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Callista
2011-02-20, 01:57 AM
You know how dwarves and elves are supposed to be utterly annoyed by each other, and how humans and orcs are constantly tangling, etc.?

So here's my question: How does this affect your campaign world?

Do human subraces still hate each other, or have they united against various green-skinned folks? What happens if a pair of star-crossed lovers happen to meet and have a child? What happens to the half-breed child, for that matter?

Not to mention social status. Humans hate orcs; is the only good orc a dead orc, or is it okay if the orcs stay in the hills and the humans stay on their farms and nobody steals anybody else's sheep?

When I was very new to D&D, I pretty much figured, hey, they're little chunks of XP; let me blast them with this Fireball. (Yes, that's how new I was, still using Fireballs.) But once you start out thinking about the world and how it's arranged, you realize those little kobold-shaped chunks of XP have, theoretically, personalities, families, a social structure, a history, probably a government or at least a pecking order. They're a lot more than that.

But, unlike real-life races, they're Often or Usually evil, and while it's not a safe bet that any given member of a monster race will be evil, there's still a high chance that it will be. That's a problem we just don't face in real life, with one sentient race that's Usually True Neutral. But in a fantasy world, it's entirely likely that there are alignment tendencies, and that you really can point to an entire other species and say, "Most of them are evil."

So you can have a character in D&D who has been raised to believe that all [green-skinned monster race]s are evil and should be killed. But then there's the issue: Most of them might be evil, but not all of them are. And evil doesn't automatically mean deserving death.

That results in some pretty complex issues... How do you handle those? How have your characters handled them?

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 02:14 AM
Game-worldwise... Both the dwarves and the elves have their super-traditional, extra-Tolkeinesque "homeland" - Hock Barok for dwarves, Arbour for the elves. These two populations have been at war for generations (their generations, so you know it's been going on for a long time) and really, really hate each other (officially). It's died down for a while, as about a hundred years ago the dwarves locked themselves up underground to work on a massive commission (arming an entire nation, which went down soon after the dwarves left - sometime soon they'll open up, find their employer long gone, and there'll probably be a flood of cheap magic weapons). If anything, that's just exaccerbated their xenophobia.
One of my characters was a Hock Barok dwarf. She was exiled for "consorting with elves", and had a bit of a breakdown when a Reincarnation turned her into an elf.

Now, having said that, the Arbour elves and Hock Barok dwarves are actually a very small part of the total elf and dwarf populations. Most of the rest get along fine with each other - maybe with some not-entirely-unjustified prejudices (they still have their respective alignment tendencies, after all), but overall no more or less than they do with any other races.

Hmm... Mostly I have a pretty accepting world, really. I'm a fair bit more flexible with alignments than the books suggest, and there's some pretty major mixing-pots. Individuals will have their prejudices, and there's still the kobold-gnome antagonism. But, there aren't really any major conflicts on a purely racial basis. In fact, the 3 main ongoing conflicts are all intra-racial - a near civil war based on Charlemagne's time (primarily human), an area based on Africa/the Middle East vs. an area based on the ancient Mediterranean (mostly human), and island-state wars based on a cross between the Carribean and the Medici eraish (mostly gnome-on-gnome).

On a game-party level, I actually have a bit of trouble with my players/characters being so open-minded that I actually have to prod them into combat.

WinWin
2011-02-20, 02:15 AM
Good races are bigots. Don't judge. Your neighbor may be a vampire, a thoon-thrall, a lycanthrope or a shapechanged/polymorphed monster. If you can't trust other people of your species, how are you supposed to trust other people that are not. It's no real coincindence that the less human an intelligent creature appears, the more likely they are to be regarded as evil.

Evil races are multicultural. Goblins have a rich and diverse culture for example, they always seem to be working with members of other races. Illithids are another example. They require other races for their society to function. If Drow did not have slaves to beat up on, their society would crumble. Other races provide a buffer that keeps their muderous inclination in check.

I'm only being slightly faceatious.

DragonSinged
2011-02-20, 02:19 AM
Actually, I'm having a little bit of a problem with how to handle this in the game I'm currently running. See, one of my players is playing a Drow, another her half-drow/half-demon brother, and a third is playing a Neraphim, which, for the unfamiliar, is sort of like an extraplanar Battletoad.

And they're running around the material plane with a couple of humans and a gnome, seeking after their ambitions and whatnot..

And I've kind of been somewhat lenient about this up to now, but.. I don't know, I feel like I'm stretching things not having them thrown out of every town they walk into. They're only level 4, too, so it's not like they've got enough power to shrug off things like city guards, either.

So yeah, I've been a bit torn, because the storyteller in me says that, "Hey, drow and a creepy battletoad thing? These townsfolk are not going to be ok with that!"

But the part of me that wants to run a fun game doesn't feel like forcing the players to research every town they come near to figure out whether it's Drow-friendly, or have to hide in a bag of holding with a bottle of air all the time, or whatever else.

Yeah.

Callista
2011-02-20, 02:21 AM
I think if they are going to play exotic races, they should be prepared to deal with how the common folk react to them--especially usually-neutral types like Humans, or xenophobic ones like Dwarves.

Alter Self or a hat of disguise is probably a solution for them, if the characters don't mind hiding their real identities.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 02:23 AM
Well, you could do something like this: The official stance is "don't judge a book by its cover" type thing. The people are legally bound to not, say, murder someone just because they have horns. But, on the other hand, that isn't gonna stop an individual from expressing their own deep mistrust. Maybe they'll charge them more, or give them cheaper drink, or cheat them or lie to them or hurry their children away or cross to the other side of the street and so on.
Or, alternatively, maybe they are legally discriminated against. Maybe, although they're still not likely to be attacked or kicked out, the city guard might have the right to search people based on their appearance, or there's special "monstrous accomodation" for such people, and so on.
Basically, there's other ways for racism to be expressed than physical violence and kick-outs.

WarKitty
2011-02-20, 02:24 AM
To be honest, being able to play with this is part of why I removed alignment from my game. I play a world with racial tensions - a lot of them. In one area, humans and elves warred a long time ago before signing a treaty marrying an elven prince to a human princess. Most of the area is mixed now, but there are purist enclaves for each race. In another area, the humans and dwarves don't hold racial prejudices against each other, but fight long religious wars.

It helps if you have players who can run with it and bring their prejudices into the game, and react realistically to it.

Edit: And yeah, serpentine got it better. The PC's are followed by stares and whispers. Merchants mysteriously don't have certain items, or aren't interested in what the PC's sell. Those who will do business charge exorbitant prices. The innkeeper insists that they get a private room, citing "concerns for their safety."

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 02:25 AM
My current character is a Drow. He started off as an evil murdering bastard who hid this fact from his good and neutral party members, posing as a cleric of Eilistraee. I haven't had TOO much racism yet, since I'm in a city where the local Temple of Eilistraee is becoming more accepted. Mostly I've just gotten weird looks at the taverns and such.

My character just became good (long story), but of course nobody else will know that, so I'm curious to see if the DM will still keep the racism going even though my guy's not a murderer anymore.

Callista
2011-02-20, 02:35 AM
To be honest, being able to play with this is part of why I removed alignment from my game. I play a world with racial tensions - a lot of them. In one area, humans and elves warred a long time ago before signing a treaty marrying an elven prince to a human princess. Most of the area is mixed now, but there are purist enclaves for each race. In another area, the humans and dwarves don't hold racial prejudices against each other, but fight long religious wars.Maybe I'm not getting it; but I don't see what that has to do with alignment. Humans and elves can go to war even if one group is usually neutral and the other is usually CG. After all, humans in the Real World go to war all the time.

Come to think of it, there's a mention in the BoED fluff about the possibility of two Good-aligned nations going to war, like, say, dwarves versus elves. (It mentioned that fighting in this war wouldn't be a Good act, but it did raise the possibility.)

So, yeah, killing someone because you're prejudiced against him would be evil, but it's not like Good aligned creatures can't have prejudices. After all, elves and dwarves: Case in point, right? But then, good-aligned has never meant "perfect".


My [drow] character just became good (long story), but of course nobody else will know that, so I'm curious to see if the DM will still keep the racism going even though my guy's not a murderer anymore.Depends. Does your drow have a reputation so that the common people know that he's not an average specimen? Or does he just register as a Random Drow? If it's the second, you should count on having your character encounter prejudice to whatever extent it exists in the campaign world.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 02:42 AM
Well, he IS dressed as a cleric of Eilistraee, so I think lots of people in the current city would identify him by that. But, no, he wouldn't necessarily have a reputation either way, other than as a Drow.

However, most of his time thus far is either in the company of his teammates or among the clergy of Eilistraee, all who accept him fairly readily. Hell, he and the halfling monk/bard wingman each other when the party goes drinking. It's highly amusing watching a murderous ninja try to fit in among friendly, good-hearted people:

*drunk off his ass after losing a drinking contest to an NPC Nordic (Rashemi?) bard and the mineral warrior water halfling barbarian* ME: You know, I killed a man once...

BARD: Yes, yes, of course you did.

ME: And his brother...

BARD: We should get you to bed.

ME: Yes, he WAS in his bed! How did you know?! *trails off drunkenly*

GenericGuy
2011-02-20, 02:53 AM
I try to have more intra-racial conflict in my settings; it helps to keep the races from becoming two dimensional to have many factions in its people.

When I do tackle race issues I try to avoid the more clichéd civilized people hate and persecute the less civilized because people suck.

In one setting I have a multi-racial Empire that’s been conquering non-human races under a “White man’s burden” philosophy, so while doing all this subjecting they are not doing it out of “we hate thems who look different,” but a condescending “look at those poor lost souls …we should help them by showing the proper way to live…they just don’t know any better…were doing them a favor.” Meanwhile an Orc uprising with the intent of building the first ever Orc nation is being led by a total cynic, who thinks the whole nation will collapse after his death…so might as well rule a country with all that power and women until then.

WarKitty
2011-02-20, 02:54 AM
Maybe I'm not getting it; but I don't see what that has to do with alignment. Humans and elves can go to war even if one group is usually neutral and the other is usually CG. After all, humans in the Real World go to war all the time.

Come to think of it, there's a mention in the BoED fluff about the possibility of two Good-aligned nations going to war, like, say, dwarves versus elves. (It mentioned that fighting in this war wouldn't be a Good act, but it did raise the possibility.)

So, yeah, killing someone because you're prejudiced against him would be evil, but it's not like Good aligned creatures can't have prejudices. After all, elves and dwarves: Case in point, right? But then, good-aligned has never meant "perfect".

It was more meant to force them to not rely on "usually good/evil" tags in the monster manual when encountering a humanoid. Putting racism in the world is one thing, but I wanted the PC's to have to stop and think about their reactions to the random orc versus the random elf. And also to think more about what constituted a "good" society versus an "evil" society.

Callista
2011-02-20, 02:56 AM
The "It's a Kobold and I'm Good-aligned, so I'll stab it" problem? Yeah... that's annoying.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 03:00 AM
The "It's a Kobold and I'm Good-aligned, so I'll stab it" problem? Yeah... that's annoying.

We actually had an interesting case of taking a closer look at a generally "evil" race. We were doing a psionic campaign, started at level 1 and everything. For the first section of the dungeon we were constantly fighting goblin warriors and such. Then, suddenly, we came to an area full of goblins -- but no warriors. We'd killed all of them. All that was left was the young, old, infirm, etc. Communication was tough since I think only one of the 4 of us could speak Goblin, but they took us in as guests, and even started to praise my character -- the talks-to-walls githzerai monk/fist of zuoken-to-be Alys -- as a potential goddess since she was so kind and generous to them (handing out coins and such). Unfortunately, that character died, but it was still an interesting look at a different aspect of what's usually just cannon fodder.

Squally!
2011-02-20, 03:03 AM
In my world i run games in, none of the races are inherently evil, including the drow. The orcs have a massive, sprawling capitol city even, and trade regularly with other races. And the humans, of all races, are looked down on by the others. So, if anything, being a human and walking into foreign cities will get you more strange looks and scorn than being an orc or drow and walking into a human city.

Its all about background and fluff. I think it should be played up. A drow in a standard world would not be welcome in most places i think, just like an orc wouldnt really be accepted.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-20, 03:17 AM
I don't like it.The idea that a race is inherently evil has too many parallels to perceptions throughout real world history for me to be comfortable with it. I will use racism as part of the dynamic of the world, but I will just as likely subvert those expectations as follow them. The orc raiding party that burns and pillages will be evil, but so will the humans who do so. The orc who lives in a nomadic tribe out in the hinterland, not so much. Of course, he won't be a noble savage either, that's another trope I dislike. What he will be is a person, with a cultural and racial background unlike most of the players.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 03:39 AM
I have a three-pronged approach to racial alignment.
The first really only applies to specific creatures - gods, celestials, fiends, natives of aligned planes, most sentient undead etc. They're creatures whose very physical (and metaphysical) being is literally made of their alignment, in much the same way an elemental is made out of its element. An extraordinarily [aligned] creature might eventually fit into this category, as it comes to embody its alignment. It is almost impossible for this sort of creature to break away from its fundamental nature, but in special circumstances it can happen (one of my characters' grandmother was a succubus who became Chaotic Neutral with the help of some elves). Such a creature will probably always "ping" as its alignment, and may still be subject to alignment-based spells, but it won't necessarily be, exactly, that alignment. These are mostly the "Always [Aligment]" races, and especially the [alignment] subtype ones.

The second is "nature" and instinct, that sort of thing. There is something about the natural build of this species that makes it inclined towards a specific alignment - it might be as powerful as, say, its method of reproduction (Illithid, for example), or it might be something "weaker", like temperament. These creatures are just naturally more likely to be a particular alignment, because it's what they're like. Even taken away from its fellows, an individual of this race will probably adhere to, or closely to, that alignment. On the whole, these might tend to be the "Usually [Alignment]" races.

The third is "nurture" and society. For whatever reason, the cultures of these creatures are aligned a particular way, and most individual raised in that culture will have the same alignment. On the other hand, an individual raised in a different culture may well end up with a very different alignment. This race might tend to prefer a particular type of society, but it can be very subject to circumstances. This certainly includes the "Often [Alignment]" races, but it probably also includes a lot of "Usually [Alignment]" ones where the RAW have particularly hammered in the fluff.

The second and third aren't mutually exclusive, and #3 can often reinforce and exaggerate #2.

Yora
2011-02-20, 05:39 AM
In my setting most people live in groups of villages in isolated valleys and don't like any strangers. Being of the same race doesn't improve things very much. However, people need trade and exchange between populations, so merchants comming through are shown much hospitality. But they don't belong to the community and have to leave after a few days. With traveling mercenaries you always have the risk that they are really bandits, so people are a bit more weary about them.

The main result of it all is, that the races only very rarely mix. Gnomes are really the only exception, but usually form their own distinct class in human or elven communities. But otherwise, people from other races are only individuals that have a close relationships with local families, while other people of their race are still not welcome. It's really not so much racism, but plain xenophobia against everyone who's a stranger.

Katana_Geldar
2011-02-20, 06:40 AM
In my campaign world, we've turned this on it's head. It's Humans and Elves that hate each other as they're involved in a very long war about land. Elves like trees, humans want to cut the down for towns and farms.

Humans are ambitious and rather pushy, I think the war is largely their fault as they are constantly explanding and need more farmland. Elves pretty much want to stay as they are and keep their borders, as well as reclaim lands that were once theirs.

Half-Elves, however, are stuck in the middle and liked by neither side. Humans see them as traitors, Elves see them as interlopers.

The Dwarves actually stay out of this and supply to both sides, as they're fiercely independent and quite content to stay in the north lands. They're the best stonemasons and metalworkers in the world, so it pays for both races to be on their good side.

We have taken into account other races, but these are the big three as they hold most of the land, the others fall somewhere in between or just aren't interested.

Demonweave
2011-02-20, 06:45 AM
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks about this. The whole racial reactions plays a rather large part of the campaign I am currently running.

To give you the basic background, the material plane in my game consists of 7 Continents, each of which has a different history of interaction between races.

The Central continent which holds the largest population, has a hatred for all Elves. So much so that they are killed on sight, and all Half Elves are mistrusted and treated poorly. This has a very rich backstory which involves Humans, Gnomes and Dwarves being attacked constantly by Elves for many years. This too had a reason but thats not what this thread is for.

One Continent has Greenskins living mostly in harmony with the usual assortment of humanoids. They are not discriminated against at all here. However they would be anywhere else in the world.

Another has Humans as the dominant race, so much so that no other humanoids are treated as equals. Effectively the "Pure Bloods" as it were. And all other races live in the same settlements, but are segregated from Humans.

I could go on for ages, as not only is there 7 continents, each with their own racial preferences and prejudices. There are also 6 almost identical worlds/material plains for this to expand.

I even vary it from village to village... What if two villages were at war, and an Ork finished the war by killing all the warriors from one village? Village A now loves this Ork and is now fond of all greenskins. However Village B Despises the forsaken Ork and all his Greenskin bretheren.

EccentricCircle
2011-02-20, 07:52 AM
this is a very interesting issue to play up as it makes a game more believable.
I generaly work on the philosophy that there is no such thing as an inherantly good or evil race ( at least in the waking world, the planes work differently but thats not as relevant to this post) i generally restrict which races exist and which "monsters" are actually sapient people rather than animals a bit more than in the standard game fluff, as I think its best to work with a handful of well explored races rather than hundreds of cliched or generic ones.

the "traditional" concepts of race alignment, which come down to us from tolkien and permeate the fantasy genera are adressed using the principle that history is written by the victors. long ago the elves Conquered the majority of the known world. defeating the tribes of barbarous humans and the slightly more advanced clans of Dwarves. the orcs already had an advanced empire but after their defeat at the hands of the crusading elves the propaganda that the orcs had been a cruel and savage people became "Common Knowledge" despite the fact that it simply wasn't true and had been invented by the victorious elves to justify their imperialist actions.

elves make up the bulk of the aristocracy, at least in regiosn where the empire still stands thousands of years later. humans form a significant underclass but are more respected than others as their traditional culture was almost entirely erradicated when they were civilised by the elves. they now worship elvish gods and know little of their own history.

the stereotype of dwarves as tireless workers and underground delvers arose because the subjugated dwarves were the perfect workers for the industires that the elves didn't want to bother with themselves (they far prefered to remain in sunlit citadels built within sylvan glades rather than messing about in mines, although of course it was the dwarves who built those citadels)

those dwarf clans who survived the elvish conquest did so by holing up in mountain fortresses, abandoning the wood built, agrarian towns they had dwelt in on the plains before the coming of the elves.

as the civilisation to have fallen the furthest the orcs now occupy the lowest position within society, their written records are all but erased and oral histories are supressed. many orcs actually believe that they were once feral savages and that the Elves taught them to build cities and live as civilised people.

across large parts of the world the elvish empire has now fallen and humanity is in the ascendant as their successors but there are a few kingdoms where the tyranny of the elves still prevails.

Trog
2011-02-20, 08:47 AM
Well there's something to be said about de-humanizing the enemy to make them seem easy to hate. To suddenly toss sci-fi into this fantasy discussion take stormtroopers from Star Wars - they look almost robotic and have had their humanity all but stripped from their appearance so it's easy to kill them without feeling remorse. This happens in real life too though usually its a verbal distancing. Making up racial or ethnic slurs for the enemy to dehumanize them. That sort of thing.

In my fantasy worlds (I've lost track of how many I've created for different campaigns over the past 25 years) I typically have trended towards having fewer sentient races be large enough to sort of have a hand in the feel of the overall setting. In one world I created a few years back I had a world full of your usual humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings with the evil race being reptilian draconians. All other sentient races didn't exist. The lizard-ness of the enemy served to properly dehumanize them and make for a very tolkein-esque setting where there is an obvious evil race. Or at least a warlike and aggressively expanding race bent on exterminating the others and have the numbers to probably do just that.

In my most recent fantasy setting, however, I leave out the concept of the evil race and thus make the evils of the world more realistic in that it is the power hungry and corrupt humans, elves, dwarves, etc. who do evil deeds. This changes the flavor of the campaign radically from the previous one. Where in that one the PCs were paragons of goodness and light leading the charge against the forces of darkness, in the last one with no evil race per se the PCs toppled a nation for the best interests of their respective nations and once that was done they killed one another until there was only one left who triumphed by turning on her injured party member and eliminating them to seize power all for her own, thus furthering the concept of the murky morality of the world.

So I'd say how you handle this depends on what type of heroes your characters want to play, really. Do they want to be Aragorn or do they want to be Jack Bauer? Sort of thing.

Also, just because there might be orcs or trolls or what have you in your world and just because they have sentience doesn't mean they have to have proper societies that they insist must be judged like any other racial society. They can just be slotted into the "monsters in the wilderness" niche if you don't have them start talking about morals and stuff and concentrate more on attacking the PCs and bellowing in unintelligible languages.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 09:06 AM
There's also the potential to distinguish between "the members of a race that adventurers will come across" and "your normal average person". The best example that comes to my mind is (bum bum BUMMM) andalites from Animorphs!

Possible spoilers below, but I don't think it's too much so.

Almost every andalite the Animorphs come across are arrogant, ruthless, stubborn jerks. They're willing to do anything to beat the yeerks (motivated by their injured pride and secret shame), up to and including destroying an entire planet populated by more than 6 billion sentient beings. They are also war-hardened soldiers.
When they eventually meet the ordinary civilian andalites, they realise they're pretty much just people. Sympathic, horrified at the actions of their own armies (or would be if they found out about it) and curious about the brand new planet and culture.

I'm too distracted by this Saw movie my Boy's watching to finish my thought >.< But I think you get the idea.

archon_huskie
2011-02-20, 09:14 AM
I ran a game with 8 players. 5 elves, 1 dwarf, and 2 humans (who spoke Dwarf and came from the same city as the dwarf.)

Within a few minutes the elf players were convinced that the "Dwarfs" were planning to backstab them. Why? because the Dwarf players had a secret meeting to discuss how to protect themselves from the Elves backstabbing them!

Noneoyabizzness
2011-02-20, 09:25 AM
low level, its prevelant, highwer level and more money beneth the c they become family

like the real world with social pariahs like cosby or bill gates. society accetps more if you got the only color that matters, gold

Saph
2011-02-20, 09:26 AM
I find it makes for really interesting games, actually.

It's most fun for characters who are Good-aligned - they have to figure out how to balance trying to treat other people fairly with the fact that different races do lean towards good or evil. If you're too judgmental, you're going to end up unfairly condemming people who didn't do anything to deserve it . . . but if you're too trusting you'll end up being caught out by the fact that while not all members of the race are evil, most of them are. And don't forget that it's a two-way-street! The other race has got their own preconceptions about you, and just because you're willing to be open-minded doesn't mean that they will be.

Another question I find really interesting is "at what point should you start making assumptions?" For instance, here's a selection of some of the races in one of my campaign worlds:

Humans: Solidly neutral.
Halflings: Slight tendency to be thieves - no more Evil than humans, but definitely more likely to take your stuff.
Half-orcs: Slight tendency towards Evil, which is exacerbated by the prejudice they get from everyone else.
Orcs: Often evil, which is reinforced by their Gruumsh-worship. If you run into a bunch of orcs, they won't necessarily try to hurt you, but it's likely.
Hobgoblins: Now we've gone from 'often Evil' to 'usually Evil'. Due to their upbringing and strict military structure, compassionate hobgoblins do exist, but they're very rare.
Illithids: Here the race is over 90% evil and view pretty much everything else as threats, food, or slaves. Good members of the race are vanishingly rare.
Demons: Embodiments of the Abyss. Non-evil examples are literally one-in-a-million exceptions.
So the question becomes: at what point does it become OK to assume that any given member of the race is probably untrustworthy? How far down the list do you have to go?

zorba1994
2011-02-20, 10:37 AM
To be honest, being able to play with this is part of why I removed alignment from my game. I play a world with racial tensions - a lot of them.

Another thing worth mentioning is that my view of alignment is that it is separate from opinion. If someone believes what they are doing is The Right Thing That Is Best For Everyone, then they are good. The best real-life analogy is with the gay rights argument: According to my interpretation of DnD alignment, both sides are good, because they believe that they are doing the right thing, either by allowing equal rights to all or "sanctifying marriage", the one exception to this being the people who are anti-gay rights simply because "they don't like them".


I play a home-brewed world with very high racial tensions: Elves have a mixed variety of feelings from distrust to murderous hatred against the 3 human kingdoms after invading their lands. The three human kingdoms, meanwhile, hate each other. The dwarves more or less keep the peace by controlling the mountain chain that separates these kingdoms, but even they have their biases. Generally, everyone distrusts other, minor races. The savage races (orcs, goblin, gnoll, etc.) tend to be evil but there are exceptions (I have no drow in my campaign).

Shademan
2011-02-20, 10:43 AM
Another thing worth mentioning is that my view of alignment is that it is separate from opinion. If someone believes what they are doing is The Right Thing That Is Best For Everyone, then they are good. The best real-life analogy is with the gay rights argument: According to my interpretation of DnD alignment, both sides are good, because they believe that they are doing the right thing, either by allowing equal rights to all or "sanctifying marriage", the one exception to this being the people who are anti-gay rights simply because "they don't like them".


I play a home-brewed world with very high racial tensions: Elves have a mixed variety of feelings from distrust to murderous hatred against the 3 human kingdoms after invading their lands. The three human kingdoms, meanwhile, hate each other. The dwarves more or less keep the peace by controlling the mountain chain that separates these kingdoms, but even they have their biases. Generally, everyone distrusts other, minor races. The savage races (orcs, goblin, gnoll, etc.) tend to be evil but there are exceptions (I have no drow in my campaign).

so if I think that exterminating all the lesser races are right...I'm good when I burn their villages?

Gnoman
2011-02-20, 10:44 AM
Racial prejudices don't work the same way in my game as in many, and are coloured by the results of a massive battle in the far past.

Orcs and goblins are the same race. Orcs are descended from the tribes that sided with the forces of Good in the First Battle. They are regarded as somewhat stupid and overly aggressive, but are respected no less than other races. Goblins are descended from orcs that sided with Evil yet escaped destruction. They are a hated race, as their fathers were the only portion of that hated army to avoid annihilation, and have been forced underground and into the most marginal of wastelands.

Elves are a race bordering on extinction. Barely two hundred individuals, most female, survived the battle. The two or three thousand survivors are revered as a relic of ancient days, but are distrusted and avoided due to their omnisexuality and cannabalism.

Humans are humans. There is less evil among them that is standard, as most of those who had evil hearts joined the goddess in the First Battle and were destroyed, but they have the same flaws as any other depiction.

Gnomes and halflings are usually ignored, as they were not present for the battle, and are a result of Elven "experimentation."

Dwarves fled from the battle, and are not well liked. They are very rare.

Yora
2011-02-20, 10:45 AM
No, you simply think that you are right.

If you're good, evil, or neither, is a completely different matter.

Triskavanski
2011-02-20, 11:11 AM
Well I had a character who would call anyone who was a standard race, or looked like a standard race a "pink" on the account they didn't have fur or scales to not be. (even drow would be called pinks, cause blacks wouldn't go over too well.)

zorba1994
2011-02-20, 01:00 PM
so if I think that exterminating all the lesser races are right...I'm good when I burn their villages?

If you truly believe that you are doing the right thing and are creating the maximum good in the world by doing this... Then yes.

This does not stop the action from being illegal and from making your character a pariah, however.

Callista
2011-02-20, 01:07 PM
I think you're mistaking Good and Evil for Law and Chaos... The "you'd be a pariah" thing is what comes from doing things that are chaotic. Of course in this case it's also evil...

The idea that you can't be evil unless you think you're evil is pretty ridiculous to me, especially in D&D. That would make self-deception a virtue and would dump self-satisfied mass murderers right next to the saints in Celestia. That just doesn't compute.


so if I think that exterminating all the lesser races are right...I'm good when I burn their villages?You believe you are good, but you are mistaken. In D&D, alignment has a concrete definition that doesn't distinguish between races.

However, it's still possible for Good-aligned people to do wrong things. Not to the extent of burning down villages, killing innocents, etc., because that would be out of character for anyone who could be labeled "Good", but it is not impossible for good-aligned people to be racists. They simply wouldn't be extreme racists, nor would they refuse to help people who happened to be from the disfavored race. This is the sort of person who goes, "I hate kobolds, but this one is hungry and I have an extra ration, so I'll throw him the food and hope he goes away." They might try to separate themselves from the race they didn't like; they might even go along with segregation or exile; when attacked, they might cheerfully go to war against their hated race and not work nearly as hard for peace as they might in other situations; but they wouldn't kill unprovoked, kill innocents, kill noncombatants, etc.

Yora
2011-02-20, 01:08 PM
Remember, this is about Fantasy, not D&D. So we can still continue this discussion without being bogged down in an endless but ultimately futile discussion if the alignment system works. :smallamused:

Callista
2011-02-20, 01:11 PM
Same principle still applies--if you can be good just by thinking you're good, then Good is meaningless and irrelevant.

Hyudra
2011-02-20, 01:57 PM
My own settings tend to be somewhat unconventional, as I enjoy playing with tropes and cliches, exaggerating or reversing them. In my past campaigns I've done, I've had:
A culture where half elves were dubbed 'abominations', forced to cover themselves head to toe in layers of cloth and wear ivory masks over their faces, never speaking. They were forbidden to have children of their own and forbidden from working, relying only on whatever scraps they were doled out (usually by their family) in generosity. As second class citizens, they were constantly in the background, ever ignored. This was juxtaposed by an otherwise benevolent society. It wasn't immediately clear just who or what the 'abominations' were, but it was revealed as part of an adventure. One of my players' characters had a big problem with this, which was great, because it raised an issue where it would otherwise be overlooked.

.
Another setting, cribbed from an ENworld project, a culture where half orcs formed the ruling family. Only true blooded (that is, a 'pure' human and a 'pure' orc parent) half orcs were deemed eligible for one of the three seats of the Triarchy (not sure if that's the right word, but it's the one I used - rule by three kings or queens from different families). As such, half orcs held special status in society (to the point that it was fashionable for humans to dye one's skin a tint of green or gray), and the purity/recorded history of one's bloodline held a great deal of weight in society. Families rose and fell by their bloodlines, with a single orc or half orc ancestor in a human family's bloodline leading to a catastrophic drop in social class. Arranged marriages were a big part of society, with one of my PCs even getting married (to an orc!) as part of the story arc, to solve a diplomatic crisis. I remember my players liked this particular setting, which they interacted with as adventuring/ambassador members of another country's ruling class.

.
I had one setting, years back, where the plot element was that the PCs discovered an ancient preserved text which revealed that Corellon had shot an arrow through Gruumsh's eye without cause (because Corellon was proud and Gruumsh's ugliness offended his sensibilities), prompting and provoking the war and deep racial hatred between elf and orc. This led to the PCs going up against Elves seeking to return this particular secret to the shadows, forming tenuous alliances with orcs, and ultimately getting caught up in a holy war between elf and orc, with the elves portrayed as the bad guys, after a fashion.

Edit: So I'll just say, with the above examples (and others) in mind, I can't really comment on the most typical tropes/examples you'd run into. I much prefer changing the dynamic enough that Players have to think about the role of race, culture and attitudes.

Nerocite
2011-02-20, 03:15 PM
A person in my gaming group wanted to play as a Minotaur. However, my DM said that he couldn't get over that they were "monsters", and vetoed any monstrous race.

Katana_Geldar
2011-02-20, 04:57 PM
If they were a playable race, I would be a centaur. :smallbiggrin:

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 05:01 PM
Edit: So I'll just say, with the above examples (and others) in mind, I can't really comment on the most typical tropes/examples you'd run into. I much prefer changing the dynamic enough that Players have to think about the role of race, culture and attitudes.

I want to play in your campaigns :smallbiggrin:


If they were a playable race, I would be a centaur. :smallbiggrin:

Races of the Wild, yo! page 95.

Katana_Geldar
2011-02-20, 05:05 PM
3.5, right? We play 4E though, it'll have to be converted.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 05:08 PM
3.5, right? We play 4E though, it'll have to be converted.

Psh, not likely. Extra appendages -- whether they be extra arms, legs, wings, tentacles -- aren't balanced. Therefore, they don't work in 4e.

Which always made me curious how they justify small-sized in 4e. In 3.5 there were distinct advantages to being small (higher AC, bonus to hit), but in 4e you just lose the ability to wield many great weapons.

LOTRfan
2011-02-20, 05:17 PM
The specifics vary from region to region in my campaign setting. One of the planets is divided into two supercontinents, both with widely different ideas on interracial relations. The "motherland" is widely segregated, and as a result, different governments reaces rarely get along (in fact, different governments controlled by the same race rarely get along). This has brought the advancement of technology and magic to a stand still, and it is a low-magic Dark Ages-esque area.

The other, southern continent is very different. The colonies broke off ties to the mother continent 600 years before, and allied with colonists of other races to achieve this. Eventually, the resistance broke down into different nations (two major, three minor). As a result, the five nations (as opposed to the 27 nations of the mother country) have very integrated populations. This has brought about widespread cultural diffusion, and the two major (along with one minor) nations are very advanced (at Eberron levels, actually). The other two nations are repressed by the three advanced ones, as they are mostly composed of the original reptilian inhabitants of the continent. For the most part, however, the people are more loyal to their nation of original than their race. This loyalty, however, brings about a Cold War-esque feel when it comes to international relations.

Katana_Geldar
2011-02-20, 05:18 PM
IIR being small means you are less likely to fall over, but then I haven't played a small character then I wouldn't know.

archon_huskie
2011-02-20, 05:19 PM
One theological definition of Good is doing what God wants. Now I will quickly point out that this does not work outside of the basic levels of theology, even in the academic field. Mostly because not everyone follows the same understanding of what God wants even within the same religion! Nay even the same denomination!

Next, within a fantasy world, we have multiple dieties who are actively involved in the world. Some of these dieties are openly Evil aligned. So someone doing the will of an Evil diety would be . . . ? Like I said, it doesn't work.

In fantasy worlds, if Good and Evil is to have meaning, there has to be a defined Good and a defined Evil.

Masaioh
2011-02-20, 05:22 PM
I make it very clear that my setting runs on Gray and Grey Morality (I assume most posters here understand Troper lingo), and racial stereotypes are a common recurring theme.

They aren't the usual fantasy racial stereotypes though:
-Elves are flamboyant, greedy, double-crossing merchants
-Dwarves are down-to-earth, folksy tree-huggers,
-Orcs are arabian nights-inspired nomads who happen to be some of the best blacksmiths out there
-Gnomes are crazy, racial-supremacist Noir/Tarantino mafia types

Half-breeds of all kinds are somewhat more common than is typical for fantasy, even crazy ones that you see in BoEF, and it is mutually understood that many of them wish to break away from one or both parents' culture.

Shademan
2011-02-21, 05:48 AM
You believe you are good, but you are mistaken. In D&D, alignment has a concrete definition that doesn't distinguish between races.

my point exactly

EccentricCircle
2011-02-21, 07:13 AM
the doing what you believe to be good is an interesting one.

I consider characters to have multiple alignments


their Alignment of Action is determined by what they do. this works in absolute terms. someone who does good deeds is good, someone who does evil deeds is evil and so on.
a Projected Alignment is what someone believes their alignment to be. so if they think that they are doing the right thing by mercilessly exterminating the goblin race then they might believe themselves to be good. even though they are actually evil.


they will show up as evil to another character casting detect but may not be aware of this themselves. if they have powerful enough magic they may even be casting a conceal alignment spell on themselves every morning without being aware that they are doing it.

I am also of the opinion that the alignment system should be seen as a continuum between good and evil and law and chaos rather than hard and fast categories.

Yora
2011-02-21, 07:23 AM
Again, this can be a thread about Fantasy Racism, or about alignment in D&D. And we all know what happened to every alignment discussion since the invention of the internet. :smallamused:

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 07:58 AM
However, it's still possible for Good-aligned people to do wrong things. Not to the extent of burning down villages, killing innocents, etc., because that would be out of character for anyone who could be labeled "Good", but it is not impossible for good-aligned people to be racists. They simply wouldn't be extreme racists, nor would they refuse to help people who happened to be from the disfavored race. This is the sort of person who goes, "I hate kobolds, but this one is hungry and I have an extra ration, so I'll throw him the food and hope he goes away." They might try to separate themselves from the race they didn't like; they might even go along with segregation or exile; when attacked, they might cheerfully go to war against their hated race and not work nearly as hard for peace as they might in other situations; but they wouldn't kill unprovoked, kill innocents, kill noncombatants, etc.

Sounds about right. They might also be leery of helping unless they're absolutely sure the being needs help.

They might be prone to assuming that beggars of the disfavored group are not really in need- but still willing to help one who is injured.

RagnaroksChosen
2011-02-21, 09:08 AM
Generally when I run I play up racial tension based on setting. I think it helps keep a level of immersion.

Currently in my homebrew setting, there are a few multicultural centers and a few places where a few races can mingle with no issue. I know one of my groups was trying to gain access to a city, but they had a half orc or a goblin can't remember, in there group. No illusionists/illusion/transmutation magic in the group. Spent a good session trying to get that character into the city it was a lot of fun.

I enjoy the whole trying to get acceptance in a place that hates you. that was the major reason why i liked the drizzt series.

Barlen
2011-02-21, 01:29 PM
My basic take on the "usually/often" evil races is viewing them as coming from a background similar to the Spartans. During childhood savagery is encouraged and anyone who isn't evil is viewed as weak and doesn't survive childhood. This works well for hobgoblins, goblins, and orcs and such. Even the Drow can be viewed as living out a more elegant version of it (poison/assassination instead of bashing in someone's head).

Obviously this gives them a reputation and other races treat them accordingly. You can assume a relatively open state of war between these races and the typical human/demi-human ones.

Conflict is the heart of drama and that makes the game interesting. Fortunately there is plenty of room for it even within human or demi-human society. I have been working on developing a campaign set in Keoland where the main conflict will be tensions between the descendants of the Suel and Oeridians. This will still be an issue even though there are few pure examples of either left. Simply put, even a thousand years after the conflict started people hold onto their prejudices. Even if those prejudices are less than realistic in the current age.

Darth Stabber
2011-02-21, 02:04 PM
The campaign I am currently working on has almost no Auto-alignment, and the usuallys are only slightly more common. Elves chaotic tendencies are like 51%, dwarves lawful 54% (and there is a major clan of dwarf barbarian/totemists/Dragonshaman that is a major force in dwarven society). The Elf/Dwarf rivalry is respectfully adversarial, they argue over values and strengths, but at the end of the day they would rather share a drink than brawl.

Humans are half orc/half elf and the PHB half orcs and half elves are meerly points along the spectrum. Orcs and elves can no longer breed, but could 2000 years ago. Humans have generally bad relations with orcs (humans recieve the brunt of orc raids), and generally good relations with elves and dwarves (humans have the most agriculturally developed land since elves hate cutting trees and dwarves live in mountains, and grains as good as gold to many)

Halflings and gnomes are offshoots of the dwarves (halflings wanted an nomadic life, gnomes left to pursue magical endeavors). their relationship with the dwarves and each other is usually cordial, though distrustful (due to the major difference in values between percieved brothers)

The major exception is the unstable necromantic kingdom. There are very few good people (paladins of we jas, and that's about it, and even they rebuke undead). The government experience a coup every couple years, and due to political instability, the leader is so concentrated on solidifying his power that he really can't start a crusade to end the world in a zombie apocalypse.

Also Outsiders are what their alignment trait says since they are concieved of elemental law/chaos/good/evil.

If Illithids or Aboleths exist they will probably be fairly evil. Good mindflayers may exist, but the elder brains are going to reign in the amount of good they can do. Aboleths probably won't exist.

Bugbears, Orcs and Goblins live together in a fairly Symbiotic relationship (agile goblin scouts + orc main infantry + bugbear heavies) and share a common culture and language (and orcs are considered goblinoids). They have a mostly hunter gatherer culture, and are violent, but reasonable. They are faintly more evil, though most of their bad rap would go away if they developed better farming tech.

Kobolds are the servants of dragons and are primarily neutral, and act in general accordance with thier masters alignment. Dragons themselves are usually within a step of their listed alignment, but exceptions are relatively common (ie 1 in 8 will be divergent by more than 1 step).

Admiral Squish
2011-02-21, 02:23 PM
The Fleshforge Legacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187311), my latest homebrew setting, has a lot of conflict involved.

Elves hate everything. They kill any non-human sentients on sight, and they have a particular hatred for the shifters that essentially stole their jobs.

The dwarves keep kobolds and warforged as slaves. they've locked the gates to their mountain caverns and are currently fighting a secret war against an undead infection that's taking over the mountains.

Orcs hate goliaths, because the goliaths got all the glory when they BOTH beat down the illithid that took over the world momentarily. Orcs think elves are barbarians and the dwarves are cowards.

Everyone hates illithid for the fact that they took over the world briefly.

Raptorans hate all aberrations, since they basically stand as the final line of defense against the mutated abominations that now wander the streets of the former capital megatropolis.

I think that's all the hate, honestly.

Ormur
2011-02-21, 07:24 PM
I've tended to de-emphasize strict alignment a bit in my campaign even though it's pretty black and white (or grey and black maybe). The conflict that's central to the campaign is mostly, but not entirely, intra-human. Humans are pretty dominant as the most populous and best organized race. The bad guys are a relatively new empire ruled by evil guys versus smaller principalities that are mostly just neutral but the most prominent princes are good. Other humanoid races might tend towards their listed alignments but that's purely cultural.

Aside from the human vs human conflict there is the age-old conflict between barbarians and civilization, where humans dwarves and elves are defined as "civilized" and goblins, orcs, kobolds and gnolls are "barbarian". The latter are simply hunter-gatherers, shepherds and/or occupy marginal territory so raiding human, elven or dwarf settlements is tempting. Since such a large part of their life depends on doing such evil acts more of them are brought up evil. It's simply easier for a city dweller or a farmer to get by as neutral or good.

Elves and dwarfs are also more settled (I.E. hogging all the good spots because they came first) so they don't need to expand to feed their people and acquire goods. Gnomes and halflings don't have their own homelands but they've been more or less integrated into human civilization along with a few of the barbarian races, with gnomes being more respectable traders and mechanics but halflings more as itinerant workers.

Elves and Dwarfs aren't natural enemies they just have different cultures so it's more like how the French and English make fun of each other. Both of them fight constant skirmishes with the barbarian races and they also distrust humans because the old human dominated empire tried to boss them around not so many of their generations ago, but for humans it's ancient history. Humans on the edge of civilization can both trade and fight with the barbarians, depending on the conditions and some human groups are no more civilized than orcs and maybe less than goblins and kobolds. The barbarians also both desire the wealth of civilization and resent it's cruelties and resource hogging.

However my setting just covers a single continent. Maybe there are places in the world where well organized hobgoblins fight elven barbarians.

The Cat Goddess
2011-02-21, 07:51 PM
In my world i run games in, none of the races are inherently evil, including the drow. The orcs have a massive, sprawling capitol city even, and trade regularly with other races. And the humans, of all races, are looked down on by the others. So, if anything, being a human and walking into foreign cities will get you more strange looks and scorn than being an orc or drow and walking into a human city.

Its all about background and fluff. I think it should be played up. A drow in a standard world would not be welcome in most places i think, just like an orc wouldnt really be accepted.

Similar to the Ebberon setting...

Ravens_cry
2011-02-21, 08:44 PM
Again, this can be a thread about Fantasy Racism, or about alignment in D&D. And we all know what happened to every alignment discussion since the invention of the internet. :smallamused:
They were resolved peacefully and amicably for all involved parties after a few posts? Right?

Warren Dew
2011-02-21, 09:51 PM
My fantasy campaign does not have formal alignments and doesn't use D&D. However, the racial tension issues in the original post are explored.

Dwarves and elves dislike each other; for example, in the primary city of the dwarves, humans generally stay in their own quarter, but elves are not welcome at all. The elf homelands are far from the areas the campaign is primarily set in, so most elves in the campaign live in the human lands. In human cities, elves and dwarves are generally welcome, though dwarves often congregate in their own neighborhoods.

Goblins are a bit different. There are only male goblins, no females, so they capture females of other races to use as breeding stock. The resulting children are full blooded goblins, though the biological details are not well known.

The result is that all races other than goblins generally kill goblins on sight if they can. Most goblins live in small bands deep in forests, mountains, or other remote areas.

Kerghan
2011-02-21, 10:05 PM
Mostly it boils down to whether or not the player portraying the character is a jerk, or has a personal vendetta against another player. Sometimes, there are those players that have a chaotic bent and simply want to upset things.

zephyrkinetic
2011-02-21, 10:49 PM
I actually used this sort of thing to my advantage. I assume that beings of particular alignments must get along with each other, or at least maintain a certain level of tolerance. So, for cities (like Skullport) who exist on the whole because evil people need to gather and trade, too, I sort of toss a blanket of acceptance over anyone who looks evil enough.

Makes it easy for all the Drizzt-template characters I like to play.

(No seriously; I had enough that I created a whole secret society of paid-under-the-table Waterdeep enforcers called The Gray. Bunch of Yuan-Ti, Duergar, Gargoyle, Goblin, Anthropomorphic Rhinos. Hanging out in Skullport.)

But that only worked because of the prejudices inherent in the game.

For more normal areas, I assume that the civilized races have gotten over it for the most part, but the occasional racist still exists. So elves are still "point-ears" now and then, and half-orcs are still "tusked monstrosities." The NPCs (or PCs, for that matter) who use such derogatory terms are frowned upon more the more decent sorts, though.

101jir
2011-02-21, 11:34 PM
Fantasy is fantasy is fantasy. Granted, I have only played (as a PC) 3 campaigns, each within a week, and two of them only lasting a few hours due to total party wipeout. Ultimately, fantasy changes, and it comes down to your feelings about it. Demonic/ abyssal races are certainly reasonable to be assumed evil, but if you don't want the party to just attack them for that reason, you can make it so that their death is worse than leaving them alive. Perhaps the players should discredit well known demons/abyssal, since killing them would turn them into a martyr. As far as nondemonic/abyssal, feel free to play around with it. Perhaps in one players world, goblins are actually just as good as humans, and twice as smart. In another world, they may fit the general alignment, with few exceptions. In yet another world, the civilians may be just like humans, but their leaders or certain organizations give them a bad reputation. Vice versa can be done as well. Perhaps eladrins are sophists. Perhaps you can totally change their alignment. Look at how wolves and vampires have changed over the years.

In summary, there certainly is no wrong way to do this, but I would tend to say demonic/abyssal are evil and that nondemonic/abyssal vary from game to game. In most, but not all of my games (if I ever DM one), nondemonic/abyssal are negatively influenced by their culture, and therefore many of them will turn out bad, with some exceptions. Also, I would feel no need to clarify the difference between a campaign that has all evil for evil aligned or if their were almost none, since in either case the characters that they have are influenced by the same society telling them that these races are evil. Most of the time it will be mostly true, but as I said before, with exception.

Ajadea
2011-02-22, 02:32 AM
Oh boy...this is a can of worms....

Racism is weird in my setting, especially in the main continent. Within the 'civilized' races (Dwarf, Strongheart Halfling, Human) racism is frowned on. A good bar almost always has seating suitable for human, halfling, and dwarves. Segregation is illegal, and will be punished with a hefty fine. Common is sort of the lingua franca of the races, a mixture of the human, halfling, and dwarven languages. They have integrated to the point that humans and halflings rarely speak their racial languages anymore, and some humans/halflings don't know their racial languages at all.

The other sentient races (all three types of elf (high/gray/drow), kobold, the goblinoid races (orcs and goblins), gnomes (whisper gnomes, technically), fey, fiends, changelings) are viewed as evil, malevolent, dangerous, and basically, it's OK to kill them on sight. Even the kids. The 'paladins' kill kids. Then again, most of the so-called paladins behave like pre-falling Miko. They're taught to behave like pre-falling Miko, except a bit more likable. That self-confidence, that self-righteousness, is part of their training, because 3 seconds of doubt can have you caught in an enchantment from some caster, and then you're just about dead. They can't afford to wait and doubt, at least that's what they think. Justice before mercy is what they are taught, is how they live.

People are scared of them, a little bit.

Gray Elves are worse. Cannibalism, in the most strict definition, is abhorred, but a gray elf will eat basted halfling ribs as a fancy lunch. They consider non-elven mortals to be no better than animals, and they are treated as such.

Rumpus
2011-02-22, 07:08 AM
I wouldn't let PCs play a species that wasn't at least tolerated in-town. It's just too disruptive, unless race relations are going to be a major theme of the campaign. But unless the PCs are Rangers or Druids, they need someplace at least a little civilized to go to between adventures. Letting PCs play a race that is Kill-On-Sight in your average village sounds like a bad idea.

101jir
2011-02-22, 09:32 AM
As far as the extremes mentioned, I would tend to leave most of them out. No segregation (although generally opposing races avoid too much contact with each other anyway), extreme cases of killing is understood in any culture, but tolerated in few. A few might have no penalty for killing any of the evil races at all, while others are restricted to self defense/war. As I said before, many people act on culture, but a few don't. Elves generally only attack if their homeland is tresspassed (same manner as wood elves), and never resent violence, but they aren't crazed killers either. Violence is just another standard method to them, not a last resort. Killing demonic/abyssal is never a problem, but they are somewhat uncommon in my worlds. With the dark intelligence, however, it is often the wrong move, especially since they have friends in low places.

Darth Stabber
2011-02-22, 09:38 AM
But unless the PCs are Rangers, Barbarians, Totemists or Druids, they need someplace at least a little civilized to go to between adventures.

Fixed it for you. Illiteracy tends to mean steering clear of towns, because it's really awkward for your barbarian to walk into the wrong bathroom. And when you have long hair and wear a kilt, the pictures lose all meaning.

Knaight
2011-02-22, 10:39 AM
Fixed it for you. Illiteracy tends to mean steering clear of towns, because it's really awkward for your barbarian to walk into the wrong bathroom. And when you have long hair and wear a kilt, the pictures lose all meaning.
Unless the world is very modern illiteracy is the norm for most people. As far as wrong bathrooms go, D&D is typically based on Europe, where the very notion of wrong bathrooms is relatively recent.

On other topics, I rarely play D&D, and tend to GM a high variety of fantasy settings, as well as other genres. However I rarely bother with non human races, simply because cultural clash is easy enough to do with nationality, religion, economic backgrounds, philosophical preferences, and other such things alone. Introducing fantasy races tends to just add clutter, and the exceptions to this rule tend to be created beings that are fairly rare.

WarKitty
2011-02-22, 10:50 AM
Unless the world is very modern illiteracy is the norm for most people. As far as wrong bathrooms go, D&D is typically based on Europe, where the very notion of wrong bathrooms is relatively recent.

On other topics, I rarely play D&D, and tend to GM a high variety of fantasy settings, as well as other genres. However I rarely bother with non human races, simply because cultural clash is easy enough to do with nationality, religion, economic backgrounds, philosophical preferences, and other such things alone. Introducing fantasy races tends to just add clutter, and the exceptions to this rule tend to be created beings that are fairly rare.

Indeed. While I do use fantasy racism, I also try to mix it up with other varieties of conflict. In some areas, racial tensions are high. In others, they are downplayed in favor of religious differences. In still another, social class is the primary dividing line. Sometimes these also interact - maybe members of one race are more predominantly lower class than the other, and this leads to different assumptions about the races.

Personally, I favor a world where fantasy races are as common as humans. In part because it's an easy code in a non-visual medium - my players can remember whether someone is an elf or a dwarf or a gnome, but they can't remember when one person is tall and dark skinned with long brown hair and another is short and light skinned with curly red hair.

zephyrkinetic
2011-02-22, 02:13 PM
I posted once already, but I've been thinking about this topic now a little bit, and I feel like I have something else to say:

I play weird races a lot. I actually despise the idea of playing regular humans, and it's gotten to the point that even the other Standard Six (Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, and Half-Orcs) bore me a little without some additional "flavor." The racial buffet that is the D&D universe is just too diverse to stick with the tried-and-true Caesar Salad. Give me some fugu.

The thing to remember is this: the whole point is that this is a fantasy. I don't mean to imply the "we're supposed to be escaping reality" argument. Rather, I feel as though any inhabitants of a fantastic setting are going to have enough to deal with and think about without creating hatreds based on anything but obvious, clear-cut, and repeatable issues. Everyone hates trolls because they do troll-like things. Their definition is its own trope, really. That's how they're viewed because that's the reality, so to speak.

I recognize and appreciate that someone can still be a bigot for no good reason, but that mode of thinking will quickly die out in a sort of Darwinist fashion; no one will agree that all Elves are beggars (or whatever) because they're too busy hating basilisks for always turning people into stone. And racists on their own (without a support group behind them) are societal puke at best; sort of frowned at in disgust and then quickly stepped around until someone comes along to clean up.

As for the "racial tensions" that this thread referenced from the get-go: I treat those as in-jokes, sort of privileged between those races. Dwarves can call Elves "point-ears," because it's expected, and while not socially accepted, it's sort of overlooked. But if a Halfling called an Elf "point-ear," I suspect there'd be some heated exchanges, post-haste.

I'd make some real-life examples now, but I'm afraid of being taken the wrong way. Most of us should be able to think of some examples of words that Race X can say amongst themselves, or that Nationality A can say jokingly about Nationality B without causing any international incidents.

I think I'm done waxing intellectual now; I will say that I am once again filled with pride to be part of the gaming community. Few other places could this discussion be had with so many potential variables (see: Savage Species, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manuals I through V, for starters), yet have nobody become Greatly Offended or declare "____ Power."

AtlanteanTroll
2011-02-22, 03:45 PM
Not sure if this qualifies, but I'm playing a mutant in a d20 Modern Variant and I'm pretty hated in most communities. Current town's nice. They're just patronizing.

Jayabalard
2011-02-22, 04:32 PM
Unless the world is very modern illiteracy is the norm for most people. As far as wrong bathrooms go, D&D is typically based on Europe, where the very notion of wrong bathrooms is relatively recentAs I recall... during height the roman empire, there were separate bathhouses for men and women, so I wouldn't say that's all that recent of an idea.

If you're talking about a toilet rather than a bathouse... well, they're likely to be using a gazunder anyway, no?

Callista
2011-02-22, 04:54 PM
Yeah, I would think that you'd be more likely to find a unisex outhouse in most settings...