Why are "small people bandits" the go-to "These are technically sapient, but they are criminals in the wilderness, so please do not feel bad about summarily executing them" enemies in starter adventures for D&D and D&D-branched fantasy RPGs?

I am sure many of us are familiar with starter adventures that begin with tacitly sanctioned slaughter of "small people bandits." The Sunless Citadel's opening sequence is against kobolds, and Phandelver starts off with goblins, for example.

Recently, I GMed Draw Steel's The Delian Tomb, Draw Steel's Road to Broadhurst (twice, for separate players), and Daggerheart's Sablewood Messengers. All of these are starter adventures for level 1 characters. The Delian Tomb's first two fights are against goblin bandits, Road to Broadhurst's two fights are against radenwight (small ratfolk) bandits and goblin bandits, and Sablewood Messengers begins with ribbet (small frogfolk) bandits. In all four of these runs, the players elected to nonlethally incapacitate and spare the little ones, probably because I depicted them in a vaguely sympathetic and cutesy fashion.

I have never seen a single one of these starter adventurers discuss what happens if the PCs actually commit to sparing these small people.

Additionally, I have been playtesting a starter adventure for an indie RPG, Tactiquest. The first three fights are, of course, against goblin(oid)s and kobolds.

Why does it have to be this way? Why do starter adventures for these RPGs insist on initiating PCs into their heroic careers by having them beat up, and quite possibly kill, small and desperate criminals in the wilderness?

Because, as a level 1 character, you should be fighting other, more 'mundane' creatures in this world. What would be the most 'normal'
thing for us to fight as players? Well, criminals are a thing we all understand in real life, but we want some spice so lets make them one of the fantasy races. And, since this is level one, lets ease them in with a larger number of smaller, weaker enemies than a big boss. Boom, you've got your goblin/kobold/halfling thieves to kill. It's not pleasant if you look at it too closely, but it's easy and simple.

>>95966284 (OP)
So you would like demigod bandits, each as deadly as a grown dragon, instead?

Because small things are generally less dangerous than large ones.
Why would you feel bad about killing creatures what want to kill you and take all your stuff? And have presumably done so before to other people?

>>95966284 (OP)
You need to be of this stature to be forgiven and have a fair trial.

>>95966330
>thing for us to fight as players?
Will animals?

>>95966284 (OP)
The people of the past were a lot less self-aware than we are are about certain things. The idea of superior creature slaughtering lesser creatures as a power fantasy was just something they were okay with. Lots of the old pulp novels/comics had a big strong white dude killing a lot of small people. They were also often dark skinned so that the guy reading could pretend he was as tall as his black gardner who was absolutely not fucking his wife.

When I was running Daggerheart's quickstart, The Sablewood Messengers, the players elected to nonlethally incapacitate the Thistlefolk bandits (three ribbets, judging from the illustration, and one of indeterminate ancestry). This did not surprise me in any way; I knew each of the players tendencies, and I knew that they would instinctively opt to spare, particularly since I was depicting the Thistlefolk in a cutesy manner.

The PCs debated the merit of sparing the Thistlefolk, insomuch as the latter had clearly murdered a merchant in cold blood just to erect a ~1% more effective ambush. Eventually, they settled on tying the Thistlefolk to the carriage and dragging them towards Hush, full speed ahead, pulling them across roots and brambles.

The players and their PCs expressed interest in turning over the Thistlefolk to authority figures. I consulted the Sablewood document ( https://www.daggerheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Sablewood-05-20-25.pdf ) and saw that the Sable Sinecure "merchant's guild effectively runs the Sablewood." I figured that the guild would have a branch office in Hush. I informed the group that they could take the Thistlefolk to a local Sable Sinecure merchant representative, who would almost certainly execute the bandits to send a message against anyone who would disrupt trade in the forest.

The group did so. The representative came out, twirling a six-shooter imported from the Drylands. We played out a public execution scene in the middle of the Firstmoss Festival, in which the representative used the Thistlefolk as target practice. The locals cheered, due to the very poor reputation of the Thistlefolk in the Sablewood (as per the document). The Sable Sinecure guild representative took the fruits, the vegetables, and the corpse loaded from the scene of the crime, verbally thanked the PCs for helping clean up the woodland, and walked away without giving a tangible reward.

The group was roughly fine with this.

That is my anecdote.

>>95966284 (OP)
The most important thing to keep in mind when getting people in the headspace to slaughter any sapient creature is dehumanization. When starting with new players, you want to make it clear to them that they are supposed to kill the stuff in front of them, and one of the easiest ways to do that is by making something small, but vicious.

The first thing is that you want to make sure that the creature isn't imposing. If the players meet an intelligent giant, they're often going to be intimidated enough to want to talk it out, especially if they're new to the game. Communication creates sympathy, and slows down the adventure.

Second thing is that you either establish that killing these things is okay in-game, or work with the long understood gamer convention that killing them is okay. Once they attack the players first, it becomes a matter of 'self-defense', and if these supposedly cowardly creatures fight to the death, then you don't need to talk to them. This is also why it's useful to have them not speak the same language.

Third, and most importantly, this is training for not questioning the killing of other threats down the line. You want your players willing and able to slaughter a group of human bandits without talking to them, and you want them to be so certain killing is the solution that they do charge the intelligent ogre when it comes time.

Remember, every encounter without enemy boobs should leave no survivors. Your enemies aren't alive, they're obstacles, and if your players talk to every obstacle, you won't finish the adventure.

>>95967438

If the Sable Sinecure "merchant's guild effectively runs the Sablewood," and an entire community has been demonized into good-for-nothing criminals (because some of them have been driven to banditry out of desperation), then the Sablewood is a low-key cyberpunk setting in a sylvan, cottagecore skin.

>>95967496

Okay, but I tend to make these starter enemies cute anime girls.

>>95967496
Oh, another good thing to do is remind the players that they live in a medieval society, and so there are no jails or prisons for bandits or nonhumans, while the dungeons seem to be used for everything besides locking people up. As such, make sure to tell the Paladin that it will take 100 years to get back to town with any captured kobold or human bandit, and that they will immediately be executed anyways because that's how it worked back then. Most Players are stupid enough to believe that, because everyone in the past was obviously a psychopath that ended life at the drop of a hat.

>>95967525
>Okay, but I tend to make these starter enemies cute anime girls.

See, that's a terrible idea. Those faces are basically engineered to trigger sympathy and cause the observer to feel a sense of connection. A great rule of thumb is to use male enemies against straight (male) players, and female enemies agains gay (male) players. This will massively cut down on any empathy, since someone being the gender they're attracted to tends to humanize them.

One hilarious tactic I love is to have one of them say something racist, which tricks the player into thinking they can't possibly be racist by killing the creatures that called the elf a 'knife ears' or whatever, despite them both having pointy ones.

>>95966284 (OP)
Much like in real life, short people are subhuman. Do you really need any other reason?

>>95967525

>If the Sable Sinecure "merchant's guild effectively runs the Sablewood," and an entire community has been demonized into good-for-nothing criminals (because some of them have been driven to banditry out of desperation), then the Sablewood is a low-key cyberpunk setting in a sylvan, cottagecore skin.

And you know, their headquarters is a corporate tower, so to speak. This image is from the Sablewood document.

>>95967525

>If the Sable Sinecure "merchant's guild effectively runs the Sablewood," and an entire community has been demonized into good-for-nothing criminals (because some of them have been driven to banditry out of desperation), then the Sablewood is a low-key cyberpunk setting in a sylvan, cottagecore skin.

And you know, their headquarters is a corporate tower, so to speak. This image is from the Sablewood document: https://www.daggerheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Sablewood-05-20-25.pdf

>>95967525
>Okay, but I tend to make these starter enemies cute anime girls.

Make more friends with Ryona enjoyers maybe?

What about regular ol human bandits?

>>95967525
>Okay, but I tend to make these starter enemies cute anime girls.
Solution: make everyone a cute anime girl, so that when the players meet cute anime girls they have to kill, they won't even bat an eye, because they already have cute anime girls back home. That's what worked for me.

>>95968628

I have done that too. In my experience, what actually happens is that none of them are killed.

>>95969113
Have you considered getting together a group of the particular strain of autistic children that immediately murder anything anime related like they're Space Marines on that furry planet animation?

>>95967525
>I tend to make these starter enemies cute anime girls.
You better be from /lewd/.

>>95967907
Someone that tall can't be a criminal.

To make the players feel heroic, even at the earliest point in their story.
To make a group feel heroic, they need to be able to dispatch a single powerful monster or a larger group of foes.
At first level, there isn't much difference in power between the player-characters and typical members of their race. A level 1 human fighter is going to struggle to fight 3 human bandits and come out on top.
Fighting animals, unless they are particularly monstrous and dangerous, does not feel very heroic. "Kill those rats in the basement" is derided as a humiliating way to start a campaign for a good reason. A foe only comes across as threatening if its actions are based in thinking and feeling, if it's genuinely hostile and not just a territorial animal.
So, to make starting characters feel like they are heroic and not pest exterminators, and without them likely dying in the process against foes of equivalent strength, they must fight against a swarm of antagonistic yet weak sapient beings.
As an example of this, which comes across as the most heroic:
>A band of warriors fight off a pack of wolves that are trying to attack the caravan that they are guarding.
>A band of warriors fight off a couple of orc marauders that are trying to attack the caravan that they are guarding.
>A band of warriors fight off a swarm of goblin raiders that are trying to attack the caravan that they are guarding.

>>95967438
Who's more dangerous - Frogiwawa or Weird Fuckin Cat?

>>95966284 (OP)
Small things are weak. Weak things are easier to beat but still not helpless. Things that are people sized, same as the PCs, intuitively are as threatening and thus make for coinflip encounters or encounters that feel wrong/fake. Systems like D&D and PF which want heroic fantasy but want man sized enemies to pose man sized threats thus use goblins, gronkbolds, etc. as fodder for newfags.

Contrast WFRP, which leans into encounters being a deadly coinflip. You're much more likely to encounter man sized or bigger enemies as first foes there - bandits, chaos faggots, orcs, beastmen. It still has vermin races like goblins and skaven, but these are recontextualized as a sincere threat by nature of them relying on large numbers and that being an actual threat in system math (you're just A Guy, not Conan).

Then you have systems that aren't just heroic fantasy, but hew more closely to the pulp origins of this whole hobby. You tend not to see vermin folk in these as frequently because the system assumes that PCs are a cut above. They're Conan, the Shadow, Indiana Jones. See systems like Savage Worlds, Barbarians of Lemuria, or Honor+Intrigue.

It's not a moral judgment on being small, it's an outgrowth of how the given world is "supposed" to work.

>>95967407
>The idea of superior creature slaughtering lesser creatures as a power fantasy was just something they were okay with
What do you mean "was"? People are still absolutely okay with torturing and killing "lesser" beings. It's a key aspect of our nature. They are absolutely not aware of it, they don't even see them as proper beings.

>>95967907
Fuck off, pedophile
>>95970168
It's worse, he's from /vt/
>>95966284 (OP)
Because humans are sickos

>>95967907
Kill yourself puckee

>>95971120
It's considered cringe and lame to punch down in the modern power fantasy meta, especially for 'heroic' characters. Inherent natura doesn't factor into it, though personally I disagree, given how uncomfortable I am killing even a spider if it's large enough to have something I recognize as a face. Stomping a smol lizard man flat, after he came in wearing his maccaroni art project doesn't feel like 'human nature' or whatever.

>>95966284 (OP)
>Small people bandits
Latinos and SEA?

>>95970168
Not him, but jokes aside, it is a good strategy is you're trying to train your players to not immediately kill things they defeat. If for some godforsaken reason your enemies are meant to be interacted with, rather than moved on from, you kind of need to break the default response of murder everything. Remember, while all humans instinctively want to kill everything they meet, the urge to mate is even stronger. A childlike female character triggers the player's desire to mate, but because it looks too young for that to be acceptable, the player shouldn't waste time trying to sleep with them. As an added bonus, if the enemy acts antagonistic to the player, this triggers the human brain's desire to force themselves upon them, rather than kill them outright. By taking advantage of the rape response, without needing to actually deal with that consequences, you get to have your cake and eat it too, essentially.

>>95971486
>cringe and lame

Okay, but what about Isekai. That whole genre is basically just punching down. Would anyone call isekai cringe?

>>95971486
What do you think the ghost of the small macaroni lizard man would have to say about your nature, if it was revealed that his untimely death was ultimately due to someone wanting to make a point about how much they care about lizard people who get flattened?

>>95971608
>Would anyone call isekai cringe?
Yes. A lot.

>>95967829
This. If you're under 5'6" (167cm) you're not really a person.

>>95971608
>Would anyone call isekai cringe?
I'd be surprised if anyone DIDN'T consider it cringe.

>>95971682
>killing children and grandmas is fine

>>95971486
>Stomping a smol lizard man flat, after he came in wearing his maccaroni art project doesn't feel like 'human nature' or whatever.

I'm a red-blooded American killing machine, you pinko queer.

I always felt like you just had to put aside qualms about low level battles. Like at the beginning of FF3/6 you go into a town and get attacked by a stray dog. Kinda freaked me out as a kid.

Now I'm imagining a more humanitarian/realistic DnD setting where killing things just makes everything worse. Like if you kill a nest of orc babies you get PTSD. If you slay the griffin guarding the mountain pass suddenly other monsters can cross through. The villagers actively try to discourage/misdirect/harm anyone trying to loot the barrows because they'll have to deal with the curses/hauntings/retribution after the PCs take the grave goods.

>>95973878
>red blooded

Shut up, you damn injun

>>95977654
>fail to kill the orc babies of the orc bandits
>they miraculously survive a slower and more terrifying death of starvation, wolves, etc
>they grow up into big orcs with a grudge against humans
>they rape and murder any unarmed farmers they can get their hands on
Wow, well done. Your setting is so humanitarian and realistic.

When Texans settled the frontier, the first thing they learned about alien raiding cultures is that if you don't wipe out every last one, your wife and children will never, ever be safe.

>>95977654
This honestly sounds pretty neat. Ignoring the retarded arguments about whether killing orc babies is okay (Nits make lice hurr hurr), imagine a game where not killing them had realistic consequences. Leaving them to starve is basically the same as killing them, and if they aren't raised right, they might want revenge for their parents. And even if you do raise them, you have to explain to children why it was necessary.

None of which is me arguing you shouldn't. Just that it might be interesting if the games worked that way. Imagine a group of PCs with a steadily growing trail of orphans they created.

>>95977700
Orc logic. You people are why we have to kill the parents.

>>95977705
Better them than us and if you beg to differ then you can go live with the orcs you seem to favour over your own kinfolk who have suffered under their greed and lust. See how that works out for you.

Maybe you'll travel to the nice realms of 5.5e where orcs are just big-hearted green humans who would never raid anyone.

>>95967907
qrd on the backlash? this just seems like a regular post to me

>>95977724
Man, Orcs have culturally just been green people since Warcraft 3 came out. Shove your them or us mentality up your ass.

>>95977748
It's the 'only play humans' guy.

>>95971608
>Would anyone call isekai cringe?
And lame.

>>95971608
>Would anyone call isekai cringe?
Would anyone consider Isekai not cringe?

>>95966284 (OP)

>In all four of these runs, the players elected to nonlethally incapacitate and spare the little ones, probably because I depicted them in a vaguely sympathetic and cutesy fashion.

Kinda jealous you were able to successfully tone down the bloodshed just by dropping hints like that.

I feel like for a lot of players I've gamed with, being bloodthirsty was a big part of the freedom that people expect from RPGs. So they'd always want to hunt down some random goblin that ran away like pitbulls on meth or stab all the fallen enemies to make sure they were really dead.

(Having a girl or two in the group helps with this but we're all late 20's so most of my female friends are married/busy now.)

>>95977748
Spam AI commission from a pedo, check the archives and you'll find hundreds of reposts

>>95977761
>a video game
>a game decades younger than D&D
>a game generations younger than the popular conception of an orc
>a game well known for being the first popular franchise to pitch orcs as 'humans with tusks'
Go home. >>>>>>>/v/

>>95977806
It was a breaking point for how people saw them in ttrpgs, dumbass. That's when most of the "seeing monsters as people" shit started. Do you really need to have the idea of culture explained to you?

>>95977834
>how people saw them
by this you mean your specific clique of normie newbies to whom WotC eventually decided to cater because you're the easiest mass media consumers to sell slop. go enjoy your own culture of greenwashed human 'orcs' instead of pretending you know ours. you can find it here: >>>/lgbt/

>>95977866
Starting in 3.5 doesn't make me a newbie, you deeply old, grumbling soldier. I'm sorry we took your boring ass rape apes and gave them personalities.

>>95977806
>a game generations younger than the popular conception of an orc

Orcs are actually little guys who live in Mordor.

>>95977724
>big-hearted green humans who would never raid anyone.
Nah, they're just as evil or as good as the DM chooses to make them, nothing about their 5.5e version makes them any nicer than other races.

>>95977910
This. Mongolians are technically human, if you squint, and that was their whole deal. They even raped like a million people.

>>95977866
Our argument aside, we can all agree making them Mexicans was dumb as fuck, right? Obviously they're huns if we pick any race.

>>95977987
I actually think Pre-WW1 Germans are the ideal base for them. Orc Krauts just make sense.

>>95977987
Orcs are impoverished English veterans of the Great War who came home broken and demoralised with no hope and no memory of the old Saxon identity, at least as far as John imagined it. Everyone trying to associate them with any brown race is misguided. They're nasty fey monsters first and an allegory for the spiritual destruction of industrial warfare second.

>>95977910
>nothing about their 5.5e version makes them any nicer than other races
And you don't imagine how this strips a layer off their depth and flavour? 'Orcs are good now, they have a good identity, they have an honour culture, they're all Conan' is still a better proposition than 'orcs are... uh... just kind of whatever you want, I guess.'

>>95978031
Personally I like human with a dash of predisposition towards violence. Inclination doesn't remove agency. Giving Aasimar a predisposition towards good and Tieflings a predisposition towards evil is also fun.

Treat it like a mental illness, rather than making them Rape Elementals.

>>95978031
In regards to the first part... that's beautiful, and I like it a lot. If that's what we'd been working with from the start to today, I think people would feel less inclination to change them. The issue is that I don't think they've been fey creatures for a long time in the general cultural mindset, even among the isolated grognards who have held the line since AD&D. At some point, they sort of flanderized into Big No No Chimps. I'd love to try a campaign with Orcs as you describe them, mind. Hell, a setting where Orcs are the soldiers of the Seelie/Unseelie Courts could be neat.

>>95966284 (OP)
If discriminating against short people is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

>>95977748
He's a known redditor who has spammed his commissions throughout the board for the past few years. Usually has 2-3 threads up at all times with low quality questions, even tried passing one of his commissions on the draw thread as a filled request.
https://desuarchive.org/tg/thread/92628290/#92687500
That particular commission of his has been spammed nearly 100 times:
https://desuarchive.org/_/search/image/ZhTzBHkDSXcl13pCikfLvw/

>>95967407
You fucking faggot lmao
Go jerk off to your nigger porn and fuck off

>>95971608
The only good isekai is the ones that predate the term. John Carter, Tarzan, et cetera. Naturally when gooks got their hands on the genre it was over.