Quote from: daniel_ream;916031I want one of these magical computers you're using.

Read the rest of the sentence, after the part you bolded, and it makes sense. You may need to insert the word "additional" after "zero" to make it clear what I was saying. That is, if your battleground texture is already loaded into memory, then you can have as much blood stains, scorch marks and footprints, goblin baby guts, poop, etc on your battlefield as you want, and it doesn't increase the amount of memory or CPU needed to track and display them, because they just change the data in the texture - they don't add any data or CPU work - they just change the values in the data already being used.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;916336Today was the first session of the Billmarillion, where Bill took his magic-user Aldo to the village of Dorim. A boy Tanner had gone missing while fishing by the stream, Aldo followed the tracks and found he had been kidnapped by a couple of goblins. He cast sleep on the lot, freed the boy and slew the sleeping goblins.

There was no existentialist angst nor moral dilemma nor even enquiry as to whether they had reached their majority or been legally emancipated from their parents as minors not yet even momentary hesitation. He simply butchered them horribly in their sleep.

And that is the way it should be!

That's the way is should be...
and I'd like to see-ee-ee...
the whole world,
slaughterin' goblins with me.

Have a choke and a smile.
Have a choke, and a ... smi - i - i - iiile.

:-)

Quote from: Skarg;916403Read the rest of the sentence, after the part you bolded, and it makes sense. You may need to insert the word "additional" after "zero" to make it clear what I was saying. That is, if your battleground texture is already loaded into memory, then you can have as much blood stains, scorch marks and footprints, goblin baby guts, poop, etc on your battlefield as you want, and it doesn't increase the amount of memory or CPU needed to track and display them, because they just change the data in the texture - they don't add any data or CPU work - they just change the values in the data already being used.

If you're not capable of understanding how that's going to take more memory and CPU (changing memory registers and conditionals based on game state is free in this magical computer, I see) then I can't help you.

I got so inspired by this thread that I made a blog post (similar to how I got so inspired by a burrito I ate that I made a bowel movement). I share it now with all of you so that the killing of goblin children may be enjoyed on the front page of our fabulous forums for just a little while longer.

Goblins as nasty maggot monsters

Inspired by the dilemma of this thread (and also by this rant by the spoony one) I have opted to provide a workable and disgusting solution.

(Also, I always hated that goblins had like, two clearly distinct species which were carbon-copies of each other ((I dare you to give me a concrete difference between and goblin and hobgoblin)). So I took a swing at that one too.)

The life cycle and habitat of goblins

Goblins settlements never occupy the lowest level of their environment, and with good reason: that is where both their filth and their children inhabit.

The liquid and solid refuse of a goblin infestation filters down to caverns and tunnels below them, forming a sort of sewer. When goblins breed, the females (who are indistinguishable from the males, as they are not mammals) will journey to this labyrinth to lay their eggs.

Goblin eggs are soft and slimy and laid in massive clutches, similar to frog eggs. Goblin "children" more closely resemble a hideous cross between a tadpole and a gulper eel.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]331[/ATTACH]

When goblin larva sprout limbs and venture out of their filthy spawning catacombs they are swiftly caught by the Spawn Wardens. These are goblin adults that are equal part slaver, trainer and drill sergeant. They train the spawnlings like dogs, teach them to fight and recruit them into their home clan for the glory of their leaders.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]332[/ATTACH]

Goblins who survive their harsh early years as cannon fodder grow stouter and more cunning, becoming what humans call hobgoblins.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]333[/ATTACH]

Those that live and succeed beyond this eventually grow to massive size, what men call bugbears.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]334[/ATTACH]

The goblin king (whomever that may be) is generally the eldest goblin, swollen to tremendous size from a lifetime of wickedness and excess.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]335[/ATTACH]

Why I like this

I like it because it makes you not feel bad about killing goblin babies or women. It makes women just the same as men (nasty, evil monsters) so its fine to slay them. It makes babies into gross vermin, far removed from doe-eyed, redeemable goblin babies (I think I would use the rot grub stats to represent "children").

It also makes the question of nature vs nurture academic. Goblin society harnesses the life cycle of their species into an engine creating endless cannon fodder, where the strong naturally rise to the top of the command hierarchy. Separating a goblin spawnling form this cycle would be very similar to taking a wolf from its pack. You wouldn't redeem it: you would stunt it, warp it into a thing useful for humans. I do like that it opens up "domesticated goblin" as a thing, sort of like a powerless Darby.
Maybe if the players are really torn on killing "young" goblins they can just sell them to a goblin domesticator, with methods of training them that are only dubiously ethical.

I like that goblins get bigger and nastier and rarer as they age. That fits in with the CR paradigm really well and explains why goblins get along so well with bugbears and hobgoblins and the like. It also explains why their leaders are always big gross blobs.

I like the relationship wrinkle it puts in to goblin wolf riders. They have more of a lamprey/shark thing going on now.

I like that this makes goblin cities a sort of organic outgrowth of goblin nature. It makes a species like this make sense while giving them numbers to explain their ubiquity.

So there you go. A way to make both goblins and maggots worse. Enjoy!

Quote from: Azraele;916910I got so inspired by this thread that I made a blog post (similar to how I got so inspired by a burrito I ate that I made a bowel movement). I share it now with all of you so that the killing of goblin children may be enjoyed on the front page of our fabulous forums for just a little while longer.

Goblins as nasty maggot monsters

Inspired by the dilemma of this thread (and also by this rant by the spoony one) I have opted to provide a workable and disgusting solution.

(Also, I always hated that goblins had like, two clearly distinct species which were carbon-copies of each other ((I dare you to give me a concrete difference between and goblin and hobgoblin)). So I took a swing at that one too.)

The life cycle and habitat of goblins

Goblins settlements never occupy the lowest level of their environment, and with good reason: that is where both their filth and their children inhabit.

The liquid and solid refuse of a goblin infestation filters down to caverns and tunnels below them, forming a sort of sewer. When goblins breed, the females (who are indistinguishable from the males, as they are not mammals) will journey to this labyrinth to lay their eggs.

Goblin eggs are soft and slimy and laid in massive clutches, similar to frog eggs. Goblin “children” more closely resemble a hideous cross between a tadpole and a gulper eel.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]331[/ATTACH]

When goblin larva sprout limbs and venture out of their filthy spawning catacombs they are swiftly caught by the Spawn Wardens. These are goblin adults that are equal part slaver, trainer and drill sergeant. They train the spawnlings like dogs, teach them to fight and recruit them into their home clan for the glory of their leaders.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]332[/ATTACH]

Goblins who survive their harsh early years as cannon fodder grow stouter and more cunning, becoming what humans call hobgoblins.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]333[/ATTACH]

Those that live and succeed beyond this eventually grow to massive size, what men call bugbears.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]334[/ATTACH]

The goblin king (whomever that may be) is generally the eldest goblin, swollen to tremendous size from a lifetime of wickedness and excess.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]335[/ATTACH]

Why I like this

I like it because it makes you not feel bad about killing goblin babies or women. It makes women just the same as men (nasty, evil monsters) so its fine to slay them. It makes babies into gross vermin, far removed from doe-eyed, redeemable goblin babies (I think I would use the rot grub stats to represent "children").

It also makes the question of nature vs nurture academic. Goblin society harnesses the life cycle of their species into an engine creating endless cannon fodder, where the strong naturally rise to the top of the command hierarchy. Separating a goblin spawnling form this cycle would be very similar to taking a wolf from its pack. You wouldn’t redeem it: you would stunt it, warp it into a thing useful for humans. I do like that it opens up “domesticated goblin” as a thing, sort of like a powerless Darby.
Maybe if the players are really torn on killing “young” goblins they can just sell them to a goblin domesticator, with methods of training them that are only dubiously ethical.

I like that goblins get bigger and nastier and rarer as they age. That fits in with the CR paradigm really well and explains why goblins get along so well with bugbears and hobgoblins and the like. It also explains why their leaders are always big gross blobs.

I like the relationship wrinkle it puts in to goblin wolf riders. They have more of a lamprey/shark thing going on now.

I like that this makes goblin cities a sort of organic outgrowth of goblin nature. It makes a species like this make sense while giving them numbers to explain their ubiquity.

So there you go. A way to make both goblins and maggots worse. Enjoy!

This post wins the thread.

There was one setting way back and one of the reveals was that the reason you never saw any goblin children was because they are all human children turned into these little monsters. Think it was based off some odd take on Lovecrafts Zoogs. Almost a moot point there though as they arent then goblin kids. They are adult goblins. Or whatever passes for.

Pretty sure theres a module in Dungeon that had a similar theme. Except turning them into some sort of new creature I believe. Been decades so could be wrong.

Quote from: jeff37923;916912This post wins the thread.

I agree.

This is all I really ask for, some kind of context for "goblin young."

Why even have females?  Just toss any dead gobbo into the maggot pit, as it decomposes, the maggot eggs are released and start the cycle over again.

Would make for great Warhammer Fantasy gobbos, kind of like 40k orcs, but larval instead of fungal.  Also the imagery of a gigantic, fat Great Goblin oozing maggots for the Maggot Pit brings to mind Great Unclean Ones of Nurgle, which could be apprpriate if the Gobbo Maggots act like Rot Grub.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;914365Nearest thing I can think of is the Orcs of Thar for BD&D, but it was written in a more humorous angle.

Yes, humorous, but still freaking awesome!

Quote from: David Johansen;915333If it's not a threat there's no XP.  So the real question is how much you can get for them on the open market as GP = XP.  Like cattle, children of a certain age can carry themselves.  You didn't think the Babylonians carried off the children of Israel because they were cute did you?

I would never ever make any goblin child who could crawl 'not a threat'.  They would be vicious little monsters.

Also, "Children of Israel" didn't mean that. They took a lot of adults captive.

Also lets not forget that the PCs may be effectively kids themselves with ages as low as 16 for a human Fighter and 14 for a half orc Fighter.

Quote from: RPGPundit;922763I would never ever make any goblin child who could crawl 'not a threat'.  They would be vicious little monsters.

Also, "Children of Israel" didn't mean that. They took a lot of adults captive.

Pundit, do you keep re-reaing this thread every week or so:)?

I wonder how much less vitriolic the discussion on the subject'd be, if it wasn't for most of us knowing That One DM who used goblin kids as a trap to make Paladin a shitty Fighter.

And good post, Azraele - I agree wholeheartedly. Ultimately, if you want there to be a Generic Monster Race THat's Always Monster, it's best to make them as monstrous as possible. Warhammer's fungi, cockney - speaking, football hooligans orcs (which I actually do not like, that is, the fungi part, but it's another subject) are one of the most recognizable orcs in tabletop gaming nowadays

Quote from: RPGPundit;922763Also, "Children of Israel" didn't mean that. They took a lot of adults captive.

Sure, but did the joke work?  Apparently not

Quote from: David Johansen;922835Sure, but did the joke work?  Apparently not

It worked for me.