Innately evil or just misunderstood- Evil Races in D&D

[Charles Phipps]

To diversify this topic...

In addition to Orcs, we've got the rest of the Goblinoid peoples.

Undead.

Abberations (Illithids, Beholders, Tentacle Spawn)

Outsiders (Demons and so on)

Gods (Can Gods of Evil recant?)

[Rex Blunder]

Unless you don't think evolution is a real phenomena

I don't understand where this Richard Dawkins stuff is coming from. Real-world evolutionary theory seems irrelevant to a discussion of good and evil in a fantasy world where Good and Evil are real forces of nature, and many races are formed by arcane and eldritch forces.

It doesn't seem to follow that people who put concepts of free will or soul into their D&D game are real-world Intelligent Design apologists.

[Tor the Fallen]

Uh... What?

Seriously... What?

You're attacking a strawman. Yet again.

A strawman?
I thought baby-eating was a caricature of a caricatured race. You know, the pits of moral depravity.

If moral depravity (ie, baby eating) were to offer a fitness advantage over, say, not being morally depraved, then there will be selection for that sort of behavior.


I just stated that I don't think that behaviour would give them any net advantage over any other meat eater. So it wouldn't be an evolutionary factor. How much clearer can I get?

Eating babies isn't really very efficient behaviour for any intelligent predator. Why eat fried egg now when you can have chicken later?

Babies and other young make a great target for predators, as they have very little defensive abilities. Intelligent predators often go for the young, the weak, and the old, as it takes far less energy to bring them down than healthy adults. At the very least, adults can run faster. At worst, they've got a gore attack, natural armor, advanced hitdie, or class levels.

The intelligent predator that targeted weak, innocent babes, going after after free, easy calories (calories, by the way, are sort of the gold standard in measuring fitness of animals) would do better than the one that had some sort of moral block against doing so (not having a brain wired for chomping on babies). All other things being equal.

[Tor the Fallen]

I don't understand where this Richard Dawkins stuff is coming from. Real-world evolutionary theory seems irrelevant to a discussion of good and evil in a fantasy world where Good and Evil are real forces of nature, and many races are formed by arcane and eldritch forces.

It doesn't seem to follow that people who put concepts of free will or soul into their D&D game are real-world Intelligent Design apologists.

I was offering reasons why Orcs could be innately evil without invoking the wizard did it explanations. Some people seemed rather appalled that I could say such things, and started talking about Hitler.

[Alex12]

To diversify this topic...

In addition to Orcs, we've got the rest of the Goblinoid peoples.

Undead.

Abberations (Illithids, Beholders, Tentacle Spawn)

Outsiders (Demons and so on)

Gods (Can Gods of Evil recant?)

[shameless self-plug] Send them to Unity City (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59591) to give them a real shock:smallamused:

[Manticorkscrew]

How about large monsters? Manticores, Wyverns, Dragons and the like.

They don't need to be evil to fulfill their role as monsters-of the-week. I've often thought that they might be treated much like large predators in the real world.

I mean, for me, a Snow Leopard is a cute creature I go to see in a zoo. But for someone in Tibet, they are savage, cunning, murderous animals who could kill you or your cattle and destroy your livelihood with ease.

Say, if a Neutral Monster is living in the mountains and carrying off sheep and stuff. The village sends out for adventurers to hunt down and kill the monster. OK, not wildly original, but it could serve as a plot point.

Er... What if the monster lives in the mountain range that the adventurers are trying to get through to reach their next destination? Let's say it attacks, and they drive it off. Do they hunt it down and kill to ensure that it can never harm another human being? Do they hurry through and leave it be?

The group's Paladin would probably want to hunt the monster down, like in the stories of armoured knights slaying dragons. A Druid might leave the creature be. After all, does a wyvern not have the same right to live as a sheep or a human? Or the monster might be an abomination that the Druid is keen to destroy for that reason...

The dilemma is in the conservationist issue. Someone living in close proximity with a tiger, for example, might dearly love to hunt the creature down to stop it killing his livestock. But s/he isn't allowed to. And the creature was only looking for food anyway, it wasn't out of malice.

But it might be hard to convey that kind of dilemma in a D&D game, where all the monsters only exist in your imagination, and there's no shortage of them as long as you have the Monster Manual.

But there's no need for Dragons to be evil in order to justify fighting and killing them. Hungry is enough.

[EvilJames]

Tolkien orcs, as you said, are products of black magic and twisted being created for sole purpose of killing and maiming others. However, nothing implies it's the same way in D&D worlds. Of course, Tolkien's way of presenting orcs is very bad storytelling on his part.


I disagree with the last part of your statement. It was hardly bad story telling the orcs were intended to be monsters, not moral dilemmas. They were literally created by Evil to be a weapon for Evil and since the story is a straight Good vs Evil story.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having the monsters be "mortal demons" the idea is straight forward and great for games with stories similar to Tolkien's, or the pulps or even many of the old mythologies, where the good guys are always right and the bad guys are always evil.

That being said, however I like the "Orcs are people too" thing more and it's what I use more often. This by no means means that "no one is really evil" like swordguy said many orcs in my games are indeed evil or at the very least unpleasant to deal with, an uncivilized barbaric culture does not exclude them from good or evil, it's just that there will be orcs that long for a better way and some who like everything just like it is. However the non evil ones will still most likely defend their tribe when attacked due to still having (perhaps misplaced) loyalty. So it's only likely to come up when encountering individual orcs or very clever negotiating by the PC's (since they are mortals even the evil ones can be reasoned with at least some of the time)

[Manticorkscrew]

A strawman?

Actually I was referring to the previous page where you attacked our "tabula rasa" and "dualist" arguments despite the fact that nobody had made any such arguments.

And on this page my reading of that last line was that you were sneering at me for not believing in evolution without bothering to check whether or not that was my belief. (For the record, it isn't.) But I may have been wrong about that. I apologise.

Sigh, I shouldn't have attributed to malice what could have been explained by syntax.




I thought baby-eating was a caricature of a caricatured race. You know, the pits of moral depravity.

If moral depravity (ie, baby eating) were to offer a fitness advantage over, say, not being morally depraved, then there will be selection for that sort of behavior.



Babies and other young make a great target for predators, as they have very little defensive abilities. Intelligent predators often go for the young, the weak, and the old, as it takes far less energy to bring them down than healthy adults. At the very least, adults can run faster. At worst, they've got a gore attack, natural armor, advanced hitdie, or class levels.

The intelligent predator that targeted weak, innocent babes, going after after free, easy calories (calories, by the way, are sort of the gold standard in measuring fitness of animals) would do better than the one that had some sort of moral block against doing so (not having a brain wired for chomping on babies). All other things being equal.


Changing tack a little; even by human standards, eating baby animals of other species isn't considered evil. We just prefer to raise our animals and then slaughter them. People still eat veal and lamb, don't they? And eggs. (Damn, that was a bad analogy of mine, up there. And yes, I know that Lamb is another name for yearling sheep, not newborn lambs.) It's only if humans eat other humans that it becomes abhorrent.

Although, it's getting to the point where eating veal 'is' considered wrong by humans. But the point still stands.

It's only really if Orcs choose to eat baby humans in the full knowledge that what they're doing is wrong, that they can be considered evil. And even then, we're getting back to the arguments about comparative morality and the idea that the ability to interact with other races peacefully is a measure of goodness.

[Matthew]

What about the Drow? They're twisted versions of elves (like Tolkien's Orcs). Would you say that they always must be cruel and sadistic? Or are they just misguided?

Actually, that's an interesting, if mistaken, point. Apparently, Tolkien was not at all satisfied with Orcs as being descended from Elves and by the end of his life had pretty much discarded the idea (Though the Silmarillion having been composed after his death from his notes includes the idea). The reason he became unsatisfied was on account of the 'fate' of Orcs and the possibility for redemption. To be frank, he didn't want them heading for the same place as Elves after death.

Here's an article or two:

On the Origin of Tolkien's Orcs (http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ddwd98qd_0hrnqqr)
Tolkien's Orc Wikipedia Article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_%28Middle-earth%29)

[Manticorkscrew]

Actually, that's an interesting, if mistaken, point. Apparently, Tolkien was not at all satisfied with Orcs as being descended from Elves and by the end of his life had pretty much discarded the idea (Though the Silmarillion having been composed after his death from his notes includes the idea). The reason he became unsatisfied was on account of the 'fate' of Orcs and the possibility for redemption. To be frank, he didn't want them heading for the same place as Elves after death.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Fascinating. I wonder how he would have worked that into the Middle Earth storyline without contradicting his idea that 'evil cannot create, it can only corrupt or change things'?

Anyway, why are so many Drow Chaotic Good renegades seeking to throw off oppression, whereas the Orc Chaotic Good resistance movement is still in its infancy? Is it because only the cute ones are worth saving? Is it because Elves are teh kewl?

After all, what we all need is another playable Elven subtype, right?[/SARCASM]

[Prophaniti]

I tend towards the misunderstood end of the spectrum, but in a "you'd never fully understand their point of view" kind of way. Basically, like some, I focus on the fact that orcs, and all sentient non-humans for that matter, are alien and have an alien psyche.

. . .

However, English terminology doesn't adequately describe these feelings and concepts. We can get a rough idea, since orcs aren't as alien as other creatures, but we miss something important in the translation.


I find this way of doing it the most interesting. The point is that orcs are different; they're not just people with green skin and fangs, they have a genuinely different way of looking at the world that you're never going to wholly understand and which by your standards is, yes, sometimes going to look pretty evil.

- Saph

This is probably the best way to do things. It's the one I enjoy playing and DMing the most, and the one that makes the most sense to me personally. Orcs, goblins, gnolls etc are *not* really ugly humans, nor are they demonic entities incapable of independant/original thought. The fact that they are entirely different in thought and perception is something that is largely neglected in fantasy literature and settings, despite the fact that it is just as aplicable as in any sci-fi setting. This is probably the take that adds the most depth and uncertainty regarding the 'morality' of the situation.

Of course, during most normal games this type of question doesnt matter much with the people I play with because we just have fun, and orcs (like all goblinoids, along with undead, ogres, giants and so forth) are a convenient enemy for quick encounters that usually involve the 'kill them or they'll kill you' type scenario. We dont worry much about moral dilemas (though they have come up) in the regular course of our playing. Though in our current campaign we have taken over a gate-house as our stronghold and employ a small group of captured goblins for they're (in)famous Fungus Beer!

I enjoy the discussion though, and plan to increase that aspect of our games when it's me behind the DM screen.

Unrelated side note: There's a lot of double-posting going on (even a triple-post! Charles...) What's up with that? Just edit you're posts like I do when you think of something else to say.

[Matthew]

Interesting. I didn't know that. Fascinating. I wonder how he would have worked that into the Middle Earth storyline without contradicting his idea that 'evil cannot create, it can only corrupt or change things'?

If I recall correctly, the above linked article goes into some in depth discussion of that very problem. I don't recall the conclusions off hand, but I think they were largely of the 'it's an open and unanswered question' type.


Anyway, why are so many Drow Chaotic Good renegades seeking to throw off oppression, whereas the Orc Chaotic Good resistance movement is still in its infancy? Is it because only the cute ones are worth saving? Is it because Elves are teh kewl?

They've got a super cool role model?

[fendrin]

@ the Nazi talk and stuff:

Most of you seem to be assuming that we're blank slates; born with out any capacity for good or evil, but through choice and personal effort do we become one or the other.

That's bull****.

The very things we consider good and bad are, largely, wired into us. We just can't understand certain things or are loathe to act certain ways because of how our simian brains are wired. We're cerebral apes, not true neutral beings who choose good or evil. Even our ideas of good and evil are human constructs, used to govern human behavior.

Every other animal behavior ever investigated has been shown to be rooted in biology. Why should human behavior be any different? If you can breed for broodiness in hens, why wouldn't it be possible to breed for malevolence in orcs (or humans)?

Unless you're all dualists and are going to tell me it's the unique soul quality of sentient beings interfacing with the mind-body complex. In which case, you can keep your tabula rasa, because contemporary science says you're wrong.

"You got your Science in my Philosophy!"
"You got your Philosophy in my Science!"
Two great tastes, together at last.

Right, anyway... :smalltongue:

You are correct, we are not born as 'blank slates'. Anyone who objectively observes young children will see that they operate off of instinct prior to the indoctrinations of their upbringing. however, I would argue that young children ARE neutral/neutral for the same reasons animals are. Instincts are neither 'good' nor 'evil'. They are amoral (again, for clarity's sake, not immoral).

Human beings have the capability to strive against their instincts. To rise above, and become more than, 'mere animals'. Whether that is a product of our cerebral nature or a spiritual aspect beyond the ken of science is irrelevant.

Oh, and point of fact, contemporary science does not say the soul does not exist. It says that the soul is not (currently) a valid part of Science, as it is not (currently) observable in a scientifically verifiable way. Science does not deny the existence of the unobservable, it just ignores it until it is observable. Note I am using Science with a capital S to indicate the Philosophy of Science or The Scientific Method, which operate at a level beyond individual scientists, or current fads or trends in science.

'Good' and 'Evil' are human creations. Or, to generalize in such a way that is both more accurate and more applicable to a realm with multi-sentient being such as D&D, they are societal concepts.


Are you sure about that? Are not some acts so terrible that the actor is irredeemable? I think a lot depends on this sort of disconnect. Not everyone agrees that it is possible to erase bad deeds by good.
I did not say that bad deeds could be erased. As to whether or not some acts make the actor irredeemable, I can only offer my own opinion, as it is an unanswerable question. My opinion is that there is no evil so heinous that it makes the actor irredeemable. To think that way invites one to act in immoral ways against the perpetrators of such crimes. On the other hand, I do not believe it is easy to redeem oneself, especially given our current penal system.


What if the Orc has no choice but to want to? The motives of the Orc do not have to be sourced in anything other than its nature and that does not make it any less terrible than an Orc whose nature can be changed. Redemption involves transformation, but it is not necessary to transform evil to discover if it is truly evil. To put it another way, there is no difference between an Orc with the potential for redemption and one without that potential during the period in which it is unredeemed. Both should be treated equally, whether we judge them to have the potential for redemption or not.
if an orc has no choice to want to... I suppose that would be a middle ground between the two. Morality, in my opinion, is not black and white, there are infinite shades of grey.

So there are 3 levels (and I'm sure we could come up with others if we tried):
1) orc eats baby because it has no choice but to do so.
2) orc eats baby because it is genetically inclined to do so (has to want to) and does not try to fight the urge.
3) orc eats baby because it can (i.e. just because it wants to)
These are listed in order of least evil to most evil. My opinion of course.


Until they don't. Man can become like the Orc. It would take a few generations but after fighting for a century or two, I fully would introduce into my campaign that human beings would become innately evil.

That a human baby would be born without the potential for redemption because the evil of each generation is passed onto the next. Art, poetry, love, and friendship would disappear from our race and be replaced solely with hatred. We could become the Orc.

Then again, I love hopeless stories like that. I reverse the metaphor with elves that, YES, in the future it'd be possible to end war. That we would lose all conflict and become a race of peace and love.
Hm. Genetic karma. I can see that happening in a fantasy realm (because, as previously discussed anything can happen in the multiverse of human imagination), but I see no parallel to our own world. If the real world worked that way, i think we would all be evil. Wars and atrocities have been a part of our human history for a very long time.

I feel that morality tales really only have a strong impact if the players come away from it with the feeling that they should think about their actions, not just that their players should think about their actions.


Um, i would say htat having a culture of fascist orcs would make it easier to dehumanize the fascist, make then utterly other, and thus feel no worry of becoming like that. It would be like an awakened mouse being worried about turning into a cat. It just makes no sense.


I don't get your point.
A common problem. I try to be clear, but often am not. What I meant is that your orcs are SO different from humans that they seem to be irreconcilably different. In other words, it seems impossible for humans to become orcs.

Its the same kind of rationalization that leads a lot of people to disbelieve that humans descended from apes. Apes and humans are SO different it is very difficult to believe, without evidence.

Additionally, think about this: imagine a horde of genocidal orcs (shouldn't be to hard). If you are trying to hammer home the point that genocide is evil, I think it's a lot more potent if the evilness of the orcs comes from the genocide, not from the fact that they are orcs. Making orcs intrinsically evil dilutes the point that genocide is evil.

By making the orcs not intrinsically evil, by making them evil because of what they do and not who they are, emphasizes that if humans do those same actions, they to will be evil.


Really dude, you ruin orcs. You take the one thing that makes them interesting and you essentially make them humans with Tusks. If Orcs are just "aw gee whiz, just like us" then there's no point in anything but using humans. I disagree. I use the races to reinforce the sense of 'other'. Sometimes that leads to xenophobia or racist ideologies. Sometimes it's just to explore historical cultures without having to have large distances invlolved to explain the evolution of diverse cultures. Using all humans (which I have done before) makes it much harder to get past the societally enforced acceptance of multi-cultural differences. If I want to drive home the point about genocide, I will often take a typically non-evil race (like elves or dwarves) and have them go genocidal on a typically evil race, like orcs or goblins. (honestly, the two times I've done this I used dwarves vs. goblins, but thats because I dislike dwarves and like hobgoblins :smallwink:) I will do it in such a way that the players start off working for the dwarves, then start to get to know some of the goblinoid culture (which as I've stated previously, I tend to make asiatic, specifically japanese-esque) then later discover the genocide, then turn against the dwarves to stop the genocide. In one case, the PCs ended up brokering a peace agreement between the goblins and the dwarves. In the other, they ended up killing the dwarven king, which had the effect of causing a war of succession. That actually led to another campaign... trying to get the 'good' dwarf on the throne to prevent more evil.


I'm interested in Orcs as an embodiment of evil. I'm interested in other races as as ways to explore the meaning of humanity.


I always mix it up a bit to help them worry about it. Basically, it's a story about humans struggling against the face of adversity while also wondering what the nature of evil is and free will. Also, what does it say about mankind if it's willing to descend to levels of becoming the Orc. What precisely do you mean by 'mix it up'? Do you have orcs performing good acts? If so, that completely invalidates the concept of orcs as pure evil.


An evil human being. I'd rather not bring Nazis into this issue. It's why I prefer divorcing their analogues from humanity to a certain extent (though to make it uncomfortable, humans are always part of the Nazi-Orc Empires)I think we might have differing meanings for the word 'monster'. Also, how do you have humans and orcs working together for racial purity and dominance? Isn't that contradictory?


If Orcs can be non-monstrous then there's no reason to wonder about it happening to us.
Only if humans are always non-monstrous. If being monstrous is the result of certain choices, then humans can be just as monstrous as orcs.


Actually, the whole point of the story is that the Doctor was wrong to destroy his own race even if it destroyed the Daleks. That it's better to die a man than live by destroying the Daleks and become like them. Was that ever stated by the show's creators? If not, that is only one possible interpretation. Besides, unless his motivations were the same as the Daleks' motivations, he is not the same as them.

In other words, if orcs start a genocidal war against humans because orcs cannot stand the fact that humans exist, and then a human casts a spell that kills all orcs in order to save the humans, it can be called self defense. Extreme, maybe but still is it as evil as what the orcs were doing?


What if the orc increases his fitness by eating babies, and so has more orclings to replace him? Wouldn't orcs that enjoy eating babies eventually replace those that don't?
I would say that eating babies would make it more likely that that one orc would be hunted down and killed, thus decreasing the amount of orclings it produced. Therefore, the more evil an individual orc is, the less likely it is to have progeny. As the saying goes, evil contains the seeds of it's own destruction.


I just need a justification in the 100 year Time Skip we're doing between campaigns. How about this: the orcs, in their viciousness, go to far and the humans (and other races, I suppose) band together to defeat the orc horde once and for all. The alliance succeeds, leaving numerous villages full of orc women and children, etc. The humans, instead of wiping them out altogether, make it a point to educate (i.e. indoctrinate) the orc children. A few generations later, they will be an accepted part of society.

It may sound farfetched, but that is actually what the Incans would do when they conquered another tribe. they would bring the defeated chief's children to the Incan capitol fro education. This served two purposes: first, the children were hostages to keep the newly conquered tribe in line. additionally, in just a short time the conquered tribe would be fully integrated into the Incan empire, because when those children were grown (and indoctrinated to the Incan way of life), they would return to their tribe, bringing Inca culture with them, and they would also be put in charge of their tribe.


To diversify this topic...

In addition to Orcs, we've got the rest of the Goblinoid peoples.

Undead.

Abberations (Illithids, Beholders, Tentacle Spawn)

Outsiders (Demons and so on)

Gods (Can Gods of Evil recant?)
Orcs are not goblinoids. they are as biologically and culturally different as elves and dwarves.
I tend to use goblinoids as the remnants of an ancient Asiatic-style empire. They do not form a single cohesive cultural group. Some are evil, some are not. Most are lawful, though.
Mindless undead are themselves neutral, but being negative-energy beings, they are still hurt by positive energy effects. Other undead vary. Some are always evil, some are not, depending on how and why they become undead. Also, I typically have one or more cultures that view all undead as abominations, regardless of alignment Such cultures always have a non-evil death god that makes the destruction of undead be one of it's highest commandments. Of course, there are almost always cults devoted to the creation and study undead.

I tend to use aberrations sparingly, usually to indicate some sort of perversion of nature. as such, they tend to be neutral and animalistic (and therefore amoral). I am starting to incorporate some of the Eberronian ideas of the Daelkyr. I have some ideas about the creations of the Daelkyr being primarily 'evil', because they are in constant agony and take it out on everything around them. I would use them almost exclusively as loners, as they will even kill each other. The exception would be if they were in the presence of some sort of externally organizing force. They would be redeemable, though it would be difficult. The key would be to start by taking away their pain (physical and mental), which would probably involve finding a way to transform them back into the base creatures they came from. Even harder would be to undo the mental changes. I'm not sure of the players would be able to do it. I'm thinking that at a certain point in the process, the semi-ex-aberration would succumb to the hopelessness of it's existence and kill itself.
Come to think of it, that would be WAY too depressing of a campaign. I like the idea and I think I will implement it s a background element in my games, but I couldn't put my players into that kind of hopeless situation.

Outsiders in my games are alignment oriented versions of elementals. They are intrinsically good or evil. They have no moral free will. They cannot be redeemed or corrupted, except by the direct action of a deity, which doesn't really happen, because it is kind of pointless, as there are an infinite number of each type. They are, however, limited in what they can do in the material realm. In specific, they cannot simply choose to travel to the material plane. they have to be summoned. Therefore, <outsider> invasions are very rare, and always at heart about something else. Typically, they act by influencing mortals. Although, demons will occasionally get loose and go on rampages. Devils, on the other hand, are constantly working to defeat the prohibitions that prevent them from taking direct action on the material realm. I have been slowly cooking up a mega campaign based on this, so I don't want to say to much about it. Of course, if I would stop running other campaigns in the meantime I would probably have it done by now. :smallamused:

I run deities as remote and uncommunicative, like in eberron or ravenloft. Similar to ravenloft, i have deities be mysterious. In fact, one of the ways I have tension between the various cultures in my games is that often one or more of the major deities in one culture will appear in another culture... as an evil entity! For instance, if the elves may have Correlon Larethion as a CG archer, the dwarves might have a CE archer known as Coral Lather. Similar enough that you know they have to be the same being, but interpreted differently. The mythologies will be similar, but with a different perspective. Always fun to borrow from real life, right?

[Charles Phipps]

What precisely do you mean by 'mix it up'? Do you have orcs performing good acts? If so, that completely invalidates the concept of orcs as pure evil.

I usually vary from good potential orcs vs. pure evil orcs depending on campaign setting. But to keep Orcs "fresh", I often play with the concepts of them a bit. Like I allude to the fact that they weren't always bad or that they were changed. I also have them faced down with things that might be equally bad but are more powerful.

Like "There's a war between Beholders and The Orcs. The Orcs want your help."


I think we might have differing meanings for the word 'monster'. Also, how do you have humans and orcs working together for racial purity and dominance? Isn't that contradictory?

In the Orc-Reich I created, the idea was that they were primarilly interested in expanding their territory and eliminating elves as well as Dwarves amongst Lesser Goblinoids. Eventually, of course, the two races would come into conflict. The question was, which one of the groups would turn on the other first and who would emerge victorious.


Was that ever stated by the show's creators? If not, that is only one possible interpretation. Besides, unless his motivations were the same as the Daleks' motivations, he is not the same as them.

The season finale had Doctor Who choose between destroying Earth and the Daleks or letting Earth be destroyed but not blowing it up himself.


In other words, if orcs start a genocidal war against humans because orcs cannot stand the fact that humans exist, and then a human casts a spell that kills all orcs in order to save the humans, it can be called self defense. Extreme, maybe but still is it as evil as what the orcs were doing?

That would be the villain's argument, yes. However, it's the same argument that Doctor Who coped with the Daleks. He basically questioned whether it was right to annihilate the Dalek race completely by destroying them utterly at their birth.


I run deities as remote and uncommunicative, like in eberron or ravenloft. Similar to ravenloft, i have deities be mysterious. In fact, one of the ways I have tension between the various cultures in my games is that often one or more of the major deities in one culture will appear in another culture... as an evil entity! For instance, if the elves may have Correlon Larethion as a CG archer, the dwarves might have a CE archer known as Coral Lather. Similar enough that you know they have to be the same being, but interpreted differently. The mythologies will be similar, but with a different perspective. Always fun to borrow from real life, right?

Cool, I run the opposite. Deities are petty and realistic creatures with often people wondering why they should bother venerating someone since they act like extremely powerful humans. It, however, helps them appreciate that they're under the command of something that is entirely out of their control.

Yet, the players CAN rail against fate and perhaps overthrow the works of a deity.

[Zoockey]

Did anyone read the book "Orcs"of Stan Nicholls?
He deiscribes Orcs as violent creatures with their own goals, policy and lifestyle. I think he makes Orcs a bit too human, but after u read the book, u will feel a deep comprehension with orcs. They don't HAVE to be the villains

[EvilJames]

Orcs are not goblinoids. they are as biologically and culturally different as elves and dwarves.

Slight nitpick, but it has come up before. Orcs used to be goblinoids up until just after halfway through 2nd ed's run (kobolds were goblinoids right up until 3rd ed) they are culturally different but up until recently they were only as biologically different as hobgoblins and goblins.

[Matthew]

Slight nitpick, but it has come up before. Orcs used to be goblinoids up until just after halfway through 2nd ed's run (kobolds were goblinoids right up until 3rd ed) they are culturally different but up until recently they were only as biologically different as hobgoblins and goblins.

Hmmn, I thought they were goblinoids right through 2e. What supplement/module did that change in?

[Blanks]

Since people seems to have left the question of what gives the best gameplay as opposed to most posts being a bit philosophical in nature ill jump on the bandwagon :)

A lot of people talk about what is good and what is evil in absolutes. I have an absolutistic approach to my personal belief system, but that doesnt mean i assume everyone does.

For example, if orcs are, as some have argued, the embodiment of evil, then i see no moral dilemma - wipe them out to the last one. The human race have exterminated smallpox and I do not fear for my immortal soul :smallsmile:




Just to clarify - I dont believe in souls, but I do believe in trying to lead a "good" life.

[Citizen Joe]

For example, if orcs are, as some have argued, the embodiment of evil, then i see no moral dilemma - wipe them out to the last one. The human race have exterminated smallpox and I do not fear for my immortal soul :smallsmile:


You don't need them to be evil to justify wiping them out. Humans have a tendency towards competition and expansionism. The simple fact that the orcs are not 'one of us' and 'using our resources' is a good enough reason to wipe them out. It doesn't make you any better than the orcs, it just makes you human... or elf... or dwarf or whatever 'us' is.

It is all about resource management. If resources are high and 'they' are taking only a small part of the resources, but it would take much more resources to get rid of 'them' then 'we' tolerate them. If 'they' contribute to 'our' resources then they are 'good' for 'us'. If 'they' take a disproportionately large chunk of our resources then they are 'bad->evil' for 'us'.

This gets compounded by perception. So what 'we' consider 'good' or 'bad' for 'us' is governed by how 'we' see it. To that end it is easier to use the terms 'good' and 'evil' as shorthand and bypass the whole proof of detrimental effects question.

Since you could always flip the coin and see things from 'their' point of view, there usually isn't a 'true evil'. To be truly evil, one would have to consume another's resources without benefit to one's self. In fact, one would have to consume those resources to the detriment of one's own well being also.

[Jorkens]

A lot of people talk about what is good and what is evil in absolutes. I have an absolutistic approach to my personal belief system, but that doesnt mean i assume everyone does.
Just to clarify, there's a difference between absolutism in terms of individual acts (which is the sense that it's usually meant in) and in terms of people or individuals. In D&D, there's absolutism in that an evil act can always be identified as such and there's no room for disagreement. On the other hand, a good person can commit evil acts and an evil person (ie one with a tendancy to commit evil acts) can become a good person. Even in a world where moral absolutism is uncontestable, you aren't neccessarily justified in wiping out evil people.

Erm, back to the subject at hand. I'm not convinced by Charles' idea that a race can 'become irredemably evil' - surely that's a question of the culture becoming one that raises people to be irredemably evil rather than the race becoming genetically bound to be evil.

In general, I guess the thing that bothers me about a lot of 'orcs are all irredemably evil to the extent that they could be considered incapable of moral action' situations is the way that a lot of the time, orcs are very much like humans except that they're uneducated (and hence sound a bit fick), they look a bit strange, and they have no capacity for good. Leaving aside the question of whether someone can really be considered 'evil' if they don't have the capability to do good, I'd expect a race entirely lacking that ability to be a bit less human. Leaving aside plausibility, having a race that look and sound like slightly substandard people but who you can enjoy wiping out for the good of the world is a little uncomfortable for me even in fantasy.

[Blanks]

In D&D, there's absolutism in that an evil act can always be identified as such and there's no room for disagreement. On the other hand, a good person can commit evil acts and an evil person (ie one with a tendancy to commit evil acts) can become a good person. Even in a world where moral absolutism is uncontestable, you aren't neccessarily justified in wiping out evil people.
Good people can commit evil deeds and evil people can "commit" good deeds - we agree.
Thats not the same as good people can become evil and evil people can become good.
And it certainly doesn't mean that just because an evil person CAN become good that you're morally prevented from fighting him*.





*
I am against the death penalty. Then again, I don't live in a world where people summon demons...

[EvilJames]

Hmmn, I thought they were goblinoids right through 2e. What supplement/module did that change in?

There wasn't a module that changed it it was just a change I noticed they were drifting towards in some of the literature what chapters describing the orcs and other goblinoids eventually started describing orcs and also goblinoids I suppose. I just can't pin down exactly when it switched.

[Charles Phipps]

Well I changed my games in FR.

I've started introducing non-evil orcs even as the player characters recently met a Calisham Priest of Deneir. They're starting to wonder about the incredibly bizarre behavior of the Orcs from the Heartlands by comparison.

I'm going to reveal the Orcs they've been fighting all this time are actually Demon-blooded.

:-)

[Doresain]

Then again, I've always liked portraying Elves as Genuinely Good and something that humans should emanate and Orcs as everything worst about mankind. One particularly crazy Forgotten Realms game had the players trapped in Zhentil Keep country. I went a little crazy in describing Bane worshipping Orcs.


im going completely against this in my game...orcs arent necessarily evil, but seeing as how they are the chosen people of a god of wrath and beasts they tend to be savage and chaotic...

elves on the other hand are very proud, very arrogant and value beauty, purity and perfection amongst their kind...they enslave non-elves to do menial tasks among their cities, and typically go on genocidal rampages on surrounding non-elf communities...also, any elf bearing even the slightest imperfection is cast out from the society...