“So, we’re ok just killing all the children?” asked Margaret, looking perturbed.

“The only good orc is a dead orc,” said Dave, settling the situation to his satisfaction.

“I don’t want to leave anything that’s going to come back and attack us or cause us problems later.” said Frank thoughtfully. “It seems like clearing out the area is the smart move.”

“This just feels a lot like genocide,” said Laura. “We’ve entered their lands, gone into their homes, killed them and their families and taken anything of value they had.”

“Remember getting mugged by those kobolds?” asked Dave “That’s what they’d do to you if they had a chance!”

“I guess we don’t necessarily need to be viewing this fantasy world through the lens of colonial oppression and invasion,” mused Margaret, with a laugh “It just seems like we’re acting the same way that we’d be criticizing people in the past for acting.”

“Monsters are there to be killed, don’t think too much about it,” suggested Dave.

“Combat usually is a pretty common way to resolve issues in role playing games,” said Kate. “Most games I’ve ever been a part of, there are limits to what you can accomplish with diplomacy. Eventually it comes down to a fight.”

“In these game rules you get experience for treasure. In other editions experience comes from defeating monsters, so you kind of have to defeat creatures one way or another to improve. With getting experience from treasure, it’s always possible to improve your characters without fighting. If you slipped in somewhere and stole things from them, you’d then get the experience from the treasure. And if you convinced a monster to leave an area where it was causing trouble, without killing it, you’d still get the experience for ‘defeating’ it.” Gary explained.

“So, do we want to go back to the Fort to rest or find somewhere here?” Dave asked.

“We got the key for that storeroom” Frank suggested “Could we lock ourselves in there?”

“Sure,” Gary suggested. “Spell casters decide what spells you’re preparing”.

“Do we recover any hit points while we rest?” asked Anne.

“No, because you’re camping in rough accommodations. If you were back at the inn in the Fort I’d give you 1 hp for resting overnight. But not here,” Gary replied.

“But we can still get spells back,” she confirmed.

“Yep,” said Gary, “and you can always cast any healing spells you have before you rest, then prepare them again. The only danger then is if you’re attacked while camping before you prepare them, then you won’t have them to cast. But it’s probably better for everyone to be healed more than to have the spells available.”

“Ok, who is hurt the worst?” Anne asked the group.

“After healing and making yourselves as comfortable as possible in the storage room, you have an uneventful night. Come the morning, all spell casters have their spells prepared again and you’re just starting to wake up when you hear a knocking at the door.”