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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6164634" data-attributes="member: 2067">Yes, all of those things are and can be (and have been!) D&D goblins.The issue with the art department is solvable, but they need to stop thinking about D&D as having a goblin that has a consistent look, and start thinking more about how The Forgotten Realms (aka: magical High Fantasy) has a goblin that has a consistent look, and Greyhawk (aka: Sword & Sorcery Pulpishness) has a different goblin with a different look and Dragonlance (aka: epic storytelling fantasy) has a goblin with a different look, and Ravenloft (aka: Gothic horror fantasy) has a goblin with a different look, and that all of these different looks and styles are under the umbrella of a D&D goblin. That sells more D&D because then D&D goblins are any goblin you can imagine, and you can include the FR goblin or the Greyhawk goblin or the DL goblin or the Ravenloft goblin (or all of them!) in your own game, depending on how your group wants goblins, depending on how you need goblins to be for your purposes as a DM. D&D thus gets closely identified with creativity, personalization, and unique story creation and storytelling, much like how HBO is closely identified with innovative drama, or how NBC was at least at one time known as a place to go for comedy shows or how Apple is known for product design. D&D becomes a platform, a network, hub that means This Is Fantasy Role-Playing.Because if D&D says, "Well, our goblins are this one thing" in an effort to deliver a consistent experience across media, then anyone who wants to use a goblin that isn't this particular one thing isn't going to go to D&D, in ANY media. They consistently won't experience D&D, because D&D's consistent brand is irrelevant to them. If D&D instead says, "With this, you can play with any type of goblin you can imagine. And here's a gothic horror goblin and here's a high fantasy goblin and here's a sword and sorcery goblin, and these are just examples, go wild!"....that's better for the D&D experience than one consistent world would be. And when someone comes to WotC pitching a videogame or a movie, part of the discussion that should occur is: "What KIND of D&D is this?", to help determine which of the "goblin" bibles they'll be using as a baseline. It's fine if most are generic high fantasy FR goblins. But we shouldn't confuse those with The D&D Goblin, because they're just one flavor of tiny, menacing ice cream.I think this is all fine, because it's all specific to a particular Strahd or a particular dragon or a particular setting. Where things start getting all pitchfork-y is when the message from D&D's designers is that D&D itself is going to have a particular vampire or a particular dragon (or a particular cosmology...). That goes against the Maker-like ethos of historical D&D in a big way.</blockquote>

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