Monster Humanoid Races: Your Opinion?

[8BitNinja]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

As long as they are d**ks about it...

[Ravian]

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]

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]

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:

[Jormengand]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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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]

"Is genocide actually really good?" isn't really something most people enjoy discussing and roleplaying, just an fyi

[Mechalich]

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]

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]

"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]

@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]

@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]

@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]

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]

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]

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]

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.