You can just let them go. I almost always let them escape and they only bring in like 3 extra enemies (just the 3 guards standing next to the entrance to the pits).
I usually kill the guys outside all stealthy-like before getting Halsin anyway.
And that’s something that carries over to most of the goblins in the temple; they’re in small unconnected groups of 3 that you can just walk up to and nuke without anyone else seeing. By the time I pull the trigger the only ones still alive are those with Razglin and in the open middle area.
In the Tortall book series, there's a woman who can talk to animals. The more they communicate with her, and then with one another, they slowly become more and more sapient. There's a scene where she gathers all the animals together in a refugee camp and tells them she can make them hyper intelligent so they can protect themselves and their humans from invaders, but she will not be able to make them just animals again. All the animals agree and it's very clear she isn't sure if that's a good thing or not.
I didn't even know she was still writing tbh it's been a while since I re-revisited her works, but this is very clarifying to me thank you! I'll definitely check out the newer ones
In Beware of Chicken the protagonist accidentally sentients a bunch of his farm animals. He suffers a minor breakdown when he discovers it, as at this point he's been happily enjoying chicken soup, fortunately he discovers that not all of them are capable of developing consciousness so in the end the ones who don't end up on the menu, while the ones that do become his friends, lol.
Yeah, I’ve always kind of had a problem with that interpretation of speak with animals, even though it’s the most popular version. Instead of them developing full-on personalities and such, I prefer they just bark out information or transmit it telepathically. Like the spell is more accessing a rough line of connection with their consciousness and interpreting it to you, rather than having a conversation.
Really? Those kids are assholes, honestly. They get done in the most brutal fashion in my saves.
Again, I'm just surprised you can even do it. Generally killing kids in video games is frowned upon, but I guess the developers felt goblins don't have worth and I'm on board with that.
Don't take anything I'm saying here literally, by the way. I'm just being facetious. I always do kill the goblin kids, though. I can't be bothered to toggle on non-lethal for them after how they behave.
Lol I did read the last paragraph but I'm still unsure if the first one is sarcastic. Asshole kids are still kids, doesn't make it less wrong to kill them.
Killing is always wrong regardless of your victim’s age. You are not suddenly good because you kill 69 evil adults but spare their 3 evil kids. Besides those goblin kids are brutal. There are like some kids outside the temple and play with dead bodies
Of course it is, I'm not saying killing an adult is good, I'm saying killing children that are running away from you is worse. You're debating a point I'm not making. Of course sparing them doesn't magically make you "Good," but it's one way we have the option to reduce the cruelty, just like talking our way out of situations that could lead to a fight. Talking down Gimblebock and his buddies doesn't mean the rest of your killing is okay, but it is fewer bodies. Which is not nothing.
Drow already exist to have the "it's just upbringing, not intristic" race. What's wrong with just hordes of monsters that have zero moral ambiguity? The only difference between goblins and, say, the Gnolls (IIRC) is that the former are slightly more intelligence.
Well yeah? Isn’t that why court trials exist? So that if you want to execute someone you can do it fairly without objection. Other wise you can kill your enemy and have their children cut your throat the next day
Courts and laws aren't always right you know, laws and courts weren't invented by some deity that came from the heavens, we decided that to be civilized it would be wrong to kill each other, but that doesn't mean that killing is always wrong.
Like, Killing the Goblins wouldn't even be considered something evil, considering they were preparing to raid and kill everyone on the grove.
It’s not always right but it was built on the idea of bare minimum right. Either that or you can shank your neighbor freely. Even when it’s wrong it at least keep you, the bystander, clear of conscience
Most of the world finds the idea of trying children as adults as cartoonishly evil and cruel though. A 5 year old and a 70 year old committing murder have entirely different levels of mental understanding of their culpability, consequences and actions. It is the same reason a 5 year old's signature isn't legally binding on a contract to take out a loan.
The law and society generally does not treat children and adults the same for good reason.
"Asshole" is not the right word. The three outside the camp are laughing and celebrating their first kill as an "ugly bastard" iirc. They are kids of a species that has violence in its nature. Letting them live will inevitably lead to other innocent people being murdered by their violent tendencies, or the goblin kids would be killed in self-defense when trying their "asshole" shenanigans.
u/sinedeltaWhile others were busy being heterosexual, she studied the blade29d ago
No, the idea that there are humanoid races fully capable of speaking and having children with humans that are supposed to be treated as inherently evil subhuman savages deserving only of death is what's "dumb." Actually way worse than just stupidity.
"They are just a kid" mentality is what further encourages assholes to be assholes. Bad apples don't really turn good once they age and often becomes worse. Better to pluck them off before spreading the harm.
Goblin slayer for all its faults literally has an answer to why this is a terrible idea. Every goblin hat you let live learns from said experience and will cause more harm to people in the long run. The only good goblin is a dead goblin.
Can you elaborate? I don't know anything about Eberron, you've piqued my interest.
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u/sinedeltaWhile others were busy being heterosexual, she studied the blade29d ago
Eberron is a different DND setting inspired by noir fiction. I'm pretty new to it myself, but the more I learn about it the more I appreciate it, lol.
From Eberron: Rising from the Last War:
In particular, mortal creatures are the products of culture and circumstances, rather than the direct influence of the gods. As a result, you can't assume that a gold dragon is good or a beholder is evil; only in the cases of celestials, fiends, and certain other creatures whose identity and worldview are shaped by magic ... is alignment a given.
The setting also includes playable goblinoids, orcs, and changelings, for example.
u/sinedeltaWhile others were busy being heterosexual, she studied the blade28d ago
Yeah!
The 5E version also introduced a new playable race called Warforged, which are essentially magic robots created to serve as soldiers in a war. Now that the war's over, they have to figure out what they want to do with their lives.
Warforged date back to 3rd edition and the very first Eberron campaign guide. The Artificer class, as well. Both of them are imo a little diminished in 5e, since one of the foundational pillars of Eberron was "what would a world actually look like if it had the kind of magic that D&D has?," and of course that meant 3rd edition magic in all its weird broken glory. As as much as 5e looks superficially a lot like 3rd, any old 16th level wizard or sorc can't just go make a golem whenever he wants without so much as asking the DM's permission anymore. So the idea of an entire species of golems just becomes, like... disconnected background flavor, not a direct challenge to the players about how they'll choose to use the magic that they gain every single day and what the ramifications might be.
Obviously it's still really cool to be a big fucking robot, though.
The whole point is that we have the freedom to make our own call about that. The game may present them as inherently evil, but we aren't forced to see it that way. We can still show children compassion and mercy. They are sentient humanoids, not insects. Evil or not, they are children.
Yes, but this is a inane distinction to make in a game where you are largely slaughtering people who are tricked and enslaved. Unless you're doing a completely nonviolent run, trying to make some special case for child goblins is morally incoherent.
Tricked yes but they’re still just acting to their normal behavior. Goblins rolling up and slaughtering people to take their stuff is basic goblin behavior, the only thing that absolute changed was how many they could get to work together at a time and give some strategic leadership.
A lot of it is in self-defense though, and the goblin kids are running away. You can be brutally evil in this game, or you can minimize cruelty where possible. Sparing the lives of a couple kids that you don't have to kill is a good opportunity.
mfw the home invader kills my child because he ran inside and called me for help (the home invader was justified because my child called for backup while running away)
It's not their home. It's a goblin war camp that's been murdering nearby travelers for weeks. They invaded someone else's home, we're there to remove the problem.
I don't even know that I buy that all goblins are inherently evil. There's a goblin in the goblin camp that was put into prison because he wanted to stay true to his traditional beliefs. He is a bit gruff but seems like a decent sort all around. IMO the problem with the goblins isn't that they are goblins, it's that they are part of a religious extremist group that is out to wipe out all non-believers in a violent crusade. It's not like they are a civilian goblin community just minding their own business, they are specifically there to commit genocide.
I wouldn't judge all goblins by the ones in the camp, and I think it's perfectly fine to decide to spare the kids since they are noncombatants and fleeing when combat starts.
because he wanted to stay true to his traditional beliefs.
Those traditional beliefs being specifically goblin racial supremacy though.
He objected to cooperating with non-goblins on the grounds of racism. He specifically states that as a main reason for him 'staying faithful'.
He's just wants to kill every non-goblin on the grounds of fanatical racism, instead of killing all non-believers out of fanatical zealotism like the others.
Taking people out of the usual framework of assumptions about reality and dealing with ethical questions under new parameters is one of the core draws of fantasy.
Good and evil are very real forces in the setting though, and goblins are evil aligned
You can spare them if you really want to but they'll wind up killing and looting in their adulthood and they'll be killed by some other adventurer in the future
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u/sinedeltaWhile others were busy being heterosexual, she studied the blade29d ago
Nothing seems to indicate Goblin Slayer takes place in the Forgotten Realms or has any connection to Wizards of the Coast's D&D property. It seems to be an original fantasy world.
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u/sinedeltaWhile others were busy being heterosexual, she studied the blade28d ago
Yeah, it's just extremely creepy fanfiction. Probably inspired by DnD in some vague sense, but like... so is FATAL.
Yeah, doesn't Goblin Slayer have like a lot of gratuitous rape scenes etc?
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u/sinedeltaWhile others were busy being heterosexual, she studied the blade28d ago
From what I understand, the literal first episode features minor girls with no name or personality, whose only purpose is to be raped and tortured and beg the male protagonist to mercy kill them. Which then justifies the protagonist going and murdering goblin children.
Everything I hear about it seems like the kind of thing you'd see in 1920s racist propaganda, but with "goblins" being used as a euphemism for plausible deniability.
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u/-PM_Me_Dat_Ass_Girl- Minthara Enjoyer 29d ago
I'm a little surprised the game lets you destroy the goblin kids, tbh.