So as someone who isn't a fan of the stance that goblins, orcs, bugbears, etc are all monsters and are only ever evil...I do not have any issue at all with the goblins presented in BG3. They're part of an evil cult, of course they're evil and I'm not gonna feel bad about killing them. The presence of goblin children that I can kill? Yeah, that's pretty iffy to me, but keep it in the game, I don't care. Hell, I liked the little bit about the goblins having turned away from their prior god and I actually hope that comes up again later because it's an interesting idea of one flavor of evil vs another flavor of evil.

Ultimately, even though I don't like races that are pure evil without the intervention of some kind of magic and I'm glad that that's becoming less and less the default assumption in settings and games, because I think it's an inferior default...it doesn't really matter. The changes are happening, but the DM can make any choice at their table and that's fine, as long as they aren't being a dick to their players. And likewise the players shouldn't be dicks to their DM. I get it, we're all passionate about this hobby and we want as many people to enjoy it as possible. But ultimately...this is just a game. And really, the issue of good goblins and bad goblins isn't an issue that BG3 is even trying to ask.

Originally Posted by Ragitsu
However, that is reality. If you want to represent that sort of social rot in your tabletop gaming campaign, that is fine, but don't cut yourself off from escapism because entertainment at large has convinced you that escapism is "wrong" or "dumb". As Sigmund Freud once said, "Sometimes, an orc is just an orc."

I will bring up something about escapism that I think has kind of gotten lost in this thread. For some people, having an entire species that is unfailingly and unchangeably evil that they can kill guiltlessly regardless of context isn't escapsim. It certainly isn't for me. For plenty of people, being able to play as that race and force the acknowledgement of their personhood from others who deny it is escapism. Or having a world where that personhood isn't even a question and they can just go off and do cool stuff is escapism for them.

Basically, there's no such thing as doing escapism wrong, and different people have different ideas of it.