D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[Cadence]

Its not nonlethality that I find unrealistic. Its every enemy left alive being absolutely no problem whatsoever ever again.

I assume every table glosses lots of things. Like the escaping few hobgoblins not spreading tales of the horror and getting a much bigger group to come back, or if there are no escapees that fact not getting around and the nearby groups traveling on masse ready ready for war and to call for reinforcements.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm very happy that works for you, but I can't think of a single player I've met over the age of 10 who would buy that. It would seem extremely unrealistic.

A tad harsh, but it would seem very gamey, yes. I wouldn't like it, good intentions notwithstanding.

 

[CleverNickName]

I assume every table glosses lots of things. Like the escaping few hobgoblins not spreading tales of the horror and getting a much bigger group to come back, or if there are no escapees that fact not getting around and the nearby groups traveling on masse ready ready for war and to call for reinforcements.

"Well well well. If it isn't the consequences of our terrible actions."

 

[Scribe]

If all you have is a Romulan disruptor, and you end up killing someone with it in self defence, it probably is not a murder. But if you have a Starfleet phaser, and choose to use a lethal setting instead of a stun setting in a similar situation, then that suddenly seems way more murdery.

Now what if we are all just running around with Swords, Hammers, Axes, and chucking Lightning and Fire from our hands?

Its like watching MMA/Boxing, and then pulling a Pikachu face when these men have brain trauma as they age.

 

[Maxperson]

DM: "Dealing a mighty blow, you finally cut the head of Sharaak the Terrible, a dragon near whom Ancalagon paled. Have 3 xp for this epic victory"
Players: "WHAAAAT?
DM: "Indeed. Your 863 followers you gathered along the way due the Power of Friendship all get their share."
Players" mmmm
Players: "they must have gained a level then... how many XP are they worth?"

DM: "As you finish off the last of your followers, the evil betrayal coupled with your greed for xp transforms and merges you all into an evil dragon. You are now Karakas the Terrible. Off in the distance you see a band of heroes approaching. You notice that there are 729 figures trailing behind."
Players: "..."

 

[Reynard]

…ok? So, your goblins are uncomplicated, unnuanced, evil things that it’s ok to kill. I’ve been saying this whole time that it’s when you try to make them complicated, nuanced beings that it’s ok to kill that it causes problems.

Your truly evil villain can also be nuanced and complicated and still be totally ok to kill. I don't understand why you are equating nuance with "can't be inherently evil."

 

[Reynard]

That stuff is fun. But it's also the case that the last few decades of modern fantasy have humanized orcs, goblins, kobolds, ogres, and other traditional D&D humanoids to an extraordinary degree. And frankly, I'm okay with that. Elder Scrolls orcs and Warcraft goblins are cool. Shrek is a decent bloke. Even the good Professor Tolkien ultimately decided that orcs had moral agency, and that somewhere there must have been at least some orcs siding with the Free Peoples and fighting against the Enemy in the War of the Ring. I'm too much of a Tolkien stan to ever argue with the Professor.

So at some point (years back), my campaigns naturally drifted away from treating orcs and goblins as soulless demons cloaked in mortal flesh that only deserve a quick death because they're a stain on the natural order… and I imported or invented whole new monsters which are definitionally soulless demons cloaked in mortal flesh that only deserve a quick death because they're a stain on the natural order. I use beastmen (inspired by a variety of sources — skaven from Warhammer, broo from Glorantha, trollocs from Wheel of Time) as my "Chaos-created cannon-fodder" du jour.

After all orcs are cool. They're mean, they're green, they're betuskèd, they're bros. (And orcesses look like Shulkie!) But a horrible monstrous swine-man with glowing red eyes and no soul or language or culture bearing down on you with some jagged-edged iron blade that it got from the night mare mounted spectre in charge of the local divison of the Darl Lord's Chaos-Army? Quick, kill it axes, kill it with bullets, kill it with magical fire!

There are plenty of places in current fantasy where that's not true, as well. In lots of media and games, goblins are still stompable little maniacs. It's not as if some fundamentally true interpretation of goblins has emerged to enlighten us. They are what we say they are when we choose to employ them. I can make goblins good as easily as I can make unicorns evil and vice versa.

 

[MGibster]

In my all dwarf game (not D&D but used the typical tropes), goblins had pretty much made peace with everyone else were more interested in trading than pillaging. The dwarves were hidebound and the older ones especially had a hard time seeing the goblins as anything but their hated foe. I played the goblin NPCs as genuinely friendly while the PCs played their characters were conflicted between their value of being good guest balanced against their beliefs that the goblins would attack at any second.

I don't have anything against goblins being evil all the time, but it does limit the types of stories you can tell while using them. Multifaceted characterization leads to greater variety of storytelling opportunities.

 

[Krachek]

Inspired by the E6 attempt we can imagine the CR1 DnD where you don’t ever meet monster tougher than CR 1. Off course you level as normal till level 20. Stomping guaranteed!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Even at modern times, use of lethal force is sometimes justified under the law in defence of self or others. In most sane places this tends to require that there was no other reasonably feasible alternative.

Wow, look at that. Someone opened up a giant can of worms we probably shouldn't touch.

The non-lethal rule guarantees that such alternative is always available, and with ease that is highly unrealistic. If all you have is a Romulan disruptor, and you end up killing someone with it in self defence, it probably is not a murder. But if you have a Starfleet phaser, and choose to use a lethal setting instead of a stun setting in a similar situation, then that suddenly seems way more murdery.

In the context of D&D, you mostly being a home invader. Kill or savagely beat, you're already in felony range. D&D characters usually aren't even in a position to say they were just self defensing those people in the face, what with them wearing the victim's stuff (and sometimes the victim!!) and the wizard literally basing their life around premeditation.