Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Goblin Player Character

As has been said, basically any race/species can be taken by Mindflayers. Heck, if Larian REALLY wanted to they could add races from other worlds like Kender and Shifters that aren't even native to Forgotten Realms.

A goblin taken from some far-off tribe who escapes confinement when the Nautiloid crashes is exactly as possible as any of the existing races doing the same.

As for the Grove? You'd be a goblin who immediately attacked the other goblins on sight and killed them all, saving the Grove. Surely you will be questioned about your allegiance, but your goblin doesn't know these other goblins or what the heck an Absolute is, so you have no loyalty to them. Zevlor does his "I'll tell the rest of the Grove what you've done" thing so the rest of the Grove has no reason to kill you on sight. Done deal.

The rest of the game you're wandering about with a party of non-goblins. At least when I play DnD the general rule is that if you see a monster race traveling with non-monsters it is rude to run up and start stabbing their traveling companion.

Personally, I'll never not use the word 'race'. It encapsulates the physiology, alignment, culture, history and language of the given group of creatures. It also incorporates the competitive conflict that frame how these beings try to live out their lives in their world-setting. And the word has non-modern connotation, which suits pseudo-medieval fantasy.

Or put another way I liked Conan (races evolving/deevolving) and Elric (alignments).

Now, if I play futuristic utopian Star Trek, I'll happily use 'species' - and go metric. Because that suits genre.

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Good point about goblin in a humanoid group. It is considered bad form to attack first and pretty stupid too. Chances are they're adventurers and so there's a chance they could be higher level.

I can live with that. :P

Totally can imagine how our GM uses this against you, to lead you into some huge ambush.

//Edit:
I gues it depends on situation, doesnt it?

Let me present one alternative:
You are a Tiefling ... standing your guard on the wall abowe gate to certain druid grove ...
Now, sudently group of human adventurers run towards your gate ... you cant open them, since that is your leader order ... but luckily your leader i nearby and after some short exchange of opinions, he orders to open the gate so adventurers can hide, since there are Goblins chasing them ...
As your friend Kanon is opening the gate ... he is shot and dies ... then battle start, you are firing one arrow after another to those Goblins down there ...
*NOW*
Out of nowhere, group of Elf, Githyanki (wich you only see as some weird shit you never seen before, but you may remember that your another friend, Zoru, inside the camp described to you something simmilar as murderers of another friend of yours), Half-Elf wearing armor full of Shar symbols, and Goblin appears on the hill.

Do you really tell me that you would presume they are friendly?

+1 for Goblins even if Arka goes mad and has to be killed by us.... (Intimidation would be less bloody.)


"Background: Mercenary Veteran

Mercenaries of the North
Countless mercenary companies operate up and down the Sword Coast and throughout the North. Most are small-scale operations that employ a dozen to a hundred folk who offer security services, hunt monsters and brigands, or go to war in exchange for gold. Some organizations, such as the Zhentarim, Flaming Fist, and the nation of Mintarn have hundreds or thousands of members and can provide private armies to those with enough funds. A few organizations operating in the North are described below.

The Chill
The cold and mysterious Lurkwood serves as the home of numerous groups of goblinoids that have banded together into one tribe called the Chill. Unlike most of their kind, the Chill refrain s from raiding the people of the North and maintains relatively good relations so that they can hire them selves out as warriors. Few city-states in the North are willing to field an army alongside the Chill, but several are happy to quietly pay the Chill to battle the Uthgardt, ores, trolls of the Evermoors, and other threats to civilization."


I would love to play a Gobbo Arcane Archer / Necro Bounty Hunter who can interrogate his victims and then have them fight for him as skeletons - muahahaha.

Speciesist isn't a problem It's okay to shoot zombies. In fact it's a problem if you see a zombie and don't shoot it -- if you just let it shuffle on its merry way it will probably eat someone's brain. Shooting members of homo necromancis is a good thing to do!

Same goes for goblins. They're born with black hearts. Their culture doesn't make them that way - their souls were claimed by their dark gods before birth. They are all lawful evil because their gods are all lawful evil:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16907-goblin

Of course neither zombies nor goblins exist in the real world. In real life you shouldn't shoot or stab . . . well . . .anyone! Anything! Please put the swords down.


In the real world, on earth, racism is a problem because it relies on the scientifically false belief that the human 'race' is divided into species or subspecies. But, again, that's not true - we're all homo sapiens. Racial prejudice makes judgments on the value of the different human 'races'. And that's a problem because it leads to real world harmful practices. Unfortunately, language has slipped and people no longer make a distinction between racism and racial discrimination. But the prescriptivist in me hates that decriptivist change in the language . . .

DnD uses race in it's original meaning - as ye olde word for species. DnD is a fantasy world where different intelligent species do in fact exist and some are better than others and it's okay to commit acts of violence against evil species. Fantasy =/ reality and it's a problem to confuse them. Which is why it's good to retire the world race - so people won't conflate fantasy with real life

Now can you subvert these rules? Of course! I thought the zombie romance movie was kinda sweet. Can you make a goblin / demon / skeleton adventurer? Sure! Why not. The rules aren't written and stone and your DM can do anything. But I don't want to see the entire world altered where it becomes bad to stab zombies because that zombie could be someone's boyfriend. Neither do I want to see a world where it's bad to wipe out a camp of goblins because we know that goblins "gather in large numbers to torment other creatures" In DnD if you kill a goblin, a zombie or a demon you are probably saving another innocent life.

So TL;DR - in DnD you can't be 'racist' because believing that different intelligent species exist is not false. Neither is believing that some races are better than others a problem, it's just the 'reality' of the fantasy setting. And people who kill evil species aren't ice holes, they're adventurers doing their bit to make the world a better place.

Now that may be about to change in 6e - if it does I'll probably seek out a new ruleset to obsess over.

I agree but this conversation keeps happening - sincerely (as we see here) and insincerely elsewhere. People are no longer using "race" as word for a fantasy species that has its own culture, alignment . . .

And, yes, if alignment goes I'm leaving DnD for Pathfinder; the elimination of alignment was one of the reasons I ignored 4e. Without alignment these fantasy worlds just seem analogues for our world and that's boring. I prefer the mystical, magical, metaphysical world given to us by authors like Moorcock.

Blood and souls for lord Arioch!

Basically, I disagree with that interpretation. I'll raise you Volo's Guide, which went into Goblins in depth, including the cases and situations where individual goblins might strike out from their tribes and seek different or better lives. Their individual souls are only sometimes commanded and collected by their deity by force - they are not universally foresworn and forsaken, just heavily dominated. They are socially and culturally evil, and thus the vast majority of them - certainly the vast majority of goblins that adventurers may encounter, will be thus, but they are not intrinsically evil - A creature that is intrinsically evil ceases to be the creature that it is if it ever stops being evil - Devils, for example, if they become non-evil actually physically cease to be devils and find themselves transformed into other creatures. This is not true of goblins, simply because goblins are not, in truth, intrinsically evil. The vast majority are; but not all.

Sure, trusting a goblin you meet on the road might be a bad idea - but *most* of the characters that I tend to play would rather be tricked by an evil creature that they gave a chance to, and deal with those consequences themselves, than to pre-emptively murder an innocent person out of the assumption of evil intent... wouldn't yours?

Hmm, clearly you and I have a different take on what precisely it is that makes racism wrong. Though fortunately we don’t need to agree, and this isn’t the place to debate it!


Well, some of the characters I’d choose to roleplay would share that moral view, but I’d find it kind of boring if I personally believed it was as simple as you suggest!

Luckily for both of us, I don’t think there’s any danger of the game stopping you killing goblins with a glad heart, or me from feeling morally torn as I do so.

And while I’m not fussed about actually playing a goblin and would prefer that Larian focus on getting the other PHB races and classes into the game and polishing the mechanics, I’m sure that playable goblins will be modded in at some point if they’re not available in the base game.

I can't say I've met a goblin yet who's death wouldn't stop countless murders. My adventures are more of the "fuck around and find out" variety. Weird, not hivebound mindflayer in the underdark? Well, okay. Zhentarim talking big? Hope you can back that up. Goblins serving a fake, evil deity coincidentally out to enslave us? Eat steel.

Like in the real world, people have about 15 seconds to make an impression.

It's a good point.

I'll try to see if I can deal with the text and the meta issue separately. I am indeed guilty of relying on the 3rd edition text that made this clear - humanoid gods created servants, monster gods made slaves. 5e tries, unsuccessfully, to have it both ways: monsters are both inherently evil and culturally evil.

According to Volo's guide Goblins are as diverse as the humanoid races but they are evil because they live under oppressive hand of Maglubiyet. Goblins know that "when the Mighty One calls for it, even their souls are forfeit" Which, as I read it means goblins have the potential to be good until Maglubiyet calls you to be part of the conquering host and, once he does, their free will is forfeit. So under this reading Goblins are in a position similar to the one Spike was in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (go and be good all you like but the First Evil owns your soul and can turn you to evil at any moment).

So, says the goblin, why try to be good? You'll just end up on the bottom of the caste system and Maglubiyet will eventually collar your soul anyway.

So you are right that it's possible for a goblin to be good as long as they haven't been called by Maglubiyet. A good goblin adventurer would need to pledge to another god before Malubiyet called them to a host.

Now, on the meta issue:

(if you, Niara, detect annoyance in these words please know it's not directed at you. These words and my annoyance is directed at WotC)

Does this lead us to a less problematic reading of goblins? Do we escape the analogues to real social problem with the 3.5 to 5e change? Is better to think: evil because of culture and not evil because of tainted souls?

I don't think the change is better. We end up trading "racist" thinking for colonial thinking - creatures aren't evil because they are born evil they are evil because their culture is evil.

WotC has been in a period of self reflection and has apologized for the depiction of the Hadozee but I think they are just hoping that no one notices the gawd-awful, historically-terrible mistake of the Matizca campaign setting. The "colonialism can be fun" campaign setting. Now the setting never sold very well but it is referenced in BG2 - it's a setting where the human Amnian conquistadors were Lawful Neutral and the human Matizcans (read: South Americans) were Chaotic evil. In the logic of the campaign setting, the evil that the church of Helm does by forceably converting the natives is justified because Helm's sternness is preferable to the hellish damnation offered by the native gods.

I'd argue that this setting was infinitely more problematic than the Hadozee occupied Spelljammer setting and helps to illustrate the point that not only don't we make things better by saying "not evil because souls, evil because culture". Indeed we actually make things worse. "People are evil because of their culture is evil" is an attitude that exists in the real world; people are evil because a goblin god enslaved souls at birth isn't.

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To answer your question - I'm not playing with a group now. When I did we treated negotiations with monsters they way BG3 presents negotiations with Raphael: necessary evils that put your soul in peril. Finding a way to force the paladin to go along with the group's plan was part of the fun. The cleric and the paladin in our party were a real life couple and she played a holy seductress . . . . but I digress. When we played in Ravenloft we never made deals for fear of a powers check.

No we don't - we can agree that racism is bad. I think there is value understanding the distinction between the concepts racism / prejudice / discrimination so we can better identify what is and is not racism,

But it does come up on DnD forums because those concepts are influencing 6e and not in a good way - I don't it's bad to have an inherently evil species. In fact I think that's preferable to a culturally evil population and I think that WotC is, tragically, going in a direction that will actually encourage prejudicial, colonial thinking and that's a bad thing.

Hi! I see you're interested in the concepts of race and inherent alignement in D&D. Might I suggest these topics too?

Alignment - None/Static/Dynamic
Killing Goblin Kids ok but not Tieflings page 19 because
Racist Tropes on Drow STOP IT page 4
It came up in a number of the threads talking about our companions alignment, but I remember these three the best

If your comfortable Red Queen, would you mind elaborating on why you think being immediately hostile to goblins is bad.
Creatures can be born evil in D&D, free will isn't a given, and the heroic journey to change yourself doesn't occur immaculately.

Well, if our Gith is "off-world", his knowledge sucks sometimes^^.

As for cutting off every Goblins head...having read a lot of Forgotten Realms Novels, there HAve been things like that. Just take the Orc tribe of Many-Arrows. Even the orc-hating dwarfs did not just start an outright war in that storyline. Going from your point of view lolth drow should be more or less impossible to play.
And the main thing is, the GM sets the rules. There is no "impossible" in an RPG. The story just has to be good imo.

and if you just want to cut of every gobbos head, you can do it. I have had runs where i did not kill the whole goblin camp, even as a dwarf

If that group attacked the horde of goblins that were attacking us, killed them all, and then stopped short of attacking our fighters like what happens in-game? Yah, I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, of that group you described I'd be a LOT more concerned about the Githyanki and the Shar Priestess than I would be a lone goblin. A single goblin is rarely a threat. A single Shar cleric can be quite dangerous. Yet nobody raises a brow about Shadowheart when they see her.

Goblins are only threatening if there's a lot of them. I don't see much of a reason for killing any lone goblin on sight except for the sake of being cruel.

No, definitely wouldn't presume they're friendly - and they'd run risk of 'friendly-fire' if they were actual allies.

And this is tip of the ice-berg of all the scripting Larian would have to do to incorporate goblins as a player race. Your goblin PC would be treated something like Sazza. Zevlor might even insist you not be allowed to enter the grove. Aradin, Erka and whoever else might simply decide to end you regardless of whatever Zevlor eventually says.

That's the deal with being a goblin. Otoh, you'd probably integrate much more easily into the goblin camp.

But end of day, we're just talking about less than half the content of Act1. Normally Baldur's Gate would be a problem but it's hinted at that things are going to be far from normal in the city.

It's hard to say whether a lot of people aren't using the word race or not, certainly in my groups there's no question about its usage and BG3 uses it. WotC has taken a huge hit to their moral standing, so their stance either way is highly suspect. The cynic in me thinks they'd use any cheap divide-and-conquer trick to mask their real move.

Thing is, race in a broad concept with fuzzy edges whereas species removes aspects like language, culture, morality and technological development. Just writing this, it feels like a move to sci-fi.

Anyway, rambling and musing when we should be talking goblins! But which ones; bugbears, small goblins or hobgoblins? I presume the OP was talking about small ones, but at mention of the 'Chill', hobgoblins should definitely be treated differently!

So as for the argument the evil Deity Claims all their Souls......I have a thought. What if by being injected with the Special Tadpole, they lose their claim due to the Absolute Claiming them instead? ^While I personally want to play a Regular Goblin, let's assume for the sake of argument and variety they are talking all 3.

Whatever 'rules' we're talking about for the world of Faerun, rarely if ever do they need to apply to the player's hero. The tadpole protecting a Goblin from the influence of his evil god? Sounds good to me. We already see the tadpole bending the rules for everyone else, not least Astarion.

One would think that Druids, who stand for balance and already live door to door with the local bloodthirsty Goblin tribe, should be more than capable of recognizing Goblins of other tribes, behaviors or outcasts, differentiating in their favor, and this despite Kagha's paranoia. Not all Druids are on the same page as her. Zevlor and the other Tieflings are themselves driven exiles / refugees and should not fall into the same role as their skeptics. Exceptions, like Arka, prove the rule and can be used as a chance for very exciting interactions and solutions from Larian. Let the happy rp begin!

In that situation, we would certainly need some new and probably interesting dialogue choices. Take the drow. Zevlor should be way more wary about one entering his camp but what does he say? Gith and drow should be way more difficult. Gith are considered evil. Drow, especially the lolth variant is feared and disdained throughout all faerun and normally people either run or attack outright.
A goblin adverturer would be very easy to implement if you ask me.

Some situations that we encounter ingame are pretty exeptional already. Sure, are lot of new converational elements would be needed for goblins, since those little buggers are usually not really likeable. Personally i would like it but to be completely honest, there are races that i would like to see before they add goblins.
We still do not have all the PHB races like Dragonborn and Half-Orcs. There would be the races from EE (Aarakokra (which i personally find a little off) Genasi and Goliaths (deep gnomes we already have). I think there was a mod for duergar that worked pretty well and those are evil too. I would love if they added Githzerai since they are the good variant of gith. should be interesting with laezel

But since we don't know how the game is going to continue, goblins might be off the list because of some future story progress. Hells, larian has still so much to fix before launch