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

[Sigreid]

Given that, in AD&D terms, they were explicitly designed as an evil group living in the bowels of the earth and worshipping an explicitly evil goddess, I am not sure why they are problematic. Drizz't was a narratively, and somewhat romantically, created exception by an author, not a game designer, to sell fantasy fiction books rather than for game purposes. You could say that Drizz't stood how D&D became a game on its head, and is an example of the D&D rantasy recursion. Originally, D&D took horror fiction, swords and sorcery, high fantasy, dying earth genre, legends and myths, and some other speculative fiction (Clone spell, for example, is a more SF concept as is the psychic power of the mind flayer) and made a game out of it.
EGG added to the usual mix of stuff an elf strain that wasn't Lawful or Neutral, as was the characterization of Elves in general, andy by trope subversion created an estranged Elf group that was explicitly evil.
The fiction of Salvatore took the game and from that influence made a fantasy story built from the game.
Backwards, as it were, in process.

I've always considered Drizz't to be the problematic one.

[Xervous]

Unless they make these no-longer-always-evil races playable because we're going to run into balance issues to rival some of the silliness EA is known for.

What exact angle are you getting at here? Former antagonist/monster race that was overtuned for narrative purposes is blindly greenlit as a PC race? The more likely case seems to be the players get access to a hat that’s a statistical mockery of the race, or the entire race is revised down to standard mundane (in)competency.

[JackPhoenix]

Given that, in AD&D terms, they were explicitly designed as an evil group living in the bowels of the earth and worshipping an explicitly evil goddess, I am not sure why they are problematic.

There's a reason why everyone scrambles to make them purple or gray in the art these days.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've always considered Drizz't to be the problematic one.

I enjoyed some of the books (particularly the Origin Trilogy) but I wish he'd have stayed out of published material.

There's a reason why everyone scrambles to make them purple or gray in the art these days.

Fair enough; with each edition the artistic style changes. I purchased the book that covers the art of D&D from 1974 to 5e (which includes a few Arneson era drawings that made it into the original books). It's a very intersting study on the artistic vision compared to the game in some cases - particularly as regards the 2e Darksun visual style (Bron) and the Basic Elmore / Comic Book style. Giving Drow purple skin: well, why not? Frankly, as a matter of taste, I prefer it.

[Sigreid]

There's a reason why everyone scrambles to make them purple or gray in the art these days.

As opposed to this?

[Xervous]

There's a reason why everyone scrambles to make them purple or gray in the art these days.

Purple drow in the deeps? Deep purple? Oh no the 3.5 era half dragon nonsense is returning. Did I just come to understand a designer joke 15 years too late on deep dragons?

[Morty]

The Drizz't books tend to wade hip-deep in D&D morality, for all that people bemoan them for giving us a "good drow". Drizz't is a rebel against his evil kind and people are treated as close-minded for assuming he's bad... but goblins and giants are given no such consideration and cut down in droves. Killing an evil human is treated as more traumatic for Catti-Brie than the aforementioned slaughter of goblins. The Uthgard barbarians are enemies, who make a habit of invading to kill and plunder, but they're ultimately treated as people - they can be reasoned with. Goblins, orcs and giants, once again, are not.

[KorvinStarmast]

Deep purple?

Space Truckin'

The Drizz't books tend to wade hip-deep in D&D morality, for all that people bemoan them for giving us a "good drow". Drizz't is a rebel against his evil kind and people are treated as close-minded for assuming he's bad... but goblins and giants are given no such consideration and cut down in droves. Killing an evil human is treated as more traumatic for Catti-Brie than the aforementioned slaughter of goblins. The Uthgard barbarians are enemies, who make a habit of invading to kill and plunder, but they're ultimately treated as people - they can be reasoned with. Goblins, orcs and giants, once again, are not.

That might be due to them being Monsters, first and foremosts, from the Monster Manual, not humans or demi humans. Heck, orcs, Goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins and a few others are explicitly referred to as being in the Giant Class in AD&D 1e; Rangers get a damage bonus against those monsters. That would make the books consistent (Crystal Shard and its sequels) with AD&D 1e era stuff.

The Barbarians are depicted as being "other people" not "Monsters" in that narrative framework. Mind Flayers? Monsters. Owl Bears? Monsters. Aboleth? Monsters. And so on.

[Morty]

That might be due to them being Monsters, first and foremosts, from the Monster Manual. (Keep in mind that the books you are referring to are AD&D 1e era stuff, which is over 30 years ago. The Barbarians are depicted as being "other people" not "Monsters" in that narrative framework.

That is the problem being discussed and the attitude D&D is finally getting around to jettisoning, yes.

[Sigreid]

Space Truckin'
That might be due to them being Monsters, first and foremosts, from the Monster Manual, not humans or demi humans. Heck, orcs, Goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins and a few others are explicitly referred to as being in the Giant Class in AD&D 1e; Rangers get a damage bonus against those monsters. That would make the books consistent (Crystal Shard and its sequels) with AD&D 1e era stuff.

The Barbarians are depicted as being "other people" not "Monsters" in that narrative framework. Mind Flayers? Monsters. Owl Bears? Monsters. Aboleth? Monsters. And so on.

I actually think that the thought of the Drow being black really only went so far as "These guys live under ground in the dark. You know what would make them even harder to see in the shadows? If they were black!"

[Warder]

The Drizz't books tend to wade hip-deep in D&D morality, for all that people bemoan them for giving us a "good drow". Drizz't is a rebel against his evil kind and people are treated as close-minded for assuming he's bad... but goblins and giants are given no such consideration and cut down in droves. Killing an evil human is treated as more traumatic for Catti-Brie than the aforementioned slaughter of goblins. The Uthgard barbarians are enemies, who make a habit of invading to kill and plunder, but they're ultimately treated as people - they can be reasoned with. Goblins, orcs and giants, once again, are not.

That's simply not true. A recurring theme in the Drizzt books is him struggling with his preconceived notions of morality - he started out by referring to a select few races as "Goodly", then befriended a Good goblin (who was hanged in Silverymoon for simply being a goblin) and made peace with the Many-Arrows orc kingdom with the goal of friendly neighborly relationships with the Silver Marches. The "whelp question" is also brought up, and it constantly causes friction between him and others who believe that killing goblinoid children is fine.

I don't think Salvatore's writing is great, but there's a lot more nuance to the drow (and other races) in it than what people give him credit for. There are repeating examples of morality being something people struggle with, and which comes from societal, cultural and religious norms rather than the DNA you were happened to be born with. The drow in the Forgotten Realms are - no matter what people say - not inherently evil, but their society is an authoritarian theocracy controlled by priests who worship an evil goddess, a goddess who directly interferes in drow life and provides tangible rewards to those who enforce her will and ambition. There are plenty of drow who don't want to be a part of it, but getting out isn't easy - the Lolthites hunt dissenters and if you try to head for the surface alone you're pretty much dead. And once you get to the surface, there's a whole other hostile environment waiting for them. The Eilistraeean faith is all about making that journey a bit easier.

Anyway, I don't expect that to change anyone's minds, but that struggle is why I like the drow in general, and good drow in specific. Overcoming hardship and prejudice makes for a great character story, and being the underdog resisting against an overwhelmingly powerful force is one of my favorite themes in any narrative. If drow didn't have the shadow of Lolth looming over them, both as a society and as individuals, I think I'd like them a lot less.

[Tanarii]

Star Wars. Harry Potter. Avengers. All films that use Good vs Evil, including "usually evil" or "always evil" races.

Lord of the Rings. The Wheel of Time. The Cosmere (e.g. Stormlight Archive). All book series that use Good vs Evil, including "usually evil" or "always evil" races.

It's still a thing people want in their entertainment.

For that matter, the "problematic" races/cultures in these have often been judged by the people making these judgements to be the good guys, not the bad guys. Star Wars, jar jar blink's race. Wakandans in Black Panther were the marvel disaster. Wheel of time's Aiel, and Stormlight's Herdazians and Shin.

And those are storytelling, not gaming. In gaming, by the definitions and standard so often given for "problematic", Warcraft Orcs are far more so than D&D Orcs ever were.

[TyGuy]

Since the publishing of the PHB, the 5e stance on the question has ALWAYS been "mortal creatures have the choice in their morality, but culturally (as well as due to divine influence) they are often incentivized toward certain behaviors".

If the WoTC spokepersons are going "look, we're changing things now", it's either that they haven't read the books or that they want to pretend they're right now doing the job that was already done.

Exactly this! Even in this thread, people are either straw-manning or haven't read the books themselves. The language used is generally, typically, usually, often, rarely. Not always ___.

The descriptions in ALL of the content books are stock ideas for inspiration, waiting for DMs and players to put their own customizations into play. Nothing is stopping people from adding 'a twist on a trope' now, and nothing will stop people from reimplementing classical content once the "problematics" have been retconned.

One issue I have is that in the past, if someone wanted to reimagine Drow as misunderstood and "not so bad" then that went on with nary a qualm. But now if someone wants to run classical orcs, they may run into judgement as someone finds their themes "problematic". I.e. your fun is wrong.

[KorvinStarmast]

I actually think that the thought of the Drow being black really only went so far as "These guys live under ground in the dark. You know what would make them even harder to see in the shadows? If they were black!"

I'll wager a copper piece on you being correct.

Anyway, I don't expect that to change anyone's minds, but that struggle is why I like the drow in general, and good drow in specific. Overcoming hardship and prejudice makes for a great character story, and being the underdog resisting against an overwhelmingly powerful force is one of my favorite themes in any narrative. If drow didn't have the shadow of Lolth looming over them, but as a society and as individuals, I think I'd like them a lot less.

I susect that this is why the books sold so well. The struggle/conflict, which is the key element to most good stories.

@TyGuy: interesting post, thanks for your take on that.

I am going to go back to the Title Question and propose a simple answer:
nothing is on the chopping block.
The bloat will (unfortunately for some tastes, fortunately for others) continue.

[Sigreid]

I think now days we tend to forget that D&D was crated as a game about archetypes.

The fighter is the man or woman who confronts the evils of the world with his strength and his courage.

The Thief confronts the evils of the worlds with his cunning and trickery.

The Wizard confronts the evils of the world with his knowledge.

The Cleric confronts the evils for the world with his faith.

Meanwhile...

Orcs are the destructive entropy coming for your home and family.

Drow are the terror that hunts you in the darkness where you are most vulnerable.

The Owlbear is the savagery and unpredictability of nature.

etc.

[Segev]

What exact angle are you getting at here? Former antagonist/monster race that was overtuned for narrative purposes is blindly greenlit as a PC race? The more likely case seems to be the players get access to a hat that’s a statistical mockery of the race, or the entire race is revised down to standard mundane (in)competency.

Redemption demotion on a racial scale, yeah.

Though some of them actually need promotion: goblins and kobolds are pretty weak if you don't invent new powers for them, generally speaking. 5e did okay with this, though I think kobolds' two features are lame, even if they are decently useful. (And I can't believe they left the notion of an Urd subrace on the cutting-room floor, when they already had aaracockra out there.)

The Drizz't books tend to wade hip-deep in D&D morality, for all that people bemoan them for giving us a "good drow". Drizz't is a rebel against his evil kind and people are treated as close-minded for assuming he's bad... but goblins and giants are given no such consideration and cut down in droves. Killing an evil human is treated as more traumatic for Catti-Brie than the aforementioned slaughter of goblins. The Uthgard barbarians are enemies, who make a habit of invading to kill and plunder, but they're ultimately treated as people - they can be reasoned with. Goblins, orcs and giants, once again, are not.

Space Truckin'
That might be due to them being Monsters, first and foremosts, from the Monster Manual, not humans or demi humans. Heck, orcs, Goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins and a few others are explicitly referred to as being in the Giant Class in AD&D 1e; Rangers get a damage bonus against those monsters. That would make the books consistent (Crystal Shard and its sequels) with AD&D 1e era stuff.

The Barbarians are depicted as being "other people" not "Monsters" in that narrative framework. Mind Flayers? Monsters. Owl Bears? Monsters. Aboleth? Monsters. And so on.

It's worth noting that Tomb of Annihilation has "cannibals" as an encounter, and they're pretty typically human cannibals who blatantly wear a mark on their foreheads showing they worship (or at least owe fealty to) Ras Nsi. They are treated by the book exactly as much as "kill on sight, because they're trying to do the same to you" as old-school orcs. Baitiri (chultan goblins) and grungs often get the same treatment, but by contrast have more complex interactions possible and even scripted in some cases.

So "attack on sight" can still be set up by signals in how the encounter is written, based on behavior and on "team jersey" type markings: things they're wearing or carrying that show them to be really bad people who will do really bad things to you given half the chance. Most of the time in D&D, the assumption is that you're encountering monsters - including human(oid) ones - in a "kill or be killed" situation, because regardless of whether it's a racial, cultural, or individual thing, this specific group of monsters is going to kill you if it can get away with it.

(Where it tends to start being problematic is when writers or DMs introduce "noncombatants" and ask players to determine whether slaughtering them all is acceptable or not. Or, worse, very clumsily try to introduce a "moral quandary" involving the same thing, while hammering both the "always evil" and the "innocent" buttons to make it a no-win situation. This is almost always clumsily done and not as clever as the writer or DM thinks it is. Nor does it prove any points, which goes partially into "not as clever as he probably thinks it is.")

If you keep the "acceptable targets" acceptable based on their behavior and choices (rather than their race), I think most of the problems go away. Sometimes, too, that "behavior and choice" is simply being a guard or soldier who is working for the villains and will thwart your efforts to thwart the villain (possibly by killing you). Even if he's a perfectly nice person who loves his family and wouldn't hurt a fly if he weren't paid to guard the base where the doomsday weapon is being built, he's still guarding the base where the doomsday weapon is being built and will still kill you and/or alert the rest of the base if he isn't dealt with. Not every encounter needs to be nor should be a moral dilemma; sometimes you're just raiding a villain's lair and the minions are just fodder. (More power to you if you can do a nonlethal run, but D&D shouldn't be morally judging you for not doing so.)

[Morty]

That's simply not true. A recurring theme in the Drizzt books is him struggling with his preconceived notions of morality - he started out by referring to a select few races as "Goodly", then befriended a Good goblin (who was hanged in Silverymoon for simply being a goblin) and made peace with the Many-Arrows orc kingdom with the goal of friendly neighborly relationships with the Silver Marches. The "whelp question" is also brought up, and it constantly causes friction between him and others who believe that killing goblinoid children is fine.

I'm mostly working off the original Icewind Dale books, where what I'm talking about is in full force.

Anyway, I don't expect that to change anyone's minds, but that struggle is why I like the drow in general, and good drow in specific. Overcoming hardship and prejudice makes for a great character story, and being the underdog resisting against an overwhelmingly powerful force is one of my favorite themes in any narrative. If drow didn't have the shadow of Lolth looming over them, but as a society and as individuals, I think I'd like them a lot less.

Such stories work just as well without passing moral judgements on entire species. Better, in fact. I will admit that I consider drow less bothersome on this particular subject (I have a slew of other problems with them), because the emphasis is on their oppressive theocracy and not being "born bad" like orcs or goblins.

One issue I have is that in the past, if someone wanted to reimagine Drow as misunderstood and "not so bad" then that went on with nary a qualm. But now if someone wants to run classical orcs, they may run into judgement as someone finds their themes "problematic". I.e. your fun is wrong.

The claim that making evil races good was universally accepted without complaint in the past but now the reverse isn't true is... not even anecdotal. I've seen multiple GMs who weren't willing to allow "monster races" to be played. When I considered playing a goblin in Storm King's Thunder, the GM didn't forbid me, but made it clear there'll be issues because goblins feature in the adventure as the usual conveniently evil vermin.

[RifleAvenger]

I think now days we tend to forget that D&D was crated as a game about archetypes.

The fighter is the man or woman who confronts the evils of the world with his strength and his courage.

The Thief confronts the evils of the worlds with his cunning and trickery.

The Wizard confronts the evils of the world with his knowledge.

The Cleric confronts the evils for the world with his faith.

Meanwhile...

Orcs are the destructive entropy coming for your home and family.

Drow are the terror that hunts you in the darkness where you are most vulnerable.

The Owlbear is the savagery and unpredictability of nature.

etc.

Literary archetypes were utilized (and sometimes developed; certainly their critique was) in a historical context. Sometimes (actually, most of the time) that historical context included really unjust viewpoints about certain types of people. The details of who or what fills each archetype in story are thus equally important. When systemic biases code villainous archetypes to groups (or traits of groups), something being used as an archetype doesn't fix the fact that the details carry their own message and implications. In fact, it can make it worse by tying what is purported to be universal imagery to a race/gender/religion/etc.

Like, I enjoy Jung's work as a backdrop for fantasy cosmology (esp. urban fantasy), and Frye's work defined a period of literary criticism and my high school studies, but a lot of the specifics are... There are multiple reasons why their schools aren't really practiced in their respective fields anymore, and this is one of them (albeit a minor one so far as psychology is concerned).

And before anyone points out elves and orcs don't actually exist, the issue is that the manner in which orcs are oft depicted and treated mirrors actual peoples' experience of racism (in a way that justifies the racism).

[Sigreid]

Literary archetypes were utilized (and sometimes developed) in a historical context. Sometimes (actually, most of the time) that historical context included really unjust viewpoints about certain types of people. The details of who or what fills each archetype in story are thus equally important. When systemic biases code villainous archetypes to groups (or traits of groups), something being used as an archetype doesn't fix the fact that the details carry their own message and implications. In fact, it can make it worse by tying what is purported to be universal imagery to a race/gender/religion/etc.

Like, I enjoy Jung's work as a backdrop for fantasy cosmology (esp. urban fantasy), and Frye's work defined a period of literary criticism and my high school studies, but a lot of the specifics are... There are multiple reasons why their schools aren't really practiced in their respective fields anymore, and this is one of them (albeit a minor one so far as psychology is concerned).

And before anyone points out elves and orcs don't actually exist, the issue is that the manner in which orcs are oft depicted and treated mirrors actual peoples' experience of racism (in a way that justifies the racism).

I've never bought and still don't buy that argument, so we're at an impasse and I guess this ends the conversation for me as to continue would dive right into violating forum rules. Have a nice day.

[Catullus64]

I had a long think about this kind of thing after an otherwise fun campaign got quagmired in arguments over how to treat Goblin enemies in war. I came up with a kind of theory about why the Hostile Other seems like an intractable problem in the game.

Spoiler: Massive Historical and Psychological Generalizations

Show

D&D games presume a pre-modern (not always medieval, but frequently) society, and try to emulate the feel of stories that either emerged from that kind of world, or were written by people who were reflecting on and interested in it.

In the pre-modern world emulated by fantasy, the strange and hostile Other is a fact of life. Forget supernatural creatures, forget people from the other side of the globe; think about the people who live just a few hundred miles away. They don't speak your language. Their religion, their customs, their appearance, all alien from what you know in the community around you. They represent something outside of the social and cultural order that helps you get through life. And apart from any conceptual threat they pose, sometimes they do actually invade your land and kill you. A historian can appreciate that the invaders are also people with their own humanity, but the person in the thick of it probably couldn't afford to be so philosophical. Combine that with a world in which violence itself is far more normalized, even within the in-group. That's the shared history of the human species that our traditional legends, and by association our fantasy literature, are tapping into.

I think that, in a lot of games, people want a safe version of the emotional experiences that are rooted in that violent, provincial past. That's certainly the case for me. We prefer to substitute monsters for people to placate a more modern social consciousness; we want to avoid vilifying real-world human groups, even by thematic association. But at the end of the day, I think we (again, at least I) crave antagonists who represent these inherited fears of the strange other, and stories that allow us to triumph over them in battle.

TLDR: D&D has "always-evil" races because people have a strong unconscious desire to emulate the very real and powerful fears which pre-modern people had for perceived outgroups, and the fantastical narratives which can be born of that.

In all honesty, I really don't know whether that should read like more of a defense or condemnation of evil races as a concept. Part of me wants to say that it's bad because it preserves and reinforces these regressive attitudes; another part of me wants to say it's good because it allows us to experience these emotional narratives in safe ways that don't cause immediate harm to real people. I imagine that even the people who agree with my highly speculative take will be divided on this latter issue.

[Scripten]

For that matter, the "problematic" races/cultures in these have often been judged by the people making these judgements to be the good guys, not the bad guys. Star Wars, jar jar blink's race. Wakandans in Black Panther were the marvel disaster. Wheel of time's Aiel, and Stormlight's Herdazians and Shin.

I'm not familiar with Wheel of Time or Stormlight, but for the other given examples (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.), the reason that the comparison falls apart is because they are emblematic of a different problem entirely. Racist/bigoted caricatures are bad, yes, but that's not really the problem with cosmologically "evil" humanoid races. Hell, Star Wars has a ton of issues with its portrayal of the Good vs. Evil binary, but it also portrays the descent into evil as a choice, not an inherent quality of any species.

And those are storytelling, not gaming. In gaming, by the definitions and standard so often given for "problematic", Warcraft Orcs are far more so than D&D Orcs ever were.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what aspects you are talking about, I believe this is incorrect. WoW Orcs have been portrayed as not-evil for a very long time and were subjugated by WoW humans in the past. The ways in which the two cultures interact portrays racism, but the design of the universe doesn't uphold it, which is the issue with always-evil humanoids in D&D and the like.

I'm also very confused and not a small part concerned for the argument that providing justification for hack n' slash is difficult to do. In my own homebrew setting, I eschew default alignments for any creature that isn't explicitly part of another plane, such as the Far Realm or Nine Hells equivalents, or something explicitly magical like dragons (who are manifestations of their element and cosmological alignment). That said, there are still factions which are unambiguously evil; a good example being a faction of elves that believe that their long lives provide sufficient justification for them to subjugate and commit atrocities against other humanoids. There is no question, in-universe or out, whether adherents of this ideology are capital E Evil nor any reason to hesitate in cutting them down. However, any character who systematically murders all elves is also a monster (in the moral sense, not in the creature definition).

With all this established, all it takes is a "Yes, this dungeon/base/castle is full of the [Imperialist Elven Faction], and anyone wearing their uniform is pretty much guaranteed to be hostile/evil/etc." Or if they see a Red Dragon or a fiend, they know that they are literally made of Evil matter and are not even potentially analogous to a sentient being with free will.

[BoutsofInsanity]

I'm just here to say this has been a fun read and it seemed pretty respectful.

Personally - I think the Demon's Justification typically handles all of this quite well.

Essentially - An entire group of people is evil and must be destroyed because they are infected by the vile demonic taint of super evil elemental chaos otherworldly power.

So like - You see a Gnoll right? And his fur be fluffy and and any color other than red. And his eyes aren't yellow. You have a good boi.

But you see a Gnoll, and he is red, and his eyes are yellow, you gotta kill it with fire because it has the Demon Rabies and is coming to eat your face. And that kind of takes care of the problem. You can make whole quests about "cleansing" the bloodline. And you don't have to feel bad because, well, Demon Rabies. You can even make it so that the soul of the humanoid passes on and all you are doing is putting down a malevolent entity who has control over a body.

So now you gotta find the zombie demon rabies cure and get the dragon balls to summon the unicorn to remove the vile demon curse.

[Sigreid]

I'm not familiar with Wheel of Time or Stormlight, but for the other given examples (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.), the reason that the comparison falls apart is because they are emblematic of a different problem entirely. Racist/bigoted caricatures are bad, yes, but that's not really the problem with cosmologically "evil" humanoid races. Hell, Star Wars has a ton of issues with its portrayal of the Good vs. Evil binary, but it also portrays the descent into evil as a choice, not an inherent quality of any species.



Unless I'm misunderstanding what aspects you are talking about, I believe this is incorrect. WoW Orcs have been portrayed as not-evil for a very long time and were subjugated by WoW humans in the past. The ways in which the two cultures interact portrays racism, but the design of the universe doesn't uphold it, which is the issue with always-evil humanoids in D&D and the like.

I'm also very confused and not a small part concerned for the argument that providing justification for hack n' slash is difficult to do. In my own homebrew setting, I eschew default alignments for any creature that isn't explicitly part of another plane, such as the Far Realm or Nine Hells equivalents, or something explicitly magical like dragons (who are manifestations of their element and cosmological alignment). That said, there are still factions which are unambiguously evil; a good example being a faction of elves that believe that their long lives provide sufficient justification for them to subjugate and commit atrocities against other humanoids. There is no question, in-universe or out, whether adherents of this ideology are capital E Evil nor any reason to hesitate in cutting them down. However, any character who systematically murders all elves is also a monster (in the moral sense, not in the creature definition).

With all this established, all it takes is a "Yes, this dungeon/base/castle is full of the [Imperialist Elven Faction], and anyone wearing their uniform is pretty much guaranteed to be hostile/evil/etc." Or if they see a Red Dragon or a fiend, they know that they are literally made of Evil matter and are not even potentially analogous to a sentient being with free will.

All right, I guess I can't resist one more stab at it. Please understand that I'm trying to get across the view of the 1e and earlier books and not change how you want to handle things in your game. In 1e, orcs and such weren't people in a real sense. They were designated as humanoids and not humans (beings with souls due to how they were created) or demi-humans (beings with spirits due to how they were created) and lacked the mental and spiritual capacity to be other than what they were. They were monsters in a roughly human shape. Yes, this is a very, very human centric way of setting things up, but it meant as you were going on your murderous, looting rampage you were killing monsters threatening a local village. You weren't even killing people threatening the village in any meaningful sense of the word people. They were threatening the village because in the cosmology and setup for the game they literally existed to threaten the village.

Edit to say I can accept the argument that people can and possibly have used this kind of portrayal to justify their own views of other groups. I just don't agree that this makes the setup itself problematic. To use a ridiculous example, bathtubs are a great benefit to health, hygiene and comfort and the fact that some people use them to drown their children doesn't make bathtubs problematic. Those people are problematic.

[Xervous]

I'm not familiar with Wheel of Time or Stormlight,

Wheel of Time’s shadowspawn are more or less what you’d expect, twisted creations of an otherworldly deity level entity who wants the world to suck. They’ll kidnap you for their cook pots or sacrifice you to forge a cursed blade to arm their unliving lieutenants.

Stormlight’s voidbringers are immortal spirits of emotion that possess ‘sacrifices’ from one specific race. Mind you this is a world where there’s umptydozen kinds of emotion spirits, the god spirit of Honor has been killed, and the god spirit Passion is still gunning for Cultivation after millennia of imprisonment/war cycles. Though Stormlight has central topics such as “humanity magically crippled the Listeners to keep them as slaves after beating down the last possessed one”, caste system based on eye color, and assorted moral hand grenades its characters have to juggle.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think now days we tend to forget that D&D was crated as a game about archetypes.

The fighter is the man or woman who confronts the evils of the world with his strength and his courage.

The Thief confronts the evils of the worlds with his cunning and trickery.

The Wizard confronts the evils of the world with his knowledge.

The Cleric confronts the evils for the world with his faith.

Meanwhile...

Orcs are the destructive entropy coming for your home and family.

Drow are the terror that hunts you in the darkness where you are most vulnerable.

The Owlbear is the savagery and unpredictability of nature.

etc.

I am picking up a slight Jung and Campbell vibe here.

Baitiri (chultan goblins) and grungs often get the same treatment, but by contrast have more complex interactions possible and even scripted in some cases.

Grungs are territorial poisonous tree frogs; the first Baitiri group our ToA party encountered we negotiated with, and we ended up with a big chunk of bark (these folks are OK, for non baitiri) token to present to any we met in Omu from that travelling group's leader. (Our interaction, with a bard's comprehend languages going for recieved communication, and using Minor Illusion to communicate to them was a fun piece of role play).

Most of the time in D&D, the assumption is that you're encountering monsters - including human(oid) ones - in a "kill or be killed" situation, because regardless of whether it's a racial, cultural, or individual thing, this specific group of monsters is going to kill you if it can get away with it.

The problem is, that wasn't always the case, originally. Parley was a notable/required skill in the original game, and is what Charisma was used for: reaction to a group of unknown NPCs/Monsters.

WoTC era D&D, and perhaps some adventures, seem to have defaulted to that "kill on sight" habit for non-thinking players. Maybe I missed something in the ten or so years that I didn't play D&D. Not sure.

I will say that playing Keep on the Borderlands as a pure dungeon crawl, with "kill 'em all" as the goal, is not only a lot harder than trying to get the various factions in the caves to keep fighting each other while your party achieves various goals, it's not unlikely to result in a party wipe in the game era in which it was written: 0 HP means you are dead. (Basic D&D). We played it in AD&D the first time (The DM had to do almost no modifications for that to work) and on a few occasions the "bind their wound before they bleed out" happened. AD&D 1e had that option, and we used it.

When played with a clever group a few years later, parley was a default (except for an by hobgoblins) and an concerted effort was made to leverage the local friction between cave areas to the party's advantage. The adventure took on an entirely different feel. (The back-stab in the Keep Itself was nearly fatal to one of the party members).

Spoiler: The Problem of Gotcha DMing

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Where it tends to start being problematic is when writers or DMs introduce "noncombatants" and ask players to determine whether slaughtering them all is acceptable or not. Or, worse, very clumsily try to introduce a "moral quandary" involving the same thing, while hammering both the "always evil" and the "innocent" buttons to make it a no-win situation. This is almost always clumsily done and not as clever as the writer or DM thinks it is. Nor does it prove any points, which goes partially into "not as clever as he probably thinks it is.")

Yeah, Gotcha DMing has always been a problem unless you send signals that 'the tip of your sword isn't the only way to interact with the world' via your DM decisions.

[Lord Raziere]

So you're fine with killing someone for being born in the wrong place, instead of being born as a certain species?

No I'm fine with killing them for making the wrong choice. No matter how unrealistic it is, they still can refuse to not be a bandit, or a soldier or a raider. Because having minions to kill is the fantasy, and I consider "they chose" to be a better reason to kill them than biology. this counts for all the "monstrous" races as well. I'll kill them because they did something wrong, but if they are not doing anything wrong? I have no reason to kill them.

I mean if your really that bent out of shape out of higher standards morality, then no one should be killed but evil gods- and possibly not even them. all monstrous races are nothing but people being used as tools by evil gods and don't deserve to be hated. demons and devils can be redeemed, and possibly even evil gods. the true moral path is become as Undertale and pacifist your way to redeeming all of them until the evil gods themselves see the error of their ways and no battle has to be fought ever again. But then we wouldn't be playing hack and slash/action fantasy heroism where we go around killing things. That would not be the fun we're aiming for, and if I ever encounter a DM making me kill orc babies and trying to justify that with biology I'm leaving the game, full stop. because that is not apart of it. thats just ugly.

[Berenger]

I actually think that the thought of the Drow being black really only went so far as "These guys live under ground in the dark. You know what would make them even harder to see in the shadows? If they were black!"

I'll wager a copper piece on you being correct.

Nah, they just nicked good white-skinned surface elves and evil black-skinned subterranean elves from Snorri's Edda (which has svartálfar, dökkálfar and ljósálfar) without a second thought.

[StoneSeraph]

Edit to say I can accept the argument that people can and possibly have used this kind of portrayal to justify their own views of other groups. I just don't agree that this makes the setup itself problematic. To use a ridiculous example, bathtubs are a great benefit to health, hygiene and comfort and the fact that some people use them to drown their children doesn't make bathtubs problematic. Those people are problematic.

I like this argument.
If I may continue, it would seem, then, that those who enjoy bathtubs and would never think to use them nefariously are being unfairly conflated with those problematic people who would use that bathtub for drowning children.
Moreover, the solution presented for such a problem is not to deal with the problematic people, but to instead ban all bathtubs and replace them with standing showers - still useful for hygiene, but ultimately not nearly as comfortable or enjoyable - for the sake of safety.
The problem still remains - people kill other people in the bathroom - but now no one has a bathtub, lest someone accuse them of drowning children.

[Sigreid]

Nah, they just nicked good white-skinned surface elves and evil black-skinned subterranean elves from Snorri's Edda (which has svartálfar, dökkálfar and ljósálfar) without a second thought.

Well, we know for a fact that Gary built D&D largely from old stories/myths and him and his friends making up weird stories about funny looking cheap plastic toys they had.

[KorvinStarmast]

Nah, they just nicked good white-skinned surface elves and evil black-skinned subterranean elves from Snorri's Edda (which has svartálfar, dökkálfar and ljósálfar) without a second thought.

I am not convinced that EGG ever read Snorri's edda, but, if he did, this explanation makes sense.