D&D General On the subject of Hobgoblins

[GreenTengu]

I think thats rather the whole point of OPs statement that Hobgoblins are just more organised Orcs, 95% of the responses have been to discuss how their version of the Culture of Orcs is different to the Culture of Hobgoblins but very little had been discussed about how the Hobgoblin as a species is functionally different to an Orc.
Goblins are small, weak and sneaky, butin a game were race is being decoupled from Culture what is the point of having two identical species that are stronger than goblins but smaller than Bugbears?

So your argument is basically this...

"Why does the world have more than one kind of carnivora that are larger than mongooses and smaller than bears?

All this nonsense about badgers, racoons, wolves, jaguars, cheetahs, hyenas, seals.... they are all very obviously just names for the same identical species!! Some are just slightly more organized than others."

I think that more or less encapsulates what I just read there.

Hell... Dwarfs, Elves (all 6,743,841 flavors of the stupid things), Goliaths, Dragonborn, Warforged, Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, Tabaxi, Kenku, Yuan-ti, Changelings, Kalashtar, Shifters, Gith and.... oh, yeah... humans.... all of which are covered by exactly the same description of "stronger than goblins but smaller than bugbears" and therefore they are all the same identical species. So what is the use of any of them? We should just get rid of all of these useless versions of the same identical species.

The game should just be goblins and bugbears.... and maybe the occasional human (which really just covers everything above as they are, by your definition, the same identical species).

 

[Voadam]

Goblins are small, weak and sneaky, butin a game were race is being decoupled from Culture what is the point of having two identical species that are stronger than goblins but smaller than Bugbears?

Classically Orcs were humanoids who were stronger and dumber than humans while Hobgoblins were neither, they were basically goblinoid evil humans while orcs were evil brutes. Those are distinct niches for the campaign role of human adversary.

So you generally get orc barbarians or minions of BBEGs while hobgoblins in the 1e Monster Manual look like they come from a samuraish civilization and as far back as 2e the Kingdoms of Kalamar had hobgoblins as the most civilized humanoids with kingdoms and roman like legions which carried over to 3e from which point bad guy romanish war machine has often been their aesthetic niche.

 

[Hriston]

I like this take. Not how I prefer to handle them, but a solid interpretation indeed.

Thanks, I default to some fairly Tolkienesque lore for my games. For me, both orcs and hobgoblins fill the Uruk role vis a vis goblins. I.e. they’re both products of “the Dark Lord”’s breeding program(s) to build a better goblin. (Of course, goblins themselves in this paradigm are also the product of such a program in the distant past.) If I was to distinguish between the two, I’d say that orcs represent a more feral version of the Uruk, whereas hobgoblins are more true to the original purpose and intent of their creator. On the other hand, I can also see orcs as “the new abomination”. I think this sort of approach works in a world like Middle-earth with a very long history with successive attempts by perhaps multiple dark lords to breed armies of conquest and oppression. Also, in this paradigm, I think it’s important to point out that goblinoids and orcs are not natural races.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thanks, I default to some fairly Tolkienesque lore for my games. For me, both orcs and hobgoblins fill the Uruk role vis a vis goblins. I.e. they’re both products of “the Dark Lord”’s breeding program(s) to build a better goblin. (Of course, goblins themselves in this paradigm are also the product of such a program in the distant past.) If I was to distinguish between the two, I’d say that orcs represent a more feral version of the Uruk, whereas hobgoblins are more true to the original purpose and intent of their creator. On the other hand, I can also see orcs as “the new abomination”. I think this sort of approach works in a world like Middle-earth with a very long history with successive attempts by perhaps multiple dark lords to breed armies of conquest and oppression. Also, in this paradigm, I think it’s important to point out that goblinoids and orcs are not natural races.

Nice. Where do bugbears and orogs fit in for you? Are they also a product of a/the dark lord’s breeding program? Do they come from goblin stock as well?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In my homebrew world, hobgoblins have a Japanese inspired culture, and originate from a small chain of islands in a temperate region near one of the few truly large islands of the world (New Guinea sized?). They have a highly literate and well organized culture, that can be brutal or fairly peaceful, depending on the attitudes of those who rule.

 

[Charlaquin]

I must confess, I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the Asian-coding of bugbears either. Like, I’m all for diversifying the cultural influences of our fantasy worlds, and if they’re a playable race with no fixed alignment, great. But something about using cultural signifiers of a human culture for a race of non-humans doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe if they more closely resembled something from Japanese folklore, coding them as Japanese would make more sense? But to me it just feels strange, especially as it’s only this one group of goblinoids, but goblins and bugbears don’t get the same treatment. That makes the focus on militarism and discipline extra conspicuous. Coupled with the Asian coding, it ends up playing into some Asian stereotypes in a way that I just find a little uncomfortable.

To be clear, I’m not trying to say anyone who likes Asian-coded bugbears is wrong or that they’re doing a racism. I’ve never heard any Asian people express any such concerns about the depiction of bugbears in D&D, so this is entirely a personal hangup. But I don’t do it in my own games because it feels weird to me for the reasons above.

 

[Ancalagon]

I must confess, I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the Asian-coding of bugbears either. Like, I’m all for diversifying the cultural influences of our fantasy worlds, and if they’re a playable race with no fixed alignment, great. But something about using cultural signifiers of a human culture for a race of non-humans doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe if they more closely resembled something from Japanese folklore, coding them as Japanese would make more sense? But to me it just feels strange, especially as it’s only this one group of goblinoids, but goblins and bugbears don’t get the same treatment. That makes the focus on militarism and discipline couples with the Asian coding play into some Asian stereotypes in a way that I just find a little uncomfortable.

To be clear, I’m not trying to say anyone who likes Asian-coded bugbears is wrong or that they’re doing a racism. I’ve never heard any Asian people express any such concerns about the depiction of bugbears in D&D, so this is entirely a personal hangup. But I don’t do it in my own games because it feels weird to me for the reasons above.

I have done it but... I do share your hesitancy. I've done it (as previous post, my hoboglins were based on Turks). I did a lot of historical research to be accurate, and included a fair amount of diversity (not all Turks are the same etc - I had the Seljuk empire, the Kimek, the Alay...). Now that I look back, I wonder, I could have had the Turks be humans (although it would have affected the plot significantly) - yes. But then I wonder - should I have had Turks at all? No matter the efforts I take, I am bound to get it wrong in one way or another...

 

[GreenTengu]

Thanks, I default to some fairly Tolkienesque lore for my games. For me, both orcs and hobgoblins fill the Uruk role vis a vis goblins. I.e. they’re both products of “the Dark Lord”’s breeding program(s) to build a better goblin. (Of course, goblins themselves in this paradigm are also the product of such a program in the distant past.) If I was to distinguish between the two, I’d say that orcs represent a more feral version of the Uruk, whereas hobgoblins are more true to the original purpose and intent of their creator. On the other hand, I can also see orcs as “the new abomination”. I think this sort of approach works in a world like Middle-earth with a very long history with successive attempts by perhaps multiple dark lords to breed armies of conquest and oppression. Also, in this paradigm, I think it’s important to point out that goblinoids and orcs are not natural races.

Is this just an issue with people who grew up with the recent Lord of the Rings movies and just are incapable of getting their mind out of that?
Like none of the people having an issue here have been around D&D for the last 25 years-- you just went from those Lord of the Rings movies and popped into D&D and expected D&D to be exactly the same and are just functionally incapable of grasping the idea of diversity among the traditional bad guy people?

Like none of you ever played, for example, an MMORPG such as EverQuest or World of WarCraft?

If one were to rewind way back, 30 years ago, to AD&D-- then, sure, there was hardly any difference between them.

But the moment WotC took over, from 3.0 onward-- there was a very clear artistic direction. Hobgoblins are warm-skinned (yellow to red) and have sort of a cat-like look, but not enough to be full on furries-esque cat-people like Tabaxi are. Meanwhile Orcs were cool-skinned (green to blue) pig-like people, but again-- not like full on Mrs. Piggy, just slightly pig-like influence. Hobgoblins had proper full on smithed armor while Orcs wore hide and chain. More was expanded on the Orcs so that we knew they lived on the colder regions, high in the mountains or deep in the caverns. That they bred with not only humans, but also Ogres... meanwhile edition on edition, it was advanced that the Hobgoblins were civilized empire-builders.

So we have these mildly pig-people barbarians who are smaller ogres and yet here we have a few people continually insisting that they are "big goblins". That hasn't been the case for 25 years of Dungeons and Dragons. There is virtually no crossover between goblins and orcs at all.

How do you point to orange cat-people and green pig-people and insist they are exactly the same thing, but you have no problem with Halflings and Gnomes who are just short humans whose main substantially different trait is that one is usually portrayed as a bit younger and tend to be thieves and one is portrayed as a bit older with beards and usually wizards?

One wants to argue that when you break it down to just saw enemy mechanics where something has 16 hit points and you hit it with a sword or arrow and it dies and drops loot... yeah, I suppose. But in terms of actual world building, there is a world of difference here. The only real similarity here is that they are two human-sized races that are often seen at level 1 just like all of the PC races and yet get pegged as "just monsters" rather than properly getting developed as the kind of regular denizens of the worlds that one would expect to see in an average party.

But there has, at least on the narrative side, been considerable development of them over the past 25 years of D&D. And that seems to be the one hang-up here-- that you can't get over Lord of the Rings and insist that D&D perfectly emulate Lord of the Rings and not have a single additional element beyond the limited scope seen in those movies.

 

[Minigiant]

I think thats rather the whole point of OPs statement that Hobgoblins are just more organised Orcs, 95% of the responses have been to discuss how their version of the Culture of Orcs is different to the Culture of Hobgoblins but very little had been discussed about how the Hobgoblin as a species is functionally different to an Orc.

In my games I have Hobgoblins use a combination of devils and fey to compliment there armies. This goes to the "Goblins and Hobgoblins are former Unseelie" angle. I add fire damage to their magic weapons and add tieflings and warlocks to their troops. Replaced longbows with eldritch blast and fire bolt.

Paladin/Warlock munchkins are so Hobgoblin

 

[Chaosmancer]

I must confess, I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the Asian-coding of bugbears either. Like, I’m all for diversifying the cultural influences of our fantasy worlds, and if they’re a playable race with no fixed alignment, great. But something about using cultural signifiers of a human culture for a race of non-humans doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe if they more closely resembled something from Japanese folklore, coding them as Japanese would make more sense? But to me it just feels strange, especially as it’s only this one group of goblinoids, but goblins and bugbears don’t get the same treatment. That makes the focus on militarism and discipline extra conspicuous. Coupled with the Asian coding, it ends up playing into some Asian stereotypes in a way that I just find a little uncomfortable.

To be clear, I’m not trying to say anyone who likes Asian-coded bugbears is wrong or that they’re doing a racism. I’ve never heard any Asian people express any such concerns about the depiction of bugbears in D&D, so this is entirely a personal hangup. But I don’t do it in my own games because it feels weird to me for the reasons above.

Just going off of a potential myth, you could potentially have Bugbears be a type of Oni.

In japanese myth, Oni were the wardens of Hell, where evil spirits would be tortured and punished to cleanse their souls of evil before being reincarnated. Oni were massive figures, wielding large weapons (generally spiked clubs) and enjoyed lazing about and drinking when they got the chance (because otherwise it was work all the time, and they wanted a break)

Now, that doesn't really fit for a humanoid race, per se, but you could manipulate a bit of lore to make it work

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What I've started doing is to honestly take the Bugbear out of the goblinoid races, and make goblins and Hobgoblins much closer. I then made Bugbears the foot soldiers and enforcers of the Unseelie court.

One idea I've been toying around with is to steal from a setting where goblins are just young hobgoblins. So, as they grow older, they grow bigger, until they are hobs. In the setting they can keep growing beyond that, becoming similar in size to Ogres or Ettins.

Which, I really like, since I want to find a better way to work with ogres, and making them very intelligent and "old" hobgoblins creates a new, very terrifying enemy (or just a different place to put the archetypes of some of the Giants)


Orcs I just made a PC race, which really solves most of the issues, since I don't do goblin PCs (not that they aren't people, but they tend to be the antagonists in my settings, so they tend to not make good choices for PCs)