Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872731I think you guys are confusing two things. The term genocide is new. But that doesn't mean it doesn't point to a pre-existing phenomena that extends back into history. People in the past may have not consciously thought of themselves as committing genocide, but they still could have been doing so. What historical events qualify is a matter of debate though.

Ok so what's Genocide?  Systematically killing a group of people with the intent to eliminate them.  Textbook definition is pretty clear, I think.  Where the muddiness comes in I think as far as what people think of as "genocide" is on what scale.

For example, if I do my research to find out every person living in Whatevertown of CertainPeople descent, then I systematically go around offing them one by one, until there are no more CertainPeople in WhateverTown, then that fits the textbook definition.  It also fits the definition and behavior of several historical serial killers.

Genocide is one of those "Three Evils" words that no one wants to see, hear or speak and as such is used to demonize and shut down conversation.  For the whole "Dark Side of the Hobby" people, genocide is one of the common accusations thrown at D&D.

If the people of Clearwater Valley hire adventurers to get rid of the large number of Orcs that have moved into the Silverlode Hills, and PCs succeed in exterminating all orcs in the area, is that genocide?

What about hunting down all Chaos cultists in a Warhammer town?  Is that a religious genocide?

From what I understand about the legal definition (like the UN leveling the charge) the "systematic" and "intent" portions are the areas where the arguments are made one way or the other.

In a Traveler campaign I could see PCs wiping out entire star systems without "intent". :duh:

Quote from: CRKrueger;872738Ok so what's Genocide?  Systematically killing a group of people with the intent to eliminate them.  Textbook definition is pretty clear, I think.  Where the muddiness comes in I think as far as what people think of as "genocide" is on what scale.

For example, if I do my research to find out every person living in Whatevertown of CertainPeople descent, then I systematically go around offing them one by one, until there are no more CertainPeople in WhateverTown, then that fits the textbook definition.  It also fits the definition and behavior of several historical serial killers.

Genocide is one of those "Three Evils" words that no one wants to see, hear or speak and as such is used to demonize and shut down conversation.  For the whole "Dark Side of the Hobby" people, genocide is one of the common accusations thrown at D&D.

If the people of Clearwater Valley hire adventurers to get rid of the large number of Orcs that have moved into the Silverlode Hills, and PCs succeed in exterminating all orcs in the area, is that genocide?

What about hunting down all Chaos cultists in a Warhammer town?  Is that a religious genocide?

From what I understand about the legal definition (like the UN leveling the charge) the "systematic" and "intent" portions are the areas where the arguments are made one way or the other.

In a Traveler campaign I could see PCs wiping out entire star systems without "intent". :duh:

It can certainly become an overly political discussion, where people use the term to end debate about something that happened in the past. It is a little like terrorism where it gets tough to define. Personally I am not interested in debating historical incidents that may or may not have been genocide, because I think that will get political quickly. But in terms of definition I think the key element is scale and the attempted elimination of an entire people (or at least the near elimination). I will let others debate the precise meaning. My only point was that just because a term is new, that doesn't mean the thing itself is. If the word points to something real, then it definitely could occur in the past, so having it happen in a fantasy campaign seems reasonably fair to me. I know I've applied that kind of thinking to some of my campaigns. I think what would be anachronistic is the characters themselves thinking of it as genocide (still it might be a useful enough word that you would just go ahead and have them use it anyways).

Ultimately if you describe something in the campaign setting as Genocide, your players (or your readers) will need to be the ones convinced that it qualifies. I think wiping out a small group of orcs or a religious cult doesn't really rise to that level (I am unfamiliar with Warhammer so maybe the chaos cult is a much more extensive thing). Personally I'd view an isolated event at a single town like you describe more as a pogrom.  Wiping out all the people of Heaven's Vale might be a genocide though. Systematically killing all halflings or all Galvon Adherents in your kingdom would probably qualify.

Quote from: CRKrueger;872738Genocide is one of those "Three Evils" words that no one wants to see, hear or speak and as such is used to demonize and shut down conversation.  For the whole "Dark Side of the Hobby" people, genocide is one of the common accusations thrown at D&D.

 

I get that. And I understand because I remember the 80s. But I think we are stupid if we let it drive what we do at the table or in our books. If genocide can feature into a campaign in a way that adds to the enjoyment at the table, I think it is fine. Obviously it is a potentially touchy area so any GM doing that is going to want to be more mindful of how people are reacting. But if we can slaughter orcs, summon demons and bring the forces of darkness to bear on an entire land, I don't see why genocide should be taken off the table.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;872750I get that. And I understand because I remember the 80s. But I think we are stupid if we let it drive what we do at the table or in our books. If genocide can feature into a campaign in a way that adds to the enjoyment at the table, I think it is fine. Obviously it is a potentially touchy area so any GM doing that is going to want to be more mindful of how people are reacting. But if we can slaughter orcs, summon demons and bring the forces of darkness to bear on an entire land, I don't see why genocide should be taken off the table.

Right, I'm not suggesting it should.  Hell, you could make an argument in some settings, like Rifts or 40k, that it may even be justified, and the right thing to do.

We'd just gotten to a "that's not genocide"/"you don't know what genocide is" point in the discussion, so figured it was time to determine what people think of the definition.

Quote from: AsenRG;872730It's a basic logical approach that you're probably familiar with to explore the implications of what is written.

And you wrote "the whole specie". Exterminating the whole specie of humans on Earth would mean exterminating every single living person, including whoever is doing the killing.

No the bizarre line of logic is that someone would have had to have succeeded at it for the word to exist.

By that logic, the word " immortality " shouldn't exist or can't actually mean to live forever.

But anyways, species isn't the only thing I said. There have been attempted genocides against Jews, Palestinians, Roma, homosexuals, and Yezidis in our lifetime, just to name a few. The fact that all of those people are at least for the time being still in existence suggests very few attempted genocides of groups of humans have been successful so far. I'm sure there are tribes of Native Americans that are no longer in existence, though.

And if someone wants to argue genocide means something else, then I think we need a specific word for what I'm talking about.

Well the OP asks...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?"

Not...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever committed Genocide?"

There is no Attempted Genocide vs. Successful Genocide, you either try or you don't.

So despite the title of the thread itself, Genocide might be a bit of a Red Herring.  For example, if the PCs did manage to kill off an entire race or species without intent through systematic means (like killing a beast they didn't know was the "Last of it's Kind") then they aren't fitting at least some definitions.

So to answer specifically...

No.  No fantasy PC ever managed or attempted to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid.

The old Nethack game had the Scroll of Genocide.  In some D&D games way back I had those, as super-rare artifacts of course, and my players had some interesting debates. Not about the moral dilemma of genocide itself but of what monster race they should completely wipe out if they can only pick ONE.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872775No the bizarre line of logic is that someone would have had to have succeeded at it for the word to exist.

Which is not what I said. I said "if anyone had ever committed genocide on Earth, according to your definition which only includes "specie" as opposed to the "more general one", you'd never be able to write that post".
And seriously, that's way too much attentions being paid to your definition. Sorry for my part in attracting it! I should have just said "this definition is wrong and here's why", and moved on:).

Quote from: CRKrueger;872780Well the OP asks...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?"

Not...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever committed Genocide?"

Yeah, when the title and the text of the OP differ, you always have to pick which one to answer;).

Quote from: AsenRG;872821Which is not what I said.

That is EXACTLY what you said:

Quote from: AsenRG;872724Your definition isn't what "genocide" means, since by it, nobody has ever committed genocide successfully.

Quote from: CRKrueger;872780Well the OP asks...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever managed to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid?"

Not...

"Have your PCs in a fantasy RPG ever committed Genocide?"

There is no Attempted Genocide vs. Successful Genocide, you either try or you don't.

So despite the title of the thread itself, Genocide might be a bit of a Red Herring.  For example, if the PCs did manage to kill off an entire race or species without intent through systematic means (like killing a beast they didn't know was the "Last of it's Kind") then they aren't fitting at least some definitions.

So to answer specifically...

No.  No fantasy PC ever managed or attempted to kill off an entire race/species of monster or humanoid.

I had a campaign where the elves were basically fantasy Nazis and created a hierarchy of scum, where they first went after the halflings, then the gnomes, then the humans. I think they only accepted dwarves and lizard men for some reason (they must have viewed the dwarves as useful). But the party managed to teleport in and kill the supreme leader before they could finish their goals (this was way back in 2003-04 under the 3E rules, so we might have had a few optimized PCs tilting things in their favor).

In Ravenloft Vlad Drakov is basically a combination of Vlad Tepes and Hitler (demihumans are branded and oppressed in Falkovnia). I had a campaign where the party time traveled into the future and I decided to do a WWII type scenario with Vlad finally, if just briefly, achieving his aim of conquest. It was actually kind of fun having Zeppelins and tanks in Ravenloft for a bit. It didn't really feature into the campaign that heavily but in the background there was a demihuman genocide occurring (it was never completed though).

Nitpicking aside, if you set out to kill all the members of a defined group of people then, to me, that is genocide. Whether that group is a race, species, member of a religious group, people with a certain ethnicity or even the clan next door, it doesn't matter.

Have you succeeded if only a handful are left? Probably, if not strictly by the letter of the law.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872835That is EXACTLY what you said:

Le sigh...

Do you mean to imply that there's never been a successful genocide in human history? Because that's what follows from the post I was objecting to, which refers to killing off a specie.
If you agree there has been successful genocides, and the specie of Homo Sapiens still exists, your definition is wrong.

Of course, if you think that there has never been a successful genocide, I'd recommend telling a Rwandan Tutsi, a Jew, or an American Indian, that what has happened to their people was only attempted genocide, and then reporting what his or her answer was;).

Quote from: soltakss;872864Nitpicking aside, if you set out to kill all the members of a defined group of people then, to me, that is genocide. Whether that group is a race, species, member of a religious group, people with a certain ethnicity or even the clan next door, it doesn't matter.

Have you succeeded if only a handful are left? Probably, if not strictly by the letter of the law.

Actually, killing only a part of the population is a genocide, and a successful one, according to the article 6 of the Rome Statute of the ICS, so your approach is actually confirmed by the letter of the law:D.

Quote from: AsenRG;872984Le sigh...

Do you mean to imply that there's never been a successful genocide in human history? Because that's what follows from the post I was objecting to, which refers to killing off a specie.
If you agree there has been successful genocides, and the specie of Homo Sapiens still exists, your definition is wrong.

I don't mean to imply anything. Its a definition of the word, and the only definition that matters to the thread if someone is actually responding to the OP, which made the definition Pundit was using pretty clearly exactly what I said. I have no idea what argument you're trying to make, because as I said to you from the start, the "success" of something in the real world has never been a condition for defining any word, ever. It's just a completely bizarre statement.

Quote from: TristramEvans;872989I don't mean to imply anything. Its a definition of the word, and the only definition that matters to the thread if someone is actually responding to the OP, which made the definition Pundit was using pretty clearly exactly what I said. I have no idea what argument you're trying to make, because as I said to you from the start, the "success" of something in the real world has never been a condition for defining any word, ever. It's just a completely bizarre statement.

OK, no point in trying to communicate on that point, moving on. Your definition is still wrong, though:).

Pundit, do Fantasy in Space games like WH40K count:D?

I doubt we are going to resolve a debate about the definition of genocide here.