But I don't want to be a child murderer! (minor spoiler)

[Masquerade]

I was completing the "Dranlon's Vengeance" and I stumbled across an option that both disturbed and confused me.

 

In the slith cave there is a nursery containing the sliths eggs. You are given the option to either ignore the eggs or smash them all, killing the unborn sliths and drawing the rage of the slith chief.

 

If you ignore the eggs then absolutly nothing will happen, which is understandable. If you smash them you are rewarded with xp and a seriously awesome suit of chainmail which increases your action points. This chainmail suit is perfect for spell casters and gave me a huge advantage in battle.

 

The problem however, is that the only way to get it is to kill the defenseless, harmless, innocent slith eggs.

 

Jeff wants me to KILL BABIES

 

What the heck?

 

The game doesn't even acknowledge the gravity of this slaughter of innocents, its just smash, kill the chief and then on with the show, never a hint of morality to be found. You don't even loose reputation points for it.

 

Sure, the sliths may be at war with humans, but that doesn't excuse a crime of this magnitude. Just imagine what would happen if the sliths did a thing like that to a human village, the people of Avernum would be enraged and rightly so, but in reverse its ok? How is killing a bunch of babies going to be of any help to the war?

 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that the option should be removed entirely, its a good role playing oppertunity for all those psychotic, killing machines out there. But there should be other ways to interact with the eggs and get that chainmail.

 

Personally I want to kiddnap the eggs and take them to Gnass or lost Bhassikava where they could be raised as productive and peaceful members of Avernite society, it's non-violent but it would give enough incentitive for the chief to attack you, thus allowing you to take his stuff.

[Archaeolagent]

Unfortunately, in a true all-out war like that one that's been going on for generations, the option is probably realistic. This isn't a war between two groups of people who are fairly similar but are willing to kill each other over an ideological or political difference. This is a war between two different species who can't communicate and who are both trying to use dangerous, dark forces to get an advantage in the war. Avernites view it as kill or be killed. It's also been going on for around 40 years already, and seems to be fairly total (given how isolated Gnass & L.B. are from the rest of the Sliths) so it's not unrealistic to assume that Slith babies will grow up to be Slith warriors throwing spears at humans.

 

This is not a defense of killing babies, BTW. But I think this is how that dilemma fits into the game.

[Vent]

I didn't felt the series had that point of view a bit basic. That case is more a morale dilemma managed in an old school way.

 

Will your greed will be stronger than your morale? This is the old school dilemma.

 

Myself I doubt I smashed the eggs but I don't remember it. That sort of dilemma doesn't work that well because it's just a game, and greed is one of the most strong mechanism of those type of games. So most player will just take some distance will some morale point of view after all it's just a game and sprites and series of 0 and 1.

 

But doing that will break a little bit the world setup illusion. That's why more modern games are trying to avoid such dilemma, because it doesn't work well.

 

The more modern approach is to build choices where there's a real dilemma with no clear disbalance on any points (morale, greed, story, amount of quests, and more) for any choices, it's not a challenge but a dilemma game and a way to offer choices to players. Another trick is to build consequences much later in the game and highlight it with explanations.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

I didn't felt the series had that point of view a bit basic. That case is more a morale dilemma managed in an old school way.

Greed is probably not a realistic motivation unless you've read a walkthrough (which presumably the player characters have not). After all, the slith young aren't the ones carrying the Mercuric Chain. It would be easier to see it as a necessary evil in all-out war (as Slarty points out), or racism, or simple bloodthirst.

Quote:

The more modern approach is to build choices where there's a real dilemma with no clear disbalance on any points (morale, greed, story, amount of quests, and more) for any choices, it's not a challenge but a dilemma game and a way to offer choices to players.

I'm not actually on board with this. I think players should generally be rewarded more for taking the evil choice over the good one, or the pragmatic choice over the idealistic one. Why? Because that's how things work in the real world and any remotely realistic fictional setting. The most expedient and materially beneficial route in life is to be 'evil' (i.e. selfish, violent when the situation demands) in at least some situations, and to not go out of one's way to be selfless and helpful otherwise. Sure, one can go too far and lose trust or call down the wrath of the authorities, but there are still a lot of situations in which the greedy, selfish choice is the most immediately beneficial.

This really bothered me in KotOR, for instance. One of the central points in the Star Wars movies is that the dark side is seductive: it's easier to use it than not do so. Even good people can gradually be corrupted by using evil methods. By contrast, in KotOR you pretty much have to be mustache-twirlingly evil from the start to go down that route. I think the former makes for a much more interesting and nuanced story, and shows how one doesn't have to be an utter card carrying sociopath to make morally questionable decisions.

[Lauren CW]

I seem to recall in either Exile or Avernum, that when you smash the children it gives a very dark and morbid narrative describing you doing it and how it's f*cked up.

 

I always killed them.

Even when it didn't grant you awesome chainmail.

And not that this was my reasoning, but isn't it better to, if you're going to raid this dungeon and kill all of their parents and caretakers and the whole village, to kill the children as well so they don't starve to death/die of exposure

 

Again, not that that was my rationale. I just wanted XPs.

[Mac]

If it makes you uncomfortable, don't do it. Those Slith eggs will be back when you replay the game because they're, you know, imaginary.

[Brocktree]

Originally Posted By: Masquerade

Jeff wants me to KILL BABIES

No he doesn't. He simply provides you with the opportunity to do so. It's entirely up to you as to whether you are willing to commit mass abortion in order to obtain a non-critical game item.

Quote:

Sure, the sliths may be at war with humans, but that doesn't excuse a crime of this magnitude. Just imagine what would happen if the sliths did a thing like that to a human village, the people of Avernum would be enraged and rightly so, but in reverse its ok? How is killing a bunch of babies going to be of any help to the war?

As a previous poster pointed out, this isn't some sort of political or ideological war with established rules of engagement. It's a no holds barred war of survival. Avernum is a harsh, barren land, and both the sliths and humans are not living their by choice. There is a finite amount of space in the caves, and both sides have spilt blood for every inch of territory taken. If the slith savages had the opportunity, they would indeed kill Avernite civilians. This is shown conclusively in Avernum 6.

It's easy for you to get all high and mighty about them taking drastic measures to survive, but at the end of the day, its either Avernum or the slith savages.

Quote:

But there should be other ways to interact with the eggs and get that chainmail.

Why should you be able to have your cake and eat it too?

[Barzhal]

Originally Posted By: Brocktree

Originally Posted By: Masquerade

Jeff wants me to KILL BABIES

No he doesn't. He simply provides you with the opportunity to do so. It's entirely up to you as to whether you are willing to commit mass abortion in order to obtain a non-critical game item.

Quote:

Sure, the sliths may be at war with humans, but that doesn't excuse a crime of this magnitude. Just imagine what would happen if the sliths did a thing like that to a human village, the people of Avernum would be enraged and rightly so, but in reverse its ok? How is killing a bunch of babies going to be of any help to the war?

As a previous poster pointed out, this isn't some sort of political or ideological war with established rules of engagement. It's a no holds barred war of survival. Avernum is a harsh, barren land, and both the sliths and humans are not living their by choice. There is a finite amount of space in the caves, and both sides have spilt blood for every inch of territory taken. If the slith savages had the opportunity, they would indeed kill Avernite civilians. This is shown conclusively in Avernum 6.

It's easy for you to get all high and mighty about them taking drastic measures to survive, but at the end of the day, its either Avernum or the slith savages.

Quote:

But there should be other ways to interact with the eggs and get that chainmail.

Why should you be able to have your cake and eat it too?

It's worse, Jeff rewards you for killing babies...

Good job

[Brocktree]

No he doesn't.

 

An in-game character gives you a non-critical game item for committing a morally questionable act. Big difference.

[Barzhal]

Originally Posted By: Brocktree

No he doesn't.

An in-game character gives you a non-critical game item for committing a morally questionable act. Big difference.

Nice rationalization...killing babies is a questionable act. The item received is irrelevant. Jeff rewards killing babies. Period.

[Lilith]

If the only reason you don't kill babies is that you're not rewarded for it, it's not the game's morality you should be worried about.

[Kreador]

Originally Posted By: Barzhal

Originally Posted By: Brocktree

No he doesn't.

An in-game character gives you a non-critical game item for committing a morally questionable act. Big difference.

Nice rationalization...killing babies is a questionable act. The item received is irrelevant. Jeff rewards killing babies. Period.

So you wouldn't eat veal? Caviar?

Anyway, Jeff isn't rewarding anyone for anything. He set up a situation in the game where your characters can receive a reward for doing something most of us would find morally reprehensible in real life. It's a role playing game. If you're playing your characters with a strong moral streak, don't take the quest.

[Brocktree]

Originally Posted By: Barzhal

Originally Posted By: Brocktree

No he doesn't.

An in-game character gives you a non-critical game item for committing a morally questionable act. Big difference.

Nice rationalization...killing babies is a questionable act. The item received is irrelevant. Jeff rewards killing babies. Period.

Trying to extrapolate "A fictional character in a video game gives me a virtual item as a reward for smashing the eggs of a non-existent race" to "Jeff is promoting baby killing" is a big stretch. If Jeff ever starts depositing money into your bank account for every baby you kill in real-life, you would have a case.

[Tirien]

I worry about the minds of some of the people here...

 

Next thing you know, they'll claim that assassinating the emperor is a bad thing.

[Kennedy]

If you kill the Sliths before they have a chance to hatch that is one thing, they may not yet have the ability to feel pain. If however you were to go into a nursery with little baby Sliths crawling around the floor that have allready hatched and start stomping on them that would be something else. Yes it Would have been nice to steal the eggs and take them to be raised by friendly Sliths, but I'm not going to hold it against Jeff for not coding that option.

[Randomizer]

It's a pre-emptive strike to prevent the Emperor from using WMD against Avernum.

 

To think that the original version came out years before Gulf War II.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

If the only reason you don't kill babies is that you're not rewarded for it, it's not the game's morality you should be worried about.

i think that sums up my thoughts on this thread very nicely

[eXtremeJeep]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Unfortunately, in a true all-out war like that one that's been going on for generations, the option is probably realistic. This isn't a war between two groups of people who are fairly similar but are willing to kill each other over an ideological or political difference. This is a war between two different species who can't communicate and who are both trying to use dangerous, dark forces to get an advantage in the war. Avernites view it as kill or be killed. It's also been going on for around 40 years already, and seems to be fairly total (given how isolated Gnass & L.B. are from the rest of the Sliths) so it's not unrealistic to assume that Slith babies will grow up to be Slith warriors throwing spears at humans.

This is not a defense of killing babies, BTW. But I think this is how that dilemma fits into the game.

This is true as you and others point out, however it is not your war. Your new in Avernum and finding your own way. Therefore you don't have the hatred for this race like the others do, up until a week ago you had never even heard of them.

Also some would find assassinating the Emperor wrong, I believe thats why its not the only way to beat the game.

[Archaeolagent]

Realistically, pretty much everything you do in the game involves killing, so assassinating a murderous tyrant is probably not bad in comparison.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

This is true as you and others point out, however it is not your war. Your new in Avernum and finding your own way. Therefore you don't have the hatred for this race like the others do, up until a week ago you had never even heard of them.

True. You can make it your war, but you don't have to. Similarly with the Scimitar, and helping Avernum vs. helping Kyass vs. just looking out for number one.

Realistically, there are a lot of reasons why a new addition to Avernum would choose to make the war their business. Maybe it's that the kingdom of Avernum is by and large the most ethical and well-governed nation. Maybe it's that you're traumatized from getting exiled, and the Avernites are generally nice and helpful while the sliths et al are trying to kill you. Maybe it's that nephils and sliths are scary non-human monsters and you're kind of racist. The game doesn't force you to figure these things out, but you can if you want to.

[The Upright Man]

I think there should be a perk for it!

 

[Mac]

Jeebus.

 

Here are your choices. Smash the slith eggs or don't smash them.

 

They. Are. Not. Real. You can take your decision back the next time you play. Really! You can! Why, it's almost as if it never happened (because it, you know, didn't).

[Superba]

I came minutes ago at that point of the game. It has been a natural decision, no much to think about. I would never kill Slith-things-inside-the-eggs the way I wouldn't have killed nazi's children, I mean they are totally innocent and there's always hope about a Slith Martin Luther King in that new generation of lizards

[taltamir]

Unfortunately, in a true all-out war like that one that's been going on for generations, the option is probably realistic. This isn't a war between two groups of people who are fairly similar but are willing to kill each other over an ideological or political difference. This is a war between two different species who can't communicate and who are both trying to use dangerous, dark forces to get an advantage in the war.

 

Sure, the sliths may be at war with humans, but that doesn't excuse a crime of this magnitude. Just imagine what would happen if the sliths did a thing like that to a human village, the people of Avernum would be enraged and rightly so, but in reverse its ok? How is killing a bunch of babies going to be of any help to the war?

 

I have no idea what game you have been playing, but in Avernum: Escape from the Pit the sliths clans vary in ideology and the main difference as far as humans are concerned is the division between clans of two types.

Group A: Friendly folk who trade with the humans, are not at war with the humans, and whose villages you can visit (normal towns only with sliths instead of humans).

Group B: Vicious speciesists who believe non sliths sophonts (humans, nephil, etc) are to be hunted down for food and sport until they are all exterminated.

 

Group B is the one the avernites are at war with.

The tribe where the egg encounter occurs is led by an extra zealous shaman who has personally been leading raiding parties to terrorize the local humans. In fact, those humans he has captured he makes sure to have butchered for food (exact specifics left to our imagination) on the shore where the humans on the other side of the lake can watch and see but be unable to act (thanks to water superiority of the sliths).

 

Personally I want to kiddnap the eggs and take them to Gnass or lost Bhassikava where they could be raised as productive and peaceful members of Avernite society, it's non-violent but it would give enough incentitive for the chief to attack you, thus allowing you to take his stuff.

 

That I agree with, even if finding human adopters for them is hard they can just be delivered to the peaceful clans instead. I really think such a quest should be added as an option, as well as possible consequences with the peaceful slith tribes if you go for slaughter.

 

As some have pointed out though the "smash the eggs" thing is not as black and white.

Those are unhatched eggs in a village you just personally depopulated (or at least so you thought until the hunting party returns).

he young are going to be eaten by a predator, if by a miracle they hatch they will starve, if by a miracle they do not they will have no one to teach them even something as basic as language, totally feral like animals.

If however a hunting party survived, then they will instead raise said young with their ideology of slaughter as well... so given the choice between "do nothing" and "smash eggs" I go with smash eggs... although if this was real life I would have instead opted for "take them and find someone non evil to raise them" (heck, I'd raise them myself if I wasn't busy saving the world)

[RaustBlackDragon]

Personally, I got along just fine without the chainmail. There are other pieces of armor that grant that bonus, and I got by with those just fine

[taltamir]

Personally, I got along just fine without the chainmail. There are other pieces of armor that grant that bonus, and I got by with those just fine

 

IIRC I sold it, too much armor is junk due to ridiculously high accuracy penalties.

But the rewards really just a cherry on the cake, its a hidden reward so it doesn't really affect any of my arguments at least

[The Reverend]

IIRC I sold it, too much armor is junk due to ridiculously high accuracy penalties.

But the rewards really just a cherry on the cake, its a hidden reward so it doesn't really affect any of my arguments at least

The chainmail that you get there is actually pretty nice, since it gives you an extra action point. If you do decide to kill the eggs, it's probably beneficial to hang onto the armor. I don't remember its to-hit penalty being that bad relative to other similar armor.

[Skwish-E]

I stomped on those eggs, then looked around for some more. I kill young orgres, too, and steal eggs from friendly spiders to sell to a mad wizard. If I were civilized, I'd still live on the surface.

 

The way I see it, if they didn;t want to be smashed, they wouldn;t be eggs.

 

By the way, in real life, I EAT chicken eggs, duck eggs, quail eggs, fish eggs...

[Sudanna]

The notable difference being that poultry aren't people.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

I would say that as far as humans are concerned there is little difference between duck eggs and evil slith eggs, If anything the motivation to smash the sliths would be higher as the ducks won't grow up to be of the people killing variety.

(well, at least normal ducks, rats can kill humans easily in Avernum, so I guess ducks could be tough too.)

[Triumph]

the ducks won't grow up to be of the people killing variety.

(well, at least normal ducks, rats can kill humans easily in Avernum, so I guess ducks could be tough too.)

 

Occasionally something of the utmost levity comes out of discussions on these forums. This is one of those times.

[The Reverend]

Avernum 1.5: Escape from the rabid ducks!

[Sudanna]

I would say that as far as humans are concerned there is little difference between duck eggs and evil slith eggs, If anything the motivation to smash the sliths would be higher as the ducks won't grow up to be of the people killing variety.

(well, at least normal ducks, rats can kill humans easily in Avernum, so I guess ducks could be tough too.)

 

One could say the same thing about stomping on the pregnant women of an enemy nation, that's still an atrocity. Adding racism doesn't make it better.

[Lilith]

This is getting too close to real-world issues, and I don't see anything good resulting if it continues. We're done here.