D&D (2024) bring back the pig faced orcs for 6th edition, change up hobgoblins & is there a history of the design change

[Faolyn]

I mean, in the Samurai Jack cartoon, they got away from morality questions by making literally everything Jack fought a robot.

Heh, that reminds me. My dad's a writer and did a lot of scripts for cartoons in the 80s and 90s. He wrote one story where the hero reprogrammed some Bad Guy robots to fight each other instead of trashing the city or something, but was made to rewrite that part because "even robots have souls."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not the DM and their group?

Not when it comes to discussing it online. When we post publicly, we are inherently inviting comment.

You aren't the boss of me.

Are you sure? Vaalingrade is not a given name after all. Now get me those TPS reports or whatever it is you do. As a boss, I have no idea what that is.

 

[Oofta]

Heh, that reminds me. My dad's a writer and did a lot of scripts for cartoons in the 80s and 90s. He wrote one story where the hero reprogrammed some Bad Guy robots to fight each other instead of trashing the city or something, but was made to rewrite that part because "even robots have souls."

At a certain point, does it matter if the intelligent being isn't carbon based?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Heh, that reminds me. My dad's a writer and did a lot of scripts for cartoons in the 80s and 90s. He wrote one story where the hero reprogrammed some Bad Guy robots to fight each other instead of trashing the city or something, but was made to rewrite that part because "even robots have souls."

okay, that is wild but I would feel bad reprogramming a sapient robot against its will as that would be wrong.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

If I suddenly have my goblins speaking Japanese* because that's what I want to give it an incomprehensible bend to the players at my table am I suddenly being racist?

* chosen because I am actually attempting to learn Japanese, and my player's don't know the language.

Yes. Yes it is. That is racism. At least, if all your goblins sound Japanese, and all your goblins are unequivocably, unredeemably evil. If both are true, this is racist.

You don't have to have your goblins sound like any real-life culture, they can sound like slabbering beasts barely forming words, or like Skeletor screeching, or just talk like cavemen. Making them sound like an existing people is a poor choice if this race is intended as the "Always evil, kill on sight" enemy.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Yes. Yes it is. That is racism. At least, if all your goblins sound Japanese, and all your goblins are unequivocably, unredeemably evil. If both are true, this is racist.

You don't have to have your goblins sound like any real-life culture, they can sound like slabbering beasts barely forming words, or like Skeletor screeching, or just talk like cavemen. Making them sound like an existing people is a poor choice if this race is intended as the "Always evil, kill on sight" enemy.

I heard a monster that made a noise like a demonically possed tiefighter that is how you make a scary monster.

 

[Charlaquin]

okay, that is wild but I would feel bad reprogramming a sapient robot against its will as that would be wrong.

I would argue if it can’t think outside its programming, it doesn’t have a will to reprogram it against. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, its programming is its will.

 

[Oofta]

I would argue if it can’t think outside its programming, it doesn’t have a will to reprogram it against. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, its programming is its will.

Why does that only apply to robots?

 

[Mind of tempest]

I would argue if it can’t think outside its programming, it doesn’t have a will to reprogram it against. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, its programming is its will.

that would be none sapient as it is equivalent to instincts in animal, to be sapient is to be able to resist your natural programming.

 

[Charlaquin]

Why does that only apply to robots?

I’m not aware of any other entities that are incapable of thinking outside a set of programming. If you want to make an argument that biological brains run on instructions that are analogous to programming, you have to accept that any sufficiently complex programming is indistinguishable from free will. At which point, just change my argument from “a robot that can’t think outside its programming” to “an entity that lacks sufficiently complex programming.”