If Drow became a PC race, would they lose their appeal?

[Libertad]

Drow are probably one of the most popular D&D races that I know of. They've got not one, but two WotC sourcebooks devoted to their society (Drow of the Underdark; Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigure), plus who knows how many third party books (Plot & Poison, Sheoloth: City of the Drow, The Quintessential Drow, Tome of Drow Lore). They were usually relegated to the status of "Evil Elf NPC Counterparts," but sourcebooks always hinted at options and ways for PCs to play them.

For a time, lots of gamers wanted to play Drizz't in D&D games. And then it got old, real old. Even way back in 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana, Drow were a PC option (although this option was maligned due to them being overpowered). Designers, players, and Gamemasters toyed with the idea, yet somewhere along the line the option becomes associated with bad experiences and unoriginal characters.

Perhaps Drow popularity is due to their outcast appeal. They're not in the PHB, and so would stand out among a party of humans, dwarves, and half-orcs. They make natural anti-heroes and villains, and options like "Warlock" are very popular among modern gamers. The fact that many gaming groups look upon the idea with scorn might be taken as a challenge by others, who vie to prove that Drow PCs can a fun and valid option for the group.

What do you think would happen if Wizards of the Coast gave rules for Drow as a balanced PC race in D&D Next? Would it create a boom of Dark Elf PCs, only for the wonder and thrill to die down once the experience became "normalized?" Would it stay as a popular PC option?

[Aron Times]

tl;dr Drow were balanced in 4e, and players were more tolerant of drow PCs. The main drawback of drow PCs in 4e remains the social stigma of being a member of an evil race.

Drow were a balanced race in 4e, though 4e itself is generally balanced. Drow made excellent crossbow sniper rogues, having played one myself; darkvision helps when your DM applies the penalties for dim light and darkness in combat. I sniped at the enemy from an elevated vantage point, far away from my allies and enemies.

Now, the main drawback of playing a drow in 4e is mostly social. Most people hate drow IC, since they're still as decadent and depraved as in previous editions. However, since they're now on par with other playable races like humans, elves, and dwarves, 4e players are less likely to look down upon players who run drow characters.

At least, that's how I experienced it.

[Water_Bear]

Haven't they been playable in every single numbered edition so far? Why wouldn't they show up again in Next?

This idea that they might lose something by becoming a PC race is weird because as far as I know they haven't ever been NPC-only. You mentioned their PC race status in 1e, 2e had Dark Elves right in the PHB, 3.X had rules to play them in the Monster Manual, and 4e has them too. I'm not familiar with Rules Cyclopedia, BECMI or the other oD&D games but I wouldn't be surprised if they were playable there as well.

[Morty]

I think most of the popularity of the drow comes from the fact that D&D has consistently bent over backwards to portray them as enormous badasses and generally superior to everyone else for quite a while now. People want to play them because they think it'll make their characters cool automatically, as it were. I don't think it would change if they were made a PC race.
On the other hand, I think their status as an evil race might have played a part here - they're the "cool" evil race, acting superior to everyone.

[Aron Times]

Drow society makes no sense to me. How can they have a great civilization when all they do is backstab each other? They have entire cities in the Underdark which rival those of the more civilized races on the surface. The way they're portrayed, being sexy and evil and technologically and magically advanced shouldn't be possible due to their Chaotic Evil culture.

[Morty]

I tend to agree. Drow culture as D&D describes it is so over-the-top in its evilness that it ends up resembling slapstick. They're pathologically prone to treachery and murder, which ought to make their society too self-destructive to function, but it doesn't. For some reason they have civilization, even though orcs and goblinoids, who are positively reasonable by comparison, don't.

[Darthteej]

I think the general thrust of their society is social darwinism- the strongest end up surviving. That said, I think that could only really end up working if their lifespans were MUCH shorter than other elves. Either that, or the books only portray them at their worst, and most of the time their society lives in teeth-gritting harmony, with major events like the destruction of a house happening once ever century or so.

[Boci]

Drow society makes no sense to me. How can they have a great civilization when all they do is backstab each other?

Ancient Rome says hi. In all seriousness I don't know enough about history to know if the comparison is entierly valid, but at the very least there should be some superficial similarities.

[Libertad]

Haven't they been playable in every single numbered edition so far? Why wouldn't they show up again in Next?

This idea that they might lose something by becoming a PC race is weird because as far as I know they haven't ever been NPC-only. You mentioned their PC race status in 1e, 2e had Dark Elves right in the PHB, 3.X had rules to play them in the Monster Manual, and 4e has them too. I'm not familiar with Rules Cyclopedia, BECMI or the other oD&D games but I wouldn't be surprised if they were playable there as well.

Yes, but not as a "main" option. Always in supplements, and even then with restrictions such as Level Adjustments (except in 4th, according to the 1st response).

[Daer]

I presume that their goddess has quite big part of keeping drow society from collapsing. She has quite big part in their culture after all.

[Zale]

In one of the Drizz't books, it mentions the only thing that keeps them their society together is outside threats.

They don't trust each other, but they don't trust non-drow even more.

Which is a reasonable enough justification for me.

Of course, I'm easily pleased.

[Water_Bear]

Ancient Rome says hi. In all seriousness I don't know enough about history to know if the comparison is entierly valid, but at the very least there should be some superficial similarities.

Not exactly. Rome, like most human societies, had a lot of political infighting and corruption, but there was a strong sense of civic duty and loyalty both to the state and to the family. The Roman penchant for grand public rituals and monuments, like the Triumphs and the Arches built for them, is the best example of that patriotic spirit I can come up with. In D&D terms they would be Lawful, though lawful what depends on if you asked them or their slaves.

The Drow are a Chaotic Evil society. Every Drow is expected to betray their fellows the instant it becomes a better option than cooperating, and gaining control over other Drow or lesser creatures is considered the highest achievement. While they do have some affiliations, most notably to the Noble Houses, each Drow is ultimately in it for #1 with no compunction against doing even the most horrible atrocities for some marginal benefit to themselves.

I could almost see them working as a sort of twisted Objectivist / Legalist hybrid society; individuals using rational self interest to justify working together on most things, with Lloth sitting at the top of the heap using the threat of force to keep their scheming focused outwards. But the fluff I've seen is the exact opposite; Drow are almost suicidally treacherous and Lloth encourages this, actively preventing any real cooperation between the Noble Houses.

[LongVin]

Honestly, I think Drow as a society would more likely be neutral evil or dare I say even lawful evil. It's just the top dogs(the priestesses of lolth) who are Chaotic Evil nutjobs. But, Lolth and their own laws generally keep everyone playing the game "fairly" so as not to bring everything crashing down. A priestess or wizard who goes a little too kill happy is going to find themselves and his house facing destruction and the House will try to internally police the matter before the rest of the city is beating down their door.
Like stated before, while the Drow don't trust each other they specially don't trust outsiders. Drow to other Drow are known entity. They know an interaction is going to be a battle of push and shove as one establishes dominance over the other and the other craves the power of the dominant one. Once again, the average Drow knows where the line is. He knows who he can bully, who bullies him and how much of his weight he can throw around. But, he has no idea what the "evil" creatures next door is going to do to them so it is in his best interest to stay within the rules of Drow Society and stick together for the common good. We also only see the scheming nobles of Drow society. We don't see the lowliest commoner who knows he is not moving anywhere and has nothing to gain by trying to stab some random other commoner who has it better than him, he knows it will probably just get him sacrificed to Lolth by the priestesses.


Two more important things then I'm done:

1. The lifespan of the Drow. They live for centuries. B slights A, A gets pissed. A can start plotting today on killing B. He gets distracted by something. Comes back a few years later. Starts plotting again. Missed oppurtunity. Gets distracted by some other plots. Now it's a century later. A might forget about B, decides its not worth it or go back to the plot. But, he hasn't acted on anything for a century. He had time to plot and there wasn't open warfare in the street because he was biding his time waiting for the perfect oppurtunity because he can.

2. We only see the most chaotic times in the books. When Houses are getting destroyed. Drow are marching off to war. Slave uprisings. We don't see the 50 years when nothing happen, when everyone is just plotting in the background waiting for the oppurtune moment when their enemy loses the favor of Lolth. That would be boring. So we only get to see when there are interesting times.

Imagine if you will if you had an alien who had no idea about our history, our culture, our society. Put him in a room and the only thing he is given to watch about our history is the history channel. He is going to conclude that our society is filled solely of violent, sociopathic maniacs who only commit genocide and are involved in endless warfare. Why? Because he is only going to see that side of society.

Hell, even if you expanded it to everything to do with history anyone not familar with living in society would conclude that we are constantly involved in petty wars, back stabbing, revolutions, famines, because that is what gets written about because it is interesting. No one writes a book about the 50 years there was no war and the harvest was good. No one cares about, it is not interesting. People are happy, they are having good times but it is not interesting for someone to read about the good time the commoners are having. But, the 10 afters after that where there was a massive famine and warfare wracked the countryside wil be well documented.

Not to mention, the record is written usually by the upper class of society who has a hand in ruling the society. The commoners are too busy surviving. They don't care about the commoners good life. Jimmy the farmer had 20 baby goats this year? Who cares? But, that slight by Tom the Count when he whipped my emissary? Yeah, I care about and I'm writing that down so everyone knows Tom was a D***. The war where I personally led the vanguard and killed the enemy duke? Yep, that's getting put in there. When the commoners had their mayfair and danced about happily? Nah. Not interesting. So any outside oberserver would assume the entire society is made up of vengeful, petty a**es who go around whipping and killing people.

[Arbane]

To quote a friend of mine: "A Drow character? Was she evil and depraved? No? Then that's not a Drow, it's just an Elf with a bad sunburn."

:smallbiggrin:

[erikun]

Given that they've killed Eilistraee and turned the whole race into "Chaotic Evil + Drizzt", I don't think I'd care one way or another. :smalltongue: Sorry, but having a largely crazy evil society with an underground crazy good rebellion made them rather interesting. Making them just a crazy evil society with the occasional PC makes them so much less so. I can get plenty of crazy evil from Illithids and Yuan-Ti, thank you, and those two are much more interesting.

[LongVin]

Given that they've killed Eilistraee and turned the whole race into "Chaotic Evil + Drizzt", I don't think I'd care one way or another. :smalltongue: Sorry, but having a largely crazy evil society with an underground crazy good rebellion made them rather interesting. Making them just a crazy evil society with the occasional PC makes them so much less so. I can get plenty of crazy evil from Illithids and Yuan-Ti, thank you, and those two are much more interesting.

I concur. Killing off the entire Drow pantheon except Lolth was extremely stupid on Wizard's part. I blame it on the "dumbing down" of 4th edition, where they wanted everything to fit in one nice little neat package.

[ThiagoMartell]

They killed Eilistrae? That sucks. Hope she comes back for Next.

[kardar233]

They killed Eilistrae? That sucks. Hope she comes back for Next.

She was killed, and in the process a fair-sized chunk of drow turned into elves-with-brown-skin and became Corellon's responsibility. Step backwards in my book.

I like drow because I like evil campaigns and drow society is one of the best settings for one.

[ThiagoMartell]

She was killed, and in the process a fair-sized chunk of drow turned into elves-with-brown-skin and became Corellon's responsibility. Step backwards in my book.
Step backwards in my book as well.

[LibraryOgre]

Drow society makes no sense to me. How can they have a great civilization when all they do is backstab each other? They have entire cities in the Underdark which rival those of the more civilized races on the surface. The way they're portrayed, being sexy and evil and technologically and magically advanced shouldn't be possible due to their Chaotic Evil culture.

Truthfully, I tend to think of Drow culture as being somewhat like Sith culture.

What tends to happen is the society falls into an equilibrium... "I'm not powerful enough to kill the person above me, so I have to fortify against the people below me, while looking for weakness above me.

While you've got murders and power plays, they seldom result in large shifts... you hear about the big shifts, but those happen infrequently... less than once or twice a century. More common will be proxy wars, and material changing hands for a decade or two, before being retaken.

This is possible because there's someone on top of the heirarchy who makes it possible... Lloth. She keeps the heirarchy more or less as she likes it, while encouraging people to strive higher. It also helps that drow can easily focus outward... there's always a mind flayer incursion to deal with, or some svirfneblin to enslade, or duergar to connive with and against. Because while your opponents are all guarding against you, you can always increase your power by taking more territory and resources.

[TheOOB]

Honestly I never liked the drow, I nevered liked the idea of black evil magical underground versions of races, nor do I like how the drow seemed to always been ruled by priestesses in bondage gear. If a player plays one I have to break versilimitude by not having them lynched on sight whenever they enter human(or elven) society.

I think there is room for there to be evil elves who are not a separate race.

Anyways, just my 2cp

[AuraTwilight]

I have never liked anything about drow, ever. To me, they pretty much embody everything that is wrong with most fantasy elves.

It also doesn't help that they are both always evil and also dark-skinned and also regularly engage in slavery and being enslaved. Uuuum.... Who thought this was a good idea?

[Yora]

They killed Eilistrae? That sucks. Hope she comes back for Next.
That was 4th Edition. I think I've read about a major retcon being planned for FR.

[Sith_Happens]

Drow society makes no sense to me. How can they have a great civilization when all they do is backstab each other? They have entire cities in the Underdark which rival those of the more civilized races on the surface. The way they're portrayed, being sexy and evil and technologically and magically advanced shouldn't be possible due to their Chaotic Evil culture.

Drow of the Underdark explicitly states that the only reason Drow society doesn't collapse on itself like a wet house of cards is because Lolth is far and away the most hands-on deity in the setting.

[Mephit]

I think most of the popularity of the drow comes from the fact that D&D has consistently bent over backwards to portray them as enormous badasses and generally superior to everyone else for quite a while now. People want to play them because they think it'll make their characters cool automatically, as it were. I don't think it would change if they were made a PC race.
On the other hand, I think their status as an evil race might have played a part here - they're the "cool" evil race, acting superior to everyone.

There's probably something to that, but I think their appeal could very well be simpler.

Small anecdote: One of the first PCs is ever wanted to play was a Drow - a Drow Monk, if you want to know how new I was to the system. :smallbiggrin: It was just a usual run-of-the-mill CG Drow trying to shake off his evil heritage. So when I turned in the sheet to my DM, he frowned and asked: ''You want to be Drizzt?'' And I kind of looked at him sideways, because I had no idea who that was. Nor did I really have a detailed idea of what drow were, because all I'd used to make my character was the PHB and the SRD.

A big cause for the Drow's appeal is just the popularity of the archetype of tortured hero fighting against the evils of his own society and dealing with everyone else's prejudice and mistrust. Now, when you look at the available races in the MM, most of the evil and playable ones are Orcs, Kobolds and Goblins. They're all icons of unintelligent, unattractive, tribal brutes, particularily in classic fantasy settings. Roleplaying them as good and noble beings is possible, but requires some effort. By comparison, Drow are still elves so they're considered an elegant and civilized race, which is something players want to see in their characters.
(I don't mean to imply that every person playing a good drow is lazy and unoriginal, but it's certainly an easy race with which to substitute drama for actual character depth.)

TL;DR People want to play an evil race turned good because it makes them feel like a badass, and drow are the easiest and most dramatic classic race to enable that specific idea. Who wants to play an orc troubled by his race's crimes, after all?

[Morty]

I can't say I find a society that requires continuous divine intervention to function interesting.



TL;DR People want to play an evil race turned good because it makes them feel like a badass, and drow are the easiest and most dramatic classic race to enable that specific idea. Who wants to play an orc troubled by his race's crimes, after all?

I do. Orcs and goblinoids are more interesting to me than drow will ever be. Part of that is that they're portayed negatively instead of lavished with praise at every opportunity.
Of course, I prefer settings that don't slap moral labels on entire species, but that's another subject.

[Mephit]

Yeah, I think that would make fine character, but a lot of people feel otherwise. I guess what I'm trying to say is that WotC trying to make them badass isn't necessarily the main reason the Drow's appeal but rather that most other core evil races have traditionally been sold short in fantasy literature.

[AuraTwilight]

TL;DR People want to play an evil race turned good because it makes them feel like a badass, and drow are the easiest and most dramatic classic race to enable that specific idea. Who wants to play an orc troubled by his race's crimes, after all?

Good Illithid. Checkmate.

[erikun]

TL;DR People want to play an evil race turned good because it makes them feel like a badass, and drow are the easiest and most dramatic classic race to enable that specific idea. Who wants to play an orc troubled by his race's crimes, after all?
I'd like to give a Hobgoblin a try someday. It isn't your stereotypical orc/goblin, but still gets to come from a similar violent and tribal society.

[ThiagoMartell]

I'd like to give a Hobgoblin a try someday. It isn't your stereotypical orc/goblin, but still gets to come from a similar violent and tribal society.
Hobgoblins have recently been portrayed as race of proud, honorable and blood-thirsty warriors. Like them a lot, specially with their lore in ToB. I usually portray them with a "evil samurai" vibe.


I really don't understand why so many people drop into any thread that has anything to do with drow just to say "I don't like drow, their society does not make sense and you suck for liking anything related to them". That and the Drizzt hate. As a Drizzt fan, it just confuses me. I don't like Harry Potter, for example, so whenever I see a Harry Potter thread I don't read it, because it is not relevant to my interests.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd like to give a Hobgoblin a try someday. It isn't your stereotypical orc/goblin, but still gets to come from a similar violent and tribal society.

Hobgoblins tend to fall into my preferred Klingon archetype. It's worth noting that Hackmaster has half-hobgoblins as a regular character race.

[SgtCarnage92]

To answer the original thread question: Yes, i think they would lose part of their appeal of they were made into a regular PC race.

Drow are "edgy" and "dark" and people like that. Part of their initial appeal is because they aren't a "typical" race (even if they are one of the most commonly played races).

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Sorry, but having a largely crazy evil society with an underground crazy good rebellion made them rather interesting.

Surely you mean an aboveground crazy good rebellion? :smallwink:


Regarding good drow/goblins/etc., the various evil races have been tending more neutral if not good over the past few editions. They all went from kill-on-sight demon-worshiping baby-sacrificing Evil to "mostly evil barbarians" or "proud warrior race" or "backstabbing antiheroes," and villain motivations in general have shifted away from doing evil because they're evil to doing evil because it's the best way to accomplish goal XYZ (and PC motivations for killing them have shifted accordingly). Drow becoming a more obviously PC race wouldn't change that overall trend or make them any more or less cool, I don't think.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Good Illithid. Checkmate.

Succubus Paladin. Check the board before you declare checkmate next time. :smallbiggrin:


As was previously mentioned, DotU says outright that drow society is non-sustainable, that "they should've murdered and backstabbed each other out of existence eons ago," and that Lloth's near-constant meddling is the only thing holding it together.

It actually manages to remain interesting though, because Lloth doesn't -directly- intervene on anything unless it's getting too close to the tipping point. Instead she gives tip-off's and tests to the faithful that keep things going. The net result is that you have a society that really is -always- in a state that can be best described as a civil cold war. There's litterally endless cloak-and-dagger action going on all the time. It's great if you dig doing the spy and assassin things.

[Deathkeeper]

Maybe it's because I just don't like the thought of playing an elf in general, but I dislike Drow. They just kind of annoy me.
That being said, I'm the kind of player who'd rather play a Tengu, Grippli, or even Kobold than an elf or dwarf, so perhaps my taste in PCs is skewed a bit too far towards the (tastefully) odd.

[ThiagoMartell]

Succubus Paladin. Check the board before you declare checkmate next time. :smallbiggrin:


Weirdly enough, there are WotC NPCs for both a Succubus Paladin and a Good Illithid (exalted, even).

[Ravens_cry]

I think Drow Society should be lawful evil and less 'we're freaking nuts!' They wouldn't be a force feared in the Underdark if they spent all their time backstabbing each other with gleeful abandon.
Civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
If I was going to play a drow, I'd play them like a well respected Roman general who, tired of all the decadence, leaves his culture behind. He still believes in whatever values he considers the root of his culture, and is still evil (just sane) but does not consider those in power worthy of his service any longer.
Haughty, superior, and racist, but deeply loyal to those that he has given his word.

[AuraTwilight]

Succubus Paladin. Check the board before you declare checkmate next time.

I'm aware; I just find Good Illithids more obscure AND more appealing. :P Ever since that article came out I've literally seen 30 Succubus Paladins over the past three years. They're becoming kind of Drizzt-y.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think Drow Society should be lawful evil and less 'we're freaking nuts!' They wouldn't be a force feared in the Underdark if they spent all their time backstabbing each other with gleeful abandon.

Well, overall, drow society basically is LE. It's only the higher echelons of the noble houses and clergy that have all the backstabbing and power struggles, and on a day-to-day basis drow society runs just fine. If you look at Menzoberranzan, there's one House that's been at the top for over two millennia, the common drow function like the common people of any race, the military mobilizes against external threats like any other military, and so forth--hardly an utterly dysfunctional society. While individual drow are CE, the society as a whole seems highly regimented, with even the plots and betrayals following written and unwritten rules, and it's not impossible for a race of CE people to live in a LE society if said LE society is externally imposed as it is in this case.

The drow leadership changes are fairly low-impact as well, almost like a presidential election or similar: if a House is defeated its members scatter to other cities or other Houses but life for everyone else continues normally, and if someone were to dethrone House Baenre they wouldn't (and couldn't) make massive sweeping changes to the society, the only thing that would change would be who has the ear of Lolth and slightly more resources to throw around than they had before. (Comparisons of politicians to CE backstabbers are left as an exercise for the reader. :smallwink:) What the common people do, what the people in charge do, and how the society runs are not necessarily all the same thing.

[Ravens_cry]

Bossa Nova, similis bossa seneca, eh PairO'Dice Lost?
I actually agree. From how they are presented, lawful evil does represent them better. Still, again, if I was playing one, lawful evil defector from decadence would be how I'd play it.

[Morph Bark]

To all those talking about Drow society not being capable of functioning without Lolth's intervention: for as far as I remember, that is only the case in Menzoberrenzan and a few other cities, but certainly not all of them. The others are also still certainly Chaotic/Evil, but not all about the backstabbing society. (At least in Forgotten Realms. Eberron is obviously different, but in an even better way.)

[SoC175]

but sourcebooks always hinted at options and ways for PCs to play them. They did more than that. They became a standard balanced PC race in both 3e and 4e.

In 4e it was one of the first released supplements that introduced them as a standard player race

[Ravens_cry]

To all those talking about Drow society not being capable of functioning without Lolth's intervention: for as far as I remember, that is only the case in Menzoberrenzan and a few other cities, but certainly not all of them. The others are also still certainly Chaotic/Evil, but not all about the backstabbing society. (At least in Forgotten Realms. Eberron is obviously different, but in an even better way.)
Still, constant in-fighting and civil war should drastically reduce their influence.
Having it only work because Lolth commands it is as boring and, frankly annoying, as the fact SNAC poster children, Kender, only escape genocide because some goddess commands it.
It's basically an in universe Deus ex Machina.:smallyuk:

[Yora]

I would say the real reason is slaves and peasants. If the top 1% of a drow city keeps conspiring and backstabbing all day, that usually doesn't affect the rest of the city not too much.
And if an army of goblin slaves is wiped out in a major battle, they just send out a slaver party to capture a new one.

[Zubrowka74]

Somebody mentioned crazy priestress in bondage gear.

I'm only into drows for the bondage gear.

[ThiagoMartell]

It's basically an in universe Deus ex Machina.:smallyuk:

Emphasis mine... you keep using that expression. I don't think it means what you think it means.

[Yora]

"Emphasis mine..."

You didn't emphasise anything. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. :smalltongue:

Somebody mentioned crazy priestress in bondage gear.

I'm only into drows for the bondage gear.
And somehow that actually makes it more socially acceptible.

[Deepbluediver]

I'll start with my response to the thread before moving off topic: I agree that for a while, Drow seemed like the Mary-Sue of races and got a lot of press-time because they make such perfect villians and antiheroes, and simply making them a common PC race wouldn't change that, not with all the history behind them.

Once they are mechanically balanced though, I think they become just another subset of elves (albiet a popular one), and over time players would start to look for more exotic options again. So perhaps they would lose a little bit of their glittery-attractive ness for serious players, but most people would still see them as instant story-fodder. (either tragic rebel or evil incarnate, I've met players who favor both)


Now, slightly off topic: I never liked the idea that Drow where "chaotic evil" because to me they don't really feel truly chaotic. I always felt like some designer sat down one day and said to themselves "I want to create the most evil race I can, and chaotic-evil is the most evil alignment so that's what Drow are going to be".
Needless to say, there are so many things wrong with that sentence that I don't even know where to start.

Yes Drow are treacherous, wicked, and backstab each other at the slightest oppotunity, but they also have (from what I've read in the sourcebooks and novels) a very strict social structure, familial hierarchy, and highly traditional society. Not to start an alignment debate, but this seems like it should balance out to nuetral-evil; they'll do whatever they have to in order to get ahead. Since, as other posters have pointed out, they have a very different style of society culture than other more-obviously chaotic races I think their racial backstory should get some refluffing that supports this.

[kardar233]

Yes Drow are treacherous, wicked, and backstab each other at the slightest oppotunity, but they also have (from what I've read in the sourcebooks and novels) a very strict social structure, familial hierarchy, and highly traditional society. Not to start an alignment debate, but this seems like it should balance out to nuetral-evil; they'll do whatever they have to in order to get ahead. Since, as other posters have pointed out, they have a very different style of society culture than other more-obviously chaotic races I think their racial backstory should get some refluffing that supports this.

Drow of the Underdark actually addresses this, saying that the hierarchical nature of Drow society contrasts with Lolth's influence of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder to average out to Neutral Evil, with a fair amount of variance either way.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Now, slightly off topic: I never liked the idea that Drow where "chaotic evil" because to me they don't really feel truly chaotic. I always felt like some designer sat down one day and said to themselves "I want to create the most evil race I can, and chaotic-evil is the most evil alignment so that's what Drow are going to be".
Needless to say, there are so many things wrong with that sentence that I don't even know where to start.

Yes Drow are treacherous, wicked, and backstab each other at the slightest oppotunity, but they also have (from what I've read in the sourcebooks and novels) a very strict social structure, familial hierarchy, and highly traditional society. Not to start an alignment debate, but this seems like it should balance out to nuetral-evil; they'll do whatever they have to in order to get ahead. Since, as other posters have pointed out, they have a very different style of society culture than other more-obviously chaotic races I think their racial backstory should get some refluffing that supports this.

Like I said in my last post, the alignment of a society doesn't necessarily have to match the alignment of its inhabitants. You can have a bunch of LG people living in a CG society, and the LG people will all work together for the Greater Good which happens to have CG ends; you can have a bunch of CE people living in a LE society, and the CE people will try to bend the rules and use the letter of the law to get ahead; you can have N people in an any-other-alignment society, and they'll just do their own thing and ignore all the political debates; and so forth.

To figure out what alignment a race "really" is, take a look at how they act within their society and then at how they act outside of it. Drow follow certain rules for their intrigue because Lolth keeps meddling to keep them in line. Take a drow out of Menzoberranzan, and assuming they don't turn into a CG angsty rebel, they'll likely be an evil heartless backstabbing bleepity bleep because now they can be all CE to everyone around them without worrying about upsetting Lolth by doing it to other drow. Heck, they're pretty much like a stereotypical adventurer: when they're in town, they'll only push the NPCs around as much as they think they can get away with it because their DM has high-level town guards, but when they're in the wilderness they'll ambush and firebomb NPCs that piss them off.

[hamishspence]

Have drow ever been officially CE overall? I was under the impression that, at least in 2E, 3E, and 4E, they came out as overall NE- but with plenty of flexibility, and CE as their second most common alignment.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Have drow ever been officially CE overall? I was under the impression that, at least in 2E, 3E, and 4E, they came out as overall NE- but with plenty of flexibility, and CE as their second most common alignment.

They're straight-up CE in 1e and the 2e MM, and in 3e the common warriors are "usually NE" while the priestesses remain strongly CE.

[Yora]

However, in the monster manual elves are Chaotic Good, which obviously was a generalization as elf PCs and NPCs do not require to be CG.

[hamishspence]

In the 2E Book of Lairs, all the drow warriors (and the wizard) in the adventure were NE- only the clerics were CE.

[ThiagoMartell]

"Emphasis mine..."

You didn't emphasise anything. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. :smalltongue:

.

Ooops. That will teach me not to itallicize (is that even a word?) quoted texto.