beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2022-12-18 01:47 am
beccaelizabeth) wrote2022-12-18 01:47 am
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Pathfinder adventures build up to grand stuff, but...
... the first things your adventure party fights can be sort of worryingly weak.
and understandable.
In 'Rise of the Runelords' there's a lot of fancy backstory for the more human NPCs, but goblins can be almost completely explained by
they're hungry.
They're so hungry that when they attack the town's big fancy party, and people with weapons and magic attack them right back, they get distracted by climbing up tables and stuffing food in their pockets for later.
They're so hungry that two goblins at Thistletop risk being thrown in with a beast that killed two goblins already, just so they can get a bag of pickles.
Goblins be hungry.
And sure, they have a scary/funny song to introduce themselves with, "We be goblins, you be food!", which summarises their intentions quite well,
and clearly introducing them by having them kill a dog is meant to explain exactly how to react to them
but
hungry.
As motivations go it's pretty relatable.
Goblins actions are not calm, reasonable, or designed to get you to take a non violent approach to conflict resolution. It seems clear what the game wants you to do.
But then there's a little fact tucked into the back of the Advanced Race Guide that makes an unpleasant perspective shift:
Goblins are adults at 12, and middle aged at 20.
Not a single goblin in Burnt Offerings has an age modifier, and age modifies stats, so it should be there
if a single one of them was older than a teenager.
Every starter goblin this party ever met is likely to be 13 to 19 years old.
... it's pretty creeptastic.
Especially since you get a chance to meet settlements of goblins from two goblin groups, and none of them have an age modifier even once.
It seems goblins are that sci fi staple of a civilisation made up of only children, where they think they're dying at a reasonable age because that's what everyone else did, but actually... *shudders*.
... kind of explains the eternal interest in stuff that goes boom real good though...
... which in turn may explain being extensively teenage...
Rise of the Runelords has a room full of cages that it says are how goblins raise their young.
It says: "GMs seeking to confront their players with awkward social situations might want to put a few sharp toothed feral goblin children and babies in these cages for the unsuspecting adventurers to discover."
... the unsuspecting adventurers may well already consider this awkward, post ARG.
I looked up 2e to see if they've changed this, and if anything it's worse: "Goblins reach adolescence by the age of 3 and adulthood 4 or 5 years later. Goblins can live 50 years or more, but without anyone to protect them from each other or themselves, few live past 20 years of age."
And they're a Core race now, so everyone with a rulebook can see that.
I mean how can you know that and not want to adopt the goblins???
... not to turn them into mini humans, that would be creepy, just to feed them and make life less precarious. The rulebook says they're always stealing because they can't support themselves, but they also say the vast majority of these are by the neighbors timescales actual literal children, raised by similar children, so I feel it speaks poorly of Golarion society that they aren't just feeding them.
I know, making them a PC race in 2e makes for society and the stories treating them different, but it's awkward to read the beginnings now.
Maybe the rules allow you to just capture everyone always, that would be much nicer.
... even if the Morale section says the goblins fight to the death... by accident, from not imagining they could fail...
If you want a romp where The Good Guys go and fight the Bad Guys then you have to ignore a bunch of this stuff.
Which is fun when what you actually want are meaty problems.
and understandable.
In 'Rise of the Runelords' there's a lot of fancy backstory for the more human NPCs, but goblins can be almost completely explained by
they're hungry.
They're so hungry that when they attack the town's big fancy party, and people with weapons and magic attack them right back, they get distracted by climbing up tables and stuffing food in their pockets for later.
They're so hungry that two goblins at Thistletop risk being thrown in with a beast that killed two goblins already, just so they can get a bag of pickles.
Goblins be hungry.
And sure, they have a scary/funny song to introduce themselves with, "We be goblins, you be food!", which summarises their intentions quite well,
and clearly introducing them by having them kill a dog is meant to explain exactly how to react to them
but
hungry.
As motivations go it's pretty relatable.
Goblins actions are not calm, reasonable, or designed to get you to take a non violent approach to conflict resolution. It seems clear what the game wants you to do.
But then there's a little fact tucked into the back of the Advanced Race Guide that makes an unpleasant perspective shift:
Goblins are adults at 12, and middle aged at 20.
Not a single goblin in Burnt Offerings has an age modifier, and age modifies stats, so it should be there
if a single one of them was older than a teenager.
Every starter goblin this party ever met is likely to be 13 to 19 years old.
... it's pretty creeptastic.
Especially since you get a chance to meet settlements of goblins from two goblin groups, and none of them have an age modifier even once.
It seems goblins are that sci fi staple of a civilisation made up of only children, where they think they're dying at a reasonable age because that's what everyone else did, but actually... *shudders*.
... kind of explains the eternal interest in stuff that goes boom real good though...
... which in turn may explain being extensively teenage...
Rise of the Runelords has a room full of cages that it says are how goblins raise their young.
It says: "GMs seeking to confront their players with awkward social situations might want to put a few sharp toothed feral goblin children and babies in these cages for the unsuspecting adventurers to discover."
... the unsuspecting adventurers may well already consider this awkward, post ARG.
I looked up 2e to see if they've changed this, and if anything it's worse: "Goblins reach adolescence by the age of 3 and adulthood 4 or 5 years later. Goblins can live 50 years or more, but without anyone to protect them from each other or themselves, few live past 20 years of age."
And they're a Core race now, so everyone with a rulebook can see that.
I mean how can you know that and not want to adopt the goblins???
... not to turn them into mini humans, that would be creepy, just to feed them and make life less precarious. The rulebook says they're always stealing because they can't support themselves, but they also say the vast majority of these are by the neighbors timescales actual literal children, raised by similar children, so I feel it speaks poorly of Golarion society that they aren't just feeding them.
I know, making them a PC race in 2e makes for society and the stories treating them different, but it's awkward to read the beginnings now.
Maybe the rules allow you to just capture everyone always, that would be much nicer.
... even if the Morale section says the goblins fight to the death... by accident, from not imagining they could fail...
If you want a romp where The Good Guys go and fight the Bad Guys then you have to ignore a bunch of this stuff.
Which is fun when what you actually want are meaty problems.