Does anyone else have a problem in the way that humans are always portrayed as a Goodly race, and Goblinkin are always Evil? Why isn't slaughtering an unarmed goblin an evil act? Think about it: the Goblinkin have been pushed off their lands, driven into the worst posible terain, and forced to squeak out a living on land that humans don't want (and if the humans do decide that they want it, they come in with an army and wipe the goblins out.) This whole mindset reminds me of the way that the Native Americans were treated. It's no wonder the Goblinkin attack humans on sight! I would too! I play a character in The Age of Worms campaign that Tigerlily is running, that is a Ranger /Mage Kerchpa (2nd edition- sentient Squirrel) that is part of a militant environmentalist group called E.L.F. (Yes like the group on the news thats been torching SUVs)and his goal is the complete destruction of destructive goblin races especially humans. (Yes he considers humans to be a type of goblin, I didn't say he was that smart). Our take is that given the fact that he is a fey creature with a fey perspective that he can choose humans as a racial enemy without compromising his chaotic good alignment.
I'm interested to hear any thoughts on my oppinion.
I could certainly see how humans would not necessarily be considered good. In fact I would think that few expansionistic human cultures in most D&D worlds are portrayed as good. Usually more as neutral.
That said I am sure that Orcs and Goblins don't exactly see themselves as evil. But then your average Orc tribe would absolutely love to sack a human town. Presumably if they did they would have days of entertainment.
But for Orcs and such entertainment is spitting infants alive and cooking them in front of their mothers. The combined screaming is an reaffirmation of their manhood and their physical and sexual prowess ... its the sweetest sound they can hear except maybe the sound of a whole tribe paying homage to them as they back stab the previous chief and assume his mantle.
Everything in the town is likely going to die (unless they need slaves at the moment) except for females of childbearing age who will be beaten nearly senseless and raped repeatedly but probably not killed as they have some kind of genetic imperative to try and increase their population even if its on human females - so such females will - mostly - live if badly scarred and with many broken bones because they might later give birth to a Half-Orc.
Thats my take anyway. Humans are not necessarily good but Orcs and other Goblinoids are evil. Not in their own eyes but D&D assumes that evil is not merely relative - all cultures that behave this way are always evil whatever they might think of themselves.
I presume that with goblins the above takes place except without the sexual assault - instead she is tortured to death after her child stops screaming and her wails die down in order that she provides more entertainment. Also with goblins its probably more communal - its not a single goblin that does the deed but a pack of them that breaks into the house.
But for Orcs and such entertainment is spitting infants alive and cooking them in front of their mothers. The combined screaming is an reaffirmation of their manhood and their physical and sexual prowess ... its the sweetest sound they can hear except maybe the sound of a whole tribe paying homage to them as they back stab the previous chief and assume his mantle.Everything in the town is likely going to die (unless they need slaves at the moment) except for females of childbearing age who will be beaten nearly senseless and raped repeatedly but probably not killed as they have some kind of genetic imperative to try and increase their population even if its on human females - so such females will - mostly - live if badly scarred and with many broken bones because they might later give birth to a Half-Orc.
You're absolutly right. but my point is what you have just describes isn't just Goblinoid battle tactics, but real life human tactics dating from pre Roman times and continuing until today with areas like Rwanda, and Bosnia. In my life and in my game I don't view good & evil as a black and white thing. Humans when together in groups are prone to what we call mob mentality, and this mentality can get people killed and tortured, buildings burned down, and police officers beaten in the street (And that just happens when their basketball teams win!)
Well, it's a fantasy game...and goblins and orcs are the bogeymen created by human imagination and brought to virtual life in the D&D game.
If you apply 21st century, enlightened civilized morality to your D&D world, that's your choice.
In my game, there are very few "good" orcs and very few "good" goblins. They are the rats, they are the vermin, they are the scourge of humanity.
If they existed in real life and posed a real threat to humanity, humanity would not spend all of its time killing each other--we'd be out finding ways to kill those freaks!
I like the fact that D&D presents a simpler, black & white, good vs. evil world where heroes pick up their swords and slaughter the enemies of mankind for the good of mankind. It's a fantasy world...I like to leave some things that way.
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Besides, I don't think that humans are portrayed as being overall good. It is more like they have the most potential to swing between good and evil. This has been a theme throughout most great fantasy literature.
The goblins and orcs, being loosely based on mythological creatures and legends (along with many other DnD creatures), are thought of as being "mostly evil". Just as elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings are thought of as being "mostly good". They are embodiments of some of the darker/lighter aspects of human society and history.
Humans are generally considered good because most of the race has an overall sense of right and wrong. Granted we humans are a little (ok a lot) over bearing at times, but in the big picture, we are a goodly race.
Orcs and goblin kin, on the other hand, only think of themselves. I don't mean their tribes, I mean each individual monster, and they don't care how they achieve their state of well being. If a single un armed orc stood between another orc and a place of power he would kill it with no second thought. Most, key word here is most, humans would have doubts. That is what separates us from them in D&D.
I like the way Eberron is set up though. It portrays orcs as just another race trying its best to survive in the world and doesn't have it as an evil monster race. If you like the idea of monsters having a fair chance in life then you should look into Ebberon.
I've never really had a problem with this in my game. The players are smart enough to know that I bend the rules a lot, and not everything that would normally be evil is, and the same goes the other way to. Not all orcs in my game are evil, while many humans are! Heck, I even have a Green Dragon that is good and a regular NPC in my game.
Just bend the rules and go with it. No one has to do exactly what the rules say...
You're absolutly right. but my point is what you have just describes isn't just Goblinoid battle tactics, but real life human tactics dating from pre Roman times and continuing until today with areas like Rwanda, and Bosnia. In my life and in my game I don't view good & evil as a black and white thing. Humans when together in groups are prone to what we call mob mentality, and this mentality can get people killed and tortured, buildings burned down, and police officers beaten in the street (And that just happens when their basketball teams win!)
To a degree but usually not to the point where one spits infants and roasts them alive for the sheer pleasure of listening to them scream.
Certianly historically cities got sacked and women got raped but only occasionally did it reach into the levels of brutality one finds with Goblinoids. I'd argue that in terms of fantasy gaming when it reaches that level of brutality its evil in humans too. Now I agree about the mob mentality and the kind of things it allows one to perpetuate on our fellow man but most of us consider such actions to be pretty awful behavoir after the fact - also in many cases the worst excesses are perpetuated by a small number of people - most of the rest usually just stand around cheering and then maybe (hopefully) feeling ashamed of themselves afterward.
Though if you want to study truely scary human behavoir the Milgram Experiments top the list in my opinion.
The way I see it, Orcs and Goblins are easily categorized as evil for their 'thug-like-I take what I want-I'm the strongest' attitude. The fact that they (in general) aren't so bright makes them easy to spot when they're doing wrong (e.i. Sacking a village).
On the other hand you've got some pretty evil humans too. Some act like orcs (brutal and confrontive) and some act with intelligence, subtrifuge and deception (like politicians). They take over villages as well, but you just don't see it.
Ultradan
One of my main npcs is a good orc barb. named Groff. He has a little man in his big toe that gives him advice.
Blackdragon asked if anyone else has a problem with the way humans are "always portrayed as good" and goblinkin are "always evil"? My answer is - no.
This aspect of the game is not just accepted by me but embraced! I think it's great to have good guys and bad guys, and, um ... here's an idea - the good guys can overcome great obstacles and in the end defeat the bad guys - hoorah!! Isn't that what the game should be all about? It is for me.
I agree with Farewell2kings, D&D can be refreshing in its FANTASY black & white, good vs evil perspective.
Clearly Blackdragon, you have some strong opinions toward what could be termed a more dynamic, "realistic", "shades of grey"-mentality campaign world. That's fine for you. It doesn't appeal to me personally at all. One of the great things about human "bad guys" (which there are plenty of in my campaigns) and even the occassional "heroic" normally-evil-but-now-shockingly-noble creatures is that they shake things up and add interesting flavor. If every creature is neither truly good or evil but instead a complicated mixture resulting in oft-misunderstood behavior ... well, it's far too similar to the real world (why play d&d when I could just watch the depressing news, which of course is tainted with its own biases and subjective perspectives?) and second, it just plain old doesn't sound like much fun!
The game I believe was designed to have a balance of good, evil, and neutral creatures. orc and other goblinoid creatures just happen to be put into the evil group while humans got put into the good group. Beside if one wants to get technical about good and evil with D&D, look at the war being wage between the demons (or was it the devils, I could never get it straight) what would one classify that situation evil vs evil?
me I say who cares, I once played a goblin fighter that was chaotic neutral and an ogre that was chaotic good while facing several humans that were quite evil
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Humans are actually neutral. The books place the words "always" and "usually" in front of alignment discriptors because the race is inherently that way. Humans are neutral and they have the ability to swing either way. I don't think that they are potrayed as always good-not at all. Orcs on the other hand are inherently evil. It means their society (nature vs nurture) acts evil and rewards socially those who live up to thier societies status quo ie eating babies, malice, cruelty, etc. Dwarves are always Lawful Good for example, evil dwarves are monster types.
It is easier to run games with a black/white, evil/good perspective. Many players like it this way, it's less of a moral dilemma to assume all orcs and goblins are evil. However, my group enjoys the roleplaying challenge of the shades of gray; the orc that is a paladin of Pholtus, the kindly goblin sage, the ogre mage cook...it really depends on your DMs style of gameplay. If you want to be an ELF terrorist, go ahead, its your game. But I disagree that Humans are always portrayed as good, they simply are not.
In the campaign world I created goblins are rather neutral and even get along with most other races (I tweaked the stats and attitude a bit to get closer to goblins presented in GURPS Fantasy Folk, type I like better).
Other goblinoids are, well, barbarians who mostly live far north and no doubt they look evil for more civilized people...
My world has lots of different races and in rather equal portions (humans are not the ruling race, they only make up something like 30% of total population) and while there are no real warfare between different races there is certainly tension (and sometimes the warfare is avoided by races having no connections with each other). And yes, elves and many fey are for the most part isolationist fascist jerks. Just like in every other fantasy world.
But I am moralistically relativist anyway.
Does anyone else have a problem in the way that humans are always portrayed as a Goodly race, and Goblinkin are always Evil?
I am reminded of the old saying that it is the winner who always writes the history books. But I think the answer is more complex than that and it has to do a lot with trying not to make things so morally confusing as to make the game no longer enjoyable.
In the first place, humans are neutural, not good. Some are good, and some are evil. Some are the players ally, and some are their enemy. I always have at least one human for a big bad evil guy/gal.
Could there exist good goblins? Sure, I can't see why not! What would good goblins do? Oh probably live in a village, farm crops and herd animals. The only humans they know about are those evil humans who raid their lands, because they are too lazy to raid other human lands. Being good they don't raid other lands, so most good humans who live in villages and who only see evil goblins who raid their lands never see the good goblins and vice versa. And they wouldn't trust each other if they did.
So in other words your view of the world depends on what part of that world you see. Generally you tend to see "them" more as hostile because it's the hostile one that tend to come to you in the first place.
To a degree but usually not to the point where one spits infants and roasts them alive for the sheer pleasure of listening to them scream.Certianly historically cities got sacked and women got raped but only occasionally did it reach into the levels of brutality one finds with Goblinoids. I'd argue that in terms of fantasy gaming when it reaches that level of brutality its evil in humans too. Now I agree about the mob mentality and the kind of things it allows one to perpetuate on our fellow man but most of us consider such actions to be pretty awful behavoir after the fact - also in many cases the worst excesses are perpetuated by a small number of people - most of the rest usually just stand around cheering and then maybe (hopefully) feeling ashamed of themselves afterward.
Though if you want to study truely scary human behavoir the Milgram Experiments top the list in my opinion.
I think it comes down to this: what your game really needs. If your game needs orcs and goblins to be good, then let them be good, but create a creature to fill in the gap the goblinoids normally fill.
It all depends if you want these guys to be characters (in the story sense, not neccessarily player characters) or monsters in your game. If they're character material, they should be given moral free will and complex motivations. If they're monsters, they'll tend to have a minimum of both so as to make them maximally-slayable by the heroes of the story.
Both approaches have merit, but I'm of the opinion that the setting is more coherent if the GM picks one and sticks with it.
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To me, it's all relative. Lets not forget that the winner always writes the history. Lets look back into our past as humans...We have killed more people in the name of God than all the wars put together. This may seem to be untrue when first read but i assure you that it is an accurate account. Now, the question: Who was truly evil? The murderers in the name of God or the people killed in the name of God. My point being, it really is a perspective, for both sides would have a good argument condemning the other. My 2 cents.
Thoth-Amon the Atlantian Mindflayerian
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Well, it's a fantasy game...and goblins and orcs are the bogeymen created by human imagination and brought to virtual life in the D&D game.
If you apply 21st century, enlightened civilized morality to your D&D world, that's your choice.
In my game, there are very few "good" orcs and very few "good" goblins. They are the rats, they are the vermin, they are the scourge of humanity.
If they existed in real life and posed a real threat to humanity, humanity would not spend all of its time killing each other--we'd be out finding ways to kill those freaks!
I like the fact that D&D presents a simpler, black & white, good vs. evil world where heroes pick up their swords and slaughter the enemies of mankind for the good of mankind. It's a fantasy world...I like to leave some things that way.
I'm sure they would have similar opinions of us. They probably see very few humans as "good," and see us, as humans, as the rats, as vermin, and that the humans are the scourge of orc-anity and goblin-anity! And since humanity poses a real threat to goblin and orc kind, they are finding ways to kill those human freaks. All about perspectives. After all, they could argue--convincingly--that we breed like rabbits and encroach on their lands and take from their food supply. Hmmm. Oh, and lets not forget, that humans have no problem killing their women and children(orc & goblin) in the name of cleansing the planet. How many players--in raids--have done that very thing? I know my character has. Food for thought. No pun intended. My 2 cents.
Thoth-Amon the Atlantian Mindflayerian
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The way I see it, Orcs and Goblins are easily categorized as evil for their 'thug-like-I take what I want-I'm the strongest' attitude. The fact that they (in general) aren't so bright makes them easy to spot when they're doing wrong (e.i. Sacking a village).
On the other hand you've got some pretty evil humans too. Some act like orcs (brutal and confrontive) and some act with intelligence, subtrifuge and deception (like politicians). They take over villages as well, but you just don't see it.
Ultradan
Very true.
Thoth-Amon the Atlantian Mindflayerian