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8BitNinja
2017-05-21, 01:03 PM
So in the (re)creation of my own original TRPG, Sidequest, I recently started on the monster list. In the monster list, I added 5 humanoid races on it, Orcs, Goblins, Mermen, Salamanders, and Nagas. These races are always evil, and wish to kill any "humanlike" races on sight. The idea isn't new, but I was just wondering what was all of your opinions on races in fantasy that are always disgusting and evil. Sure it might not be "realistic" but neither are the races listed.

So what do you guys think about all evil races?

FreddyNoNose
2017-05-21, 01:08 PM
IMO there can be some subjectivity to evil. Suppose good in a game means you are a vegan. Meat eating tigers would be evil and disgusting in that world. Just a little perspective.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-21, 01:23 PM
Not highly myself. If a bunch of bandits are attacking people, thats evil enough for me to kill them without guilt or remorse, regardless of what their race. they could be a bunch of angel bandits for all I care and I'd still kill them.

Honest Tiefling
2017-05-21, 01:23 PM
Not really my thing, to be honest. Why are they all evil? Is it a magical compulsion? Are they a race that is entirely lacking in empathy? The disgusting angle is also not my cup of tea. Not really into the whole 'goodness equals beauty, beauty equals goodness'. Also can get remarkably squicky really fast.

Maybe a DM could sell it to me, but I think it would be a hard sell.

The Eye
2017-05-21, 02:06 PM
It's okay if you have the equivalent of a five year old understanding of morality. Or don't want to waste days worth of camping discussing the validity of evil and morality.

VoxRationis
2017-05-21, 02:34 PM
They are valid in fantasy settings, just as more nuanced fantasy races are. That the innate psychology of another species could drive them inherently to what we consider evil is not that far-fetched. Moreover, certain stories or themes work far better with inherently evil opponents—"waning civilization slowly ground down by its numberless enemies" in particular works better with Gondor v. orcs than Romans v. Goths—and frankly, I tire of "the orcs are the real victims" plots and themes. They're as worn-out as the plots they rebel against and far more irritating, in my opinion.

Of course, if we're being well-thought-out about the matter, we have to consider that all morality, even that well-agreed-upon, is subjective. But that doesn't make the conflict any less important. Vampires who are forced by nature to act as predators against humanity force humanity to fight back against them. Anaerobes cannot live in the same atmosphere as aerobes and photosynthesizers—if they find themselves together, the first will be forced to eliminate the other or else die. Both are compelled by the inarguable drive for survival, which leads them into a conflict that they cannot really escape. Both can't really be blamed for their actions, since killing (or at least preying on) the other represent the only logical course for them to take. But that doesn't lower the stakes of the conflict, and from a physical, rather than philosophical, standpoint, the outcome is the same.

Darth Ultron
2017-05-21, 02:44 PM
I love them and think they work great in the game, assuming your players are the ''good guys''.

In a combat focused game like D&D it is nice to have foes the players can always attack.

A lot of games do the bit of ''making anyone anything'', in theory and then just toss it all side and say ''X id evil as I say so''. So, really it is the same thing, just a bit of a pointless step.

S@tanicoaldo
2017-05-21, 02:53 PM
As long as they are d**ks about it...

http://media.oglaf.com/comic/theabyss.jpg

Ravian
2017-05-21, 02:56 PM
I think there's room to explore why these non-human races would be hostile, beyond just a simple "they're evil"

Perhaps an ancient conflict between the gods that created these races has led to an intrinsic hostility. It's not necessary a rational thing, simply some part of all creatures cause them to perceive the others as foes.

Tolkien-like corruption is a similar idea, that the creatures aren't necessarily natural but instead have had their behavior altered by magic.

Similar to this are those creatures that are so unnatural that their morality isn't conventionally understood. Demons, with scant few exceptions, are going to be evil, simply because they are composed of the nature of the Abyss.

One of the things that really stands out is how that idea of evil manifests. For the purposes of an RPG, it might be enough that they're just evil when it comes to humans, as a society made up of people who are simply horrible individuals to one another starts to get far-fetched.

In that regard, you don't even need them to be precisely evil to have them be antagonists. If the nation of these creatures is at war with the humans, you can generally count on the two species to be hostile.

You could also do a mix of this to add variety.

For your creatures, perhaps Mermen and humans have been at war ever since humans started venturing onto the oceans. The Mermen kings consider the seas to be their domains alone, and as such have declared war upon humanity until they stop. Neither side can really strike at the other's core domain, and as such it's largely limited to fights on the coastline and raids on sailing ships.

Nagas are the result of an ancient corrupting venom that twisted the once benevolent serpentfolk into their current forms. Poison now flows through their veins and their minds, driving them to paranoia that humanity seeks to exterminate them. As such, most nagas are maddened enough to try and do this first.

Salamanders are beings formed from pure elemental fire, and as such are driven by their element's need to grow and consume. Setting living beings aflame is a natural part of their life cycle, and as such they fight humanity out of necessity for their own race's survival.

The god of humanity once scorned the creations of the god of orcs and goblins, believing them to be grotesque compared to his own creations. Thus began the feud between the two deities, a feud that they fought with their creations. To this day, humans cannot look upon orcs or goblins without feeling the same sense of disgust that their creator felt, nor can orcs and goblins resist the same feelings of rage of their god towards the children of the man god.

Obviously these are just examples, but I urge you to think of reasons beyond "they're just all evil jerks" for your monsters, as it can add a nice deal of depth to the setting while still allowing the players to do their dungeon-crawling without worrying quite as much about the morality of what they're doing.

There's still certainly possibilities of course (Could we appease the salamanders by trading them livestock to burn instead of us? Could there be a way to reverse the madness poisoning the naga? Could we end the war between humans and merfolk with a decisive strike at their underwater capital? Could we get the gods of humanity and orcs and goblins to reconcile?) but these are questions that add to adventure ideas, and are generally more of a long-term thing, leaving plenty of room in the interim for monster slaying.

AnBe
2017-05-21, 03:27 PM
In the current system I am playing, there is no alignment system and no morality-based system at all for that matter. Concepts like "good" and "evil" are just up to interpretation by the players. The system itself doesn't really describe anything as inherently evil or inherently good.

The only thing that could maybe be described as "true evil" could be demons and undead, because they get hurt more by exalted weapons, which could be described as "good" but these weapons could be used for evil too without losing their power.

And, yeah, in that system you can play as different kinds of "ugly" or "evil" races, such as Orcs, Goblins, Pigfolk, and Rakin. But they aren't considered the typical "monster race" unless perhaps they take the Barbarian Background.

I personally like this system because you don't have to worry about alignment debates where the system is concerned. All morality discussions would take place out of character between the players. Like, "Aw Man! What you did totally screwed me over! You have to change your alignment to evil now you jerk!" And everyone else is like, "Nope. Alignments? What're those?"

Orcus The Vile
2017-05-21, 04:32 PM
Not really what you asked but is a good way to illustrate why not using simplistic evil vs. good and actually giving an interesting and complex morality to your setting can make it more interesting:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Way_MdkVg

Jormengand
2017-05-21, 05:05 PM
Always evil races are ridiculous. The logic behind them is at best ridiculous and at worst nonexistent, and the implication that one can be born into evil is the kind of thing that humanity has spent the better part of the last millenium trying to rid itself of.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-21, 05:56 PM
People who start with "well my games have no alignment system..." are already barking at the wrong tree. You don't need alignment or any other sort of ethical mechanics to have monstrous humanoids, nor does alignment prescribe existence of monstrous humanoids. They are two separate collections of tropes.

Me, I have nothing against monstrous humanoids or any other sort of monstrous beings. My focus just tends to be elsewhere than trying to provide players with "good to kill" opposition.

Why? Observation one of roleplayers: everyone is happy to resort to in-game violence at the slightest of excuses. Players have no trouble slaughtering scores of game characters even when doing so is explicitly not a good idea in any sense of the word. Designing opponents for guilt-free murder is hence pointless, most players feel no guilt over demises of imaginary people to begin with.

Observation two is that humans already are capable of being monsters. If I want to introduce an utterly irredeemable, despicable character for the players to kill, I can just have them be human.

Mind you, the reverse is just as true. If I want to introduce cultural aliens and moral dilemmas, I can use humans for that as well. All variants of "Monsters are people too!" miss the primary point of using genuine non-human operators, which is to explore how those non-human qualities make them and their lives different. This doesn't mean it's wrong to have morally complex monsters, but if at any point think it's necessary for monsters to be "as morally complex as humans" (whatever that happens to mean to you) to justify their existence, then slap yourself.

Hence, when I make use of monstrous anything, humanoids or not, the emphasis is on their non-human qualities. Seafolk may be good or they may be evil, but they live in abyssal depths of the sea where no human has business going. Elves may be completely benevolent, but everything from their blood to their food is lethally poisonous to a human, and scavenging both human and elven remains is necessary for their culture to survive. Frostlings can befriend humans on an individual level, but generally have as little trouble killing and eating humans as humans have killing and eating seals. Demons,wraiths, vampires etc. are physical manifestations of someone's or something's wrath, vengefullness or desire to end all existence, they are humanoid in appearance only if at all.

So on and so forth. All non-humans are defined by having behaviours, needs and impulses which are non-existent in humans or which would be considered insane or dysfunctional for humans. It's pretty easy for these to place non-humans fundamentally at odds with humans. A country drowned by flood is a disaster for humans and a gift from above to seafolk. A world of snow and glaciers is vital for frostlings and an alien death world to majority of humans. Humans would starve to death trying to live like elves, and elves would cease to be elves trying to live like humans.

Anyone thinking these are "unrealistic" should first take a closer look at real living things. It's not hard to find examples of creatures which are hostile or inimical to other living beings by their nature. It's not a big leap to extend such differences to monstrous humanoids in the realm of fantasy. And don't even begin with "free will". It's dubious if such a concept applies to real humans, so trying to extend it to fictional non-humans is a non-starter. Any author of fiction can simply decide that free will doesn't apply to their fictional constructs.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-21, 06:14 PM
People who start with "well my games have no alignment system..." are already barking at the wrong tree. You don't need alignment or any other sort of ethical mechanics to have monstrous humanoids, nor does alignment prescribe existence of monstrous humanoids. They are two separate collections of tropes.

Me, I have nothing against monstrous humanoids or any other sort of monstrous beings. My focus just tends to be elsewhere than trying to provide players with "good to kill" opposition.

Why? Observation one of roleplayers: everyone is happy to resort to in-game violence at the slightest of excuses. Players have no trouble slaughtering scores of game characters even when doing so is explicitly not a good idea in any sense of the word. Designing opponents for guilt-free murder is hence pointless, most players feel no guilt over demises of imaginary people to begin with.

Observation two is that humans already are capable of being monsters. If I want to introduce an utterly irredeemable, despicable character for the players to kill, I can just have them be human.
.

I agree with these two observations but not the conclusion you draw. To me, if it doesn't matter the race and anyone can be evil, than anyone can also be good, and there is no point in trying to make your races alien for aliens sake, if you want to make a demon or orc good, just make them good, its your character who cares, and sticking to just humans is boring regardless of all the points made. and its better to give things free will to better explore antagonists who make decisions that make you hate them and feel justified in killing them rather than a skin-deep reason that has no bite to it.

Me I'm looking at your post from a player perspective, I want to play anything I want including good orcs and demons and whatnot, regardless of what you or the people your arguing against say about it.

Potato_Priest
2017-05-21, 06:16 PM
I hate pure evil races, and seek to either wield them as weapons for my own ends or exterminate them.

For example, if I can somehow redirect gnolls into my enemies, I'll do it, but if there's no way to use them I'll try to wipe them out completely.

When I see mostly evil races like goblins or orcs, the first thing I think is "how can I get my hands on those nice expendable soldiers."

If they're too big or powerful to be enslaved, they are fit only to be used as trophies of war. We once captured an efreet (evil fire genies), and took advantage of his fire immunity to encase every part of him but his head in a solid block of iron. We then, with some difficulty, placed him in the royal gardens and had a boy come to feed him and clean off the pidgeon poop every day.

That's from the perspective of one of my most recent characters, whose goal was the establishment of a fascist state.

But you probably meant from an OOC perspective.

As a narrative device, I think that mostly evil races are vastly more interesting than pure evil ones. An orc or a goblin could be coerced to serve the forces of good for the wrong reasons, and are much more interesting to play in a game with than gnolls or demons, which are 100% predictable in their lust for the destruction of all things, and completely unreasoning.

Aotrs Commander
2017-05-21, 06:20 PM
I have no problems with evil or good creatures (or inherently evil or good creatures) regardless of whether game has an alignment or not as actual rules; I find the concept that nothing can be morally worse or better than humans to be oth a bit laughable and horrendously humanocentric. So I have both in my campaign worlds.

Actually, statistically 50% of the time with my day quest parties, the PCs are the "always evil" races.




Also anything that claims to be "beyond such petty conceits of good and evil" or some paraphasing of same is, without exception, always evil and just being self-deluded about it.

veti
2017-05-21, 06:28 PM
I don't understand what "evil" adds to the race description.

Consider mermen. You can easily describe a mer-race that is implacably opposed to humans (for the sake of brevity, I'm using "humans" to mean "all PC races, whatever those are in your system") because said humans have a long history of intruding on their territory, carelessly destroying their habitat with their shipping, catching their young in fishing nets, etc. There's plenty of reason for them to hate us, and they may well have declared war on us. Then there's all the reason we and they need to attack on sight.

If you then further add "by the way, they're Always Evil" - how does that enhance the game?

To me, it seems to detract from it - because it takes away a whole range of potential options for dealing with them. Now there's no point trying to negotiate or parlay with them, and interacting with them becomes a matter of "what's the most efficient way to commit genocide?"

RedWarlock
2017-05-21, 06:48 PM
Those races would be all I want to play. If given the option, 9/10 times I'll choose a monstrous race over a standard demihuman sort.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-21, 08:47 PM
I agree with these two observations but not the conclusion you draw. To me, if it doesn't matter the race and anyone can be evil, than anyone can also be good, and there is no point in trying to make your races alien for aliens sake, if you want to make a demon or orc good, just make them good, its your character who cares, and sticking to just humans is boring regardless of all the points made. and its better to give things free will to better explore antagonists who make decisions that make you hate them and feel justified in killing them rather than a skin-deep reason that has no bite to it.

1) I disagree with the idea that "just humans is boring".
2) If "just humans" is boring, then aliens for their own sake becomes the point.
3) I disagree with your assessment of "lack of free will" as skin-deep. It's a serious philosophical theme with many non-obvious ramifications. Neither is being of an entire different species skin-deep. It's quite the opposite. What makes it into a skin-deep, cosmetic trait is the insistence that they should be able to function just like humans.
4) I flat out don't create antagonists to justify actions taken against them, due the observation that most player need no such justification or are happy to come up with their own. I only justify actions taken by them, and for that, lack of free will for whatever reason works just fine. I disagree on the notion that the semblance of free will automatically makes for better antagonists.


Me I'm looking at your post from a player perspective, I want to play anything I want including good orcs and demons and whatnot, regardless of what you or the people your arguing against say about it.

"I want to play whatever I want" is a decent principle for choosing a game to participate in, but it's a crap principle for constructing a game or telling what sorts of games other people should construct. It effectively precludes exploring any sort of game concept where something you could want has purposefully been taken off the table.

---


I don't understand what "evil" adds to the race description.

Maybe because you haven't sufficiently defined "evil" or what it entails.


To me, it seems to detract from it - because it takes away a whole range of potential options for dealing with them. Now there's no point trying to negotiate or parlay with them, and interacting with them becomes a matter of "what's the most efficient way to commit genocide?"

"Taking away" is the point because it enforces options which might otherwise be ignored. For any monster you cannot interact with as normal, the point is to get the players to come up with abnormal solutions.

Take your own example of genocide. If it is presumed that the monsters "are people too!", this consideration typically doesn't even cross anyone's mind. With inherently evil creatures, it might now have to be considered - as might be the eventuality that genocide is not possible and the world might always have to live with some evil in it. These are fairly deep thematic considerations which you simply glossed over.

kraftcheese
2017-05-21, 08:57 PM
"Is genocide actually really good?" isn't really something most people enjoy discussing and roleplaying, just an fyi

Mechalich
2017-05-21, 09:37 PM
Having always evil species is okay, but it implies certain things about the moral structure of your setting and you need to be prepared for that. For example, orcs in LotR are always evil because they were deliberately created by greater evil entities who wanted them to be that way, they aren't Children of Iluvatar and are inherently damned. Always evil tends to work out that way - it implies the existence of some sort of higher level being(s) with the power to define morality within the structure of the setting. That's quite common and perfectly fine, but some people dislike setting with objective morality or divine beings as moral arbiters, and there are all the standard ethical dilemmas regarding gods that create evil beings and what that means.

It's worth noting that 'always evil' is very different from 'always hostile.' You can easily have species with physiological or psychological imperatives that prevent peace from ever being a thing and who will never trade and almost always attack and who cannot be negotiated with since they simply lack the conceptual space to conceive of such a thing. The classic (though often mismanaged) example is the Borg.

AceOfFools
2017-05-21, 09:42 PM
So in the (re)creation of my own original TRPG, Sidequest, I recently started on the monster list. In the monster list, I added 5 humanoid races on it, Orcs, Goblins, Mermen, Salamanders, and Nagas. These races are always evil, and wish to kill any "humanlike" races on sight. The idea isn't new, but I was just wondering what was all of your opinions on races in fantasy that are always disgusting and evil. Sure it might not be "realistic" but neither are the races listed.

So what do you guys think about all evil races?

The thing about including always evil races is that invites comparison to troubling real-world beliefs.

Regardless of your intentions or actual beliefs, this can have problems. Just as an example, if your book says "orks are always murderous and evil," and happens to give some characteristic to orks in the art design that is strongly tied to some real-world group, your work could be branded as racist against that group. You can get this blowback even if you didn't know of the association, or had never heard of the group in question. This actually happened to me once, where the invented word I created for a group of humans in a DnD setting was actually a racial slur I hadn't heard before.

Subtext matters, especially when releasing things to mass market, and you should at least be informed when making decisions that could potentially significantly negatively impact your product.

There's also an element of realism. There's not a lot of history in which two real-world races existed and had prolonged contact with others that they held a genocidal hatred of. Typically, the scope of the hatred was limited, the scope of the contact was limited, or one side grew sufficiently powerful enough to wipe the other out. Genocidal hatred is not an equilibrium sociological state.

Continuing with realism, there's also a long historical tendency for war to bring elements (often criminal) to work with the enemies of one's people for personal profit, e.g. human smugglers who are willing to trade in merfolk pottery and merfolk potters who really like goods that human have, say shiney gold. This sort of fringe-legal smuggling makes for great plot hooks, and making genocidal hatred universal cuts these off completely. You lose both realism and interesting plots by including it.

Finally, it's not really necessary. You don't need to imply either side is actually completely evil to make the default reaction of people meeting them one of game-appropriate violence. "The humans, elves, etc. have been at war with the merfolk for generations. If either encounters the other in their lands, they will assume they are part of an invading force and respond with violence. This is especially true if the visitor is armed." Or even, "At least that's what the humans say. Of course, if a heavily armed group of merfolk ventured into human lands, they would likely be treated no better by the peasantry."

In short, I think a few lines of text to imply that humanoid races may not always be "always murderously evil" but are at war in a way that makes violence the norm would serve your game better.

Thrudd
2017-05-21, 09:46 PM
"Realistic" is a meaningless word when talking about creating a fantasy setting. By definition, a lot of it won't be realistic.
The most important thing for creating a setting is that it is internally consistent. The creatures you choose to include can be anything, the cosmology and metaphysics can be anything. Just make sure it all makes sense - your setting doesn't contradict itself, everything in it obeys the same set of rules.

If you have "good" and "evil" things, you need to define what that means in your world and in your game. They are just labels of relative value. What makes a creature good or evil? Do they have a choice? Is it what they do or have done, what their motivations are, or is it some spiritual attribute that comes from their connection to deities or cosmic planes? Is "evil" just anything that kills humans? You can have a world where all humans are "good", and all other intelligent species are "evil" - just explain why that is and what the words mean in your world.

It is more important to decide why these creatures do what they do. If they are intelligent creatures that physically exist in the same world humans do, what are they like and what do they want? Why do they wish to kill all human-like races on sight? Are there any other creatures that they kill on sight- do they kill anything not like them, or just humans? What do they hope to accomplish after they kill humans? Do they kill them to eat them? Are they trying to conquer human civilization, are they fighting a war, or trying to get humans out of their territory, or following the commandment of their gods or religions? Is there any situation where they could be convinced not to attack or kill a human? Are they not like normal biological creatures at all, and actually magically created servants of different gods with no free will or purpose other than to attack and kill things? What do they do when they aren't trying to kill humans?

Those are the important things to define. It's fine and great to have creatures that are clear antagonists or threats for the players. Have lots of dangerous monsters that kill humans. Just make sure it all makes sense. Simply saying "good" and "evil" is why they are enemies is not enough.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-21, 09:52 PM
@kraftcheese: My experience doesn't support your assertion. Again, the observation is that most people feel no guilt whatsoever over murdering imaginary creations, regardless of whether they think it's good or bad. Genociding monsters is as trivial as gunning down cops in GTA.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-21, 10:03 PM
@kraftcheese: My experience doesn't support your assertion. Again, the observation is that most people feel no guilt whatsoever over murdering imaginary creations, regardless of whether they think it's good or bad. Genociding monsters is as trivial as gunning down cops in GTA.

I agree with kraftcheese in the sense that if I'm an orc, I'm not going to feel guilt about killing a bunch of evil orcs, thus agreeing with you, but I'm not going condone genocide of orcs because that just isn't right and not something I'd actually want to play out. because genocide is not just killing the ones in front of you that are being jerks, its planned extermination of the entire species down to the last child just because, which are two different things.

veti
2017-05-21, 10:04 PM
@kraftcheese: My experience doesn't support your assertion. Again, the observation is that most people feel no guilt whatsoever over murdering imaginary creations, regardless of whether they think it's good or bad. Genociding monsters is as trivial as gunning down cops in GTA.

Doesn't that rather undercut your previous assertion? Specifically:


Take your own example of genocide. If it is presumed that the monsters "are people too!", this consideration typically doesn't even cross anyone's mind.

Fable Wright
2017-05-21, 10:23 PM
So what do you guys think about all evil races?

Quite dull, really. Races with antagonistic relationships towards humans, even with irreconcilable ideals, can be quite interesting, but evil for evil's sake is far less interesting than a villain who was thought out and has a relatable reason for what they do.

In part because then I can play them, players can have a lasting impact in the world in pioneering relations towards these races, and the balance of 'enemies of the state' and 'options for plot hooks' seems better with inherently antagonistic, but not evil, races.

That said, if you're going with Eberron's style of "you can be evil, and that's okay" where evil kings can be some of the greatest proponents of peace in the world for their selfish reasons, where you really want your repo man to be evil (because then you can actually get your investment back), and where you still make treaties with these evil savages because they own and fiercely defend this land that you're pretty sure could become a very profitable mine... sure, why not? They're all evil, neutral at best. They're not kill-murder-destroy and you can interact with them outside of combat. That's all I really wanted.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-22, 12:31 AM
The thing about including always evil races is that invites comparison to troubling real-world beliefs.

Yeah, in the same way cop-killing in GTA invites comparison to real cop-killings, and evil cultists in D&D invite comparison to Devil worship.

The issue with such comparisons is that they're skin-deep. The evidence for high-fantasy tropes causing or reinforcing racism/fascism/imperialism is as thin as the evidence for cop-killings increasing by 1500% after GTA was released, or D&D causing a resurgence of paganastic human sacrifice.

People who make these comparisons need to get over themselves or they need to get me a study showing something like "orc-murder makes roleplayers 58% more prone to committing hate crimes".

Before they do, they belong to the exact same caste as video game alarmists and Satanic panickers.

---


Doesn't that rather undercut your previous assertion? Specifically:

Nope. Consider the comparison to cops in GTA. If you're trying to get ahead in the game, it's reasonable to avoid doing things which piss off the cops, lest the cops get angry and gang up on you. So people trying to get ahead in the game usually leave the cops alone. This doesn't stop these same people from going on a cop-murdering spree for cheap giggles every once in a while.

It's the same for genociding monsters. If "monsters are people", people may leave them unmurdered because some other approach gets them ahead in the game faster. (Though they might decide to kill them anyway for XP or cheap giggles.) Genocide is not considered because it's not pragmatic; not because people at the table is morally queasy about considering genocide.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-22, 12:40 AM
Yeah, in the same way cop-killing in GTA invites comparison to real cop-killings, and evil cultists in D&D invite comparison to Devil worship.

The issue with such comparisons is that they're skin-deep. The evidence for high-fantasy tropes causing or reinforcing racism/fascism/imperialism is as thin as the evidence for cop-killings increasing by 1500% after GTA was released, or D&D causing a resurgence of paganastic human sacrifice.

People who make these comparisons need to get over themselves or they need to get me a study showing something like "orc-murder makes roleplayers 58% more prone to committing hate crimes".

Before they do, they belong to the exact same caste as video game alarmists and Satanic panickers.

.

I don't think its unreasonable to not like playing a racist. I don't protest against this because I'm afraid of other players being racists jerks, or even me being a racist jerk, but because I don't want my character to be a racist jerk whose racist jerkery is back up by the physics of the setting. A DnD like setting that enforces racist jerkery, that forces my character to be a racist jerk so as to be Good? let me put it as simply as possible:

SCREW. THAT.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-22, 01:32 AM
I was going to say i dislike always evil races, but then I thought about it for two seconds, and you know what? The writing in a game serves the gameplay. If you want your game to have a hack&slash element, characters running into things that are definitely combat encounters where they can just combat away without having to run for cover and raise a white flag first to see if those goblins are really not interested in negotiating instead, go right ahead.

Evil races exist to have morally uncomplicated fights. You want those fights? Evil races are a good way to do that.

Kitten Champion
2017-05-22, 01:57 AM
I was going to say i dislike always evil races, but then I thought about it for two seconds, and you know what? The writing in a game serves the gameplay. If you want your game to have a hack&slash element, characters running into things that are definitely combat encounters where they can just combat away without having to run for cover and raise a white flag first to see if those goblins are really not interested in negotiating instead, go right ahead.

Evil races exist to have morally uncomplicated fights. You want those fights? Evil races are a good way to do that.

I had the same thought. My group would hate that, they're RP-heavy and like death to have weight and consequences and will actively look for non-lethal solutions to problems. However, if you want to mow down mobs like in Diablo having a variety of creatures to challenge you is pretty cool, so long as they aren't just pointless re-skins.

If you're trying to make a world that caters to players like me, it'd be pretty annoying,

Lord Raziere
2017-05-22, 02:24 AM
I had the same thought. My group would hate that, they're RP-heavy and like death to have weight and consequences and will actively look for non-lethal solutions to problems. However, if you want to mow down mobs like in Diablo having a variety of creatures to challenge you is pretty cool, so long as they aren't just pointless re-skins.

If you're trying to make a world that caters to players like me, it'd be pretty annoying,

Sorry but I disagree with both of you. I both like fighting a lot as well as roleplaying. I can like both roleplaying and the challenge of facing down creatures and fighting, and I can dislike the races being always chaotic evil while still killing many mooks without guilt because they did something bad. These are not mutually exclusive things.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-22, 02:55 AM
Raziere, you're not even talking about the same thing as I. You're talking about what sorts of characters you want to play. I'm talking of what kind of setting elements are acceptable for play.

You could play a non-racist character in vanilla AD&D, with its myriad "always evil" creatures, and the worst "penalty" handed out by the system is possibility of being tricked or betrayed by an "always evil" creature.

You also couldn't play good versions of "always evil" monsters, but for most part those weren't made to be playable to begin with. Maybe you wouldn't want to play a game where you can't make, say, a Chaotic Good Drow Ranger, but that doesn't speak about quality of the game or its setting anymore than opting out of a scifi game because you wanted fantasy instead speaks of the quality of scifi games.

Let's flip this around. Imagine a game where there are no "always evil" races. The players are allowed to bring in any character. And one guy brings in a Neo-Nazi who thinks the Holocaust never happened and that he's justified in beating up foreigners at the bar.

Everything we know of gaming tells us that a player can play such a character without being a genuine Neo-Nazi. Everything we know of gaming tells us that a player can play such a character without becoming a Neo-Nazi, or making anyone else a Neo-Nazi. In fact, if the guy bringing this character in is a GM, most people won't even bat an eyelid, because it's bloody common for GMs to play despicable people, and the other players are just happy to ignore or lynch the Neo-Nazi with their characters. Even if they think lynching people is not the right solution in real life.

That should be standard here. Roleplayers by and large understand and acknowledge that fictional violence and fictional devil worship in games rarely translates to real violence or real devil worship. The same applies to racism, especially when targeted at fictional monstrous beings. It's not special. It's not a flaw in a game anymore than violence or devil worship are.

oxybe
2017-05-22, 03:07 AM
My orcs tend to be "always evil" by their nature.

Specifically that they are a nomadic family-based race of somewhat dim and violent xenophobic hunters that value strength and breed their quick to grow children that require a large amount of food in a short period of time before they're mature frequently, which largely forces them to do raids for foodstuffs and materials. couple this with a need to breed outside their species due to a large male to female ratio (also note: no half-orcs. orcs breed true unless it's with a "stronger" race like ogres or dragons, where in you get half-ogres and half-dragons respectively) which tends to orcs kidnapping other species's women as breeding stock (though rare, orc women are larger and more violent then their males and generally only breed with those they deem the top of the pile).

They're not evil in the HURDURHURDER EBIL fashion, but to most beings, orcs are a blight to be unceremoniously put to the sword. they're like cockroaches who wield stolen battleaxes.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-22, 03:32 AM
Let's flip this around. Imagine a game where there are no "always evil" races. The players are allowed to bring in any character. And one guy brings in a Neo-Nazi who thinks the Holocaust never happened and that he's justified in beating up foreigners at the bar.

Everything we know of gaming tells us that a player can play such a character without being a genuine Neo-Nazi. Everything we know of gaming tells us that a player can play such a character without becoming a Neo-Nazi, or making anyone else a Neo-Nazi. In fact, if the guy bringing this character in is a GM, most people won't even bat an eyelid, because it's bloody common for GMs to play despicable people, and the other players are just happy to ignore or lynch the Neo-Nazi with their characters. Even if they think lynching people is not the right solution in real life.

That should be standard here. Roleplayers by and large understand and acknowledge that fictional violence and fictional devil worship in games rarely translates to real violence or real devil worship. The same applies to racism, especially when targeted at fictional monstrous beings. It's not special. It's not a flaw in a game anymore than violence or devil worship are.

But neither is it wrong for a person to not be comfortable with any of what your saying regardless, and not want to play with that regardless. Nor is it unreasonable to not have a preference for anything your talking about! and my preferences do not align with any of that. Its a game first and foremost and whats comfortable not lack of translation is what matters, and not I'm not comfortable with what your talking about no matter what points you make.

All the knowledge about gaming in the world doesn't matter against this fact: that is not my preference, and I'm not comfortable with it. I can't have fun if I'm not comfortable.

People are right to be uncomfortable with something, people are right to feel that their characters shouldn't be participating racism or genocide, this has nothing to do with real life worries of someone becoming this or that, it has everything to do with what people are comfortable roleplaying out, and your example works ONLY if all the players there are comfortable with that, and you generalize too much and assume everyone is comfortable with your way, and no matter how expansive and knowledgeable you think you are, there is always experiences outside your own. If people are not comfortable with exploring something, they'e not comfortable with it, end of story. and there are many people in this thread who clearly aren't and have found good alternatives to it.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-22, 07:35 AM
People are not "right to be uncomfortable". Sure, you might not be able to stop feeling uncomfortable, at which point you're free to leave a game, as usual. But "being uncomfortable" is a ridiculously vague and low barrier. Everyone should take a critical look at why they feel uncomfortable every once in a while.

You see, if the story really ended at people simply not participating when their preferences don't match, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But it doesn't. Go read the post I initially responded to again. Go refresh your memory on the Satanic Panic. Or heck, take a look at the thread about Sabaton over at Media Discussions.

Because people have a bad habit to jump into assumptions when they're feeling "uncomfortable" or demand the "uncomfortable" thing be excised from the hobby or generally be nasty to people who engage in "uncomfortable" things. If one end of the spectrum is a table where a person can play a Neo-Nazi without anyone assuming the worst, the opposite end is where people are afraid to listen to Rise of Evil publicly because someone who doesn't listen to the lyrics might assume they're a Neo-Nazi and get angry at them.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-22, 07:43 AM
That sounds like your just not listening to the players at that point. People have preferences. Those preferences are not yours. Get used to it. If those preferences aren't compatible, there is nothing that can be done, so the best thing to do is accept it. One is just being a jerk otherwise.

Newtonsolo313
2017-05-22, 08:23 AM
I could see a world where races are generally evil. Being evil doesn't always mean enemy and automatically hostile. On the other hand good races aren't always allies.
For instance;
"Exterminate the orcs? My profit margin went up 25% after I started hiring orc workers"
"Go to war with the drow? I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the drow silk trade."
but on the other hand
"Support the elves? the only thing they export is art and smugness"
So you don't need to have it be elves dwarves humans and such vs drow orcs and goblins. The alliances could be switched around because for instance maybe it's more profitable to work with the drow then the elves or it might be a good idea to ally with the orcish hordes that could crush your kingdom.

As for the fantastic racism just find something that works for the players if they don't like it don't use it

8BitNinja
2017-05-22, 08:44 AM
One thing that I see as a trend in the comments (unless I am reading them wrong) is that people seem to see humans as the "good race". In this setting, humans don't have to be evil, and have the potential to be good, but are very easily corrupted by evil. Also, only two of the four elf subraces are good aligned (sea elves and wood elves).

So it's not like it's that every race that is a functioning member of the different societies and are not all employed as bandits or members of an army whose sole purpose is to destroy everything are automatically good. Drow are almost entirely chaotic evil (yes I am using parts of D&D. I never claimed to be original) Yet they make up a fourth of the elvish kingdom, and are required to send a representative to the yearly elfmoot where they have equal audience with the king as does the other representatives.

Also, humans are complete jerks a large amount of the time.

I guess the only "all" good race I'm the system would be the dwarves, but even then, only 2 of the 3 dwarf subraces are going to be almost always lawful good (mountain and hill dwarves). The deep dwarves are most likely going to be lawful neutral.

Pilo
2017-05-22, 09:03 AM
Please, don't make subraces, make subpeople. Don't make evil race, make race with a cultural difference.

You can have the orcish people considering themself the strongest people and having a culture of might makes right.
You can have the human people considering the more money you have, the more respectable you are.
You can have an elven people that are vegan hippie who want to live peacefully and alone in their forest.
You can have an other elven people that have been saved by a godess and are now religious fanatics that lives in caves.

So orcs are bad for the humans because they steal from them. However, for the orcs, humans are just slaves that do not now they are.
And so on.

And anyway, do as you please, this is just an advice. However it is your project and your world.

The Eye
2017-05-22, 09:31 AM
One thing that I see as a trend in the comments (unless I am reading them wrong) is that people seem to see humans as the "good race". In this setting, humans don't have to be evil, and have the potential to be good, but are very easily corrupted by evil. Also, only two of the four elf subraces are good aligned (sea elves and wood elves).

So it's not like it's that every race that is a functioning member of the different societies and are not all employed as bandits or members of an army whose sole purpose is to destroy everything are automatically good. Drow are almost entirely chaotic evil (yes I am using parts of D&D. I never claimed to be original) Yet they make up a fourth of the elvish kingdom, and are required to send a representative to the yearly elfmoot where they have equal audience with the king as does the other representatives.

Also, humans are complete jerks a large amount of the time.

I guess the only "all" good race I'm the system would be the dwarves, but even then, only 2 of the 3 dwarf subraces are going to be almost always lawful good (mountain and hill dwarves). The deep dwarves are most likely going to be lawful neutral.

The problem is not that "that people seem to see humans as the "good race"" the problem is that the idea of pure evil and/or an entire race dedicated to it is rather silly, no one is evil for the sake of being evil that's a very simplistic notion that we are finally getting over it.

Lord of the rings did it, but it was an allegory, the orcs were there not to be killed without having to worry about silly things such as "Moral" they were a symbol of the tragedy of corruption, they used to be elves, and now they are a pitiful and violent race.

The idea of pure evil is rather childish and most of the readers and players are past such silly notions.

That's why series such song of ice and fire is getting more and more popular, they represent how much more mature we have got and how that's influencing our views in the fantasy universes we like. It's a lot more verisimilar when the conflict is created because people want different things(Like, I dunno... Real life?), rather than people wanting to be evil for the sake of being evil.

VoxRationis
2017-05-22, 10:11 AM
I think there's a difference between "evil for the sake of evil" and "evil for other legitimate purposes." Are mind flayers any less monstrous because their biology inclines them to eat people's brains, and their long-term ambitions lead them to treat people as pawns in a grand design? Both "I need to eat" and "I want to secure geopolitical dominance of my in-group" are fairly common and relatable goals, and it's not really that childish for something in a fantasy setting to put those goals above the desires and feelings of other beings, particularly those of a different species. I don't think anyone here is arguing in favor of Charmed-style Team Evil.

LibraryOgre
2017-05-22, 10:27 AM
I tend to view racial alignment for mortal races as a spectrum.

For most individuals, be they human, orc, elf, or anything else without a magical/supernatural component to their alignment, alignment is fairly fixed. If you are LG at maturity, chances are you're going to be LG at venerable. How you're LG might change a bit, but without significant intervening trauma, your alignment is unlikely to change very much.

However, when viewed on a macro scale, the alignments of these races tend to cluster... Elves are usually1 CG, orcs are usually CE, Humans are usually Neutral. Most of those who are NOT those alignments are within 1 step of that alignment... elves who aren't CG are probably NG or CN, orcs who aren't CE are usually CN or NE, and humans who aren't N are usually LN, CN, NG, or NE. The more steps you get from the racial alignment, the fewer there are of that alignment... it's a lot more likely that you'll encounter a LG or CE elf than it is you will encounter a LN or NE one, and those are more likely than LE. Humans look diverse in alignment because, as Neutral creatures, everyone is within two steps of the prevailing alignment.

Now, degrees of difference from the prevailing alignment are the degree of oddity in society. In a CG society, those who are CN or NG can still function pretty well... the NG are a bit more stuff and staid, the CN are a bit more ruthless, but they're not so far out of whack that they can't function. Those who are two steps away are outliers... not ostracized, necessarily, but certainly different enough to have some problems interacting with society. Picture a CG Orc, and the difficulties he would experience, or a LE orc, trying to build something in a society based on tearing things down. At four steps, you're looking dangerously divorced from the reality of your society... that LN orc isn't vicious enough to carve out a place, and the NG one isn't carefree enough to deal with the lack of moral or ethical standards the orcs evince. By the time you get to 5 steps... LG in a CE society... your way of life is simply antiethical to what the society expects.

So, if you're looking at species that have a strong, but natural, alignment tendency, it doesn't mean that EVERY member of the society is going to be that way... but most will be close to that, and most of the rest will be close to those.

1 standard definition of usually, here, not the 3.x alignment frequency definition

Thrudd
2017-05-22, 10:46 AM
One thing that I see as a trend in the comments (unless I am reading them wrong) is that people seem to see humans as the "good race". In this setting, humans don't have to be evil, and have the potential to be good, but are very easily corrupted by evil. Also, only two of the four elf subraces are good aligned (sea elves and wood elves).

So it's not like it's that every race that is a functioning member of the different societies and are not all employed as bandits or members of an army whose sole purpose is to destroy everything are automatically good. Drow are almost entirely chaotic evil (yes I am using parts of D&D. I never claimed to be original) Yet they make up a fourth of the elvish kingdom, and are required to send a representative to the yearly elfmoot where they have equal audience with the king as does the other representatives.

Also, humans are complete jerks a large amount of the time.

I guess the only "all" good race I'm the system would be the dwarves, but even then, only 2 of the 3 dwarf subraces are going to be almost always lawful good (mountain and hill dwarves). The deep dwarves are most likely going to be lawful neutral.

I think you're reading past what everyone is saying. We aren't judging anything else about your setting, you didn't tell us anything. You just asked about "always evil" creatures, and described them as "killing human-like people on sight". So that leads us to the assumption that players will be playing "human-like" characters and the monsters will be their enemies.

I'm saying that "always evil" doesn't really mean anything. What does "always evil" mean in the game, and why are those creatures "always evil"? That's what's important. If you've figured those things out, and the answers are something that makes sense for the world you've created, then the setting will be good. If you presented the setting as "evil and good always fight each other. some races of monsters are all evil", and never explained anything further, that would be a disappointing setting for a lot of people. Not because of the existence of "always evil", but because you never explain it, it isn't believable. Note that this isn't the same as "realistic". It needs to be a world that people can imagine as real - you want verisimilitude, the appearance of truth, in the context of your world.

People will argue about what "good" and "evil" really mean, in this context and many others, and will debate whether something should be labeled one or the other. They can't argue about things that actually happen. If you say "these monsters treat humans like animals and hunt them and eat them whenever they see them. Humans and demi-humans are their favorite food. They can't speak human-like languages, and humans can't speak their language, so there is never meaningful communication between them." -then people would understand why these monsters are always enemies for humans, even if they don't agree that they should be called "evil" (because that's a loaded term).

If you say "These monsters are magical creations of a demon-god that wants to eradicate all the human-like races and replace them with slaves that only serve him - they are killing machines that exist for no reason but to hunt down and slaughter people" - then we'd understand that these are monsters that you can't reason with and we need to fight them. Just saying they are "always evil" doesn't tell us that.

If you want creatures like that in your world, that's your prerogative - you should create whatever makes you happy. Other people won't be happy with it unless you can explain your world in a way that makes sense to them. Maybe you've already done that, so that's fine. But that's the concern a lot of us have when people start throwing around phrases like "always evil races". It implies you might be using "good" and "evil" as a shortcut to actually building a world.

GungHo
2017-05-22, 10:53 AM
I only like "all evil" or "all good" if there's some sort of divine/arcane intervention involved. So, if all your orcs must be evil, there needs to be a reason why they're all evil and it needs to be "one day a wizard made them this way because that wizard was a jerk". I'm okay with causal determinism (with magic being able to address quantum indeterminacy, even at the micro scale) but pre-determinism and fatalism bugs the **** out of me, even in a game that assumes the divine is real and present.

hamishspence
2017-05-22, 03:34 PM
I tend to view racial alignment for mortal races as a spectrum.

For most individuals, be they human, orc, elf, or anything else without a magical/supernatural component to their alignment, alignment is fairly fixed. If you are LG at maturity, chances are you're going to be LG at venerable. How you're LG might change a bit, but without significant intervening trauma, your alignment is unlikely to change very much.

However, when viewed on a macro scale, the alignments of these races tend to cluster... Elves are usually1 CG, orcs are usually CE, Humans are usually Neutral. Most of those who are NOT those alignments are within 1 step of that alignment... elves who aren't CG are probably NG or CN, orcs who aren't CE are usually CN or NE, and humans who aren't N are usually LN, CN, NG, or NE.

I would suggest that humans would be at the low end of "Often Neutral" rather than "Usually Neutral" - after all, according to the PHB "they tend toward no alignment, not even Neutral". Neutral is their typical alignment - but it's not vastly more common than the others.


Halflings are a better example of Usually Neutral - with 50% of Halfling Community Power Centers being True Neutral (Races of the Wild).

LibraryOgre
2017-05-22, 05:29 PM
I would suggest that humans would be at the low end of "Often Neutral" rather than "Usually Neutral" - after all, according to the PHB "they tend toward no alignment, not even Neutral". Neutral is their typical alignment - but it's not vastly more common than the others.


Halflings are a better example of Usually Neutral - with 50% of Halfling Community Power Centers being True Neutral (Races of the Wild).



However, when viewed on a macro scale, the alignments of these races tend to cluster... Elves are usually1 CG, orcs are usually CE, Humans are usually Neutral. Most of those who are NOT those alignments are within 1 step of that alignment... elves who aren't CG are probably NG or CN, orcs who aren't CE are usually CN or NE, and humans who aren't N are usually LN, CN, NG, or NE.

...

1 standard definition of usually, here, not the 3.x alignment frequency definition

Hamish, I specifically noted... footnoted, even... that I was not using the 3.x definition of alignment frequency, as this is a fairly edition-neutral discussion of things. For the purposes of this discussion, humans as neutral is a valid position... human societies run the gamut, whereas elves and orcs are far less centrist in the discussion of alignment.

cobaltstarfire
2017-05-22, 05:37 PM
I find it unfortunate when monstrous races are always evil.

Or at least I'd like for there to be a good reason for it. (I don't really think demi-humans being KOS to a race should make them evil...).

It probably feels more unfortunate to me more because as a player I just enjoy the monstrous critters more in terms of working out how they behave and express themselves. I don't really enjoy playing evil though, so in a system where the more interesting looking groups are always evil I'm put off. Because I can't contrive a backstory to make them at least neutral.

Having read a lot of Red Wall growing up, it also just gets kind of boring when certain races are always greedy, murderous ne'erdowellers. I sometimes wonder what kind of book Outcast of Redwall could have been had the child of Swart Six Claws had been something other than yet another evil ferret.

veti
2017-05-22, 05:56 PM
I could see a world where races are generally evil. Being evil doesn't always mean enemy and automatically hostile. On the other hand good races aren't always allies.
For instance;
"Exterminate the orcs? My profit margin went up 25% after I started hiring orc workers"
"Go to war with the drow? I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the drow silk trade."

Yes, but these examples (probably) only work if the race isn't "always evil". If your profit margin went up after you started hiring evil workers, then either you're doing something pretty evil yourself[1] or... actually, no, I can't see any other way to make that work. Or for the drow to have a silk trade to other races, that only works if at least some of those other races don't attack them on sight[2].

[1] Like telesales.
[2] Because it's very hard to trade when you're busy picking arrows out of your liver.

Grim Portent
2017-05-22, 06:32 PM
I dislike it when a species is inherently evil, but more because I feel it undermines the evil of everyone else who's evil more than anything.

I feel that if someone stands up, takes up the blade and the spellbook, goes out and becomes a Dark Lord of the highest order, they shouldn't be able to claim any sort of moral redemptive potential because they're a human or elf while their underlings can't because they're orcs or dragons. It makes the Dark Lord seem less evil than his own minions in a sense.

Unless the always evil things are literally magical constructs fashioned of evil, like animated shadows or man-eating undead, it just seems weak to me compared to taking a nominally neutral group and persuading or paying them to be evil.


Inherently antagonistic races though I think are fine, just because someone can talk and love and choose to be moral doesn't mean they can't be things that would default to being opposed to the 'good guys'. A race who is harmed by humans cutting down trees or farming fields, like Dryads and other woodland folk, would violently oppose humans without being malevolent in purpose, they just can't coexist properly since humans need to damage the habitat of the Dryads as part of basic survival and expansion.

Vitruviansquid
2017-05-22, 07:04 PM
As you can see, an always evil race has the capacity to break people's brains. So I wouldn't go with always evil.

I'm with the group that prefers to have races (nations, really) that are culturally, biologically, or just traditionally opposed to the player races (nations, really). I'd rather tell players "humans and orcs tend to kill each other because they've been fighting since anyone can remember and you can remember plenty of atrocities committed against your people by orckind" rather than "humans and orcs tend to kill each other because orcs are always evil."

I also dislike having one side of player races (nations, really) that are just always fighting against one side of enemy races (nations, really). I prefer to have my settings use cluster**** race relations.

For example, I am currently writing an RPG in a setting where the evil overlord has already been overthrown by an alliance of races (nations, really), only to have that alliance fall into bickering among themselves.

8BitNinja
2017-05-22, 07:16 PM
I think you're reading past what everyone is saying. We aren't judging anything else about your setting, you didn't tell us anything. You just asked about "always evil" creatures, and described them as "killing human-like people on sight". So that leads us to the assumption that players will be playing "human-like" characters and the monsters will be their enemies.

I'm saying that "always evil" doesn't really mean anything. What does "always evil" mean in the game, and why are those creatures "always evil"? That's what's important. If you've figured those things out, and the answers are something that makes sense for the world you've created, then the setting will be good. If you presented the setting as "evil and good always fight each other. some races of monsters are all evil", and never explained anything further, that would be a disappointing setting for a lot of people. Not because of the existence of "always evil", but because you never explain it, it isn't believable. Note that this isn't the same as "realistic". It needs to be a world that people can imagine as real - you want verisimilitude, the appearance of truth, in the context of your world.

People will argue about what "good" and "evil" really mean, in this context and many others, and will debate whether something should be labeled one or the other. They can't argue about things that actually happen. If you say "these monsters treat humans like animals and hunt them and eat them whenever they see them. Humans and demi-humans are their favorite food. They can't speak human-like languages, and humans can't speak their language, so there is never meaningful communication between them." -then people would understand why these monsters are always enemies for humans, even if they don't agree that they should be called "evil" (because that's a loaded term).

If you say "These monsters are magical creations of a demon-god that wants to eradicate all the human-like races and replace them with slaves that only serve him - they are killing machines that exist for no reason but to hunt down and slaughter people" - then we'd understand that these are monsters that you can't reason with and we need to fight them. Just saying they are "always evil" doesn't tell us that.

If you want creatures like that in your world, that's your prerogative - you should create whatever makes you happy. Other people won't be happy with it unless you can explain your world in a way that makes sense to them. Maybe you've already done that, so that's fine. But that's the concern a lot of us have when people start throwing around phrases like "always evil races". It implies you might be using "good" and "evil" as a shortcut to actually building a world.

I know, I was just trying to give some clarification to something I thought I was miscommunication.

So In order to give further clarification, I have this block of text explaining the reason for evil creatures.

Orcs were once elves,at least the "alphas" or the original ones, but then were exposed to a corrupting force that the in world religions argue over what exactly it was, although now they reproduce like humans and demihumans. What is known is that they desire nothing more than to conquer territory. It's not for the resources, tactical advantages, or even for some form of genocide, but for the desire to subjugate peoples and lands.

Goblins are a race that have multiple theories to why they exist. The dwarvish religion states that they are demons, the human religion states that they were created as an ancient form of punishment for the dwarves that were supposed to be eradicated, but the gods forgot to, and yet the ancients believe that the creator god's rival created them just because he was a jerk and wanted to torment his creation. Regardless, they want to take the stuff that the dwarves have and want to dominate the subterranean.

Mermen are creatures that are driven to kill to eat. However, their although they can eat non demihumans and humans, they enjoy the more visual expressions of fear and agony upon the corpses. Sirens have been specifically trained from childhood to kill humans, so they may be more driven by indoctrination.

Salamanders would possibly be considered more chaotic neutral depending on how you translate my next few sentences. Salamanders are amphibious humanoids who are fireproof and produce venom from their skin (so they aren't the norse faeries, they are actually anthropomorphic salamanders). They lack any form of sanity or direction, and if not driven into line by pipers, they could easily die by infighting. Again multiple theories exist for insanity.

Nagas were summoned by wizards back during the time where wizards roamed the earth from another plane. Not much is known about them.

So this is all I have on these creatures for now.

Donnadogsoth
2017-05-22, 07:32 PM
So in the (re)creation of my own original TRPG, Sidequest, I recently started on the monster list. In the monster list, I added 5 humanoid races on it, Orcs, Goblins, Mermen, Salamanders, and Nagas. These races are always evil, and wish to kill any "humanlike" races on sight. The idea isn't new, but I was just wondering what was all of your opinions on races in fantasy that are always disgusting and evil. Sure it might not be "realistic" but neither are the races listed.

So what do you guys think about all evil races?

I don't have too many of them in my D&D campaign, just the Dark Elves, who constitute a highly refined, self-conscious culture of evil that is so intense one has two choices whereby to explain it:

(1) they have mounted an eugenics (dysgenics?) program ensuring each new generation of Dark Elf is thoroughly reprobate yet loyal. The ones that, perversely, develop some kind of conscience are magically sussed before they cause trouble and lead (short) lives of woe. In anticipation of extermination by the forces of good, all that can be hoped for is that they will some day turn on each other and so weaken.

(2) each Dark Elf is actually the incarnation of a fallen Angel and thus intrinsically and unshakably evil, in which case they all serve the same Master and have no hope of fracturing.

In general wicked manlike monsters are a great idea for fantasy campaigns. They are essentially fairy tale metaphors--imagine a whole race of wicked witches or vampires for example--not biological treatments of merely men-in-monster-drag individuals of which sometimes happen to be evil because they were dropped on their head as a child or whatever. Biological, theological, and cultural aspects can be tacked onto them if more justification of their wicked natures is fancied, or that can be left as an intriguing mystery hovering in the background of the campaign.

A counterexample to all of the above is Gamma World, which is replete with manlike mutants who in general are all portrayed as having some humanity to them, even if some are almost always inimical towards adventuring parties. I can't recall a single intelligent race being portrayed therein as irredeemably or intrinsically evil. Perhaps this is due to the science-fictional nature of the game. Are Hoops evil? Or Sleeths? Or those two-headed biker dudes? They have their agendas, but it's hard to say they're 100% evil. Anyway, I got a stronger impression from Gamma World that the intelligent monsters could be reasoned with, if not befriended, by the sufficiently advantaged or charismatic.

Fable Wright
2017-05-23, 12:15 AM
I think a lot of people are coming in with the question of, "can I choose to interact with these NPCs laterally, instead of just fighting them?" I think that would be the good hallmark of an Evil race—they're definitely mad, bad, and dangerous to know, something to oppose when they arrive on your doorstep, but something that PC cleverness could work to their side. So, judging by descriptions you provided, most could fit that bill with a little tweaking.


Orcs were once elves,at least the "alphas" or the original ones, but then were exposed to a corrupting force that the in world religions argue over what exactly it was, although now they reproduce like humans and demihumans. What is known is that they desire nothing more than to conquer territory. It's not for the resources, tactical advantages, or even for some form of genocide, but for the desire to subjugate peoples and lands.

An orc PC could be pretty interesting, with their cultural perceptions of ownership. They could make for great politicians, and have a pretty good incentive to make the lives of the people they subjugate better, after all—morale is crucial for campaigning and industry, and giving people good quality of life is a great way to get morale. Leads to more subjugation down the line. Plenty of opportunities for teeth-clenched teamwork and unlikely diplomatic allies, even if seeing an orc raiding party means that the time for talking is over. This could be a perfectly fine type of always-evil to work with.


Goblins are a race that have multiple theories to why they exist. The dwarvish religion states that they are demons, the human religion states that they were created as an ancient form of punishment for the dwarves that were supposed to be eradicated, but the gods forgot to, and yet the ancients believe that the creator god's rival created them just because he was a jerk and wanted to torment his creation. Regardless, they want to take the stuff that the dwarves have and want to dominate the subterranean.

This, on the other hand, seems weak. They never, like, tried to learn from the dwarves? Become Salarians? Use diplomacy now that generation upon generation has shown that war doesn't work that well, and will probably get you killed? Weakest motivation, weakest fighters, weakest all-evil race.


Mermen are creatures that are driven to kill to eat. However, their although they can eat non demihumans and humans, they enjoy the more visual expressions of fear and agony upon the corpses. Sirens have been specifically trained from childhood to kill humans, so they may be more driven by indoctrination.

Have you ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender? There was a spirit there named Koh, the Face Stealer. He was knowledgeable, powerful, and useful, but dangerous. If you showed an expression in his presence, he would steal your face, adding it to his collection and never returning it. You could make these interesting by giving them that kind of angle—if you don't show fear or agony, they will not attack you. And given their resources and power under the sea, they could make for interesting allies and lead to engrossing negotiations with PCs, even though you break out the swords when you hear that they're heading towards an unprepared village.


Salamanders would possibly be considered more chaotic neutral depending on how you translate my next few sentences. Salamanders are amphibious humanoids who are fireproof and produce venom from their skin (so they aren't the norse faeries, they are actually anthropomorphic salamanders). They lack any form of sanity or direction, and if not driven into line by pipers, they could easily die by infighting. Again multiple theories exist for insanity.

So, they're basically lizard-human-hybrid domesticated animals. Not seeing how these are all evil; the actual important thing about the race appears to be these pipers. What do they want? What do they do? Can the PCs interact with them in meaningful ways?


Nagas were summoned by wizards back during the time where wizards roamed the earth from another plane. Not much is known about them.

Not much to say, then.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-23, 05:01 AM
That sounds like your just not listening to the players at that point. People have preferences. Those preferences are not yours. Get used to it. If those preferences aren't compatible, there is nothing that can be done, so the best thing to do is accept it. One is just being a jerk otherwise.

Once more, you're not even talking about the same thing as I am.

"Preferences" is another vague term. What is their nature, that is, what causes these preferences? You're assuming there's nothing to be done, but that doesn't actually hold true for all things covered by the term "preferences".

For example, there are people who are uncomfortable with "always evil" races only because they honestly think they contribute to/glorify real racism/fascism/whatever. And there are other people who are uncomfortable with "always evil" races only because they don't want to piss off the former type of people.

You show these people that they're being uncomfortable for no reason, then their discomfort goes away.

Let's flip this around. Imagine there's a person who thinks another person hates them. Hence they prefer to not play with that person. But that person doesn't actually hate anyone. In fact, they have no strongly held opinions of the first person whatsoever.

Should I just accept their preferences, thinking there's "nothing to be done", when what I obviously could do is tell the first person that no-one hates them?

This is not even a hypothetical scenario. It's happened to me, in martials arts rather than gaming, but regardless. A girl thought I hated her. One day she got fed up and asked me "why do you hate me?" I was, obviously, confused, because I didn't hate her at all. Once I told her that, we became friends. The misunderstanding went away.

One shouldn't assume preferences are immutable before examining why they exists, one shouldn't assume nothing can be done about them, and one shouldn't assume someone is being a jerk just for challenging someone else's preferences.

Karl Aegis
2017-05-23, 01:35 PM
So, Facts:

1) They are monstrous
2) They have a Red = Dead philosophy
3) They are evil

Questions:

1) Are they evil because they have a Red = Dead philosophy?
2) Can I maintain the mechanical advantages of being Good if I also Red = Dead them? Are my Good characters allowed to attack them in situations outside of self-defense if I want to remain Good?
3) Am I completely helpless against them until they actually attack me?

Adding the fact that they are evil really muddies the waters for me. If it were a simple Red = Dead, No Mercy for the Merciless type of deal I could go along with it with gusto. But, adding in they are evil makes me question whether or not I can kill them without turning evil myself. Are they a trap for corrupting other races? Evil spreads itself around the world because killing evil makes you evil?

S@tanicoaldo
2017-05-23, 07:48 PM
I know, I was just trying to give some clarification to something I thought I was miscommunication.

So In order to give further clarification, I have this block of text explaining the reason for evil creatures.

Orcs were once elves,at least the "alphas" or the original ones, but then were exposed to a corrupting force that the in world religions argue over what exactly it was, although now they reproduce like humans and demihumans. What is known is that they desire nothing more than to conquer territory. It's not for the resources, tactical advantages, or even for some form of genocide, but for the desire to subjugate peoples and lands.

Goblins are a race that have multiple theories to why they exist. The dwarvish religion states that they are demons, the human religion states that they were created as an ancient form of punishment for the dwarves that were supposed to be eradicated, but the gods forgot to, and yet the ancients believe that the creator god's rival created them just because he was a jerk and wanted to torment his creation. Regardless, they want to take the stuff that the dwarves have and want to dominate the subterranean.

Mermen are creatures that are driven to kill to eat. However, their although they can eat non demihumans and humans, they enjoy the more visual expressions of fear and agony upon the corpses. Sirens have been specifically trained from childhood to kill humans, so they may be more driven by indoctrination.

Salamanders would possibly be considered more chaotic neutral depending on how you translate my next few sentences. Salamanders are amphibious humanoids who are fireproof and produce venom from their skin (so they aren't the norse faeries, they are actually anthropomorphic salamanders). They lack any form of sanity or direction, and if not driven into line by pipers, they could easily die by infighting. Again multiple theories exist for insanity.

Nagas were summoned by wizards back during the time where wizards roamed the earth from another plane. Not much is known about them.

So this is all I have on these creatures for now.

So the problem is not that they are evil, the problem is that they are unoriginal, I mean that has been done countless times, what does your setting bring new to the table?

Honest Tiefling
2017-05-23, 07:57 PM
I think my issue is now...Can't you un-evilify some of those races? Presumably, if orcs are corrupted there might be a way to uncorrupt orcs, or it does raise some interesting questions about why this corrupting force is more powerful then any other force. Also, wouldn't that make them sorta kinda maybe possessed? If an outside force is making them do things they wouldn't normally, isn't it kinda weird to just annihilate them as a non morally grey action? Or has this corrupting force been so powerful that it has crushed the free will of an entire race, which might make it a super-powerful force that can utterly remove free will from people.

With the mermen, what if you tried to NOT kill them and rehabilitate them? Seems like an easy way to acquire a weapon, assuming that one lived near the water and that sirens have that weird song stuff.

Also, I have to wonder if dead bodies are good at maintaining expressions after death, especially when drowned. I'm picturing an angry merman being very upset that the important dinner is RUINED because the body doesn't have the correct expression and he totally needed to impress his boss to get a promotion and cue sitcom antics.

The nagas are interesting in that they are unknown, but that does sorta mean that the players are slaughtering them wholesale...And don't really know why?

Jay R
2017-05-23, 08:01 PM
I've never felt the need for an all-evil race, nor have I ever modeled every member of a race on my world to have to make that decision.

My PCs only encounter a few tribes near where the PCs are.

If all the orcs that my PCs will ever encounter are evil members of raiding tribes, what difference does it make what the remaining 99.9999% of the orcs in that world are like?

Thrudd
2017-05-23, 08:55 PM
So the problem is not that they are evil, the problem is that they are unoriginal, I mean that has been done countless times, what does your setting bring new to the table?

Not every game setting needs to be all new everything. It's not like you're writing a novel - that's when you need to be original in everything. A game of D&D has certain needs which may be met by adhering to tropes and including some of the "old standbys". It isn't a bad thing when the DM can be saved some time describing and explaining things that the players already are pretty familiar with. Also, not everyone wants to homebrew an entire original monster manual - you use the guys that are in there already with just a couple details tweaked so they fit the niche you want them to fill.

These are perfectly good D&D monster races. There may be some issues to address in terms of the logic and mechanics of some of the details, like the exact nature of how the orcs were corrupted and why they remain corrupted, but there's nothing wrong with this as a place to start.

It is also good to point out that the information given to players does not need to be complete or accurate, they know what their culture knows about these races. Maybe all they know is that the only orcs people ever see are traveling around in roving warbands attacking villages and all humans on sight. Maybe during the game they'll find out more, maybe they won't.

It perhaps isn't necessary to label things "always evil", but it really doesn't make a difference what alignment you call something that is not a playable race and will basically always be antagonistic toward the players. It's only important for the DM to have an idea what these creatures' motives and behavior and relationships with other races is like so he can role play them and have an idea how they may react to different sorts of actions by the players.

8BitNinja
2017-05-23, 08:57 PM
I'm going to try to answer everyone's questions, but since many would take a few paragraphs and I'm busy right now, I'm going to answer this question right now.


So the problem is not that they are evil, the problem is that they are unoriginal, I mean that has been done countless times, what does your setting bring new to the table?

I know the monsters aren't original, and the monsters were never made to be original. What I am trying to make that's original is not the creatures in the world, but the world itself with its lore and mechanics.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-23, 11:22 PM
Once more, you're not even talking about the same thing as I am.

"Preferences" is another vague term. What is their nature, that is, what causes these preferences? You're assuming there's nothing to be done, but that doesn't actually hold true for all things covered by the term "preferences".

For example, there are people who are uncomfortable with "always evil" races only because they honestly think they contribute to/glorify real racism/fascism/whatever. And there are other people who are uncomfortable with "always evil" races only because they don't want to piss off the former type of people.

You show these people that they're being uncomfortable for no reason, then their discomfort goes away.

Let's flip this around. Imagine there's a person who thinks another person hates them. Hence they prefer to not play with that person. But that person doesn't actually hate anyone. In fact, they have no strongly held opinions of the first person whatsoever.

Should I just accept their preferences, thinking there's "nothing to be done", when what I obviously could do is tell the first person that no-one hates them?

This is not even a hypothetical scenario. It's happened to me, in martials arts rather than gaming, but regardless. A girl thought I hated her. One day she got fed up and asked me "why do you hate me?" I was, obviously, confused, because I didn't hate her at all. Once I told her that, we became friends. The misunderstanding went away.

One shouldn't assume preferences are immutable before examining why they exists, one shouldn't assume nothing can be done about them, and one shouldn't assume someone is being a jerk just for challenging someone else's preferences.

You make good points.

Do I still want to have evil orcs in my games?

No.

Maybe its because I don't want the moral complexity of a dumb child, maybe its because I'm a trashy special snowflake player, or a garbage edgelord fan who likes orcs when they're not mooks, maybe I'm shallow and don't like "alienness" or whatever other stupid thing I deserved to be called because some other person is tired of my own preference. I don't know, but I still don't want evil monstrous races.

Thing is, setting influences what you can play. you can't say that these are two different things. if all orcs are evil, I can't play an orc, if I try to do so, that opens up to people hating that because its a special snowflake option that doesn't fit the setting and shut me down. why even play a game where that could even POTENTIALLY happen, given what I know of humanity that it probably WILL? settings elements ARE your playing options, what you expect people to just make random exceptions for the PCs for no reason?

Thrudd
2017-05-24, 12:22 AM
You make good points.

Do I still want to have evil orcs in my games?

No.

Maybe its because I don't want the moral complexity of a dumb child, maybe its because I'm a trashy special snowflake player, or a garbage edgelord fan who likes orcs when they're not mooks, maybe I'm shallow and don't like "alienness" or whatever other stupid thing I deserved to be called because some other person is tired of my own preference. I don't know, but I still don't want evil monstrous races.

Thing is, setting influences what you can play. you can't say that these are two different things. if all orcs are evil, I can't play an orc, if I try to do so, that opens up to people hating that because its a special snowflake option that doesn't fit the setting and shut me down. why even play a game where that could even POTENTIALLY happen, given what I know of humanity that it probably WILL? settings elements ARE your playing options, what you expect people to just make random exceptions for the PCs for no reason?

You seem to have a thing for orcs the way some people have a thing for elves or drow. No judgment, it's just that the word "orcs" (and the word elves) doesn't refer to any specific, real thing. What you think are orcs might not exits in someone else's setting, and what they call orcs are not what you think orcs should be at all. It might be more useful for you to not even think of them as "orcs", because they are basically completely different things. WoW orcs aren't Tolkien orcs, aren't Warhammer orcs, aren't D&D orcs. So you are essentially saying you only want to play in a setting that includes a particular, custom fantasy race (that you happen to call Orcs) that conforms to your personal preferences, rather than looking at whatever the setting has to offer and choosing from among those options the GM has planned for. Saying you don't want to play in any setting that doesn't have your personal custom race (and what are the chances, unless you're the GM?) is really limiting your options, isn't it?

Lord Raziere
2017-05-24, 12:38 AM
You seem to have a thing for orcs the way some people have a thing for elves or drow. No judgment, it's just that the word "orcs" (and the word elves) doesn't refer to any specific, real thing. What you think are orcs might not exits in someone else's setting, and what they call orcs are not what you think orcs should be at all. It might be more useful for you to not even think of them as "orcs", because they are basically completely different things. WoW orcs aren't Tolkien orcs, aren't Warhammer orcs, aren't D&D orcs. So you are essentially saying you only want to play in a setting that includes a particular, custom fantasy race (that you happen to call Orcs) that conforms to your personal preferences, rather than looking at whatever the setting has to offer and choosing from among those options the GM has planned for. Saying you don't want to play in any setting that doesn't have your personal custom race (and what are the chances, unless you're the GM?) is really limiting your options, isn't it?

*looks angrily at how right you are, then sighs and just deflates.*

.....We really need more varied words and terms for these things.

But thing is, what I want is a tough green-skinned race with warrior aesthetic that is nonetheless has the capacity for good or evil and to choose between them like any other race, much like WoW orcs. what do I call that then?

and here is the thing: I don't WANT to be a DM! screw that! when I want to play a race, I want to be the player! otherwise I'm just being a DMPC, and then everyone gets up in arms about THAT, which is an entirely different issue! ugh.

Thrudd
2017-05-24, 12:53 AM
*looks angrily at how right you are, then sighs and just deflates.*

.....We really need more varied words and terms for these things.

But thing is, what I want is a tough green-skinned race with warrior aesthetic that is nonetheless has the capacity for good or evil and to choose between them like any other race, much like WoW orcs. what do I call that then?

and here is the thing: I don't WANT to be a DM! screw that! when I want to play a race, I want to be the player! otherwise I'm just being a DMPC, and then everyone gets up in arms about THAT, which is an entirely different issue! ugh.

I guess call that "WoW Orcs". You want to play in the WoW setting, or one that uses the orcs from that setting. That's possibly a thing that could be found; I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there played tabletop WoW.

Hey, as the GM you get to play everything in the world. You get to play orcs up the wazoo, and any sort of orcs you want. good ones and bad ones and tough green skinned noble-savage ones that challenge your players' sense of morality and culture, if that's what makes you happy.

LibraryOgre
2017-05-24, 09:32 AM
I really think the inherent alignment question is one that needs to be answered table by table, in view of what makes for fun. Me, I like the possibility of nuance that can be easily glossed over in pursuit of kicking doors and killing monsters. "Orcs" are evil; Bob the Orc might not be.

Though, I do find it consistently interesting that there's never this question about Always Good races. Like, there's never the inkling that evil dwarves might be as impossible as good orcs.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-24, 11:39 AM
Though, I do find it consistently interesting that there's never this question about Always Good races. Like, there's never the inkling that evil dwarves might be as impossible as good orcs.

At that point, I'm just like "now your just reskinning demons and angels" like, common orcs just seem to be demons reskinned, and elves just seem to be angels reskinned these days, drow are just fallen angels.

So from that perspective just cut out all the nonsense, and just have three: Human (could be good or evil), Angel (Pure Good), Demon (Pure Evil). Thats basically what it boils down to anyways.

Me, I don't like that, I'd rather play in a world where angels demons nor humans exist so I can play my custom orc race that isn't just a demon reskin along with various other races doing stuff that could be good or evil with no stupid cosmic morality. but whatever, thats apparently my custom setting that I'll never get to play that I don't realize that I'm making and never really put together.

LibraryOgre
2017-05-24, 12:06 PM
Though, I do find it consistently interesting that there's never this question about Always Good races. Like, there's never the inkling that evil dwarves might be as impossible as good orcs.


At that point, I'm just like "now your just reskinning demons and angels" like, common orcs just seem to be demons reskinned, and elves just seem to be angels reskinned these days, drow are just fallen angels.


Not quite my point, Raziere.

I was more pointing out that Always Evil for mortal races seems to be a thing a lot of people cling to... the idea that orcs ALWAYS must be bad is practically sacred writ for some folks, especially in the old school community. But you never see the same fervor saying that elves or dwarves must always be good, despite most of the arguements that orcs must always be evil would apply equally well to elves must always be good. Their alignment is listed in the MM, without noted exceptions. They're the spawn of a strongly aligned deity. But, somehow, it's way more acceptable to have an evil elf than a good orc.

Kitten Champion
2017-05-24, 01:32 PM
Not quite my point, Raziere.

I was more pointing out that Always Evil for mortal races seems to be a thing a lot of people cling to... the idea that orcs ALWAYS must be bad is practically sacred writ for some folks, especially in the old school community. But you never see the same fervor saying that elves or dwarves must always be good, despite most of the arguements that orcs must always be evil would apply equally well to elves must always be good. Their alignment is listed in the MM, without noted exceptions. They're the spawn of a strongly aligned deity. But, somehow, it's way more acceptable to have an evil elf than a good orc.

I would assume that's mostly because your PC is rarely required to kill a Good-aligned character, the ethical and philosophic implications of their existence are less significant. If the character is Evil despite being of what's understood to be an intrinsically Good-aligned race, one can reasonably just shrug that off as being of their personal choosing because Good typically allows for free will.

Whereas having a Good-aligned Orc calls into question the basic logic that they're Evil and thus killing them is a morally neutral action you can lawfully indulge in -- that they've a choice in the first place is problematic and not seen as consistent with Evil as a concept.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-24, 08:17 PM
I would assume that's mostly because your PC is rarely required to kill a Good-aligned character, the ethical and philosophic implications of their existence are less significant. If the character is Evil despite being of what's understood to be an intrinsically Good-aligned race, one can reasonably just shrug that off as being of their personal choosing because Good typically allows for free will.

Whereas having a Good-aligned Orc calls into question the basic logic that they're Evil and thus killing them is a morally neutral action you can lawfully indulge in -- that they've a choice in the first place is problematic and not seen as consistent with Evil as a concept.

1. Well actually if you debate it, an intrinsically good race has to be better than a neutral race. because Neutrality would allow for free will as much as Good, but Good aligned would imply that all the people make the right choices despite the free will involved. therefore somehow possessing an inherent trait that makes them better, and thus if they don't, they would have to mentally broken to not make the right choice. Therefore any evil elf would have to insane to be evil at all, fundamentally broken in a way that a human would not be in order to do the same evil acts.

2. Not really. All morality is a choice. Evil IS a choice. its the wrong choice, but its a choice nonetheless. bandits who attack innocents? made the wrong choice, they die. slavers who whip slaves? they made the wrong choice by becoming slavers and inflicting suffering on people, and sure you can bring up the political/socio-economic realities of these things, but the fact of the matter is that cosmic morality doesn't care about those realities and that when you do these acts, you become evil regardless.

whoever said freedom or free will was about protecting you from making bad choices after all? Neither of those are about protecting you from anything, or ensuring your good. Only that you can possibly choose to be good- just as you can possibly choose to be evil.

8BitNinja
2017-05-24, 08:56 PM
At that point, I'm just like "now your just reskinning demons and angels" like, common orcs just seem to be demons reskinned, and elves just seem to be angels reskinned these days...



That's exactly what Tolkien wanted them to be.

Potato_Priest
2017-05-24, 09:39 PM
At that point, I'm just like "now your just reskinning demons and angels" like, common orcs just seem to be demons reskinned, and elves just seem to be angels reskinned these days, drow are just fallen angels.


In my games, orcs aren't demons reskinned, partly because they raid with some sense, like the vikings did... leave some houses and people intact so your kids can come back to raid it again once they've rebuilt. An orc raised in a human society would probably have a violent streak and would definitely have anger issues, but wouldn't necessarily be evil.

If you read Volo's guide to monsters, though, (a 5e book), it would seem that gnolls actually are just demons reskinned, although perhaps even less willing to cooperate and harder to wipe out.

I've never seen someone claim that all elves are the epitome of good. The main elf player in our group likes to portray them as haughty rather than perfect, and that's generally how I think of them.