Goblin Totem always says I am lying...

[Emerald Unicorn]

So I am trying to answer the questions correctly and I get the first two. But the last one, no matter what I pick, the totem calls me a liar and calls the goblins to attack...

Not sure if I bugged it with my progression, but I kinda messed around after researching the questions. The first time I tried I hadn't actually done the quest the third question was about, and either answer was considered wrong. So I reloaded to right before I talked to it. Now, I knew I couldn't leave the camp, except that I did (without drawing hostility) by placing a teleport stone down and using a rift portal to leave and go do the quest regarding that third question. So I completed that quest and ported back to the crystal in the goblin camp, essentially expecting them to have considered that as "leaving" and to have turned hostile. To my pleasant surprise they did not. However, the totem is still saying that both answers are wrong...

Bottom line, I have a feeling that the answers are "locked in" with the potential to be incorrect either way as soon as you enter after talking to one of the entrance guarding goblins. At this point I don't want to reload to a point before entering, but making this post just to see if anyone has input on it.

Edit: I tried messing around with random permutations of answers. Not sure if this is just coincidence, but the only time I got it to not sick the goblins on me was by picking answers that resulted in a challenge from my other main character (on all three answers) and winning each RPS game... I will also say that the first times I was answering based on the end results of each encounter. But the time I succeeded was when I picked the options the character doing the dialogue had selected...

e.g. (specific answer spoilers)
1 - The question about the two guards: I ended up fighting them due to not understanding the "in-dialogue-distraction/sneak" combo. My main guy was talking to one of the guards and I tried walking by the bridge, while he was talking to the soldier, with the second character and that initiated a fight because they saw me. So I had been picking the totem option that said I would kill them (because we did), but the right answer was that I would do as they say (presumably because I didn't actually pick a dialogue option with them directly that initiated the fight?) and my the other character challenged that totem answer with RPS.
2 - Then the question about the fish thief: This one was straight up, I stopped him with my main guy and the second character argued with me on it but I won the RPS. So with the totem I correctly answered that I stopped him and my other main, again, initiated a RPS about the answer.
3 - Then the beast of burden question: During that quest I offered the healing stone and my partner had challenged that decision, but I won the RPS. So with the totem I selected that I helped and my partner again challenged that answer with RPS and I won.

Hopefully that logic is what is really going on and it wasn't just some weird random luck/bug and hopefully if anyone else has a similar issue this will help.

[Dragon]

I don't know the answers to your super technical questions. In my game I just told the totem what I did and it was a straightforward & simple process. He accepted all of my answers the first time and told the goblins to let me live.

One thing I'm not understanding about your post: why are you reluctant to slay all the goblins? It's not like keeping them alive benefits you (other than maybe slightly insomuch as you can access their merchants...but that's no big loss because the other merchants everywhere else are just as good or better AFAIK). But if & when you do you slay them, then you get some nice XP and loot, and a stone for slaying the totem itself too.

[Emerald Unicorn]

Like I said, answering with what actually happened didn't work. I had to answer the questions the way I was doing the dialogue. And it gets weird there because for the first one the dialogue was interrupted with combat so I had no real dialogue resolution. And the last one I hadn't even done the quest when I talked to the totem.

I mainly wanted them for vendoring stuff. Gateway right next to the camp, several vendors with lots of gold all localized in one immediate area, and the vendors there had the most gold per vendor than I had seen in other locations.

And I got the bloodstone from the totem without having to kill them.

[Red Rum]

same happin to me ... i just killed them all .. was a tuff battle but fun .. ; )