Yes, what you just described would be considered as "evil" by sentient D&D beings, and likely most "real world" sentient beings. I don't need a stat bloc to tell me creatures that function as that are "evil'. But because of all the Mercer influenced "D&D players" (His group does not play D&D, but some aberration), we need stat blocs, more than ever, to state what is evil, what is not, in the game. Experienced players don't need that. But new players do.
New players certainly do not need arbitrary rules to teach them the right and proper alignment for goblins or whatever else. They can be trusted to make their game however they'd like.
Imagine some new player arrives and says "I want to play a goblin", and then me, being a DM, explains, "no, goblins are feral, animalistic monstrosities with no kindness, no real sense of self, and an endless hunger for violence". Then the player screams that I am a real life racist.
There's no point engaging this straw man further.
Players don't "make the game". DM's do. Players only exist within the construct the DM creates. So when some player shows up at my table and tells me what alignment a goblin is, that is not going to fly. But in this new age nonsense, when we have mercer and his crew saying anything goes, and Eberron, there is an excellent chance of some new player who got into D&D because of critical role telling me that goblins can be good.
And thank you for stating that it is a straw man argument when some player says I am a racist when I state goblins are evil. You have just put to the lie the entire concept of racism with regard to orcs, drow. vistani, which of course, it is.
You think that a base evil race can never have a member that is good or neutral?
Y'know, Vince? if you're having trouble successfully portraying your 'Evil' critters as evil without having the sourcebooks force-feed the idea down people's throats, there's a lot of useful supplementary material out there.
I haven't watched it myself, but Goblin Slayer does an excellent job of remonsterizing goblins. They're portrayed as almost more demonic than anything else - feral, animalistic monstrosities with no kindness, no real sense of self, and an endless hunger for violence (leaving the obvious horror of their parasitic reproduction for the moment). They don't live in neat, orderly villages that exactly mimic a human village - their nests more resemble termite mounds, and even high-level adventurers think twice before stepping foot in a goblin nest. The show plays with the idea that these things aren't worth the trouble higher-level adventurers would have to go through to eliminate them...but they're still terrifying monsters that can ravage the countryside if left entirely unchecked. They don't speak, they don't really cooperate beyond the most basic level, and even their champions are more unnatural mutations than they are stalwart protectors. It'd be a good case study for rewinding the clock in your own game and rendering goblinoid races back into guilt-free murder pinatas
It's a vision far more in line with the whole Always Chaotic Evil thing than anything with a PC statblock. You'd have to adjust the monster statblocks in the game to de-emphasize high-value weapons like swords and stuff like armor - these sorts of cultures aren't even cultures proper. They're huge, cursed packs of barely-sapient scavengers who use what they carry away from their raids/hunts but don't produce such things themselves. Obviously there would be no option to play such a character in a world where this is how ACE species work, but it's still a much better route to take than "well, the DMG says they're evil so get to killin', team" all while the critters in question are basically doing nothing at all any differently than any regular sapient species save for the occasional resource raids - which, considering humanity and allies' general efforts at constant, unrelenting genocide, seem more justified than not in settings where your orcs, goblins, and similar critters are just greener, toothier versions of regular dudes.
I am not sure if you are agreeing with me, or not.
Yes, what you just described would be considered as "evil" by sentient D&D beings, and likely most "real world" sentient beings. I don't need a stat bloc to tell me creatures that function as that are "evil'. But because of all the Mercer influenced "D&D players" (His group does not play D&D, but some aberration), we need stat blocs, more than ever, to state what is evil, what is not, in the game. Experienced players don't need that. But new players do.
Imagine some new player arrives and says "I want to play a goblin", and then me, being a DM, explains, "no, goblins are feral, animalistic monstrosities with no kindness, no real sense of self, and an endless hunger for violence". Then the player screams that I am a real life racist.
I am not sure if you are agreeing with me, or not.
Yes, what you just described would be considered as "evil" by sentient D&D beings, and likely most "real world" sentient beings. I don't need a stat bloc to tell me creatures that function as that are "evil'. But because of all the Mercer influenced "D&D players" (His group does not play D&D, but some aberration), we need stat blocs, more than ever, to state what is evil, what is not, in the game. Experienced players don't need that. But new players do.
Imagine some new player arrives and says "I want to play a goblin", and then me, being a DM, explains, "no, goblins are feral, animalistic monstrosities with no kindness, no real sense of self, and an endless hunger for violence". Then the player screams that I am a real life racist.
Oh come on, Vince. Are you serious right now? This is a ridiculous take, plain and simple
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Matthew Mercer is the DM for Critical Role, the most popular/successful D&D Internet show by several country miles. His style of DMing is overall much more permissive than many other older DMs, and his world tends to try and avoid the Always Chaotic Evil tropes often associated with many creatures and species in D&D. One of the characters in his second campaign was a goblin*. Nott had to take some care to avoid drawing unwanted attention and suspicion within her native Dwendalian Empire, but Mercer portrayed that less as "goblins are evil and awful and should always be killed on the spot" as "the people of this region are naturally suspicious, and goblins are typically associated with our greatest/only military enemy, so seeing a goblin walking around like it ain't no thang is weird and unsettling." I.e. a proper reason for people to take poorly to a PC of a given species.
To briefly address the other thing...a certain demographic of typically older DMs, often more experienced with older editions of D&D than with Critical Role's native 5e, see Matthew Mercer's style of gaming as an infuriating corruption of "what D&D Should Be." They do not like the way he and his group play, and the fact that his show is enormously popular and successful, and is one of the biggest entry points for new players to 5e, grates on their nerves. They hate people who start playing after watching Critical Role, because those people are generally expecting D&D to be more like Critical Role than Lord of the Rings and are often surprised and nonplussed when the older-style DMs enforce older-style rules and expectations.
It's as much a Session Zero problem as anything else, one of the ways in which a group's expectations and desires can be at cross purposes with each other. The DM wants to run a grim, nasty low-magic game where humans (only) fight against a myriad of dark, horrific threats to save what little remains of their society with no attention paid to who they are or why they do it aside from "if you don't then everyone you know and love dies", while the players are looking for an epic high fantasy romp with deep ties to their carefully crafted backstories and a heavy focus on the party's interpersonal bonds and character growth. Both games are valid, but they're also so fundamentally incompatible that there's no saving a campaign in which the DM wants one and the players are pushing for the other.
I am not sure if you are agreeing with me, or not.
Yes, what you just described would be considered as "evil" by sentient D&D beings, and likely most "real world" sentient beings. I don't need a stat bloc to tell me creatures that function as that are "evil'. But because of all the Mercer influenced "D&D players" (His group does not play D&D, but some aberration), we need stat blocs, more than ever, to state what is evil, what is not, in the game. Experienced players don't need that. But new players do.
Imagine some new player arrives and says "I want to play a goblin", and then me, being a DM, explains, "no, goblins are feral, animalistic monstrosities with no kindness, no real sense of self, and an endless hunger for violence". Then the player screams that I am a real life racist.
Oh come on, Vince. Are you serious right now? This is a ridiculous take, plain and simple
But he isn't breaking the rules right? He can tell everyone that they are playing the game wrong and be as broadly insulting as he likes. *eyeroll*
Ultimately, the only 'rule' that matters is the DM's ruling. All else can be bent, edited, discarded etc at any particular game and that flexibility is a good thing, even if not every game fits what every player individually likes about D&D.
We present orcs and drow in a new light in two of our most recent books, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do.
So for the longest time the Drow were just seen as nothing but a race of Elves that were just plain wicked, irredeemable. You had Drizzt, one of these most famous single characters in D&D Lore as an exception, but by and large all Drow were just flat out murder hobos and evil.
Now we have three different sects of Drow. All of this is coming from the Summer of Drizzt:
Deep in the Underdark lies the city of Menzoberranzan, stronghold of the cult of Lolth. This Udadrow society has become corrupted by the malicious goddess, who teaches them to despise all outsiders. The subterranean City of Spiders is the bastion of the Udadrow: drow elves who became tainted by Lolth’s insidious teachings. Udadrow society values ruthlessness, obedience, and a burning hatred of surface dwellers. Menzoberranzan’s young warriors raid surface villages, proving their worth by how many elves they destroy.
Far to the North lies Callidae; an Aevendrow enclave built of glittering ice. Few recall its location and even fewer know the secrets long guarded at its heart. Even as some of their kin followed Lolth down to the Underdark, many drow elves rejected her, remaining true to their innate integrity. One band ventured north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion. They became the Aevendrow—or Starlight Elves—a highly secretive clan steeped in powerful magic. The Aevendrow remain untainted by Lolth’s influence, and life in Callidae is radically different from that of oppressive Menzoberranzan. Yet, though many would rejoice to see it, almost no one—including the longest-lived elves—can quite remember its existence.
The teeming southern jungles conceal the drow elf city of Saekolath, populated by the Lorendrow—dwellers in the endless green. Head far enough south and one enters the territory of the Lorendrow, or “Greenshadow Elves.” Far from the Spider Queen and her terrors, the Lorendrow draw their wisdom from their environment: the generosity of earth; the mystery of sky; and the complex harmony of forest. Their verdant city is Saekolath—“Place of Shade”—and it wends between towering trees and chattering rivers. Even the most knowledgeable bard would be hard-pressed to sing its histories, and few northern adventurers have ever reached its borders.
I think the main reason WoTC chose not include alignments is to avoid another "Drow" incident.
Why go through the trouble of including an alignment if someone somewhere is going to find a reason to be upset about it.
What Drow incident?
Per the original game lore, Drow's have dark skin, and are inherently evil. So certain vocal groups started accusing WoTC of being racists.
It was less they thought WotC was racist but rather promoting outdated ideas about dark skin being a curse to "evil" races that has been an unfortunate part of history.
I think the main reason WoTC chose not include alignments is to avoid another "Drow" incident.
Why go through the trouble of including an alignment if someone somewhere is going to find a reason to be upset about it.
What Drow incident?
Per the original game lore, Drow's have dark skin, and are inherently evil. So certain vocal groups started accusing WoTC of being racists.
Neither I nor the group as a whole advocating for these changes and ones similar to this have accused WotC of being racist due to this language. Instead, it is saying "this language closely echoes real world examples of racism/excuses for racism, which is inherently problematic and harmful to certain members of the hobby, which warrants a change to this outdated piece of lore".
If you already knew that and were mischaracterizing our position, that's a strawman argument. If you didn't know that, it was an accidental and ignorant mischaracterization, and you have now been made aware to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
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exceptionally problematic portrayals of slavery (to be "fair" the Duergar have an even bigger problem with this)
Hm. Not familiar with that particular one. Yeah, both are slave keepers, but I don't recall it being presented in a positive light, just "here's another thing that lets us shows that these creatures are Evil".
Plus sharp widows peaks and power staches, coming across like some photo negative of Tolkien's elves meets KISS (under spoiler, because of objectification of Lloth even in spider form, mention of arachnophilia, graphic speculation of Beholder defecation, and drug use and insinuations regarding D&D origin moments ... plus those sharp widows peaks are just too edgy to be safe)
Re: Salvatore, it's not just the Drow discussion that link focuses on. His representations of human women in at least Crystal Shard left a lot to be desired if they were to be thought of as characters. I'm assuming his sensitivities have evolved given his continued commercial success, but I was never a Drizzt dude and by the time he was writing old Star Wars EU that universe had already become too involved for me to keep on top of. That crop crop of writers were very hit and miss. Salvatore through work with TSR/WotC though is a master of work for hire so is likely able to churn out product to fit whatever standards and practices equivalent fiction publishing puts out.
And I also wouldn't necessarily single out Salvatore (or even Drow, it's just easy to point them out in the books). The female characters in the first Dragonlance novels, even the strong ones, were constantly being thrust into misogynistic "sexual peril" plots as a means to compromise their competency (particularly Laurana and Kit). As I noted I think in another thread, D&D has a misogynist legacy. I'd say it's actually made strides ahead of the curve in that regard in comparison to the rest of U.S. society. I don't know whether singling out Salvatore is really seeing the issue. D&D novelists traditionally did work for hire, something some creatives derisively (I'd say inappropriately) call "hack work." But it's basically writing what you're told to write, sometimes with an actual formula in hand.
exceptionally problematic portrayals of slavery (to be "fair" the Duergar have an even bigger problem with this)
Hm. Not familiar with that particular one. Yeah, both are slave keepers, but I don't recall it being presented in a positive light, just "here's another thing that lets us shows that these creatures are Evil".
I'm probably not the best person to do a propper run-down of it...the basic idea is that it's really terrible to suggest that a whole race (or species, if you insist) are slavers. It's a particularly bad incarnation of...well, exactly that this thread is about: reducing whole "peoples" to stereotypes.
Duergar are worse, because they got it from being enslaved. Like, the generational experience was just so evil that they became evil.
Both of those are uncomfortably close to "the savages are the real slavers" narratives that were popular in the real word (like blaming american slavery on africans who sold people).
Also, the portrayal of slavery in classic fantasy, especially the pulpy/game kind, is usually really dismissive. Wherein the protagonist(s) get captured and enslaved, go through some torture ****, escape and get retribution, and come out stronger for it (you know, like it was character building experience).
I'm probably not the best person to do a propper run-down of it...the basic idea is that it's really terrible to suggest that a whole race (or species, if you insist) are slavers. It's a particularly bad incarnation of...well, exactly that this thread is about: reducing whole "peoples" to stereotypes.
Duergar are worse, because they got it from being enslaved. Like, the generational experience was just so evil that they became evil.
Not sure I see how there's anything there beyond the general problem of declaring a race Evil (or Good). If you get rid of that and just declare that certain cultures hold slaves, nothing weird about that, cultures did hold slaves. As for the duergar, a group deciding that the only thing wrong with slavery is that the wrong people were slaves is (unfortunately) realistic enough.
I'm probably not the best person to do a propper run-down of it...the basic idea is that it's really terrible to suggest that a whole race (or species, if you insist) are slavers. It's a particularly bad incarnation of...well, exactly that this thread is about: reducing whole "peoples" to stereotypes.
Duergar are worse, because they got it from being enslaved. Like, the generational experience was just so evil that they became evil.
Not sure I see how there's anything there beyond the general problem of declaring a race Evil (or Good). If you get rid of that and just declare that certain cultures hold slaves, nothing weird about that, cultures did hold slaves. As for the duergar, a group deciding that the only thing wrong with slavery is that the wrong people were slaves is (unfortunately) realistic enough.
For duergar, it wasn't quite a choice: "Their period of enslavement and the revolt against the mind flayers led by their god, Laduguer, purged the influence of the other dwarven gods from their souls and thus made them into the superior race."
I'm probably not the best person to do a propper run-down of it...the basic idea is that it's really terrible to suggest that a whole race (or species, if you insist) are slavers. It's a particularly bad incarnation of...well, exactly that this thread is about: reducing whole "peoples" to stereotypes.
Duergar are worse, because they got it from being enslaved. Like, the generational experience was just so evil that they became evil.
Not sure I see how there's anything there beyond the general problem of declaring a race Evil (or Good). If you get rid of that and just declare that certain cultures hold slaves, nothing weird about that, cultures did hold slaves. As for the duergar, a group deciding that the only thing wrong with slavery is that the wrong people were slaves is (unfortunately) realistic enough.
For duergar, it wasn't quite a choice: "Their period of enslavement and the revolt against the mind flayers led by their god, Laduguer, purged the influence of the other dwarven gods from their souls and thus made them into the superior race."
So Laduguer for Dwarves is basically Lloth for Elves? Or the Duerguar are somewhere between Drow and Gith in their outlook (I think Githyanki still enslave, despite their history as slaves, although the enslavement period is really just ridicule/trophying prior to sacrifice to their Lich queen, which has llothian overtones).
My games have just never gone that deep for Drow and Duerguar to really register much on my game's playing surfaces, so to speak.
Under spoiler because references to offshoots of real life bondage and power play dynamics:
I think the "chain breaking hero" trope you mentioned earlier ("slavery as a character builder experience for the PC"), that's there on one side of things, but there's also in some of the early Drow aesthetics and definitely Dark Sun you have echoes of the whole Gor culture that arouse out of those novels, and while yes there are spaces where those power dynamics are consensually explored, it seems in TTRPG it's been used to actually indulge in adolescent sadism fantasies at tables. I would never say there's absolutely no place for that exploration in TTRPG, but most players and stewards of the D&D brand would really not have an understanding on how to engage that content space responsibly, so probably for the best its largely fallen out of the mainstream D&D product line's aesthetic.
You think that a base evil race can never have a member that is good or neutral?
It solves the problem of "D&D alignment is only useful for causing arguments about what it means".
What do you mean by Mercer influenced .... ?
Oh come on, Vince. Are you serious right now? This is a ridiculous take, plain and simple
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Matthew Mercer is the DM for Critical Role, the most popular/successful D&D Internet show by several country miles. His style of DMing is overall much more permissive than many other older DMs, and his world tends to try and avoid the Always Chaotic Evil tropes often associated with many creatures and species in D&D. One of the characters in his second campaign was a goblin*. Nott had to take some care to avoid drawing unwanted attention and suspicion within her native Dwendalian Empire, but Mercer portrayed that less as "goblins are evil and awful and should always be killed on the spot" as "the people of this region are naturally suspicious, and goblins are typically associated with our greatest/only military enemy, so seeing a goblin walking around like it ain't no thang is weird and unsettling." I.e. a proper reason for people to take poorly to a PC of a given species.
To briefly address the other thing...a certain demographic of typically older DMs, often more experienced with older editions of D&D than with Critical Role's native 5e, see Matthew Mercer's style of gaming as an infuriating corruption of "what D&D Should Be." They do not like the way he and his group play, and the fact that his show is enormously popular and successful, and is one of the biggest entry points for new players to 5e, grates on their nerves. They hate people who start playing after watching Critical Role, because those people are generally expecting D&D to be more like Critical Role than Lord of the Rings and are often surprised and nonplussed when the older-style DMs enforce older-style rules and expectations.
It's as much a Session Zero problem as anything else, one of the ways in which a group's expectations and desires can be at cross purposes with each other. The DM wants to run a grim, nasty low-magic game where humans (only) fight against a myriad of dark, horrific threats to save what little remains of their society with no attention paid to who they are or why they do it aside from "if you don't then everyone you know and love dies", while the players are looking for an epic high fantasy romp with deep ties to their carefully crafted backstories and a heavy focus on the party's interpersonal bonds and character growth. Both games are valid, but they're also so fundamentally incompatible that there's no saving a campaign in which the DM wants one and the players are pushing for the other.
Please do not contact or message me.
Ultimately, the only 'rule' that matters is the DM's ruling. All else can be bent, edited, discarded etc at any particular game and that flexibility is a good thing, even if not every game fits what every player individually likes about D&D.
Golaryn was talking about forum rules.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
What Drow incident?
Per the original game lore, Drow's have dark skin, and are inherently evil. So certain vocal groups started accusing WoTC of being racists.
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd
So for the longest time the Drow were just seen as nothing but a race of Elves that were just plain wicked, irredeemable. You had Drizzt, one of these most famous single characters in D&D Lore as an exception, but by and large all Drow were just flat out murder hobos and evil.
Now we have three different sects of Drow. All of this is coming from the Summer of Drizzt:
Deep in the Underdark lies the city of Menzoberranzan, stronghold of the cult of Lolth. This Udadrow society has become corrupted by the malicious goddess, who teaches them to despise all outsiders. The subterranean City of Spiders is the bastion of the Udadrow: drow elves who became tainted by Lolth’s insidious teachings. Udadrow society values ruthlessness, obedience, and a burning hatred of surface dwellers. Menzoberranzan’s young warriors raid surface villages, proving their worth by how many elves they destroy.
Far to the North lies Callidae; an Aevendrow enclave built of glittering ice. Few recall its location and even fewer know the secrets long guarded at its heart. Even as some of their kin followed Lolth down to the Underdark, many drow elves rejected her, remaining true to their innate integrity. One band ventured north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion. They became the Aevendrow—or Starlight Elves—a highly secretive clan steeped in powerful magic. The Aevendrow remain untainted by Lolth’s influence, and life in Callidae is radically different from that of oppressive Menzoberranzan. Yet, though many would rejoice to see it, almost no one—including the longest-lived elves—can quite remember its existence.
The teeming southern jungles conceal the drow elf city of Saekolath, populated by the Lorendrow—dwellers in the endless green. Head far enough south and one enters the territory of the Lorendrow, or “Greenshadow Elves.” Far from the Spider Queen and her terrors, the Lorendrow draw their wisdom from their environment: the generosity of earth; the mystery of sky; and the complex harmony of forest. Their verdant city is Saekolath—“Place of Shade”—and it wends between towering trees and chattering rivers. Even the most knowledgeable bard would be hard-pressed to sing its histories, and few northern adventurers have ever reached its borders.
It was less they thought WotC was racist but rather promoting outdated ideas about dark skin being a curse to "evil" races that has been an unfortunate part of history.
Neither I nor the group as a whole advocating for these changes and ones similar to this have accused WotC of being racist due to this language. Instead, it is saying "this language closely echoes real world examples of racism/excuses for racism, which is inherently problematic and harmful to certain members of the hobby, which warrants a change to this outdated piece of lore".
If you already knew that and were mischaracterizing our position, that's a strawman argument. If you didn't know that, it was an accidental and ignorant mischaracterization, and you have now been made aware to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
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Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Drow have all sorts of historical problems:
(See http://gamingphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/10/sexism-in-realms.html for a rundown of some of the sexism problems --- though note that link is more about the Salvatore books than D&D specifically.)
Hm. Not familiar with that particular one. Yeah, both are slave keepers, but I don't recall it being presented in a positive light, just "here's another thing that lets us shows that these creatures are Evil".
Plus sharp widows peaks and power staches, coming across like some photo negative of Tolkien's elves meets KISS (under spoiler, because of objectification of Lloth even in spider form, mention of arachnophilia, graphic speculation of Beholder defecation, and drug use and insinuations regarding D&D origin moments ... plus those sharp widows peaks are just too edgy to be safe)
Re: Salvatore, it's not just the Drow discussion that link focuses on. His representations of human women in at least Crystal Shard left a lot to be desired if they were to be thought of as characters. I'm assuming his sensitivities have evolved given his continued commercial success, but I was never a Drizzt dude and by the time he was writing old Star Wars EU that universe had already become too involved for me to keep on top of. That crop crop of writers were very hit and miss. Salvatore through work with TSR/WotC though is a master of work for hire so is likely able to churn out product to fit whatever standards and practices equivalent fiction publishing puts out.
And I also wouldn't necessarily single out Salvatore (or even Drow, it's just easy to point them out in the books). The female characters in the first Dragonlance novels, even the strong ones, were constantly being thrust into misogynistic "sexual peril" plots as a means to compromise their competency (particularly Laurana and Kit). As I noted I think in another thread, D&D has a misogynist legacy. I'd say it's actually made strides ahead of the curve in that regard in comparison to the rest of U.S. society. I don't know whether singling out Salvatore is really seeing the issue. D&D novelists traditionally did work for hire, something some creatives derisively (I'd say inappropriately) call "hack work." But it's basically writing what you're told to write, sometimes with an actual formula in hand.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm probably not the best person to do a propper run-down of it...the basic idea is that it's really terrible to suggest that a whole race (or species, if you insist) are slavers. It's a particularly bad incarnation of...well, exactly that this thread is about: reducing whole "peoples" to stereotypes.
Duergar are worse, because they got it from being enslaved. Like, the generational experience was just so evil that they became evil.
Both of those are uncomfortably close to "the savages are the real slavers" narratives that were popular in the real word (like blaming american slavery on africans who sold people).
Also, the portrayal of slavery in classic fantasy, especially the pulpy/game kind, is usually really dismissive. Wherein the protagonist(s) get captured and enslaved, go through some torture ****, escape and get retribution, and come out stronger for it (you know, like it was character building experience).
Did I mention you or a specific group? Strange how you feel my post was personally directed toward you.
Not sure I see how there's anything there beyond the general problem of declaring a race Evil (or Good). If you get rid of that and just declare that certain cultures hold slaves, nothing weird about that, cultures did hold slaves. As for the duergar, a group deciding that the only thing wrong with slavery is that the wrong people were slaves is (unfortunately) realistic enough.
For duergar, it wasn't quite a choice: "Their period of enslavement and the revolt against the mind flayers led by their god, Laduguer, purged the influence of the other dwarven gods from their souls and thus made them into the superior race."
So Laduguer for Dwarves is basically Lloth for Elves? Or the Duerguar are somewhere between Drow and Gith in their outlook (I think Githyanki still enslave, despite their history as slaves, although the enslavement period is really just ridicule/trophying prior to sacrifice to their Lich queen, which has llothian overtones).
My games have just never gone that deep for Drow and Duerguar to really register much on my game's playing surfaces, so to speak.
Under spoiler because references to offshoots of real life bondage and power play dynamics:
I think the "chain breaking hero" trope you mentioned earlier ("slavery as a character builder experience for the PC"), that's there on one side of things, but there's also in some of the early Drow aesthetics and definitely Dark Sun you have echoes of the whole Gor culture that arouse out of those novels, and while yes there are spaces where those power dynamics are consensually explored, it seems in TTRPG it's been used to actually indulge in adolescent sadism fantasies at tables. I would never say there's absolutely no place for that exploration in TTRPG, but most players and stewards of the D&D brand would really not have an understanding on how to engage that content space responsibly, so probably for the best its largely fallen out of the mainstream D&D product line's aesthetic.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.