D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[GreyLord]

Goblins and elves used to be creatures NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

Goblins especially could even be...things to kill on sight.

Why...because they will kill you and eat your children.

This idea that Goblins must be good is actually a VERY new thing in our history.

Elves were not exactly trustworthy either. You had good elves and fairies...and VERY BAD elves and fairies who would sneak into your house at night and steal babies.

Sometimes goblins and elves were used as words that were interchangeable in some stories, though normally the elves were more of a fairy creature and goblins were more of a night monster and such.

With some of the monsters of the fairy tale past, it is ironic that what used to be well known as VERY VERY BAD is something people are now trying to rewrite into being the good guys.

Not that it's wrong, everyone has a different take on their fantasy...just one of those interesting twists of fate in regards to what we used to have as stories we told around the fire, to each other, to children, passed down through the centuries as morality stories or warning or just to entertain...and how we now are taking those stories and reforging them into things that are very different (not just with RPGs, but with fantasy and fiction in general if you look at it).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I cant think of a game where you are readily tasked with the removal of dozens if not hundreds (or indeed THOUSANDS) of obstacles I mean enemies, who's programmed purpose in the GAME, is to likely KILL YOU, that has an expressed intention of posing a philosophical question of morality.

Actually that's an interesting question. Wasn't there a video game where you start doing typical FPS slaughter and then discover you were actually working for the bad guys all along? It seems a common plot so I'd like to know if it was implemented (but it might turn the audience off, so maybe not).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Right now I am divided. On one hand, they are humanoids with feelings and so on.

On the other hand they are evil little creatures in many settings.

So probably if you want them to be just cannon fodder, diplay them as demonic little creatures. Maybe have them being reproduced not by getting children, but by spawning them in some other way.

As soon as they behave like humanoids, having children and so on, killing them en masse is no fun anymore.

Right now my students are happy just killing orcs (in the essentials set). Lets see how they will behave when they see, that they are also just some humanoids who need a home.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's worked well enough for a lot of people going on half a century now. Doesn't mean that it works for everyone of course.

I understand your stance but there has been study after study. Violence in games has little to no correlation to violence or morals in real life. Telling a person that they're immoral because they don't mind violence in games is uncalled for.

Good thing that’s not what I’m doing then.

 

[Charlaquin]

On the contrary, sometimes I want to be immersed in the story.

But most of the time I really just want to go into a dungeon, kill things, and take their loot.

And, again, that’s cool. It’s only when one tries to do both at once that I think it causes problems.

 

[Lyxen]

So, every fiction ever written is "not real." Do you want to assert that not a single one of them has anything to do with real-world morality?

And do you want to assert that every single one of them has to do with real-world morality ? Appealing to extremes is a fallacy.

Some are, and some are not, and it's a speciality of literature teachers to try and explain what they think the author meant because it corresponds to something for them. But it's also a common joke at least around the UK (at least, I got that from my daughter who studied international literature at King's) that when the author put a red door, he did not mean anything else than the fact that the door was red. It was not about blood, not about violence not about anything else than a simple description.

Computer games are decidedly not real in most cases, and especially in this day and age, they are very carefully scanned for inappropriateness.

 

[Reynard]

So, every fiction ever written is "not real." Do you want to assert that not a single one of them has anything to do with real-world morality?

I mean, that's going to be a hard sell, given how much we use fiction to teach morality. But you can give it a shot, I guess. Your various English and Literature teachers would probably be very disappointed in you if you try, though.

What does that have to do with stomping goblins in D&D?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What does that have to do with stomping goblins in D&D?

 

[Reynard]

Are you sure about that?

I wasn't talking about just RPGs. I meant fantasy gaming broadly, including video games.

 

[Reynard]

I'm not familiar with it. Does it include a lot of goblin stomping?