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The point being there’s nowhere in text where an adult goblin eats any humanoid baby.
Baby eating is nowhere part and parcel of goblin character, that particular characterisation is inaccurate.
Page 114, panel 3 of the Pathfinder: Goblins hardcover.
Just as an example of why one should never make "Show me just one example!" type arguments :)
(I know you'll say it's a comic, etc.,)
I've got a digital version, I just went to page 114 and saw a goblin fighting a horse. In the preceding pages a goblin ate a full-grown human, in pages preceding that a goblin ate some gnomes.
No babies, are you sure you have the right page number?
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I’m thinking about goblin Bards, which they’ve got the stat array for, and I’m just already tired. Overcompensating goblin Paladins of Iomedae/Sarenrae. Pyro goblin Sorcerers with that fire ancestry feat.
I’m going to quickly get tired of deciding if I still feel like doing a PbP adventure with the tone undercut by a green bobble head, possibly in a bundle of clothes disguise. I’m also worried about how many goblins will show up for evil games. It’ll be a lot harder to find a “classy evil” group.
My opinion is selfish, but it’s not just disruptive goblin characters I’m worried about. A decent, but not excellent, goblin character is still going to worsen the experience for me. The point is almost self-refuting, in that a thing others find fun is something I dislike playing with- the counter-argument is just the others having more fun, since I’m not more important than them. I don’t know what the numbers are on people who will enjoy it more vs. people who’ll enjoy it less, so I don’t know if my desire to have goblins relegated to a later book is reasonable for the game as a whole.
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The point being there’s nowhere in text where an adult goblin eats any humanoid baby.
Baby eating is nowhere part and parcel of goblin character, that particular characterisation is inaccurate.
Page 114, panel 3 of the Pathfinder: Goblins hardcover.
Just as an example of why one should never make "Show me just one example!" type arguments :)
(I know you'll say it's a comic, etc.,)
I've got a digital version, I just went to page 114 and saw a goblin fighting a horse. In the preceding pages a goblin ate a full-grown human, in pages preceding that a goblin ate some gnomes.
No babies, are you sure you have the right page number?
I think you're looking at page 104--it's ten pages later on p. 114 in the "Ballad of Ak" story. The goblin chief has a routine meal of a human baby.
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It seems obvious that they are eating babies... when you are reading the songs, the lore, the motivations... yes maybe there is not A page with the exact description of a Goblin eating babie but that is because it would be too gruesome for Paizo. I have a few recall of side notes where the dev said things like: we went with this level of horror but if it is too much you can keep it down or something like that.
But yes they eat babies. And they would probably try to eat lava or Mithril at least once to be honest, just as an experiment.
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The crux of the issue from the OP:
Now, if a halfling did that, or if a gnome did that, I would be able to tell that player that regardless of what they say their character would do, such a character is unwelcome at the table. However, I cannot say the same thing to a goblin, because, by including goblins as a core race, Paizo has circumvented me and stated that, in fact, they are.
WHY?
If it's unacceptable from a gnome or halfling, it's unacceptable from a *hero* goblin. Playing a goblin doesn't change what is or is not acceptable behaviour at the table.
Plus the OP already described how being a halfling can be disruptive when paired with players. So that kind of distraction is already in the game. They're not going to remove halflings.
Instead, this problem is solved by TALKING TO THE PLAYERS and letting them know that they choose how their character acts and "it's what my character would do" is not an excuse for ruining the fun of the rest of the table. If they want to do something but it's disruptive, ask them to narrate why their character doesn't despite really wanting to. Ask them why their character decides not to.
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In the legends and stories of Sparta, that old famous Greek city-state, they were homosexual pedophiles (men had sex with boys), they routinely threw babies off cliffs if the baby wasn't deemed good enough, they had slaves and held little value to the life of anyone who wasn't a male Spartan.
In Spain, during the late 1400s, people were routinely tortured on some of the most torturous devices ever created by mankind, and most people were tortured solely for what others thought that person *might* believe.
In meso-america, human sacrifice was a normal part of religion, and done for everything from trying to get good weather to trying to get a good crop season. Or just to appease the God's.
In multiple cultures across the globe, entire people's have been uprooted and force marched hundreds of miles, with their young and old dying along the way, to be planted elswhere on poorer lands.
We've had several instances of attempted genocide in living memory.
Entire peoples have been imprisoned just because of who their father or grandmother was.
Therefore, we should ban humans from the core rules, because of the atrocities humans are capable of.
No human should ever be allowed to be played, as they encourage bad players or borderline players to play badly. Humans should he banned from all towns in every RPG, because you never quite know if *this* particular human is "one of the good ones."
Or we can recognize that individuals within a given sentient and sapient species isn't necessarily reflective of the whole, or even part of the whole, and sterotypes about an entire people doesn't really help with understanding who a particular individual may be.
Hell, if we were to write a book on humans and only covered the sterotypes as well as the factual bad stuff that has happened, we'd be way worse than what the book on goblins suggests for their culture.
And speaking of culture, how do cultures change? If you had a group of goblins that was raised away from all these other murderous ones, would they still shun writing? Would they still shun pictures of themselves?
I'm reminded of a group of gorillas in Africa that a primatologist was watching. Gorillas are notoriously violent. So much so that every young male gorilla had to leave their family in search of a new group, and when they do find a new group, they have to violently raise themselves up the social order. Dominate males beat the crap out of the younger submissive makes, and use violence and force to maintain control of the group and to keep sole access to the mating females.
One such group of gorillas ended up getting a disease (they were feeding off of human refuse from a local city), and nearly all the males died off. The primatologist thought the entire group was doomed, and stopped watching them.
About a decade later, he discovered something amazing. The group survived. Except, since there were no older males to reinforce the violent culture, that aspect of gorilla culture for this group was eliminated. The females survived and they weren't violent. So when new young males in search of a new group found this one, the females brought them into the group and showered them with love and kindness. And a new culture arose from this one group of gorillas that has no social structure built on violence but rather one built on cooperation and trust.
In a single generation, we saw a completely different culture arise that lacked violence.
Why can't that happen with goblins? It's easy enough to see how an entire population of violent adults can be eliminated (adventurers wiped them out), and the new culture that grew up would be less prone to causing problems. Especially if that same culture was treated with kindness instead of beatings and threats.
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Making them core is my issue with it. And I see it as a strike against PF 2 a reason not to give it even a try. But one strike isn’t enough in my eyes to give up hope the game can be ok.
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I don't really think whether a goblin has eaten a baby is super relevant. Half Orcs are a core race, and are seen as "monstrosities, the result of perversion and violence." The implications for the conception of a half-orc is a lot more triggering to real world players than baby eating, I reckon. And in world "they also tend to be feared or attacked outright by humans who don’t bother making the distinction between full orcs and half bloods." Yeah, half orcs aren't orcs, except for all the ones raised in orc tribes which are basically orcs.
If all of this cultural baggage can exist for half-orcs, and yet they can be a core race without every session devolving into pitchforks and torches, why can't goblins? Let's not forget that while half-orcs have always been core in PF1, they haven't been in various editions of D&D. Games evolve, in world and out. The one thing half-orcs have over goblins is they were probably born to a human mother who may have been able to shelter them from fearful humans somewhat. But a goblin adventurer could very well have been raised by humans too-- what to do with goblin babies has become a trope which has been referenced numerous times in the Pathfinder canon and art.
Take Rise of the Runelords for example-- the Anniversary Edition has a goblin nursery, which is empty by default but suggests that DMs who wish to give their players a tricky moral/social situation may wish to some babies whose fate the PCs have to decide after murdering every adult goblin in the tribe. If the goblins are raised at Turandarok Academy, the local orphanage, would it really be that crazy for one of those goblins to wind up an alchemist adventurer?
but really I don't think that any protest is going to have them taken out not after the investment Paizo has made. (art and such)
The art doesn't have to be burned just because they elect potentially to remove Goblins from the Core book. There are still follow-up materials they could be included in, such as Advanced Players Guide 2.0.
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So any given civilized town in Golarion, a world which generally tolerates humanoids of varied skin colors, transgenders, and non-hetero sexual orientations, is rabidly xenophobic against one goblin being vouched for by a party of adventurers at the town gates? And to be otherwise is wholly implausible?
IMO this comes down to the significance of "core". What you have described is an open-minded acceptance of exceptions. The Advanced Race Guide playable goblin already provides for that. And there has been no outcry.
If goblins are core then walking into town and finding a goblin merchant shouldn't be any more surprising than walking into town and finding a half-orc merchant. Sure, there can be complex mixed towns and there can be goblin-hating towns. But across the span of many many towns throughout Golarion the encounters with "civilized" goblins may be reasonably expected to be on par with half orcs. And yet "goblin" will still be an entry in the bestiary and the collective of them will still be described as pyromaniac nutjobs who murder people in mildly cute ways. There will be no entry in the bestiary for half orcs.
If Paizo were to provide a goblins supplement on the same day as release that provided for goblin PCs *outside of core*, then the system retains a clear picture of what goblins are. Making them specifically core is a significant difference in a way that doesn't conflict with anything you have stated, but still creates a problem.
Plus, the more you fracture your fan base, the less any of this debate matters.
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Therefore, we should ban humans from the core rules, because of the atrocities humans are capable of.
No human should ever be allowed to be played, as they encourage bad players or borderline players to play badly. Humans should he banned from all towns in every RPG, because you never quite know if *this* particular human is "one of the good ones."
Although your point is well-made, the statements from others here are not about what goblins are capable of as you put it, but what is the norm. You are picking selected periods of time in which selected portions of humanity have committed atrocities, while the many issues brought up in this thread are about the normal, expected canonical behaviors of goblins as a culture. In your historical study of humanity, was there ever a time when 98%+ of the population was believed to be vicious, murderous, destructive, cruel and hostile as goblins are believed to be? And if so, how long ago was that? Are we talking the Cro Magnon epoch?
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Man, it's weird to see so many Goblin apologists. They're a monster race, specifically created to be vicious little buggers, so that they can be killed by the PCs without much remorse at the best of times. Obviously you can have a story about your special Goblins that aren't like the rest, but that's precisely that, they aren't like the rest. If they're included as a Core race, the implication is that the race as a whole is capable of being compared to more sane, less homicidal races.
Like, to the people who are using real world analogies, that doesn't work in a fantasy setting where the Goblins aren't just some other culture, they're literally different creatures with a strong penchant for vileness. So unless Paizo is retconning Goblin culture up till now, allowing Goblins to potentially be in every adventuring party is just a way to make people tilt even more murder-hobo than ever.
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Although your point is well-made, the statements from others here are not about what goblins are capable of as you put it, but what is the norm. You are picking selected periods of time in which selected portions of humanity have committed atrocities, while the many issues brought up in this thread are about the normal, expected canonical behaviors of goblins as a culture. In your historical study of humanity, was there ever a time when 98%+ of the population was believed to be vicious, murderous, destructive, cruel and hostile as goblins are believed to be? And if so, how long ago was that? Are we talking the Cro Magnon epoch?Therefore, we should ban humans from the core rules, because of the atrocities humans are capable of.
No human should ever be allowed to be played, as they encourage bad players or borderline players to play badly. Humans should he banned from all towns in every RPG, because you never quite know if *this* particular human is "one of the good ones."
What you see as "the norm" I see as "a description of one culture of goblins."
Is this cultural norm also true for the goblin servant class in Absalom, as described in the comics where Nobles are starting a new fashion trend of keeping goblin servants? Is it true of goblins on other continents? Is it true of *all* goblin cultures in Golarion, or just the ones as viewed by humans through human eyes and human prejudice? Is it only true of the goblin tribes listed in the book and identified on the maps, or is it true of all goblins, everywhere, without exception? Are the same traits true of the snow loving goblins or the ones led by humans or the ones led by hobgoblins or the ones whose lands were invaded by humans and they're struggling to survive because they were kicked out of their Homeland (like in Virisia)?
Even in the book on goblins, there are variations and differences. Why is it that the absolute worst of goblins is the one true constant? And if that's true of goblins, why is it not true of other races including humans?
One could even say that the one true trait of humans is that we lie. We like to ourselves, we lie to each other. We do so from a young age and continue to do so all our lives. Very few humans are so committed to the truth that we can literally claim it's a defining trait of humanity - if we only focus on the negatives of our species. Why would any of the other races - elves, dwarves, any of them - ever trust humans with just the sheer amount of lies we tell collectively?
Hell, I personally am more committed to the truth than most people I know - it's practically my profession as a scientist. And yet, I still lied to my kids just the other day when I told them that it was the Easter Bunny who left all these eggs for them to find. Lies are ingrained into our culture. Even this game is an exersize in "not the truth" as we engage in a fantasy setting.
But that's not how we view ourselves or other "trusted" races. We view ourselves by our good aspects, our achievements, and our accomplishments - and we claim the "bad ones" are an anomaly and not represented of the whole. And when we look at "monster" races, we only view them in the worst possible light we can. (And to note, we also do this in the real world, when we look at other cultures different from our own that we have defined as "the enemy").
Why?
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That is quite a lot of assumptions of what will or won't be in a book that hasn't even officially been announced yet, especially to try and use that as arguements for why something shouldn't be included in another book.And yet "goblin" will still be an entry in the bestiary and the collective of them will still be described as pyromaniac nutjobs who murder people in mildly cute ways. There will be no entry in the bestiary for half orcs.
I don't know that I can provide a link. But I am 99% certain they that Goblins would be there and their standard role would not change.
If I'm wrong then I'll apologize. But I assure you there is no assumption. I'm quite certain I recall correctly.
But, since you brought up this point, the implication is that they *must* change them (and thus disrupt canon). If they ARE in the bestiary are pure murderous villians, will that cause conflict for you?
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Most goblins being unpleasant does not in any way mean they can't be a PC race if some notable ones in an AP or the 12 years of new timeline we've got make their presence felt heroically.
I mean, most people from Cheliax are pretty unpleasant but you can still play them.
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What you see as "the norm" I see as "a description of one culture of goblins."
Goblins are commonly found throughout Golarion, but
in the Inner Sea region, they are most prevalent aroundcoastlines and along rivers in Varisia, or in the higher
mountains and foothills of Isger where they thrive.
Scavengers, they like to remain as close as they dare to
settlements and roads to enable them to mount frequent
raids, if only on junkyards. This close proximity to more
civilized regions is often their undoing. Trapped by their
need to feed off others, they invariably bring destruction
and mayhem upon themselves by over-harassing the
very neighbors they scavenge from to survive. Goblin
settlements therefore tend to be small, well defended,
and extremely well hidden. Some goblins have developed
cunning ways to live nomadic lives, able to raid and move
on, thus lessening the likelihood of serious reprisals.
Goblins typically don’t live very long, and while alive,
are generally more interested in pulling the wings off
butterflies and setting fire to things than mating
There is an old goblin saying: “If it moves eat it. If it
doesn’t, pickle it and eat it later.” Able to digest practically
anything organic, a goblin is always hungry, and prefers
to eat meat (ideally cooked and well salted) but is pretty
much happy to eat anything with plenty of salt in it.
Goblins bring the same love for destruction,
disdain of consequences, and sheer lunacy to
magic as they do to every other facet of their
lives.
All goblins learn how to start fires, usually before they
can talk, and most carry the means to start one quickly.
Fire is often used to torture prisoners,
the process fulfilling two aims for the goblins beyond
soliciting responses from the victim: the fire amuses the
goblins and, in time, cooks the meat for dinner.
Beyond the usual tests of prowess (firing arrows or
hurling spears, javelins, darts, axes, or anything else that
may hurt at a living target) and games of violence (armwrestling,
play fighting, and the like), goblins show an evil
inventiveness in the games they devise. Generally, goblin
games are an excuse to inflict pain on small harmless
creatures or defenseless prisoners.
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So any given civilized town in Golarion, a world which generally tolerates humanoids of varied skin colors, transgenders, and non-hetero sexual orientations, is rabidly xenophobic against one goblin being vouched for by a party of adventurers at the town gates? And to be otherwise is wholly implausible?IMO this comes down to the significance of "core". What you have described is an open-minded acceptance of exceptions. The Advanced Race Guide playable goblin already provides for that. And there has been no outcry.
If goblins are core then walking into town and finding a goblin merchant shouldn't be any more surprising than walking into town and finding a half-orc merchant. Sure, there can be complex mixed towns and there can be goblin-hating towns. But across the span of many many towns throughout Golarion the encounters with "civilized" goblins may be reasonably expected to be on par with half orcs. And yet "goblin" will still be an entry in the bestiary and the collective of them will still be described as pyromaniac nutjobs who murder people in mildly cute ways. There will be no entry in the bestiary for half orcs.
I'm not sure that the assumption that being core indicates "is commonly found in civilized society" holds up though. Sandpoint and Ravengro are literally 90% human. Ravengro has no gnomes or half-orcs. In Sandpoint, Half Orcs and gnomes are less than 2% of the population combined. That doesn't mean half-orcs and gnomes are bad fits for those campaigns; adventurers are anomalies by definition.
Also, your example of a half-orc merchant strikes me as an odd one-- because that itself should be exceedingly rare according to the lore: "They often are unable even to get normal work, and are pressed into service in the military or sold into slavery. In these cultures, half-orcs often lead furtive lives, hiding their nature whenever possible. The dark underworld of society is often the most welcoming place, and many half-orcs wind up serving as enforcers for thieves guilds or other types of organized crime."
If anything, a half-orc merchant seems like it would be rarer than a half-orc adventurer. Also, I don't think having a bestiary entry is especially relevant. The NPC codex uses half-orc as evil bandit types an awful lot compared to other races. The NPC codex also uses orcs in a similar manner. A humanoid villain is a humanoid villain.
If Half-Orcs make up less than 1% of the population in a city, does it matter if goblins make up .1%? The core options are considered equally valid for players, despite huge discrepancies in how common the races are.
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I'm not sure that the assumption that being core indicates "is commonly found in civilized society" holds up though. Sandpoint and Ravengro are literally 90% human. Ravengro has no gnomes or half-orcs. In Sandpoint, Half Orcs and gnomes are less than 2% of the population combined. That doesn't mean half-orcs and gnomes are bad fits for those campaigns; adventurers are anomalies by definition.
Also, your example of a half-orc merchant strikes me as an odd one-- because that itself should be exceedingly rare according to the lore: "They often are unable even to get normal work, and are pressed into service in the military or sold into slavery. In these cultures, half-orcs often lead furtive lives, hiding their nature whenever possible. The dark underworld of society is often the most welcoming place, and many half-orcs wind...
Why did you put "is commonly found in civilized society" in quotes?
My point is that it should be no more surprising to find one core race than to find any other.Of course the default assumption is that a merchant will be human, or dwarf or whatever. But players are not thrown for a loop with the understanding of the setting undermined when they do encounter a half orc merchant. It is not at all shocking. There is a big difference between rare and shocking. A goblin merchant should be shocking within the established context provided through prior Paizo published material.
You can easily proclaim that they would be so completely rare in your personal game that this would still hold. But putting it in core makes a statement to the entire playerbase. Niether your opinion nor mine are relevant to that.
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Like, let's look at some numbers. Population of Sandpoint: 1,240. (1,116 humans, 37 halflings, 25 elves. 24 dwarves, 13 gnomes, 13 half elves, 12 half-orcs.) And that seems rather more diverse than the average, from what I've seen. Having even a handful of goblins begin living in this town means there are half as many goblins as there are gnomes, half-elves, or half-orcs. Even a single goblin be closer to haf-orc representation than half-orcs are to halflings. And if said half-orcs can exist in the same town as Shoanti, why can't a single goblin?
Now consider a town like Ravengro with no half-orcs. They are also notoriously distrustful of outsiders, and Ustalav has things a lot scarier than orcs or goblins running around, and Ravengro has had no apparent trouble with greenies for several generations. Now imagine that adventurers arrive. Would the people of Ravengro see a meaningful distinction between a goblin or a half-orc PC? Both have reputations for being monstrous. Even if the reputation for goblins is worse (debatable) some random yokel might feel a lot more intimidated by a hulking halfie-- dude looks like he could do a lot more damage. Plus, while the goblin might make them fear for their horse, dog, or even home, an orc might make them fear for the innocence of their daughters. Historically, that fear has been used to justify an awful lot of lynch mobs.
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I'm not sure that the assumption that being core indicates "is commonly found in civilized society" holds up though. Sandpoint and Ravengro are literally 90% human. Ravengro has no gnomes or half-orcs. In Sandpoint, Half Orcs and gnomes are less than 2% of the population combined. That doesn't mean half-orcs and gnomes are bad fits for those campaigns; adventurers are anomalies by definition.
Also, your example of a half-orc merchant strikes me as an odd one-- because that itself should be exceedingly rare according to the lore: "They often are unable even to get normal work, and are pressed into service in the military or sold into slavery. In these cultures, half-orcs often lead furtive lives, hiding their nature whenever possible. The dark underworld of society is often the most welcoming place, and many half-orcs wind...
Why did you put "is commonly found in civilized society" in quotes?
My point is that it should be no more surprising to find one core race than to find any other.
Of course the default assumption is that a merchant will be human, or dwarf or whatever. But players are not thrown for a loop with the understanding of the setting undermined when they do encounter a half orc merchant. It is not at all shocking. There is a big difference between rare and shocking. A goblin merchant should be shocking within the established context provided through prior Paizo published material.You can easily proclaim that they would be so completely rare in your personal game that this would still hold. But putting it in core makes a statement to the entire playerbase. Niether your opinion nor mine are relevant to that.
I don't think being a core race designates that, though. And if being a core race does signal that to players, that strikes me as a pretty meta assumption of someone who hasn't actually read the lore on these core races, because the half-orc lore is DARK. It should indeed be shocking to find them in certain positions, given how they are treated in society. You are going to meet 100 humans before you meet a single half-orc, by the numbers. This isn't my opinion or my games, this is the established canon.
Now, if we aren't talking about Golarion, but some hypothetical homebrew setting, than you are free to discard whatever parts of that canon you don't like. But at his point you are setting agnostic and it doesn't matter what the core races actually are. If we examine the canon of Golarion, that means taking it as a whole and actually giving weight to things like population distribution and the general trends these races have. At which point, most of the questions goblins raise are already raised by half-orcs.
Plus, why assume players will be shocked by meeting NPCs of weird races? The cornerstone of Pathfinder is being able to build all sorts of kooky characters. I don't think most players would bat an eye if they met a Tiefling NPC, regardless of whether it was a typical Tiefling or the mayor of a great city. If they find the latter shocking, then they are probably immersed enough in the lore to know that seeing a half-orc mayor would be *about* as shocking.
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Man, it's weird to see so many Goblin apologists. They're a monster race, specifically created to be vicious little buggers, so that they can be killed by the PCs without much remorse at the best of times. Obviously you can have a story about your special Goblins that aren't like the rest, but that's precisely that, they aren't like the rest. If they're included as a Core race, the implication is that the race as a whole is capable of being compared to more sane, less homicidal races.
And guess which kind of goblins are in PF2’s core book... The 'special' goblins that are mentioned even before PF2.
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C: People do not automatically agree that they are being jerks just because you point this out, and them being goblins gives them a very persuasive counter to use to convince themselves as much as others that their behavior is justified.
Only if the fluff under the title Goblin Adventurers supports that behavior. If, as I suspect, it doesn't, then the GM can point to the book and the very persuasive argument that disruptive behavior is not justified.
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Please see my post directly above yours with the quote from GoG that states "goblins do have an unfortunate habit of eating anything if they are hungry enough." Babies fall into the broad category of "anything."
There is also this section from p. 10 of the same book ...
"There is an old goblin saying: 'If it moves eat it. If it doesn’t, pickle it and eat it later.' Able to digest practicallyanything organic, a goblin is always hungry, and prefers to eat meat (ideally cooked and well salted) but is pretty much happy to eat anything with plenty of salt in it."
So ...
1) Goblins will eat anything if they are hungry enough
2) Goblins are always hungry
Therefore, they're eating babies.
I mean, by that same logic, Goblins are eating planets and mountains and dragons, too. Making that extrapolation is just that, and also, it's an easy thing to change.
Frankly, I don't need my fantasy too gritty, anyway, so I would probably change it for my own games, so it's not much of a problem for me either way. If a player is being a problem, I'll deal with them, but fortunately that doesn't come up much.
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Pfft! Longshanks just jealous cause we finally gets our due n' propers! Goblinses will be da best! ...you'll see oh yeses you will.
A: Society exists, and banning things from the core rule book makes you look like a dick to a lot of people.
That is probably true, especially if the thing you're banning is what many see as the fancy new toy Paizo got them so excited about.
On the other hand... Your proposed solution is to remove that same thing from all the games, yours and anybody else's, at least until some book called Ancestries of Golarion or some more imaginative title shows up in stores. There are a lot of people who love the idea of playing a goblin, as far as I can judge from this forum (I'm not one of them, but to each their own). If you get your way, you're bound to hear comments like "if it weren't for these dicks who got them kicked out of Core, I could play a goblin right now"... Don't you think?
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Thankfully, the fine developers at Piazo have seen fit to get rid of all the core races, as characters choose ancestries instead of races. This change seems minor, but it is clear from the outrage at the inclusion of goblin as an optional ancestry that a lot of players are going to need to think about how your character having a social and cultural ancestry that links them to other people in the world of Golarion is different than them having a static race that seems to define not only what kind of character they could choose to play from within that ancestry, but what every other person who shares that ancestry would have to act like to be in charcter.
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I got to say, I am not sure why yet another post on goblins being a bad option for core needed to be made...we have what? 5 threads at least now?
Hey, Goblins wouldn't have been my first choice, dont' get me wrong. But I don't see them as being that problematic in the long run. Then again I don't care for black and white setting where mortal sapient creatures are all evil or all good. I've played in a campaign with a goblin without any issues from the player in question. I've also been in campaigns that were far far weirder in race composition than a adventuring goblin (our RotRL party consisted of a kobold paladin, a Nagaji druid with a pet velociraptor, a changeling witch, and a kitsune ninja). I expected an annoying goblin is going to about as annoying a character as a perpetually drunk scottish dwarf, a snobby elf, an overly violent barbarian, or a very narrowly played paladin.
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A: Society exists, and banning things from the core rule book makes you look like a dick to a lot of people.That is probably true, especially if the thing you're banning is what many see as the fancy new toy Paizo got them so excited about.
On the other hand... Your proposed solution is to remove that same thing from all the games, yours and anybody else's, at least until some book called Ancestries of Golarion or some more imaginative title shows up in stores. There are a lot of people who love the idea of playing a goblin, as far as I can judge from this forum (I'm not one of them, but to each their own). If you get your way, you're bound to hear comments like "if it weren't for these dicks who got them kicked out of Core, I could play a goblin right now"... Don't you think?
It's not as though their inclusion doesn't affect me unless I choose to play one. I'm going to interact with players who choose to play them, and I'm going to do so both at tables I run and tables I do not run.
The game store group where I regularly play Pathfinder Society consists almost entirely of normal, functioning players. However, knowing their habits, I am perfectly confident that at least five of them are going to immediately create very annoying interpretations of the goblin, at least one of which will be intolerably disruptive. Permission to play as a race that has been characterized as a dick bag for years is going to bring out the worst in people to whom it might otherwise just not occur to go there, and it's going to have some of the GM's they're convinced that they are perfectly in the right to act that way.
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The game store group where I regularly play Pathfinder Society consists almost entirely of normal, functioning players. However, knowing their habits, I am perfectly confident that at least five of them are going to immediately create very annoying interpretations of the goblin, at least one of which will be intolerably disruptive. Permission to play as a race that has been characterized as a dick bag for years is going to bring out the worst in people to whom it might otherwise just not occur to go there, and it's going to have some of the GM's they're convinced that they are perfectly in the right to act that way.
Good news! You have about 16 months to talk it out with your group and come up with a solution or guidelines for everyone to have their fun. Who knows? They might get it all out of their system during the playtest and be model players come second edition.
Things that you can do:
1. Join in the fun! Make a zany goblin and join in the all-goblin party. That lets them play what they like, and keeps the disruption out of other games you care for.
2. Set some ground rules. Talk out your concerns with your group and set ground rules now for what the group considers disruptive behavior. Nip the bud, and they won't feel so restricted. Just be sure to get buy in.
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I just don't get how this has blown up in such a way. It just seems so insignificant in the whole scheme of things. There are so many big changes in PF2 but this is the one that is really bringing out the nasty fighting and inundates the bored with so much conversation.
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Seems like an application of the Bike Shed Effect, only the committee is made up of the entire forum.
Seems like an application of the Bike Shed Effect, only the committee is made up of the entire forum.
Oh, that is really interesting. I had not heard of this before.
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The game store group where I regularly play Pathfinder Society consists almost entirely of normal, functioning players. However, knowing their habits, I am perfectly confident that at least five of them are going to immediately create very annoying interpretations of the goblin, at least one of which will be intolerably disruptive. Permission to play as a race that has been characterized as a dick bag for years is going to bring out the worst in people to whom it might otherwise just not occur to go there, and it's going to have some of the GM's they're convinced that they are perfectly in the right to act that way.Good news! You have about 16 months to talk it out with your group and come up with a solution or guidelines for everyone to have their fun. Who knows? They might get it all out of their system during the playtest and be model players come second edition.
Things that you can do:
1. Join in the fun! Make a zany goblin and join in the all-goblin party. That lets them play what they like, and keeps the disruption out of other games you care for.
2. Set some ground rules. Talk out your concerns with your group and set ground rules now for what the group considers disruptive behavior. Nip the bud, and they won't feel so restricted. Just be sure to get buy in.
1: I don't think you realize what I'm saying I'm not talking about people being zany. I'm talking about intensely annoying and disruptive behavior. Stealing s***, being a murder hobo, sabotaging other people's attempts to deal with problems diplomatically, setting fire to things so is to cause a mission failure for everyone, or, and this one is actually the most common, feigning like you're about to do one of those things to f*** with someone who is more invested in the adventure than you are.
2: You presume I'm in any position whatsoever to tell the local Venture captain and his four adventure agents what to do. Still, you have inspired me to try this despite my belief that it will not work. I'll come back and admit that it did if it does.
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1: I don't think you realize what I'm saying I'm not talking about people being zany. I'm talking about intensely annoying and disruptive behavior. Stealing s***, being a murder hobo, sabotaging other people's attempts to deal with problems diplomatically, setting fire to things so is to cause a mission failure for everyone, or, and this one is actually the most common, feigning like you're about to do one of those things to f*** with someone who is more invested in the adventure than you are.
I don't think you quite understood the suggestion. It was more to set aside games you aren't as invested in and lean into the chaos rather than trying to fight it. It's a form of compromise that won't work for everyone, though.
2: You presume I'm in any position whatsoever to tell the local Venture captain and his four adventure agents what to do. Still, you have inspired me to try this despite my belief that it will not work. I'll come back and admit that it did if it does.
You aren't! Don't go in telling people what to do. You probably won't get very far.
But, if you tell your venture corps that you are concerned about goblin characters being used to justify disruptive behavior, they will likely listen. Ask them if they have guidelines already for disruptive behavior, and if they'd consider ground rules for when the playtest document comes out.
With any luck, you'll get a conversation started and might improve your gaming environment before the playtest even hits the printers. I wish you well!
P.S. Have you posted your concerns in the PFS forums at all?
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I don't think being a core race designates that, though. And if being a core race does signal that to players, that strikes me as a pretty meta assumption of someone who hasn't actually read the lore on these core races, because the half-orc lore is DARK. It should indeed be shocking to find them in certain...
You keep going back to a non sequitur on half orcs. I mean, even the core rule book undermines your claim by clearly drawing a distinction between common stereotypes and how their actions "consistently manage to surprise their detractors with great deeds and unexpected wisdom". Page 29 of the Inner Sea World guide also makes it clear that the reputation of half orcs is one thing, the violent nature of their background is also a thing, but the behaviors of a given individual is another. And it is that last thing that counts. The canon is CLEAR that individuals half orc are often the victims of stereotypes, but those opinions and action which occurred before they were born have zero bearing on them as actual people free to be good or evil.
The canon of goblins, on the other hand, clearly talks about goblins as creatures of violence and evil. Not their forebears, but the ones running around today.
It doesn't equate at all.
And handwaving 100 npcs vs. 1,000 vs. 1 doesn't change anything. If you think the nature of goblins as part of the setting won't significantly change as a result of being core, then I think you are refusing to look at it with a critical eye.
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Seems like an application of the Bike Shed Effect, only the committee is made up of the entire forum.
Except that there has also been a significant amount of blowback on other topics brought up, such as Resonance, Proficiencies, the Critical Hit system, and others. It would only be the Bike Shed Effect if this was pretty much the only thing people were focusing on as needing a solution.
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Plus, why assume players will be shocked by meeting NPCs of weird races? The cornerstone of Pathfinder is being able to build all sorts of kooky characters. I don't think most players would bat an eye if they met a Tiefling NPC, regardless of whether it was a typical Tiefling or the mayor of a great city. If they find the latter shocking, then they are probably immersed enough in the lore to know that seeing a half-orc mayor would be *about* as shocking.
forgot to respond to this part due to the parsing
Are they weird and kooky or are they core?
But, I didnb't say "weird", I said "goblin". I think that anyone who has been playing in Golorian with goblins presented as canon describes them would be far more shocked than they would by a tiefling or half-orc, either of which can easily be highly civilized an still fully within canon.