Renaming Halflings as Goblins?

[roctavian]

As we removed MD and renamed Kenku to Tengu -- on a similar "crawl-lore" note, has anyone ever considered renaming the Halfling player race to a Goblin player race? I mainly associate monster goblins with sling usage and the occasional wand, which matches Halfling aptitudes. Halflings don't feature strongly in Crawl (no uniques, one vault with halfling children that I can think of, off the top of my head) and they're another one of those Tolkien ideas. Nothing would have to be changed mechanically, it would remove the question "why isn't there a playable goblin race" from players' minds, and it would make the game more thematically tight, in my opinion.

Thoughts?

[mageykun]

Huh. It almost works.

The only arguments you can really make for or against this would have to be thematic or flavorful. The one that really jumps out at me is the mutation resistance. It makes sense for tough little tree root like halflings (heck, it's right there in the source material), but not so much for gobos. Heck, I might even expect them to be more susceptible to mutation than normal.

[twelwe]

I would love to play a goblin, I would love even more to have them replace halflings. The mutation resist wouldn't work as said above, though mutation susceptibility could be interesting, something like mutations and mutation cures are more potent for your kind. All mutation attempts are doubled?

[Galefury]

Why wouldn't mutation resistance work? I don't see a problem with crawl goblins being mutation resistant.

What is bad IMO is that goblin monsters are pretty much incapable of doing anything. For kobolds there's Sonja, big kobolds, kobold demonologists. Orcs cover everything from wimpy grunt to mighty wizard. Goblin monsters? There are... goblins. Granted, the 9th deadliest monster in crawl, but they do kind of suck. At everything.

[Blade]

Even the lowly gnolls now have their sergeants and shamans.

All that said, I could still see it working. Thematically, you're the only goblin managing to rise above the utter mediocrity your race has sunk to.

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

http://www.sfsite.com/02a/gq193.htm

Goblin Quest

[Grimm]

Alternatively, rename all goblins in the game to halflings.

[greepish]

Why wouldn't mutation resistance work? I don't see a problem with crawl goblins being mutation resistant.

What is bad IMO is that goblin monsters are pretty much incapable of doing anything. For kobolds there's Sonja, big kobolds, kobold demonologists. Orcs cover everything from wimpy grunt to mighty wizard. Goblin monsters? There are... goblins. Granted, the 9th deadliest monster in crawl, but they do kind of suck. At everything.

Don't forget hobgoblins! They... have the name hob in front of them.

[mad]

Make hobgoblins "double halflings" or something...

[greepish]

Wait.. do you mean "lings" or "quarterlings"?

[nicolae]

Wait.. do you mean "lings" or "quarterlings"?

Hemidemisemilings. They can wear caps as body armor but are too small to wield anything.

[Grimm]

threequarterlings

[nicolae]

threequarterlings

Actually it's a buck and a quarterling but don't tell him that.

[Roderic]

The curtain opens and in the scenario appear Gandalf, Aragorn and Frodo Baggins.

Name of the series ?

Two men and halfling

[roctavian]

Why wouldn't mutation resistance work? I don't see a problem with crawl goblins being mutation resistant.

What is bad IMO is that goblin monsters are pretty much incapable of doing anything. For kobolds there's Sonja, big kobolds, kobold demonologists. Orcs cover everything from wimpy grunt to mighty wizard. Goblin monsters? There are... goblins. Granted, the 9th deadliest monster in crawl, but they do kind of suck. At everything.

I suppose if that sort of thing is an issue, there could just be a new mid-late game goblin unique, or Joseph could be re-worked slightly since he's the only slinger I can think of.

[XuaXua]

Why not refer to goblins (the monster) as a mutated race that has inherent mutation resistance, and then we won't have to consider exceptions? It's not like anyone really does much with goblins and polymorphing anyway, this won't be a Mountain Dwarf "up in arms" situation.

At best, give goblins a random mutation or have them mutate when near Ugly Things, giving them a minor late-game danger factor.

[cerebovssquire]

Making them mutate negatively near ugly things sounds cripplingly bad, and making them mutate randomly encourages scumming to a really large extent.

[XuaXua]

Making them mutate negatively near ugly things sounds cripplingly bad, and making them mutate randomly encourages scumming to a really large extent.

Making the monster version, not the player version. Or just give them all natural mutation resistance and call it a day; in the end, if it's on the monster, it only makes testing wands of polymorphing minutely less easy.

[Roderic]

Halfling niche is stealth, stabbing and slingers in addition to a resilience to mutation.. which is the difference between Ha and Ko ?

Goblinoids can be a substitute in case one wants to consider they are skilled in poison magic (or even better, an futurible alchemy school) and therefore, either they have a mutation resistance by means of alchemy knowledge or they are alchemy-skilled because their genetics are quite stable to work with potions without too much risk.

One has to be careful to differentiate them from kobolds (etymologically they are the same: kobalos - kobold - gobelin).

[Bim]

Great idea, there seems to be a lot of wish to do away with Tolkien lore (which I support) but it hasn't seemed to expand to everything for some reason.
A mutation susceptible race could be interesting, and could be more 'fun' than a resistant one, however that is the halfling niche. I think it's a incredibly easy thing to explain away in any of the ways said above though, and having Joseph become a goblin would be fun. Joe the Gobo.

[XuaXua]

I figured out how to solve the mutation issue.

Don't make it Mutation Resistance or Mutation Susceptability. Remove that altogether.

Instead, make Halflings (or Goblins) more likely to receive a beneficial mutation.

[cerebovssquire]

If my beneficial mutation chance was increased, the first thing I would do would be leading a neqoxec to the Temple and scumming Polymorph Other for 50k turns. I think this is all you need to know to see how awkward that idea is.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Higher chance for beneficial =/= more likely to get one over negative.

[greepish]

Higher chance for beneficial =/= more likely to get one over negative.

Unless I'm misreading what you're saying (probably am), I'm pretty sure it is o.O Can you elaborate that?

[roctavian]

But over the long-term, it does tend to equate that (higher chance for beneficial = more likely to get one over negative, I mean). Even without a bonus chance for beneficial mutations, people used to chain-chug hundreds of mutation pots at a time (back when such a number was possible by scumming Fulsillome Distillation/mutation corpses) until the positives outweighed the negatives.

I think that a goblin player race can keep the mutation resistance as-is, and I don't think it there's any problem leaving goblin monsters just as they are -- "can I polymorph goblins or not" is such a niche issue that it's virtually not an issue at all.

If such a change is absolutely necessary for lore reasons, then I have two proposals: monster goblins can only be polymorphed into hobgoblins, and vice-versa; or it takes two casts of polymorph other/polymorph wand to affect goblins.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Higher chance for beneficial =/= more likely to get one over negative.

Unless I'm misreading what you're saying (probably am), I'm pretty sure it is o.O Can you elaborate that?

Sources of primarily bad mutations, such as enemies with mutagenic attacks, have very low chances to give good ones. Like, 10%. If the mutation increased the chance to get good mutations by, say, 100% (which is way higher than what I'd expect), then you'd only have a 20% chance to get a good mutation and 80% for a bad.

But over the long-term, it does tend to equate that (higher chance for beneficial = more likely to get one over negative, I mean). Even without a bonus chance for beneficial mutations, people used to chain-chug hundreds of mutation pots at a time (back when such a number was possible by scumming Fulsillome Distillation/mutation corpses) until the positives outweighed the negatives..

That worked because (1)Potions of Mutation grant purely random mutations, (2)Only a few bad mutations are crippling, and (3), if memory serves right, sources of random mutation have a leaning of like, 55% to 45% for good/bad, so in the long run giving yourself purely random mutations will eventually give more good than bad.

[absolutego]

people. mutations are terrible.
(and noone plays a halfling for innate rmut anyway.)

[cerebovssquire]

(2)Only a few bad mutations are crippling

Berserkeritis, high-level detoriation, teleportitis, slow movement are crippling. In addition, bad mutations are worse than good mutations are good. In addition, you can reliably win Crawl without an AC +4 or cTele mutation. Teleportitis will get you killed, on the other hand.
Also, if Goblins didn't have an effect that made Polymorph Other at least random their benficial mutation chance would be basically pointless.

[TwilightPhoenix]

And that's only 4 out of 19 "bad mutations", not counting Jiyva mutations, and one of them is, as you said, only crippling if it gets high. Hence (2) is still valid.

[XuaXua]

I got it.

Don't remove innate mutation resistance.

Give Halflings (rather, Goblins) access to all mutation possibilities (Jivya, Demonspawn, and whatever else) from the onset. Any potential mutation they can receive can be from the entire gamut of possible mutations, and with resistance they have less chance of getting any.

It'd be Gremlins 2 all over again.

[KoboldLord]

And that's only 4 out of 19 "bad mutations", not counting Jiyva mutations, and one of them is, as you said, only crippling if it gets high. Hence (2) is still valid.

cerebovssquire omitted a few, possibly because the four he mentioned are more than imposing enough to make any uncontrolled mutation undesirable. Additionally, blurry vision will probably kill you and shoutitis and wild magic can make your current build nonfunctional.

And on the other hand, what's the potential upside of risking mutation? Most 'good' mutations are crap like +1 scales, and even if you get lucky the very best possible mutations are equivalent to an extra vanilla ring slot that you can't swap. Bad mutations can sometimes result in near-immediate, unavoidable death, for instance uncontrolled teleportitis on an unexplored level. Other times they result in a long, painful death spiral instead.

[TwilightPhoenix]

cTele, sustenance, fast movement, innate blink, any of the resistance mutations, Clarity, mutation resistance, see invis, sense monsters, carnivore (probably less so in trunk), regeneration, robust, and energetic are all quite useful, some down right powerful and game changing. You don't notice them as much because there's more sources of bad mutations than good, but pulling two or three of the right good mutations provides a huge boost to survivability. And some of those (Clarity, cTele) can negate or otherwise make bad mutations useful. Teleportitis + cTele mutations, for example, can be a little annoying by constantly being interrupted, but it's very potent.

[KoboldLord]

The game is balanced such that you can reliably survive without a ring of teleport control or boots of speed or whatever. Getting a slotless one of these is extra-nice, but it doesn't change the fact that good play will let you survive just fine without it. The game is not balanced to force you to randomly fail to use consumables or constantly need consumables to survive being randomly dumped into an imminent death situation. Getting one of those fat albatrosses can cost you the game even with good play unless you draw a whole lot of positive dumb luck to compensate.

[roctavian]

Not to poop on the parade, but it looks like we're done discussing the original proposal in this thread -- should I make a wiki page for it? It's such a small thing that I don't think it needs a wiki page. I feel it would be overly-presumptuous to post an implementable on the tracker, but I also don't think there'd be much opposition. I only suggest a rename, no other changes are necessary. If new player tiles would be appreciated, I could make them. (edit: have made them)

[greepish]

Just put it under the halfling page, I guess.

[Galefury]

Implementables are only for developers to post. They are approved ideas, usually with the design process already finished, the devs just don't have time to code them. That's why that mantis category is only available for devs to create. Ideas go on the wiki.

[KoboldLord]

There's no minimum size for a wiki page, and it's better not to clutter up another page with a vanity suggestion. Ultimately, there's no point to making this change. Nobody that I've seen is calling for a goblin player race. The halfling race doesn't strongly overlap in function with any other existing races. There's no reason to oppose the rename, per se, but on the other hand the only reason to go through with it is so roctavian can point to the change and say, "That was my idea that the Crawl devteam implemented."

[jejorda2]

the only reason to go through with it is so roctavian can point to the change

That's going a little too far. There are at least two good reasons:
1)Halflings are from Tolkien without much else for a source, and crawl tries to avoid modern popular fantasy in favor of classic mythologies. There are no power rangers or pokemon in crawl, and there probably shouldn't be any in crawl.
2)Having goblin players instead of halfling players increases symmetry between players and monsters, which is a good thing. It means when a goblin beats you, instead of saying "it's no fair that goblins can do that," you say, "I'll go play a goblin next time." Of course, goblins are just early popcorn, so this symmetry is of limited value. Making all the current goblin monsters halflings, or (even better, but much more difficultly,) adding a branch with dangerous new halfling monsters, would add symmetry more convincingly.

[XuaXua]

1)Halflings are from Tolkien without much else for a source

Halflings are from D&D, Hobbits are from Tolkien.

edit: damn, that sounds like a great name for a self-help book.

[Blade]

Halflings are from Tolkein. They call themselves hobbits; others call them halflings.

[ElectricAlbatross]

Halflings are from Tolkien

Our understanding of goblins is from D&D, no?

[XuaXua]

Halflings are from Tolkien

Our understanding of goblins is from D&D, no?

They're also in general folklore.

[galehar]

Halflings are from Tolkein. They call themselves hobbits; others call them halflings.

Halfling is another name for J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit which can be a fictional race sometimes found in fantasy novels and games. In many settings, they are similar to humans except about half the size. Dungeons & Dragons began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit for legal reasons.

From wikipedia.

They are definitely from tolkien. Personally, I like halflings and would like to keep them as they are.

[CommanderC]

As we removed MD and renamed Kenku to Tengu -- on a similar "crawl-lore" note, has anyone ever considered renaming the Halfling player race to a Goblin player race?

Removing Mountains Dwarves wasn't a "crawl-lore" note. Several developers have already explained (thousands of times) the reason of the removal.
I like Halfings as they are now, and I don't think they need any change.