Okay, this is my last post in this thread because I can see that opinions aren’t going to change and I’ve already expressed most of mine.
But in response to the challenge that accepting non-killing of tieflings is just pandering to uninformed spectators and/or bad censorship laws and the apparent implication that’s somehow a slippery slope, I don’t accept that. I’m not fussed enough about the rights of myself or others to kill representations of children in video games not to compromise on that point. Whereas I passionately believe in our right to have and play LGBT+ characters in role playing games so in no way would I support Larian removing that representation to comply with anti-LGBT+ censorship or laws in some markets. I don’t see any inherent problem with that as a position, though as I don’t actually know censorship or classification rules or know if or how much pretend-children-killing would stir controversy in my own country, let alone others, I’m happy to accept that it might not actually be as much of a concern as I and others fear.
With respect to the argument that the goblins aren’t real anyway so the morality doesn’t really matter, I largely agree. I certainly don’t think it can be real-world wrong to “kill” any computer sprite. And I absolutely support the right of people to play games in the way GM4Him says his wife does. But, for me personally, emotionally disengaging from a game (or film, etc) in that way, especially an RPG, sucks a lot of the enjoyment and purpose of the experience out of it, and that’s not how I usually want to play. And, though it’s largely irrelevant to my opinion on the actual subject of this thread, I do have an emotional and instinctive moral aversion to killing representatives of monster children in the game. I can understand if and why others don’t, don’t in any way claim that is the only right way to feel, and can fully appreciate the tensions and problems of having such moral instincts about irredeemably awful beings. I do however expect the courtesy of a similar acceptance of my right to feel the way I do from those who respond differently, or at the very least for it not to be more or less summarily dismissed as a mistaken simplification in a thread where the fact that the claim is actually off topic is a barrier to fair right of reply. But recognising that it *is* off topic, I’ll pipe down unless and until someone starts a thread about what emotional reactions and moral stances it is appropriate to take towards goblins. Which they probably shouldn’t as I can see it ending in tears!
