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I'm running Rise of the Runelords currently; we've just finished Burnt Offerings and are stepping into Skinsaw.
As a throwaway, I included four Goblin children in the nursery, to see how my players would handle it and to stimulate some intra-party roleplaying (one of the characters is a ranger with Goblinoid favored enemy). They ended up taking the four cages back and putting them up in a rented house outside of Sandpoint (where the mage has established himself).
I've got Classic Monsters Revisited, and I've read the goblin entry in that fairly closely. It appears that goblins are nasty due to upbringing rather than inclination (nurture vs. nature). Right now, the little bastards are mostly comic relief and a money sink for the party, but I have a feeling they're going to be asking some questions about how their reformation efforts are going.
I'm inclined to let them succeed to a degree, though the goblins (should they live) will no doubt be irritating and capricious even if turned to "good."
(Honestly, a good chunk of my willingness to let the players "win" is the idea of 4 ~2' goblins fighting with the 6'10" half-orc fighter to defend Sandpoint in chapter 4 tickles me, as well as associated melodrama should one or more of the little buggers survive.)
Anyone else include this element in their playthroughs? How did your players handle it?
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Nice.
I'ver had mixed success with this kind of thing. The last time I ran it was in an AoW rewrite -- the baby owlbear. It didn't work out as well as I'd have liked.
What you describe sounds great here -- you have the ability to have them show up when you want them to to add something, coupled with the ability to make them disapear when they're not going to fit. It's like grandkids: give the sons-of-bi+ches back when you don't want to see 'em anymore.
The Stone Giant attack later on sounds like a great place to throw 'em back in. The best thing here is that you have time, probably weeks and weeks before your group gets to that point. That means your evil-DM-brain has time to let your heterodont pygmies germinate.
Have fun!
-W. E. Ray
I've got Classic Monsters Revisited, and I've read the goblin entry in that fairly closely. It appears that goblins are nasty due to upbringing rather than inclination (nurture vs. nature).
That's generally true for all humanoids - yes, even drow or orcs. Only outsiders and the like are really born evil/good/lawful/chaotic.
I'm inclined to let them succeed to a degree, though the goblins (should they live) will no doubt be irritating and capricious even if turned to "good."
I agree: While moral and ethnical values (i.e. alignment) aren't genetic, other behaviour components are probably due to their genetic set-up. That probably includes short attention span and a certain amount of insanity. It's even possible that the goblins' fear of dogs and horses are a sort of racial memory, dyed-in-the-DNA behaviour patterns.
Not to mention horses' and dogs' reaction to goblins... (it's probably just like with postmen).
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Also remember that just because the goblins are "rehabilitated" doesn't mean the people around them will be. The folks of Sandpoint may learn to tolerate or even like the little buggers but the first paladin or wizard that rides into town is going to react by wanting to fry them. (In the case of my party's half-orc barbarian, literally.) This could create some awesome drama and role-playing opportunities and remind your players that Lawful Good doesn't always indicate the right side.
My players actually let the goblin babies and the goblin wives get away through carelessness. They listened at the nursery door and heard critters inside, so they nailed the door shut without looking inside. They actually saw the goblin wives and ordered them (in goblin) to stay put. Then they kept going. The goblin wive waited until the coast was clear and then freed the babies and took off.
They players were actually relieved that they didn't have to make any hard choices related to the goblin babies (it's an all good aligned party). They made jokes about "throwing them back because they're too small".
Makes me wonder if it was intentional carelessness.
My players actually let the goblin babies and the goblin wives get away through carelessness. They listened at the nursery door and heard critters inside, so they nailed the door shut without looking inside. They actually saw the goblin wives and ordered them (in goblin) to stay put. Then they kept going. The goblin wive waited until the coast was clear and then freed the babies and took off.
They players were actually relieved that they didn't have to make any hard choices related to the goblin babies (it's an all good aligned party). They made jokes about "throwing them back because they're too small".
Makes me wonder if it was intentional carelessness.
Actually, my player has a privateer crew that includes several Paizo goblins. She's rehabilitating them through the use of money, candy, willful ignorance of what they do to farmer's chickens on shore leave, and ruthless squashing of two "mutinies" (individual goblins waiting for when the PC seems vulnerable.)
She's actually gotten one (the alpha male) to be neutral with evil tendencies. A success!
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Ugh, I had a party with a paladin in it that when they came across ogre children and the wizard put them out with sleep then went over to kill them in their sleep. I warned him that he would fall if he did that and he subsequently traded his character up for a ranger. I love seeing the characters react to those kinds of situations, but if you have a paladin in the party it can spell trouble.
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Yep. The players specifically took the place outside of town so they could conceal the little buggers for a while during the "rehabilitation."
I gave them a month of downtime following Thistletop, and the mage spent pretty much all of that dealing with the little guys. They don't try to bite him as much now, and he's discovered that mage hand can function nicely to pick the little guys up and toss them into the cages if they're getting too scary. The cleric of Saranrae's been helping out with feeding duties, and said half-orc has been teaching them some fighting skills.. though that's mostly been pulling the inevitable furball apart once their blood gets up.
They've displayed a serious and slightly frightening interest in fire, and the cleric's ability to spontaneously chuck firebolts out of her hands has them awestruck. (We're playing with the PFRPGa3 rules, and she's got the fire domain.)
Next they're going to be learning to talk.. and sing. That should be interesting.
So far no outright fights in the party, though the ranger's been rumbling about turning the lot of them over to Hemlock and the goblin-hating crowd in Sandpoint. So far he hasn't made good on the threats. He and the mage don't get along all that well, so we'll see what happens.
Also, they let Gogmurt and one of the (female) goblin bards get away from Thistletop, so they're likely to turn back up at an inopportune time (possibly during the chapter 4 melee as well, I think; that's going to be a giant hairy furball of doom if I have anything to say about it).
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Toki, my fire-loving Goblin Druid, managed to get 2 of the goblin babies from Thistletop, and carried them through the whole of Burnt Offerings and most of Skinsaw Murders.
Got a little wary of having the little gobbos in cages strapped to my direwolf, so left them in the bard's wagon.
Suffice to say, when dancing and carrying on in Magnimar, she attracted the attention of a Hellknight and the guard, who followed her to her wagon (something about her permit being in there), saw goblins, she yelled: Goblins! and fled...
the Hellknight squished them both without thinking twice.
i was very very sad.
-t
Yeah, I suspect the gobbos are going to go out in a blaze (perhaps literally!) of glory during the chapter 4 fight. They won't really be able to actually do much against the giants and whatnot, but it'll sure make the party burn like hell for Mokmurian's head. :D
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Yeah, I suspect the gobbos are going to go out in a blaze (perhaps literally!) of glory during the chapter 4 fight. They won't really be able to actually do much against the giants and whatnot, but it'll sure make the party burn like hell for Mokmurian's head. :D
That's mean and unnecesarry, at the worst you should kill one of them, but both just smacks of making sure players never have family or friends because the DM will "just kill them to make the players hate someone" that you hear about all the time. It's one thing to allow the consequences of players actions to result in their deaths, but another thing entirely to plan it out without PC intervention, on the other hand you could have the little gobbos wind up taking down a giant with fire as a reward for their good roleplaying (after all they should be smarter than your average gobbo since they've been raised by the PCs maybe they show a rare display of cunning and trap a giant somehow and burn him to death)or you know just help without any dire consequences, or even get captured with the possibility of rescue, but to kill them off like that if my DM did that after all the effort I went through, I think I'd honestly walk out on the game. I know you aren't right now dead set on it and I'm not trying to say you are a bad DM, in fact you sound like a pretty good one, but I'm just trying to advise you against that notion. After all if the goblins wind up captured with the other villagers, wouldn't the PC be just as concerned with taking out mokmurian as if you killed them? You could even have the PCs think that one was killed (maybe findind it's broken sword outside a fiercly burning building or something) so that the PCs think the goblin is dead and hate mokmurian but then when they get to the rescue part it turn out he survived, how great a moment would that be for the PCs?
You know it's entirely possible that the goblins will be rotten little bastards that obey and are loyal to the PCs when they are around.
I wouldn't kill the goblins off unless the players do something to put them at risk. Well maybe kill one for a plot device but give it a chance and let the players run it, don't do it in the background.
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You know it's entirely possible that the goblins will be rotten little bastards that obey and are loyal to the PCs when they are around.
I never claimed they wouldn't be, but if I put resources into redeeming them and it works and then the DM makes them die without your intervention, it'd piss the heck out of me.
Oh, you guys misunderstand me. I'm not going to intentionally kill the gobbos off. If they do come into direct conflict with the raiding force, yeah, there's a good chance of casualties. But I'm not going to spin it that way intentionally--it'll all be able how the players handle it.
As an aside; these are not the most tactically oriented players on earth. That's not a bad thing, but it means that many of the big set-piece fights in the AP are going to be higher hurdles for them. The raid on Sandpoint is likely to be one of those times, and it's likely that *player* actions will put the goblins in jeopardy, simply because the players aren't thinking things through. And yes, I'm pretty generous with combat advice if they're a martial character or smart or both.
They've already set themselves up to hate Mokmurian, though they don't know it yet. One's courting Shayliss, for example, and the half-orc has offered to help train the Sandpoint militia (and anyone else who's interested). So when the raid hits Sandpoint, it's going to touch a lot of buttons for the party. The gobbos are just one more button that could possibly get touched, so to speak.
I'm generally all for players doing odd things. It's part of grounding the characters in the game world and adding that bit of flavor that campaigns often lack--the stuff that you say "remember when" about years after the campaign's done. Occasionally you have to rein it in a bit, but I find that's pretty unusual.
So to sum: the goblins aren't going to be Plot Corpses. If they die, it'll be because of the flow of the game and player choices & actions, not because They Must Die. :)
So to sum: the goblins aren't going to be Plot Corpses. If they die, it'll be because of the flow of the game and player choices & actions, not because They Must Die. :)
Sounds cool to me.
*Evil Thought*
If they leave them for a day or two you might have them sneak out and raid other people's garbage and steal some food and shinies while the players are gone. Maybe kill a dog or two. Then have the players return to a bunch of pissed off villagers.
*/Evil Thought*
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It might be a disaster-in-the-making if the impressionable young pyromaniacs turn to the Clerics diety and try to become Clerics, because they want to throw fire.
But they might lack the Wisdom, training or, particularly, attention-span, to become Clerics, and find that something else answers their pitiful, but heartfelt, prayers, granting them their fondest desire, to be able to fling tiny blasts of fire from their hands... (Some sort of variant Warlock pact thing, perhaps.)
It might be a disaster-in-the-making if the impressionable young pyromaniacs turn to the Clerics diety and try to become Clerics, because they want to throw fire.
But they might lack the Wisdom, training or, particularly, attention-span, to become Clerics, and find that something else answers their pitiful, but heartfelt, prayers, granting them their fondest desire, to be able to fling tiny blasts of fire from their hands... (Some sort of variant Warlock pact thing, perhaps.)
hehehe Fire Fire, look at it burn...
Sorcerer, Fire Elemental Bloodline. The Charisma penalty hurts but it would be ridiculously fun to play. A goblin that could start fires as an at will power... crazy fun.
Fire Fire, look at it burn...
The big problem would be making him only burn the things you wanted him to burn instead of burning everything in site. You might have to put him in a burlap sack and only take him out on special occasions.
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Or what about 3 or 4 well dressed and polite goblins as PCs in a offshoot game?
Whose definition of "well-dressed" and "polite"? One of my Birdcruncher PCs has an old longshank tunic that's missing a sleeve, and she's delighted with it. Another has a green cloak and purple boots, and many goblins admire her couture.
As for polite, I've seen goblins occasionally save up to 10% of baked goods acquired at Sandpoint Savories for up to a minute or even two in order to offer them to family members. If that's not taking manners to ridiculously polite levels then I don't know what is!
:D
I included a couple of goblin babies in the nursery, to see how they handled it and maybe create some interesting role-playing opportunities. For some reason, after the bugbear fight the Dwarven Fighter in the party wandered off to check out surrounding rooms while the party healed and search the Goblin wife room.
He found the nursery, saw the squalling gob babies. The dwarf calmly opened up the cages, beheaded them, then walked out and shut the door behind him. The other players and myself were a little shocked. The player just said he figured that if they took them back to town, the townsfolk would probably kill them and he certainly did not plan to let their parents live to take care of them. He decided it was the merciful thing. We were skeptical, but his character did not reveal what happened to the other characters, he just told them there was nothing in there. So there were no in-game consequences, except perhaps a couple of sin points, but that character ended up dying anyway.
I kind of regretted putting the babies in there, though.
So there were no in-game consequences, except perhaps a couple of sin points, but that character ended up dying anyway.
I kind of regretted putting the babies in there, though.
I guess that's kind of creepy, but now you know. Too bad the dwarf died and you can't use the sin points. The players in my campaign are all too mature and organized to do much sinning.
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I guess that's kind of creepy, but now you know. Too bad the dwarf died and you can't use the sin points. The players in my campaign are all too mature and organized to do much sinning.So there were no in-game consequences, except perhaps a couple of sin points, but that character ended up dying anyway.
I kind of regretted putting the babies in there, though.
I would also add that based on the history between dwarves and goblins, this would be consistent with how a dwarf would act in this situation. It's sad but it's a tragedy that has been repeated consistently and continually throughout history.
I included a couple of goblin babies in the nursery, to see how they handled it and maybe create some interesting role-playing opportunities.
He found the nursery, saw the squalling gob babies. The dwarf calmly opened up the cages, beheaded them, then walked out and shut the door behind him. The other players and myself were a little shocked. The player just said he figured that if they took them back to town, the townsfolk would probably kill them and he certainly did not plan to let their parents live to take care of them. He decided it was the merciful thing. We were skeptical...
Sounds like you got what you wanted with the oldest DM RP ploy in the book. No reason for you to feel regretful.
I've done the same with a baby owlbear and a LG ranger. When you're in that situation, you make a decision and don't look back.