A question for Roleplayers about the web-comic Goblins - Life through Their Eyes - Saturday, February 17, 2007 , which some of us read and which has been advertised here and there on the boards:

Ah, forgot to add: This was posted on behalf of Garner!

Hm, for those who don’t know the comic: A) It is brilliant, and B) it derives a lot of punchlines as well as actual plot from citing the D&D rules and roleplayer’s laws, so this is one case where discussing the rules in context with the work of fiction makes sense.

My first thought was: The whole plot started with a classic change of perspective, but that’s not all. As it’s been stated, the things we see the Goblinslayer, some of his guards, and the Dwarf Paladin do are evil from every angle – torturing Vorpal and, back in the times, Thaco like that, killing an innocent dwarf child which, according to the Dwarf Paladin, just spent too much quality time with the monsters (who took care of the kid, after all)…
We also see Goblins do bad things though, like enslaving Dies Horribly for example.

It is not just a matter of perspective, I think. The original adventurer party as seen in the first chapter were enemies, but they weren’t portraited as evil per se. I think they were even starting to question their views a little – the dwarf was, I think- because what they had seen didn’t fit their expectations of Goblin behaviour. I have to read that up again, though.

The whole plot lives off a problem one might get when trying really complex storytelling within the D&D world, and according to the rules. From sheer player perspective, even more so in the PC games, races like the Goblins, later Orcs, and so on are meant to be cannon fodder that provides EXP points. Good chars need EXP too, and so all those petty booty races must be evil. But the concept of having senient races that are entirely evil is problematic enough from today’s storytelling perspective.
It works in fairy tales, but if you spin modern thinking characters into an archaic fantasy setting… well. It doesn’t work out for either side like the books say it should. That’s what drives the whole story in this case.

I had assumed that it was simply a case of pole-reversal, if you will, but Hsing brings up several good points that would refute that. So I'm not sure. This bears further discussion.

No, Yuan-Ti are usually evil, not always. Always for an alignment is generally reserved for things that are meant to personify certain traits or concepts. Dragons, outsiders, that sort of thing.

Nevertheless, as perspectives on morality is the chief theme of Goblins, I wouldn't be surprised if THunt is using an apparently stereotypical Yuan-Ti to make some kind of point.

Having read the comic up to its currently last chapter, I'm of an opinion that it's not a matter of perspective, but rather a matter of how perspective is irrelevant.

The adventurers expect goblins to be evil, basing this on what they have heard, the actions of certain goblins in the past, and possibly just on the fact that they're ugly little buggers.

The goblins, in turn, expect all adventurers to be evil buggers, basing this on (rather violent) previous experience, what they heard etc.

While in fact, good and evil have absolutely no relation to perspective here. The white goblin tribe leaders are evil. They enslave people, only think goblins deserve to live etc. At the same time, Goblinslayer is evil, as is Saral. They torture and are probably trying to take over the city, and don't seem to be troubled at all by the possibility of some person being murdered in an alley.


And by and large, both the general human and general goblin populations are prejudiced and ignorant.