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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8835435" data-attributes="member: 6915329">I suppose I must ask why there should be an expectations to begin with. Why should "goblins are evil" be the norm and "goblins aren't always evil" be an unexpected subversion?How does this make anyone's game better? The only explanation I can see is, it's easier for people to write "you're attacked by goblins" rather than "you're attacked by murderous bandits, who happen to be goblins."Sure, of course one can do that. At my table, it's by default assumed there are no Always Evil races, because we all find such things incredibly boring.But the books have that as the default, and writes each creature's entry as if it were true. It is literally a ton of work to try to make an Evil creature not-evil because it basically involves rewriting the creature's entire entry. Seriously. Go read the entries for chromatic dragons, for harpies, for goblins, for ogres. Now imagine you are a new or inexperienced DM. What, in those entries, suggests that those creatures can be used as anything other than evil monsters? That is literally what you want everyone else to do, though. You say so above. You want the rest of us go through the effort of having to completely rewrite monsters and subvert tropes just so you can say "you're attacked by goblins" and have that be enough.So why is it fair for us to have to do the work but not fair for you to have to do the work?</blockquote>