When do baby goblins become evil?

[Jdvn1]

Goblins become evil on their 8th birthdays. It's a big, festive occasion, when the little goblin receives his first black hat.

... That's the cutest thing.

 

[reason]

...

Sounds like plenty of opportunities for good RPing here. If you decide that they're born evil, you have evil face-chewing monstrosities that PCs should feel very bad about killing (helpless foe and all that). If they're not born evil, then saddle them with moral baggage regarding goblin redemption. The local cultures should have opinions about all this depending on how enlightened they are...

As a side-note, humans in the real world are pretty much born evil and learn to be good.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[James Heard]

I'd just flip a coin to see if they're already plotting face-chewing-offness thanks to evil in their wittle dark hearts or not. And if they're good, I'd be plotting giving one Paladinhood just so he could kill those heartless PCs who made her an orphan and ruined any chance that her parents could ever atone for their evil ways.

The "evil" little goblins could just decide that the "good" PCs aren't good enough though, and then commence with late night face-chewing-offness though, once they've had a few levels under their belts and they're trusted with watches.

 

[silentspace]

Goblins become evil on their 8th birthdays. It's a big, festive occasion, when the little goblin receives his first black hat.

Ah, you beat me to it.

 

[Turanil]

Opinions wanted.

When do you think goblins become evil?

IMO: being raised by uncaring and violent parents, in a brutal society that furthermore culturally emphasizes violence and promotes evil gods, a baby goblin has no choice but to become evil himself, and later perpetuate this evil to the next generation. On the other hand, an orphaned baby goblin raised by loving and caring foster parents in a society where he isn't rejected, would become good instead. At least this is how I see things, being influenced by modern psychology, and not medieval ideas of sin, doom, inherent badness, or what not (which may be more appropriate to a fantasy setting anyway).

So in my Wed game the party has slaughtered the enitre combatant male population of a goblin community (or else they ran in terror).

Now the party's got to deal with a bunch of young to young adult goblins.

So assuming the PC"s suddenly become foster parents of 50-60 goblins of infant to adolescent age, when do the goblins learn their evil ways.

The goblins have witnessed the PC slaying their parents. They can't but have got a hatred of the PCs. In growing up this hatred of the PCs will transform into a hatred of all people from the same race as the PCs. This is the seed of their evil IMO.

 

[Turanil]

Evil in humanoids is definitely cultural. If they're brought up properly, they won't become evil. If neglected, or if raised in a savage, every-goblin-for-himself environment like they normally would, they'd become evil naturally in order to survive. The little gobbers may have instinctual larcenous tendancies, but if given good homes, they shouldn't all turn evil.

Well, as inspired by my modern and westerner upbringing, this is also how I see thing. HOWEVER, this:

They're born evil, like the twisted spawn of Maguai. They will crawl from their cribs at night, climb up your covers, and chew off your face. Cooing and burbling all the while.

This is much more interesting in terms of Sword and Sorcery adventures.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

This whole 'totally-freewilled' argument is pretty frail.

We have throughout the MM(s) a heap of creatures with impressive mental scores that are "usually" or "always" evil. If we look at the PHB, every alignment is "the best" or "the most dangerous" implying that no one alignment has an intellectual superiority over the others in it's own right. They can be as simplistic or complicated as the possessing creature articulates their alignment but the creature is well served by holding their alignment (at least until their behaviour gets them killed).

Yet then why do these creatures favour a particular alignment over the more standard spread of 9 (and sometimes the creature is solitary!)? Even in the PHB we have Dwarves being LG while the PC dwarf can be whatever alignment without any consequences of being different. This tells me that _players_ are given free will with their characters but the rest of the world is about 50/50 (+/-) predetermined alignment.

 

[pogre]

We must look to an authority for this question, and fortunately we have one:

Wulf paced around outside for a few moments, trying to figure out exactly how he could persuade his new friends to hand over the prisoners. It was always a touchy situation, but he'd been through this before-- back in the Sunless Citadel it took some time to explain that kobold women and children were damned by their nature, incapable of redemption, and that leaving them alive was irresponsible and negligent. Keldas and the halfling responded then with what their gods would likely deem a similarly irresponsible negligence, and turned their backs on the heroic butchery that ensued. Ahhh... Righteousness!

 

[Al]

This whole 'totally-freewilled' argument is pretty frail.

We have throughout the MM(s) a heap of creatures with impressive mental scores that are "usually" or "always" evil. If we look at the PHB, every alignment is "the best" or "the most dangerous" implying that no one alignment has an intellectual superiority over the others in it's own right. They can be as simplistic or complicated as the possessing creature articulates their alignment but the creature is well served by holding their alignment (at least until their behaviour gets them killed).

Yet then why do these creatures favour a particular alignment over the more standard spread of 9 (and sometimes the creature is solitary!)? Even in the PHB we have Dwarves being LG while the PC dwarf can be whatever alignment without any consequences of being different. This tells me that _players_ are given free will with their characters but the rest of the world is about 50/50 (+/-) predetermined alignment.

I don't think that "totally-freewilled" is the argument deployed, and though I wouldn't level an accusation of you deliberately attacking a straw man, I'm afraid that this is probably what you are currently (inadvertantly) doing.

The so-called "free will" notion is not so much that you turn around a say "oh goody, I'll be evil" as that there is a societal and cultural bias towards evil. I would incorporate the goblin deities into this (i.e. the religious dimension of the average goblin's cultural upbringing). Therefore, most goblins raised in a goblin society will, indeed, be evil. Goblin infants, however, raised in a different society, will not. Given that goblins are only "usually evil", I'd say that this is cultural rather than any in-born predilection to evil. For creatures that are "always evil", I'd say that they would be an entirely different kettle of fish.

 

[Kathaer]

Kidnap one! and.. make your own Hellboy!