Should the Dungeon Delvers Have Killed the Goblins?

With the return to playing D&D on a regular basis, I once again have an opportunity to renew the "Should X Have Killed Y" series of blog posts. The first few sets of monsters the party encountered were no-brainers. The Skeletons were already dead and clearly aggressive. The Skulks were also aggressors.

The Shadows were an interesting case. They were hostile, though not aggressive. They weren't going to attack anyone maliciously; they were just going to stand in the way and attack anyone who got too close. They only fought back because they were attacked. They could have been peacefully left alone. However, they were also undead, so their redeaths don't really carry much moral significance.

The real conundrum is the case of the goblins. The goblins were not hostile, undead, or evil. They had a certain amount of malicious sadism, but that was mostly because their idea of a harmless prank extended far into the area of what other people would call a harmful attack. All they wanted was to play a friendly game of "Dart Tag," using actual, weapons-grade darts. They also had little regard for the lives of others, or even of each other. It didn't bother them to see their fellow goblins die around them, and it wouldn't have bothered them to see any of the adventurers die. They weren't trying to kill anyone; they just didn't care whether deaths happened or not. In terms of morality, I would have placed them closer to Neutral than to Evil.

However, the situation is complicated by the existence and prevalence of evil goblins in other worlds and media. Sometimes, goblins are depicted as inherently evil in nature. Sometimes, they're assumed to be under the control of an evil god. And sometimes, Goblins are merely forces of nature who cause harm, but with no concept of morality at all. It's easy to assume that goblins are all evil when, in many cases, they are evil, or at least harmful to others.

In this particular case, the goblins weren't evil and didn't need to die, so their deaths were arguably immoral. However, the goblins themselves were somewhat amoral, and they wouldn't've bated an eye at some behavior that others would consider evil, like throwing darts at each other for fun. Perhaps it's better that they were killed than it would have been to let them live. It's hard to say.

I'm not going to judge whether the Dungeon Delvers should have killed these particular goblins or not. They did it, and it is what it is.