If the Goblins had good land from the start, how would that be better?

[BloodSquirrel]

I agree that's a useful way of framing the issue. However, I think it is misleading to apply the concepts of 'equality of opportunity' and 'equality of outcomes' directly to species, rather than to individuals within those societies. If the Humans and the Goblins had been equal at the start, but the 10th generation of humans is rich and the 10th generation of Goblins is poor, is that an inequality of 'opportunities' or 'outcomes'? If we're applying those concepts to the species as a whole, it looks like 'outcomes'. Through their own choices, the Humans and Goblins produced different outcomes. And since nobody expects there to be a perfect equality of outcomes, it's easy to say that the Humans have no particular responsibility to the Goblins.

But if we're just looking at the gaggle of Humans and Goblins that make up the 10th generation (ignoring that Goblins breed way faster than Humans) it seems like there is clear inequality of opportunity. Those humans were born into a position of having way more opportunities than those Goblins. And if inequality of opportunity is unjust, then somebody should do something about it. If the gods can't or won't, then that leaves the Humans.

Equality of Opportunity vs. Equality of Outcome is a very blurry line in even the best of circumstances. Not only does "Equality of Opportunity" require Equality of Outcome as a starting position, but as soon as Outcomes diverge you would need to reset everything to have Equality of Opportunity again. And this isn't even getting into how impossible it is to take real-world resources- which are highly heterogeneous- and objectively decide upon what an "equal" distribution would even be, or account for differences in natural ability, or how to account for random events that aren't a clear product of the starting conditions.

The world isn't designed for equality, and attempts to impose quality onto it are, by necessity, extremely messy even just in concept.

This is why, ultimately, even aside from the issues with The Plan, Redcloak's worldview is non-viable. It leads to a focus on retribution (even against people who haven't actually done anything wrong) rather than pursuing ways in which conditions can be improved moving forward that are fair to everyone.

Which, incidentally, is how the biggest gains in real-world living conditions have been, and continue to be, made. Improving technology, capital accumulation, specialization of labor, and trade massively benefit everybody. If we were still fighting over how to distribute the wealth the world had in the year 1,000 AD we wouldn't have enough food to feed the world's current population, let alone be arguing over the internet.

[brian 333]

I don't disagree with the above, but I think culture plays a major role.

If the rabbit analogy is correct, we're talking about intelligent, tool-using rabbits. Tools equalize the playing field between predator and prey. Now the rabbits can not only fight back, they have the numbers to swarm the dog pack. It's a bad day to be a dog.

If peaceful coexistence is their goal, the goblins need only farm where they are, and use their army to destroy adventurers who invade their homeland. They don't need treaties with anyone.

Change the culture and goblins will thrive, eventually out-competing everyone.

[BloodSquirrel]

My thought is: the entire comic could've run exactly the same if the goblins had equal land/resources at the beginning and squandered them. That doesn't stop the Dark One from ascending, and he could spin the 'Gods need worship' into 'we're a six piece goblin bargain bucket to Gods' pretty easily.
But this world runs with narrative as a universal force, and having Thor say "well they started off on equal footing but they just turned out rubbish" would undercut the story a lot.

I'm not so sure about that.

One of the reasons that we don't have great information about a lot of these things is that the comic has a very strong underlying theme of "Your circumstances do not excuse your actions", so to a large extent questions like "What was the fertility index of goblin land vs human land 1,000 years ago" is almost entirely beside the point beyond what Redcloak thinks the answer is and how it informs his actions.

The comic seems to be more interested in presenting a problem that is messy, and showing us why trying to fix it with grand, bombastic gestures is counter-productive. And the goblins having squandered their resources 1,000 years ago works just as well for that. Either way, Redcloak can believe what he's inclined to believe, and it doesn't make goblins' currently circumstances any more or less the fault of either the currently living goblins for humans.

[BloodSquirrel]

I don't disagree with the above, but I think culture plays a major role.

If the rabbit analogy is correct, we're talking about intelligent, tool-using rabbits. Tools equalize the playing field between predator and prey. Now the rabbits can not only fight back, they have the numbers to swarm the dog pack. It's a bad day to be a dog.

If peaceful coexistence is their goal, the goblins need only farm where they are, and use their army to destroy adventurers who invade their homeland. They don't need treaties with anyone.

Change the culture and goblins will thrive, eventually out-competing everyone.

I agree that a lot of it is wrong- particularly the part about peasant armies, which is not even close to being historically accurate- but he does have a good point about long lifespans being an advantage in knowledge-based societies where you can spend more time reaping the benefits of someone who has spent the first thirty years of their life becoming an expert in something.

Also, "faster breeding" meaning "bigger population" just isn't true. Population is usually bounded by things other than the physical ability to produce children. A faster breeding population may be able to expand faster when resources are plentiful, but children consume a lot of resources before they produce anything, so a longer-lived population can support more people (assuming the same biological needs for an adult in both populations) on the same resources on a long-term basis, even without factoring in their advantage of being able to use the resources better due to living long enough to develop higher expertise.

[CountDVB]

I don't disagree with the above, but I think culture plays a major role.

If the rabbit analogy is correct, we're talking about intelligent, tool-using rabbits. Tools equalize the playing field between predator and prey. Now the rabbits can not only fight back, they have the numbers to swarm the dog pack. It's a bad day to be a dog.

If peaceful coexistence is their goal, the goblins need only farm where they are, and use their army to destroy adventurers who invade their homeland. They don't need treaties with anyone.

Change the culture and goblins will thrive, eventually out-competing everyone.

Honestly, it’s mostly correct, but it’s more hilarious that Snowtwo missed the obvious correlation. A better analogy would be like that if a pack animal, like ya know, a wolf… their creator XD.

They would still need to compete with each other as well. Goblinoids aren’t united as we saw with MitD’s thoughts on Redcloak’s pangoblinoid narrative and sectarian differences between regions and the like will occur. However, they still have to deal with disadvantages.

Culture is shaped by environment and other physical properties such as lifespan, reproduction cycles and the like, especially as they reflect how those are handled..

[CountDVB]

I agree that a lot of it is wrong- particularly the part about peasant armies, which is not even close to being historically accurate- but he does have a good point about long lifespans being an advantage in knowledge-based societies where you can spend more time reaping the benefits of someone who has spent the first thirty years of their life becoming an expert in something.

Also, "faster breeding" meaning "bigger population" just isn't true. Population is usually bounded by things other than the physical ability to produce children. A faster breeding population may be able to expand faster when resources are plentiful, but children consume a lot of resources before they produce anything, so a longer-lived population can support more people (assuming the same biological needs for an adult in both populations) on the same resources on a long-term basis, even without factoring in their advantage of being able to use the resources better due to living long enough to develop higher expertise.

Goblins can only live like 50 years and I think one of the points was that it shows why Fenris’ plans for the goblins were doomed from the start: he designed them poorly.

[Saint-Just]

My thought is: the entire comic could've run exactly the same if the goblins had equal land/resources at the beginning and squandered them. That doesn't stop the Dark One from ascending, and he could spin the 'Gods need worship' into 'we're a six piece goblin bargain bucket to Gods' pretty easily.
But this world runs with narrative as a universal force, and having Thor say "well they started off on equal footing but they just turned out rubbish" would undercut the story a lot.

It has been also been noted that whatever resources they started with their high fertility will inevitably result in Goblins getting relatively less and less per goblin as generations pass. That's why you cannot posit "they have to little" as a problem and redistribution of lands as a solution - that solution does nothing to prevent the problem from recurring in the future, and if everything continues as it did it will recur.

[Keltest]

It has been also been noted that whatever resources they started with their high fertility will inevitably result in Goblins getting relatively less and less per goblin as generations pass. That's why you cannot posit "they have to little" as a problem and redistribution of lands as a solution - that solution does nothing to prevent the problem from recurring in the future, and if everything continues as it did it will recur.

I mean, that has nothing to do with a high fertility rate though, thats just a natural consequence of ANY rate of population growth over time. The rate of growth affects how quickly it becomes a problem, but if the land can only support X number of goblins, then X is how many it will plateau at, no matter how fast they got there.

The real flaw with the goblins, as one might expect, is that because theyre evil and competing with each other, they never actually fight to their strengths. It doesnt matter if your species outnumbers the humans 3 to 1 if only a tenth of you are fighting them at any given time and the rest are fighting each other or ignoring the whole thing.

[Saint-Just]

I mean, that has nothing to do with a high fertility rate though, thats just a natural consequence of ANY rate of population growth over time. The rate of growth affects how quickly it becomes a problem, but if the land can only support X number of goblins, then X is how many it will plateau at, no matter how fast they got there.

The real flaw with the goblins, as one might expect, is that because theyre evil and competing with each other, they never actually fight to their strengths. It doesnt matter if your species outnumbers the humans 3 to 1 if only a tenth of you are fighting them at any given time and the rest are fighting each other or ignoring the whole thing.

This has to do with the higher rate of fertility.Means that in N years average goblin's share of resources decreases more than the average human's. So equality becomes inequality even if the start is equal and nobody dipossessed anybody.

[Peelee]

This has to do with the higher rate of fertility.Means that in N years average goblin's share of resources decreases more than the average human's. So equality becomes inequality even if the start is equal and nobody dipossessed anybody.

Does this factor in lifespan, death rate, and resource consumption rates not neveccarily being equal?

[OvisCaedo]

I'm still curious about how exactly they ended up with worse land to start with. Thor seemed to both acknowledge that it was true and say that it wasn't really done intentionally. So they just... accidentally made one region have much worse land than the other places and the goblins just happened to end up there? Did Fenris deliberately choose for them to have worse land to try to force them to attack everyone else? Is there a point-buy system for race creation and Fenris took all the points out of land to shove them into reproduction rate?

[Keltest]

I'm still curious about how exactly they ended up with worse land to start with. Thor seemed to both acknowledge that it was true and say that it wasn't really done intentionally. So they just... accidentally made one region have much worse land than the other places and the goblins just happened to end up there? Did Fenris deliberately choose for them to have worse land to try to force them to attack everyone else? Is there a point-buy system for race creation and Fenris took all the points out of land to shove them into reproduction rate?

For that matter, what is "worse" land? I can only imagine that the dwarves would suffer mightily if you put them in elf territory, and vice versa. And yet both seem to be doing quite well.

[BloodSquirrel]

Does this factor in lifespan, death rate, and resource consumption rates not neveccarily being equal?

See my comments above.

In real life, we don't have species which compare nicely on this front, but it's worth noting that species with low birth rates (like humans) tend to invest a lot of resources into each child and expect there to be a high chance that each one at least reaches adulthood, whereas species with high birth rates (like spiders) expect 99% of their offspring to die in, like, five minutes.

Lower resources consumption per individual might mean that you can feed 1,000 goblins on a piece of land that can only feed 500 humans, but once you've reached that 1,000 goblins you'll still have the issue that if each adult goblin female has ten offspring, eight of them will need to die before reaching adulthood in order to keep the population stable, whereas if each human woman has three offspring, only one will need to die. Absolute population numbers will be much less relevant to the experience of each individual than their % chance of living to adulthood and having offspring of their own. If you don't assume psychological differences to account for this, then you would expect a goblin mother to look at a human mother and be jealous that she was able to feed her children much more easily, and didn't have to watch most of them die because food was scarce.

Our sample size in real life stands at (1) sapient species, but given that our traits are the result of natural selection and not random chance, it stands to reason that our being one of the longest lived and slowest breeding animals on the planet (especially compared to animals of similar size) is indicative of it being a more successful strategy

[Resileaf]

For that matter, what is "worse" land? I can only imagine that the dwarves would suffer mightily if you put them in elf territory, and vice versa. And yet both seem to be doing quite well.

I was under the impression that goblins live in mountainous regions, much like dwarves, but the dwarves are already well settled in the tunnels while the goblins live on the surface, where resources are scarce and the earth not very fertile.

Well at least the hobgoblins. Thinking about it, Redcloak's tribe was in a forest, so probably shared territory with the elves.

[Keltest]

I was under the impression that goblins live in mountainous regions, much like dwarves, but the dwarves are already well settled in the tunnels while the goblins live on the surface, where resources are scarce and the earth not very fertile.

The Dwarves appear to live primarily in the far north. While we dont have a complete map, I cant imagine that dwarves have a monopoly on the livable tunnels in the entire world.

[BloodSquirrel]

I'm still curious about how exactly they ended up with worse land to start with. Thor seemed to both acknowledge that it was true and say that it wasn't really done intentionally. So they just... accidentally made one region have much worse land than the other places and the goblins just happened to end up there? Did Fenris deliberately choose for them to have worse land to try to force them to attack everyone else? Is there a point-buy system for race creation and Fenris took all the points out of land to shove them into reproduction rate?

Simple negligence would explain it. Hospitable conditions are not the default- it takes an active effort to create them. If Fenris just didn't put as much effort into, say, making sure that the local weather patterns would provide the right amount of rain, the land could have wound up being barren.

But, as I noted before, Thor doesn't really say that it's true either. There is a lot going on in that conversation, and the point he was acknowledging was that the rules of their ecosystem, even if impartial, still favors those who start off in a better position- and the fact that such is relevant to current conditions is more important than who started with what land.

I was under the impression that goblins live in mountainous regions, much like dwarves, but the dwarves are already well settled in the tunnels while the goblins live on the surface, where resources are scarce and the earth not very fertile.

Well at least the hobgoblins. Thinking about it, Redcloak's tribe was in a forest, so probably shared territory with the elves.

To repeat myself from earlier: The only source we have for this claim is Redcloak, who gives us very few specifics, and is not a very reliable narrator. The most important takeaway from Thor is "It's more complicated than that".

This suits the story just fine, because the theme is much closer to "Your circumstances do not excuse evil actions" than "It's okay to murder people because your tribe got a raw deal 1,000 years ago", but it does mean that the kind of interrogation that we're engaged in gets very speculative very quickly.

[Peelee]

The Dwarves appear to live primarily in the far north. While we dont have a complete map, I cant imagine that dwarves have a monopoly on the livable tunnels in the entire world.

I miss the times when the Giant would read through forum discussion and do things like say "the dwarves have a monopoly on all livable tunnels in the entire world. CANON" or the like.

Also, many livable tunnels are simply called "Dungeons".

[Saint-Just]

Does this factor in lifespan, death rate, and resource consumption rates not neveccarily being equal?

It is highly unlikely that death rate itself will put a significant damper on the population growth - and both lifespan and resource consumption per individual are multipliers (or dividers) while population growth is exponential. It will still result in arriving at the same situation one or two (goblin) generations later than otherwise. I also have trouble with seeing how or why goblins would consume less than other races - they are not even smaller in this world.

I do presume that purposefully designed "zerg rush" race doesn't just have one more kid per family than humans, but have more significant disparity. With just the right proportions lifespan and resource consumption may shift the problem in the far future but that sounds like too convenient coincidence unlikely for a race that was intended to outbreed others for the purpose of outfighting them.

I am no malthusian, I have no doubt that goblins can live in peace with the others but if others should give up resources to goblins just because they have less then the goblins (as a race) are on the way to control more and more purely by moral suasion and biology becomes destiny (they breed more therefore they deserve more).

[Keltest]

I miss the times when the Giant would read through forum discussion and do things like say "the dwarves have a monopoly on all livable tunnels in the entire world. CANON" or the like.

Also, many livable tunnels are simply called "Dungeons".

Sure, and "dungeons" tend to be filled with "monsters" like goblins.

[BloodSquirrel]

I do presume that purposefully designed "zerg rush" race doesn't just have one more kid per family than humans, but have more significant disparity. With just the right proportions lifespan and resource consumption may shift the problem in the far future but that sounds like too convenient coincidence unlikely for a race that was intended to outbreed others for the purpose of outfighting them.

I am no malthusian, I have no doubt that goblins can live in peace with the others but if others should give up resources to goblins just because they have less then the goblins (as a race) are on the way to control more and more purely by moral suasion and biology becomes destiny (they breed more therefore they deserve more).

Again- very little of this is strongly established in the text. Goblin birth rates may have helped cause the problem, but in the real world we see that birth rates decline even as nations become richer and could- if we didn't divert the resources to higher living standards- support even more children. Once the narratively interesting problems like "Goblins are worshiping an evil god who is leading them into a plan that might get the world blown up" are solved, a lot of the other problems might be fixable with boring, practical solutions like "give the goblins some condoms".

[BloodSquirrel]

It is highly unlikely that death rate itself will put a significant damper on the population growth -

The "death rate" is, in the long run, the same for all species- 1.

How many goblins make it to adulthood to have children of their own and how long a female goblin is within her child-bearing age, however, will affect population growth.

[brian 333]

I'm still curious about how exactly they ended up with worse land to start with. Thor seemed to both acknowledge that it was true and say that it wasn't really done intentionally. So they just... accidentally made one region have much worse land than the other places and the goblins just happened to end up there? Did Fenris deliberately choose for them to have worse land to try to force them to attack everyone else? Is there a point-buy system for race creation and Fenris took all the points out of land to shove them into reproduction rate?

My head canon is that the gods have a point-buy system when creating races.

Thor: Okay, 15 points in longevity, 10 points in toughness, -5 points in cross-racial appeal, leaves 30 points for homeland, so 15 points in mineral rich, 5 points in grazing lands, and another 10 points in defensible underground dwellings. Hmm, let's give them 7 grandfather's and 7 grandmother's as their starting population, which frees up another 5 points, so put their homeland beneath tundra, and we can have lots of room to grow.

Fenris: -5 for lifespan and +20 for breeding rate. Let's give them a starting population of hundreds of thousands for 10 points, and spread them evenly around the world for another 15 points. Let's make them militaristic and aggressive for an extra 10 points. If I make them Small I can get 5 extra points for starting land. Nah, let's roll with it and they can take whatever land they can get.

[Throknor]

I'm still curious about how exactly they ended up with worse land to start with. Thor seemed to both acknowledge that it was true and say that it wasn't really done intentionally.

I took it to mean more that as a group they didn't intentionally put the goblins at a disadvantage just to be used by other races to level up as Redcloak believes. Fenris may have intentionally given them less to begin with because his plan is ridiculous and the other gods ended up benefiting but they never directly thought about it.

[pyrefiend]

For that matter, what is "worse" land? I can only imagine that the dwarves would suffer mightily if you put them in elf territory, and vice versa. And yet both seem to be doing quite well.

Redcloak's comment about Durkon "growing up surrounded by gold and gems" makes me think that the Dwarves' lands are rich in gold and gems and such, whereas the Goblins' mountains are not.

As for why Fenris put the Goblins in crappy, resource-poor lands, my headcanon is that he had some combination of the following three motivations:

(1) He wanted the Goblins' lands to "look cool", and he thinks big barren craggy mountains look cool.
(2) He wanted to encourage the Goblins to be aggressive and raid other settlements for resources.
(3) He wanted the Goblins' lands to be defensible and difficult to invade.

Probably mostly (1) is my guess. In any case, Fenris just didn't care about Goblins having access to farmable land (farming isn't cool) or mineral wealth (mining isn't cool either).

[Gnoman]

Redcloak's comment about Durkon "growing up surrounded by gold and gems" makes me think that the Dwarves' lands are rich in gold and gems and such, whereas the Goblins' mountains are not.

Redcloak is assuming that, because he's from a very poor society and projecting a lifetime of resentment into his perceptions. We know Durkon didn't grow up surrounded by gold and gems. More importantly, we have some indication of the wealth of his town - 20,000 GP is is the threshold for the "top donors" list at the Temple, and enough gems for five Raise Dead spells was more than his mother had ever seen, not merely just more than she'd ever hoped to have. Sigi was a veteran soldier who would have had ample opportunity to see wealth. None of that invalidates Redcloak's grievance - the fact that the Dwarven society is wealthy enough and stable enough to support a maimed soldier and her child in even a modest amount of comfort would look like incalcuable wealth - but you can't just take his assumptions at face value.

Indeed, however the Giant is planning to go with this will work a lot better if the "civilized" races are not universally unimaginably wealthy. If aiding the goblins involves real cost, it reads way different from if their needs can be satisfied with metaphorical crumbs.

[pyrefiend]

Redcloak is assuming that, because he's from a very poor society and projecting a lifetime of resentment into his perceptions. [..]

Indeed, however the Giant is planning to go with this will work a lot better if the "civilized" races are not universally unimaginably wealthy. If aiding the goblins involves real cost, it reads way different from if their needs can be satisfied with metaphorical crumbs.

I agree, I didn't mean to imply that I think the Dwarves are rich. I just assumed that Redcloak's off-handed claim had some basis in fact. Maybe it doesn't, though, who knows.

[Peelee]

I agree, I didn't mean to imply that I think the Dwarves are rich. I just assumed that Redcloak's off-handed claim had some basis in fact. Maybe it doesn't, though, who knows.

It's possible to have a wealthy nation with abundant resources that still have some areas that are in poverty.

[gbaji]

If the rabbit analogy is correct, we're talking about intelligent, tool-using rabbits. Tools equalize the playing field between predator and prey. Now the rabbits can not only fight back, they have the numbers to swarm the dog pack. It's a bad day to be a dog.

And now I'm having flashbacks to playing Wabbit Wampage back in the day. Oh yes. I'm a rabbit. Running amok on your tractor. With a chainsaw.... Muahahah!

Simple negligence would explain it. Hospitable conditions are not the default- it takes an active effort to create them. If Fenris just didn't put as much effort into, say, making sure that the local weather patterns would provide the right amount of rain, the land could have wound up being barren.

Yeah. I kinda assume something like this. Most of the gods, having taken a turn creating a species, followed up in subsequent turns detailing the lands for them and defining resources, culture, religions, etc, all with an eye towards supporting that species success. It's possible that whole pantheons would cooperate on the creation of complete sets of species within a given region of the world in fact. Fenris may very well have just created goblins with a very basic "these are intelligent creatures, breed fast, fight a lot, and we'll see if they just swarm over everything cause that would be cool", and then proceeded to ignore them from that point on, moving to the next monster, creature, or whatever that he was interested in.

So I think the answer is that "they are all right". From the goblins perspective, it's certainly going to look like they were given bad lands, and a lot in life to exist purely as cannon fodder for the advancement of others (A "tough, but not too tough" foe to be defeated). But that need not have been by design specifically. It just worked out that way. And having worked out that way, there's not a lot the gods can do to undo that. Further complicating this, is that there is absolutely a perception by all the other sentient species that goblins are just evil things to be fought *and* the unfortunate fact that goblins themselves (due in no small part to the impact that high birth rate and short lifespan) tend to be very likely to engage in constant internal conflict amongst themselves. Redcloak and other leaders may be able to band them together to try to make something greater, but there's no guarantee that's going to last long before the whole structure collapses. Goblins simply have no history of maintaining larger social structures. Doesn't mean they can't, but it's something that runs counter to how they have lived since the beginning.

Someone mentioned earlier about Dwarves being "rich" because they can afford to provided pensions for retired/disabled veterans. Sure. But one can also argue that a society *becomes rich* over time if they have those sorts of ideals baked into them. When people in a society know that they will be cared for if something bad happens to them, they are more likely to give/risk more for the society as a whole rather than just fight and scheme for themselves. I have a suspicion that the goblin equivalent of a "pension" for a disabled warrior who can't fight anymore involves less monetary benefits, and more a sharp bladed object used to "solve" the problem. Certainly historically. Now, if Redcloak and Jirix can establish a greater sense of stability and "future" for goblins, that may very well change.

[Resileaf]

Worth remembering that the gods don't all have the same domains. Fenrir is the god of monsters, not of weather patterns. He creates his monsters and places them where he thinks they fit in best within the context of the world the gods created together. Some other gods handled making the world livable, with its geographic features and weather patterns and such.

I assume that the process to create a world goes something like:
1. Figure out how to weave creation in ways that makes it stronger against the Snarl.
2. Decide what kind of theme to give the next world.
3. Plan out its major features and the races that will inhabit it to make sure everything fits in.
4. Create the Snarl's prison.
5. Let each god place their features on the prison, gradually turn it into the world they decided on (with the occasional last-minute addition from various gods)
6. Finalize the process, locking in the world's features so the gods can't make any changes without destroying the whole thing.
7. Infuse the world with its mortal inhabitants, presumably with prior 'knowledge' of how their world works and with enough history that they don't question their sudden existence.

Give or take a few steps.

So in that process, a god like Fenris is most likely barely involved in planning out features that aren't part of his domain and basically just focuses on creating his monster concepts so they can be placed somewhere fitting in that new world. Once he's created his short-lived, fast-breeding race intended to overwhelm the other races with numbers, he places them somewhere he thinks they'll be encouraged to do that to survive with little input from the other gods to make him change his mind (they're used to his antics by now so they don't even try) and, as usual, it doesn't work so he loses interest in them and gives his favor to other monsters that are strong enough to attract his attention.

[pyrefiend]

It's possible to have a wealthy nation with abundant resources that still have some areas that are in poverty.

That's true, but I don't think I implied otherwise.

Goblins simply have no history of maintaining larger social structures. Doesn't mean they can't, but it's something that runs counter to how they have lived since the beginning.

Does it? The Hobgoblins at least seem to have had a big, organized social structure that existed long before they conquered Azure City.