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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.
Except PF1 has a lot to say on playing goblin PCs, and frankly it overlaps a lot with what we have on half-orcs. Goblins may be more evil on average, but we are talking about a matter of degree, not of type.
From the PFSRD on goblin PCs:
"Goblins don’t have to be evil maniacs—just because most of them are doesn’t mean your character is. In fact, playing a non-evil or even a good-aligned goblin can present some enjoyable and interesting roleplaying challenges. If you want to play a goblin because you’re eager to explore these challenges, or because you like playing strange characters against their stereotypes, or because you enjoy playing “monsters with hearts of gold,” then you’re on the right track for most campaigns.
...
Talk with your GM about this before you decide to play a goblin PC. If the GM is okay with goblin player characters, he will be open to methods by which your goblin character can interact with non-goblin societies in non-disruptive ways. He might require you to be accompanied by one or two non-goblin friends who can vouch for you, or he might ask you to make a DC 10 or DC 15 Diplomacy check in order to convince locals to allow you to shop or visit establishments without calling the guard. Certainly you’ll need to be on your best behavior in these situations. In time, if your character spends several weeks or months in a town without causing problems, the locals will grow used to you and may even start treating you like a friend or neighbor."
Goblins can go against stereotypes too, and can win people over. I don't think the race being "core" has to change anything. They could just as easily put this blurb in the book, and it would still be relevant. Or it could be that goblins have become more enlightened over the last generation, and rumors of good goblins has softened public perception to them.
Being a core race doesn't mean that people will trust a goblin the same way they trust a human. But the core races were never meant to be treated as equals across all communities. Xenophobia is pretty baked in. Elves are racist af. Dwarves have hatred of races as a mechanical class feature. In PF1, half-orcs were at the bottom of the core social ladder. And in PF2, it sounds like goblins will be at the bottom instead. Somebody has to be, unless they do a major overhaul of other core races.
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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.
You made me curious.
A quick Alt-F on the NPC Codex came up with 37 half-orc NPCs. There are 111 Human NPCs. My counts were quick and may be off, so call it 3 to 1.Interesting, there was a half orc carpenter and village elder.
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Is it that much harder to explain than why a party trusts the guy they rely on for his skills in thievery to not steal their stuff? Or why a paladin in particular will do so? Or a dwarf ranger with Favored Enemy: Orc will share a party with a half-orc? (Neither FE or Hatred distinguish between half and full blooded.)
We have this kind of conflict baked in when you make a core class that is all about smiting evil and undead and another core class that can specialize in necromancy. And yeah, sometimes that tension leads to problems, but we have largely been dealing with it already for a long time.
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Except PF1 has a lot to say on playing goblin PCs...
You are back off the point.
I've said a lot of things and I don't presume you have read everything I said.I had a long term campaign with a hobgoblin PC. And hobgoblins were very much villains in the setting.
I've also pointed out the presence of goblins in the Advanced Race Guide multiple times and the total lack of any outcry over that.
If they release a core PF2 without goblin PCs and also release the Pathfinder Guide to Goblin PCs the very same day, that wouldn't be remotely the same issue.
I LOVE the idea of 1 in a million exceptions as PCs and would readily encourage this. My players can be a goblin, or a troll, or all kinds of things. (A centaur and the previously mentioned hobgoblin are the only things that actually happened, off the top of my head. And balance would be relevant). Having an evil outsider who is truly having a moral crisis could be cool in the right game. The context of a supplement is great.
Being core makes a huge statement. And that statement conflicts with a lot of canon.
Also, being core is clearly putting off a lot of people and I don't want PF2 driving fanbase away.
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I'm just really loving the idea of a cavalier having to deal with the legal consequences of murdering every goblin in Absalom, only to find out the group of goblins he just slaughtered were the Count's personal servants.
"But, but, but... They're goblins! They're inherently evil! These subhumans have no right mixing with the better races and deserve to be slaughtered on sight!"
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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.You made me curious.
A quick Alt-F on the NPC Codex came up with 37 half-orc NPCs. There are 111 Human NPCs. My counts were quick and may be off, so call it 3 to 1.
Interesting, there was a half orc carpenter and village elder.
Eh, fair enough. I was looking at population numbers, not NPC codex. I'm not sure one metric is more relevant than the other. I will say that casually leafing through those NPCs makes the half-orcs seem rather disproportionately evil.
Basically, I think there are two ways to question on this issue. Are all Goblins evil? And how much will RELEVANT NPCs hate goblins?
The answer to the first question is easy. "No, not all goblins are evil." Even if the vast majority of them are, it has been established for a long time goblins CAN be good aligned.
The second is harder. We don't have all the answers yet for what may change in canon. But at the heart of the matter, how NPCs react to goblins is up to a GM and/or the authors of the material on hand. Biases against lots of things already exist in Golarion. I bring up half-orcs because many people hate them too. They are less hated than goblins, and there may be a lot less to justify resentment towards half-orcs, but being discriminated against is the defining aspect of the half-orc, and players knows this.
So when a player rolls up a half-orc PC, the GM needs to consider how much she wants to play up the discrimination in game. She might opt to simply never touch on the issue. She might opt to have most named NPCs be open-minded, reserving racist comments to NPCs the players are already supposed to hate. (I often wind up doing this, whether I intend to or not.) Or she might decide that the half-orc is barred from businesses, or upcharged, or blamed for crimes they didn't commit, or even have a lynch mob come after them. There is a pretty wide spectrum of solutions, and in my experience APs only really give you guidance if the race or attitudes towards it play heavily in the story. So the AP about hobgoblins enslaving a nation advises that a hobgoblin PC will present challenges that may not be worth dealing with, but it leaves the final decision up to the GM.
This question of how much a game tackles discrimination head-on is pretty much always a GM decision. The GM could decide this particular community is exceptionally open-minded and never bring it up, or they could make it a central conflict of the narrative. And the GM has to make this call for almost any race. Half-Orcs. Drow. Goblins. Shoanti. Chelaxians. Dwarves. Elves. How hard it is to avoid the discrimination will vary from race to race and from place to place, but that doesn't change the basic premise of the question. It just makes it a little harder to answer. It's a matter of degree, not of kind.
I think there are strong reasons not to dwell on in-game discrimination towards half-orcs even if it is unrealistic to ignore it. It can distract from the main narrative. It can make it harder for PCs to develop relationships. And it can hit too close to home, as many of us deal with it in the real world. I think those same reasons apply to goblins, even if it seems harder to ignore the elephant in the room for goblins than it does for half-orcs. And I think this is true regardless of whether goblins are core.
Your mileage may vary. It is OK to have different opinions.
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I'm just really loving the idea of a cavalier having to deal with the legal consequences of murdering every goblin in Absalom, only to find out the group of goblins he just slaughtered were the Count's personal servants.
"But, but, but... They're goblins! They're inherently evil! These subhumans have no right mixing with the better races and deserve to be slaughtered on sight!"
I mean he's talking to the guy who enslaved them so that guy probably doesn't have that much better than opinion of them to be perfectly honest.
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Now that we get to PVP For Fun And Profit as an excuse to kick goblins back out of the Core...
Heh. No.
"But my character would never tolerate a goblin!"
"How did you meet this goblin? What was it doing?"
"It's gonna eat my dog!"
"Has it actually done anything but glare at your dog the way you're glaring at it?"
"THEY EAT BABIES!"
"Uh huh. Riiiiiiiiight."
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That is quite silly to me.
Ingame is ingame, out of the game is out of the game.
My PC wont react diferently to a PC than he would to literally any NPC, just because he is a PC. That simple.
Note, i know people who think diferently and have their PCs for some weird reasons be bound to the other PCs over any logic and reason, but that wont ever be me.
If it makes sense for my PC to PvP? He will PvP. That simple. If it is against the tables rules i will question it and might just leave the game myself, i wont just look the other way cause im dealing with another player.
Honestly, this isnt even a problem often since talking before making the PCs solves most of these issues. The evil guy wont try to join the paladin party and so on.