Gity Golems with personality.

[Egon the Monkey]

Someone asked in Discord if it was OK to attack city golems, as they are blue NPCs.

They're a living, sentient, sapient being that isn't harming you.
Therefore it's a vile act on the level of randomly deciding to murder a bystander in a tavern and rip out their heart.

To which I did a massive double take.  They're sentient? They don't generally behave like anything but uncommunicative automatons. I'd always percieved killing a city golem as a Chaotic act, like smashing up a part of the City infrastructure. And advised against it IC on the basis of "don't vandalise important machines" not "HOLY SHIT DON'T RANDOMLY MURDER SOME DUDE". The only reason I'd even suspect they might be intelligent is I found RWG posting a screenshot of one talking to him.  There's a hint of "some form of intelligence" in the description, but based on them not ever talking or doing anything, I assumed it was at the level of "guard dog" not "people".

Could they maybe have some more indication the city golems *are* sentient? As generally golems aren't, and the city ones don't show signs of person-level intelligence. I've come across three so far and they just all stand around ignoring you. There's the Sad Dead Golem encounter but all that indicates is they can be friendly. A dog can be friendly. If you want PCs to treat them like people, not machines, they need to behave like people, not machines. Which  probably means giving them some conversations that show signs of a personality.  Which means not only are people more considered about whether to attack them, they might try interacting with them rather than treating them as furniture.

[SamB123]

I mean, by definition, animals are sentient too. But I've never considered a dog "a person". And I love dogs.

/shrug

Just saying, sentience doesn't mean that something necessarily has the intelligence of a human or elf or dwarf (etc.).

[Paintman]

I think exactly how you feel is what was intended. Making us think about sentience and the idea of what makes something alive or not.

[Charnelist]

I mean, by definition, animals are sentient too. But I've never considered a dog "a person". And I love dogs.

/shrug

Just saying, sentience doesn't mean that something necessarily has the intelligence of a human or elf or dwarf (etc.).

They're a living, sentient, sapient being that isn't harming you.
Therefore it's a vile act on the level of randomly deciding to murder a bystander in a tavern and rip out their heart.

For what it's worth..

"A sentient being is capable of experiencing things through its senses. ... Sapience is what most people are thinking of when they mean sentience. The ability to know things and reason with that knowledge."

It's really sapience, not sentience (there is a difference) that should probably fixated on if someone is interested in recognizing that the murder of a golem is not the same as the slaughter of an animal.
That said I agree that there could/should be more indication of that sapience, or 'self-awareness' in the golems. It seems that having unique names has not been enough for some people.

[SamB123]

We give animals unique names too, and call them pets. Does that make them sapient?  ;)


My point is, just because something is sentient and therefore killing it for no reason is a shitty thing to do; that doesn't make it capable of reason. So, are the city golems capable of reason? Guess that depends on the DMs and on FOIG.

[putrid_plum]

Maybe their mind is just not something a human can relate to since it's a construct, an alien mind.  Might be worth exploring in game.

[Egon the Monkey]

Back to the original point, the DM answer was "This is an incredibly evil and vile act akin to murdering a random bystander and ripping their heart out"
Unique names are irrelevant as the golems don't actually have a glowing blue name over their head IC.  Our characters have no reason to treat them as "Construction workers" rather than "Tools" or "Draft animals" like any other golem.

DMs will state outright OC, that yes they are and killing them is Evil. Except, right, it's not unless you know they're a person! If you kill a character who's been polymorphed into a chicken, and  you believe they're a chicken.... You haven't intentionally murdered someone. You have intended to kill a chicken. It's a tragedy, not the callous, deliberate killing of another person. In the same way, there's no moral conflict about the MASSIVE EVIL of killing city golems unless it's obvious to Joe Noob that these are People, not Things. Since golems have been known to speak and communicate with other people, this should be widely known. The easiest way to do this is just to give the one in the Open Door intelligent and meaningful conversation options to show "Yes this is a person, they all are". 

[Mushroom Mushroom]

The City Golems are sentient and it has been implied numerous times. They are held as sacred by City Cults and the Recondite for a reason.

[Ironside]

This is really a topic that would be more interestingly explored IG...