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[Draegur]

From what I understand, the lives of goblins are supposed to end with brutal violence being inflicted upon them.

The current model has failed to produce these results:

Instead, their lives all too often don't end at all.

Rather, the ones who live many years accumulate an embarrassingly vast quantity of experience and skill, and their bodies remain perfectly in their prime; therefore the end result tends to decrease the likelihood of the goblin dying in battle, because now they're too strong and too competent.

Competency is not a trait goblins are supposed to have.

I propose a solution to produce the intended results:

Sure, make it so goblins STILL never 'die of old age' - HOWEVER, INSTEAD, introduce a non-infectious age-based syndrome that progressively degrades their attributes. Without someone to come along and kill it, an ancient goblin would, under this proposed model, exhibit essentially all the acute symptoms of advanced rabies meets "28 Days Later", plus a little extra:
 - Feeble
 - Clumsy
 - Fragile
 - Fatigued
 - Wounds no longer heal
 - Diseased
 - 0 Analytical ability (it's not able to think/judge)
 - 0 Focus (it's jumpy and distracted by everything)
 - 0 Willpower (it has no impulse control and reacts blindly)
 - 0 Creativity (as if a creature in such a state would ever be able to create anything except carnage)
 - 0 Intuition (it doesn't even have an instinctive sense of danger or safety left)
 - 0 Patience (it is living in a persistent eternity of terror and agony, it will never wait for anything again)
 - 0 Memory (all it knows is what's right in front of it right now)
 - 0 Linguistic Ability (it's lost the ability even hold a rational thought let alone express one)
 - 0 Spatial Sense (everything and nothing is everywhere and nowhere at the same time)
 - 0 Musicality (Any and all noise of any kind is terrifying/enraging/sickening to its ears, even its own screams)
 - 0 Kinesthetic Sense (Its progressive nervous system degradation has resulted in it barely being able to feel anything other than the constant BURNING)
 - 0 Empathy (the only emotions that exist are its own: Rage, Terror, Nausea)
 - 0 Social Awareness (EVERYTHING IS ENEMY)

Such a goblin attacks everything in sight, even its own kind, because it has no recognition of 'its own' anymore. It wouldn't even recognize itself. If it's very skilled, it will kill many goblins before succumbing to its own rotting, unhealing wounds.

Prior to reaching that endpoint, a goblin becomes more likely to pick pointless fights and less capable of surviving them, becoming progressively more aggressive and less reasonable after living a certain number or years until it spills their blood - as Armok intended.

THAT is how you guarantee that every goblin life ends in brutality (but also doesn't lead to the population entirely destroying itself because the ones that experience age degradation are less essentially competent).

So in summation: I'm not saying we should take away goblin immortality; I'm merely saying that their immortality should be modified to better suit the intended results of a horde of vicious monsters (and not a dominant global superpower that can attain control of the entire world through mere ATTRITION.)

[Zazmio]

I don't know.... My militia needs endless hordes to hone their combat skills on.

[Draegur]

This will not in any way impede goblins from becoming hordes. If however you want bigger hordes, one could make their birthrate configurable.

[Salmeuk]

Competency is not a trait goblins are supposed to have.

meh. I quite like the idea of Goblins with books, and 9/10 times the first performance troupe in any given fortress is full of goblins.

might be an interesting mod . or fanfic.

where did this 'every goblin life ends in brutality' thing come from, other than printing of seven decades worth of anti-orc propaganda (known as LOTR and its ilk) ?

[mross]

Why shouldn't goblins be competent?

[Cathar]

TLDR : it's a non working solution that will not fix the problem it aims to fix, and this problem does not exist in the first place :

Balance wise, goblins are fine.

• Goblins are already murder happy creatures who think they should murder each other.
•This is counterbalanced by their ability to form in hordes and banzai charge the player.
• Goblins are not that competent. Their level is about the same as humans in vanilla. They are smaller, do not have access to alloys, and do not combat trance. In a fair fight, goblins lose against every other sentient race except elf (who themselves are immortal also)
•This is counterbalanced by their big numbers (derived from their immortality) and their limited pool of war creatures.

Growing older
• Immortality and perma fertility has that effect on simulation : growing their numbers. A human army can mbilize two, three generations. A goblin hordes can mobilize everyone who hasnt died yet. This is not a bug, this is a feature. Goblins are meant to come in large numbers.
•Yes, this means the goblins are written properly, and most green skins in other fictions are not. Try to explain to a warhammer fantasy fan that an undying civilisation of permafertile supermen can only result in endless expensionism warfare as a mechanical result and he'll look at you in elven confusion. I know, I tried. When you can breed exponentially, you need exponentially more land to live, and are mechanically driven to attack your neighbours for theirs.
•Growing older limits the rate at which goblins replenish their population, which limits their spillover rate, which in turn limit the need to attack their neighbours. Which makes absolutely no sense as balance-wise it is not needed.

Goblins are not your D&D goblins
Goblins in DF are their own kind of creatures, who have their perks, their drawbacks, their designs. Working with or against goblins is extremely fun, because they sure as hell do not think like humans do, butr their behaviour remains logical and mechanically balanced.

As for controlling the world, yes. Goblin will control the world if you let them do it. If the good guy sleeps the bad one wins. They are the villain, and unlike D&D esque vermin goblins, DF goblins are a clown-led capable, organized force that can and will destroy your world if you let them.

[Salmeuk]

Try to explain to a warhammer fantasy fan that an undying civilisation of permafertile supermen can only result in endless expensionism warfare as a mechanical result and he'll look at you in elven confusion. I know, I tried. When you can breed exponentially, you need exponentially more land to live, and are mechanically driven to attack your neighbours for theirs.

goblins are a kind of bacteria, got it 

[Cathar]

goblins are a kind of bacteria, got it 

I mean if you look humanity from far enough, we are not that different from bacterian behaviour ourselves

[mross]

Try to explain to a warhammer fantasy fan that an undying civilisation of permafertile supermen can only result in endless expensionism warfare as a mechanical result and he'll look at you in elven confusion. I know, I tried. When you can breed exponentially, you need exponentially more land to live, and are mechanically driven to attack your neighbours for theirs.

goblins are a kind of bacteria, got it 

What's the alternative? Aren't orks in 40k relentlessly expansionist and warlike anyway?

[HMD Majesty]

Try to explain to a warhammer fantasy fan that an undying civilisation of permafertile supermen can only result in endless expensionism warfare as a mechanical result and he'll look at you in elven confusion. I know, I tried. When you can breed exponentially, you need exponentially more land to live, and are mechanically driven to attack your neighbours for theirs.

goblins are a kind of bacteria, got it 

What's the alternative? Aren't orks in 40k relentlessly expansionist and warlike anyway?

40k and Warhammer Fantasy are not the same Game or Setting, and as such the 40k Orks are not the Fantasy Goblins.  Evidently, the Goblins of Warhammer Fantasy are fluffed as Folk who are or could be less warlike.

[Eschar]

where did this 'every goblin life ends in brutality' thing come from, other than printing of seven decades worth of anti-orc propaganda (known as LOTR and its ilk) ?

From toady:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=1104.msg14899#msg14899

As OP notes, that doesn't quite end up happening.

[Cathar]

What's the alternative? Aren't orks in 40k relentlessly expansionist and warlike anyway?

Just to clarify, I was referencing a discussion I had some times ago on /tg/ about warhammer high elves, that went something like

"So high elves never age, never die of old age
-That's correct
-Do they stop being fertile at any point ?
-Oh no, they don't. They can still produce offspring after a millenia has past
-Wait, so surely they start being fertile very late in their life ?
-No no, same as human, around 12-14, marry at 18
-So they have to have some kind of law or magic to stop them from overbreeding ? Like after four children you pay some kind of tax or other disincentive?
-No such thing !
-And so, you're telling me they remain isolated on their small island, doubling squaring their numbers every twenty years and for some reason they are a dwindling population on the constant defensive, that would never ever invade anyone and who have to rely on magic to shelter themselves from the rest of the world ?
-Yes that's the deep lore"

One of the reason I love DF is, it just shatters fantasy tropes by just existing. In a TTRPG setting, you can fluff your way out of a badly written setting because the lore and the gameplay do not constantly reality check each other.

You can't do that in DF.
If you're making goblins the short-lived verminesques creatures like they are in D&D, they will go the way of the kobold in DF and just be grounded down by their neighbours.

From toady:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=1104.msg14899#msg14899
As OP notes, that doesn't quite end up happening.

But goblins are dying from violent deaths. They cannot die otherwise.
If you read the context, this is exactly what Toady says. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

[brewer bob]

40k and Warhammer Fantasy are not the same Game or Setting

They sort of used to be, or that was the idea, but it was ditched/retconned/whatever like so much of older WHF stuff.

One of the reason I love DF is, it just shatters fantasy tropes by just existing.

Yep. Even dwarves in DF are very different than the stereotypical fantasy dwarf. Closest ttrpg to come into mind from them is Earthdawn - I've always found DF dwarves quite similar to them.

[Salmeuk]

What's the alternative? Aren't orks in 40k relentlessly expansionist and warlike anyway?

Just to clarify, I was referencing a discussion I had some times ago on /tg/ about warhammer high elves, that went something like

"So high elves never age, never die of old age
-That's correct
-Do they stop being fertile at any point ?
-Oh no, they don't. They can still produce offspring after a millenia has past
-Wait, so surely they start being fertile very late in their life ?
-No no, same as human, around 12-14, marry at 18
-So they have to have some kind of law or magic to stop them from overbreeding ? Like after four children you pay some kind of tax or other disincentive?
-No such thing !
-And so, you're telling me they remain isolated on their small island, doubling squaring their numbers every twenty years and for some reason they are a dwindling population on the constant defensive, that would never ever invade anyone and who have to rely on magic to shelter themselves from the rest of the world ?
-Yes that's the deep lore"

you know, i kind of disagree here. within the narrative one could establish many different reasons for an isolated population to remain relatively stable and un-expansionist, whether using your imagination or historical fact (see a huge number of indigenous populations throughout world history. this not to say all native peoples were not warlike, for example many NA tribes took slaves and fought wars). I do not think biological age of reproduction would guarantee that kind of ever-growing population.

i mean, have u read how the LOTR elves do things?  its a very managed society, and that itself is one of the defining characteristics of the notion of an immortal race as presented by tolkein

so whoever you were arguing with was really dumb to say

So they have to have some kind of law or magic to stop them from overbreeding ? Like after four children you pay some kind of tax or other disincentive?
-No such thing !

and probably failed to understand lore. though maybe warhammer / etc is that flawed - that whole IP was avoided by yours truly due to the dripping infantile edginess

[brewer bob]

Veering quite off-topic here, but...

though maybe warhammer / etc is that flawed - that whole IP was avoided by yours truly due to the dripping infantile edginess

It's just best to ignore almost all of Warhammer Fantasy Battle stuff and just use the 1st edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay lore (the 4th edition seems to be taking most of its inspiration from there). The writers (Graeme Davis, etc.) did a fantastic job in making the world feel alive and unique while putting some sense into it. (The edginess came around the 2nd edition of WFRP, though it seemed to be a horrible trend in ttrpgs during that period in general.)