The historical goblins were actually pretty powerful faeries. D&D took it's idea from Tolkien, making goblins weak, but even in Middle Earth, goblins are very dangerous. Of course, compared to a 0-level human, goblins are pretty dangerous. Adventurers over level 3 pretty much laugh at them, though. That annoys me, a bit.

Ideas:
1. Goblins have faerie blood. They can all use minor magic. Maybe give them one level 1 spell, such as Dark. Or grant them limited invisibility once per round.

2. Have goblins get level 1 thief skills for free. I think this would work well, and make them nastier without going overboard.

3. Have them use poisons regularly, so that anyone struck by them will be making a Saving Throw.

4. Hobgoblins would be older, tougher goblins. Maybe give them up to 4 Hit Dice, with more Hit Dice meaning they are older and tougher. Any given group will likely have a hobgoblin in it. He would also have access to whatever special abilities normal goblins have.

5. Since goblins are fae, maybe they are neutral or even friendly with elves. This kind of leads to a Summer/Winter Court scenario, though. Evil elves might work with goblins, and they wouldn't automatically hate each other. And maybe some few goblins are actually good guys. Not sure I like that, but it's an idea.

While you make good points, I think at the same time folklore tends to add magic to things.

Tolkien in a way sort of made LOTR a explanation of folklore. It still had some magic, but to a large extent he stripped it away from the tales of Elves and Goblins and such. You could almost view LOTR as a prehistoric tale (which was was) of different species of homo sapiens fighting for dominance. Orcs might be Neanderthals, Goblins are chimps and so forth.

An example in the real world would be some of the Western folklore, like Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyon. Both of those guy did magical stuff. Would you add magical cowboys to Boot Hill? You certainly could, but I think it would not fit as well.

This came up in our D&D game last Saturday.
We're playing through 'The Sunless Citadel' and one of the guys remarked on how goblins in old stories were scary and weird... vs. the cannon-fodder mooks our GM was tossing at us (the giant rats were scarier and a bigger threat).
I agreed and referenced horror movies like 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark' and 'Gremlins' that feature small malevolent humanoids.
This led to a wider bit of talk about how kobolds were originally house/ship/mine spirits, not miniature dragon-men... and dwarves were more like Drow... and elves were... blah, blah, blah.
All of this started I think because, even with RAW goblins can be played in a much more flavorful and interesting way... and as a gentle hint to our GM that we'd like a bit more of that. Rather than having them all waiting in place for us to rush in why don't they respond to the sounds of battle next door... or set up some clever ambush for us to stumble in to?

Meanwhile I'm still thinking up ways to make my goblins for DCC more like their fairy-tale versions. Giving them minor magics and thief/assassin-like abilities goes some of the way. I also want to give them a chart of random variations, because the goblins in fairy tales often seem to be dissimilar to each other... not a stable/homogenized 'race' so much as a freakish collection of supernatural imps.
Being able to go invisible or put up illusions/shapeshift seems along the right lines also.

If going with more folklore based goblins, hobgoblins should be "good goblins", House Brownies, pookas, and the like.

Don't forget to use goblin shamans.  I have surprised many a party of lax characters with goblin shamans leading a party of goblins, employing various evil cleric spells.

Sometimes with D&D it is interesting to see how Gygax approached things like this when he revisited them.  In Lejendary adventures, he followed the trend at the time to break goblins into a few clearly differentiated types: common, greater, harasser (lieutenants), shamans.  Shamans have the appropriate divine powers and greater goblins have two of the following and harassers have one.

“1: The Goblin can extinguish a small sort of fire (as large as a normal campfire, for instance), within sight and 80 foot distance, in one second.
2: The Goblin can start a small fire in combustible material, within sight and 40 feet, in one second.
3: The Goblin can cause an oncoming individual within 20 feet to stumble and fall in one second.
4: The Goblin can reverse, in one-tenth second, the flight of one normal missile in sight and within 100 feet distance so as to send it back at its launcher (but with the Goblin’s Precision in regards to hitting).
5: The Goblin can send a wave of nausea, in one second, to one individual within sight and not more than 20 feet distant, so as to make any action attempted to be made at one-half the normal chance.
6: The Goblin can create 2-5 illusory duplicates of itself that are indistinguishable from the actual Goblin, and which mimic the real one’s every action.” Essential Bestiary, 2nd printing, pg 17.

In Dangerous Journeys he had them fairly similar to the D&D version in appearance. He used the term goblin as a general term to describe creatures of the Unseelie court as well as the specific goblin creature. Goblins have their own faction court among the Unseelie Court ruled by a goblin king in the alter-world of Phæree.  The full description is shorter than the one in Lejendary Adventures.  So, it is easy to include in full.

“A race of evil humanoids with an average height of 4.5 feet. Goblins have relatively long and spindly limbs, gnarled digits with claw like nails and rotund, bloated-seeming bodies. They appear to have no neck, for the round and oversized head sits squarely on the shoulders. The mouth is ringed by hideously twitching, nearly prehensile lips, and is very large, filled with long canines and many small pointed teeth. Ears and tongue are long and sharply pointed; the nose is flattened and often hooks at the tip or else is bulbous; and the eyes are typically too small, closely set, and beetle-browed or else very round, too far apart, and bulging. Despite this appearance, goblins have human-norm abilities, considerable Heka [magic] use and Power, and are numerous.  They are trooping, and often large hordes of them take to the field to run rampant.  Only very powerful creatures — things such as Drakes, groups such as the Slaugh — do not dread and fear such masses of goblins.” Epic of Ærth, pg 203.

The Heka [magic] available to them ranges to about 3 third level maybe even 4th relative to D&D. Dangerous Journeys is much more descriptive than statistical when it comes to creatures, requiring the gamemaster to set most statistics.


Other games like Palladium, Ars Magica, and the book Gurps has are all pretty interesting versions of goblins.  There are others too.  I also know that folks around here have their own interesting versions.  I include Gary’s reappraisals of them because he also approached them differently in the two other games, which brings ideas for the D&D version.

My film references for goblins are Freaks and the village of the crazies in Gymkata. My literary references are Little Orphaint Annie and The Goblin Faire. I think goblins (and hobgoblins, bugbears and kobolds) should be sick and twisted baby-stealers.

Quote from: talysman;625701My film references for goblins are Freaks and the village of the crazies in Gymkata. My literary references are Little Orphaint Annie and The Goblin Faire. I think goblins (and hobgoblins, bugbears and kobolds) should be sick and twisted baby-stealers.

IN a normal fantasy game I tend to run Goblins as crazies. Little psycho bent on destruction and savage sickness.

Quote from: Ronin;625704IN a normal fantasy game I tend to run Goblins as crazies. Little psycho bent on destruction and savage sickness.

That's kobolds for me. Evil, fae little dwarf-like creatures with no trace of the reptile.

Part of the issue at hand, though, is the nature of D&D itself.  There are difficulty levels to be considered, and someone has to be the fodder for the younguns to cut their teeth on...

Stripping that away, there's little difference between the various culture's depictions of the 'evil little people'.  Think about the Germanic kobold, the NDN Kickapoo, the leprichaun, and the goblin you're describing.

They're essentially the same, aside from the cultural differences.  (To the point that I genuinely wonder if these creatures weren't a real issue for our ancestors...)

Put a D&D lens on it, though, and suddenly they need to be distinct.

One of my old scenarios was a tribe of goblins wiping out a party of 5th level PCs not through swaming but tractics cunning and nous oh yeah and the goblins live in goblin sized warrens so anyone not a hobbit or a dwarf is on their hands and knees and you better read that min space for wielding that weapon.....
Add traps and a touch of burning oil and goblins ROCK. I tend to make em fae and mix em up with elves anyway.

I prefer Elves being fae, myself...

RPGPundit

I kinda like how Warcraft made Goblins a cross between Ferengi and Brooklyn Jews.  

JG