When do baby goblins become evil?

[Falkus]

If goblins are evil just because they're raised in an evil culture, then why is it that all goblin cultures are evil?

Because every other week, there's a group of human, dwarven, elven, etc. so called civilized adventurers going through goblin territory, and slaughtering a village down to the last man, woman and child. This is the sort of thing that breeds resentment of the civilized world in the goblins, and so they decide to retaliate.

 

[caudor]

diaglo had the right take in this.

Evil doesn't think it is good it thinks it is Evil. Only the mad commit acts of evil thinkinng they are good.

Actually, Evil might view itself as one with motivated self-interest. If it benefits evil creatures to perform acts of good, they will do it. If it benefits them to nurture, they will. This isn't necessarily enjoyable for them (by nature)--it's a twisted form of self-discipline or an instinct for survival.

The young have motivated self-interest in a pure sense like a human baby (neutral). Until they are capable of making moral choices, they definately neutral. My 1.99 cents.

 

[Len]

The problem is greatly simplified if you put goblins on your favoured enemy list.

My ranger has no qualms about coup-de-grace-ing the survivors after a fight, but dealing with "civilized" goblins in Sharn is a bit of an issue.

 

[John Morrow]

Evil doesn't think it is good it thinks it is Evil. Only the mad commit acts of evil thinkinng they are good.

In another alignment thread, I posted a link to a site that talked about sociopaths. It pointed out that most murderous sociopaths understand that they are dangerous and bad people and can't understand why society doesn't hunt them down and kill them because of the threat that they pose to others. They have no interest in reform because they like the way they are or accept it as natural.

 

[John Morrow]

If you're positing free will, there's a certain upper limit to how CE goblins can be naturally. They're social creatures, and forming successful complex social groups, as an animal, requires a certain amount of predictability, altruism, and empathy.

Predictability? Probably. Empathy and altruism? Probably not. Altruism and Empathy are required for Good but not successful social groups.

You can find some real world examples of social groups without either if you look hard enough. No, they aren't productive cultures that build things and make the world a better place to live but they are sufficient to organize large bands of (often young) rabble to to make the place a living Hell for those that get attacked.

For the record, the goblinoids in my setting are evil by nature. That means that they are born Evil. The orcs are not Evil by nature but have a tendency to be Evil. That means that you could raise an Orc to be at least Neutral, if not Good. This allows me to play both sides of the nature vs. nurture debate as needed. The goblinoids are Evil vermin to be exterminated while the orcs have cultural problems and might be worthy of being spared.

 

[Staffan]

If goblins are evil just because they're raised in an evil culture, then why is it that all goblin cultures are evil?

Because D&D uses monolithic cultures for all races. Goblins are like X, elves are like Y, and dragons are like Z. Eberron mixes things up a bit, but that's not core D&D.

 

[irdeggman]

How many parents are on this thread?

The answers are fairly obvious to a parent.

All infants are good (until they keep you up at night then they are vile creatures of the night).

Actually infants are good until around the terrible twos then they switch to neutral and when they hit their teens they are fully evil.

My son is 14 and one of us may not make it till his 15th birthday.

 

[Hurtfultater]

Predictability? Probably. Empathy and altruism? Probably not. Altruism and Empathy are required for Good but not successful social groups.

You can find some real world examples of social groups without either if you look hard enough. No, they aren't productive cultures that build things and make the world a better place to live but they are sufficient to organize large bands of (often young) rabble to to make the place a living Hell for those that get attacked.

What social groups are you talking about that don't have either empathy or altruism? Vervet monkeys, for instance, have only primitive empathy (they're about the dumbest primates with complex social groups), but they can tell, more often than not, the general emotional state of other vervets and will manipulate them to their advantage. Empathy is important. Altruism isn't individually important, but populations of social creatures with some tend to do better than those without.

 

[John Morrow]

What social groups are you talking about that don't have either empathy or altruism?

Read Keith Richburg's Out of America, particularly the sections about Somalia and other parts of Africa where there are lots of children running around with AK-47s. Think Lord of the Flies with guns. You can find the same thing in other parts of the world and in other periods of history, so I'm not just picking on Africa or Africans here. Yes, it's possible to crush the empathy and altruism out of people and really mess them up if you get to them as children and give them no hope for a better future. And given the amount of supression of empathy required to enjoy a great deal of entertainment, be it watching armies of goons getting mowed down by the hero of a movie or playing first-person shooters or games like Grand Theft Auto, I really don't find this all that difficult to imagine.

The goblins in my game lack real empathy, even between mothers and children. Why do goblins have children? Because the male goblins don't give the females much of a choice. How do goblin children survive? Oh, their mothers do take care of them. Not because they love them but becuase it gives them a little group of extra hands that they can control because they are bigger and, well, no other goblin is going to care for them. But if it comes down to mother or child, the goblin mothers will toss their children into a meat grinder to save their own necks. Ugly? Absolutely. But I want my goblins to be nasty, brutish, and short lived. I don't want them to be misunderstood products of a bad upbringing who would be just like any other person if only they were raised right. My goblins are Evil by nature.

Vervet monkeys, for instance, have only primitive empathy (they're about the dumbest primates with complex social groups), but they can tell, more often than not, the general emotional state of other vervets and will manipulate them to their advantage.

Look outside of primates. Cats for social structures but have no real empathy or real altruism. Read an article on training cats. And, yes, they do have a social order that operates on non-empathetic terms. Heck, look outside of mammals at bees and ants. Very complex social structures. No empathy. No conscious altruism.

Empathy is important.

Yes. But it's not necessary. Like I said, it's important to having a "good" society but I don't think it's necessary for an intelligent creature or society. And if you don't believe that intelligent creatures can exist without empathy, you should take a look at the latest research on autism. And, yes, people who are autistic can be fully functional members of society.

Altruism isn't individually important, but populations of social creatures with some tend to do better than those without.

Is the goal a successful goblin population that can build a rocket to put a goblin on the moon or to have menacing hoards of intelligent monsters that the players can kill without worrying too much about the moral implications? No, goblins that lack empathy and altruism are never going to run soup kitchens for the poor or nursing homes for old goblins, but is that really a problem?

 

[VoiceOfReason?]

In a game I played in, my party encountered a similar quandry about goblins. Rob, playing the Paladin, came upon the eppiffany halfway through the goblin warrens our group had been sent to exterminate (the first room containing females and young). He spent the latter half of several battles doing nothing but praying for divine intervention, because he wouldn't raise a hand to the unarmed women and children regardless of species, couldn't leave his comerade's side, and couldn't do a number of other things because his code of conduct would have denied the actions as he saw them. The LG cleric had no qualms slaughtering the evil humanoids' genepool in the name of Torm (or some similar god of blanket hatred toward the non-civilized). Our Samurai opted to sheathe his sword and fight unarmed against the goblinettes and goblings.

Basically the conclusion I'm getting at is that "Good" and "Evil" (and Law/Chaos) have to be defined by each character you make as an individual. The fact that this post is going on so long indicates that people's views of good and evil are different, so should their D&D characters' views, as they are meant to emulate real-ish, believable individuals.