Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why can't you kill the tiefling kids?

You can kill the goblin kids, so why not the tiefling kids? It annoyed me when playing my Lothsworn drow when she caught the tiefling kid trying to steal from her. I had her try to kill him, but he reached his cave so I used the helm to make myself into a gnome and got in then tried to kill them all and nope. They're essential even though if you side with the druids or the goblins they are killed off screen anyway. So no they aren't essential. It was even more annoying when I learned later on there are two groups of goblin kids you can kill in the goblin camp with no off-screen BS needed. Why them and not the tieflings?

I agree. It's like, they let you kill the monstrous kids, but then pretend like tieflings aren't also monsters. I just want to cut down the hell-kids and the gobbos.

Oh wow, the murder hobos are here again. How about, we don't kill kids? You can let the gobbo kids live too.

I have reached a point where I sincerely hope, I will never ever meet a BG3 player in real life

How?

What does 'nope' entail precisely? In what way could you not kill them?

Just... don't kill them? They run away and are gone. If you haven't killed everything upstairs, there are three more goblins coming after that, nothing one can't handle

Goblin Kids vs Tiefling Kids Thread no. 3

missing time where there was no political coretness and you just simply kill kids normally

in fallout 2 you could kill kids and got kids killer karma perk

Kids had to be removed from Fallout in many territories for that reason. You can get away with it sometimes, but generally its not worth the risk of getting banned or X-Rated.

which fallot ? in 2 you could normally kill them in 3 not

If you played the European version of the original there are no kids (they actually just removed the sprites, so they were there but you couldn't see or interact with them, although they could still pickpocket you).

I agree that this is outrageously deplorable. The criminal filth should be cleanseable!!!!1

I never tried but I am almost sure you can kill them.
Take the flask with the beholder and open it in the front of them.
Funny thing is Halsin likes to kill goblin kids.( actually Halsin is a pretty sick fk ) He is easily topping Minthara. At least Minthara is controlled by the absolute.

And goblins also like to kill thiefling kids.

First, never managed to run them off, they always attacked. But say you can do it (I do believe you, of course, that there is a way and I simply can not find it). If you are saving tieflings, you are killing everyone in the goblin camp. Meaning, those kids are simply killed later offscreen, just like tiefling kids can die off-screen. Unless you are siding with goblins, those goblin kids die.

And the point is, goblin kids do not have plot armour. Tieflinfg's do. Kind of unfair?

Ah, right. Thanks. Somehow it got into my head that the little ones would alert the entire camp (which would make sense). So it was a matter of necessity to shut them up. But, if I recall correctly, in my latest run it was actually Halsin that did them in.

P.S.: Always knew you were really a rabbit!

Why should they got killed offscreen? That's just assuming. I for example don't necessarily kill the goblins in the abandoned village, if I can make the rolls necessary. They can take in the kids. And if not there are other goblins around. Even the Maglublieth worshipper might take care of them, after all, they are young enough to bring back to the old ways.
They never attack anything in my playthroughs, they just ran.

Yep, I let my inner rabbit out.

And yeah, Halsin can kill them off, if he frees himself first round.

At least we can kill womens and hags!

If you really wanna kill a childrens in BG3, use disguise self on your party member (karlach), turn her into a gnome(female), go max range (from far away it will look like a little girls) and shoots them with your imba sharpshooter double XBOW oemga damage - there, your fantasy is fulfilled.

/thread

If we'd like to consider a more thoughtful angle of concern here...

I'm not going to talk specifically about representation and treatment of juveniles in games; what I would talk about would be moral arbitration by games. Larian have been up front and overt about how they wanted to make a game where you could be who you like and do what you want, even if (especially if, judging from their advertising) that meant choosing to be a murderous, evil monster that delighted in causing suffering to others, or a greedy sociopath who values the lives of others less than the coin and shiny items they might have. They've been clear about wanting to make a game where you can choose to murder anyone in cold blood if it takes your fancy, and that you'll just have to deal with the consequences of your own actions. Setting aside the apparent watering down of actual consequences, that overall philosophy runs up against the situation we have here.

The moral arbitration becomes a problem, because on the surface they've said "We're not going to restrict you by what's right and wrong, and we're not going to tell you what you can and can't do; go wild!" ... but then they've stepped in and said "Wait, no, this is Wrong! You Can't do That!", which reduces their initial stance from "We're letting you do what you want, our hands are clean" to "We have a very relaxed view of what is and isn't acceptable, and everything below this line is fine!" - which is a much more morally dubious thing to say!

In itself, it's a concession that could be accepted; I doubt anyone would fault them for drawing the line at literal on-screen child murder... they show it being perpetrated by 'evil' people, but don't permit the player to simulate it by their own hand. However... The problem with this is that Larian have also permitted players to do this very thing elsewhere, and even encouraged it by creating a small penalty to the situation if you don't (extra reinforcements).

Where does this leave us? It leaves us in a pretty precarious and unpleasant situation, really: It leaves us with Larian back-handedly telling us that it's okay, and even encouraged, to murder children of one particular ethnic/racial group, but not another. Make no mistake: the goblins presented are a fully sapient, culturally structured people, and their children are as well. Larian did not have to present them that way, and they did not have to put goblin children in the space, and they did not have to put them in combat situations and offer incentives to kill them... that was all their personal design choice, alongside their other personal design choice of rendering the same action impossible against children of a different ethnic/racial group in the same chapter.

Larian definitely have the right to design a space and say "You can do what you like here, we will not stop you; your actions are on you, our hands are clean" - they absolutely can make that their stance, and I will defend to the hilt their right to do so! When they put their thumb on the scale and block some things but not others, however, they have abandoned that stance, and it leaves them saying "This is not acceptable... but that is!" And that particular kind of moral arbitration, especially over an event of this nature, and especially when their pitch has been that they aren't making any such arbitrations, is not okay in my book.

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P.s. It should be noted that this stands aside of any discussions about whether it's okay to kill goblins specifically, or their nature or alignment. In this particular situation, it's about presentation and subsequent action: the goblins in this game, and in these specific situations are presented, one hundred percent, as fully sapient, intelligent people, capable of feelings and emotions; of love, hate and apathy; of fear, hope and aspiration; of genuine attachment and sorrow; acknowledging these traits may not be favoured in their culture, but they are absolutely and deliberately depicted as being capable of such as presented in this game... and for the issue of moral arbitration of action, that is what matters.