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I want to run a campaign 'from the book' for a group of new players (played RPGs before, but stuff much much lighter then D&D, and I've not DMed this edition before. I DMed D&D 4e once: over prepared in some areas, under prepared in others, so the pacing was horrible and off putting. I didn't run it again (although the players seemed happy to try again).

My concern: by trying to run it 'from the book' I might accidentally railroad them too much, while they need to fight in order to earn the experience needed from that encounter in order to level for other parts of the adventure, or that changing events too far from the module will cause errors in continuity, that will force me to improvise too much for my first game.

How can I avoid the players 'making friends with goblins' or in other words, what is the motivation for various random encounter battles that are supposed to be had to level the players up?

Give them XP for resolving and surviving the encounter.

Yes, D&D is primarily a combat game. However, that doesn't always mean that all encounters must be handled via combat. In practice, combat is just one of several approaches. (The Three Pillars of Adventure in the game are exploration, social interaction, and combat(Basic Rules, p. 5)).

Player agency is important.

When the goblins show up, the players should choose how they want to handle this new challenge. Examples include any of the following:

• Sneaking past the goblins, thereby not being attacked




• Sneaking up to the goblins and then defeating them in a surprise attack




• Charging the goblins head-on and defeating them in brutal combat




• Using social skills to persuade, intimidate, or trick the goblins so that they don't attack




• Creating a distraction to make the goblins go in a different direction

Whenever NPCs interact with the player characters in a potentially challenging way, the players should earn an amount of XP if they meet the challenge goals, which often means simply surviving the encounter. The Dungeon Master's Guide says

Each monster has an XP value based on its challenge rating. When adventurers defeat one or more monsters - typically by killing, routing, or capturing them - they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves.

Even if the challenge is initially presented as a combat, as long as the players survive, they should get the XP for completing the challenge.

You give your goblins personality

Making friends is not as simple as rolling a good persuasion check, you need to have things in common. In the case of goblins who usually see humans as prey (farmers) and death (adventurers / guards) they have no actual reason to trust the party.

A good persuasion check might get the goblins to stop attacking, or allow the party to pass an area, but the party would have to go to exceptional lengths to actually build trust. And friendship can't start until then.

If the party does go to lengths to build trust then just let them. You have already imbued the goblins with personality so it should be a bit easier figuring out what they want, and you have some new (Strange) quest givers!

Less specific to goblins

Every creature in the world has wants and needs, if you think of the world as a living ecosystem instead of wandering bags of hit points it starts to make more sense.

For example, the party runs into a group of wolves, or bandits. Ask yourself:

1. Why are they there (are they hunting/stalking something - is that the party?)




2. Why would they fight?




3. Under what circumstances would they flee? (Most creatures won't fight to the death)



4. 
   

   How would they fight?

   
   
   

   This makes each combat different: for example a hunting party might attack from stealth, a group of guards would try to raise an alarm of some kind.

   
   

When you have the answers to questions like this you know if making friends is possible, what would be needed in order to do so, and what might happen afterwards.

What’s wrong with making friends with goblins?

The DMG says (p. 260) that you get XP “[w]hen adventurers defeat one or more monsters-typically by killing, routing or capturing them ...”

That means there are atypical ways of defeating monsters - turning them into friends is one of these.

Naturally, there should be risk, sacrifice and challenge in the social encounter just as there would be in a combat encounter and as DM you are free to adjust the XP award as you see fit. Remember that players respond to incentives: if war-war pays better than jaw-jaw then that’s what you’ll get and vice versa.

Oh, and friendships in D&D always create complications.

A recent session saw us come face to face with a blue dragon. This is in a sandbox campaign so we had no way of knowing if this was a fight we could win. So we humiliated ourselves, flattered and bribed the dragon and lived to fight another day.

In a game of DnD I played a week or two ago (just a single-session one-shot) We pretty much talked to most of the characters we were meant to be fighting.

The one fight we started was because upon seeing a sleeping character our rogue thought it'd be a really good idea to try and disarm him before waking him (which naturally led to him assuming we were hostile when he should have been initially neutral).

Our DM was very accommodating of our largely neutral/friendly approach to what was meant to be a combat dungeon and did his best to roleplay and keep the narrative going to match.

He also awarded XP for social interaction similarly to combat, so he opted to reward the playstyle we clearly wanted rather than railroad us out of our comfort-zone.

The goal of the game was to have fun and ease us into playing DnD (most of us were completely new to the game) so in that regard, full success!

Monsters are generally there to attack. Though if you give your monsters some personality or motivation then players may attempt dialog and try to resolve the situation without combat. If the monsters simply draw weapons and attack then the PCs are likely to do the same.

If the players still attempt a non-combat solution then that is fine too.

It is always going to be up to you as a DM whether this even has a chance of working. A bunch of blood-crazed cultists intent on sacrificing you to their dark lord may simply not listen to reason, regardless of Persuasion checks (and it's best not to roll dice if you know there is no point).

However, goblins who are simply trying to defend their home...they may be more amenable to resolving the encounter peacefully, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Some foes are just unintelligent monsters of course that will attack regardless. Others will have motivations that a wily player may be able to use to their advantage.

But remember that enemies can be successfully counted as "defeated" regardless of how that happens: whether it is with combat or through social interaction. Either way earns players XP!

Adding to what has been said, if you want an encounter to be a fight, it is relatively easy to get it there, without railroading it - imagine you are walking late at night through a dark alley in some big city (NYC, LA, etc.), and a gang comes by with the intention to rob you and beat you up.

Imagine yourself trying to make friends with them, and how that might go - and you will have an approach why it won't work for the players in that encounter. You shouldn't use that every single time, sure, but it's a plan to have in the pocket.