The full quote doesn't change that much the message -- though I agree it's better to use the full quote.
Wanting to absolutely forgo evil drow is stupid. I can understand wanting to bring forth more openly non-evil drow but wanting to make all drow non-evil -- as far as I understand the last part of the quote -- is dumb. Drow are evil because of their society, not because of the colour of their skin (which is unlike basically any humans I'd like to say)
It does change a lot though. This is not about politics, which was the message taken from that misrepresentation of the quote. Salvatore was relating his own experiences and motivations for working on this change. It is about people. Actual living people. He shared that his interactions with his fans helped him understand how much they identify with the character and because Salvatore is a fully functioning human being capable of the full spectrum of human emotion, including empathy, he has elected to not create stories with harmful implications anymore. He has dared to look at this topic through the lens of those experiencing that harm.
I wish people on the internet, protected by the shield of anonymity, had such courage and compassion for others.
You want to keep your evil underground Drow? Without the prejudicial angle of a black evil race? Do what should have been done back at the start - convert them to albino silvered hair elves ala Elric and the melnibonians. As an evolved underground group this is what would naturally happen as the need for melanin was eliminated and the energy to produce it is used elsewhere in the body. So your original dark elves ( pre- Lolth) get split into at least 3 groups. - the underground Drow, the dark elves of the newly discovered enclave(s), and the dark elves of the Rhymanthien Sharn. With Quylarnd’s spell they can now cease to be Drow and become true returned dark elves of the crown wars period.
The full quote doesn't change that much the message -- though I agree it's better to use the full quote.
Wanting to absolutely forgo evil drow is stupid. I can understand wanting to bring forth more openly non-evil drow but wanting to make all drow non-evil -- as far as I understand the last part of the quote -- is dumb. Drow are evil because of their society, not because of the colour of their skin (which is unlike basically any humans I'd like to say)
It does change a lot though. This is not about politics, which was the message taken from that misrepresentation of the quote. Salvatore was relating his own experiences and motivations for working on this change. It is about people. Actual living people. He shared that his interactions with his fans helped him understand how much they identify with the character and because Salvatore is a fully functioning human being capable of the full spectrum of human emotion, including empathy, he has elected to not create stories with harmful implications anymore. He has dared to look at this topic through the lens of those experiencing that harm.
I wish people on the internet, protected by the shield of anonymity, had such courage and compassion for others.
Most humans are capable of identifying themselves with any characters, regardless of gender, skin colours, race or even species. Hell, people can identify themselves with characters with overall different personalities and values than themselves -- just because of one or two traits they identify with.
As I said, I have nothing against non-evil Drow, but if all of a sudden all Drow are non-evil - than besides a "a wizard did it" explanation it makes non sense. And if elves with dark skin that worship (are under the tyranny more like) of an evil Goddess and live in a cutthroat society being "evil" (evil meaning a whole lot of thing in D&D) is unbearable than do what's been done for a long time -- and clearly official depiction tend toward it -- and make them (deep) purple skinned elves. No everyone likes it, but it keeps the aesthetic of the Drow without having them having "black" (obsidian really) skin. Or have Drow having from Obsidian black to light Purple skin.
Also, you speak of empathy for others. I'd like to raise the point that some other people have a problem with Drow being "evil" because it's a matriarchal society and thus it "links" being matriarchal with being evil. My point with that is, not everyone raises the same issue with this or that (the Drow in that case). So do people who only complain about the "race" angle lack empathy for those of also complain about the "feminist" angle?
You want to keep your evil underground Drow? Without the prejudicial angle of a black evil race? Do what should have been done back at the start - convert them to albino silvered hair elves ala Elric and the melnibonians. As an evolved underground group this is what would naturally happen as the need for melanin was eliminated and the energy to produce it is used elsewhere in the body. So your original dark elves ( pre- Lolth) get split into at least 3 groups. - the underground Drow, the dark elves of the newly discovered enclave(s), and the dark elves of the Rhymanthien Sharn. With Quylarnd’s spell they can now cease to be Drow and become true returned dark elves of the crown wars period.
Duergars and Sverfniblings also have dark skin while living in the underdark. It's not realistic but it's D&D, lots of things aren't "realistic" in that sense.
The full quote doesn't change that much the message -- though I agree it's better to use the full quote.
Wanting to absolutely forgo evil drow is stupid. I can understand wanting to bring forth more openly non-evil drow but wanting to make all drow non-evil -- as far as I understand the last part of the quote -- is dumb. Drow are evil because of their society, not because of the colour of their skin (which is unlike basically any humans I'd like to say)
It does change a lot though. This is not about politics, which was the message taken from that misrepresentation of the quote. Salvatore was relating his own experiences and motivations for working on this change. It is about people. Actual living people. He shared that his interactions with his fans helped him understand how much they identify with the character and because Salvatore is a fully functioning human being capable of the full spectrum of human emotion, including empathy, he has elected to not create stories with harmful implications anymore. He has dared to look at this topic through the lens of those experiencing that harm.
I wish people on the internet, protected by the shield of anonymity, had such courage and compassion for others.
Most humans are capable of identifying themselves with any characters, regardless of gender, skin colours, race or even species. Hell, people can identify themselves with characters with overall different personalities and values than themselves -- just because of one or two traits they identify with.
As I said, I have nothing against non-evil Drow, but if all of a sudden all Drow are non-evil - than besides a "a wizard did it" explanation it makes non sense. And if elves with dark skin that worship (are under the tyranny more like) of an evil Goddess and live in a cutthroat society being "evil" (evil meaning a whole lot of thing in D&D) is unbearable than do what's been done for a long time -- and clearly official depiction tend toward it -- and make them (deep) purple skinned elves. No everyone likes it, but it keeps the aesthetic of the Drow without having them having "black" (obsidian really) skin. Or have Drow having from Obsidian black to light Purple skin.
Also, you speak of empathy for others. I'd like to raise the point that some other people have a problem with Drow being "evil" because it's a matriarchal society and thus it "links" being matriarchal with being evil. My point with that is, not everyone raises the same issue with this or that (the Drow in that case). So do people who only complain about the "race" angle lack empathy for those of also complain about the "feminist" angle?
I have a problem with both the race angle and the feminist angle. I don’t like that the only matriarchal society in the Realms is also a society of chaotic evil slavers. This always bothered me about the drow.
I have a problem with both the race angle and the feminist angle. I don’t like that the only matriarchal society in the Realms is also a society of chaotic evil slavers. This always bothered me about the drow.
I mean, the problem there isn't really that the specific society is evil, but that there aren't other matriarchal societies to compare it against, i.e- good ones. There is plenty of room for them in the lore, but I can't think of any offhand. I have a few invented ones I've used in campaigns though, as well as a few ambiguous ones (believed they were doing good, but did so in questionable/extreme ways).
Really when it comes to diversity the goal shouldn't be to pretend that everyone is good, it's to show that everyone can be both good, evil or somewhere in between, because that's just people, irrespective of colour, gender, orientation etc.
The thing with the Drow is that being evil has nothing to do with the colour of their skin, or their being a matriarchal society, it's entirely the fault of the corrupting influence of Lolth and the systems and structures that enforce worship of a goddess who forces potentially good people to be raised evil and do evil things just to survive. The nature of the drow isn't the problem, it's their nurture, and the way that they can be treated by surface dwellers (who fear and despise them as a race, not a culture) only contributes to the us against them tribalism that keeps the drow from breaking free as a species. There are plenty of real world parallels that should be drawn on that basis, rather than fixating on colour (which has nothing to do with it).
And for the matriarchal angle, it doesn't matter that Drow society is matriarchal, as that has nothing to do with why they're evil. To use a sort of real world example; here in the UK we have had two women prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, and they were both terrible prime ministers. But that doesn't mean that I think we shouldn't have more female prime ministers, we absolutely should, because those two were bad because of their politics, not their gender (and we've had plenty of terrible male prime ministers as well, the current one being a prime example).
What I want to see more of aren't weird new cities being retconned into the world, I'd rather see more of the resistance against Lolth, in particular I'd like to see that resistance gaining ground, learning to work with others (who have come to accept them as who they are, not the society they came from), I want to see more surface dwelling Lolth worshippers to show that it's not just the Drow who are susceptible to her influence. I want the emphasis to be on the toxic society, not the race.
I don't mind the idea of new flavours of Drow as such, I just feel like it's a weird way to do it; small enclaves of non-Lolth worshipping Drow I can see, but entire cities seems a step too far, especially for them to have gone unnoticed. The whole point of Lolth's influence over the Drow is that desire for absolute control, so if there are others they should be the offshoots, or at least stragglers who managed to avoid going underground with the rest, and they should fear the Lolth worshippers every beat as much as other surface dwellers do, but I feel like they should be small enclaves to better explain how they've managed to remain hidden.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Drow society is the way it has because Lolth specifically made it that way. It has nothing to do with human laws, morals, ethics, politics or anything else - real world or otherwise.
I don't understand why people start applying real-world stuff to the Drow.
The Drow (a fictional race of beings) are the way they are because of an evil sadistic, imaginary demon God has made them that way. Which also fits with the lore of the world and the themes of both Lollth and the Drow.
What's next? Should we change the dwarves because they are offensive to short people? Should we get rid of Tieflings in case they offend people who are born with vestigial tails?
There are people in the world who believe D&D is satanic and that it teaches children to worship evil and raise devils - so should we scrap the entire game because those people are offended by it?
What about the people who have ailurophobia?. Should we get rid of Tabaxi because somebody might be afraid of cats?
Honestly, pinning real-world baggage onto fictional characters, places, and races is stupid.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Drow society is the way it has because Lolth specifically made it that way. It has nothing to do with human laws, morals, ethics, politics or anything else - real world or otherwise.
I don't understand why people start applying real-world stuff to the Drow.
The Drow (a fictional race of beings) are the way they are because of an evil sadistic, imaginary demon God has made them that way. Which also fits with the lore of the world and the themes of both Lollth and the Drow.
What's next? Should we change the dwarves because they are offensive to short people? Should we get rid of Tieflings in case they offend people who are born with vestigial tails?
There are people in the world who believe D&D is satanic and that it teaches children to worship evil and raise devils - so should we scrap the entire game because those people are offended by it?
What about the people who have ailurophobia?. Should we get rid of Tabaxi because somebody might be afraid of cats?
Honestly, pinning real-world baggage onto fictional characters, places, and races is stupid.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
My friend has a vestigial tail lol. You can’t see it but you can feel it in like her lower back. She’s not an RPer but if she was I don’t think she’d be offended by the existence of tieflings.
The full quote doesn't change that much the message -- though I agree it's better to use the full quote.
Wanting to absolutely forgo evil drow is stupid. I can understand wanting to bring forth more openly non-evil drow but wanting to make all drow non-evil -- as far as I understand the last part of the quote -- is dumb. Drow are evil because of their society, not because of the colour of their skin (which is unlike basically any humans I'd like to say)
It does change a lot though. This is not about politics, which was the message taken from that misrepresentation of the quote. Salvatore was relating his own experiences and motivations for working on this change. It is about people. Actual living people. He shared that his interactions with his fans helped him understand how much they identify with the character and because Salvatore is a fully functioning human being capable of the full spectrum of human emotion, including empathy, he has elected to not create stories with harmful implications anymore. He has dared to look at this topic through the lens of those experiencing that harm.
I wish people on the internet, protected by the shield of anonymity, had such courage and compassion for others.
Most humans are capable of identifying themselves with any characters, regardless of gender, skin colours, race or even species. Hell, people can identify themselves with characters with overall different personalities and values than themselves -- just because of one or two traits they identify with.
As I said, I have nothing against non-evil Drow, but if all of a sudden all Drow are non-evil - than besides a "a wizard did it" explanation it makes non sense. And if elves with dark skin that worship (are under the tyranny more like) of an evil Goddess and live in a cutthroat society being "evil" (evil meaning a whole lot of thing in D&D) is unbearable than do what's been done for a long time -- and clearly official depiction tend toward it -- and make them (deep) purple skinned elves. No everyone likes it, but it keeps the aesthetic of the Drow without having them having "black" (obsidian really) skin. Or have Drow having from Obsidian black to light Purple skin.
Also, you speak of empathy for others. I'd like to raise the point that some other people have a problem with Drow being "evil" because it's a matriarchal society and thus it "links" being matriarchal with being evil. My point with that is, not everyone raises the same issue with this or that (the Drow in that case). So do people who only complain about the "race" angle lack empathy for those of also complain about the "feminist" angle?
If your takeaway from that quote is that all drow are non-evil, then you have grossly misunderstood what was even being said. Salvatore is saying that he will not be writing those stories anymore and gave very personal, human reasons for not doing so. Further, this entire thread has been a discussion on the new addition to the lore, which includes are more diverse range of drow culture. You have been part of this discussion for months and in fact, started this thread, so I am a little confused how to you can suddenly be thinking that evil drow no longer exist.
Your final paragraph is a logical fallacy of a red herring. It is also ‘whataboutism’. Your argument fails to address Salvatore’s reasons and my argument. The topic of race is under discussion right now because Salvatore gave these reasons for not wanting to write evil drow stories anymore and that quote was brought to this thread. If you would like to discuss the impact of Lolth drow on feminism, that discussion can be had because it is relevant to the thread topic. Empathy is not a resource that can only be used once and never again or given to only one group of people. Obviously a rational person can understand that a person can have empathy for both those who feel harmed due to the racial implications and those who feel harmed due to the implications on women.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
While this is all true, none of it means these fictional creations cannot be handled better. Every choice is a deliberate one. And because of how we consume and critique media, valid interpretations the author(s) never intended can be born. Case in point, Salvatore's realization/revelation that having a Neutral Evil society, entirely populated by black people and run by women, is problematic to say the least. He might never have arrived there if others hadn't pointed it out. And for as much good as he did with his initial stories about Drizz't, the road to hell is still paved with good intentions.
Is there room for nuance in a place like Menzoberranzan? Absolutely. I don't think every possible drow is NE, but the Monster Manual doesn't show us every possible drow. It merely presents the ones we're most likely to throw at our players; or fight as players. And these drow NPC "monsters" are all fulfilling specific roles. We like to imagine that being royalty, or even nobility, is liberating because of the power and privilege of those positions. But even in a pseudo-medieval context, like D&D almost always is, those positions were saddled with responsibility. And the higher up you were, the more responsibility you had. More expectations could be placed upon you. It's suffocating, even today, with the British monarchy. They're all playing a role.
And I'm sure there are drow servants, tradespeople, scholars, and even commoners who aren't Neutral Evil. But we don't see them clearly expressed. And if we take the drow NPC features from the DMG and attach it to a stat block, it doesn't prescribe an alignment. This seems like a case of WotC taking two steps forward and one step backward. There is progress. It's implied that not all drow, orcs, or other races are all inherently evil. But it stops short of expressly stating so in the rule books. And it's that lack of expression that has been grinding so many proverbial gears. The company has been on this path for a while. But for whatever reason, they haven't fully committed until recently.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples of this aforementioned nuance being explored in licensed or officially sanctioned literature, either. I'm sure some game groups and tables do and have, but no published novel or sourcebook come to mind.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
While this is all true, none of it means these fictional creations cannot be handled better. Every choice is a deliberate one. And because of how we consume and critique media, valid interpretations the author(s) never intended can be born. Case in point, Salvatore's realization/revelation that having a Neutral Evil society, entirely populated by black people and run by women, is problematic to say the least. He might never have arrived there if others hadn't pointed it out. And for as much good as he did with his initial stories about Drizz't, the road to hell is still paved with good intentions.
Is there room for nuance in a place like Menzoberranzan? Absolutely. I don't think every possible drow is NE, but the Monster Manual doesn't show us every possible drow. It merely presents the ones we're most likely to throw at our players; or fight as players. And these drow NPC "monsters" are all fulfilling specific roles. We like to imagine that being royalty, or even nobility, is liberating because of the power and privilege of those positions. But even in a pseudo-medieval context, like D&D almost always is, those positions were saddled with responsibility. And the higher up you were, the more responsibility you had. More expectations could be placed upon you. It's suffocating, even today, with the British monarchy. They're all playing a role.
And I'm sure there are drow servants, tradespeople, scholars, and even commoners who aren't Neutral Evil. But we don't see them clearly expressed. And if we take the drow NPC features from the DMG and attach it to a stat block, it doesn't prescribe an alignment. This seems like a case of WotC taking two steps forward and one step backward. There is progress. It's implied that not all drow, orcs, or other races are all inherently evil. But it stops short of expressly stating so in the rule books. And it's that lack of expression that has been grinding so many proverbial gears. The company has been on this path for a while. But for whatever reason, they haven't fully committed until recently.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples of this aforementioned nuance being explored in licensed or officially sanctioned literature, either. I'm sure some game groups and tables do and have, but no published novel or sourcebook come to mind.
What about Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse?
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
While this is all true, none of it means these fictional creations cannot be handled better. Every choice is a deliberate one. And because of how we consume and critique media, valid interpretations the author(s) never intended can be born. Case in point, Salvatore's realization/revelation that having a Neutral Evil society, entirely populated by black people and run by women, is problematic to say the least. He might never have arrived there if others hadn't pointed it out. And for as much good as he did with his initial stories about Drizz't, the road to hell is still paved with good intentions.
Is there room for nuance in a place like Menzoberranzan? Absolutely. I don't think every possible drow is NE, but the Monster Manual doesn't show us every possible drow. It merely presents the ones we're most likely to throw at our players; or fight as players. And these drow NPC "monsters" are all fulfilling specific roles. We like to imagine that being royalty, or even nobility, is liberating because of the power and privilege of those positions. But even in a pseudo-medieval context, like D&D almost always is, those positions were saddled with responsibility. And the higher up you were, the more responsibility you had. More expectations could be placed upon you. It's suffocating, even today, with the British monarchy. They're all playing a role.
And I'm sure there are drow servants, tradespeople, scholars, and even commoners who aren't Neutral Evil. But we don't see them clearly expressed. And if we take the drow NPC features from the DMG and attach it to a stat block, it doesn't prescribe an alignment. This seems like a case of WotC taking two steps forward and one step backward. There is progress. It's implied that not all drow, orcs, or other races are all inherently evil. But it stops short of expressly stating so in the rule books. And it's that lack of expression that has been grinding so many proverbial gears. The company has been on this path for a while. But for whatever reason, they haven't fully committed until recently.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples of this aforementioned nuance being explored in licensed or officially sanctioned literature, either. I'm sure some game groups and tables do and have, but no published novel or sourcebook come to mind.
What about Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse?
Another case of two steps forward and one step back, I'm afraid. And that might be charitable. Describing them as "Typically Neutral Evil" and including a blurb about how some "renounce Lolth and join the war against their former goddess" (at the cost of some features) isn't nearly enough. Because what war? That's not detailed anywhere. Lolth isn't in this book. Most of her nods in other books are limited to table form. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has, by far, the most information, but it's no longer for sale and may as well be apocryphal text. The most presently available information we have on her is in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; a sourcebook for a licensed setting. And not only is that not even a full page, but it doesn't even describe a war.
Describing some Matron Mothers as having turned away from her in rebellion is a line without context. I get that it's supposed to inspire DMs who read it, but it's missing something.
What we really need is an underdark setting book and/or adventure, where a lot of this can be properly explored.
So players can see the good that can still exist in an evil society, those who have escaped it, how they fight back etc. We need to meet the priestesses who don't believe, the townspeople who question why, the real monsters further down and the monsters in charge.
A clumsy major retcon isn't needed IMO, we just need to see more of the parts we as players don't normally see, and that DMs currently have to invent for themselves. It'd also be nice to contrast it with a "good" city; when you look at settings like Waterdeep they're pretty nuanced, as there's a lot of corruption in that city, even if the city overall is "good", but we don't have a lot on current cities of the other elves. We need reminding that the "good" elves aren't as squeaky clean as they like to present themselves, and their cities have problems as well, but the only troubles we really know about are the ones in the distant past, like the fall of Myth Dranor, and even that's from fairly old lore.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
What we really need is an underdark setting book and/or adventure, where a lot of this can be properly explored.
So players can see the good that can still exist in an evil society, those who have escape, how they fight back etc. We need to meet the priestesses who don't believe, the townspeople who question why, the real monsters further down and the ones who rule.
A clumsy major retcon isn't needed IMO, we just need to see more of the parts we as players don't normally see, and that DMs currently have to invent for themselves. It'd also be nice to contrast it with a "good" city; when you look at settings like Waterdeep they're pretty nuanced, as there's a lot of corruption in that city, even if it's overall "good", but we don't have a lot on current cities of the other elves. We need reminding that the "good" elves aren't as squeaky clean as they like to present themselves, and their cities have problems as well.
I agree with you that a new Underdark setting book (or even an adventure, maybe like a sequel to OotA) would be great.
Drow society is the way it has because Lolth specifically made it that way. It has nothing to do with human laws, morals, ethics, politics or anything else - real world or otherwise.
This is false. You just gave an explanation for how their society got started, and your explanation is a gross oversimplification but basically correct for that. The reason Drow society remains that way is the same reason any society allows its evils to perpetuate: those in power seek to keep it and abuse/trauma begets abuse/trauma. Drow have free will; don't confuse them with Gnolls, who don't - Gnolls are hyenas corrupted by a Demon Lord. They can't choose to stop following the instincts he put in them.
I don't understand why people start applying real-world stuff to the Drow.
Same reason they do to dragons or orcs: creatures you can visibly recognize as evil that allegedly have free will are inherently problematic. You're basically falsely implying here that real-world free will and Drow free will differ, but they don't.
The Drow (a fictional race of beings) are the way they are because of an evil sadistic, imaginary demon God has made them that way. Which also fits with the lore of the world and the themes of both Lollth and the Drow.
No, that's Gnolls. You are getting huge swathes of Drow lore wrong. This is just not how Drow work or have ever worked.
What's next? Should we change the dwarves because they are offensive to short people? Should we get rid of Tieflings in case they offend people who are born with vestigial tails?
You're managing to misunderstand two problems at once.
You appear to have no misunderstanding of why it's problematic how WOTC changed the Drow. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with any fantasy setting having a society in it change over time. You're upset that Drow lore was changed, which is absurd. Every time we get a new story in a D&D setting, the lore changes. Your position makes no sense whatsoever. The problem is how it was changed, because retcons are universally hated by any nerd who likes stories. I have no recommendation here other than picking up some fantasy books and reading them so you can come to appreciate the differences between good storytelling and bad.
There are people in the world who believe D&D is satanic and that it teaches children to worship evil and raise devils - so should we scrap the entire game because those people are offended by it?
The fact that you think this is relevant is terrifying. Ok, I'll bite. Who are you claiming is trying to get Drow scrapped entirely, and what false belief are you claiming they share that leads to this trying?
What about the people who have ailurophobia?. Should we get rid of Tabaxi because somebody might be afraid of cats?
peers I don't.... are you claiming that people who want to get rid of Drow a) exist and b) are scared of obsidian elves?
Honestly, pinning real-world baggage onto fictional characters, places, and races is stupid.
See above link to Norman Spinrad book going into excellent depth on why you're wrong.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
This argument is isomorphic to an argument supporting the racist cartoons we got during WW2. I don't think you've stopped to think about what you're saying.
Drow society is the way it has because Lolth specifically made it that way. It has nothing to do with human laws, morals, ethics, politics or anything else - real world or otherwise.
I don't understand why people start applying real-world stuff to the Drow.
Because fictional beings like Drow were created and written about by people who live in the real world with real world morals, laws, ethics, and politics and often draw upon them for inspiration when writing fiction. If D&D had a race of humanoids that was noted as being argumentative, obsessed with gold, often work as crooked merchants or money lenders, have large noses, and wearing small caps over their heads because of religious reasons, people would immediately call out that the race is nothing but a collection of negative stereotypes about Jewish people. And that's what's happening right now regarding Drow: there's a bunch of negative stereotypes about real-world ethnic groups in there, and no, simply changing their skin color is not going to fix it.
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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.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
While this is all true, none of it means these fictional creations cannot be handled better. Every choice is a deliberate one. And because of how we consume and critique media, valid interpretations the author(s) never intended can be born. Case in point, Salvatore's realization/revelation that having a Neutral Evil society, entirely populated by black people and run by women, is problematic to say the least. He might never have arrived there if others hadn't pointed it out. And for as much good as he did with his initial stories about Drizz't, the road to hell is still paved with good intentions.
Is there room for nuance in a place like Menzoberranzan? Absolutely. I don't think every possible drow is NE, but the Monster Manual doesn't show us every possible drow. It merely presents the ones we're most likely to throw at our players; or fight as players. And these drow NPC "monsters" are all fulfilling specific roles. We like to imagine that being royalty, or even nobility, is liberating because of the power and privilege of those positions. But even in a pseudo-medieval context, like D&D almost always is, those positions were saddled with responsibility. And the higher up you were, the more responsibility you had. More expectations could be placed upon you. It's suffocating, even today, with the British monarchy. They're all playing a role.
And I'm sure there are drow servants, tradespeople, scholars, and even commoners who aren't Neutral Evil. But we don't see them clearly expressed. And if we take the drow NPC features from the DMG and attach it to a stat block, it doesn't prescribe an alignment. This seems like a case of WotC taking two steps forward and one step backward. There is progress. It's implied that not all drow, orcs, or other races are all inherently evil. But it stops short of expressly stating so in the rule books. And it's that lack of expression that has been grinding so many proverbial gears. The company has been on this path for a while. But for whatever reason, they haven't fully committed until recently.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples of this aforementioned nuance being explored in licensed or officially sanctioned literature, either. I'm sure some game groups and tables do and have, but no published novel or sourcebook come to mind.
What about Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse?
Another case of two steps forward and one step back, I'm afraid. And that might be charitable. Describing them as "Typically Neutral Evil" and including a blurb about how some "renounce Lolth and join the war against their former goddess" (at the cost of some features) isn't nearly enough. Because what war? That's not detailed anywhere. Lolth isn't in this book. Most of her nods in other books are limited to table form. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has, by far, the most information, but it's no longer for sale and may as well be apocryphal text. The most presently available information we have on her is in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; a sourcebook for a licensed setting. And not only is that not even a full page, but it doesn't even describe a war.
Describing some Matron Mothers as having turned away from her in rebellion is a line without context. I get that it's supposed to inspire DMs who read it, but it's missing something.
Bit of a side thought but an in universe explanation as to why Mordenkainen hasnt detailed Lolth in any real sense could quite simply her that he’s not powerful enough to risk getting captured by her, to really study her or her ways.
So he’s left with what others know and what he can gather from other less dangerous “monsters”.
Even the worlds most famous Wizard has his limits and Lolth might just be it. She is a pretty powerful evil God after all that’s is further empowered by her transformation into a demon.
So, the lack of information about Lolth in Mords books could actually be thematic.
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Mordenkainen didn't capture Orcus, Baphomet, or Demogorgon. Didn't stop them from being included in the book.
I did say “risk getting captured by” rather than that he captured them. But it was just a little bit of silliness that Mord might be scared of Lolth and that’s why he hasn’t studied her enough to write about her. I was actually not being serious because of course neither of them are real people lol.
I just thought it might be a cool in universe explanation as to why he hadn’t written about her in his book.
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If your takeaway from that quote is that all drow are non-evil, then you have grossly misunderstood what was even being said. Salvatore is saying that he will not be writing those stories anymore and gave very personal, human reasons for not doing so. Further, this entire thread has been a discussion on the new addition to the lore, which includes are more diverse range of drow culture. You have been part of this discussion for months and in fact, started this thread, so I am a little confused how to you can suddenly be thinking that evil drow no longer exist.
Your final paragraph is a logical fallacy of a red herring. It is also ‘whataboutism’. Your argument fails to address Salvatore’s reasons and my argument. The topic of race is under discussion right now because Salvatore gave these reasons for not wanting to write evil drow stories anymore and that quote was brought to this thread. If you would like to discuss the impact of Lolth drow on feminism, that discussion can be had because it is relevant to the thread topic. Empathy is not a resource that can only be used once and never again or given to only one group of people. Obviously a rational person can understand that a person can have empathy for both those who feel harmed due to the racial implications and those who feel harmed due to the implications on women.
I'm not always that best at expressing my thoughts, so I'll try to be clearing with what I mean and think.
What I understood from that quote is that Salvatore doesn't want to write evil Drow anymore. I could indeed mean that he just won't write about those drow, without retconning them out of existence, or that he will aim at changing the drow overall as a non-evil. I don't know what he's gonna do and I may very well have misunderstood the quote. I guess I'm just don't have much faith in him and thus expected -- perhaps too hastily -- that he would aim at changing the drow.
I didn't mean to say that empathy is a one way street. That point I clumsily wanted to make was that: some people see an allegory of black people in the drow, and thus link the drow being evil as saying black people are evil. The point about the feminist angle was that it was an even easier allegory to make and yet (though people do see it) it's not the point most often brought up -- and not a point brought up in Salvatore's quote, which to my understanding which can very well be wrong, he seemed to say he didn't want to write evil drow anylonger because some black people see themselves in Drizzt and not because women have an issue with a matriarchal society being evil for exemple.
I dislike very much allegories and think it's stupid to compare fantasy races/species to real life human races/groups -- especially since you can justify just about any link between X fantasy race/species and Y human race/group. So I admit I often have little patience with those kinds of arguments.
To go back to a strictly Drow subject, I don't mind a push for more non-evil drow representation. On the contrary it could lead to great storylines. But it should stem from what the drow were and not by retconning explanation that "in truth the drow weren't evil" or something of the sort. And again, create ex nihilo new groups of non-evil drow so as to make the evil ones a minority group isn't the way. (again, might not be what Salvatore or anyone else are wanting to do, only time will tell, I'm just not optimistic about it)
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It does change a lot though. This is not about politics, which was the message taken from that misrepresentation of the quote. Salvatore was relating his own experiences and motivations for working on this change. It is about people. Actual living people. He shared that his interactions with his fans helped him understand how much they identify with the character and because Salvatore is a fully functioning human being capable of the full spectrum of human emotion, including empathy, he has elected to not create stories with harmful implications anymore. He has dared to look at this topic through the lens of those experiencing that harm.
I wish people on the internet, protected by the shield of anonymity, had such courage and compassion for others.
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You want to keep your evil underground Drow? Without the prejudicial angle of a black evil race? Do what should have been done back at the start - convert them to albino silvered hair elves ala Elric and the melnibonians. As an evolved underground group this is what would naturally happen as the need for melanin was eliminated and the energy to produce it is used elsewhere in the body. So your original dark elves ( pre- Lolth) get split into at least 3 groups. - the underground Drow, the dark elves of the newly discovered enclave(s), and the dark elves of the Rhymanthien Sharn. With Quylarnd’s spell they can now cease to be Drow and become true returned dark elves of the crown wars period.
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Most humans are capable of identifying themselves with any characters, regardless of gender, skin colours, race or even species. Hell, people can identify themselves with characters with overall different personalities and values than themselves -- just because of one or two traits they identify with.
As I said, I have nothing against non-evil Drow, but if all of a sudden all Drow are non-evil - than besides a "a wizard did it" explanation it makes non sense. And if elves with dark skin that worship (are under the tyranny more like) of an evil Goddess and live in a cutthroat society being "evil" (evil meaning a whole lot of thing in D&D) is unbearable than do what's been done for a long time -- and clearly official depiction tend toward it -- and make them (deep) purple skinned elves. No everyone likes it, but it keeps the aesthetic of the Drow without having them having "black" (obsidian really) skin. Or have Drow having from Obsidian black to light Purple skin.
Also, you speak of empathy for others. I'd like to raise the point that some other people have a problem with Drow being "evil" because it's a matriarchal society and thus it "links" being matriarchal with being evil. My point with that is, not everyone raises the same issue with this or that (the Drow in that case). So do people who only complain about the "race" angle lack empathy for those of also complain about the "feminist" angle?
Duergars and Sverfniblings also have dark skin while living in the underdark. It's not realistic but it's D&D, lots of things aren't "realistic" in that sense.
I have a problem with both the race angle and the feminist angle. I don’t like that the only matriarchal society in the Realms is also a society of chaotic evil slavers. This always bothered me about the drow.
I mean, the problem there isn't really that the specific society is evil, but that there aren't other matriarchal societies to compare it against, i.e- good ones. There is plenty of room for them in the lore, but I can't think of any offhand. I have a few invented ones I've used in campaigns though, as well as a few ambiguous ones (believed they were doing good, but did so in questionable/extreme ways).
Really when it comes to diversity the goal shouldn't be to pretend that everyone is good, it's to show that everyone can be both good, evil or somewhere in between, because that's just people, irrespective of colour, gender, orientation etc.
The thing with the Drow is that being evil has nothing to do with the colour of their skin, or their being a matriarchal society, it's entirely the fault of the corrupting influence of Lolth and the systems and structures that enforce worship of a goddess who forces potentially good people to be raised evil and do evil things just to survive. The nature of the drow isn't the problem, it's their nurture, and the way that they can be treated by surface dwellers (who fear and despise them as a race, not a culture) only contributes to the us against them tribalism that keeps the drow from breaking free as a species. There are plenty of real world parallels that should be drawn on that basis, rather than fixating on colour (which has nothing to do with it).
And for the matriarchal angle, it doesn't matter that Drow society is matriarchal, as that has nothing to do with why they're evil. To use a sort of real world example; here in the UK we have had two women prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, and they were both terrible prime ministers. But that doesn't mean that I think we shouldn't have more female prime ministers, we absolutely should, because those two were bad because of their politics, not their gender (and we've had plenty of terrible male prime ministers as well, the current one being a prime example).
What I want to see more of aren't weird new cities being retconned into the world, I'd rather see more of the resistance against Lolth, in particular I'd like to see that resistance gaining ground, learning to work with others (who have come to accept them as who they are, not the society they came from), I want to see more surface dwelling Lolth worshippers to show that it's not just the Drow who are susceptible to her influence. I want the emphasis to be on the toxic society, not the race.
I don't mind the idea of new flavours of Drow as such, I just feel like it's a weird way to do it; small enclaves of non-Lolth worshipping Drow I can see, but entire cities seems a step too far, especially for them to have gone unnoticed. The whole point of Lolth's influence over the Drow is that desire for absolute control, so if there are others they should be the offshoots, or at least stragglers who managed to avoid going underground with the rest, and they should fear the Lolth worshippers every beat as much as other surface dwellers do, but I feel like they should be small enclaves to better explain how they've managed to remain hidden.
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Drow society is the way it has because Lolth specifically made it that way. It has nothing to do with human laws, morals, ethics, politics or anything else - real world or otherwise.
I don't understand why people start applying real-world stuff to the Drow.
The Drow (a fictional race of beings) are the way they are because of an evil sadistic, imaginary demon God has made them that way. Which also fits with the lore of the world and the themes of both Lollth and the Drow.
What's next? Should we change the dwarves because they are offensive to short people? Should we get rid of Tieflings in case they offend people who are born with vestigial tails?
There are people in the world who believe D&D is satanic and that it teaches children to worship evil and raise devils - so should we scrap the entire game because those people are offended by it?
What about the people who have ailurophobia?. Should we get rid of Tabaxi because somebody might be afraid of cats?
Honestly, pinning real-world baggage onto fictional characters, places, and races is stupid.
The Drow exist as a storytelling tool in a fictional world designed for telling stories, and how or if a person uses that tool is entirely up to them, and just because some people are offended by the existence of such a device does not diminish the value of its existence.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
My friend has a vestigial tail lol. You can’t see it but you can feel it in like her lower back. She’s not an RPer but if she was I don’t think she’d be offended by the existence of tieflings.
If your takeaway from that quote is that all drow are non-evil, then you have grossly misunderstood what was even being said. Salvatore is saying that he will not be writing those stories anymore and gave very personal, human reasons for not doing so. Further, this entire thread has been a discussion on the new addition to the lore, which includes are more diverse range of drow culture. You have been part of this discussion for months and in fact, started this thread, so I am a little confused how to you can suddenly be thinking that evil drow no longer exist.
Your final paragraph is a logical fallacy of a red herring. It is also ‘whataboutism’. Your argument fails to address Salvatore’s reasons and my argument. The topic of race is under discussion right now because Salvatore gave these reasons for not wanting to write evil drow stories anymore and that quote was brought to this thread. If you would like to discuss the impact of Lolth drow on feminism, that discussion can be had because it is relevant to the thread topic. Empathy is not a resource that can only be used once and never again or given to only one group of people. Obviously a rational person can understand that a person can have empathy for both those who feel harmed due to the racial implications and those who feel harmed due to the implications on women.
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While this is all true, none of it means these fictional creations cannot be handled better. Every choice is a deliberate one. And because of how we consume and critique media, valid interpretations the author(s) never intended can be born. Case in point, Salvatore's realization/revelation that having a Neutral Evil society, entirely populated by black people and run by women, is problematic to say the least. He might never have arrived there if others hadn't pointed it out. And for as much good as he did with his initial stories about Drizz't, the road to hell is still paved with good intentions.
Is there room for nuance in a place like Menzoberranzan? Absolutely. I don't think every possible drow is NE, but the Monster Manual doesn't show us every possible drow. It merely presents the ones we're most likely to throw at our players; or fight as players. And these drow NPC "monsters" are all fulfilling specific roles. We like to imagine that being royalty, or even nobility, is liberating because of the power and privilege of those positions. But even in a pseudo-medieval context, like D&D almost always is, those positions were saddled with responsibility. And the higher up you were, the more responsibility you had. More expectations could be placed upon you. It's suffocating, even today, with the British monarchy. They're all playing a role.
And I'm sure there are drow servants, tradespeople, scholars, and even commoners who aren't Neutral Evil. But we don't see them clearly expressed. And if we take the drow NPC features from the DMG and attach it to a stat block, it doesn't prescribe an alignment. This seems like a case of WotC taking two steps forward and one step backward. There is progress. It's implied that not all drow, orcs, or other races are all inherently evil. But it stops short of expressly stating so in the rule books. And it's that lack of expression that has been grinding so many proverbial gears. The company has been on this path for a while. But for whatever reason, they haven't fully committed until recently.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples of this aforementioned nuance being explored in licensed or officially sanctioned literature, either. I'm sure some game groups and tables do and have, but no published novel or sourcebook come to mind.
What about Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse?
Another case of two steps forward and one step back, I'm afraid. And that might be charitable. Describing them as "Typically Neutral Evil" and including a blurb about how some "renounce Lolth and join the war against their former goddess" (at the cost of some features) isn't nearly enough. Because what war? That's not detailed anywhere. Lolth isn't in this book. Most of her nods in other books are limited to table form. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has, by far, the most information, but it's no longer for sale and may as well be apocryphal text. The most presently available information we have on her is in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; a sourcebook for a licensed setting. And not only is that not even a full page, but it doesn't even describe a war.
Describing some Matron Mothers as having turned away from her in rebellion is a line without context. I get that it's supposed to inspire DMs who read it, but it's missing something.
What we really need is an underdark setting book and/or adventure, where a lot of this can be properly explored.
So players can see the good that can still exist in an evil society, those who have escaped it, how they fight back etc. We need to meet the priestesses who don't believe, the townspeople who question why, the real monsters further down and the monsters in charge.
A clumsy major retcon isn't needed IMO, we just need to see more of the parts we as players don't normally see, and that DMs currently have to invent for themselves. It'd also be nice to contrast it with a "good" city; when you look at settings like Waterdeep they're pretty nuanced, as there's a lot of corruption in that city, even if the city overall is "good", but we don't have a lot on current cities of the other elves. We need reminding that the "good" elves aren't as squeaky clean as they like to present themselves, and their cities have problems as well, but the only troubles we really know about are the ones in the distant past, like the fall of Myth Dranor, and even that's from fairly old lore.
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I agree with you that a new Underdark setting book (or even an adventure, maybe like a sequel to OotA) would be great.
This is false. You just gave an explanation for how their society got started, and your explanation is a gross oversimplification but basically correct for that. The reason Drow society remains that way is the same reason any society allows its evils to perpetuate: those in power seek to keep it and abuse/trauma begets abuse/trauma. Drow have free will; don't confuse them with Gnolls, who don't - Gnolls are hyenas corrupted by a Demon Lord. They can't choose to stop following the instincts he put in them.
Same reason they do to dragons or orcs: creatures you can visibly recognize as evil that allegedly have free will are inherently problematic. You're basically falsely implying here that real-world free will and Drow free will differ, but they don't.
No, that's Gnolls. You are getting huge swathes of Drow lore wrong. This is just not how Drow work or have ever worked.
You're managing to misunderstand two problems at once.
The fact that you think this is relevant is terrifying. Ok, I'll bite. Who are you claiming is trying to get Drow scrapped entirely, and what false belief are you claiming they share that leads to this trying?
peers I don't.... are you claiming that people who want to get rid of Drow a) exist and b) are scared of obsidian elves?
See above link to Norman Spinrad book going into excellent depth on why you're wrong.
This argument is isomorphic to an argument supporting the racist cartoons we got during WW2. I don't think you've stopped to think about what you're saying.
Because fictional beings like Drow were created and written about by people who live in the real world with real world morals, laws, ethics, and politics and often draw upon them for inspiration when writing fiction. If D&D had a race of humanoids that was noted as being argumentative, obsessed with gold, often work as crooked merchants or money lenders, have large noses, and wearing small caps over their heads because of religious reasons, people would immediately call out that the race is nothing but a collection of negative stereotypes about Jewish people. And that's what's happening right now regarding Drow: there's a bunch of negative stereotypes about real-world ethnic groups in there, and no, simply changing their skin color is not going to fix it.
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.
Bit of a side thought but an in universe explanation as to why Mordenkainen hasnt detailed Lolth in any real sense could quite simply her that he’s not powerful enough to risk getting captured by her, to really study her or her ways.
So he’s left with what others know and what he can gather from other less dangerous “monsters”.
Even the worlds most famous Wizard has his limits and Lolth might just be it. She is a pretty powerful evil God after all that’s is further empowered by her transformation into a demon.
So, the lack of information about Lolth in Mords books could actually be thematic.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Mordenkainen didn't capture Orcus, Baphomet, or Demogorgon. Didn't stop them from being included in the book.
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.
I did say “risk getting captured by” rather than that he captured them. But it was just a little bit of silliness that Mord might be scared of Lolth and that’s why he hasn’t studied her enough to write about her. I was actually not being serious because of course neither of them are real people lol.
I just thought it might be a cool in universe explanation as to why he hadn’t written about her in his book.
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I'm not always that best at expressing my thoughts, so I'll try to be clearing with what I mean and think.
What I understood from that quote is that Salvatore doesn't want to write evil Drow anymore. I could indeed mean that he just won't write about those drow, without retconning them out of existence, or that he will aim at changing the drow overall as a non-evil. I don't know what he's gonna do and I may very well have misunderstood the quote. I guess I'm just don't have much faith in him and thus expected -- perhaps too hastily -- that he would aim at changing the drow.
I didn't mean to say that empathy is a one way street. That point I clumsily wanted to make was that: some people see an allegory of black people in the drow, and thus link the drow being evil as saying black people are evil. The point about the feminist angle was that it was an even easier allegory to make and yet (though people do see it) it's not the point most often brought up -- and not a point brought up in Salvatore's quote, which to my understanding which can very well be wrong, he seemed to say he didn't want to write evil drow anylonger because some black people see themselves in Drizzt and not because women have an issue with a matriarchal society being evil for exemple.
I dislike very much allegories and think it's stupid to compare fantasy races/species to real life human races/groups -- especially since you can justify just about any link between X fantasy race/species and Y human race/group. So I admit I often have little patience with those kinds of arguments.
To go back to a strictly Drow subject, I don't mind a push for more non-evil drow representation. On the contrary it could lead to great storylines. But it should stem from what the drow were and not by retconning explanation that "in truth the drow weren't evil" or something of the sort. And again, create ex nihilo new groups of non-evil drow so as to make the evil ones a minority group isn't the way. (again, might not be what Salvatore or anyone else are wanting to do, only time will tell, I'm just not optimistic about it)