I wonder if this is a way forward for DnD to replace Alignment, which has become synonymous with racism and all manner of other things. This is not the place for discussing that!
So instead of Alignment, what if you instead had to select a number of Motivations which you can use to help you to roleplay the characters, and also the monsters, more easily.
I've not taken the time to produce an exhaustive list, but for example a Goblin might have Self-Defense, Territorial and Greed as motives. This, at a glance, tells the DM that a goblin is inclined to attempt to attack others only if it is cornered, they are in their territory, or they are trying to steal from them.
A Gnoll might be Hunger, Bloodlust and Raiding, which makes it immediately apparent that they are inclined to attack basically anything, sometimes in organized raids.
A player character might choose Comradery, Protection of the weak, and Fool as their motivations, making them loyal to their friends, safe guarder of the innocent, and inclined to perform silly tasks when they are available.
A list of these can be made to suit the motivations of everything fairly smoothly, and they can be made up on the spot (EG "hoarder of emeralds") whilst still making sense.
Any magical items and effects can be changed to either a specific motivation (EG "this item is only useable by a creature with the Greed motivation", "By attuning to this item you gain the Contempt of the Weak motivation") or at the DM's discretion (EG "This spell deals 1d6 radiant damage to any creature with a selfish motivation"). Some few items or spells which directly use Good and Evil alignments will need to be adjusted to suit properly, of course.
These motivations can be readily incorporated into the Character Flaws, providing a list of motivations which might be a little bit of a hindrance, like Short Temper, Rash, Cowardly, Greedy, Lazy, Vain and so forth.
I like it as a concept, and with a little work could be an excellent replacement to alignment. It is similar to how I build NPCs now, and I find it gives a much better idea of how a character will behave than an alignment would, for very little extra effort (if any).
I don’t hate it but I also think there’s a way to keep alignment while making it non-problematic which is to end the idea that *all* members of a sentient group are X or Y alignment. The alignment for goblins in the Monster Manual would then mean that goblin enemies of your party are neutral evil, not that all goblins are, or even all goblins they encounter are.
Ironsworn has a system like this, for NPCs, usually not for monsters, though I guess you could apply it to monsters too. There are 32 possible character goals on the Character Goal table, and 100 possible descriptors on the Character Descriptor table. Typically you roll 1 goal and 2-3 descriptors but you could do any number of each. As a simple example, I just made the following character goal/descriptor rolls at random on the tables:
Goal: Build a Relationship. Descriptor: Violent and Brave.
The devil is in the details, though... What relationship is being built, and how does being violent and brave factor in? Maybe this is Romeo, who is going around killing the Capulets so he can have Juliet all to himself, taking them on two or three at a time? Hmmm....
So, such a system exists in other games... one could easily adapt it to D&D. I'm not clear on how this is necessarily any easier than alignment. You still have to interpret these goals and descriptors, and you can easily see who a violent & brave goblin who wants to build a relationship could be portrayed very differently in the hands of multiple GMs, just like a chaotic evil one might be, depending on how chaos and evil are being interpreted.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don’t hate it but I also think there’s a way to keep alignment while making it non-problematic which is to end the idea that *all* members of a sentient group are X or Y alignment. The alignment for goblins in the Monster Manual would then mean that goblin enemies of your party are neutral evil, not that all goblins are, or even all goblins they encounter are.
Pretty much this. OP is proposing reflavored alignment, but it's still alignment. I don't think anyone wants D&D to just NOT have monsters or combat, we just want to be smarter with our roleplay.
Some of things proposed are just expansions on the current ideals, bonds and flaws system but wth mechanics. I don't want roleplay options with mechanical influence. It changes the concept of character creation because now people will look towards certain archetypes of character because of the bonuses provided, and that can in turn lead to a negative perception of a certain character type because of power gamers.
I think I just want the lore to be officially expanded. We have so much lore over the various editions that it's easy to reference, but it is also obvious that Wizards is going in a different direction, so I think it needs that touch up. If we're getting rid of saying Goblins are all evil, then explain why that is.
I mean they could just solve it by stating the obvious at the front of each monster book, which is that stat-blocks represent the average or typical creature of this type, but that there may be many others depending on region, setting, or circumstance, that will not conform to this average.
I always took it to be the case anyway.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The use of motive over the current alignment system makes sense since many players are already using motive to back fill how their choices conform with their alignment. Getting rid of alignment and focusing on motives would probably create better games and role playing experiences. It is difficult to create an antagonist that is motivated by a desire to perform objective evil; rather, dynamic three-dimensional antagonists would probably believe their actions will lead to a greater good from their own point of view.
OP is proposing reflavored alignment, but it's still alignment. I don't think anyone wants D&D to just NOT have monsters or combat, we just want to be smarter with our roleplay.
I don’t hate it but I also think there’s a way to keep alignment while making it non-problematic which is to end the idea that *all* members of a sentient group are X or Y alignment. The alignment for goblins in the Monster Manual would then mean that goblin enemies of your party are neutral evil, not that all goblins are, or even all goblins they encounter are.
I guess what I'm trying to take from alignment is the easy, at-a-glance ideas of how a creature should behave, but in a much less generalized way. "Neutral Evil" doesn't actually explain what goblins do, it is just words. Goblins might be seen as evil if they steal from people, whilst they might just be taking shiny things because they want them, and defending themselves when people try to stop them.
The current alignment implies judgement. this person is good, that one is evil.
However, if I present you with:
Joe the fat merchant. Motives: comfort, greed, ruthless.
that makes, to my mind, a far better guide to how to roleplay Joe (which is, aside from a few effects, what alignment is meant to do) than saying "neutral", or even "Evil". Joe doesn't strike me as evil, I would say he's good - but his goals are to make money, live well, and not let anyone stop him from doing so. To convey these traits, he would be "evil", but his personality isn't evil, it's greedy and selfish, which is only evil if you judge it to be so.
This does what alignment is meant to (guide your roleplay) whilst removing any judgement from the titles.
I guess I feel that labeling a whole species as evil is much more judgmental than labeling them as greedy, or territorial.
I guess what I'm trying to take from alignment is the easy, at-a-glance ideas of how a creature should behave, but in a much less generalized way. "Neutral Evil" doesn't actually explain what goblins do, it is just words. Goblins might be seen as evil if they steal from people, whilst they might just be taking shiny things because they want them, and defending themselves when people try to stop them.
The current alignment implies judgement. this person is good, that one is evil.
However, if I present you with:
Joe the fat merchant. Motives: comfort, greed, ruthless.
that makes, to my mind, a far better guide to how to roleplay Joe (which is, aside from a few effects, what alignment is meant to do) than saying "neutral", or even "Evil". Joe doesn't strike me as evil, I would say he's good - but his goals are to make money, live well, and not let anyone stop him from doing so. To convey these traits, he would be "evil", but his personality isn't evil, it's greedy and selfish, which is only evil if you judge it to be so.
Yeah, that sums it up nicely.
This does what alignment is meant to (guide your roleplay) whilst removing any judgement from the titles.
It's still judgey (but hey, everything is), but also still less abstract, and more actionable, than alignment.
I guess I feel that labeling a whole species as evil is much more judgmental than labeling them as greedy, or territorial.
More judgemental, sure. Applying anything like that to whole species/races reduces them to a monolith. People aren't monoliths. (Now, it's debatable if the "monsters" are in no way "people" but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
A system proposed by The Angry GM breaks it down even further - Angry "invites" (to put it a bit more mildly than he does) players to choose a single core, driving motivation for their character prior to play. The shortest possible statement of an ideal, preferably no more than two words, in the vein of "Get Thing" or "Chase Ideal". [Verb] [Noun]. A non-exhaustive list of examples would be:
Amass wealth
Instill chaos
Earn glory
Honor the gods
Fulfill the prophecy
Stave off boredom
Obviously this one single motivation is not the be-all and end-all of your character...but your core motivation is why you're willing to jump out of bed and fight dragons as your day job. It's why you're willing to adventure in a dangerous world and risk your life, livelihood, and occasionally your soul.
I very much like the idea, as it provides a single solid, focused goal you can keep in mind when playing a character, even for new/inexperienced players that aren't sure how this all works yet. It's something you can write across the top of your character sheet, and it doesn't lock you down into shit that may not turn out to be true the way Quirks/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws do. Because let's face it - how often do your QIBF turn out to be wildly inaccurate after several sessions of actually getting to know a new character and need to be rewritten or just ignored?
Insofar as using Motivations for NPCs and monsters? All for it. I won't rehash all the numerous arguments on why alignment is bad, but two or three keywords that provide a quick and dirty basis for a critter is one way to go about it. The Desire/Fear duumvirate Mercer uses is another option - what does the critter want, and what does it fear? One could theoretically use those two together - provide a Desire, a Fear, and two Motivations/Behaviors for any given critter. "Dying" doesn't count as a fear as it's nigh universal, nor does "Living" count as a Desire.
A goblin, for example, could be listed as follows: "Desires Status. Fears Solitude. Greedy, Territorial." This tells someone that the goblin desires to be highly regarded - it wants to rise in the ranks of its tribe/clan/group, perhaps thought of well even by non-goblins. Offering it things that increase its status would make it think more favorably of the party. It fears being alone, left without the support of its brethren, and would respond sharply to threats of severing it from help. 'Greedy' and 'Territorial' let the DM know the critter is also after material wealth and jealously guards territory - both of which feed into its desire for Status. Six words instead of two or three, but those six words are ever so much more useful and descriptive than "Pick which of three flavors of "Evil" this creature falls under."
Labeling an entire group, species or what ever as greedy, ruthless, savage or any other descriptor is not better.
I agree. Or, at least, I agree that it doesn't really deal with the fundamental issues of labelling and entire group as something in this manner (although personally I think it is very slightly better to describe that group as greedy than to describe the group as evil).
I don't think, personally, that alignment or any replacement should be attached to entire groups. However for the purposes of replacing alignment on e.g. an NPC (an individual or a small group), I think this system would work much better (and it does, for me, as I use a similar system myself).
Labeling an entire group, species or what ever as greedy, ruthless, savage or any other descriptor is not better.
I agree. Or, at least, I agree that it doesn't really deal with the fundamental issues of labelling and entire group as something in this manner (although personally I think it is very slightly better to describe that group as greedy than to describe the group as evil).
I don't think, personally, that alignment or any replacement should be attached to entire groups. However for the purposes of replacing alignment on e.g. an NPC (an individual or a small group), I think this system would work much better (and it does, for me, as I use a similar system myself).
I agree that motivations attached to individuals, small groups or even large organizations and governments would be useful, but these things are already done by DMs anyway. This isn't going to improve anything in that regard. When you start adding these thing to the monsters manual however, you wind up in the same place we are already in, sentient creatures of free will all labeled as Greedy, Savage, Brutal etc.
That circles back to the same old argument of "is Alignment actually useful, tho?"
For some folks? Yes. They see "Neutral Evil" and say "oh, snap! NE! I know exactly how that thing is supposed to act now! Good to go!"
For other folks (like myself and Thoruck, among others)? No. We see "Neutral Evil" and say "...and? I can come up with a dozen distinct and different sub-variations for 'Neutral Evil' alone, pretty much off the top of my head. Give me half an hour and ten bucks and I'll get you a list of twenty different fleshed-out options for "Neutral Evil". Those two words are too broad and vague to have any practical meaning. Tell me about this specific critter, don't just say 'Neutral Evil' and pretend those words are useful DX."
I don't think that like, a preset list of motives is necessarily more or less useful than the alignment, but the description of a monster/enemy should give some indication of that in its descriptive text for flavor.
That circles back to the same old argument of "is Alignment actually useful, tho?"
For some folks? Yes. They see "Neutral Evil" and say "oh, snap! NE! I know exactly how that thing is supposed to act now! Good to go!"
For other folks (like myself and Thoruck, among others)? No. We see "Neutral Evil" and say "...and? I can come up with a dozen distinct and different sub-variations for 'Neutral Evil' alone, pretty much off the top of my head. Give me half an hour and ten bucks and I'll get you a list of twenty different fleshed-out options for "Neutral Evil". Those two words are too broad and vague to have any practical meaning. Tell me about this specific critter, don't just say 'Neutral Evil' and pretend those words are useful DX."
Alignment isn't useful.
I think that the better way to go if you want to add motivations is to also alter the name given to the entries in the Monster Manual. Instead of Goblin call it Goblin Raider and then add the motivation in the description. You take the away the broad strokes from the entire species and narrow it to an individual or group of individuals. We already do this for humans with Bandits and the like.
I think that the better way to go if you want to add motivations is to also alter the name given to the entries in the Monster Manual. Instead of Goblin call it Goblin Raider and then add the motivation in the description. You take the away the broad strokes from the entire species and narrow it to an individual or group of individuals. We already do this for humans with Bandits and the like.
I think this is a great idea. Such a simple change, but it makes a massive difference to how it comes across.
Even keeping alignments isn't half as bad if you are referring only to a particular Goblin Raider (or a raiding party of them). It also invites the idea that there could be Goblin Commoners, Craftsmen or Artisans with completely different motivations or alignments.
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I wonder if this is a way forward for DnD to replace Alignment, which has become synonymous with racism and all manner of other things. This is not the place for discussing that!
So instead of Alignment, what if you instead had to select a number of Motivations which you can use to help you to roleplay the characters, and also the monsters, more easily.
I've not taken the time to produce an exhaustive list, but for example a Goblin might have Self-Defense, Territorial and Greed as motives. This, at a glance, tells the DM that a goblin is inclined to attempt to attack others only if it is cornered, they are in their territory, or they are trying to steal from them.
A Gnoll might be Hunger, Bloodlust and Raiding, which makes it immediately apparent that they are inclined to attack basically anything, sometimes in organized raids.
A player character might choose Comradery, Protection of the weak, and Fool as their motivations, making them loyal to their friends, safe guarder of the innocent, and inclined to perform silly tasks when they are available.
A list of these can be made to suit the motivations of everything fairly smoothly, and they can be made up on the spot (EG "hoarder of emeralds") whilst still making sense.
Any magical items and effects can be changed to either a specific motivation (EG "this item is only useable by a creature with the Greed motivation", "By attuning to this item you gain the Contempt of the Weak motivation") or at the DM's discretion (EG "This spell deals 1d6 radiant damage to any creature with a selfish motivation"). Some few items or spells which directly use Good and Evil alignments will need to be adjusted to suit properly, of course.
These motivations can be readily incorporated into the Character Flaws, providing a list of motivations which might be a little bit of a hindrance, like Short Temper, Rash, Cowardly, Greedy, Lazy, Vain and so forth.
What do you think?
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I like it as a concept, and with a little work could be an excellent replacement to alignment. It is similar to how I build NPCs now, and I find it gives a much better idea of how a character will behave than an alignment would, for very little extra effort (if any).
Yes, very much so. 5e already has a great start to this, with the personality traits / ideals / bonds / flaws setup that comes from background.
I don’t hate it but I also think there’s a way to keep alignment while making it non-problematic which is to end the idea that *all* members of a sentient group are X or Y alignment. The alignment for goblins in the Monster Manual would then mean that goblin enemies of your party are neutral evil, not that all goblins are, or even all goblins they encounter are.
Ironsworn has a system like this, for NPCs, usually not for monsters, though I guess you could apply it to monsters too. There are 32 possible character goals on the Character Goal table, and 100 possible descriptors on the Character Descriptor table. Typically you roll 1 goal and 2-3 descriptors but you could do any number of each. As a simple example, I just made the following character goal/descriptor rolls at random on the tables:
Goal: Build a Relationship. Descriptor: Violent and Brave.
The devil is in the details, though... What relationship is being built, and how does being violent and brave factor in? Maybe this is Romeo, who is going around killing the Capulets so he can have Juliet all to himself, taking them on two or three at a time? Hmmm....
So, such a system exists in other games... one could easily adapt it to D&D. I'm not clear on how this is necessarily any easier than alignment. You still have to interpret these goals and descriptors, and you can easily see who a violent & brave goblin who wants to build a relationship could be portrayed very differently in the hands of multiple GMs, just like a chaotic evil one might be, depending on how chaos and evil are being interpreted.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Pretty much this. OP is proposing reflavored alignment, but it's still alignment. I don't think anyone wants D&D to just NOT have monsters or combat, we just want to be smarter with our roleplay.
Some of things proposed are just expansions on the current ideals, bonds and flaws system but wth mechanics. I don't want roleplay options with mechanical influence. It changes the concept of character creation because now people will look towards certain archetypes of character because of the bonuses provided, and that can in turn lead to a negative perception of a certain character type because of power gamers.
I think I just want the lore to be officially expanded. We have so much lore over the various editions that it's easy to reference, but it is also obvious that Wizards is going in a different direction, so I think it needs that touch up. If we're getting rid of saying Goblins are all evil, then explain why that is.
I'm very much in favour of this.
To me it just sounds like the current Ideals, Bonds and Flaws that we already use.
Edit: I also don't think alignment is needed for D&D nor does it need a replacement system.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I mean they could just solve it by stating the obvious at the front of each monster book, which is that stat-blocks represent the average or typical creature of this type, but that there may be many others depending on region, setting, or circumstance, that will not conform to this average.
I always took it to be the case anyway.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The use of motive over the current alignment system makes sense since many players are already using motive to back fill how their choices conform with their alignment. Getting rid of alignment and focusing on motives would probably create better games and role playing experiences. It is difficult to create an antagonist that is motivated by a desire to perform objective evil; rather, dynamic three-dimensional antagonists would probably believe their actions will lead to a greater good from their own point of view.
I guess what I'm trying to take from alignment is the easy, at-a-glance ideas of how a creature should behave, but in a much less generalized way. "Neutral Evil" doesn't actually explain what goblins do, it is just words. Goblins might be seen as evil if they steal from people, whilst they might just be taking shiny things because they want them, and defending themselves when people try to stop them.
The current alignment implies judgement. this person is good, that one is evil.
However, if I present you with:
Joe the fat merchant. Motives: comfort, greed, ruthless.
that makes, to my mind, a far better guide to how to roleplay Joe (which is, aside from a few effects, what alignment is meant to do) than saying "neutral", or even "Evil". Joe doesn't strike me as evil, I would say he's good - but his goals are to make money, live well, and not let anyone stop him from doing so. To convey these traits, he would be "evil", but his personality isn't evil, it's greedy and selfish, which is only evil if you judge it to be so.
This does what alignment is meant to (guide your roleplay) whilst removing any judgement from the titles.
I guess I feel that labeling a whole species as evil is much more judgmental than labeling them as greedy, or territorial.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Labeling an entire group, species or what ever as greedy, ruthless, savage or any other descriptor is not better.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Yeah, that sums it up nicely.
It's still judgey (but hey, everything is), but also still less abstract, and more actionable, than alignment.
More judgemental, sure. Applying anything like that to whole species/races reduces them to a monolith. People aren't monoliths. (Now, it's debatable if the "monsters" are in no way "people" but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
A system proposed by The Angry GM breaks it down even further - Angry "invites" (to put it a bit more mildly than he does) players to choose a single core, driving motivation for their character prior to play. The shortest possible statement of an ideal, preferably no more than two words, in the vein of "Get Thing" or "Chase Ideal". [Verb] [Noun]. A non-exhaustive list of examples would be:
Obviously this one single motivation is not the be-all and end-all of your character...but your core motivation is why you're willing to jump out of bed and fight dragons as your day job. It's why you're willing to adventure in a dangerous world and risk your life, livelihood, and occasionally your soul.
I very much like the idea, as it provides a single solid, focused goal you can keep in mind when playing a character, even for new/inexperienced players that aren't sure how this all works yet. It's something you can write across the top of your character sheet, and it doesn't lock you down into shit that may not turn out to be true the way Quirks/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws do. Because let's face it - how often do your QIBF turn out to be wildly inaccurate after several sessions of actually getting to know a new character and need to be rewritten or just ignored?
Insofar as using Motivations for NPCs and monsters? All for it. I won't rehash all the numerous arguments on why alignment is bad, but two or three keywords that provide a quick and dirty basis for a critter is one way to go about it. The Desire/Fear duumvirate Mercer uses is another option - what does the critter want, and what does it fear? One could theoretically use those two together - provide a Desire, a Fear, and two Motivations/Behaviors for any given critter. "Dying" doesn't count as a fear as it's nigh universal, nor does "Living" count as a Desire.
A goblin, for example, could be listed as follows: "Desires Status. Fears Solitude. Greedy, Territorial." This tells someone that the goblin desires to be highly regarded - it wants to rise in the ranks of its tribe/clan/group, perhaps thought of well even by non-goblins. Offering it things that increase its status would make it think more favorably of the party. It fears being alone, left without the support of its brethren, and would respond sharply to threats of severing it from help. 'Greedy' and 'Territorial' let the DM know the critter is also after material wealth and jealously guards territory - both of which feed into its desire for Status. Six words instead of two or three, but those six words are ever so much more useful and descriptive than "Pick which of three flavors of "Evil" this creature falls under."
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I agree. Or, at least, I agree that it doesn't really deal with the fundamental issues of labelling and entire group as something in this manner (although personally I think it is very slightly better to describe that group as greedy than to describe the group as evil).
I don't think, personally, that alignment or any replacement should be attached to entire groups. However for the purposes of replacing alignment on e.g. an NPC (an individual or a small group), I think this system would work much better (and it does, for me, as I use a similar system myself).
I agree that motivations attached to individuals, small groups or even large organizations and governments would be useful, but these things are already done by DMs anyway. This isn't going to improve anything in that regard. When you start adding these thing to the monsters manual however, you wind up in the same place we are already in, sentient creatures of free will all labeled as Greedy, Savage, Brutal etc.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
That circles back to the same old argument of "is Alignment actually useful, tho?"
For some folks? Yes. They see "Neutral Evil" and say "oh, snap! NE! I know exactly how that thing is supposed to act now! Good to go!"
For other folks (like myself and Thoruck, among others)? No. We see "Neutral Evil" and say "...and? I can come up with a dozen distinct and different sub-variations for 'Neutral Evil' alone, pretty much off the top of my head. Give me half an hour and ten bucks and I'll get you a list of twenty different fleshed-out options for "Neutral Evil". Those two words are too broad and vague to have any practical meaning. Tell me about this specific critter, don't just say 'Neutral Evil' and pretend those words are useful DX."
Please do not contact or message me.
I don't think that like, a preset list of motives is necessarily more or less useful than the alignment, but the description of a monster/enemy should give some indication of that in its descriptive text for flavor.
Alignment isn't useful.
I think that the better way to go if you want to add motivations is to also alter the name given to the entries in the Monster Manual. Instead of Goblin call it Goblin Raider and then add the motivation in the description. You take the away the broad strokes from the entire species and narrow it to an individual or group of individuals. We already do this for humans with Bandits and the like.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I think this is a great idea. Such a simple change, but it makes a massive difference to how it comes across.
Even keeping alignments isn't half as bad if you are referring only to a particular Goblin Raider (or a raiding party of them). It also invites the idea that there could be Goblin Commoners, Craftsmen or Artisans with completely different motivations or alignments.