Goblins as a race

[BellyBeard]

I feel like the thread, somewhat inevitably, is getting out of hand. The original question is, "What happened to the evil goblins?" And I think the answer is, "Paizo wants to develop nuance in Golarion's depiction of fantasy races, rather than promoting murder hobo-ism as the default." IMO it's totally fine to play murder hobos still, if you're not looking to have a deep conversation with your experience and instead just want to role play a badass fantasy warrior, but realize that Paizo is making an intentional move away from that type of role playing and adjust the assumptions of your game/world accordingly. Probably remove goblins as a core race as well, or otherwise just treat goblins the same as any other race, in that this group of goblins you're fighting explicitly did something evil.

[cavernshark]

If you like goblins as a core race, great.

If you don't like goblins as a core race, do what Paizo should have done and make it an uncommon race in your campaign.

Whether you like goblins or not as a PC race, we can all probably agree that Paizo has not yet provided enough information to fully justify this sea-change between the editions. With a handful of exceptions, we mostly only have examples of goblin culture that make them look "monstrous" and generally wouldn't explain why major towns and cities in most adventure paths wouldn't try to drive out a goblin PC. People would probably assume they're evil not because of misguided stereotypes or racism but because goblin society is generally chaotic and evil by most objective definitions based on almost all the information we've been provided over the last decade.

So instead of calling each other racists, maybe we could turn our attention to Paizo and ask for some more supporting material to help players and GMs rationalize this change and integrate goblins better into the setting if that's the goal.

Otherwise we're going to keep having this debate as long as this is what we're working with.

[EDIT]
As an example (intentionally avoiding spoilers), there's a goblin NPC in Fall of Plaguestone. This module is set in Isger, one of the places in Golarion that has probably most acutely suffered from goblins in the recent past. This is a missed opportunity to explain some of the in-world softening to goblins and it's totally glossed over.

[Rysky]

@cavernshark

There actually has been plenty of material put out, and more is constantly being put out as well. There’s a friendly tribe of goblins in Hellknight Hill, the first 2e AP.

They don’t need to explain why goblins aren’t driven out of major cities because that’s never been a thing.

[Tarik Blackhands]

The biggest thing that's rubbing me the wrong way in this thread is the blanket judgement call that anyone who enjoys playing a setting where there's acceptable KOS races/creatures they're some hand kneading racist just looking to burn some imaginative crosses.

Like it feels in extreme poor taste to say someone playing War of the Ring and ambushing a bunch of Orcs who were off marching somewhere is a problem or Tolkein's a problem for making the Lord of the Rings a setting that allows it. You can insert other such settings besides LotR if you want (Warhammer comes readily to mind which has four(!) common KOS races without dipping into the undead/daemonic side of things), same general principle.

Can a bunch of racists co-opt that and cackle as he slakes his thirst to slaughter british soccer hooligans and be thanked for it? Sure, I guess, but for most of us we're just fighting a bunch of green mushroom people because it's fun.

[mrspaghetti]

Has anyone objected to the title of this thread as racist yet? Or maybe even started a new thread on avoiding racism?

If so, I'm sure it was a completely genuine attempt to elevate the level of discussion on the forum, and not just trolling as some would cynically believe.

EDIT: OMG, I hadn't actually read the whole thread before my post. I can't believe it has actually devolved into a racism rant. Too funny.

[cavernshark]

Rysky wrote:

@cavernshark

There actually has been plenty of material put out, and more is constantly being put out as well. There’s a friendly tribe of goblins in Hellknight Hill, the first 2e AP.

They don’t need to explain why goblins aren’t driven out of major cities because that’s never been a thing.

That's good to hear. I haven't had any exposure to the AP yet but that's precisely the kind of thing that's needed.

The only other place I'm aware of where goblins as a group aren't portrayed as murderous scavengers with weird idiosyncratic tribal tendencies is the PFS Breath of the Dragonskull scenario and even that deals with extreme tensions and prejudices between goblins and other groups.

[BellyBeard]

I would also enjoy if we didn't call each other racists. We can have a discussion about the in-game moral implications of shifts to the Golarion setting without doing that. I believe in us.

[Ruzza]

BellyBeard wrote:

I would also enjoy if we didn't call each other racists. We can have a discussion about the in-game moral implications of shifts to the Golarion setting without doing that. I believe in us.

100% agreed. I have been hearing the "goblin debate" go on since the Playtest, but this has gotten out of control. I think goblins being core is great and cool, but some people don't. As always, GMs are free to ban them at their table, and I don't see MORE content being a bad thing.

On top of that, I think that Paizo has pretty much continually been treating goblins as more than murder machines. I feel like people have been reading different Golarion lore than I have when they say that all goblins are kill on sight. Especially when you consider the cultural variance across the Inner Sea.

[cavernshark]

@Rysky

Rysky wrote:

They don’t need to explain why goblins aren’t driven out of major cities because that’s never been a thing.

If that were true, we wouldn't be having these threads every other week and it would be a lot easier to find examples of communities of goblins existing inside major Golarion cities alongside other races.

As it stands most examples we have are fringe encounters between non-evil goblin tribes and small communities. Individual goblin examples notwithstanding. And, unfortunately, most of these examples are buried in the scattered narratives of PF1 scenarios that many players may never experience.

It also doesn't help that most of the goblin traits and feats are direct callbacks to the same cultural features and traits that are used by goblin antagonists.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Rysky wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

The biggest thing that's rubbing me the wrong way in this thread is the blanket judgement call that anyone who enjoys playing a setting where there's acceptable KOS races/creatures they're some hand kneading racist just looking to burn some imaginative crosses.

Like it feels in extreme poor taste to say someone playing War of the Ring and ambushing a bunch of Orcs who were off marching somewhere is a problem or Tolkein's a problem for making the Lord of the Rings a setting that allows it. You can insert other such settings besides LotR if you want (Warhammer comes readily to mind which has four(!) common KOS races without dipping into the undead/daemonic side of things), same general principle.

Can a bunch of racists co-opt that and cackle as he slakes his thirst to slaughter british soccer hooligans and be thanked for it? Sure, I guess, but for most of us we're just fighting a bunch of green mushroom people because it's fun.

I don’t care for Warhammer, but then we’re not talking about it or its setting.

We’re talking about Golarion, where goblins and orcs are not innately evil. They’re also not sentient fungi.

I don't particularly care if the topic of the day is Golarion when we have such wonderful nuggets of wisdom such as

"I want to be able to kill [race] on sight” is pretty self explanatory."

Setting doesn't matter with that nonsense, that's saying anyone who enjoys KOSing a some fantasy race (say goblins), whether those goblins in question are from Golorion, Tolkein, or Warhammer, and calling that person a racist. That attitude can frankly bog off.

And for the record, WHFB Orcs and Goblins are indeed suspected of originating from spores left by the Old Ones while over in 40k they are explicitly fungal.

[Elven_Wizard]

Samurai wrote:

Handy Haversack of Hillarity wrote:

Yeah You'll have to wait for the Drow elf as core race flame war. I'll be right their with you for that one.

That would just be copying D&D 5E, where Drow proudly reside along with the half-human Rosemary's babies called Tieflings… :)

I thought the whole idea behind the Cavern Elf ancestry was to introduce a Drowish elf anyone can play without the _evil_ tag.

[Rysky]

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

The biggest thing that's rubbing me the wrong way in this thread is the blanket judgement call that anyone who enjoys playing a setting where there's acceptable KOS races/creatures they're some hand kneading racist just looking to burn some imaginative crosses.

Like it feels in extreme poor taste to say someone playing War of the Ring and ambushing a bunch of Orcs who were off marching somewhere is a problem or Tolkein's a problem for making the Lord of the Rings a setting that allows it. You can insert other such settings besides LotR if you want (Warhammer comes readily to mind which has four(!) common KOS races without dipping into the undead/daemonic side of things), same general principle.

Can a bunch of racists co-opt that and cackle as he slakes his thirst to slaughter british soccer hooligans and be thanked for it? Sure, I guess, but for most of us we're just fighting a bunch of green mushroom people because it's fun.

I don’t care for Warhammer, but then we’re not talking about it or its setting.

We’re talking about Golarion, where goblins and orcs are not innately evil. They’re also not sentient fungi.

I don't particularly care if the topic of the day is Golarion when we have such wonderful nuggets of wisdom such as

"I want to be able to kill [race] on sight” is pretty self explanatory."

Setting doesn't matter with that nonsense, that's saying anyone who enjoys KOSing a some fantasy race (say goblins), whether those goblins in question are from Golorion, Tolkein, or Warhammer, and calling that person a racist. That attitude can frankly bog off.

And for the record, WHFB Orcs and Goblins are indeed suspected of originating from spores left by the Old Ones while over in 40k they are explicitly fungal.

Setting does matter, and we had explicitly been talking about Pathfinde where orcs and goblins are people and are not innately evil (unlike say Goblin Slayer, where goblins are very much innately evil. Innately very evil).

The only thing I know about Warhammer Orks aside from the spelling is that they’re fungi and Dakka.

[Rysky]

Elven_Wizard wrote:

Samurai wrote:

Handy Haversack of Hillarity wrote:

Yeah You'll have to wait for the Drow elf as core race flame war. I'll be right their with you for that one.

That would just be copying D&D 5E, where Drow proudly reside along with the half-human Rosemary's babies called Tieflings… :)

I thought the whole idea behind the Cavern Elf ancestry was to introduce a Drowish elf anyone can play without the _evil_ tag.

Cavern Elves are not Drow so no.

[Helmic]

If what you're doing is causing many people to point out that it's extremely useful for IRL racists trying to normalize hateful ideas in the hobby, then complaining about how people are "calling you racist" comes across as an attempt to just dismiss that serious criticism. Yeah, it sucks to be on the receiving end of that, but it's better to reflect on why that's being brought up than to demand others be "civil" (as in not criticize character concepts that have been known to be problems at other tables and normalizes hateful ideas regardless).

I'm sorry, "you're calling me racist" isn't really a sufficient defense here. Everyone here is being as civil as possible given what's being said, and there's not really been a direct accusation of bigotry. This comes up several times in these discussions because disabling these sorts of character concepts was a motivating factor for the change. There's no need for Golarian to be the setting and PF2 the system where actual racists flock to because it's one of the few that give a reason to justify genocide, and changes that make that less the case are going to be welcome.

There's only so much civility that can be extended here. No one's calling you, personally, a racist, but the idea you're defending has deep racist connotations and that's just unavoidable. And I'm not really interested in watering down my criticism of that idea if that means it will continue in the hobby unchallenged.

As for settings, while it's less on the player for playing a character that assumes all [race] is evil in a setting where that's actually the case, the criticism of the racist overtones doesn't just go away. It then falls on the setting itself, which is why a series like Goblin Slayer gets so much criticism. It invariably falls back on colonialist attitudes used historically to justify genocide, a lot of what the goblins do in that setting have eerie parallels to old racist propaganda. It does not mean that those who consume that media are themselves racist, but the media does make it possible to plant racist ideas in heads that aren't cognizant of its very serious flaws and it invites racists to prop it up as a positive example of their worldview.

I don't blame Paizo at all for getting the f!~@ away from that nonsense. That's not what the system, setting, or company is about, and anything in the system like that is either inherited or unintentional and something Paizo is more than willing to make changes to address.

[Natan Linggod 327]

I'm getting confused at what's being talked about now.

I don't see anyone defending racism? In or out of the game?