Which villainous race(s) are next on the chopping block?

[Chaosmancer]

You're missing half-giants, muls, thri-kreen, Athasian elves (less magical, more wicked), Athasian dwarves (focus, banshee afterlife), rules for defiling magic, rules for elemental clerics and druids, and rules for everything related to psionics/10th level magic/21st+ level play.

Even if you did want to just re-use PHB elves as Athasian elves, that's only 1% of the work needed to play Dark Sun. I don't know why you're hung up on that 1% in particular instead of the other 99% of the setting.

See, you are immediately running into the same problem. Look at the difference in the rules between Eberron Elves and "Default" Elves. Look at the difference in dwarves.

Dwarves have zero rule changes, elves got the option to switch some skills. You are saying that Athasian elves being "more wicked" is some sort of change we need to show in the rules beyond swapping some skills?

4e made "half-giants" out of Goliaths, so that only leaves Muls and Thri-kreen. Which are unique, but that takes us from 5 to 2, a pretty big change.

Elemental Clerics and Druids? We've got rules for those. Nature Cleric works, not sure what precisely you'd need for an "elemental druid" that isn't just a druid, but a lot of them could be easily reflavored. And you really don't need rules for 10th leve magic or 21+ level play. It would be nice, but even when you start at level 5 most games aren't hitting 20, let alone 20+.

So, I took your list and pretty casually reduced it down to four things. Muls, Thri-Kreen, Psionics (which do have some rules, just not a lot) and defiling magic, which is almost more narrative since you shouldn't be playing a wizard anyways due to defiling. That isn't 99% of what you need, That is probably closer to 30% of what you need.


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So because a clarification did not perfectly address things beyond its scope, it is not a helpful clarification?

You kept asking "Do they think orcs have free will or not?", well you have you answer now. Their answer was "Yes, orcs have free will. But, just like humans have abridged agency, orcs have abridged agency. " and for bonus points they continued with "Orcs have a more abridged agency than humans." (translated rather than direct quotes).

With that miscommunication out of your way, maybe you can get to the 2nd question instead of talking past each other on the 1st question?

Oh, and the clarification also didn't include a solution to world hunger. That must have been a terrible clarification.

But here is the problem, he isn't answering the second question, and he's given both answers to the first. He has said yes and no. Separately, to separate versions of the same question.

So, if that is his real answer (which he hasn't confirmed when discussing with me) then why is he refusing to go beyond that to the second question and why is it that he keeps going back and forth?

Odd. You don't think Orcs have any agency at all? They are mindless deterministic robots? The common understanding of Orcs would refute that. 5E Gnolls are closer to that concept and even then it appears they have some agency (although maybe not moral agency).


Edit:
Regardless, I have lost interest in the argument you two are having. So I will stop trying to help.

That is what the PHB tells us. The Good Races were gifted with Free Will (this is all we are told on that subject. We aren't told whether it is true free will, limited free will, or anything else. They were gifted with Free Will. Period.)

The Evil races were designed to be servants. This is held in opposition to being gifted Free Will. The opposite of having something is not having it. I'm not exactly making a leap into the stratosphere here. If someone wrote "The brown dog was wet, unlike the grey dog" then you are going to take that to mean the grey dog is dry, not that it is just slightly less wet than that brown dog.

The Problem is though, the PHB immediately counteracts their own claim. Because in telling me how little choice orcs have... they mention how good orcs struggle. Which makes no sense.

I get that supposedly I just don't understand that Free Will is a continuum and the writers were supposedly saying that the Good Races were created with a limited capacity for Free Will, and the Evil races with an even lesser capacity for Free Will... but that isn't what it says. And if they can choose to be good, instead of evil, a necessary component to show that their evil is so ingrained that even the good ones struggle to not be evil, then why put them up as having no Free Will?

Like literally, there is nothing that seems to actually limit their Free Will. They can make any choice they want. They can defy their deity, who it seems created them with the capacity to defy him.

Now, I'm going to be honest, I think lack of Free Will among Orcs is a stupid idea. And, I even came up with a theory to rewrite some lore to explain how they could have been made to lack Free Will, and yet inexplicably have it anyways. It would never work in my worlds, because my cosmology is different, but it would work.

But, fan theories don't change the Canon, and the Canon seems to be twisted into a knot to make Orcs evil to their core and unable to change... except when they change. Why not just... give them free will and the ability to choose? Why do we need to write them in such way that they are evil to their cores, instead of just making them like everyone else and giving them the choice.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm not so sure the Vikings you're describing would work as ("heroic" or epic) fantasy antagonists. Democratic explorers, traders, and farmers have sympathetic qualities. At best you can have a Viking faction, like a bunch of pirates led by Eric the Black, who are raiding and killing Saxons while the other Vikings don't care enough to stop them, and that works okay as long as the PCs never go to Norway, but the minute they do, they get mired in internal Viking politics, cease to perceive Vikings as a threat and reframe the conflict with Eric the Black as a threat.

I think if you want Vikings to function as fantasy antagonists you need to make them significantly worse. Maybe play up blood sacrifice to Odin (with cannibalistic elements) and slavery of non-Vikings--something to persuade the players that the Viking society as a whole, including even the (slave-owning) farmers and (slave-taking) explorers and (slave) traders, is their enemy.

Or you just make them a circumstantial antagonist via them invading and conquering the bits of the world the party is connected to.

You didn't answer the question, you changed the subject to a special case (when others are uncomfortable).

What if you do care but see no evidence that anyone is uncomfortable? Does GloatingSwine still condemn using MM orcs in that case?

They still come from settler-colonialist depictions of the other used to justify a feeling of superiority over them, and that's still a bad mindset to train yourself into, and to hang onto when it turns out that relatively accessible changes in your perspective and approach can help you let go of it and make your fictional world more interesting, because people-vs-people conflicts have a lot more interesting variations than enemies that are less people and more bad weather.

[OldTrees1]

But here is the problem, he isn't answering the second question, and he's given both answers to the first. He has said yes and no. Separately, to separate versions of the same question.

So, if that is his real answer (which he hasn't confirmed when discussing with me) then why is he refusing to go beyond that to the second question and why is it that he keeps going back and forth?

You two are arguing and talking past each other. I cut through that and got a clarification on their actual answer to the first question. The "going back and forth" is partially a consequence of your own inconsistency* and the tone your argument took.

That is what the PHB tells us. The Good Races were gifted with Free Will (this is all we are told on that subject. We aren't told whether it is true free will, limited free will, or anything else. They were gifted with Free Will. Period.)

The Evil races were designed to be servants. This is held in opposition to being gifted Free Will. The opposite of having something is not having it. I'm not exactly making a leap into the stratosphere here. If someone wrote "The brown dog was wet, unlike the grey dog" then you are going to take that to mean the grey dog is dry, not that it is just slightly less wet than that brown dog.

You are making a large leap with this reading. I see no reason to follow you on that leap of logic. Especially when it leads to a contradiction that other readings do not.

The brown dog was drenched, unlike the grey dog. Is the grey dog dry?

They still come from settler-colonialist depictions of the other used to justify a feeling of superiority over them, and that's still a bad mindset to train yourself into, and to hang onto when it turns out that relatively accessible changes in your perspective and approach can help you let go of it and make your fictional world more interesting, because people-vs-people conflicts have a lot more interesting variations than enemies that are less people and more bad weather.

Given how charged MaxWilson's question is, it might be wise to answer their question more explicitly before you go into the nuance.

Was that a "No, I don't condemn doing that at your own table but I think it is a bad idea for ..." or "Yes, I do condemn doing that at your own table, and I think it is a bad idea for ..."?

[KorvinStarmast]

Oh, and the clarification also didn't include a solution to world hunger. That must have been a terrible clarification.

5E Gnolls are closer to that concept and even then it appears they have some agency (although maybe not moral agency)

Yes, gnolls in 5e are more beast than human, driven by their demon lord, and they fit a very nice niche of a 'ravening horde' tnat any humanoid settlement or group (Orc, Human, Halfling, Elf) will have trouble with. They don't like anyone. They are my 'this edition' favorite "terror of the countryside" monster. (When I think back on how a gnoll was "something between a gnome and a troll" and then became "hyena person-thing" The originals were ... something not well defined.

HOBGOBLINS: These monsters are large and fearless Goblins, having +1 morale. The Hobgoblin king will fight as an Ogre, as will his bodyguard of from 2-4 in number.

GNOLLS: A cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany did not really make it all that clear) with +2 morale. Otherwise they are similar to Hobgoblins, although the Gnoll king and his bodyguard of from 1 - 4 will fight as Trolls but lack regenerative power.

In other words, gnolls as we know them are a complete D&Dism, whereas orcs and goblins exist outside of D&D.

A few excerpts from Lord Dunsany's story indicate that gnoles were woodland creatures who lived well away from settled, humand lands, towns, and cities.

No track led up to the sinister gloom of the trees, either of men or cattle; not even a poacher had been there snaring elves for over a hundred years. You did not trespass twice in the dells of the gnoles. And, apart from the things that were done there, the trees themselves were a warning, and did not wear the wholesome look of those that we plant ourselves. {snip for brevity} Into the wood they went all day, deeper and deeper. They saw the skeleton of some early Georgian poacher nailed to a door in an oak tree; sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them...And the sunset flared full of omens through the tree trunks, and night fell, and they came by fitful starlight, as Nuth had foreseen, to that lean, high house where the gnoles so secretly dwelt.
{snip} And then and there, while yet he was undiscovered, the likely lad made up his mind, as he should have done long before, to leave those colossal emeralds where they were and have nothing further to do with the lean, high house of the gnoles, but to quit this sinister wood in the nick of time and retire from business at once and buy a place in the country. Then he descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him through knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the unearthly silence gave way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid screams of Tonker as they picked him up from behind—screams that came faster and faster until they were incoherent. And where they took him it is not good to ask, and what they did with him I shall not say.

Monsters, but of a very different sort than the hyena-mutants of AD&D 1e and now 5e.

[Tanarii]

I think if you want Vikings to function as fantasy antagonists you need to make them significantly worse. Maybe play up blood sacrifice to Odin (with cannibalistic elements) and slavery of non-Vikings--something to persuade the players that the Viking society as a whole, including even the (slave-owning) farmers and (slave-taking) explorers and (slave) traders, is their enemy.

This cuts to the chase. Humanizing humanoids, or using more clear real world analogs/stand-ins, makes it far more likely to create a perception among some folks that they are perpetuating negative stereotypes of a IRL culture. The very thing being advocated makes the situation that is being complained about worse.

I don't agree with the initial complaint. I do not think it's a correct interpretation* of the presentation of 5e D&D fantasy races, nor most D&D fantasy cultures. But there is no logic to this proposed solution.

*someone's feelings are experienced so they are valid. But that doesn't mean they are correct. Feelings can be experienced and based on something wrong at the same time. Lots of folks misinterpret this meme to be claiming that feelings must be "correct", because they have been experienced. Ditto for perceptions and interpretations.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: 50 pages