Wandering Monsers: The Little Guys

When and how do you use kobolds and goblins?

For the most part I agree with the article when it comes to the bulleted basic elements, though I would expand the list to include a draconic heritage and sorcerer elements for kobolds, and goblins lairing in the wilderness (not necessarily just in caves or ruins). If a setting associates goblins with fey (or just makes them fey), then I would also make them adept at illusion or “shadow” magic to further differentiate them from kobolds.

“I’ve got a case of kobolds.”
I really do not like the idea of an innkeeper comparing kobolds to rats. If kobolds manage to tunnel into a cellar and start raiding your food stores that is nothing to shrug at, while waiting for two copper-piece adventurers to show up and tackle. After all rats are not going to prepare traps and ambushes for anyone that comes after them, nor will they sneak into your home at night and eat your face off.

Most of the time.

I am also not too keen on the comic relief angle; if anything having goblins be the violent product of excessive abuse seems more tragic than anything else.

While I do not deliberately play them up as comedic, natural 1’s happen and I do not mind having them trip up, hit someone else, or cause something to explode. However I extend that possibility to every monster, as well as across the screen. It just depends on what you were trying to do and what is going on. Making this a trope for either just unnecessarily downplays the threat they pose.

The example of goblins trussing up a farmer and pelting him with apples is both confusing and pretty tame, especially for a monster that is also evil. It almost sounds like something George Lucas would do if he were to rewrite an adventure module, right up there with naming the bad guy Count Grimevildark and having the skeletons say ow as the characters bash them to pieces.

No, the goblins do not dress up a farmer like a hobgoblin and bully him; they use him for target practice, carve patterns into his flesh, or subject him to a variety of other goblin “games” before he eventually dies. When his body is discovered the characters are more likely to see a grim reminder of the destruction they can inflict, than they are to shake their fist at the sky and proclaim, “Oooh, those blasted goblins are at it again!”

I am fine with goblins riding wolves. It gives them something else to team up with and add variety to encounters, though I think it would also be cool for them to also ride Medium-sized spiders, bats, rats, and similar creatures.

Or rat creatures.

Kobolds should also have mounts, like dire weasels, giant lizards, or felldrakes. What about kobolds on a rage drake howdah?

The classic/traditional goblin and kobold gods are alright. Nothing to write home about, but I think there is the start of something interesting. James mentions that not every setting will feature them, and I think that rather than try to cram in some cliff notes in the monster entries it would be better to relegate them to specific settings where they can be properly fleshed out.

Ultimately a lot of the defining features are fine, but both creatures need more depth beyond being evil for evil’s sake (without a compelling reason), living underground, and just existing to be killed. I do not think that goblins should exist to be bullied, and neither deserves to be the assumed butt of jokes.

Wandering Monsters: Goblinoids

As with the bit on gnolls and orcs, the descriptions provided are apt for each given goblinoid type (I also voted that keeping them related, though not necessarily united). Given that this is how they have been portrayed for over a decade–maybe longer, not sure about 2nd Edition–I am not surprised.

So far (with all of two articles, mind you) I have generally liked the flavor material, such as it is. Yeah they have not really changed orcs, gnolls, or goblinoids in concept, but I am genuinely okay with them; goblins are sneaky and cowardly, gnolls gang up and rip you apart, orcs are really strong and tough, etc. You know, what they have always done (though it took 4th Edition to back this up through mechanics).

Some people are wondering why they are even showing us articles like this, especially if all they are going is pitching us the exact same concepts and flavor as before. I think that they are honestly looking for feedback and/or ideas. I saw comments about how orcs should be neutral (or was it lawful) evil if they wanted to have any sort of society with slaves, and that their flavor should be better expanded to account for it.

Granted, by the poll results it looks like most people are either satisfied or happy with the current monster treatment, but so far all we have gotten is the low-level evil humanoids. I am not surprised, as these are the guys that will most commonly be thrown at wandering bands of murder-hobos, but what about the rest?

What about demons and devils? Elementals? How about zombies and skeletons? I remember pages upon pages of threads where people argued about whether mindless undead should be evil, or neutral (as well if it was okay to animate dead, even if the person allowed it).

You also have vampires, which usually drain life force by touch instead of drinking blood (though that seems to get contradicted) and ghouls that depending on edition–or version within an edition–turn you into a ghoul by killing you or infecting you. I could make a case for dragonborn not having pred-dreds (and I am sure many would like to eschew dragonboobs), and whether tieflings are the result of infernal unions or contracts.

We got awhile until the game is fully released, and plenty more Wandering Monster articles to go (and complain about). I like to think that they are listening to criticism, and if nothing else going with the majority rule–whether I like it or not–instead of just making up polls and numbers to distract us. 

Eyes in the Forest Review

I’m a fan of a few Chaos Scar adventures, preferring the entertaining, compact experience over that of the larger adventure modules which all too often seem like the author is trying to pack two levels worth of shit where it doesnt want to fit. I think Wizards really has something here with the whole five-ish adventure encounter model, which is something that could be easily brought to their modules simply by finding ways to break shit up with logical and narrative rest stops along the way.

Eyes in the Forest is as compact as you can get, being nothing more than an overly elaborate random encounter with an elaborate setup: the party finds a horse, a skill challenge might occur if the DM wants to pad events with more dice rolling, and the horse invariably leads them into danger. Not on purpose mind you, but on principle. This is the D&D universe and random encounters can happen en route to the fucking bar (and sometimes, they include drunk gelatinous cubes).

Thats the gist of it. One encounter with lots of goblins in a tiny ruin, and it for some reason eats up four pages of digital real estate. The layout map uses dungeon tiles which is nice, but it kind of looks like a scrambled sprite map since tree lines terminate in bizarre ways. All in all the encounter itself is okay, I just dont see why it demanded four pages. Also, dont call it a “Chaos Scar Adventure“. Its not. Its a random encounter that can literally exist anywhere.