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

Hmmm…so they are *taught* to be evil. This implies the evil is learned, not innate. As does the fact that some goblins can be civilized. Based on this…I am definitely going to try not to kill goblin kiddos unless I play a char that hates all gobbos (like Wyll). It is interesting that we come to opposite conclusions reading the same text! Lol

As I understand what u posted…even in DnD lore, they are not considered pure evil. They just are conditioned by their innate poor tempers and cultural pack-like norms to do evil things. At least, that is how I read this.

They are not like, say, orcs in Tolkien who are innately evil from corruption.

Not really, no. This idea that the evil humanoid monsters are "Evil because of culture" would have to be a recent addition/retcon. If you look at the original Goblin (AD&D and AD&D 2e), you don't see anything about goblins being "driven to evil" because of peer pressure; they are evil and whatever society of theirs is encountered was formed around that malevolence.

Description
Goblins are small, black-hearted humanoids that lair in despoiled dungeons and other dismal settings.

This is from D&D Beyond.

All sources say their alignment is Neutral Evil.

FR wiki's explanation for their evil alignment is: "goblins often had a short temper,[7] and were more easily provoked than individuals of most other races.They often found it difficult to overcome this short fuse, and had a sense of greed that made it difficult for them to act altruistically.They also generally took sadistic pleasure in exacting revenge once crossed."

So, their very nature drives them with desires towards evil, making them, in general, an evil race. Are their exceptions? Yes. But the goblins in BG3 are obviously not the exceptions. They are evil, for they are killing and eating people. Their kids are partaking in the killing and eating of people. Therefore, they are all evil.

As is the case with orcs, goblins used to be Lawful Evil. It makes sense that a race collectively driven to visit depredations upon civilized lands would tend towards an authoritarian mentality (and a frequently petty one at that). Somewhere along the line, it appears that hobgoblins became the goblinoid poster boys for Lawful Evil.


Furthermore, you can use these exceptions...or you can ignore them entirely (it wouldn't be the first time an element of The Forgotten Realms were omitted from a campaign). Hell, some people are steadily working to make the exceptions the standard; what used to be a surprising subversion is no longer sexy or daring.

Why people compare humans to creatures. If your dog bite everything he can, they will kill him, some dogs are raised to be evil, when society find them, sometimes its too late.

Help me out here ...
Relation to the problem that we are by engine unable to harm Tiefling kids is ... ?

People on the thread are talking about more than just that one aspect of the issue. They are talking about the morality of killing goblin kids as opposed to tiefling kids. Why you picking on me? I'm not the only person out here having this conversation.

You are the person who claimed that he is totally on topic ...
So i want to understand how is descriptio of evilness of Goblinoids related to topic.

It is entirely on topic. The point is that we can kill goblin kids but not tiefling kids. Why should that be the case? The logic of why that may be so is innately tied into DnD concept of evil as it applies to goblins. I don’t know how much more “on point” it can be.

In any case, I think the discussion is interesting and I am learning alot about DnD alignment system (personally, as a newb).

I also think the notion is of creating a pure evil race as something you can kill without regret (something Tolkien was adamant was a key part of fantasy writing and the history of the genre) is also an interesting side topic that naturally has come out of this.

I will say that if you can kill goblin kids, you probably should be able to kill the tiefling children. I mean, if you're going to play an evil character, you probably don't feel guilty about killing any of the tieflings and druids. So why would killing tiefling kids bother you? I personally don't like to play the "evil" path. I don't like going around killing anyone in the grove. I have no problems killing everyone in the goblin camp because they're trying to kill me and/or everyone in the grove that I'm trying to save. They're cooking people and torturing them and so on and so forth, so killing them makes me feel like I'm being a hero and purging the region of evil people/monsters. That goes for Andrick and Brynna too, and any other non-goblins in the goblin camp. If the Zhents attack me because I'm killing the goblins, then I'm going to kill them too because they're trying to help the evil goblins.

But killing the tiefling kids, to me, makes me feel crappy, but only a bit more crappy than killing all their adults and the druids and so forth. I mean, I feel like a monster and a jerk if I play that route and kill them all, regardless of children or not. So, I'm not 100% sure why they don't allow you to kill the kids too other than maybe they felt that was just a bit too far and a bit too evil. But then, if that's how the developers feel, should we demand that they feel guilty and make it so people can kill the tiefling kids too? It's their game. If they feel guilty about making it so you can kill tiefling kids - or they think it will cause people to get really upset - then it makes sense that they don't allow it. People can generally come to terms with killing evil monster kids who are killing and torturing and eating people. People might have more issues with killing a bunch of mischievous tiefling kids. So, they may not want players to be able to kill the tiefling children because they may just not want the backlash for allowing such a thing.

Either way, I don't enjoy killing kids, goblin or tiefling, and I don't like killing characters who are good. I have no problems killing characters who are evil: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Troll, Ogre, or whatever.

That said, I can reconcile killing goblin kids because I can say to myself, "They are evil and they will grow up to be even more evil." Start making them gray and not evil, and then I have a problem. If you tell me that goblins aren't evil in general and they are just misunderstood and not necessarily bad but just taught to be bad and they could be redeemed and good, I'm gonna have a REAL big problem killing goblins and ESPECIALLY goblin kids.

So, yes. It is VERY much related to the topic.

Ideally, it should be possible to kill anybody. It should also be possible to decide NOT to kill anybody, if you are willing to put up with whatever hassles that involves.

I'd prefer not to have a "Little Lamplight" situation where children troll you with dumb quests and then are completely invulnerable.

+1! +1! +1!

You know what? I will say, even if they just allowed you to knock the kids out, that would be better than making them invulnerable. I will admit that. My evil playthrough, my drow sorcerer would have secretly slipped into their little Dragon's Lair and butchered them all while they slept, especially since the one kid actually did rob him of some gold and I failed to convince Mol to give it back.

So, I will agree with you there. As much as I don't like evil playthroughs and killing kids and good people, if you are going to make a game so you can play an evil character, you should at least allow players to play evil.

Puzzling: no one addressed my dragon in the room.

Lol...you mean how no one cares about killing dragon wyrmlings?

Or Hatchlings, yeah. They are "kids", right? Oh, I'm sure there are many advocates of all things draconic, but I've noticed far less hand-wringing over the slaying of the fire-breathing, lightning-hurling, acid-spewing, poison-belching and cold-exhaling menaces even when they are merely man-sized.

You're wrong. We just haven't gotten to it yet. 🤣

But while we're on the subject... Dragons ARE intelligent and not all Chromatic have to be evil. Right? Oh. But they have four legs, so it's okay. 😁

Actually, I'm pretty sure dragons fall into the same existence styling as fiends and celestials here - Just as a fiend who ceases to be evil also, at that time, ceases to be a fiend and is changed by it, and a celestial who ceases to be good is also changed physically by that shift: the same goes for dragon, if a little differently - metallics that lose their goodness tarnish and cease to be true metallics, and, similarly, a chromatic that genuinely becomes no longer evil in their essence undergoes a shift and will no longer resemble a chromatic.

I'm, er, not really sure where the new crystals from Fizban's fall into all of this...

They are Evil (Lawful or Chaotic) in AD&D/AD&D 2e and "Always lawful evil"/"Always chaotic evil" in 3e/3.5e. Starting with 4e, D&D started to go soft on monster Alignment in general.

One of the reasons 4e didn't do so well perhaps?

The game is Dungeons and Dragons. The epitome of final bosses, the highlight of every quest, is to fight an evil dragon. As Volo said, "Every story benefits from having a dragon."

NOW I'm fully off topic. 😁