Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Killing Goblin Kids ok but not Tieflings

So Larian decided it is ok to perpetuate negative sterotypes with their depiction of Goblins. But what is even more insidious is they allow you to kill children in BG3 but only the nasty green skinned ones.

Try killing a Tiefling child and you arent able to.

so what is the message here Larian?

Games are generally not meant to reflect real life, so maybe try not to put so much emphasis on being offended. The genre is called 'Fantasy' for a reason.

it's not that deep, dude...

Offended!

Can we just not.

I feel like a lot of people are either trolling or looking for reasons to be offended. People trying to compare IRL racism with some fantasy creatures like Orcs, Goblins, etc., when there are literally minority humans in game, or trying to find some hidden message to be offended at instead of looking to real world issues.

In all honesty it should be across the board though. Larian should either 1.) Not have any children being killed because of backlash they'll get from the parents or 2.) Everyone can be killed.

Rofl. It has nothing to do with the fact that goblins, by nature, are evil and cruel. Nope.

Stop getting so angry at a video game, lordy.

whaaat? who does not want to kill goblins?

Same rules for all. If it lives and our characters are strong enough to defeat it they should have the option to attemt to do so. 'Real' world politics should not need to be reflected in games. It reminds me of some professors talking about the actuality and current relevance of literary classics as if relating to current events were the best way to make a classic.

True! But in some parts of the world (I think Europe?), the rating changes MASSIVELY if children can be killed/are seen dying.
I think goblins are okay because they are 'monsters'. Even in D&D, goblins are evil and cruel. Whereas Tieflings are people, playable in the PHB.

But getting upset over it? Well, some people just aren't happy unless they're tilting at the next windmill.

Yes, there are strange rules here on the good old continent when it comes to such things. Here in germany we only recently allowed swastikas in games, as if they would magically make those seeing them plot genocide.
If a game does not allow such things, someone will make a mod. Banning it in the first place is pointless. But it sure does allow some people to play flame wars on forums. Fortunately it seems to happen rarely here.

I think we should be able to kill them especially if your a paladin they are demonically tained after all and goblins are just as sentient as tieflings

Except, by the D&D rules/settings, goblins are evil and Teiflings can be any alignment.

I would think a Paladin mass slaughtering Teiflings would lose his powers and alignment, as it would be an evil act. Since the Teifling race is not evil.

This isnt the case.

WOTC have stated that no races in D&D are inherently evil anymore.

What are you talking about? You can kill anyone you want in the game. So it's up to you whether you spare the goblin kids and kill the tieflings, or you kill both, or you kill none. Nobody is holding up your hand.

If you can also kill the tiefling kids then theres no issue here, I read you could if you chose to side with the drow / goblins.

So you can kill the goblin kids, the tiefling kids, or none of them correct?

I don't know, but you tell me, please. I am literally curious to see who are the goblins and who are the tieflings counterparts in your head.

The OP is just having a laugh obviously.

I found it hilarious. personally.

#NSPCGC

I thought that goblins are people now. Moreover, each goblin is an adventurer with class and skills.
With that said, i think player should be able to attack (and kill, eventually) any creature in the game.

It's still up to the DM, nothing WotC can do or say changes that.

Also, we need to distinguish between goblins as a race and goblin society/culture. While individual goblins may not be evil, their society/culture as a whole is definitely evil. It's a society built on the strong bullying the weak, cruelty, torture and destruction.

This is not entirely correct. They are allowed now, if the art of the game demands it (just like it was before with paintings, caricatures, movies), and/or if they fulfill the purpose of education. They just sort of opened the law up towards video games, so they are more considered art. The symbols are still banned and unconstitutional and a game like Battlefield would not necessarily be allowed to have them. In case of Wolfenstein it could have gone either way, really. I am not a fan of the new ruling, as categorizing games as art I find often stretched, and there is room for abuse and/or worthless additions to games.

On the topic at hand, if you can indeed kill gobbo childs, this is one of those worthless additions, and from a moral POV, regardless of what the rules or the lore says, this would be the decision of a madman and universally "evil". Plus of course picturing a race as inherently evil is obviously incorrect, as it is all subjective if you think of gobbo as a sentient race with culture, and is also sort of contrary to lore, as in SoD you can recruit a gobbo shaman, who has a somewhat gentle heart even.

You can let the tiefling kids die. It's like you're completely blind to the scenario and circumstances at hand. The tiefling kids do something stupid, like get drawn in by harpies or steal from the druids and it can cost them their lives if you don't save them. The goblin kids are hitting a bear with stones and you can choose to kill the bear or the goblin kids. Honestly I find the goblins much more shitty than the tieflings.

It depends on how you play, so what in the world are you getting so unnecessarily triggered over?

Goblins aren't real though

Didn't realise you had relaxed the rules on the swastika. As a keen modeller, do you realise how many kit decal sets I had to modify because they didn't include swastikas for the tail? Of course, I blame you, personally, for my life-changing issues.

I'm also highly offended that the game encourages you to ruin the plan of the mind-flayers. That's denying them their culture and imposing non-mind-flayer values on them. I am appalled.

I also see that Larian have included devils. What message is that to send? We are going to have a generation of devil-worshippers if this is allowed to continue!

Trigger warning. Goblins are oppressed by stereotype/lore. Don't play this game if you're an ideological zealot.

Why do people make fun of the OP only asking for continuity, the game is marketed under "inclusiveness" and other modern politics bullshit.

His request is sensible.

At this point, so many silly complaints have been lodged over absolutely nothing that I can't tell if this is a legitimate concern or satire.

Well the complaint is either that you can kill kids in this game, or that you can not kill all kids in this game. Honestly this should be out of the question totally, but the OP is correct that it is at least a double standard, especially when your game is otherwise trying to be very inclusive.

It is also not consistent with the current lore, as in SoD you at least can have a goblin follower, who is true neutral and a rather gentle soul, too. It is said that she is this way, because of her maturity, so she might be an outlier, however does mean that Goblins are not absolute evil. This does not matter either, as the morals of the story are a reflection of today's morals. And in today's morals killing of infants or kids is universally condemned, especially deliberate. Going against that code of conduct is so rare, that the need of representation through implementation of it is inherently worthless.

This is some kind of "Green lifes matter" message?

At this point, I have no idea.

Troll, SJW, highly-sensitive, champion of the small goblinoid people, legitimate concern... it could be anything. I long ago gave up thinking that people made sense in the modern world.

Because it couldn't be something as simple as a minor oversight on flagging NPCs or have something to do with alignment, right? This is clearly some agenda that we need to quell before it gets out of hand.

Isn't it more the question about consistency?
If goblins can be killed so should humans and elves which IMHO is much better (so basically what FO2 did, rather than F3).
Although, if no other way (which probably is the case in order to please SJ warriors), none should be allowed to be killed as a compromise. I guess what I'm trying to say there should be all of them or none of them allowed, for the sake of consistency.

Well you can ally with the goblins and wipe out the druid grove entirely, which is what I'm doing on my evil drow playthrough, so what the heck are you people going on about? xD

For the sake of consistency, just remove killing altogether. Adults are just as cute, why we killing the adults?

Kill them softly with our song.

Bring up the Bard.

Sure, could be, but even then the OP is correct in calling this out as a bug. Still I suppose you are talking about Tiefling kids not being attackable and not Goblin kids being attackable. The problem with having that option is that, while the game wanting to represent contemporary moral standards and also include being able to open a wide variety of choices, they do not offer the corresponding consequences. Does the killing of the Gobbo kids remove the option to side with the goblin camp? It should. It should also have several other consequences like companions leaving, quest givers not giving quests anymore, certain factions or NPCs being hostile on sight, restricting certain traders, increase trading prices and so forth. So it would reflect the consequences of the real world, they are trying to represent in a fantasy setting.

Contemporary moral standards don't apply in a fantasy setting.
To most people in Faerûn goblins are nothing more than dangerous pests, so most people would be ok with anyone doing pest control. Traders/merchants and travelers would more than likely be grateful that you've made the roads a little safer to travel.
And let's be honest ... if you're slaughtering them, you're unlikely to want to forge an alliance with them anyway.

I'm playing a dwarf. Goblins are my traditional enemy and I'm sworn to wipe them out where I find them. One of the characters is a dwarf ranger and is not going to be best pleased at goblin kids teasing the wildlife (my future dwarf druid will be even more angry).

Goblin children will grow to be goblins. Kill them all. Genocide is not only right, but it is my duty!

That's playing in the Forgotten Realms for you.

It's being reported in the General forum and not the Bug forum, and the inclusion of the silly bait that is "So what is the message here, Larian?" makes it very clear that OP isn't a concerned member of the EA process in this case.
It's just another fake virtue-signaling baitpost meant to challenge the integrity of a developer that we can safely disregard and throw into the tire fire of similar posts like "This is not Baldur's Gate 3, it's Divinity: Original Sin 3" and "I'm an SJW and I'm offended by comments on the Steam forums so please moderate them better."

My take on it is that there wasn't any particular decision-making behind it other than "what might be required for particular quest outcomes?" Things like this may be standardised at a later stage of development.

I really would like that to be the case.
At this point my guess is that the OP wanted to star a little flamewar. It produced some interesting bits of satire so far.

Hopefully WotC won't try to enforce their new marketing "inclusivity" on Larian. Especially their newest change that "everyone is unique and special" so that you can freely switch around your racial ability modifiers (+2 strength halflings, etc.) because biology having an influence on your physical or mental attributes is racist.

So my very minor issue is this: Why are we bringing "real world" into a fantasy game discussion? If I wanted to deal with the real world 24/7, I wouldn't be playing fantasy games. I'm sure not looking around as hard as I can to find things to be offended by either. I mean, if one looks hard enough, they can always find something to be offended about.

So I guess my question to the OP is this: Can you side with the goblins, and wipe out the Druid Grove? If the answer is yes, then they've picked the wrong topic to be offended by, because there are children in the Grove. I know that I have failed a dialog check that resulted in the death of a tiefling child, so it would seem that this imagined immunity from death is just that, imagined. That's not including references made in this thread that I haven't personally seen, just the one I have, and already I'm left thinking "Are we playing the same game".

I just got to this part in the Goblin camp area - the Worg Pens, specifically.



I'm not a huge fan of "If you're not evil, you must attack these children right away." Even leaving aside morality, that's not very intuitive, nor does it allow for any sort of flexible approach or strategy. I do not like it.

The way the deaths of children are handled seems to be exaggerated and over the top, like it's trying to be edgy to make a point about how edgy it is to have the deaths of children in the game.




That's dialogue. I think he means you can't force-attack the Tiefling children in the camp. I haven't tried that so don't know if it's accurate, though.

The DC for the Tiefling child death is 18 for Persuasion and 20 for Nature, which are extremely high for level 2-3 characters, and the game offers no way to mitigate that or have a partial success. It's pass a DC 18 or watch a child die in agony, sucker.

As I recall, you have the option of agreeing that death is a good punishment because she's a thief. I might be misremembering, but I know that some of the dialogue is fairly hard on the tiefling's chances.

Because Wizards of the Coast, the owners of D&D have lately quite often brought real world into their fantasy game for marketing purposes, first be their "No race is evil" statement, the changes they do to Orcs and Drow because them being evil is racist and now their "everyone is special" rules changes that basically remove ability scores from races as everyone is free to trade them around, again because apparently the biology determining your strength is racist according to them.

I failed it on my Rogue, but passed it on my Ranger. I don't recall what the roll was supposed to be. It's not like I'm actively trying to run around and force attack children, Goblin or otherwise either.

Or, alternatively, enough players are going, "I have in mind a character concept for a race and class, but I don't get any racial bonuses to get to a 16 in that class's favored ability from point buy, and still like to make the character without the rest of the people at my table yelling at me for playing 'suboptimally'."

I got enough flak for saying "I'd like to make a Halfling Wizard" just in a D&D thread on a discussion forum, before even getting to a table.

I was roundly berated over on RPGNet for daring to suggest that players could design characters that were sub-optimal but fun to play.

"You shouldn't play a healer because the DPS versus the healing times the average hits... blah blah blah. You're letting everyone else at the table down."

Some folk take their hobby far more seriously than I do.

I agree. In this forum and others, I have noticed people taking video games way too seriously even DnD. When it comes to Baldur's Gate, I see a lot of people bringing up DnD rules and such but based on my research through WOTC, they claim it's not set in stone. These rules are in place to help you play the game and not mean to take over in your game play. Especially when it comes to characters and their personalities and such, WOTC has their own canon but that doesn't mean you can't create your own. The one thing that is stressed by WOTC is that the most important part of DnD is storytelling. When there are players that want to push forward the rules, that takes the fun of playing DnD away.

All should be fair game.

I just let them run away (even turned off my Attack of Opportunity for that fight.)

The point is that if you can kill Goblin children, you should be able to kill any other children in the game.

It's an argument of consistency.

Both WOTC and Larian are strongly advertising both tabletop 5e and BG3 to all the current SJW diversity stuff for marketing and social media credit, so they should apply those views consistently in this game.

The arguments are not being made because people are being SJWs, they are pointing out the flaws that WOTC and Larian have already made such statements but may not be applying them in this game.

I haven't actually checked if you can kill any of the non goblin children in the game as it isn't something I would normally do in my playthroughs, I've heard from some people you can and this thread that you can't.

However my brain had the exact same curiousity as the OP when I got to Halsim's cell and found out you could kill the Goblin children.

What goblin children?

Actually, they shouldn't apply them at all. Keep the real world political stuff in the real world, and leave my fantasy games alone.

Argh...I see people advocating for similar blanding of races and abilities in ESO (my other "play a lot" game).

I LIKE the fact that certain races/gender/culture/background can be a starting point and a limitation. I'm had pressed to understand how that can be racist; but then there are silly and uneducated people everywhere.



I offer you sympathy and respect for working with such choices - I really like the unusual choices that make playing a particular character fun...or challenging...or both.

If I want to be a follower of the absolute and slaughter children that's my call. I'm disappointed that the only children I can kill are the goblin children. Sometimes I want to save everyone, sometimes I want to play through a second time and be the most horrible individual possible. Maybe I want to know what dwarf tastes like, and maybe dwarven children are like veal.

Ok I just went ahead and tried it to confirm, you can't kill the tiefling children, they just go down to and stay invincible on 0 HP.

I agree with the OP that there shouldn't be any difference between being able to kill Goblin children and those of any other race.

Either they should all be killable, or none of them should be.

+1

But I'd rather it's all

If a person really wants to kill children in game.....

I hope they find a good therapist.

Its a game ...

Whats the difference between killing one NPC and another?

And you can already kill two children in the game anyway.

Could say the same of anyone playing a murderhobo or a evil character in general. I mean, if you re going to judge that, might as well judge any bad deeds in video games.

I took a look at the scene with the goblin children teasing the bear, which is a very IMPORTANT bear, I don't want to spoil it for anyone that may not know. All I will say is DON'T kill the bear. It seems in the cinematic scene we are shown children goblins BUT I don't think that's who you end up fighting. I noticed one of the goblin kids running to get help. So, who you end up killing is maybe one goblin child because the rest are actually adults but since the goblins are the same height, it's hard to tell. I took a look at the faces on the top left of the screen and noticed that they don't seem like faces of younglings but they look more adult.

You can kill the children or leave them to run away and warn the rest of the camp. While killing them is optional, it is still possible unlike the invincible tiefling children.

True, much of all the versions of D&D seem to generate murder hoboes in general.
In this case I'm a splitter, not a lumper and someone complaining that they can't kill children .. that has a definitely different feel to "I kill monsters and take their loot" to me.

YMMV

But we can kill children in this game. The Goblin ones at least. If they hadn't put that in, then no one would be wanting to kill the Tiefling kids as well.

Oh, they do. That is why there were no same-sex romances in BG1+2 (romance was even race-restricted in some cases), but they were in SoD and the Enhanced Editions. They've also been in any RPG of the last decade. And since the last three years we have seen more and more representation, with rather "polarizing" outcomes. Like Corwyn in SoD, who in a half-sentence, told you her lifestory and the internet went ablaze. I believe you can romance anyone regardless of race/class/gender in Baldur's Gate III, just like you can about anywhere in the Western World. Thing is, we do want the contemporary morals implemented, and some things haven't changed in thousands of years, regardless if it is a fantasy setting or set in the "real world". The killing of infants, like murder in general or stealing is one of them. That also extends to animals or, vermin. Goblins are on a higher tier, because they are an intelligent people with culture and language and, most importantly, they are humanoid. So you would have a hard time drowning a baby cat already, but a much harder time killing an infant that can talk back and resembles something you are very familiar with.
The reason we see it a lot in games and the demand for it, is because of reloading and no consequences whatsoever attached to it. That is why it is a double-standard to have certain actions, yet not the repercussions. That is why having amoral decisions in general in games is tendencially futile and solely there for the "hurhur, I just wiped out a village"-effect. So like GTA, where to whole world is curiously devoid of children.

There's a difference between children who are enemy combatants, and children who are not.

If you join the Goblins and choose to wipe out the Druid Grove, then the tiefling children become enemy combatants, but are still invincible.

Also the Goblin kids literally don't attack you, THEY TRY TO RUN AWAY!

But you can kill them from behind while they are trying to escape.

Ah, well in that case, you should definitely be able to kill the tiefling kids. I haven't seen a game that let you kill kids since Fallout 2, though.

Wasn't there someone claiming that they had to slaughter all the hiding tiefling kids in order to push forward the plot...?

Either way, I don't get why you are so wound up about this. The 'preset' option seems to be going the good aligned playthrough, that's usually what most people do. Goblins have been very humanized in this game, and I have to admit, as much as I disliked them being made so smart and civilized, I found some of them very cute, I grew fond of Zassa or Sazza and I couldn't be mean to her in my evil playthrough, I had to spare her. Still, I'm sorry, but they're effing gobbos and 99% of them are evil (I haven't found a single good gobbo in the game, so I leave that 1% open.)

The children that you can kill, but you don't have to kill (I didn't even manage to catch them in my playthrough, they darted off so fast!) are clearly growing up to be just as evil and already behaving like psychopaths, they are shown torturing other creatures and enjoying it thoroughly. There is clearly a difference between them, and the tieflings, as much as you wouldn't like to admit it, the goblins are still a monstruous race, and their culture revolves around cruelty and back stabbing.

My criticism is to have the option at all, since it is one of the few things in the world across time people can agree on as being amoral. In any world it would have social, professional and therefore personal consequences, which are not represented in this game, hence having these interactions themselves is worthless other than filling the desire to act as an inhuman being. Even people inclined to that sort of behaviour know it is wrong and refrain from doing it, because of the attached consequences, hence it is a statistical outlier and always has been. Even if you go by the definition of them being just vermin or animals, taking a puppy behind the barn is not something anyone would do for fun and is quite stressing for the individual.
If one agrees that goblins are humanoids with a culture, that might be alien to us, we are now in a society (and this western society is represented in this game) that respects that and does not directly make the assumption that different cultures are inherently evil. Besides, cruelty to animals is a totally human behaviour, especially as a child, I bet everyone of us has a story of witnessing or acting on causing an animal mental or physical stress and pain deliberately inflicted for a varied amount of reasons.

In the end it barely matters for most the players, but if your game wants to represent the society of liberal standards of today, this is something to keep in mind for the devs.

Monsterous races are fine to me and most players, but WOTC have stated that none of their races are meant to be inherently evil anymore. If they want to push such agendas, then they should enforce them as well and at the least remove the ability to be able to kill the two Goblin children. And likewise I actually began to somewhat like the goblins in this game, particularly the one cheering for Volo, and even most of the evil ones actually end up seeming somewhat funny, but then the game lets you kill their children.

Its ok to let the stealing Tiefling kid die to a snake, then what about if Lae'zel wants to smash the skull of the one that tricks her with fake magical rings? Or if Astarion wants to mercy kill them rather than leaving them to die on the road after being kicked out of the grove? Or if you happen to role playing a character that simply wants to kill anythkng that looks like a demon?

And on that note how are tieflings not a monsterous race as well when they straight up look like demons with actual horns? Who decides what the moral and ethical scope is meant to be in a D&D setting?

'Tieflings are invaders from hell that need to be destroyed like the devilkin they are and sent back to hell' - what is wrong with roleplaying such a perspective? Do the Githyanki spare children when deciding to slit people navel to throat as Lae'zel so exquisitely details?

You still don't differentiate between "race" and "society/culture"... goblin society is undeniably evil (they delight in torture and cruelty, bullying those weaker than themselves, etc). A goblin that is brought up in a different culture wouldn't necessarily have those tendencies, therefore the "race" goblin isn't inherently evil. That's basically what WotC meant.



The DM does. If players have an issue with a DM's decision, they are free to find another group to play with.



There's nothing wrong with roleplaying a character with that perspective, you just need the right group to play a character like that.

Well, maybe he is a teacher and he has very evil kid in his class? Video game can be good as a Catharsis . Though that would reinforce your point of needing a therapist.


That's a good point that remind me of "Zadig''book of Voltaire, where an angel kill a small kid and tells Zadig that the kid would have become a serial killer and would have murdered a lot of people. Very pragmatic.

I think your argument bites itself. "most importantly, they are humanoid." You seem to agree that people of any race are worth the same. While you are willing to expand the set of entities to whom your system of morals applies beyond tribe and race to all humanoids you draw the border at "most importantly humanoid". So it does not apply to sentient beings that are not humanoid. Is "can a human create viable offspring with it" a good basis for a system of morals?
If current western morals are to be normative then why is "racism" evil but "speciesism" is not?

"Thing is, we do want the contemporary morals implemented"
I do not want that at all. It's all arbitrary and rooted in cultures that simply do not exist in the forgotten realms.

I see your point, but this is not what my personal view is. Since I am convinced in the real world that every man is created equal I put that belief into the game and extend it to every being that has a comparable social structure, regardless of the humanoid thing (which in itself is quite a variety, like anything walking upright and having two legs can be considered humanoid so bird people, lizard people, inanimate machines and undead). Many players do the same, but draw the line at the humanoid thing. The Rachni from Mass Effect are a good example. For me there was no other way than helping an insectoid race become a thing again. Many other players ( I think there were stats on that) drew the line there. So I deduced that this would be the same here, gobbos are humanoid so most players are inclined to extend the morals to them as well.
It gets really interesting when developers put sentient creatures into their game that are either benign or have a point, but are appaling to look at and/or generally considered hostile. That is where peoples' morals really grind their gears. It does not mean that deciding against, say, a nice phase spider is wrong or right, but is contemporary moral either way.

And I still think that all games are basically rooted into the western moral code. If they are not, or if parts of it are not (Caesar's Legion comes to mind in Fallout: NV) there are serious repercussions attached. And even they abide to certain principles not unknown to us, although they are the clearly evil path. Stealing for example is not a thing, and neither is the killing of infants (which also wasn't in the game). If we take the BG as an example over the last 20 years it is rather clear it was modeled after the real world. Keep in mind morals does not necessarily mean equal to culture, but any gender can do anything and anyone can also date anyone, there are gobbo followers, drow can seemingly walk freely on the surface (and get a charisma bonus). Quite a few things even changed over the last two decades. There are still some antiquated social structures, but way more ways to get out of them and many stories/quests evolve around breaking those up, like dethroning that lord that treats his people bad and such.
Now a game that is not at all rooted in these traditionally narrow set of morals, would need to be totally reinvented and probably disconnected from the human race, too. And of course when you break out of it, you will need to add all the added repercussions. Like I said before, if you are known to be the happy baby cat killer, you are not going to be invited to tea very often. If you hunt gobbo kids for sport, then companions should leave, spread the word and cut you out of a lot of content. Some might even secretly like it, but that does not mean these people would like to openly be seen with the "monster of the goblin village". If nothing like this is the case then the addition is moot and without benefit.

I did not expect anything from the title, but it actually made me think about that sort of stuff. Hence I keep on discussing.

We should be able to kill anyone and everyone.

You could kill kids in the original series, and the game made sure you were heavily penalized for it. You took on a much higher rep hit than for killing most other innocent NPCs.

I detect evil in this thread and I will smite it.

Genociding Goblins is lawful good!
Also being able to kill kids means the game has to be censored in countries like Germany and Larian definetly doesn't want that.

Theres a lot of games already that aren't banned in Germany that let you kill children:

https://www.giantbomb.com/killing-children/3015-4067/games/

Not necessarily everyone on that list, but whichever ones are not banned.

That's because Tieflings are of Human origin when Goblins are not. They are considered monsters and usually evil. I wouldn't call Tiefling children invincible, look at the cinematic scene with the Tiefling child Arabella, if you fail to save her, she gets killed by Kagha's snake.

I never tried to kill any kids, goblin or otherwise, and I played both sides of that coin. The tiefling kids we all dead at goblin hands when I found them. The goblin kids were never around once you start to wipe their camp and that goes for their bodies as well. But the druid cove was littered with their bodies and there were far more tiefling children than goblin. I felt bad for the mute tiefling kid though.

But I don't want either race's kids or any kids to be removed from the game. Baldur's Gate better have kids and I loved the lil scam the tiefling kids had going on.

I already covered that. If she can get killed by the snake then theres no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to with a weapon or spell. They are invincible when they cannot die and stay alive on 0 HP. Tieflings also look like devils, pretty much the definition of 'monsterous' if you care to look it up. The goblins actually look less like monsters than tieflings do anyway.

Nope! Teifling are not monstrous or evil in 5E! Just an uncommon race alike Gnomes or Dragonborn.

They are monsterous based on the dictionary definition of monsterous:

having the qualities or appearance of a monster
came face to face with a monstrous creature

Doesn't matter what 5e or WOTC want to define it as, if players want to kill tieflings then let them kill tieflings.

They straight up come from the hells.

If you don't care about 5e lore then this discussion is a waste of time Tieflings are just differnt looking humans while Goblins are monsters
/thread closed

Erm tieflings are not Humans, they are tieflings. Goblins are classified as as humanoid as well.

And you should be able to kill human children in the game if any are put in as well.

Also goblins are not even classified as monsterous https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Goblin

According to WOTC, the DM (Larian) is the one telling the story. That's the point of DnD not the rules or what WOTC considers canon. DnD is about storytelling, not about what the rules day, that's not fun. They are in place for guidance and that's it. To Larian, they are making Goblins evil, regardless whether they are adult or child, they are evil. Tieflings because they were once Human from pacts with demons, Larian is not making them killable. Perhaps because they were once Human. At the end of the day this is Larian's DnD story, they are the DM. I feel like some people are too invested in DnD and may in fact ruin the fun for others. This is supposed to be fun and not for us to be nitpicking every little thing Larian adds.

I did not pay attention to this in the game, but if there is such a fact it is strange

Perhaps Hitler's ideas about good and bad races? Who can be killed and who can not.
Either let's not kill children at all (that would be a good idea, I have nothing against it), or let's kill everyone. Why was one race put above the other?

By the way. J.K. Rowling some blamed of anti-Semitism, since the goblins at Gringotts were associated with Jews. https://momentmag.com/debunking-the-harry-potter-anti-semitism-myth/

Here is the first 2 lines of the entry for Goblins at https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/goblin


Goblin
Small humanoid (goblinoid), neutral evil

Goblins are evil. Enough said.

It appears most people look at this thread as ironic in a way. However, when playing through the first act of the game I have encountered two different scenarios where Tiefling children are killed or at the very least can be killed. In one instance, a Tiefling child can be killed by the druids, while an additional can be killed by harpies not far from the previous location.

For the goblin children they can be killed by the druid in his bear form when he knocks down the gate, but they also have an opportunity to run away through the main doors. I do not recall the Tiefling children being afforded this opportunity with the exception of multiple game reloads in order to get the proper rolls or setup.

Regardless, the children on both sides can be killed, it may not be the exact way you would like to kill them or have them killed, but it is available none the less.

If they are evil (but reasonable, and know how to speak and realize themselves ...), this gives us the right to kill their children, but children of good races cannot be killed? NSDAP said the same
Goblins are people too, they have feelings, intelligence, and so on.

This thread has produced interesting arguments and made some people thing about how universal a system of morals can or should be. It is a rough ride but what could easily have turned into a flamewar elsewhere has stayed focused on arguments. It may lead nowhere but maybe it's worth the ride anyway.

I don't understand the logic some are using here. I see people are arguing that if you can kill a child from an evil race that will grow up to be evil, it's wrong because you can't kill a child from a good race that will grow up to be good. That makes no sense to me. That's like a murderer wanting to kill his victim but gets killed by someone and because the murderer was killed and not his victim, the victim should be killed. What?!

Not exactly logically equivalent but you are right, that line of argument does not make sense
I think it is a matter of principle for most people. Taking morals into the story makes it depend on a common moral standard that is just not there. Same rules for every species and race avoid such problems.

Take a look at what is roasting on the spit in that picture. They are EVIL! The only reason they aren't attacking my character is because they think I am a True Soul. Stop trying to make moral equivalency arguments. Goblins have no morals and they generally kill on sight.

We really need a vegan activist on this thread. Which would prove to us that bulls and other animals in this game are also intelligent, and can talk (after reading a spell, a talk with animals), then they cannot be eaten, and those who eat them are no different from goblins who eat gnomes.

Moral philosophy is fun and never leads to results. It hast been a source of joy and entertainment since antiquity without producing anything substantial. Whats not to like

The fact that you can't kill tiefling kids isnt because they are good, their alignment, or because of anything to do with storytelling. it is an oversight of political correctness issues like in many other games where they make children unkillable for political and legal matters, such as some countries banning games where you can kill children.

But the presence of the two killable goblin children show that they have completely overlooked this, and are applying that logic inconsistently. I do not think that any legal issue would arise it all the children in this game happened to be killable, just as they already were in BG1&2.

'Evil' in D&D doesn't designate what you get to kill or dont get to kill, as you are meant to have the choice to play as good or evil yourself. The fact that we can join the goblins and create a raid on the Druid camp shows that we can clearly play as evil in this game, and as such there is no reason from a lore perspective as to why only the evil goblin children should be killable.

It doesn't affect you if another player chooses to do an evil playthrough and kill everyone, children included in the Druid camp, just as much as it doesn't if anyone does the typical same thing with killing everyone and the children in the goblin camp.