Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
Probably very unlikely. Its a lot of work to break players out of preconceived notions and habits from dissimilar games. I'm working hard to break player habits about "guards" being either total mooks or 'level appropriate' or that mind flayers are some weird 'hive mind of evilz for lols'.

The overweight, blotchy, illithid taxi driver/bookie who wore Hawiian shirts and talk through a parrot that never.. never.. ever.. shut.. up.. was pretty good. But I still always needed to remind them several times each session that the ones staffing the illithid dominion embassy, the ones that are non-combat & non-government citizens, and the illithid outside the dominion are not the same groups. Your American resturant owner in Iowa is not a US State Department diplomat on a mission. While some random Aussie in Canberra is both neither of those and has no freaking clue why the American embassy in Sidney is trying to contact you. Can you please stop harassing random people of the same species but totally different nation, culture, and star system, and then go actually talk to the people who literally just said they had a clue for you?

Every. Single. Time.
I can generally respect this line of thinking, but when one of the gimmicks of the species you chose is that they are literally a telepathic hive mind, I think you've gone a couple steps beyond subverting expectations there to just flat out confusing people. If they aren't a hive mind and don't eat brains, I would argue they arent illithids in any meaningful sense and using the name is a mistake.