs returning from hunting probably raped a couple of females before they butchered the men, and then butchered the females and any children. And those faceless goons are probably the Dark King's elite forces who got to their position because they killed anyone who would have gotten in their way.

And this is precisely why D&D morality is fucked up, because in order for people not to fall apart at the seams when confronted with this they have to invent flimsy justifications. It's not convincing, because we've heard this shit many, many times before from other villains (both real and fictional) who use rationalization and compartmentalization to justify their inhumanity. And you know what's especially hypocritical? This has been done so often that a villain referring to a group as subhuman or worthy of death or untrustworthy vermin is a bigger neon sign for villainy than them twirling a mustache and letting out an evil laugh. But when the heroes or God forbid the players use precisely the same rationale people just accept this shit without a second thought.

This leads to stupidity like in Order of the Stick where Roy can slice the heads off of sleeping goblins while singing and still go to Lawful Good heaven but Redcloak's kneejerk racism being portrayed as wrong.

[K]

You know, you can encourage "good" roleplay with XP. You just give 50% XP bonuses for captured intelligent monsters and flat XP bonuses for hostages rescued.

[Fuchs]

If you get the victory music when all the orcs are dead instead of getting the victory music when you negotiate a favorable peace, then your scoring system is encouraging you to face stab.

We get the victory music when the problem is solved, no matter how. Genocide the orc tribes, bribe them, trick them, ally with them... as long as they stop raiding it's ok.

[Fuchs]

I have some modern Conan the Barbarian comics where he actually acts like an Iron Age hero and we can totally see him beating up people because they didn't suck up to him, holds arbitrary standards of stealing, totally forgives a mass-murderer because he fought bravely, and actually tries to rape a (miniaturized) frost giant and then brags about it at a bar. While it's still kind of a cool comic, I think you're selling me a load of bills by telling me that most people would rather play this jackass than a hero that plays to modern sensibilities.

I don't say most people would rather play like those conan stories, but we play such people (minus the rape). With the double standards for brave foes (occasionally) and all.

I don't want to play in comic code adventures. I don't want to play in a fantasy land where society is somehow feudal, yet somehow supposedly possesses our modern values and morals are enforced.

[Fuchs]

You know, you can encourage "good" roleplay with XP. You just give 50% XP bonuses for captured intelligent monsters and flat XP bonuses for hostages rescued.

And what do you do with the monsters?

[Prak]

You know, you can encourage "good" roleplay with XP. You just give 50% XP bonuses for captured intelligent monsters and flat XP bonuses for hostages rescued.

And what do you do with the monsters?

Fuchs, what would you do if you were walking down the street and were ambushed by brigand goblins?

[name_here]

Er, you ransom them for dudes the monsters took alive so they could get their friends back when you captured them. Alternately, money.

[Fuchs]

You know, you can encourage "good" roleplay with XP. You just give 50% XP bonuses for captured intelligent monsters and flat XP bonuses for hostages rescued.

And what do you do with the monsters?

Fuchs, what would you do if you were walking down the street and were ambushed by brigand goblins?

Me? Probably freaking out and wonder what kind of drug I was slipped to have such visions.

If brigand goblins were real it would depend on whether or not I was armed. But I go strictly by legal means - self-defense is justified as long as you're in danger. So, as long as I was attacked and could not safely flee I'd fight back (and with lethal force, unless I had other, more effective means).

[Fuchs]

Er, you ransom them for dudes the monsters took alive so they could get their friends back when you captured them. Alternately, money.

And what if no one wants them back because your last raid destroyed their tribe?

[FatR]

That's only a partial solution, tzor, there's still the sadly-common situations of 'you meet an orc hunting party on their way back to town' or 'faceless goons are guarding the door to the Dark King's throne room'.

Again, you're asking one side to, please, avoid gunning the other side down in a war story. That's stupid. DnD characters cannot afford Superman's morality because they both aren't as powerful as Superman, and don't have the same backing (half the world isn't openly ruled by supervillains in DC's universe).

Now, you can try to either:
a)Make endless war between forces of good and evil much less prominent in DnD and generally tone down the level of violence, danger and desperation inherent in the setting.
b)Make the bad guys into something no one will have ethical qualms about killing, like mindless predator or Dragon Age's darkspawn (monsters that must parasitize on other races as the part of their reproduction cycle and have a semi-hivemind, that drives them to kill and destroy).

Or some combination of both. In fact, that's what I prefer to do.

What you shoudn't do is complaning that PCs have temerity of killing their enemies when there is an actual war, most likely started by said enemies, going on. Well, genociding the enemy is another matter... but again, I've never actually seen this - in my experience PCs even always accept surrender, when they feel or can deduce from experience that the GM isn't actually trying to fuck them over by making enemies surrender.

[Dominicius]

With default D&D you can have an evil character and a good character in a party and by the end of the day if you take out all the fluff and gloss it is hard to even tell them apart.

Bullshit. A good (not alignment but quality) DM can do that in a hearbeat, it's actually qute simple to separate the good characters from the evil characters; throw in non combatants. That's really the key element to a real fantasy campaign world. Good characters will risk more to save others, they will not always seek the most profitable path to persue the goal for the greatest good. Evil characters will always go to the path of greatest advancement.

Non-combatants are key to the campaign world but they are not key to the game. Do you want to know what things are key to the game?

The characters, enemies and loot.

If you have those three things, you can have yourself a session of D&D. At this core level the game does not differentiate between good and evil characters and this causes problems at every level of the game. So while adding NPCs does help, the morality in your game will still lean to the side because the foundation upon which it is built is flawed.