Seriously. Every form of entertainment has baked-in political assumptions, and that definitely includes #ttrpg . You might choose not to examine them, but this is an active choice on your part, and you don’t get to pretend that your entertainment is “free of politics”.
Easy moral patch: These specific goblins have all made unambiguously evil choices that warrant a good slaying. Like kicking dogs. You’re not slaying goblins because they’re goblins, you’re slaying dog-kickers that happen to be goblins. There are plenty of goblins who do not kick dogs, but they’re not a part of this fight.
This is still a political statement that dog kickers are evil. I doubt anyone would mind that, and those that do are better off leaving my table anyway.
Or, you know. We could just ignore those pseudo-moral excuses and do some good old goblin slaying because they’re in the dungeon, laying traps and we want the loot. Not everything needs 12 layers of logical depth. Sure, it’s fun to explore moral implications from time to time, but more often than not, no one cares.
But you’re making the statement that it’s okay to kill people if you want their stuff. The politics are there even if you don’t choose to examine them.
No, I’m not. Because my mental development moved past three years old and I’m able to differentiate reality from fiction. Do you also believe that Super Mario players advocate for animal cruelty towards turtles?
Have you taken any literature or maybe other media classes at the 200 level?
Sometimes people say really weird things and I wonder if they just don’t know any better. Maybe they’re a teenager.
But like “fact from fiction” is irrelevant here. No one’s saying Dracula is non-fiction, but you can still read it and take meaning from the text. Furthermore, it’s not just a story about a guy who bites people. The read on how women are expected to behave is pretty obvious, for example.
You don’t have to care about the subtext of “kill all the goblins and take their stuff”, but saying there is no subtext or “no one cares” is absurd and self-centered.
That’s an interesting point you make and I partly agree. There are certain undertones and sometimes you can create a better story by engaging these undertones and creating a monster in noble clothing and a metaphor for the societal corset women are forced ro wear.
But other times I just want to enjoy a trash movie or 15$ airport library book. And the undertones there are purely accidental and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Both forms of entertainment serve their purpose and you can insist on pointing out the political statements and societal undertones in a cheap slasher movie. but that doesn’t make you smart or enlightened. It just makes you an ass who enjoys shitting on other people’s lighthearted entertainment.
And one last note: “‘fact from fiction’ is irrelevant here”. No, it’s not. If someone accuses me of encouraging mindless slaughter of people based on some regular dungeon crawling, then it does matter. Because that’s exactly the idiotic killer games argument of the early 2000s that has been disproved 100s of times! Killing goblins in a ttrpg has absolutely nothing to do with any moral standpoints I hold outside of the game and only an idiot would believe otherwise!
I mean the statement is being made within the universe. Super Mario does advocate for violence against koopas. You don’t have to examine it, but that doesn’t make it apolitical.