Should monsters have free will and the capacity to do good?

>>54045188
Technically no character in an RPG has free will

>>54045195
?

>>54045212
Everythings run by the dm and players, treating npcs and player characters as vessels rather than beings of self-desire

>>54045188
Yes, but not Goblins.

Fuck Goblins.

>>54045188
Depends on the monster for me, I tend to prefer monsters who do not do things just to be evil. Sometimes they do things that are based on incomplete information or based on emotion or instinct.

>>54045188
Well conversly do they truely have the capacity for evil if they have no free will to do otherwise?
Certainly they could be a force of destruction but are themselves little more than robots.

From a gameplay perspective Always Evil mindless monsters might provide simplistic clear-cut targets to wack for exp and gold but can't really inspire much true hatred or conflict either.

>>54045188
how does moral complexity detract from any game ever you absolute mong. besides if you have no choice but to be evil, it's not really evil anymore, if you have no choice but to be good, then you're really just neutral. You can't call an enraged animal evil, its just doing what is was made to do.

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Any non-demonic creature should have the free will to act according to their own desires, be they good or evil. With that being said, a creature from a generally evil culture like an orc or hobgoblin will most likely be more predisposed to evil, and those who act in way one would consider good are typically outcasts.

As for demons and devils, however, they are always predisposed to evil in the same way an angel is predisposed to good. There are rare cases where a demon may redeem itself and become good, or an angel may fall and become a lower demon lord, but such cases are uncommon enough to not be considered a regular occurrence.

>>54045188
Hate to be that guy, but what is this from?

>>54045188
>Should monsters have free will

PCs don't so I don't see why the monsters should.

>>54045440
fuck off

>>54045550
goblin slayer

>>54045515
But are they actually predisposed to evil, or is it simply a result of their cultural upbringing?

>>54045515
>evil culture
Define this. Are we assuming that morality and concepts such as good and evil are objective?

>>54045323
>>54045361
>>54045440
So from this perspective, Lord of the Rings was shit because the Orcs had no free will

>>54045550
I hope you like rape.

What am I saying you are on /tg/ of course you like rape.

But seriously Goblin Slayer is good shit.

>>54045592

For non-demonic creatures it's typically a result of their upbringing.

Orcish cultures are typically brutish and believe in a survival of the fittest mentality. You kill what you want, eat what you want, and fuck what you want. If anyone smaller than you tells you otherwise, bash their skull in until they can't argue anymore. Bugbears and true goblins are the same, unless your setting has smart goblins (like any good setting).

Hobgoblins are generally 'sophisticated,' but are highly militaristic and have no quarrel with genociding an entire group for even a minor infraction.

Ogres have a bare minimum to be considered 'culture'. They eat and that's about it. Some are smart enough to integrate with other groups but such things are rare.

There's other typically evil cultures like yuan-ti and mind flayers. They have outcasts just like the above groups. Typically these outcasts could be considered either good or neutral, but they're not as common as their evil brethren.

Demons and devils are just naturally predestined to evil. It takes a very big event to make them reconsider their options.

>>54045605
Ignoring the obvious b8 part of the post, Orcs were just corrupted slaves of a greater evil. More like particularly clever zombies than actual bad people.

>>54045602
For simplicity's sake I'll use the definition that good typically relates to selflessness, cooperation, or empathy, whereas evil typically means selfishness, lack of empathy, or tyranny. The two may, however, intermix, but we'll ignore that for now for the sack of simplicity. A typically 'evil' culture like hobgoblins are usually selfish and tyrannical, rarely banding together to conquer an enemy nation before turning on each other over politics and loot, though if a hobgoblin empire does survive its first generation, it may bring law and safety to a land, at the cost of the inhabitants liberties, and if they step out of line, lives.

A typically 'good' culture like dwarves often work together for a common good of some sort, be it wealth, booze, or something else. They curb violence when they can but are willing to resort to it if they need to. Like other cultures, they are not immune to corruption, and such things often run deep inside of guilds and other organisations in dwarven society.

>>54045605
Sauron and Saruman had free will, they were the monsters.

>>54045665
I love that you called booze a common good.

>>54045592
depends

the former in the case of D&D, but that's hardly definitive

>>54045690
If God had not wanted man to be joyous he would not have created beer.

Congratulations!
You've made what is most likely your first unoriginal and unimaginative thread on /tg/, retreading a topic so old that in all likelyhood you hadn't even managed to hit high school when it was outdated and dull!
You've nowhere to go but upwards now as literally anything else you could post other then what you've posted would be more interesting and less talked about!
You have much to look forward to a long future of near-constant meteoric improval of posting quality as you skyrocket from the near-unattainable nadir that is this astounding creative low you started your journey at!

>>54045822
Are you smarmy, sarcastic and annoying by nature or is it your upbringing that makes you a cunt?

>>54045805
If that's the case, Mormonism must mean God is a sadist.

>>54045832
Neither. Environmental factors. /tg/ makes cynical bastards of us all, especially after post-electoral-2016. /pol/'s once malignant tumor has flaired into an inextricable spider web of cancer throughout the boards.

>>54045880
They've kind of always been here tho

I mean 40K's main factions are almost literally space Nazis

>>54045902
Originally, according to the creator, it was supposed to be very tongue in cheek, and that was back when /tg/ could take a joke.

Now... it's all anger and frustration and autism and the inability to step back and, well, realize that we're all a little stupid here, and learn to laugh at stupid things. It's all taken so seriously with the "Can't let the cancer win" attitude, and everyone fails to realize that by giving that response you give the "cancer" that level of importance and influence over you. It's just self-fulfilled prophesy.

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>>54045188
I kinda like monsters who simply don't have a human centered morality. To them we might just be a part of the environment to be exploited. Even the ones among a species who might be Vegans or whatever have no comprehension of what's best for us and may do more harm than good.

Kinda a lovecraftian approach, monsters as something that must be survived.

>>54045188

Either works if it's consistent. It's mixing the two that causes trouble.

>>54045188
Monsters shouldn't even be seen often: they stick to their dark caves and deep forests, and only rarely come to bother mankind, and when they do, they're automatically feared.

They stick to completely their own thing for the most part: this allows you to not only evoke the fear of the unknown with them, but also to create them a weird and complex culture that the humans completely misunderstand, including enough free will for one to occasionally leave and do its own thing.

I have no idea why anyone would not do this, and would instead portray them as mindless JRPG enemies that show up all over the place and just exist to be killed like animals. How is that any interesting?

>>54046286
Then they're not fucking monsters anymore, they're just weird recluses.

>>54046344
But if they're swarming all over the place, then they're not monsters either, they're just aggressive cunning animals or weird green neighbors.

>>54046389
Monsters were a mistake.

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>>54045880
>flaired

>>54045188
I prefer them to have free will. At worst, their society or biology will put them in conflict with others, such as Mind Flayers or Grey Dwarves. But over all, if a dragon is eating people and burning villages, it'll be because they're an asshole, not because that's what all dragons do.

What do you want from your game?

I prefer most of my monsters to either have free will or be animals, since it gives me more space to work in.

>>54045605
no they just weren't evil by virtue of being orcs

>>54045188
What monsters.

>>54045880
When you stop blaming everyone else for your shitty personality you'll start enjoying life again.

>>54045550
>>54045609

Goblin Slayer.

Or what would happen when a GM goes off into his magical realm and the response to this is that the first group of players bails on him bar one, who goes off on a genocide campaign that would make the nazi's applaud him. Eventually they reconcile and a new group of players joins in for a semi-normal campaign with a threat of rape factories and /pol/ tier shenanigans just around the corner should either the GM or Player 1 step too far out of line.

>>54045605

orcs had free will but were essentially slaves or press ganged by the big powers of Sauron and Saruman. Tolkein himself struggled with the idea of orcs being irredeemable due to being Christian and believing in redemption.

Whenever the powers are dormant or not active orcs tend to separate into little tribes doing their own things, like the goblins of Goblin Town who were for the most part cordial and only really tried to kill the dwarven party when they found that they had weapons famous for killing goblins and orcs.

>>54045515
>but such cases are uncommon enough to not be considered a regular occurrence.

Satan took half the angels with him when he fell.

>>54045609
Started reading it half an hour ago and it's some good shit.

>>54045188

> Should monsters have free will and the capacity to do good?

It's irrelevant, because the PCs won't let them live anyway. Besides, I have at least two players who strive to do everything they can to derail any form of moral ambiguity I try to inject into campaigns.

>>54045188

It depends on what the DM and players like. Most tabletop decisions boil down to that in the end. You're trying to have fun, so do what you like.

For example, my players are a mix of a murder hobo, a backstabbing guy who always wants to build some sort of criminal syndicate, and one guy who will ALWAYS negotiate unless he sees no other option. As such, my setting has different kinds of monsters, some with no free will, and others who were created using elements of the human spirit so that they have free will. It gives everyone time to shine, even though they're currently in the "here there be monsters" region.

Not for most games and settings, no. It invites too many obnoxious parallels regarding European history and imperialism.


Now, there's definitely room to explore that kind of thing and for it to be fun, but it takes a certain type of players interested in a certain sort of fun.

That said, it isn't the sort of fun you play most tabletop games for. You probably won't enjoy convincing a bigoted King that "no, really, goblins are just like you and me", as much as you will slaying the Almighty Goblin Lord and receiving untold fame and bitches.


While it's difficult to paint all monsters with a broad stroke in regards to the question, I think it's safer(and more fun) to err on the side of giving your players little in the way of moral compunctions over fighting monsters.

>>54045188
Most "monsters" are animals. The ones that aren't don't necessarily see themselves as evil, they happen to have interests that clash with the heroes.

Uneasy aliances and pragmatic (that is, non-idealistic) diplomacy are cool elements to add to epic-scale stories. Not so much to heroic-centric stories.

>>54045605
Tolkien never totally settled these things.

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>>54048775
>"I only run mature campaigns that are morally ambiguous for mature people"

>>54045188
Depends a little but on the monster, but certainly every humanoid one (goblins, kobolds, orcs, etc.) should have free will and a capacity for good. After all, the player races have free will and a capacity for evil.

>>54045515
hey randy. whens the baby due?

>>54048623
1/3rd

>>54045188
Unless all you want is a hack n slash dungeon crawl, then I'd say yes, always, chaotic evil by default makes no fucking sense and makes the conflict 2D and uninteresting for anyone over 10.
Goblin Slayer is "ah-ha! you thought morals and ethics existed in this world! You were wrong!"
Berserk is how you do unforgivable evil well. Apostles are ordinary humans who choose to commit horrendous acts and spread evil. As evidenced by the count, they're still not bound to having to be always evil in every action, and when needs be they can see the errors of their way, but through simply being apostles killing them without mercy can be justified as punishment for their crimes.

>>54045294
Deep, man.

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>>54045188
Strictly monsters?

No. Typically they're not naturally occurring species. They're crafted or otherwise twisted/modified creatures who exist for a certain purpose or are malformed, a la Tolkien orcs. If they aren't any of these then they have animal-level intellect so they don't really have morals to begin with.

That said, I don't class intelligent species under the 'monster' umbrella. If you're talking about stuff like Goblins and Gnolls, then yes they have free will but they're going to be strongly affected by the culture they were raised in and will have certain predispositions besides that (such as gnolls being aggressive all the time to everyone until they get put in their place).

>>54045609
>What am I saying you are on /tg/ of course you like rape.
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU CONSENSUAL THE BEST ESPECIALLY WITH TENTACLES THE MORE DEBAUCHERY THE BETTER

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>>54045602
[citation provided]

>>54050787
So...England.

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>>54050485
>Berserk is how you do unforgivable evil well. Apostles are ordinary humans who choose to commit horrendous acts and spread evil. As evidenced by the count, they're still not bound to having to be always evil in every action, and when needs be they can see the errors of their way, but through simply being apostles killing them without mercy can be justified as punishment for their crimes.
This post has made me think and gotten me to completely redefine several of the monster races in my setting, orcs and ogres as the first. Well done.

I suppose the first mistake anyone made was make those things races, rather than individual monsters that may have started out as men or elves or other kindly creatures once.

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>>54050832
And America.

You can see why alignments tend to be contested so damn much. No one wants to admit they're living in an Evil nation.

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>>54050767

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>>54050869
In all fairness if we went an look up rules for nations influenced by 'demons' instead of 'devils' we would be seeing a lot of Muslim countries on that list

>mfw I realize or world is just an other battlefield in the Blood War

>>54045188
I make it so that, to have free will, one must have a soul and thus an individual existence.

To have a soul, one must his/her/its own name, in which the feelings of others focus on, giving it the prana necessary to form a soul. This is true to people, animals, vegetables and minerals.

In my setting, creatures such as the Goblin Slayer's goblins would be literally souless besides the diffuse colective soul each species/race has, created by people feeling towards them as a whole.

If you, as a player, got one of these goblins and gave it a name, raised it etc, it would develop his own personality. But it would still struggle to "do good" as the racial soul is very strong and unoposed by individual wills.

This is also the basis for True Name magic.

TL;DR: depends.

>>54046945
Bar two, right? Obviously the Priestess player stayed but the GS player was either someone who showed up late or a new character to replace one of the three that died.

>>54047875
capturing them and accusing them of being thieves, spies and friends of elves when they were literally just sleeping in a cave isn't really cordial

>>54045188
Depends on the players. For me, yes, it does immensely. Having opponents with complex and possibly even vaguely relatable motivations does wonders for drama. Just like everything else in tabletop, though, it requires a good enough GM to pull it off.