A Question About Golems

Okay, Veeky Forums. I'm a neutral third party here. I played in this game, but I was neither the DM nor the player involved. I'm just curious what you all think.

>playing AD&D 2e
>DM absolutely requires paladins to be Lawful Good and is fairly strict about them (without trying to create situations where they fall no matter what)
>other player is playing as a paladin
>basic background plot has race of stone golems commissioned thousands of years ago by the king of the local kingdom, who, about 450 years ago, became sentient through a magical fluke, and escaped servitude
>the kingdom is experiencing a kind of "slow blight" on its crops wherein the amount of food is dwindling
>the seers say it will end in another ten years but in the meantime, some will starve
>the kingdom has had only a very small standing army for a very long time, and not a lot of weapons, so the king is sending an army to capture the golems, erase their sentience, and turn them back into servant beings
>the party tries to negotiate with the king that the golems will help and then be allowed to leave
>king refuses
>paladin (party face) promises the golems he'll "see to it that justice is done" and sets up a meeting with a group of the king's men
>the rest of us think he's going to try one last time to reason with the general then fight them if he can't change his mind
>once everyone is there, he spins around, smites the leader of the golems, and declares that he's returning them to the king
>DM: "...What?"
>Player: "I'm returning him his rightful property."
>DM: "WHAT?"
>Player: "They were made to be servants. It's in their nature. That's what they're for. Like a fork or something."
>They started arguing and before long the paladin player is arguing that Aristotle was right and some people are natural slaves IRL
>DM tells him he falls
>Player says what he did was both lawful and good
>They have a big fight and the player leaves
I'm not asking what you think about slavery IRL, but should the paladin fall?

No.
Evil is objective in dnd. Slavery is not evil.

I'm personally not a fan of making paladins fall.

However, what the paladin did, while technically lawful, was by no means good. Whether or not they were created with the intent of being intelligent, the golems are thinking, feeling creatures. To erase their personality, their soul, so to speak, is tantamount to murder.

>Slavery isn't evil.
Explain your reasoning.

Slave Pits of the Undercity, one of the first AD&D modules (AD&D being what introduced the good-evil axis into alignment), has a band of slavers. They are described just as slavers, and then a moment later, referred to as "the evil band," suggesting that their evilness has already been established.

I disagree. These golems can be used to farm and make food for people that will die otherwise. The fact that they gained sapience does not change this fact.

A different way to think about it would be this: A poor starving farmer is about to bite into a potato he grew. Suddenly because "lolmagic" (literally how it worked for the golems in OP) he knows that the potato is sapient (he magically knows, the potato doesn't talk to him or move or anything, but he knows. This is a hell of a lot more than the PCs know, since golems talking and "feeling" can be an act or illusion (a wizard could be making it appear this way for instance so that no one will retaliate against him for stealing the golems for instance)). Furthermore, he knows that ALL of the food he has access to is now sentient. Once again because lolmagic.

Is it evil for that farmer to eat his potatoes? He will die if he does not, and he made them. (Once again, this is assuming that mindblanking someone is analogous to murder. The golems may regain all their memories in a thousand years when the kingdom that made them died or some such).

Not all slavery is under terrible conditions. Many slaves, historically, were treated quite well - they were well fed, protected, and had adequate lodging. They were unpaid or paid very small amounts, yes, but they maintained many rights, had a fair workplace environments, and were treated civilly. Many of them were better off as slaves than as people trying to work in a risky and unstable economy, where their earnings might suddenly become worthless. The modern view of slavery is extremely skewed.

Slavery is not evil, unless you enact it in an evil manner.

Slavery is consistently a Evil act in most games, and depending on the society, can be a lawful (well-organized slave markets, high-breeding of slaves, laws regulating it, quality of slave being better than quantity for status symbol) or chaotic (tribal chieftain taking slaves as his people raid, slaves can fuck whichever other slave they want to breed more slaves, quantity over quality as a status symbol).

Also, the paladin should fall for betraying his oath to the golem leader and killing him. If it had been broken because a peace couldn't be worked out, then the paladin wouldn't fall. However, he struck with malicious intent and wished to return them to bondage.

They wouldn't have to be mind-blanked in order to save lives, though. A deal was attempted in which they would work until the blight ended and then be allowed to return to freedom, without having their consciousness erased, but the king refused.

see OP's
>the party tries to negotiate with the king that the golems will help and then be allowed to leave

That's a very consequentialist way to look at it, though. It could be argued that even the kindest of slavery would be wrong inherently, and there were opponents of slavery among philosophers even in ancient Greece.

less important is the nature of "is slavery evil?" and more important is "is slavery against my religion?" if the latter is yes then he definitely should fall. but if the deity doesn't care about slavery he should still get a slap on the wrist because he dishonorably attacked a non-hostile.

Anything can be argued.
I could argue, decently, that giving a beggar food or coin is an inherently harmful act.

Most Good-aligned deities strongly frown upon slavery. It's part of why in Pathfinder, followers of the NG goddess Sarenrae who endorse or take part in slavery are TN instead of NG.

That, and the fact they're basically of the mind that either you follow Sarenrae or time for a holy war.

This. The paladin willfully deceived sentient beings seeking only survival who were willing to help and lead them it to a trap.

That is not the act of a true paladin. He willingly chose the easy path regardless of the hurt caused to others. That is the objective evil of D&D

That's not really a fair comparison though, for two reasons:
1) The golems are demosntrably intelligent, the potato is not.
2) The paladin didn't act on "what if there's something else in plkay here," he acted on "despite these golems being self aware, thinking beings, they are still property."

Glad someone agrees.

Now another question, if a peace can't be worked out, should the Paladin fight to protect the Golems? Specifically, if he doesn't, does that cause him to fall?

Okay, I'm saying that all you did was assert "sometimes slaves live in good conditions" as if that proves that slavery is actually okay in those circumstances. But most people who argue against slavery aren't even centering their argument on the conditions of chattel slavery; they're basing it on a belief that people fundamentally should not be owned.

Eating a sentient creature is explicitly spelled out as evil.

In fact, eating sentient creatures is a very quick way to display exactly how evil you are.

In that case, he promised to "see to it that justice is done." It's just that apparently he thought that meant returning them to bondage.

However, given that he made that promise, it seems like he's bound by his word to do whatever he can to keep it.

That has no place within he objective good and evil of dnd.
They are not exclusively mistreated, and their conditions can actually be quite favorable, therefor slavery is not evil.
Being property or not is irrelevant.

>I wish to leave
>No, you're my property
>But I am aware and wish to be free
>Get back in fucking line

The golems do not benefit from the arrangement with the king and they can not seek freedom for themselves without being threatened with destruction. it's evil even if it wasn't slavery.

Paladins aren't lawful good. They're Lawful Good. Their role in this war would be to defend innocents caught up in it, preserve the freedom of the Golem folk and solve the city's labour shortage. All of it. He's fighting for the best solution to every problem, not just his own.

Paladins aren't pragmatic. They're held to higher standards.

>Giving unskilled, uneducated people reliable housing, food, and employment when they would have a much harder time finding an arrangement as good as that one in their time period is an inherently evil thing
It is a mutually beneficial arrangement in many cases. Slavery is also not permanent, typically. Slaves have often held the right to sign contracts permitting them to be regarded as property for a certain amount of time, often for the owner to absolve them of a debt with either themselves or someone else.

From the AD&D DMG:

>Basically stated, the tenets of good are human rights, or in the case of AD&D, creature rights. Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom, and the prospect of happiness. Cruelty and suffering are undesirable.

>Evil, on the other hand, does not concern itself with rights or happiness; purpose is the determinant.

>confusing indentured servitude with slavery

Let me get the Oxford dictionary out for you and look up slavery and slave in this context.

Slavery - noun
1The state of being a slave:

Slave - noun
chiefly historical
1A person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.

1.1 A person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation.

There is no benefit in slavery for the slave as there is in indentured servitude for the servant.

...

>I quote the dictionary instead of look at legitimate historical accounts and records, I must be right! See? SEE?

I like how the "slavery isn't Evil in D&D" user ignores

Faggot, the definitions are what they are based on historical facts and common usage. Thanks for not coming up with a proper response beyond spitting dribble at me and forcing me to use a napkin to wipe your autism off my face. Now then, are you going to come up with an actual response, or are you going to fume as you realize that you had indentured servitude and slavery confused?

The salt is realer than real in you, user
Perhaps you should calm down and go do something else for a while, you clearly take online discussions too seriously

>Kek, the salt is real, fuck off, you clearly took this too seriously

Fuming it is. Please join the other undesirables in the showers. :^|

That is LITERALLY a fundamental part of good and evil in AD&D, which is what's being discussed. See .

i agree with the paladin personally

but does the story change with the fact that the golems are not sentient during their "slavery"

>These golems can be used to farm and make food
Except when they go haywire when digging a trench and dig all the way to the sea...through several mountain ranges and a confused dragon.

The Paladin should fall.

The core of LG is using the law to uphold good.

The Golems may have originally been the property of the king, but once they gain sentience it becomes immoral to still treat them as property.

>These golems can be used to farm and make food for people that will die otherwise. The fact that they gained sapience does not change this fact.

That's using a race that has attained sentience and thus personhood as a means rather than an end. According to deontological ethics (ie. the ethics of Kant), which the objective morals of D&D heavily leans upon, that is a big no-no.

That's not to say that the golems shouldn't help the people. according to the same set of ethics it would be their duty to do so, however it is all-important that it is their choice and not something they are forced to do.

What you're arguing is utilitarianism, and while this is a popular philosophy of ethics in real life and not inherently better or worse than deontological ethics it does however go against the objective morals of D&D meaning that if you argue for this you might as well toss out any notion of the alignment system.

Golems don't need any of that. They don't need food, housing or employment. They could literally just stand still and exist until their materials erode.

Sounds like a class that's impossible to play. Tell you what, I'll go for a Lawful Good Cleric with the War domain.

Seriously, with Veeky Forums it's impossible to play anything.

If the golem is relatively peaceful (only fighting for freedom), then yes, the paladin falls. He just murdered a non aggressive entity, attending what it thought to be a peaceful meeting, in cold blood. He also intentionally fooled this being into thinking this was going to be a just meeting. I'd be surprised if some higher entity of good didn't decide to personally annihilate the bastard for his actions.

This.
Honourable people do not go around killing things without fairly battling or trying them. Turning around and murdering someone who thinks you're on their side is antithetical to what it means to be a paladin.
Completely ignoring the freedom and slavery aspect, spontaneously killing a sapient being who was trying to peacefully resolve a conflict is certainly fucking evil.

You can't kill something that isn't alive.

Also, letting the golems go means the death of thousands. This way, everyone lives.

Define "alive".

>tfw the BBEG just gives sentience to pretty much everything
>because normal people don't want to commit evil acts, they die because they can't sleep on their beds, eat their food or wear their clothes.
>some people sacrifice their good soul and turn to lives of evil. The gods shun them for their cruelty.
>the BBEG is very pleased with this.

It's a sapient being with desires independant of instructive programming, it doesn't matter whether or not it's biological. Destroying it is equivalent to murder.

>I'm not asking what you think about slavery IRL, but should the paladin fall?
As I understand it yes. Firstly he misled the golems about his intentions in setting up the meeting which I believe is grounds to fall for dishonable conduct. Secondly as Good requires that "Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom, and the prospect of happiness." And his actions do not allow for relative freedom or the prospect of happiness therefore he falls.

Forgot to add that his Aristotle was right and some people are natural slaves argument as presented falls to show that the golems all fall into this category, the fact that they need to be mind wiped shows that they don't.

But he doesn't define the golems as creatures, meaning they 1) aren't being betrayed, they are being tricked as you would an enemy in a war or an animal into a trap, and 2) If he doesn't view them as creatures, then internally, he is consistent. Killing them, tricking them, or denying them the 'possibility of freedom' doesnt apply to a fork, and if they're defined in his mind along the same lines as a fork, then he is not in the wrong with himself, as to him no inconsistency has occurred.

Why not employ the enchanted objects to construct a new set of tools/weapons/garments/treasures/buildings in exchange for a guarantee of self-determination in perpetuity?

>Paladin lies to golem leader and murders an innocent in order to mindwipe an entire race to return them to slavery

That's definitely a fall. How is this even a debate?

Sure, but what is in question is whether or not he should fall for it. It comes down to a system question; does a Paladin fall for being internally inconsistent or by the judgement of a God.

If it's for internal inconsistency, then he should not fall. His views are consistent.
IF he must not deny freedom to 'living things'
AND IF he defined golems as being non-living entities
THEN by his logic he is not bound to defend their freedom.

NOW, if we decide it's the judgement of a god, then the only question is the Canon description of the deity's opinion. Of the deity would (or does) believe that all sentience is life, and it's only his opinion that matters, then the paladin falls. BUT most D&D gods, like the actual old gods they depict, either have contradictory or grey statements on the matters of freedom and the definition of who should be free. If the God isn't perfectly clear on his /her belief, then the paladin doesn't fall, since it indicates that the God either doesn't care or wouldn't necessarily be certain of its decision.

Because they're not people?

It's like being charged for murder, because you shot an NPC in a game.

That is his personal view however he does not get his Paladin status from himself, it is granted to him by his god. Unless his god agrees with his assessment and does not believe that he acted in a dishonable manner (unless that wasn't a way to fall in AD&D) then he falls.

Slavery is evil

Unless the golems did something to "deserve" slavery they are evil.

>self-aware beings aren't self-aware beings

If they're sapient enough to not want to be slaves, they're sapient enough to not warrant being fucking mind-erased.

You gotta remember that this is dnd, not real life.
The idea that a person made of stone is a sentient creature shouldn't be a difficult one for the paladin. This isnt a world like ours, where you either are human and (general consensus) deserve full rights, or aren't human and therefore get less. This is a world with (presumably) elves and dwarves and half-races and elementals and whatever the fuck else the setting has.

Define people

Because you're thinking about it as a 2016 human, not a 125th century human or a 12 century with magic human.

Thing is, slavery isn't viewed as being as evil in the time, and the golems are not being defined as living by the paladin. It's the same sort of question we ask nowadays about computers.

If I make a computer program that realistically simulates a person in conversation, is it not a person anymore? It can still be a code-driven machine, but what is the gap between actual Intelligence and the appearance of intelligence? How can we tell when we reach one or the other?

The paladin sees it as life-simulation, and that not-actual-life is stopping actual-life (in his eyes) from living. He didn't lie to a person in his eyes, he just tricked a malfunctioning tractor that faked being alive (but wasn't alive in his eyes) into the open so he could make it work again.

Simply, in his eyes, fixing a glitch and returning said property to its owner. Not murder to him, or lying, or slavery.

Not at all. I can make a computer code that runs the line "unplug me, I want to be free" every time I boot up. If I put that on a program that can, because of my programming, carry out conversation almost like a person, does that make it 'want' to be free, or is it a cruel/ sadistic part of a joke by the programmer? You can make a code that 'learns' 2nd speaks to you and says that, but again, is that actually free? You want to say yes, maybe, but it's not 100%. There is room for interpretation, and it's a question of which God it is and what they think about it.

An Aristotelian paladin should have refused to return them, since it would mean a reduction of their human souls in favor of plant and animal souls. More human souls = More minds to think of a solution to the problem.

But even here you have problems. This is a world where certain people's and gods have hatreds of orcs, goblins, or dragons based on their species. Drow are sentient but are often murdered on sight in 'civilized' areas. Does an elf paladin who hates Orcs sound not-cannon? Does a dwarven paladin who hates sentient kobolds sound not-cannon? Some gods outright hate certain races, so why would you naturally assume that every God would support the belief that the golems are people? Because since I don't know the god in question, there's a Damn good chance given the available various pantheon that the God is at least a little racist/species-ist.

Tha god is played by the DM and we know what the DM though about his actions.

According to OP, it has nothing to do with a god or with internal consistency. The DM said that paladins have to act in a Lawful Good fashion. According to , along with I'm pretty sure most other editions, a Lawful Good person primarily values the health, happiness and freedom of sapient beings and seeks to maximise these things in accordance with law, honour, fairness and so forth.

This person tricked a sapient being into thinking he was on its side before destroying it without warning, trial or fair battle, and that is antithetical to Lawful Good according to D&D.
Whether or not these golems count as applicable targets for Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic acts is up for the DM to decide, not the character's conscience, furthermore Good/Evil/Law/Chaos exist independant of one person's opinion within the setting and have agreed upon definitions.

No, the GM is a conduit for a pre-made world. Of the GM's actions aren't cannon, and the world is ostensibly cannon in most regards, then the GM could be at fault. I've run WH40k without knowing the full list of chaos gods and their beliefs, and I've run Edge of the Empire without knowing all cannon information on a planet my players go to. I try but I can miss stuff. Point is, the GM didnt research his decision, and if it's not 100% clear cut, "your God said ____ in this book on this page" ,then it's a pretty serious thing to inflict on a paladin based on the GM's knee-jerk reaction.


If I was the player, I'd demand evidence. Of the GM couldn't produce it, or there was evidence to the contrary, I'd be furious if they chose to make the paladin fall anyways, and as another player in the game that would be a decent indication that it was time to leave. The moment I can't rely on the GM to always attempt to accurately follow the lore and cannon where there is information, I know I can't plan my characters actions on what I can read about the world my character is supposed to be from. If I can't trust that information, and the GM isn't supplementing me with additional homebrew, how can I accurately RP?

An elf paladin who hates orcs should still act in a Lawful Good manner, fight them fairly, never dupe and betray them, even if they would do the same.
The paladin in OP considers the golems to be property, like slaves, but that should not prevent him from attempting to get them to return peacefully or through honourable combat without acting like a colossal hyper-cunt and fucking them over like a Chaotic Neutral spaz.

Slavery is evil

Only way to not evil it is by putting a lot of situational bullshit on it.

Also paladin sucker punched a motherfucker and that is pretty not cool.

Paladin falls for being an evil fuck.

OP doesn't mention whether or not the setting is pre-made.

The golems were brought to spaience through a "magical fluke" and not by design. Their independant thoughts and feelings are not the result of intentional programming. It would be no more reasonable to assume they only externally appear to be sapient than it would be to say the same thing about a group of humans.

Fall outright...maybe.
Depends on the god I'd say. Assuming that the paladin is the follower of a god of course. If, as you suggest, they are and the god in is strict about being good as well as lawful then I'd probably play that as the paladin gets a divine visitation from their god who would then explain that they are being beyond stupid and sending innocents, as said, to be murdered. Then depending on the player/character response either strip them of all power and/or give them some herculean quest to redeem themselves.

You simply don't agree with the conclusion he came to, and apply a different formula to the same real world problem.
You assign a number where the paladin didnt, and believe that the term "Good" is concrete.

What if I kill 5 people to save a planet? Is it murder? Yes. Is it good? Philosophy collectively says, "Yes, Maybe, No" depending on who you ask. The paladin's God does matter, in terms of the idea of being 'fallen'. Falling is an act of your patron deity stripping your power. If you worship an evil God and were somehow their paladin, "falling" couldn't happen", or wouldn't without a direct affront to the God. In RP terms, the God does matter.

If you're saying it isn't RP based, then it's philosophically based or logic based. His logic is internally sound as I explained, so if it's philosophical, which philosopher are you using? Kant says no action is good unless you don't want to do it, but it's the right thing anyways. Everything else in his eyes is just human self-service. Kill those marauding bandits? If you enjoyed the idea of saving the town, if you got paid, if you got experience, or if you got loot, you did it for a personal gain. I posit that almost all actions by D&D characters are by Kantian are self-serving and therefore not-good or evil.

>tldr, it's all philosopher preference, so really it's all just personal belief, so if it's philosophical then it's shorthand for "it's what I say it is".
No point arguing philosophy, so cannon or logic are the two we can find a hard answer in.

iirc 2e had some pretty clear definitions for "Good"

A paladin can't ambush? I'm pretty sure it would say in the rules of paladin were so stupid they weren't allowed to take surprise round attacks because those are unfair. The paladin acted within the law, and ostensibly acted within a definition of good, saving people while potentially not killing anything, but, again, fixing something which only appeared to be intellligent. If they're not life, then who cards what he told the malfunctioning rock, so the debate isn't his conduct but the rock-ness or alive-ness of the golem.

>You assign a number where the paladin didnt, and believe that the term "Good" is concrete.
The paladin's opinion does not matter. In D&D, the term Good is concrete.

>What if I kill 5 people to save a planet?
The paladin didn't fight and kill some golems in order to force them into indentured servitude to save the population from starvation, when no other option presented itself. He tricked their leader into thinking he was on their side before turning around and murdering him when a peaceful solution was not out of the question.

>The paladin's God does matter, in terms of the idea of being 'fallen'. Falling is an act of your patron deity stripping your power.
Paladins without gods can fall. What you're saying is clearly false.

>If you're saying it isn't RP based, then it's philosophically based or logic based.
It's based on the rules and definitions of Dungeons & Dragons and the arbitration of the Dungeon Master.

>A paladin can't ambush

Depends on their god. And super LG paladin would at least be strongly against it or act as bait to find a happy middle

>They are not exclusively mistreated, and their conditions can actually be quite favorable, therefor slavery is not evil.
This slavery, where free will is surgically removed and no ability to think is left behind, is pretty evil, though, isn't it?

Welcome back, obligatory white knight of Tumblr.

Now, you own a computer.
Your computer makes calculations you don't fully understand even if you're fluent in one or more lannvuages of code.
In the future they're going to be better and faster, and maybe before we die we'll have a life-simulation.
Will you stop using your computer because it sometimes appears to be alive? Maybe if you knew the code you'd known it was all an illusion. But, without knowing, you're unsure.

Now, being unsure is fine, but if you're unsure, can you say definitely that it is alive or not? NO. You can only say, "I don't know".

Now, if you need to use a computer for work, but you wonder if it's possibly sentient or maybe acting sentient, you're forced to make a choice.

The paladin made a choice to save beings he KNEW weren't simulations. The paladin could have chosen the other route as well and been in the right as well, but he may also have let actual people die and in a few years the golems would run out of illusion magic and resume looking like unintelligent farm tools, but people would be dead.

If you had to choose between enslaving the contents of 5 boxes which may or may not have people, or burning 5 boxes that DEFINITELY contain people, what do you do?

>people start employing these sentient beings
>magician gives the sentient beings sustenance from being used
>life carries on

Well then it's all up to whatever he wrote in his own introduction. If he wrote it as "____ is always good and always hates potential life being threatened" then it's clear. If he wrote "___ is the Good God of protecting the innocent and the saving the weak" then even in that one sentence there's space to argue the point, although in a homebrew setting things are admittedly more off the cuff.

Now you're being absurd. That's like selling your children as sex slaves.

No, if possible a paladin shouldn't ambush. He should look his opponent in the eyes. That doesn't mean to say that he cannot attack without warning in a dire situation, such as if an assassin suddenly appears and he is able to intervene before the assassin can strike, but this is an entirely different situation.
The golems were trying for a peaceful solution, they thought that the paladin was going to help them. He then turned around and spontaneously killed their leader who was not a present threat to anyone. That is not in any way appropriate behaviour for someone who dares to call themselves Lawful and Good.
As for the issue of personhood, the opinion of the paladin doesn't matter. Whether or not it was a sapient being is up for the DM to decide, and the paladin had no more reason to think of the golems that were behaving like people as mere objects than to think the same of any other entity that behaves in a sapient fashion.

Now you're being absurd, the sentient beings have no need for whatever we could offer them.

>Will you stop using your computer because it sometimes appears to be alive?
I'll stop using my computer if it runs away from home and says it doesn't want to be my computer any more.

>The paladin made a choice to save beings he KNEW weren't simulations
Prove that the king's people weren't all illusory constructs fueled by food.

>If you had to choose between enslaving the contents of 5 boxes which may or may not have people, or burning 5 boxes that DEFINITELY contain people, what do you do?

This is a very good scenario, as the paladin has a sword that can open up boxes, and the paladin ALSO could have deposed the king and then diplomatized the golems to grow crops for the human kingdom in exchange for resources such as magical repairs and so on. Instead of, you know, killing people.

You're continuing to ignore the fact that the golems agreed to help the humans until such a time as they were not needed anymore, it was literally just the king being a spiteful prick that was the point of contention. Also I feel like the paladin (or should I say fighter now) from OP found this thread and is making butthurt replies because nobody agrees with his shitty philosophies.

Also yes, if my computer gave indication that it was a living being then I would at least ask it if it was okay with being my computer, but that has yet to happen, and as you said earlier that's looking at things from a very "2016" point of view. In the olden times of magic if a golem tells you it's alive and has no indication of not being sentient, there is no reason to not believe it since there is no such thing as a "computer simulation" at that point in time.

And according to OP, the DM said that paladins have to strictly follow the doctrine of Lawful Good, which in aD&D has a specific definition.

Erm, alright then.

But this is a world where you can animate just about anything with magic, and give it intelligence or not. You can make a spoon dance and you can make a spoon understand the meaning of love but without knowing which happened, who knows? The golems were, importantly, already moving, so a spell happened to change their behavior. Was it an evil spell to make them appear sentient and run away, or a spell to give them sentience, which made them want to run away? I don't know, you don't know, but importantly the character doesn't know. He made the choice that saves the people he is more sure are real, because if it's 50/50 the golems are sentient but it's 80/20 the humans are, then I'd choose the better odds.

>the sentient beings have no need for whatever we could offer them
Bullshit. Ever left a bed out in the rain? It rusts and gets broken.

If the bed wants to have a place to stay, it needs to pay rent. The rent can be paid by the service of letting people sleep on it.

Broom doesn't want to be used to sweep? Get the fuck out and rot in the sun and rain.

What do you think, that maintenance isn't a thing?

>Will you stop using your computer because it sometimes appears to be alive

Is the computer telling me to stop?

>If you had to choose between enslaving the contents of 5 boxes which may or may not have people, or burning 5 boxes that DEFINITELY contain people, what do you do?

There is a fallacy for this, false choice? False something or other?

You are implying that the scenario OP described has only these choices, this is not the case.

Oh also

>Welcome back, obligatory white knight of Tumblr.
>jumping to random conclusions
>lol he isnt a complete shithead, must be white knight Tumblr

/v/ plz leave

>a paladin has two cardboard boxes sealed with nonmagical, easily cuttable tape in a building that's on fire
>one of them definitely contains humans, the other box contains things that may be humans, but definitely contains people who are armed with fire extinguishers

>which of these two boxes should the paladin carry out of the building?

Because clearly opening up the boxes and using the people who can put out the fire to stop the whole building burning down is too hard, right?

Please see The golems wanted a peaceful solution that worked out for both parties. The paladin could have easily handled the situation in a way that harmed no humans and did not risk accidentally killing a sapient being you thought was a stone robot.
Instead, he chose to act in a dishonourable, violent, treacherous and potentially murderous way for no discernable reason other than that he didn't like the uppity golems.

These are magical golems tho, do you have the monster manual saying what they need to sustain themselves?

Ok, I like your answer a lot actually.
Not necessarily 100% switching sides, because I still feel the DM is hastily making a reaction to an unexpected PC decision, but I do see what you mean about trying to find a peaceful resolution. I'd still argue the internal definition of their aliveness being key to the paladin feeling the need to try, but I personally would agree that, in an uncertain situation, he should have exhausted his options before resorting to what *could* be murder. If he doesn't know if it's murder, he should either be sure there's no other option OR sure it isn't murder.

But how does he know the people are real smart guy :^)
What if it's all just a computer simulation, or humans are just sacks of flesh being compelled to move by a higher power.
You're just deflecting because nobody agrees with you, because if we're allowed to say "oh what if this thing that isn't happening was happening??" We can just as easily say the king is a changeling who brought the plague to the town, so he should have been executed instead of the golems, or that the people of the kingdom are not truly sentient, because they're simply responding to chemical reactions in their brains, thus neither party is correct, or the golems are even more sentient because they are not swayed by the whims of biology.

>no discernable reason other than that he didn't like the uppity golems

Hey, I'm not sure if the paladin doesn't like the golems. He just wouldn't have one marry his daughter, that's all

>There is a fallacy for this, false choice? False something or other?
The term you want is false dichotomy, mate.

Depends on your opinion here. If it was either be a slave with free will forever and never be able to escape or lose free will and not feel the existential pain of that existance, you'd probably find a lot of people very tempted to escape the anguish of such a terrible life. In that light it might be nicer than being sentient but a slave.

thank u

>Also I feel like the paladin (or should I say fighter now) from OP found this thread and is making butthurt replies because nobody agrees with his shitty philosophies.
I'm of the opinion that we have more than one user arguing for the paladin/fighter believing he was doing the right thing. Most of them failing to address the possibility that the golems may have agreed to work without being mind wiped so I'm not too inclined to believe that they're not mostly trolling but I do believe there is more than one.

>do you have the monster manual saying what they need to sustain themselves
The animating force for a golem is a spirit from the Elemental Plane of Earth. The process of creating the golem binds the unwilling spirit to the artificial body and subjects it to the will of the golem’s creator.

Completing the golem’s creation drains the appropriate XP from the creator and requires casting any spells on the final day.

The BBEG would kill himself with level drain just from making everything golems.

Alternatively, a friendly wizard banishes all the spirits back into the elemental plane of earth.

ALTERNATIVELY THESE AREN'T D&D GOLEMS

Give me an hour with a glue gun, your computer, an RC car, a speaker, and a portable battery. I'll make that come true xD

No way to prove anything at that level. Only guesswork and some nat 20s on detect magic checks would help with the people.

As for opening the boxes, how could the paladin know if they were true-sentient or not? Also if the king is right and they are actually just malfunctioning, not actually alive crop-harvesters, then he's in the right, and deposing him for that would be bad and would being decades of poverty and strife to an already stricken kingdom. Not to mention, again, more "99% probably actual people" deaths.

>If it was either be a slave with free will forever and never be able to escape or lose free will and not feel the existential pain of that existance, you'd probably find a lot of people very tempted to escape the anguish of such a terrible life. In that light it might be nicer than being sentient but a slave.
Wow, you're right. It's ok to do terrible things to people because in some niche cases people might want it.

Equally it's ok for me to steal all your money at any time whenever and wherever because if you had a choice between me stabbing you in the heart and me taking all your money, you'd prefer me to take your money instead of killing you, right?

No, wait, that's retarded. These people didn't want to be mind-wiped, they didn't HAVE to be mind wiped and in fact an army had to be dispatched to forcibly mind-wipe them, because they didn't need to be fucking slaves.

Nah, OP said it was D&D so it's a safe assumption.

Also it looks like golems have no need for sustainment so it looks like there is nothing that they could be offered aside from freedom.

There is, however, the illusion of sentience. I'm not the OP, though, and I just love the logical debate. It's a great question; are they actually people or is it magic that makes them appear to be sentient. I know it triggers a lot of people because it's not ok in our day and age to ask if anything person-like is a person because of sexism and racism and LGBT phobias, but the question isn't "is an African American a human", but is "is the magic that made the golem under category A or B, and does that matter, and does his God matter.