Wandering Monsters: Goblins, Bugbears and Hobgoblins!

[Klaus]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (When Is a Goblin Not a Goblin?)

I'd like to see goblins veer a bit closer to their fey origins. And I hope bugbear art reflect their agility, because they have always looked a bit too lumbering.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I concur on bugbears, they always look like goblin brutes. Maybe they should fill that role so that we have dextrous, organised and dumb-but-strong goblinoids?

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

While fey goblins are a fine concept for a monster, imo they're not D&D goblins. I'd much rather have a separate fey monster that draws on the mythological concepts of goblins, and keep the "goblins" of D&D more like their traditional feel. D&D goblins fill a useful niche in the game, so there's no great need to reinvent them.

(It doesn't help that I don't much like fey, and rarely include them in my games.)

 

[Stormonu]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (When Is a Goblin Not a Goblin?)

I'd like to see goblins veer a bit closer to their fey origins. And I hope bugbear art reflect their agility, because they have always looked a bit too lumbering.

If you get a bugbear wet, it looks like a bit like a drowned cat. They look so hulking becaues their hair is poofy - like an unkempt poodle.

Unlike the orc and gnoll article, nothing really stood out as "wrong" about the three races they presented. I'd like to see their take on a few other classic monsters, like giants and genies - since they did them very differently in 4E.

 

[Minigiant]

Looks alright though they went too crazy on the goblin negatives. Four bad ability scores? Wow. Are goblins that pathetic? These are D&D goblins not MTG goblins.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I don't find anything wrong with these descriptions, but I really wish they included more about culture and ecology. They're building reference documents for each monster, which is fantastic, but they seem to be exclusively focused upon how the creature relates to encounters, and only a little about they relate to their environment.

Also, I really suggest that they bring back the goblinoid descriptor. These categories added a nice piece of flavor to the game.

 

[steeldragons]

I concur with Cerebral Paladin. D&D goblins are the green (or grey or whatever you want, really) skinned mortal humanoids...whether they are spawned of their own evolutionary tree or some poor race horridly twisted by/with the forces of evil long ago (as my game world has them). I like them as mortal creatures in the "normal" (Prime Material) world.

In my setting, I use Redcaps as the more faye-oriented [and significantly more rare] Grimm's fairytale kind of wicked faerie-goblin. The distinction seems to work quite well. Generally, it's something like "Brownies= Good lil' faye guys, Leprechauns= Neutral lil' faye guys, Redcaps= Evil lil' faye guys." ...but then, I have 9-point alignment in my games and do tend to break things down with them.

--SD

 

[avin]

I like my goblins as normal humanoids, too. No god spawned, no magic modified, just another line of evolution.

Sometimes goblinoids work together, sometimes not.

I dislike Bugbears as leaders of goblinoid.

When acting together, in my games, militaristic and organized Hobgoblins lead, Bugbears are brutes and Goblins, well, somebody must be in the front line...

 

[mlund]

They all look good to me. Goblins in older editions were kind of vague to me, but having the clear Goblinoid grouping with bright-line distinctions between the races has helped make them feel concrete. Sometimes context with other races is the most helpful tool to make a monster seem like a solid part of a game world.

I suppose some ecology would help, though. I always wonder what Kobolds and Goblins, and Orcs do when they are forced to live in remote areas or hiding because they lack the numbers to steal what they want from civilized races. Hunting and gathering? Do they farm or engage in nomadic animal husbandry? Do they trade. If so, what kind of people would be trade partners with them? Do they capture other humanoids to use as slave labor. If so, what tasks are they set to? Also, how do these guys spend money - especially the least-civilized monstrous humanoids.

Sometimes it really is the little things, I suppose.

- Marty Lund

 

[Jester David]

Hobgoblins. Dead on.
Goblins. Okay. It's going to be hard to compete with the fun that is Pathfinder's manic pyromaniacs.
Bugbears... they really strike me as lone monsters and less a civilization. Stealthy brutes.