[Fantasy] When not to kill the Orcs

[Michael Hopcroft]

Orcs in most fantasy campaigns exist for only one reason -- to die at the end of the adventurers' swords. They are mainly threatening because they come in vast numbers, and the usual human response to their presence, which most consider reasonable, is to try and exterminate them utterly because that's what they want to do to you.

Players with modern sensibilities are hopefully a little bit uncomfortable with having a situation where genocide is the appropriate response to a problem. Of course, many are not, but we won't go there just yet. My question is whether there are circumstances where exterminating the Orcs is not the way to solve the problem. A reason that it is good or necessary to leave some alive or not to go into their camps and slaughter the children.