Genocide

[Olix]

Hey,

I've been playing ToME a lot over the past few days. It's pretty fun, but I don't like the feel of the Far East so much.

I started by going to Vor pride. I pressed 'z' to go door-to-door, opening each in turn and murdering the orcs hiding in their homes. It didn't feel particularly heroic.

After this, I went to Charred Scar, racing against time to stop some shadowy cabal of sorcerers from bringing about a second spellblaze. That's the sort of thing a hero should do.

Later, I went to the orc breeding pits. I moved steadily down the levels, killing all the babies and children in my path. I felt bad about that. Its an easy map too, which made it worse somehow. I stopped playing at this point.

How does everyone else feel about committing explicit orc genocide like this? I don't think its a good direction for the plot to take - can't I just fight the bad guys trying to destroy the world, without killing thousands of civilians and babies?

There are even the lore entries telling history from the orcish perspective - they come across as being warlike, but not particularly evil. Shouldn't there be a solution to the Orcish problem other than the Final one?

[Grey]

Well it's good that you think that way :)

But there are no easy solutions to millenia old conflicts. You can't just be an adventurer running around killing bad guys without hurting people. The very idea of "bad guys" makes little sense. This is a fallacy people like to tell themselves in war, to make it feel like they're doing the right thing and they're the hero. Many games present this fallacy too. In ToME the curtains are ripped away and the "heroic" deeds made clear.

You don't have to do the breeding pits. You don't have to kill every orc in the prides. Though the game is about conflict it's up to you how thorough you want that to be.

This would, incidentally, be ruined if there was some ultimate good path you could take.

[greycat]

The orc breeding pit is optional. You don't have to do it at all.

Starting with the prides is... not the recommended approach either, though obviously you were capable of handling it. Congrats on that. The recommended sequence is:

Spiders
Underwater cave
Vor Armoury
Briagh's
(maybe the shadow crypt)
Go west, kill backup guardians
Tannen, Tannen
Go east again
NOW do the first pride
Eruan
Charred Scar
the other three prides
Slime Tunnels
High Peak

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I had a similar issue, and unless you forgot, the orcs already have an active hostile presence on Maj'Eyal (The west continent) and have evil intentions towards it. Those orcs you're defeating happen to be fairly hostile, and something of a threat. As for the breeding pits, keep in mind that those things you were killing are horrible abominations, the scientist behind it, actually killed himself when he saw what horrors he had committed... (And then the orc military, otherwise known as the prides came in and took his idea several steps further... The same orc military in the prides you were fighting against.) Taking out those horrible abominations, might actually be an act of mercy, especially if you think that blighted corruption in the mothers is passing down to the children, and from there to infest and corrupt the species. Killing them MIGHT actually stand a chance at helping the orc species, as I refuse to believe that emptying the prides and the breeding pits means 'all' orcs are dead, and the remainder might actually be able to recover from this blight. Now, a further point to argue against myself, keep in mind as well that there is actually lore about the history both from the mainland perspective, as well as from the orc perspective. A Babylon 5 quote (which is even referenced in the game) fits well here. "Truth is a 3 sided sword." In any argument, there are 3 sides, your side, there side, and what actually happened. We see perspectives of history from 2 different sides on the war, but what actually happened is so far lost in history that we don't know which is more accurate. (Neither would be completely accurate, simply due to time, if not to bias) You might be right, maybe you should side with the orcs, but you still have to consider that the orcs are in turn being used by another group, and you have to go through them, sadly, to get to the real villains. I loved the moral judgements I had to make when I went through the game, even if there wasn't yet a way to walk the path I might prefer. It might interest you to know that the misguided army of orcs you slaughter DOES eventually lead to you saving the world, and that there is already plans in the works to provide a campaign from the other side of the story, specifically, the orc side. DarkGod's pet project, along with the industrial revolution.

But some moral calls we could make might be nice, just for flavor. For instance, instead of slaughtering all the orc mothers, maybe we could find a way to incapacitate and let the folks in angolwen work to try and undo the damage. Magic was used to help cure the effects of the spellblaze, reversing the travesty that the orcs wrought upon themselves is certainly something they might want to do, doubly so after 'saving the world'. Who knows, it might even eventually lead to peace between the orcs and the rest of the world. Other situations provide different options, but it would certainly be nice to have, for 'flavor' reasons if nothing else.

[Hunter]

Genocide is never a good thing in real life, but certain forms of fantasy tend to operate under the assumption that there are clear divisions between "good" and "evil" and "evil" cannot, as a general rule, be redeemed. Think of the elves and dwarves trying to hug it out with the orcs of Mordor, for instance.

But, yeah, I get what you're saying. Probably best not to overthink it, though. The essential ethos, I would assume, is that the orcs will put everyone to the sword if they're allowed to grow powerful and spread again, so it's basically self-defense.

Of course, you could create a module where we see things from the orcs' p.o.v., watching as those murderous halflings, yeeks, cornacs and ghouls come barging into their nice peaceful bastions and killing all their pyromancers as they're trying to make an honest living as chimney sweeps.

[SageAcrin]

Basically ToME likes no-win grey area morality stuff.

That dungeon is pretty much the top of that, but there's plenty of "monsters" that you've been killing that are territorial but peaceful denizens of the area you were in, or were normal people twisted into horrible monsters or driven crazy.

It's possible to get Zigur flattened...which are bigoted and witchhunt-crazed people. But to do so, you'd have to side with powerhungry corruptors bent on domination.

Considering that a non-trivial amount of the world got blown up in remembered history, maybe a lot of grey area morality is pretty reasonable. Maj'eyal is actually about as post apocalyptic as something like Fallout in some ways, just less gritty and dark about it.

Personally, I prefer to kill them all, and let the few remaining clearly nice people sort it out.

[bricks]

There's definitely a lot of grey in ToME's lore.

[SageAcrin]

I see what you did there. >_>

[Grey]

But some moral calls we could make might be nice, just for flavor. For instance, instead of slaughtering all the orc mothers, maybe we could find a way to incapacitate and let the folks in angolwen work to try and undo the damage. Magic was used to help cure the effects of the spellblaze, reversing the travesty that the orcs wrought upon themselves is certainly something they might want to do, doubly so after 'saving the world'. Who knows, it might even eventually lead to peace between the orcs and the rest of the world.

If Linaniil were to see the place she would burn it down without a moment's thought. Remember that she was involved in the Spellblaze, the Pyre Wars and the extermination of the orcs from Maj'Eyal. She has no love for orcs nor any desire to help out their species. To her they are the enemy, nothing more.

The one group that might be willing to help is the Rhaloren. But they'd likely experiment further on the greatmothers and look into making their own enslaved orc race, breeding together an army with which they could take over the rest of the world.

Other situations provide different options, but it would certainly be nice to have, for 'flavor' reasons if nothing else.

I disagree. Strong flavours force out all subtleties. Black and white overshadow all grey. If you give the player an uncomfortable option and a comfortable one then you have ruined the former. If the lore is making people reflect on their actions then it is doing its job just fine! :)

[Grey]

Probably best not to overthink it, though. The essential ethos, I would assume, is that the orcs will put everyone to the sword if they're allowed to grow powerful and spread again, so it's basically self-defense.

I'm glad you can justify killing children in the same way many cultures do ;)

[Olix]

But some moral calls we could make might be nice, just for flavor.

Even if there aren't other options or ways to deal with the orcs, I think it would be good for actions to be echoed back by the world more - so NPCs react to things you do, or there are world map encounters resulting from the things you do, rather than 'kill all the orc women and children' being just the same as clearing out a tower full of undead.

[Grey]

Clearing the breeding pits reduces the orc patrols on the map. But yeah, more involved interactions would be better.

[Hunter]

Probably best not to overthink it, though. The essential ethos, I would assume, is that the orcs will put everyone to the sword if they're allowed to grow powerful and spread again, so it's basically self-defense.

I'm glad you can justify killing children in the same way many cultures do

I like veal, lamb chops, and fried eggs.

[greycat]

Of course, you could create a module where we see things from the orcs' p.o.v.

Or wait for DarkGod to finish his. (No, I don't have an ETA on the orc campaign.)

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Probably best not to overthink it, though. The essential ethos, I would assume, is that the orcs will put everyone to the sword if they're allowed to grow powerful and spread again, so it's basically self-defense.

I'm glad you can justify killing children in the same way many cultures do

I like veal, lamb chops, and fried eggs.

You win this conversation. Have a cookie. Or hell, have all the cookies. You've turned child murder into tasty fun

I suppose my briefly spitballed idea has problems, but I would still like to see there be more of a reason to debate our choices, and while rewards (like fewer orc encounters) could come with them, so could penalties. Something for us to actually CONSIDER, instead of doing the game-expedient thing.