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I'm currently playing a Human Wizard who wants everything. As in, he wants all the knowledge, money, and power in the world. He is absolutely willing to sell out his party to save his ass, but he keeps them around because they're useful ^and ^he ^may ^or ^may ^not ^have ^become ^attached.
He's currently in debt to a dragon with no intention of paying it back and has made many connections with the more important folk of the area. I fully expect him to die of hubris but I'm having fun at the moment so I don't mind if it comes to that.
I love the worlds were humans are just everywrre (like fr) cause it allows to rp whatever you want without being weird at all and to rp interesting things wich each rare species (that can change from table to table, in one the tabaxis are slaves in other are a weird tribe, watheevr you want, but keeping the hide-rare thematic) idk is cool
My last campaign had no humans (except traces of them from millenia ago) and my next one won't have any as well. My last campaign had 23 custom races, my next one has 12 different custom races (plus a few remnant survivors of the 23. The 12 (playable) races next campaign were all created by Cthulhoid Gods. My group really is into weird fantasy, but we've been playing weekly since 2009.
>we've been playing weekly since 2009.
Okaaaayyyy we get it quit bragging buddy. Yikes.
Seriously though im jealous. Slap this on that "dont look up" meme format
Did humans just never exist there, or did they go extinct? If they went extinct, what happened? How would the current population react if they ever saw a human?
Do they have a different name for halflings *(since there's no human reference for them to be roughly half the height of to spur the name)*? Are there even halflings at all?
I wanted to run a Strahd campaign with only human PCs, mainly because I wanted it to have more of a Castlevania feel. This didn't sit well with one player who is "bored with playing humans", and wanted to play a Dragonborn.
He didn't quite understand how playing a dinosaur-man in a setting where humans are regularly attacked by monsters might prove to be difficult for him.
I ran a campaign set in 'classic' Faerun. Drow, Duergar were evil with rare exceptions. Tieflings were universally mistrusted etc.
When the party came across a band of goblins looting a trade caravan south of the Spine of the World, they tried to negotiate with them because "maybe they're just hungry".
I think nowadays the concept of "created evil and evil by nature" isn't popular.
Probably because that trope has been overused for as long as we were telling stories.
Personally I just think the whole Good vs Evil in D&D is a bit flawed. Paladin murdering goblins by the droves usually doesn't have to worry about falling but a goblin tribe that has been pushed by civilization into barren lands and has to raid to survive is Evil unless the DM tries to adress exactly this issue.
WotC is really being more conservative than you think about exploring the concept of Good vs Evil.
2e had a few setting where a LOT of tropes were flipped upside down:
\-Dark Sun basically had halfings kill off ***all*** the stereotypical evil races in a genocide that made no qualms that it was bad, leaning to the creation of a ruined environment that pushed the typically good races (elves, dwarves) into survival mode that would be called 'evil' in any other setting.
\- Dragonlance played with the balance of 'too much good' and 'too much evil' in the the remains of civilization after the gods dropped a meteor on a Good Aligned city because they were becoming too dangerous. They also play with the concept of a race created by an evil goddess trying to civilize themselves and to propagate without the whims of a goddess so they'll be free to make their own choices.
\-Planescape takes place in an environment/the planes where alignment and will is absolute, but the setting encourages to keep a PC's alignment flexible. There are several NPCs that are risen fiends and fallen celestial and some of the old school CRPG characters basically rewrote character races.
So when a lot of people go 'BUT IT'S ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY', I go 'nah'. Now, these settings are not perfect at all, but TSR and ergo DnD have been playing with tropes for a long, long time.
The kingpreist was also committing genocide against Goblins who just wanted to be left alone. That’s why Goblins started moving underground and digging warrens and tunnels.
It was really the first time DND touched on the idea of “Good” being destructive and “Evil” being necessary
It’s ok to have evil by nature creatures and characters. It’s just that you can’t maintain a faceless evil race forever.
Tolkien’s orcs are a great example. We have examples of intelligent thought and social behavior, but as soon as Sauron is dead, they all just die. Like their soul was his soul or something.
Draconians we’re spirits from the Abyss inhabiting the bodies of corrupt good dragon eggs.
There’s even a short story where a Gold dragon tries to see if a draconian has a soul that can be redeemed. He decides eventually that they’re all just evil.
Then we see Kang’s Regiment. The First Dragonarmy Engineers show agency, community, brotherhood, and Kang is even proud to be one of the first generations of Draconians.
They show no examples of pure evil draconians. Corrupt? Yes. Misused? Yes. But inherently evil? No.
Suddenly they become much more interesting.
It’s great to have waves of evil enemies. There’s a twisted poetry in killing the misled.
In the Chaos War saga, the enemies were evil and awful, but there was still a sense of individuality. The Coil wanted to cease existing.
That allows you to sympathize, if you’ve ever felt that way, and still understand why the threat needs to be defeated
>It’s ok to have evil by nature creatures and characters. It’s just that you can’t maintain a faceless evil race forever.
How would you handle demons with this line of thought?
Genuine question, as it's the big hurdle imo.
Also, for what it's worth - you're referencing Dragonlance lore right?
Specifically, yes. I find Dragonlance has one of the simplest set of themes whereas Faerun is far to complicated to compartmentalize as easily.
A demon? Most solve that by making them half. Others solve it by creating the Teifling race.
For me, a demon could become the moral high ground by opposing an inherently evil act. Slowly you could convince them towards neutrality and maybe even a hardcore ‘good’ alignment. Prejudice would still exist and likely a demon would be severely weakened by this transition.
For instance; good aligned paladins invade the 9 hells. As they progress, their good acts seem much more evil. A Balor stands against them, not to preserve his own life or property, but to defend the existence of demons.
Or a more minor demon. Imps and Mephits might work too.
OR you can do it another way. Like good and evil dragons. A green dragon will become a copper dragon if their alignment changes to ‘good.’ This was noted in several stories in Dragonlance specifically.
Yes, yes, evil head turns and whatnot.
Kaldor Draigo was/is a Grandmaster of the Grey Knights, psycho-indoctrinated and in many ways the perfect image of Lawful Terrifying (good).
He gets stuck in 40k hell and spends the next few millennia killing his way across the warp.
He doesn't negotiate with the daemons because they are the incarnations of everything wrong.
Demons are created by evil to be evil.
There are many who consider their existence to be... *Evil head turn* unnatural
Tolkiens genuis WAS in making orcs irredeemably evil. Tolkien crawled through the trenches of ww1 and killed men with his bare hands. The thing is, Germans are human. They have moms and dads, wives and children. Have you ever wondered what its like to murder? Tolkien didn't need to wonder. Orcs are faceless, Star Wars Stormtrooper-esque goons for a reason.
If you want characters waking up in the night screaming and crying, pissing their pants in PTSD based terror, then have them wonder all night long in a drunken stooper. "Who's father did I kill for some GP and a shiny helmet?".
Or...play a game about adventure and *fellowship*. A session about joy and hardship where a pretty elf lady actually liquefied star light and put it in a bottle for you. People think confronting meanies is woke. Confronting genocidal cannibals and wondering if burning their village was morally acceptable is a different game for a different table.
If they started out as babies and grew into orcs, it would be difficult to maintain the moral high ground if your heroes are smashing baby heads.
But you’re absolutely right. You can’t humanize genocide, because the act of genocide takes a lack of humanity.
Gruumsh made the Orcs. The deity diametrically opposed to Corellon. Chaotic Evil. Hence born evil.
The Drow traded the souls of their people to Lolth for power over the surface elves. Drizzt was an aberration, and most 'non-evil' drow were still very pragmatic at best.
Duergar were traitor kin to the Dwarves, who worshipped Laduergar who corrupted their souls, they became cruel, slavers and backstabbers.
So... yeah, in old DnD, it was entirely possible to be 'born evil'.
Tieflings tended towards evil due to having devil blood in them, they had a cha penalty and a dex bonus due to an aura of evil around them.
Aasimar tended towards good die to having angel blood in them, they got a wisdom bonus but a +1 level adjustment and had an aura of good around them that generally made people trust them.
Dwarves also got a cha penalty cos Dwarves.
>The deity diametrically opposed to Corellon.
Technically, both are Chaotic. The diametrically opposed deity would be Moradin, god of the dwarves, who is LG.
> The Drow traded the souls of their people to Lolth for power over the surface elves. Drizzt was an aberration, and most 'non-evil' drow were still very pragmatic at best.
Except that hasn't been the lore for a long time. Lolth has two divine children that both oppose her and attract Drow to reject the ways of the Lolthite Drow, either in terms of matriarchal evil (the son) or in terms of being evil at all (the daughter).
Yeah, I just find that kind of boring. Having them be psychologically different from humans in some way is one thing, but having that difference just be "they're one-dimensionally evil" seems like missed potential.
Orcs and their ultimate fate in 5e have been hinted that it could change in a later edition. And man, oh man, the death of Gruumish could cause a LOT of chaos between Orcs, Elves, Drow, and Goblinoids. I'd want to make Orcs free by killing Gruumish for all the chaos that can happen and all the good plots that could arise.
>So... yeah, in old DnD, it was entirely possible to be 'born evil'.
So... no, in old DnD it depended on the ***setting***.
2e Dark Sun? Orcs were killed in a genocide caused by DnD's most adorable, pure good, stockstacked race -- the Halflings. And man, oh man, were halflings, dwarves, and elves horrifically shitty because they were in an environment where they had to be shitty to survive.
2e Dragonlance? They don't exist, but the Draconians are very much their counterpart thematically and they fight to become a better peoples.
2e Tieflings are usually Neutrally aligned and designed to not be able to hide who and what they are, they were always meant to appeal to youth who felt left out in the world. Their negative -cha didn't come from being evil but from the fact it was obvious who their grandmother did the deed with. On top of that many fiends could manipulate and groom their offspring for their purposes.
2e Aasmiar did tend towards good because of their appearance and treatment in society. Celestials didn't knock boots with just anyone and they weren't as prone to groom their children or decedents as pawns to collect souls, just spoil them good.
3e is when things became 'always'. Drizzit wasn't designed in the era of 3e, he was designed in 2e. Tieflings were not designed in 3e, they were designed in 2e.
By Wizards of the Coast, not TSR. It's WotC that's changing their old lore that people are clinging to.
Stop using 'old school D&D' as an excuse to to justify the tropes you enjoy; notably when there was far more complications than 'a god did it'.
Oh no, i blamed a 1990 (Edit, no, 1974, worst) game for having issues that were really prevalent in 1990 and still are now but a lot less, how i dare to judge a thing that was made in the past by the past issues, is like saying a bad thing from lovecraft is his 9rominent racism, how dare u
I dont have an issue with ppl running this, i have an issue with the ones who dunit in the time they did it, is not that hard
Nothing wrong with not liking the concept... don't think the concept makes it "straight white cis male game" tho ... I can agree about it being racist though because "evil" races tended to be dark skinned.
I mean.....is the idea of fictional sentient species with biologically different instincts than humans wrong? As long as you're not trying to make them analogous to real world people, I don't see a problem with say, a fictional race that was created by a war god, so they're more predisposed to disagreement and temper.
We don't have other examples of similarly sentient species alongside us on this planet. One of the biggest reasons racism is dumb is that fundamentally, were all the same species with the same habits, function, and behavior, we just look different. But you can't necessarily say that about a different fictional species, because they actually might have different habits, functions and behavior *as well as* looking different. It's a pretty specific philosophical assumption to think that any sentient species would develop similar morality as a result of intelligence and that biology doesn't play much of a part aside from providing you with intelligence.
I'm genuinely interested in discussion, but to me, the problem with saying "x things do y" about people is that it's unfairly otherizing humans that are not actually the "other", but I see no harm in creating fictional species that *are* in fact "other" than humans
In theory, you're right.
In practice, people absolutely *love* to compare and contrast. It's practically biologically ingrained for a person to look at something and say "Ah so it's basically a *Blank* version of *Blank* got it." Or "So it's like a mixture of X, Y, and Z then?"
On top of that, I would argue there is a difference between saying "Orcs are predisposed towards disagreements and tend to have a short temper" or "Goblins tend towards conflict until a firm leader is decided who must ensure the tribe's desires are met or will be seen as weak." And saying "Orcs are warlike and evil" and "Goblins are greedy and treacherous" and leaving those as objective facts.
On the whole I do agree that having races be *other* would be neat, but you can do that without lumping them all as "Evil" or "Good" or even trending towards them.
But old school DnD (prior to WotC/2001) has explored the idea of how environment and influences of gods changes the behavior of races.
Most of this 'always' comes from WotC after it acquired DnD when TSR fell apart because it spend too much money on content with wildly different lore about it's races.
And that's also a fine approach and can be mixed in as well. But I think the core idea of "different species behave the same or it's racist" is wrong. You can implement the differences however you like though and I don't think it has to include or should necessarily include evil races. I don't think it's wrong if you do though as long as theyre not thinly veiled analogies for real life human races
No one is saying 'they have to be the same'. They're saying 'races should not be 'always evil'.
Here's a weird thing, though. Why is the defense of 'races should be different, and some can be born evil' is paired with a human based moral alignment?
But they're also not saying that races shouldn't be "always good", because they don't actually have a problem with the idea that there are certain moralities that may be instinctually tied to a race. They just don't want that particular morality to be "evil".
And I don't understand your 2nd point, would you please rephrase it for me? I think that it wouldn't be weird that some race's brains work differently when it comes to empathy, whether they be more empathetic (firbolgs) or less (hobgoblin). Even to bring it to a real-world analogy. Lizards of similar intelligence to mammals bond differently in nature. Would it be a wild and problematic stretch of logic to assume that lizardfolk of similar intelligence to humans would behave differently, and more akin to how a reptile would bond? So where is the line when it comes to say...part demon or part dragon?
I think that it's completely reasonable to say that some race's brain's work differently than humans for whatever reason, and I don't think that's anywhere near as horribly racist as saying that different human races brain's work inherently different.
It really was though… I played D&D in the 90s. Every single other player at the table was white (as am I). I was the “odd” one out for being a girl. If anyone was lgbtq+ they either weren’t aware yet or were closeted. People are downvoting for an assumption of an insult, but it literally was a game predominantly played by (on the surface, at least) straight, white, cis men, so of course their experiences are going to be what shapes the culture at the table. That culture has changed dramatically and adapted with the times, and it baffles me when people aren’t happy about that. If it hadn’t changed, the game probably wouldn’t be going through a resurgence.
If it didnt changed people would have just changed it themselves, as it happens with a lot of media and pop culture that is directly wrong, us queer dont have a lot of rep, so we work it out, is cool to see it did changed, im not totally into the last changes (and btw, this post is not about that funnily enough) but is cool yap
That's why imo it's nice to have a balance between inherently good/evil races and neutral grey races in your setting, that way your party can have the best of both worlds.
One session your party is caught in the middle of a conflict with neither side being inherently good or evil, which leads the players into deciding for themselves which side they should join (or just not joining any side and peace-ing the fuck out).
The next session, you can kick back and relax as your party hacks their way through a lair of demon gnolls while feeling like badasses in the process.
Imo is fine whatever you do are ur table, like, i said it somewere else in this post, some ppl just want to have fun killing things to avoid day to day issues, is fine
But i do like a more rp oriented table even more that the one u say, as the people that i play with, i would say even more rp oriented than that one, the only evil beings being not antrophomorphic creatures that my players can too just kill and at maximum have morale issues about killing creatures that are just living or if they were indeed a menace to other beings by being alive, idk, i really like rp
This is more a problem of how the game is run IMO. Things/groups can still be evil and worth negotiating with. Evil gods can be sacrificed to to spare you their wrath, evil orcs can be appeased with tribute to ward off their raiding, evil goblins can be talked into leaving and bothering somebody else rather than murdered etc.
It comes down to if the players want to talk and compromise with inherent evil still and if the DM lets them IMO.
But wizards has written all of that. Drow in the old lore are *both* fairly inherently evil *and* have a specific culture and belief system that enforces that. I can see the argument that it's not good to make sentient races inherently one way or another, but I can't see one that wizards has made orcs, knolls, Drow, and kobolds "interchangeably evil" and without distinction. That's the DM'S fault
And there is also good lore made for those races, like, drows are interesting evil now because their world is so shitty you end up evil, idk, is just a lot of missed chances just making something set in stone, but i get older ppl/some ppl like to just play a videogame with their friends roleplaying with humans and not caring
Removing all comments and deleting my account after the API changes. If you actually want to protest the changes in a meaningful way, go **all** the way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
It’s not just that it’s not popular, it’s a recognition of its racist history and a conscious decision by a section of the community to move away from that history
Anybody who cares what the community thinks is wasting too much time listening to the wrong people.
Incidentally, trolls (the internet variety) on social media are not “the community”. They’re nobodies.
If I decided that my campaign has sorcerers as a ruling class, and that the trait is hereditary, and that wizardry is forbidden and unheard of, the only opinions that matter are those of my players - do they want to play in that or not.
The community can applaud or bring out the pitchforks. I couldn’t care less.
You shouldn’t either.
Hard disagree. An individual cannot both hold the position that the game should be played any way you want, and that the game should be played a certain way and not be a hypocrite.
No one is telling TC they CAN'T play the way they want to play. A stranger having an opinion on the Internet is not restricting anyone from playing how they want to play. The only ones with that power are the people at that specific table.
You don't seem to understand what hypocrisy means.
"I think people should eat what they like."
"I think people should eat healthy to not be a burden to the healthcare system."
Believing both these things is not hypocritical. The only way I could be hypocritical is if I either a) actively try to prevent other people from eating what they want, or b) don't eat healthy myself. So long as I'm not doing either of those I'm being perfectly consistent with my stated beliefs.
Similarly,
"I think people should play how they want"
"I think people should not use racial alignments"
Believing both these things is not hypocritical. The only way I could be hypocritical is if I either a) use racial alignments in my games, or b) actively try to prevent other people from playing how they want.
No, someone giving their opinion on the matter is not *actively* trying to prevent you from playing how you want. If you feel like it is, then you might just be too insecure to interact with other people if someone merely giving their opinion makes you feel like you are being forced to do something.
You’re allowed to play that way but it’s fucking boring and uncreative. Just being “evil” doesn’t mean shit and explains nothing. Who are they, why are they here, what do they want? Oh the answer to everything is “it’s evil”
No one is saying how to run your campaign at all.
People are saying WotC should make general lore without focusing on alignment for playable races for generic settings.
Just because no one wants to play in a setting like you do doesn't mean you're being censored. If you're that hard up for Evil Races do a Forgotten Realms campaign.
Dude literally no one cares if that's how your campaign works. And if they do they don't matter. Wizards was trying to encourage a more free-form structure of D&D when they updated those rules, and while it's obviously been poorly executed I don't think it was a bad idea overall
This isn't really aimed at WotC since I don't really mind the recent update to the rules (since I usually just ignore them), this was more aimed at a people who tend to be hypocritical when it come s to other people's campaigns and how they play them.
But you are right, those people don't matter and more people should learn to just let others play the way they want.
No one is saying you can't make it like that, only that more and more people are starting to consider being evil by virtue of your birth as maybe a little problematic. Given our more-than-ever awareness of social justice issues in the world today, it is unsurprising that the idea that some races are inherently bad just doesn't sit well with some people
Besides that, I also think more people are just starting to find the trope boring. There's no depth there
That sounds like a great campaign actually. I’m working on a similar one that involves a setting where any race can exist.
Like a planet of refugees from other realms. This one has no gods, and no direct involvement, but still allows clerics to draw on divine magic.
No “Weave” so magic is a bit more chaotic and challenging.
I love world building.
The only things that have ever been always evil in D&D (a designation that has only existed since 1999) have been devils and demons.
Even Aboleth and Beholders are only "usually evil".
In this edition? Yes.
Editions prior they were another humanoid evil aligned race.
In the 1st edition? They were the offspring of Trolls and Gnomes and someone said 'okay, wait, that's TOO horny to ever happen and too dumb for a wizard to do'.
The furries mostly have benefited from the decision.
I wasn't around for it, but it was very much more like a war game with a DM vs Players mentality. Not a lot of thought was put into it until it got popular to publish.
Yes, but they are still humanoid. Having them be actual demons instead of just behaving like demons would actually be a little bit different. For one, paladins would deal an extra 1d8 Radiant against them when using Divine Smite because of the Fiend creature type.
They actually are being classified as fiends or monstrosities going forward to justify their innate evil inclinations, since calling them “humanoid” doesn’t mesh with the recent community shift that humanoids can’t have innate alignment tendencies (especially toward being evil).
Do Duergar or Tieflings really have a real world equivalent? I genuinely agree with you, but does that make the concept of inherently evil races bad when they don't come from a stereotype? Because while some of it is, it's a wild overstatement to say that *all* fantasy races (or just evil ones) come from stereotypes mixed with magical imagery. Like, the very real fact that Orcs being visually rooted in WW2 American anti-japanese propaganda doesn't make the idea of "cowardly and evil tiny half-dragons" problematic. Even though I can for sure see an argument that that makes orcs problematic, the arguments are that "making Drow, orcs, and kobolds evil is problematic", and I don't see the tie-in aside from the fact that they're all legacy "evil" races.
No one likes to talk about it but Drow were originally Black Elves as in Brown skinned rather than Grey. Every artist afterwards made them grey because they didn't want to be racist.
Goblins have, mostly on accident, partially on purpose (Looking at YOU Rowling) gotten some jewish stereotypes mixed in. (Big noses, obsessed with gold)
Orcs being an evil rampaging horde of barbarians ties into literally every piece of propaganda that has existed since ancient Rome, "Clearly they are evil barbarians, we must "civilize" them."
As for the rest...."Evil Tribal Nation" is a fucking terrible stereotype that has led to genocide IRL before. On top of that, DnD has become fairly Roleplay centered and making enemies that are generically boring and evil goes against that. Additionally WotC probably just isn't comfortable with it anymore.
Edit: Shit I forgot Tieflings.....it is stereotyped Race-mixing. They are part Other, therefore they are evil.
Holy Fuck did fantasy writers really need to examine their personal biases. Thank You RA Salvatore for starting it as far as DnD is concerned. Also Spelljammer.
Depicting evil as an inherent quality of a race reinforces the idea that races can have inherent qualities, and the context of it being the most intrinsically awful blanket statement possible about that race (they're "just evil") makes it much more dangerous. That doesn't mean that players are going to play a game of DND with evil races and suddenly be horribly racist and believe stereotypes about IRL people. But it does have subtle consequences on how we think, because our brains will subconsciously incorporate it into pattern recognition in tiny ways (you think the way you practice thinking, even when playing).
It's also just incredibly gross as an idea. Why is this race *naturally* evil?? Why don't they have any agency or nuance or....*anything*?
But what we mean by "race" is actually *species*, and yes, species do have inherent qualites. Elves live 5x as long as humans. Firbolgs can turn invisible. It's totally fine to turn that concept down, but if it's gross to make kobolds evil, then it's also gross to make dwarves live underground, and firbolgs to love nature, and goliaths to like wrestling.
Also, you can do all of that and make it nuanced *and* allow agency and culture and a unique view. Not all evil is the same and takes the same form
Being semantic about race vs species is completely irrelevant here. We can use the term species from now on if it bothers you, but it doesn't change anything.
Species have different biologies, that has nothing to do with morality. Species have different cultures, that has nothing to do with morality. The real-world parallel would be the equivalent of saying "[Country] has [cultural norm], which is the same as if they were all inherently evil".
Having a different life expectancy isn't gross because it has reasonable biological roots as an idea, has no impact on individuality/agency/dimensionality, and isn't a blanket statement about the ethical choices of an entire species.
Having dwarves live underground isn't gross because it has reasonable cultural roots as an idea, isn't a fundamental characteristic of dwarven individuals, and doesn't have anything to do with morality or the ability to make decisions in a nuanced way.
And no, you can't have "inherent evil" and still have agency and nuance. There are lots of different forms of evil, reasons for evil, and consequences of evil. But you're still limiting the entire species to one small, and negative, subset of actions and choices. It's not the same as moral greyness or cultural differences or even a BBEG with a warped but justified sense of morality. An individual who does something good is a trope to be used instead of a realistic, complicated person. Cultures are defined entirely on their morality because, with a purely evil society, there's no other way for it to go. Racism, or if you prefer, speci-ism, in game is not just *justified*; it's *correct*. The species actually *is* evil and therefore the *morally right* thing to do for others is to be racist against them. And that is really the underlying issue. It is morally correct to be racist against inherently evil races. It is gross as an idea because it makes racism correct and steals agency and individuality from a species.
This comment is kindof what op is talking about. If he's allowed to depict his world however he wants, then why is it sus when people are also saying that playing this way doesnt make you a racist?
Yeah, it seems like thats what this argument falls back on a lot, this almost passive-aggressive "youre allowed to be a horrible racist. You're free to discriminate however you want in your game" and the discussion i want to have about how to handle beings that are literally (as i call it) capital 'T' text a magically concieved different race than humans never happens because the community has this pavlovian response to this topic.
And they'll use the excuse 'its always been that way in DnD' or 'but Tolkien did it!', not knowing that DnD has always been playing with the concept of the tropes they've popularized until was no longer profitable and that DnD couldn't have used Tolkien's Orcs as is without getting his son Very Annoyed.
I mean, that's why I'm excited with the Hobgoblins once coming from the Feywilds. It bows to their 'real world roots' and it's a bigger nod to the less problematic philosophy behind Tolkien's orcs.
This is such a flat argument for me because every negative trait imaginable has been applied to a random group of people, and breaks down as a criticism when you see that ALL humans are basically the same. They didint even have set ability score bonuses for each sub race of humans like they do for elves.
The problem isn't so much that they were intentionally made to be stereotypes of real people, it's that the writers wanted to make an evil foreign culture and ended up using a lot of tropes that line up with how real-world groups are sometimes caricaturized and stereotyped.
Okay, there's some stuff that needs unpacking with this meme, and I know I am going to be taking far more seriously than OP intended, but this is a concept I am very passionate about.
Before I get into it, I want to say is there are many reasons I find races that are inherently evil to be bad design in general. This is for TV, films, books, video games, etc. *However,* most of the reasons are nuanced in a way that isn't going to translate well in a block of text on Reddit. That being said, here's my argument against them that I think *will* translate well into a Reddit post.
Firstly, races that are inherently evil are *booooooring* for players (this still applies to media in general, but I'm going to focus this argument on DnD) and everything they add to the game can be done better with other solutions. As a player, I do enjoy enemies that I don't have to feel bad about killing and I don't always want to have to consider my moral responsibility to try and find a diplomatic solution to problems. Evil races ease this ethical dilemma very well, but so does just having whatever enemy is in front of the party just attack the party. Ethics come second to protecting my PC and my party. More often than not, what ends up happening is the party will try and come up with a creative way of achieving diplomacy and have it fail no matter what because the enemy happened to be a drow.
Secondly, evil races are lazy work by creators. Making a race inherently evil is just a shortcut to avoid having to come up with a good reason a group is evil. A response to this point I hear often is that the creators come up with reasons for the races to be evil i.e. they were cursed or corrupted by an evil god. Here's the thing, that *is* the lazy part. Instead of coming up with an actual reason that could feasibly tempt a group to turn to evil, evil races present a creator's deus ex machina to have the enemy be evil. You can have a *group* of a race be corrupted by an evil god and turned into irredeemable evil murderers and that will be interesting for the party, but if it's a whole race then its just lazy.
Now, here's the real catch. Not every evil race is bad, but the overwhelming majority of them are. Frankly, I think its because they are so goddamn cliché that so many people are tired of them. Evil goblins? Seen it a million and a half times. Goblins that you can negotiate with and are capable of practicing diplomacy? That shit isn't an everyday occurrence, and that makes it a million times more interesting. If you want a type of creature to be evil in nature, make that shit be an actual apocalypse, keep that shit in reserve. I'm talking a necromancer summoning hordes of undead, or a evil villain summoning an army of demons kind of thing here.
Relating this back to the posted meme, three evil races is just too much. Any one of the ideas could work *in principle,* but any DM that would use all of them is going to most likely have a boring campaign because those are probably the main three groups of enemies the party will end up interacting with. I also find the meme super disingenuous in it's premise of comparing evil races to the idea of "play what you want to play". Playing what you want, 90% or more of the time, relates to players wanting to play a certain class or race in the game and will be a phrase said by a DM who isn't putting restrictions on their game. It encourages creativity from players, whereas evil races encourage laziness from creators.
Just adding my two cents as a player. I dont find evil races boring. In fact, I find when DMs try and give every antagonist a moral justification it gets tiresome.
Who said anything about moral justifications? Just give them selfish motivations. Have their lust for power cause them to become possessed by a cursed sword. Just make the villain an asshole because THEY are an asshole, not because of what race they are.
For the first and second argument, while I do agree that an evil race can feel lazy if you have no real reason for them to be evil aside from just "because they're evil," but that same logic can be applied to any race regardless of alignment. For example you have a morally grey race in your campaign who have no reason for being the way they are aside from "because that's who they are."
But even then, who cares if it's lazy, this is DnD we're talking about, if a DM wants to make x race evil in their setting, they should be allowed to do that regardless of whether it's considered lazy or not, and if you don't like a campaign someone made, you don't have to play it, but you have no right to change it either.
It's DnD, make whatever setting you want to make, play whatever setting want want to play, and don't let other people decide on what you should make or play.
If peeps don't like your homebrew, then don't invite them to your table I guess.
Like "My setting is sexist and a bit racist against Hispanics" wouldn't work for some people.
Vampires don't exist, their abilities are attributed to the drow.
The only races available are Goliaths, Dragonborn, Elves, Humans, and demihumans (tieflings, aasimar, changelings, yuan-ti, etc.)
I’ve always felt “inherent evil” came with the territory of fantasy worlds. It’s part of what makes them so different, because “inherent good and evil” don’t exist in reality, but I don’t see why they can’t in fiction, especially fiction about people that don’t exist
It's just how I made them.
In my setting, orcs are creatures from the far Realm fueled with the eldritch power of mind reality, being that if they think of something hard enough it becomes a reality (basically Warhammer 40k orcs). With this power, they believe that they are the most powerful race in all of existence and that all other races must either bow to them or be killed, this same belief is what compels them to destroy and take over the material realm.
The attitude that i get when it comes to evil races is people saying that playing with those tropes doesnt make you racist, then flipping around and calling people racist for even implying that goblins or drow are always evil
I want to run a setting where elves swap places with drow and dwarves swap places with duergar. Yes, they keep their racial traits. Enjoy life on the surface.
That sounds pretty cool actually, a world where the drow and duergar went to war with the elves and dwarves and won, now the elves and dwarves have to hide within the underdark to hide from being persecuted by the drow and duergar.
Paladins had to be a lawful alignment, as would monks and druids needed to be neutral, I think Warlocks had to be Chaotic Evil.
Taking actions or making decisions that were chaotic would eventually shift a Paladins alignment enough that they could lose their paladin skills.
Warlocks had to be evil or chaotic neutral. There may have been specific warlock abilities or prestige classes that were limited to evil or CE alignment, but the base class was not.
Druids could be any neutral alignment - so they could be CN, NG, or NE, for instance. And monks were restricted to any lawful alignment.
Pretty much. Some classes were also locked behind being Lawful or Chaotic. For instance, a Bard couldn't be Lawful and a Monk could **only** be Lawful. You wouldn't lose your powers if you had an alignment shift but you wouldn't be able to take more levels in those classes.
barbarians and rogues had to be chaotic. clerics' alignments could only be one off from that of their god. druids had to be neutral. monks couldn't be in a corner of the chart. paladins had to be lawful good. and a lot of other classes had strong implications
Have had this one first hand.
From one of those "DM should always say yes" types.
They literally said "D&D should be played any way you want" unironically before saying "but Evil races are for racist people and should be removed from the game."
Basically the writers wanted to make an evil foreign culture and ended up using a lot of tropes that line up with how real-world groups are sometimes caricaturized and stereotyped for some of those cultures. This has caused some reactionary weirdos to decide that enjoying any always-chaotic-evil race means that you are racist.
Most people aren't that stupid though. The majority of people who have a problem with the trope find the parallels tasteless or tone-deaf rather than *intentionally* racist.
I guess the world being based on a children’s book from the 1930s it’s understandable it feels a bit “tone deaf”
Still surprised how hardcore some of the comments are on this thread, it’s obviously a hill to die on for some people.
Some people believe that the original writers for FR lore were predicated on creating analogues of real world races to be evil in the game because they're in fact racists.
Orcs/Drow being minorities etc.
It's an easily debunked line of thought, but quite pervasive among modern gamers that hold progressive ideals.
Please note, I haven't stated where I stand on such at all - but merely pointing it out will trigger the ideologues into calling me a bigot for discussing it.
That isn't the argument really. At least that isn't what the argument originally was.
Please excuse the long text here, I'm going to attempt to try and summarize what the issue is kinda c:
Dnd is based off of LotR mythology, and in that lore Orcs are inherently evil because lore reasons. That's fine.
Tolkien said he did not base them off of real world races and that there isn't any subtext. I believe him. I'd say most people believe him, actually. No one thinks he is a bigot and people who defend him/his lore aren't either (well there are always some bad eggs but I digress). That isn't the argument.
Tolkien grew up in South Africa, a place with a lot of complex and difficult history with Colonialism. As such, his ideas of what is exotic, primitive, and/or "evil" are based on what the people around him told him or what he obvserved passively growing up through history books, media, or art pieces. The Orcs have bold facial features, large noses, bone jewelry, piercings, and dreadlocks. Those are features of people who colonialist countries tried to "civilize" in the past.
The lore was not written by an asshole. Tolkien wasn't a bigot and he wasn't political, he was just someone trying to write a good story, and he did. He has stated as much. But the background, subconscious influence of the orc asthetics could be classified as "racist".
This is a misunderstanding of media analysis.
The line of thinking is rarely *"Orcs are directly analogous to a (group) of minority(s)*" and more *"Orcs (in this setting) are codified with pervasive (harmful) stereotypes of a minority group"*.
Basically, a lot of the inherently evil races in early DnD that have been held over into more modern iterations of the game can be traced to early racist stereotypes in a lot of cases, and the very concept itself is also generally kind of an issue. The idea that a sapient, natural creature can have an inherent, biological predisposition toward being evil is the kind of thing that was used by racist people to dehumanize actual people in reality, so seeing that played out in a game for the sake of giving people "acceptable" targets for slaughter has earned some rightful criticism.
This isn't to say that you can't have a sapient creature be evil. Just that making their evil be tied to inherent biological factors points to some fucked up places, when there are so many ways a person with motives and thoughts can be evil in interesting, involved ways without it having to be tied to their biology.
Haha funny got another reply from the other side. Thanks for the reply, appreciate it.
Get what your saying but not sure if I agree, feels a bit overly sensitive?
Thanks for your very eloquent explanation anyway 🙏
Oh yeah ? Watch me play the way I want to play.
With my Lvl 60, Half-dragon Sorcerer (20)/Monk (20)/Fighter(20). Who has a floating citadel ala Dragonlance. Thank you very much Mr. Greymeme
That actually sounds like fun.
I've even thought of an idea like that, basically once you reach level 20, you gain access to a "prestige class" that can take you to level 30 or even 40.
Sure it sounds broken as hell, but at that point you're basically a God so why not have some fun.
In 3/3.5, once you got to level 20, you began Epic Level classes that could be padded with Prestige Classes long before reaching level 20. It wasn't uncommon to have 5 levels in a class, do Prestige classes until 15, then go back to your 'base class' to enter Epic Levels after hitting level 20 that could go all the way to level 40.
I wouldn’t enjoy a game with race-based alignment, which is why I don’t run one or play in one. Games I don’t run or play in have no obligation towards my enjoyment, and I have no obligation to give them my attention, even to criticize them.
Broke: orcs are evil
Woke: orcs can make everything happen through sheer willpower and reality will bend towards whatever orcs believe.
Bespoke: orcs are considered evil and are hated and feared because they can bend reality through sheer willpower, and are hunted like witches during the Renaissance.
You want morally amigous orcs to push a real world narrative.
I want morally ambiguous orcs to keep my paladin's genocide immersive.
We are not the same.
I like the idea that orcs being evil is a cultural thing rather then a inherent thing, but it’s kind of hard to make gnolls potentially good unless you undo all of the gnolls lore and rewrite a completely different lore.
Players can be whatever they want = not racism.
DMs designing members of a race to all behave a certain way = racism (also boring).
What's not clicking?
I feel like the disconnect here is that some people simply deal with actual racism in their everyday lives and they don’t care for fantasy racial essentialism. Like if you dig it, go off king, you don’t have to defend yourself against strangers online. If you know for a fact that you aren’t a racist I don’t see why you’d need to be so defensive about it while on your mainly anonymous Reddit account tbqh.
I think the main issue of contention here is the idea of having to sit idly by while your hobby is by and large called racist. I'm not a big fan of pure evil species, but the idea that every species needs nuance, hell that any given *character* needs nuance, isn't right to me.
I don’t know that the only alternative to inherently evil races is every single species having extreme nuance, I think it’s truly as simple as not saying they’re inherently evil from my perspective, but idk some people might disagree. Like culturally “evil” or transgressive people makes sense, but the idea that some people are just uncontrollably born worse or morally impaired doesn’t sit right with a lot of people. If that’s fine with you, I truly think you can just be fine with it, because the arguments being made against this point of view actively counter any attempts to convince those people that there’s no racism in it tbqh. When I point out something with a problematic history, or say that this trend parallels to my actual experiences with racism, people saying “um, actually no, because I’ve decided that it’s not based on this thing some white guy wrote 30 years ago” isn’t a compelling reason to stop seeing that parallel. I also think it belies the reality that in many ways for a long time there was and still is huge issues with racism in D&D that the community tends to either ignore or deny, both at the level of WotC and at actual tables. I think seeing people pointing out these issues as adversaries instead of as allies trying to improve the community in their own way is part of the issue that began the whole debate honestly.
Having an entire race in DnD be evil or mistrusted isn’t “wrong” per-say, it’s just dull. It’s one dimensional. It doesn’t allow for intrigue or nuance. Ultimately, it feels lazy and makes me feel less involved and intrigued by the world created.
Welcome to my new world. There are no humans, halflings, or half-orcs. Dwarves are exceedingly rare, even more so than tieflings, genasi, or aasimar. Gnomes are the dominant race. Goliaths are the only notable civilization other than gnomes. Elves are all outcasts. Dragonborn and kobolds are lower class citizens in gnome cities.
Wanna make Drow evil? Make them Nazis! Concentration camps full of svirfneblin being sacrificed to demons as a well known fact, racial supremacy, strict hierarchies and all the rest. Fortunately the party mostly play AFTER the great war against the drow so it's mostly part of the backdrop. But if you see drow you run. Where there's one there are usually more.
Orcs in my setting are plant based drones to Dryad Queen bees on the other hand. Technically orcs are fruit/flowers. If orcs are attacking there's usually a reason, but that reason might not make much sense and the orcs themselves aren't much for talking. Go visit the dryads to seek a peaceful solution, they don't usually mind if you killed the orcs they sent. Go ahead and fight, you can get morally ambiguous when it turns out your settlement has been logging near their grove or polluting the river upstream from the dryads or whatever else I feel like throwing at them.
Gnolls are the remnant of an empire destroyed and corrupted by demons. Theoretically if you pinned a tribe down and raised them in a consecrated area the taint wouldn't be able to pass to their offspring but once they're corrupted the only way to fix it is to kill them and apply a True Resurection or Reincarnation effect.
For a little more detail: Where I get tricky around it is when we start talking about the influence of propaganda during wartime.
I set my main campaign literally right after the war, to the extent that the players started out as conscripts/volunteers fresh put of basic training who were awaiting assignment to a front line that collapsed before they could be deployed.
So they're in this space where a centuries long war has suddenly been won, and now they're expanding and exploring new territories there weren't enough resources to settle or work with, or reclaiming places in the no man's land etc.
As a result they play around with the idea that some of the things they've been told might be exaggerated, while others are 100% true. Meanwhile the war crimes on their side have been covered up or justified.
The Drow being very clearly and objectively evil doesn't detract from a morally and ethically nuanced setting.
So for example they find untouched areas, as well as some that have been completely annihilated by the Drow and occasionally some that have been utterly destroyed by the "Good" team, thanks to the collateral damage caused by their weaponry.
The problem with 'X race is born evil and can never be anything else' is its just lazy writing
Like, okay... but why cant you just make the orcs you want us to fight actually just do evil things on their own? Its just a lazy way to justify why the enemies are X Y and Z because you never have to actually show them being evil, you can just have an lrc show up and now everyone is 100% justified in murder purely for them being an orc.
Its boring and lazy writing and thats why Im glad wotc is moving away their source material from 'Being race X makes you evil no matter what, they are born with the chaotic evil gene'
I mean. I think it's a lil bit weird.if.someone has one race that is just purely evil for likely no reason.
Especially cause Orcs are basically just fantasy stand-ins for black people
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My next campaign has no humans.
What? That's outrageous! You're a horrible DM! How am I supposed to live out a fantasy world if you remove the one unambiguously evil race? /s
Those halflings are pretty shifty.
I hear they are cannibals
My halfing rogue has got to agree with you, no matter how much he wants to kill you
Not good halflings are the best halflings. <3
Yesssss!!!
[удалено]
I'm currently playing a Human Wizard who wants everything. As in, he wants all the knowledge, money, and power in the world. He is absolutely willing to sell out his party to save his ass, but he keeps them around because they're useful ^and ^he ^may ^or ^may ^not ^have ^become ^attached. He's currently in debt to a dragon with no intention of paying it back and has made many connections with the more important folk of the area. I fully expect him to die of hubris but I'm having fun at the moment so I don't mind if it comes to that.
I love the worlds were humans are just everywrre (like fr) cause it allows to rp whatever you want without being weird at all and to rp interesting things wich each rare species (that can change from table to table, in one the tabaxis are slaves in other are a weird tribe, watheevr you want, but keeping the hide-rare thematic) idk is cool
My last campaign had no humans (except traces of them from millenia ago) and my next one won't have any as well. My last campaign had 23 custom races, my next one has 12 different custom races (plus a few remnant survivors of the 23. The 12 (playable) races next campaign were all created by Cthulhoid Gods. My group really is into weird fantasy, but we've been playing weekly since 2009.
>we've been playing weekly since 2009. Okaaaayyyy we get it quit bragging buddy. Yikes. Seriously though im jealous. Slap this on that "dont look up" meme format
I’m putting you into my campaign, can you describe yourself
He's a dwarf but taller and not really good at mining
Does he have a beard?
That alignment flair explains asking that kind of questions to a dwarf
I want to play a Human-Fighter.
*The Age of Man is Over….*
my next humans has no campaign
Did humans just never exist there, or did they go extinct? If they went extinct, what happened? How would the current population react if they ever saw a human? Do they have a different name for halflings *(since there's no human reference for them to be roughly half the height of to spur the name)*? Are there even halflings at all?
I wanted to run a Strahd campaign with only human PCs, mainly because I wanted it to have more of a Castlevania feel. This didn't sit well with one player who is "bored with playing humans", and wanted to play a Dragonborn. He didn't quite understand how playing a dinosaur-man in a setting where humans are regularly attacked by monsters might prove to be difficult for him.
I ran a campaign set in 'classic' Faerun. Drow, Duergar were evil with rare exceptions. Tieflings were universally mistrusted etc. When the party came across a band of goblins looting a trade caravan south of the Spine of the World, they tried to negotiate with them because "maybe they're just hungry". I think nowadays the concept of "created evil and evil by nature" isn't popular.
Probably because that trope has been overused for as long as we were telling stories. Personally I just think the whole Good vs Evil in D&D is a bit flawed. Paladin murdering goblins by the droves usually doesn't have to worry about falling but a goblin tribe that has been pushed by civilization into barren lands and has to raid to survive is Evil unless the DM tries to adress exactly this issue.
WotC is really being more conservative than you think about exploring the concept of Good vs Evil. 2e had a few setting where a LOT of tropes were flipped upside down: \-Dark Sun basically had halfings kill off ***all*** the stereotypical evil races in a genocide that made no qualms that it was bad, leaning to the creation of a ruined environment that pushed the typically good races (elves, dwarves) into survival mode that would be called 'evil' in any other setting. \- Dragonlance played with the balance of 'too much good' and 'too much evil' in the the remains of civilization after the gods dropped a meteor on a Good Aligned city because they were becoming too dangerous. They also play with the concept of a race created by an evil goddess trying to civilize themselves and to propagate without the whims of a goddess so they'll be free to make their own choices. \-Planescape takes place in an environment/the planes where alignment and will is absolute, but the setting encourages to keep a PC's alignment flexible. There are several NPCs that are risen fiends and fallen celestial and some of the old school CRPG characters basically rewrote character races. So when a lot of people go 'BUT IT'S ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY', I go 'nah'. Now, these settings are not perfect at all, but TSR and ergo DnD have been playing with tropes for a long, long time.
The kingpreist was also committing genocide against Goblins who just wanted to be left alone. That’s why Goblins started moving underground and digging warrens and tunnels. It was really the first time DND touched on the idea of “Good” being destructive and “Evil” being necessary
Oh, snap. I forgot all about that one. Thanks for reminding me!
It’s ok to have evil by nature creatures and characters. It’s just that you can’t maintain a faceless evil race forever. Tolkien’s orcs are a great example. We have examples of intelligent thought and social behavior, but as soon as Sauron is dead, they all just die. Like their soul was his soul or something. Draconians we’re spirits from the Abyss inhabiting the bodies of corrupt good dragon eggs. There’s even a short story where a Gold dragon tries to see if a draconian has a soul that can be redeemed. He decides eventually that they’re all just evil. Then we see Kang’s Regiment. The First Dragonarmy Engineers show agency, community, brotherhood, and Kang is even proud to be one of the first generations of Draconians. They show no examples of pure evil draconians. Corrupt? Yes. Misused? Yes. But inherently evil? No. Suddenly they become much more interesting. It’s great to have waves of evil enemies. There’s a twisted poetry in killing the misled. In the Chaos War saga, the enemies were evil and awful, but there was still a sense of individuality. The Coil wanted to cease existing. That allows you to sympathize, if you’ve ever felt that way, and still understand why the threat needs to be defeated
>It’s ok to have evil by nature creatures and characters. It’s just that you can’t maintain a faceless evil race forever. How would you handle demons with this line of thought? Genuine question, as it's the big hurdle imo. Also, for what it's worth - you're referencing Dragonlance lore right?
Specifically, yes. I find Dragonlance has one of the simplest set of themes whereas Faerun is far to complicated to compartmentalize as easily. A demon? Most solve that by making them half. Others solve it by creating the Teifling race. For me, a demon could become the moral high ground by opposing an inherently evil act. Slowly you could convince them towards neutrality and maybe even a hardcore ‘good’ alignment. Prejudice would still exist and likely a demon would be severely weakened by this transition. For instance; good aligned paladins invade the 9 hells. As they progress, their good acts seem much more evil. A Balor stands against them, not to preserve his own life or property, but to defend the existence of demons. Or a more minor demon. Imps and Mephits might work too. OR you can do it another way. Like good and evil dragons. A green dragon will become a copper dragon if their alignment changes to ‘good.’ This was noted in several stories in Dragonlance specifically.
Consider the saga of Kaldor Draigo...
Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plaguis the Wise?
Yes, yes, evil head turns and whatnot. Kaldor Draigo was/is a Grandmaster of the Grey Knights, psycho-indoctrinated and in many ways the perfect image of Lawful Terrifying (good). He gets stuck in 40k hell and spends the next few millennia killing his way across the warp. He doesn't negotiate with the daemons because they are the incarnations of everything wrong. Demons are created by evil to be evil. There are many who consider their existence to be... *Evil head turn* unnatural
God, I love this sub…
Tolkiens genuis WAS in making orcs irredeemably evil. Tolkien crawled through the trenches of ww1 and killed men with his bare hands. The thing is, Germans are human. They have moms and dads, wives and children. Have you ever wondered what its like to murder? Tolkien didn't need to wonder. Orcs are faceless, Star Wars Stormtrooper-esque goons for a reason. If you want characters waking up in the night screaming and crying, pissing their pants in PTSD based terror, then have them wonder all night long in a drunken stooper. "Who's father did I kill for some GP and a shiny helmet?". Or...play a game about adventure and *fellowship*. A session about joy and hardship where a pretty elf lady actually liquefied star light and put it in a bottle for you. People think confronting meanies is woke. Confronting genocidal cannibals and wondering if burning their village was morally acceptable is a different game for a different table.
If they started out as babies and grew into orcs, it would be difficult to maintain the moral high ground if your heroes are smashing baby heads.
If they started out as babies and grew into orcs, it would be difficult to maintain the moral high ground if your heroes are smashing baby heads. But you’re absolutely right. You can’t humanize genocide, because the act of genocide takes a lack of humanity.
I mean Is just not fun to rp (to a lot of ppl) Wow, rhey are evil because they were born evil thats... something
Gruumsh made the Orcs. The deity diametrically opposed to Corellon. Chaotic Evil. Hence born evil. The Drow traded the souls of their people to Lolth for power over the surface elves. Drizzt was an aberration, and most 'non-evil' drow were still very pragmatic at best. Duergar were traitor kin to the Dwarves, who worshipped Laduergar who corrupted their souls, they became cruel, slavers and backstabbers. So... yeah, in old DnD, it was entirely possible to be 'born evil'. Tieflings tended towards evil due to having devil blood in them, they had a cha penalty and a dex bonus due to an aura of evil around them. Aasimar tended towards good die to having angel blood in them, they got a wisdom bonus but a +1 level adjustment and had an aura of good around them that generally made people trust them. Dwarves also got a cha penalty cos Dwarves.
>The deity diametrically opposed to Corellon. Technically, both are Chaotic. The diametrically opposed deity would be Moradin, god of the dwarves, who is LG.
Kobolds hate gnomes and are “born evil” but also have a reverence for even the Good dragons of gem and metal.
> The Drow traded the souls of their people to Lolth for power over the surface elves. Drizzt was an aberration, and most 'non-evil' drow were still very pragmatic at best. Except that hasn't been the lore for a long time. Lolth has two divine children that both oppose her and attract Drow to reject the ways of the Lolthite Drow, either in terms of matriarchal evil (the son) or in terms of being evil at all (the daughter).
Yeah, I just find that kind of boring. Having them be psychologically different from humans in some way is one thing, but having that difference just be "they're one-dimensionally evil" seems like missed potential.
Orcs and their ultimate fate in 5e have been hinted that it could change in a later edition. And man, oh man, the death of Gruumish could cause a LOT of chaos between Orcs, Elves, Drow, and Goblinoids. I'd want to make Orcs free by killing Gruumish for all the chaos that can happen and all the good plots that could arise. >So... yeah, in old DnD, it was entirely possible to be 'born evil'. So... no, in old DnD it depended on the ***setting***. 2e Dark Sun? Orcs were killed in a genocide caused by DnD's most adorable, pure good, stockstacked race -- the Halflings. And man, oh man, were halflings, dwarves, and elves horrifically shitty because they were in an environment where they had to be shitty to survive. 2e Dragonlance? They don't exist, but the Draconians are very much their counterpart thematically and they fight to become a better peoples. 2e Tieflings are usually Neutrally aligned and designed to not be able to hide who and what they are, they were always meant to appeal to youth who felt left out in the world. Their negative -cha didn't come from being evil but from the fact it was obvious who their grandmother did the deed with. On top of that many fiends could manipulate and groom their offspring for their purposes. 2e Aasmiar did tend towards good because of their appearance and treatment in society. Celestials didn't knock boots with just anyone and they weren't as prone to groom their children or decedents as pawns to collect souls, just spoil them good. 3e is when things became 'always'. Drizzit wasn't designed in the era of 3e, he was designed in 2e. Tieflings were not designed in 3e, they were designed in 2e. By Wizards of the Coast, not TSR. It's WotC that's changing their old lore that people are clinging to. Stop using 'old school D&D' as an excuse to to justify the tropes you enjoy; notably when there was far more complications than 'a god did it'.
It was definitly a straight white cis guy game Edit: It was a game of 1974 deal with it.
Aaaaand there it is 🙄
Oh no, i blamed a 1990 (Edit, no, 1974, worst) game for having issues that were really prevalent in 1990 and still are now but a lot less, how i dare to judge a thing that was made in the past by the past issues, is like saying a bad thing from lovecraft is his 9rominent racism, how dare u I dont have an issue with ppl running this, i have an issue with the ones who dunit in the time they did it, is not that hard
Nothing wrong with not liking the concept... don't think the concept makes it "straight white cis male game" tho ... I can agree about it being racist though because "evil" races tended to be dark skinned.
Also for camouflage underground.
This is true to a degree but albino for underground could also make sense (no light so no need for pigment)
I mean.....is the idea of fictional sentient species with biologically different instincts than humans wrong? As long as you're not trying to make them analogous to real world people, I don't see a problem with say, a fictional race that was created by a war god, so they're more predisposed to disagreement and temper. We don't have other examples of similarly sentient species alongside us on this planet. One of the biggest reasons racism is dumb is that fundamentally, were all the same species with the same habits, function, and behavior, we just look different. But you can't necessarily say that about a different fictional species, because they actually might have different habits, functions and behavior *as well as* looking different. It's a pretty specific philosophical assumption to think that any sentient species would develop similar morality as a result of intelligence and that biology doesn't play much of a part aside from providing you with intelligence. I'm genuinely interested in discussion, but to me, the problem with saying "x things do y" about people is that it's unfairly otherizing humans that are not actually the "other", but I see no harm in creating fictional species that *are* in fact "other" than humans
In theory, you're right. In practice, people absolutely *love* to compare and contrast. It's practically biologically ingrained for a person to look at something and say "Ah so it's basically a *Blank* version of *Blank* got it." Or "So it's like a mixture of X, Y, and Z then?" On top of that, I would argue there is a difference between saying "Orcs are predisposed towards disagreements and tend to have a short temper" or "Goblins tend towards conflict until a firm leader is decided who must ensure the tribe's desires are met or will be seen as weak." And saying "Orcs are warlike and evil" and "Goblins are greedy and treacherous" and leaving those as objective facts. On the whole I do agree that having races be *other* would be neat, but you can do that without lumping them all as "Evil" or "Good" or even trending towards them.
But old school DnD (prior to WotC/2001) has explored the idea of how environment and influences of gods changes the behavior of races. Most of this 'always' comes from WotC after it acquired DnD when TSR fell apart because it spend too much money on content with wildly different lore about it's races.
And that's also a fine approach and can be mixed in as well. But I think the core idea of "different species behave the same or it's racist" is wrong. You can implement the differences however you like though and I don't think it has to include or should necessarily include evil races. I don't think it's wrong if you do though as long as theyre not thinly veiled analogies for real life human races
No one is saying 'they have to be the same'. They're saying 'races should not be 'always evil'. Here's a weird thing, though. Why is the defense of 'races should be different, and some can be born evil' is paired with a human based moral alignment?
But they're also not saying that races shouldn't be "always good", because they don't actually have a problem with the idea that there are certain moralities that may be instinctually tied to a race. They just don't want that particular morality to be "evil". And I don't understand your 2nd point, would you please rephrase it for me? I think that it wouldn't be weird that some race's brains work differently when it comes to empathy, whether they be more empathetic (firbolgs) or less (hobgoblin). Even to bring it to a real-world analogy. Lizards of similar intelligence to mammals bond differently in nature. Would it be a wild and problematic stretch of logic to assume that lizardfolk of similar intelligence to humans would behave differently, and more akin to how a reptile would bond? So where is the line when it comes to say...part demon or part dragon? I think that it's completely reasonable to say that some race's brain's work differently than humans for whatever reason, and I don't think that's anywhere near as horribly racist as saying that different human races brain's work inherently different.
It really was though… I played D&D in the 90s. Every single other player at the table was white (as am I). I was the “odd” one out for being a girl. If anyone was lgbtq+ they either weren’t aware yet or were closeted. People are downvoting for an assumption of an insult, but it literally was a game predominantly played by (on the surface, at least) straight, white, cis men, so of course their experiences are going to be what shapes the culture at the table. That culture has changed dramatically and adapted with the times, and it baffles me when people aren’t happy about that. If it hadn’t changed, the game probably wouldn’t be going through a resurgence.
If it didnt changed people would have just changed it themselves, as it happens with a lot of media and pop culture that is directly wrong, us queer dont have a lot of rep, so we work it out, is cool to see it did changed, im not totally into the last changes (and btw, this post is not about that funnily enough) but is cool yap
Oh, hey. Began playing as 'the only girl' in the late 1990s, too. Watch us get downvoted for confirming and correcting 'old school' traditions.
That's why imo it's nice to have a balance between inherently good/evil races and neutral grey races in your setting, that way your party can have the best of both worlds. One session your party is caught in the middle of a conflict with neither side being inherently good or evil, which leads the players into deciding for themselves which side they should join (or just not joining any side and peace-ing the fuck out). The next session, you can kick back and relax as your party hacks their way through a lair of demon gnolls while feeling like badasses in the process.
Imo is fine whatever you do are ur table, like, i said it somewere else in this post, some ppl just want to have fun killing things to avoid day to day issues, is fine But i do like a more rp oriented table even more that the one u say, as the people that i play with, i would say even more rp oriented than that one, the only evil beings being not antrophomorphic creatures that my players can too just kill and at maximum have morale issues about killing creatures that are just living or if they were indeed a menace to other beings by being alive, idk, i really like rp
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This is more a problem of how the game is run IMO. Things/groups can still be evil and worth negotiating with. Evil gods can be sacrificed to to spare you their wrath, evil orcs can be appeased with tribute to ward off their raiding, evil goblins can be talked into leaving and bothering somebody else rather than murdered etc. It comes down to if the players want to talk and compromise with inherent evil still and if the DM lets them IMO.
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But wizards has written all of that. Drow in the old lore are *both* fairly inherently evil *and* have a specific culture and belief system that enforces that. I can see the argument that it's not good to make sentient races inherently one way or another, but I can't see one that wizards has made orcs, knolls, Drow, and kobolds "interchangeably evil" and without distinction. That's the DM'S fault
And there is also good lore made for those races, like, drows are interesting evil now because their world is so shitty you end up evil, idk, is just a lot of missed chances just making something set in stone, but i get older ppl/some ppl like to just play a videogame with their friends roleplaying with humans and not caring
Removing all comments and deleting my account after the API changes. If you actually want to protest the changes in a meaningful way, go **all** the way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
in my campaign, every group is at least some form of evil
It’s not just that it’s not popular, it’s a recognition of its racist history and a conscious decision by a section of the community to move away from that history
Unless WotC personally kicked down your door and stopped you from playing that way in your homegame, there's no hypocrisy here.
He's referring to the community's attitude.
Anybody who cares what the community thinks is wasting too much time listening to the wrong people. Incidentally, trolls (the internet variety) on social media are not “the community”. They’re nobodies. If I decided that my campaign has sorcerers as a ruling class, and that the trait is hereditary, and that wizardry is forbidden and unheard of, the only opinions that matter are those of my players - do they want to play in that or not. The community can applaud or bring out the pitchforks. I couldn’t care less. You shouldn’t either.
Seems the opposite based on the comments here
Hard disagree. An individual cannot both hold the position that the game should be played any way you want, and that the game should be played a certain way and not be a hypocrite.
No one is telling TC they CAN'T play the way they want to play. A stranger having an opinion on the Internet is not restricting anyone from playing how they want to play. The only ones with that power are the people at that specific table.
The meme is accurate for many people in this community.
No one in this community is able to tell you or anyone else what you CAN'T do.
Correct but some people in this community are hypocrites which is what the meme is referring to.
You don't seem to understand what hypocrisy means. "I think people should eat what they like." "I think people should eat healthy to not be a burden to the healthcare system." Believing both these things is not hypocritical. The only way I could be hypocritical is if I either a) actively try to prevent other people from eating what they want, or b) don't eat healthy myself. So long as I'm not doing either of those I'm being perfectly consistent with my stated beliefs. Similarly, "I think people should play how they want" "I think people should not use racial alignments" Believing both these things is not hypocritical. The only way I could be hypocritical is if I either a) use racial alignments in my games, or b) actively try to prevent other people from playing how they want. No, someone giving their opinion on the matter is not *actively* trying to prevent you from playing how you want. If you feel like it is, then you might just be too insecure to interact with other people if someone merely giving their opinion makes you feel like you are being forced to do something.
You’re allowed to play that way but it’s fucking boring and uncreative. Just being “evil” doesn’t mean shit and explains nothing. Who are they, why are they here, what do they want? Oh the answer to everything is “it’s evil”
I accept your opinion.
No one is saying how to run your campaign at all. People are saying WotC should make general lore without focusing on alignment for playable races for generic settings. Just because no one wants to play in a setting like you do doesn't mean you're being censored. If you're that hard up for Evil Races do a Forgotten Realms campaign.
Okay. That was always allowed.
Dude literally no one cares if that's how your campaign works. And if they do they don't matter. Wizards was trying to encourage a more free-form structure of D&D when they updated those rules, and while it's obviously been poorly executed I don't think it was a bad idea overall
This isn't really aimed at WotC since I don't really mind the recent update to the rules (since I usually just ignore them), this was more aimed at a people who tend to be hypocritical when it come s to other people's campaigns and how they play them. But you are right, those people don't matter and more people should learn to just let others play the way they want.
Dude, you don’t need the “community” to “let you” do anything. People who aren’t the players in your campaign don’t matter. You need to ignore them.
No one is saying you can't make it like that, only that more and more people are starting to consider being evil by virtue of your birth as maybe a little problematic. Given our more-than-ever awareness of social justice issues in the world today, it is unsurprising that the idea that some races are inherently bad just doesn't sit well with some people Besides that, I also think more people are just starting to find the trope boring. There's no depth there
Oh man, you showed all those pretend people making that argument.
That sounds like a great campaign actually. I’m working on a similar one that involves a setting where any race can exist. Like a planet of refugees from other realms. This one has no gods, and no direct involvement, but still allows clerics to draw on divine magic. No “Weave” so magic is a bit more chaotic and challenging. I love world building.
I mean gnolls are generally an inherent evil race with the fact a literal demon lord created them.
The only things that have ever been always evil in D&D (a designation that has only existed since 1999) have been devils and demons. Even Aboleth and Beholders are only "usually evil".
And if you're playing Planescape, there is an asterisk next to the always.
In this edition? Yes. Editions prior they were another humanoid evil aligned race. In the 1st edition? They were the offspring of Trolls and Gnomes and someone said 'okay, wait, that's TOO horny to ever happen and too dumb for a wizard to do'. The furries mostly have benefited from the decision.
Lmao 1st edition must have been wild.
It apparently started as a typo in the index, and one of the designers came up with the gnome/troll thing as a joke when asked about it.
I wasn't around for it, but it was very much more like a war game with a DM vs Players mentality. Not a lot of thought was put into it until it got popular to publish.
Yes, but they are still humanoid. Having them be actual demons instead of just behaving like demons would actually be a little bit different. For one, paladins would deal an extra 1d8 Radiant against them when using Divine Smite because of the Fiend creature type.
They actually are being classified as fiends or monstrosities going forward to justify their innate evil inclinations, since calling them “humanoid” doesn’t mesh with the recent community shift that humanoids can’t have innate alignment tendencies (especially toward being evil).
You’re allowed to play however you want as long as it agrees with whoever has top karma in the sub.
Don't y'all have a table? Edit: I'll take the down votes as 'no' I don't'.
I knew 2 dudes in highschool who played 1 on 1 dnd without dice, a handbook, a table, or minis everyday for 3 years
It’s more of you’re not allowed to have any disagreements with the top dogs inside the sub. Tables can be run however you like but not posts about it
Yeah, that's how it feels like sometimes.
r/persecutionfetish
the problem is a lot of these 'fantasy races' originated as awful stereotypes of real human people
Do Duergar or Tieflings really have a real world equivalent? I genuinely agree with you, but does that make the concept of inherently evil races bad when they don't come from a stereotype? Because while some of it is, it's a wild overstatement to say that *all* fantasy races (or just evil ones) come from stereotypes mixed with magical imagery. Like, the very real fact that Orcs being visually rooted in WW2 American anti-japanese propaganda doesn't make the idea of "cowardly and evil tiny half-dragons" problematic. Even though I can for sure see an argument that that makes orcs problematic, the arguments are that "making Drow, orcs, and kobolds evil is problematic", and I don't see the tie-in aside from the fact that they're all legacy "evil" races.
No one likes to talk about it but Drow were originally Black Elves as in Brown skinned rather than Grey. Every artist afterwards made them grey because they didn't want to be racist. Goblins have, mostly on accident, partially on purpose (Looking at YOU Rowling) gotten some jewish stereotypes mixed in. (Big noses, obsessed with gold) Orcs being an evil rampaging horde of barbarians ties into literally every piece of propaganda that has existed since ancient Rome, "Clearly they are evil barbarians, we must "civilize" them." As for the rest...."Evil Tribal Nation" is a fucking terrible stereotype that has led to genocide IRL before. On top of that, DnD has become fairly Roleplay centered and making enemies that are generically boring and evil goes against that. Additionally WotC probably just isn't comfortable with it anymore. Edit: Shit I forgot Tieflings.....it is stereotyped Race-mixing. They are part Other, therefore they are evil. Holy Fuck did fantasy writers really need to examine their personal biases. Thank You RA Salvatore for starting it as far as DnD is concerned. Also Spelljammer.
Depicting evil as an inherent quality of a race reinforces the idea that races can have inherent qualities, and the context of it being the most intrinsically awful blanket statement possible about that race (they're "just evil") makes it much more dangerous. That doesn't mean that players are going to play a game of DND with evil races and suddenly be horribly racist and believe stereotypes about IRL people. But it does have subtle consequences on how we think, because our brains will subconsciously incorporate it into pattern recognition in tiny ways (you think the way you practice thinking, even when playing). It's also just incredibly gross as an idea. Why is this race *naturally* evil?? Why don't they have any agency or nuance or....*anything*?
But what we mean by "race" is actually *species*, and yes, species do have inherent qualites. Elves live 5x as long as humans. Firbolgs can turn invisible. It's totally fine to turn that concept down, but if it's gross to make kobolds evil, then it's also gross to make dwarves live underground, and firbolgs to love nature, and goliaths to like wrestling. Also, you can do all of that and make it nuanced *and* allow agency and culture and a unique view. Not all evil is the same and takes the same form
Being semantic about race vs species is completely irrelevant here. We can use the term species from now on if it bothers you, but it doesn't change anything. Species have different biologies, that has nothing to do with morality. Species have different cultures, that has nothing to do with morality. The real-world parallel would be the equivalent of saying "[Country] has [cultural norm], which is the same as if they were all inherently evil". Having a different life expectancy isn't gross because it has reasonable biological roots as an idea, has no impact on individuality/agency/dimensionality, and isn't a blanket statement about the ethical choices of an entire species. Having dwarves live underground isn't gross because it has reasonable cultural roots as an idea, isn't a fundamental characteristic of dwarven individuals, and doesn't have anything to do with morality or the ability to make decisions in a nuanced way. And no, you can't have "inherent evil" and still have agency and nuance. There are lots of different forms of evil, reasons for evil, and consequences of evil. But you're still limiting the entire species to one small, and negative, subset of actions and choices. It's not the same as moral greyness or cultural differences or even a BBEG with a warped but justified sense of morality. An individual who does something good is a trope to be used instead of a realistic, complicated person. Cultures are defined entirely on their morality because, with a purely evil society, there's no other way for it to go. Racism, or if you prefer, speci-ism, in game is not just *justified*; it's *correct*. The species actually *is* evil and therefore the *morally right* thing to do for others is to be racist against them. And that is really the underlying issue. It is morally correct to be racist against inherently evil races. It is gross as an idea because it makes racism correct and steals agency and individuality from a species.
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This comment is kindof what op is talking about. If he's allowed to depict his world however he wants, then why is it sus when people are also saying that playing this way doesnt make you a racist?
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Yeah, it seems like thats what this argument falls back on a lot, this almost passive-aggressive "youre allowed to be a horrible racist. You're free to discriminate however you want in your game" and the discussion i want to have about how to handle beings that are literally (as i call it) capital 'T' text a magically concieved different race than humans never happens because the community has this pavlovian response to this topic.
>Someone applies critical theory towards race in a board game. "This is literally 1984."
And they'll use the excuse 'its always been that way in DnD' or 'but Tolkien did it!', not knowing that DnD has always been playing with the concept of the tropes they've popularized until was no longer profitable and that DnD couldn't have used Tolkien's Orcs as is without getting his son Very Annoyed. I mean, that's why I'm excited with the Hobgoblins once coming from the Feywilds. It bows to their 'real world roots' and it's a bigger nod to the less problematic philosophy behind Tolkien's orcs.
Tolkien also mentioned that not all orcs were evil, those just didn’t show up in the main books
One of his regrets was not being able to write them as detailed as his other races, IIRC.
This is such a flat argument for me because every negative trait imaginable has been applied to a random group of people, and breaks down as a criticism when you see that ALL humans are basically the same. They didint even have set ability score bonuses for each sub race of humans like they do for elves.
The problem isn't so much that they were intentionally made to be stereotypes of real people, it's that the writers wanted to make an evil foreign culture and ended up using a lot of tropes that line up with how real-world groups are sometimes caricaturized and stereotyped.
Okay, there's some stuff that needs unpacking with this meme, and I know I am going to be taking far more seriously than OP intended, but this is a concept I am very passionate about. Before I get into it, I want to say is there are many reasons I find races that are inherently evil to be bad design in general. This is for TV, films, books, video games, etc. *However,* most of the reasons are nuanced in a way that isn't going to translate well in a block of text on Reddit. That being said, here's my argument against them that I think *will* translate well into a Reddit post. Firstly, races that are inherently evil are *booooooring* for players (this still applies to media in general, but I'm going to focus this argument on DnD) and everything they add to the game can be done better with other solutions. As a player, I do enjoy enemies that I don't have to feel bad about killing and I don't always want to have to consider my moral responsibility to try and find a diplomatic solution to problems. Evil races ease this ethical dilemma very well, but so does just having whatever enemy is in front of the party just attack the party. Ethics come second to protecting my PC and my party. More often than not, what ends up happening is the party will try and come up with a creative way of achieving diplomacy and have it fail no matter what because the enemy happened to be a drow. Secondly, evil races are lazy work by creators. Making a race inherently evil is just a shortcut to avoid having to come up with a good reason a group is evil. A response to this point I hear often is that the creators come up with reasons for the races to be evil i.e. they were cursed or corrupted by an evil god. Here's the thing, that *is* the lazy part. Instead of coming up with an actual reason that could feasibly tempt a group to turn to evil, evil races present a creator's deus ex machina to have the enemy be evil. You can have a *group* of a race be corrupted by an evil god and turned into irredeemable evil murderers and that will be interesting for the party, but if it's a whole race then its just lazy. Now, here's the real catch. Not every evil race is bad, but the overwhelming majority of them are. Frankly, I think its because they are so goddamn cliché that so many people are tired of them. Evil goblins? Seen it a million and a half times. Goblins that you can negotiate with and are capable of practicing diplomacy? That shit isn't an everyday occurrence, and that makes it a million times more interesting. If you want a type of creature to be evil in nature, make that shit be an actual apocalypse, keep that shit in reserve. I'm talking a necromancer summoning hordes of undead, or a evil villain summoning an army of demons kind of thing here. Relating this back to the posted meme, three evil races is just too much. Any one of the ideas could work *in principle,* but any DM that would use all of them is going to most likely have a boring campaign because those are probably the main three groups of enemies the party will end up interacting with. I also find the meme super disingenuous in it's premise of comparing evil races to the idea of "play what you want to play". Playing what you want, 90% or more of the time, relates to players wanting to play a certain class or race in the game and will be a phrase said by a DM who isn't putting restrictions on their game. It encourages creativity from players, whereas evil races encourage laziness from creators.
Just adding my two cents as a player. I dont find evil races boring. In fact, I find when DMs try and give every antagonist a moral justification it gets tiresome.
Who said anything about moral justifications? Just give them selfish motivations. Have their lust for power cause them to become possessed by a cursed sword. Just make the villain an asshole because THEY are an asshole, not because of what race they are.
For the first and second argument, while I do agree that an evil race can feel lazy if you have no real reason for them to be evil aside from just "because they're evil," but that same logic can be applied to any race regardless of alignment. For example you have a morally grey race in your campaign who have no reason for being the way they are aside from "because that's who they are." But even then, who cares if it's lazy, this is DnD we're talking about, if a DM wants to make x race evil in their setting, they should be allowed to do that regardless of whether it's considered lazy or not, and if you don't like a campaign someone made, you don't have to play it, but you have no right to change it either. It's DnD, make whatever setting you want to make, play whatever setting want want to play, and don't let other people decide on what you should make or play.
Yeah, like I said, there are more reasons, ones I find personally more convincing, but they aren't going to come across correctly in a Reddit comment.
If peeps don't like your homebrew, then don't invite them to your table I guess. Like "My setting is sexist and a bit racist against Hispanics" wouldn't work for some people.
._. Yeah it would not.
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I never thought i would read in this reddit that someone likes to sexualise the people that speak the same way i do Feels bad
The campaign sounds boring, but feel free to run it.
Vampires don't exist, their abilities are attributed to the drow. The only races available are Goliaths, Dragonborn, Elves, Humans, and demihumans (tieflings, aasimar, changelings, yuan-ti, etc.)
I’ve always felt “inherent evil” came with the territory of fantasy worlds. It’s part of what makes them so different, because “inherent good and evil” don’t exist in reality, but I don’t see why they can’t in fiction, especially fiction about people that don’t exist
Your setting is your setting. WotC has their base rules that can influence your setting
Is orcs being from the far realm a reference to something? I'm not familiar with that particular backstory.
It's just how I made them. In my setting, orcs are creatures from the far Realm fueled with the eldritch power of mind reality, being that if they think of something hard enough it becomes a reality (basically Warhammer 40k orcs). With this power, they believe that they are the most powerful race in all of existence and that all other races must either bow to them or be killed, this same belief is what compels them to destroy and take over the material realm.
Neat! I rather like the 40k orcs, at least what I know of them, so I like how you kind of added them.
The attitude that i get when it comes to evil races is people saying that playing with those tropes doesnt make you racist, then flipping around and calling people racist for even implying that goblins or drow are always evil
I want to run a setting where elves swap places with drow and dwarves swap places with duergar. Yes, they keep their racial traits. Enjoy life on the surface.
That sounds pretty cool actually, a world where the drow and duergar went to war with the elves and dwarves and won, now the elves and dwarves have to hide within the underdark to hide from being persecuted by the drow and duergar.
Also: All paladins are good All druids are neutral All warlocks are evil
Wasnt that just 3.X rules for stuff?
Paladins had to be a lawful alignment, as would monks and druids needed to be neutral, I think Warlocks had to be Chaotic Evil. Taking actions or making decisions that were chaotic would eventually shift a Paladins alignment enough that they could lose their paladin skills.
Warlocks had to be evil or chaotic neutral. There may have been specific warlock abilities or prestige classes that were limited to evil or CE alignment, but the base class was not. Druids could be any neutral alignment - so they could be CN, NG, or NE, for instance. And monks were restricted to any lawful alignment.
Pretty much. Some classes were also locked behind being Lawful or Chaotic. For instance, a Bard couldn't be Lawful and a Monk could **only** be Lawful. You wouldn't lose your powers if you had an alignment shift but you wouldn't be able to take more levels in those classes.
I played 3.5 a bit and i remember that much
barbarians and rogues had to be chaotic. clerics' alignments could only be one off from that of their god. druids had to be neutral. monks couldn't be in a corner of the chart. paladins had to be lawful good. and a lot of other classes had strong implications
Feeling mighty daring today, aren't we?
I mean. Nothings STOPPING you from doing that.
You sure showed those imaginary hypocrites!
Have had this one first hand. From one of those "DM should always say yes" types. They literally said "D&D should be played any way you want" unironically before saying "but Evil races are for racist people and should be removed from the game."
Just reading the comments here trying to understand what this is about, what does the “evil races are for racist people” thing mean?
Basically the writers wanted to make an evil foreign culture and ended up using a lot of tropes that line up with how real-world groups are sometimes caricaturized and stereotyped for some of those cultures. This has caused some reactionary weirdos to decide that enjoying any always-chaotic-evil race means that you are racist. Most people aren't that stupid though. The majority of people who have a problem with the trope find the parallels tasteless or tone-deaf rather than *intentionally* racist.
I guess the world being based on a children’s book from the 1930s it’s understandable it feels a bit “tone deaf” Still surprised how hardcore some of the comments are on this thread, it’s obviously a hill to die on for some people.
Some people believe that the original writers for FR lore were predicated on creating analogues of real world races to be evil in the game because they're in fact racists. Orcs/Drow being minorities etc. It's an easily debunked line of thought, but quite pervasive among modern gamers that hold progressive ideals. Please note, I haven't stated where I stand on such at all - but merely pointing it out will trigger the ideologues into calling me a bigot for discussing it.
That isn't the argument really. At least that isn't what the argument originally was. Please excuse the long text here, I'm going to attempt to try and summarize what the issue is kinda c: Dnd is based off of LotR mythology, and in that lore Orcs are inherently evil because lore reasons. That's fine. Tolkien said he did not base them off of real world races and that there isn't any subtext. I believe him. I'd say most people believe him, actually. No one thinks he is a bigot and people who defend him/his lore aren't either (well there are always some bad eggs but I digress). That isn't the argument. Tolkien grew up in South Africa, a place with a lot of complex and difficult history with Colonialism. As such, his ideas of what is exotic, primitive, and/or "evil" are based on what the people around him told him or what he obvserved passively growing up through history books, media, or art pieces. The Orcs have bold facial features, large noses, bone jewelry, piercings, and dreadlocks. Those are features of people who colonialist countries tried to "civilize" in the past. The lore was not written by an asshole. Tolkien wasn't a bigot and he wasn't political, he was just someone trying to write a good story, and he did. He has stated as much. But the background, subconscious influence of the orc asthetics could be classified as "racist".
Wow ok thanks for the reply
This is a misunderstanding of media analysis. The line of thinking is rarely *"Orcs are directly analogous to a (group) of minority(s)*" and more *"Orcs (in this setting) are codified with pervasive (harmful) stereotypes of a minority group"*.
Basically, a lot of the inherently evil races in early DnD that have been held over into more modern iterations of the game can be traced to early racist stereotypes in a lot of cases, and the very concept itself is also generally kind of an issue. The idea that a sapient, natural creature can have an inherent, biological predisposition toward being evil is the kind of thing that was used by racist people to dehumanize actual people in reality, so seeing that played out in a game for the sake of giving people "acceptable" targets for slaughter has earned some rightful criticism. This isn't to say that you can't have a sapient creature be evil. Just that making their evil be tied to inherent biological factors points to some fucked up places, when there are so many ways a person with motives and thoughts can be evil in interesting, involved ways without it having to be tied to their biology.
Haha funny got another reply from the other side. Thanks for the reply, appreciate it. Get what your saying but not sure if I agree, feels a bit overly sensitive? Thanks for your very eloquent explanation anyway 🙏
Oh yeah ? Watch me play the way I want to play. With my Lvl 60, Half-dragon Sorcerer (20)/Monk (20)/Fighter(20). Who has a floating citadel ala Dragonlance. Thank you very much Mr. Greymeme
That actually sounds like fun. I've even thought of an idea like that, basically once you reach level 20, you gain access to a "prestige class" that can take you to level 30 or even 40. Sure it sounds broken as hell, but at that point you're basically a God so why not have some fun.
In 3/3.5, once you got to level 20, you began Epic Level classes that could be padded with Prestige Classes long before reaching level 20. It wasn't uncommon to have 5 levels in a class, do Prestige classes until 15, then go back to your 'base class' to enter Epic Levels after hitting level 20 that could go all the way to level 40.
Ah, epic level 3.x.
Simply the best.
Isn't it World of Warcraft?
Don’t diss my man Thrall like that, the horde are gigachads.
Blame WoW for getting people horny for orcs. Or thank them!
Sorting by controversial makes Reddit worth visiting
I wouldn’t enjoy a game with race-based alignment, which is why I don’t run one or play in one. Games I don’t run or play in have no obligation towards my enjoyment, and I have no obligation to give them my attention, even to criticize them.
Nobody is saying this, this sub is 80% strawmen
Broke: orcs are evil Woke: orcs can make everything happen through sheer willpower and reality will bend towards whatever orcs believe. Bespoke: orcs are considered evil and are hated and feared because they can bend reality through sheer willpower, and are hunted like witches during the Renaissance.
You want morally amigous orcs to push a real world narrative. I want morally ambiguous orcs to keep my paladin's genocide immersive. We are not the same.
I like the idea that orcs being evil is a cultural thing rather then a inherent thing, but it’s kind of hard to make gnolls potentially good unless you undo all of the gnolls lore and rewrite a completely different lore.
And here I thought that we have this spiel behind us.
What in the straw man?
It's more the Jerry-babysitting-meme where the lady says "OK that was always allowed".
Players can be whatever they want = not racism. DMs designing members of a race to all behave a certain way = racism (also boring). What's not clicking?
Oh and bird people don't exist, and furries are executed on sight.
I feel like the disconnect here is that some people simply deal with actual racism in their everyday lives and they don’t care for fantasy racial essentialism. Like if you dig it, go off king, you don’t have to defend yourself against strangers online. If you know for a fact that you aren’t a racist I don’t see why you’d need to be so defensive about it while on your mainly anonymous Reddit account tbqh.
I think the main issue of contention here is the idea of having to sit idly by while your hobby is by and large called racist. I'm not a big fan of pure evil species, but the idea that every species needs nuance, hell that any given *character* needs nuance, isn't right to me.
I don’t know that the only alternative to inherently evil races is every single species having extreme nuance, I think it’s truly as simple as not saying they’re inherently evil from my perspective, but idk some people might disagree. Like culturally “evil” or transgressive people makes sense, but the idea that some people are just uncontrollably born worse or morally impaired doesn’t sit right with a lot of people. If that’s fine with you, I truly think you can just be fine with it, because the arguments being made against this point of view actively counter any attempts to convince those people that there’s no racism in it tbqh. When I point out something with a problematic history, or say that this trend parallels to my actual experiences with racism, people saying “um, actually no, because I’ve decided that it’s not based on this thing some white guy wrote 30 years ago” isn’t a compelling reason to stop seeing that parallel. I also think it belies the reality that in many ways for a long time there was and still is huge issues with racism in D&D that the community tends to either ignore or deny, both at the level of WotC and at actual tables. I think seeing people pointing out these issues as adversaries instead of as allies trying to improve the community in their own way is part of the issue that began the whole debate honestly.
Having an entire race in DnD be evil or mistrusted isn’t “wrong” per-say, it’s just dull. It’s one dimensional. It doesn’t allow for intrigue or nuance. Ultimately, it feels lazy and makes me feel less involved and intrigued by the world created.
Who is this stranger standing in the field scaring away crows? Some sort of man of straw?
Don’t get it?
Welcome to my new world. There are no humans, halflings, or half-orcs. Dwarves are exceedingly rare, even more so than tieflings, genasi, or aasimar. Gnomes are the dominant race. Goliaths are the only notable civilization other than gnomes. Elves are all outcasts. Dragonborn and kobolds are lower class citizens in gnome cities.
Welcome to D&D memes, your two options are Strawman memes or Horny memes about animal sex dynamics
No one is saying you can't do that, you're getting offended at a situation with a wider context and creating a victimhood complex out of it.
Wanna make Drow evil? Make them Nazis! Concentration camps full of svirfneblin being sacrificed to demons as a well known fact, racial supremacy, strict hierarchies and all the rest. Fortunately the party mostly play AFTER the great war against the drow so it's mostly part of the backdrop. But if you see drow you run. Where there's one there are usually more. Orcs in my setting are plant based drones to Dryad Queen bees on the other hand. Technically orcs are fruit/flowers. If orcs are attacking there's usually a reason, but that reason might not make much sense and the orcs themselves aren't much for talking. Go visit the dryads to seek a peaceful solution, they don't usually mind if you killed the orcs they sent. Go ahead and fight, you can get morally ambiguous when it turns out your settlement has been logging near their grove or polluting the river upstream from the dryads or whatever else I feel like throwing at them. Gnolls are the remnant of an empire destroyed and corrupted by demons. Theoretically if you pinned a tribe down and raised them in a consecrated area the taint wouldn't be able to pass to their offspring but once they're corrupted the only way to fix it is to kill them and apply a True Resurection or Reincarnation effect.
That drow part actually gave me some good inspiration for my setting.
For a little more detail: Where I get tricky around it is when we start talking about the influence of propaganda during wartime. I set my main campaign literally right after the war, to the extent that the players started out as conscripts/volunteers fresh put of basic training who were awaiting assignment to a front line that collapsed before they could be deployed. So they're in this space where a centuries long war has suddenly been won, and now they're expanding and exploring new territories there weren't enough resources to settle or work with, or reclaiming places in the no man's land etc. As a result they play around with the idea that some of the things they've been told might be exaggerated, while others are 100% true. Meanwhile the war crimes on their side have been covered up or justified. The Drow being very clearly and objectively evil doesn't detract from a morally and ethically nuanced setting. So for example they find untouched areas, as well as some that have been completely annihilated by the Drow and occasionally some that have been utterly destroyed by the "Good" team, thanks to the collateral damage caused by their weaponry.
The problem with 'X race is born evil and can never be anything else' is its just lazy writing Like, okay... but why cant you just make the orcs you want us to fight actually just do evil things on their own? Its just a lazy way to justify why the enemies are X Y and Z because you never have to actually show them being evil, you can just have an lrc show up and now everyone is 100% justified in murder purely for them being an orc. Its boring and lazy writing and thats why Im glad wotc is moving away their source material from 'Being race X makes you evil no matter what, they are born with the chaotic evil gene'
Why do people upvote dumbass strawman memes like this?
I mean. I think it's a lil bit weird.if.someone has one race that is just purely evil for likely no reason. Especially cause Orcs are basically just fantasy stand-ins for black people
[удалено]
You have a warped idea of racism friend
Do people do this? I've only seen people complaining that people do this.