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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 6317054" data-attributes="member: 18">EDIT - To be clear, this, and everything pretty much everyone was saying, is all opinion, aesthetics, taste, and so on, not statements of fact, so if anyone tries to argue with it like it's the latter, well, they're not going to get much of a response. It's totally subjective stuff.Not for my money. Even ignoring the significant aesthetic differences (completely different shaped heads, different proportions, not green!), the key thing is the impression they give.For me, goblins have always been scavengers, clad in left-overs and re-sized armour from other races, not manufacturing weapons like swords, merely re-using those from others, and generally being tribal little bastards. They're dangerous, not a joke, but they're not a "mini-orc", nor do they possess their own real culture/civilization. They're also a "real"-seeming species, not stylized or fancy. They talk and act bigger than they are, too, all threat display and then running away.4E's goblins reflect that. All their stuff is roughly-made and doesn't speak of a strong culture or what-have-you. Further, their gender, if they have one, is non-obvious, which is cool (I think the one on the right might be intended to be female, but it's not certain). They're all showing off, but you feel like they might flee if shown serious resistance.5E's, on the other hand, as I said, look simply like someone has seen Movie-LotR's Uruk-Hai, and said "What would it look like we made these guys 3-4' tall?". They have weapons of unique, non-D&D-style manufacture (total LotR inspiration there), their armour looks individually-made and is certainly made for goblins, specifically, and has impractical, very stylized spikes/hooks on it. Their heads, to me, do not look at all "goblin-y". And being brown, rather than green? That's downright un-goblin-y, and not a good direction (grey would have been better, if changing from green). On top of that, they all look pretty obviously male/masculine (again, this seems retrograde).I get what 5E is trying to do, here. They want "D&D BRAND" goblins, which are market-able as a "D&D" thing, rather than goblins which reflect a broader fantasy tradition of goblins. I also understand the desire to link D&D's "Goblinoids" more closely together (though I don't really agree with it). I just think this is a really misguided approach to it, and I think it's lead to some goblins which don't look like they have sort of cruelty and weirdness and tribal nature I associate with goblins, but rather look, in all ways, like tiny Uruk-Hai from the LotR movies. They look smart, surly, like they'd have deep voices (rather than a proper goblin shriek), would be entirely un-fey (rather than slightly fey-ish), and like they'd form up into neat little military formations rather than being chaotic little beggars. They're probably brutal and mean-spirited, but it seems like they'd be so like nasty soldiers, not like... y'know... goblins.They make sense for a specific D&D setting, where there is some kind of serious unified, ordered goblinoid empire, and where goblins aren't random tribes, but almost all part of this greater empire, which has manufacturies, standards, a consistent aesthetic, and so on, but as typical D&D goblins? Nah. Hope this isn't the same illustration as the MM, but rather a specific one with context and stuff, and that the MM has something broader and more classic.PS - If this art wasn't for "goblins", but rather some new or setting-specific small humanoid, I'd like it. For "goblins", though? Nah.EDIT - PPS I think we can safely say that, had Pathfinder not taken "flat-faced, green, tribal" goblins and run with it to the point of making it practically a brand, we wouldn't be seeing goblins like this. The whole think REEKS of branding imho.</blockquote>

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