D&D General I really LOVE Stomping Goblins

[ssvegeta555]

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).

Spec Ops: The Line? Although that was a 3rd person shooter.

 

[Reynard]

Really, though, D&D could just shift a lot of the negative traits ascribed to goblins and orcs and whatever to certain low CR demons and make them more common as low-level enemies. It would also help give dretches and what not more personality.

Demons are pure evil without the civility that devils can have, don't reproduce, are invaders from the Abyss rather than natives of the world, and don't even really die when destroyed unless destroyed in the Abyss. Their presence in large numbers also increases the Abyss' link to a world, so wiping out incursions is also an imperative.

Edit: The only thing is I have the suspicion that putting demons in the goblins' niche might somehow end up making people want to start portraying literal demons more sympathetically, which would be bad optics for the game that once suffered under the Satanic Panic.

I think that's exactly what would happen. The real driver is people wanting these beings as characters, because they are portrayed in a fun way. Once they become PX options, "kill them all" gets weird.

 

[Umbran]

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

Weak justifications are goblins.

 

[Cadence]

Weak justifications are goblins.

I wouldn't have expected such a strong defense from a kobold with plastic surgery.

Yoda is clearly a Goblin

Any claim made that Yoda is of gnomish descent is slanderous and untrue. Yoda is clearly of Goblinoid descent, and it is time he is recognized as such. More than that, he is the ultimate template for the Goblins-with-impressive-character-levels that many young DM’s like to throw at characters...

www.enworld.org

(Actually I'm just embarrassed that it never occurred to me he might be a goblin.)

 

[HammerMan]

This might be an unpopular or controversial opinion in current fandom, but I really love killing goblins -- or orcs, or kobolds, or any other stock enemy meant to die in droves. it hit me last night when I was playing Torchlight 3 (which is a video game and not a D&D one, but bear with me). The goblins in that game are very much the murderous, pyromaniac lit psychos of Pathfinder pre-2E and the feeling of obliterating them on screen filled me with a nostalgia for doing so at the table with dice in one hand and a cold brew in the other. There's just something truly satisfying about the over the top, silly mass murder of enemies designed specifically to die in droves.

I am not saying that is all I want out of D&D, or that I have an issue with a table or a game treating some traditional stock enemy types as not-stock enemy types (except Nazis -- Nazis should always be stock enemy types). I am just saying that killing goblins by the score is FUN.

I have no problem settingup a hoard of kobolds, or Orcs, or even PC races like elves that are invading or conquering (most recently I have been on a hobgoblin kick as a DM) and letting my players cut loose slaughtering them.

I can even in the same session have GOOD kobolds/orce/elves/hobgoblins or neutral ones... setting up hoards to slay can be fun.

 

[AnotherGuy]

If this had been a +thread, then the every goblin slain had a goblin baby strapped to their back argument would cease to exist.

The beauty of D&D is the table plays however they wish to as can be seen in the published adventures - you can make allies within the TToEE or you can just slaughter everyone.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I think that's exactly what would happen. The real driver is people wanting these beings as characters, because they are portrayed in a fun way. Once they become PX options, "kill them all" gets weird.

I guess they could just really hammer in "no, these guys are for real super evil" by throwing in some edgy 3E Book of Vile Darkness type stuff like demons summoning more of their kind through vats of their victims' gore, force feeding people demonic ichor to turn them into mutants or rutterkin, or brutally slaughtering their own kind on a whim because more will always show up to replace what's killed until an Abyssal portal is closed.

 

[HammerMan]

Absolutely! But I don’t think anyone would call the enemies in Far Cry “complicated and interesting.” Which is fine, complicated and interesting isn’t always what you want out of your games. I’m just saying, they can either be complicated and interesting or be faceless kill-on-sight mooks. They can’t be both.

why can't they be both.

I can have a tribe of man eater kobolds that whoreship a red dragon, and in the same adventure have an evil hobgoblin take over a tribe of sneaky kobolds that are way more nueanced, and in the same game have a group of PCs befriend Meepo and his white dragon...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So, goblins are pretend creatures. They only have the traits we assign them at the time we assign those traits. It seems counterproductive to imbue goblins with humanity (just to use a broad term that gets the point across) right before slaughtering them by the score, only to then worry ourselves about the ethical implications of doing so.

Simply don't imbue them with such traits. If you define them as irredeemable evil but hilariously psychotic little monsters that can only be dealt with by dismemberment, that's what thy ARE.

exactly. Probably wasn´t clear enough.

 

[Oofta]

Well obviously words aren't real. If someone's saying cruel things to you or spreading hurtful rumors, just ignore them! It's not bullying unless they put their hands on you. /sarcasm

Rather than get caught in the same argument loops as usual, let me tell a real life story about how D&D changed a man's life.

About 20 years ago, I was in a campaign with a younger guy, I think in his last year of High School. Messed up home life, angry and edgy, not uncommon for a teenager. Well the DM basically dared him to play against type for this campaign and got him to roll up a Paladin. And then the DM threw a bunch of interesting moral quandaries at him. Not no win situations, but pitting the Lawful solution against the Good solution and accepting whatever the player decided as he struggled to figure out how to best live up to his Paladin code. The player dove all in the way in on working through those dilemmas, actually thinking about what it all meant, he said it was a life changing experience. Ten years later he was a police officer and I don't think that would have happened without him playing that Paladin.

Fiction is the testing simulation for real life. It's where we go to experiment with morality and philosophy under controlled conditions or specific circumstances. And yes, it's also entertainment. But it's not just for entertainment. Because it's not just a mask you can put on or take off at will. It's a training room for how you think about the world. And a lot of us are making the deliberate choice to put aside having groups of people you can kill on sight for reasons of birth, rather than because they're bandits or slavers or demon cultists. That's not who we want to be, and so we're changing how we play.

Sometimes, yes. Other times it's just stress relief and a game. There is no one true way, there is no one reason to play the game. Nowadays I play with adults and we acknowledge that it's just a game.