As has been said repeatedly in this thread already, the answer to that question is to have certain specific orcs be evil, whether it's one orc or a gang of orcs or a clan of orcs or even a whole nation of orcs. Not simply "orcs are evil", but "this group of orcs here are evil" And if you want to go hog wild, maybe even give that specific group of orcs a reason for being evil beyond "they were born that way"
Ah, in that case - religious fanatics are an easy way. Orcs who follow their orc god (Gruumsh) are fanatical, and believe the world should be purged of anyone who isn't born an orcs - and as a practice, they commit horrible atrocities as "exorcisms" (such as the Blood Eagle) whether male, female, young, old, adult or child.
That should make it clear the party has no problem taking down blood thirsty zealots. And this could be wide spread among several bands of orcs who follow this religion to this degree. So it could be a reoccurring issue whenever you need to kill these orcs. Even give the "tribe" a name "The Spine Breakers" who have the symbol of a broken spine beneath the symbol of Gruumsh (which is already described as: A triangular eye with bony protrusions / An unblinking eye)
Sure, you could have worshippers of Gruumsh behave that way
You could also have orc worshippers of Gruumsh who don't behave that way, because religious scripture is always open to interpretation, and some who worship other gods (or even no gods) instead. You could even have non-orc worshippers of Gruumsh who ignore the "orc purity" thing to focus on the "might makes right" part of his worship
Absolutely. It's like any religion. There are those that follow the scripture of whatever religion, and then there's extremists of it.
So if the goal is looking for something, that's why I was saying an religious "zealots" specifically.
And yes, you could have other races/species - but the question was how to make orcs, goblins, etc., be "evil" so that the party doesn't feel bad killing them.
So I am just addressing what the OP is apparently looking for.
Now, someone suggested that to make orcs, for instance, evil because of their actions, not just because "they're orcs so it's okay to kill them." My question is, what are some reasons why someone could be seen as objectively Evil? And how would I ensure that these traits are 100% reprehensible, so my players and I don't feel guilty for killing them?
In my homebrew, the Florensa (goddess of life) who placed human mortals in the world; Grumthak, who is the orc god, drenched his blood across the land, tainting millions of people with his evil and corruption; and these people mutated into a visualization of that foul, evil, pounding through their veins.
This is why Half-Orcs don't have to be evil. The human blood element in them dilutes the "evil" curse that reigns supreme in orcs.
But then you run into the same problem with racism. One can easily draw parallels between these orcs and the abhorrent historical treatment of ethnical minorities ("these people are savages and must be cleansed and diluted")
How is that racism in any fashion? It's literally magic that made the orcs the way they are; their god is evil and infused that hatred for everything and evil directly into them.
If folks are digging that deep - you have to wonder why people are killing human bandits, too. I mean, they're probably victims of circumstance - let's sit down and not fight - let's bring a shrink in and find out why you ended up becoming human bandits. Was it daddy issues? Abandonment? Let's just feel bad for everyone who isn't an unthinking, zero intelligence monster at that point.
I am all for not every monster being the alignment they're portrayed in - Hades, in my off week game I run - the party (which is heavy into RP and being in character) - managed to befriend these kobolds - and actually helped them establish a trade route of sorts (they live in a swamp and there's plants used for healing potions there) - with a neighboring town. The kobolds supply the plants that are dangerous to get to, to the town; and the town gives them food, leathers, etc.
Now that said, everyone's game at every table is different.
You make some interesting points that I had not considered. Because the game world and the real world are different and separate, I have always felt that the game world has always been a place where we can explore the human condition, warts and all - as Oliver Cromwell once said.
As a player, I tend to have a hard line against "seeing" children die or coming across dead kids on my travels. So I completely understand that we all have lines we can't or won't cross and things that we cannot deal with, even in the context of a game.
When I have been a DM, I have asked my players at the start what they want to see and don't want to see in the game. When people have said things like no racism, no sexualisation, no violence towards children, no killing Worg puppies, or whatever their hardlines might be, I have been careful not to include those elements in my stories or to select modules that don't include them.
I have always considered that enough - ask your players what their boundaries are, and then don't cross them, but perhaps it is not.
I have never considered before that such things could be harmful by their mere presence in a setting or the setting lore because I have always taken the view that if something is representative of a boundary that you as an individual hold, then you should be communicating those boundaries to your DM ahead of time. Likewise, DMs should be upfront about what their campaigns and stories contain so that players can do so.
In short, the onus has always been on the individual player/DM/table rather than the setting creators or loremasters.
Maybe I have been wrong.
I really liked seeing this and thank you for it.
Please bear with me, I am old and I am wordy...
Those assorted isms and whatsit are systems, they are collections of established mores, norms, history and assorted social constructs that ultimately have the purpose to create stigmatization.
Those affected are going to vary in their responses in those zero session situations based on the real world, and the depth of or lack of understanding of the participants. I am Lakota and Malian and Dutch in my heritage, born to parents who married illegally and my birth is essentially the product of a crime (miscegenation) that later was recognized for the horror it was.
I am a principle DEI executive for a healthcare company, and I do that while ensuring medical care is performed. I can genuinely and truly say that I only went down the convoluted path that got me to where I am because I played 1e. The stuff I loved to learn and to know and to use and to work into my games led me down a path that caused me to end up with more letters after my name than I want to shake a stick at -- sociology, psychology, religion, psychiatry, pharmacology, business, Computer Engineering (haven't done that one in 20 years and grateful, lol). The normal collection is PhD, MS, MA and then a crapton of bachelors.
I don't tell you that because of I want to assert authority or expertise or anything. I say all of that because I learned things you just did from simply playing the game, and being someone who first heard the n-word from my own grandparents and great grandparents as a very small child. When I got to kindergarten, someone said "look at the n word" and I looked around for a football player because that was the context I understood it within.
The oldest members of my family who are still alive only managed to deal with the racism I dealt with inside my family in the last decade. They, too, never really saw it from the perspective of what it was like living in it -- and I never trusted them enough to really explain it because when one does you get a lot of buts and whatever and people mocking what you say (and these days, accusations of wokeness).
A lot of folks want to make the argument that the game doesn't exist in the real world -- and yet it does. It is the creation of this world, and this world will feed into the game world, and that will include all the crappy stuff. I can genuinely say that between all the assorted "things I am", I have heard everything said about orcs and the rest as an entire species said bout me and people who happen to be like me along some axis of Other or another.
Hell, not too long ago I was informed that I and folks like me were as a great a threat to the world as a nuclear bomb, and that is not an exaggeration. My existence represents to some an existential threat, just like that mass of Orcs and Goblins and Gnolls. I will point out, as well, that in this particular case, it was a religious leader speaking on part of his religion, and it is a big one.
I am not going to say anything about that at a table of people who have a history of mistreating me. If the Dm is good, the games are fun, I am going to want to be there *despite* all of that because just like in the real world, I cannot escape it, and sometimes being able to chop those people who have hurt you every single day for your entire life through the lens of a metaphor or allegory or just plain pretend (and cops and robbers has a very different feel if you are Black or LGBT or a girl) makes me feel a tiny bit better and it is easy to get swept up in the moment.
But I am still going to be aware of the racism in the game or the misogyny in the game or the transphobia in the game. And eventually i will drift away because maybe there is a game where it doesn't exist.
One part of this game is that it does need conflict. Among the conflicts that we can easily rely on -- drawn from the only examples we already know of -- the real world -- is this kind.
There are lots of options presented here. I even offered to write up a custom set of Lore. Because i work around this stuff professionally does not mean I am good at it, lol -- I like to think I am, and my general success rate shows I have a knack, but meh, whatever. And I will tell you that the rules for the game may not exist in world, but those rules exist in reality and they have real world impacts.
ostracism and stigma are known to have actual physical harm to the body, even if there is not physical impact. The continued, ongoing impact of it -- even pretend, ieven in a game -- has real world long term health implications and creates a set of problems that ultimately we all have to deal with in terms of mortality, birth complications and more.
When folks are saying that Gobins can't all be evil, they don't mean that the band of orcs they fight ight now can't be evil. THey mean that all the orcs ont h world cannot be evil, and so there must be a reason for these particular orcs to be evil.
Now, what are the reasons that folks have said I am a risk to the world? What makes me and the millions of others like me in that way so evil?
The reason for that evil ness matters just as much, and all of it comes down to a really true principle that few will take the time to discuss because they already feel that they known it -- but usually, they don't.
What is "good" in that world?
What is "evil" in that world?
if D&D is truly a different world, then what is good or evil may be completely different from here -- or it might be better than here. Or, yeah, it might be the same, lol.
I didn't choose fascism as the basis for my Gobs because I have an inherent problem with fascism -- I did it because in my life and experience, fascism represents a potent, powerful evil force that the heroes of this world can oppose. It gives me a way to set up a culture where it is *hard* to be good, and so those who are tend to be more adaptable and persevering in ways than those who are not -- perfect for becoming adventurers. Perfect for leading people in rebellion.
Conflict achieved. I dropped in all the evils I could find.
And then I set it up so that if the players just mindlessly accept the idea that all goblins are evil, then they will fall into the same trap of racism in a pretend fantasy world and be just as bad as the others -- even though there is another tricky element involved: they are the dominant power, and there can be no racism against the dominant power.
this new way of looking at things for you is encouraging to me. It will hopefully lead to changes by you -- and note they don't have to be big changes. There is a band of Orcs who are defiant and struggling and maybe the adventurers can help them overthrow, -- because why is Gruumsh seen as evil? maybe that is how he has been described by the "good kingdoms" for so long that no one actually knows who or how he is?
Maybe this band wants to resist, to fight back, to prove that he isn't evil.
Write the lore up, drop it in a player ear. bang -- all orcs aren't evil. The PC's never even have to encounter them, merely hear about them.
That's all.
The Racial ASI's are a similar but unrelated issue and I ain't got the words to repeat what I said previously.
But, really, all of this is to say Thank You for having been willing to have that moment of seeing things.
and thank you to CharlesthePlant for reaching you with their time, energy, and effort.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
For example, say you are a player from a marginalized group who is in a game where the dm/setting do nothing to interrogate the "orcs=evil brutes" thing. You see how in that setting orcs are mentally subnormal, lacking basic empathy, wicked and cruel, physically imposing, endowed with less of a soul by their creator-- you realize how when this hypothetical player comes from a culture or ethnicity that all those things have been said about and acted on in real life to justify discrimination, colonization, and worse, you see how that might get too real for them and no longer be fun. This is one of those forms of racism that is not so overt, not always so noticeable, and not even everyone has a problem with (as we've established groups aren't monoliths). But for some people it makes them feel unwelcome and uncomfortable.
This is the crux of the issue in my view: a being described in those terms is too close to home for some people for justified reasons. While I’m not usually one of them, I don’t want to antagonize them either.
Know that I have come to absolutely despise howfantasy human-ish species seems to have become little more than symbols for real life human race topics. In my non-roleplaying setting, I made all the non-human people spirits magically generated from forces related to natural, psychological, and philosophical concepts in large part because I wanted to put as much distance I could between them and human race metaphors. (EDIT: and the humans are ethnically diverse). I say this not as a boast, but as a demonstration of just how tired I am of it.
However, D&D orcs, goblinoids, and so on had parallels with malicious depictions of indigenous peoples longer than I’ve been alive. They’re already there and not even well hidden. To the point where I’m not sure I even what to used cleaned up versions of them anymore.
However, D&D orcs, goblinoids, and so on had parallels with malicious depictions of indigenous peoples longer than I’ve been alive. They’re already there and not even well hidden. To the point where I’m not sure I even what to used cleaned up versions of them anymore.
Have they? Because when I started D&D... here's what I saw...
Orcs...
Goblins -
Kobolds -
These were just "monsters" that were written as evil. They often showed up in massive groups.
Over the years, yes, lore has been added to flesh out how these beings existed. Because original D&D didn't really have a set "setting" per se.
But now that they've adopted Forgotten Realms, they've created more lore.
And in doing so, have created a "complication" where people are sensitive to these former "monsters."
But I lean back to - why even fight human bandits at that point?
Why not find out why they became bandits? Did their fathers abuse them? Run out on them? Were they victims of circumstance too?
It rapidly becomes a very slippery slope where you begin to wonder at what point is someone being too "extreme" about it?
However, D&D orcs, goblinoids, and so on had parallels with malicious depictions of indigenous peoples longer than I’ve been alive. They’re already there and not even well hidden. To the point where I’m not sure I even what to used cleaned up versions of them anymore.
But I lean back to - why even fight human bandits at that point?
Why not find out why they became bandits? Did their fathers abuse them? Run out on them? Were they victims of circumstance too?
It rapidly becomes a very slippery slope where you begin to wonder at what point is someone being too "extreme" about it?
Foundational: human bandits always have a reason to be bandits. maybe it was their fathers ran out on them, Maybe is was abuse, maybe the Baron of the area they all lived in evicted them, maybe they had a dragon swoop in and wipe out their lives.
That *should* be known. At some point, it can come out. That does not excuse what they do when they engage in banditry, but it offers additional solutions to the problem besides "all bandits are evil".
In other words, if you were to look back over the whole of this thread, you would see people repeat exactly that thing you dismiss over and over and over again.
There is no slippery slope beyond the one saying "all of X are evil" -- that is the slippery slope, in and of itself, by itself, and all alone.
in 1980 we had conversations about how all of those *exact creatures you show the original art for* could not possibly be evil. At freaking GenCon, fer crying out loud.
Not only is this not new, it is something that was baked into the game by people who based those characters -- outside the little art used that you shared -- on how they saw different kinds of people in the real world.
On purpose.
Your disbelief is not evidence of that being wrong.
(and apologies if I come across terse -- a different thread had outright racism in it and I am not a pleased panther at the moment.)
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
However, D&D orcs, goblinoids, and so on had parallels with malicious depictions of indigenous peoples longer than I’ve been alive. They’re already there and not even well hidden. To the point where I’m not sure I even what to used cleaned up versions of them anymore.
Have they? Because when I started D&D... here's what I saw...
Orcs...
Goblins -
Kobolds -
These were just "monsters" that were written as evil. They often showed up in massive groups.
Over the years, yes, lore has been added to flesh out how these beings existed. Because original D&D didn't really have a set "setting" per se.
But now that they've adopted Forgotten Realms, they've created more lore.
And in doing so, have created a "complication" where people are sensitive to these former "monsters."
But I lean back to - why even fight human bandits at that point?
Why not find out why they became bandits? Did their fathers abuse them? Run out on them? Were they victims of circumstance too?
It rapidly becomes a very slippery slope where you begin to wonder at what point is someone being too "extreme" about it?
You’re missing the point. The issue people have with orcs is not that they’ve been coded as an antagonistic faction, those are necessary for an adventure story and in a fantasy setting it’s reasonable for there to be overlap between “species” and “culture”. The issue is that a lot of the “savage primitive” coding that went into the various monster races reflects doctrine used to justify racism.
However, D&D orcs, goblinoids, and so on had parallels with malicious depictions of indigenous peoples longer than I’ve been alive. They’re already there and not even well hidden. To the point where I’m not sure I even what to used cleaned up versions of them anymore.
Have they? Because when I started D&D... here's what I saw...
Now do hobgoblins from the 1e Monster Manual
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This question was posted by me in another thread, which quickly became a complete shitshow. A couple of people suggested to make a new thread on the topic, so here it is.
Orcs, goblins, and many other species have rather... questionable backgrounds, to say the least. This thread is to discuss how to use these species as "Bad Guys" without the racist connotations that are so closely tied to them.
Now, someone suggested that to make orcs, for instance, evil because of their actions, not just because "they're orcs so it's okay to kill them." My question is, what are some reasons why someone could be seen as objectively Evil? And how would I ensure that these traits are 100% reprehensible, so my players and I don't feel guilty for killing them?
Oh hey, I told you I would participate and then I missed you starting this thread because it was in another subforum, sorry!
I think a lot of people have already given you a lot of good advice regarding making orcs and goblins into real people so I'm going to go a different way. Make them somehow alien and less like people. What if they are something of a viral curse instead of a stable population of people? What if orcs are what you turn into if you fight with orcs and give in to the rage of battle? What if goblins are what you turn in to if you lose some property to goblins and start obsessing over your belongings and hording and protecting them?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
This question was posted by me in another thread, which quickly became a complete shitshow. A couple of people suggested to make a new thread on the topic, so here it is.
Orcs, goblins, and many other species have rather... questionable backgrounds, to say the least. This thread is to discuss how to use these species as "Bad Guys" without the racist connotations that are so closely tied to them.
Now, someone suggested that to make orcs, for instance, evil because of their actions, not just because "they're orcs so it's okay to kill them." My question is, what are some reasons why someone could be seen as objectively Evil? And how would I ensure that these traits are 100% reprehensible, so my players and I don't feel guilty for killing them?
Oh hey, I told you I would participate and then I missed you starting this thread because it was in another subforum, sorry!
I think a lot of people have already given you a lot of good advice regarding making orcs and goblins into real people so I'm going to go a different way. Make them somehow alien and less like people. What if they are something of a viral curse instead of a stable population of people? What if orcs are what you turn into if you fight with orcs and give in to the rage of battle? What if goblins are what you turn in to if you lose some property to goblins and start obsessing over your belongings and hording and protecting them?
No worries about missing the thread. I figured it would fit this sub better.
I like the idea. I've always been a fan of zombie-esque, viral monsters. My only worry is that it could be taken as even more racist than the usual depiction of such monsters, but I guess one could take them in such a "these monsters are effectively aliens" direction, that there's no way they could possibly be compared to any real-world people or cultures.
It's an interesting thought; if instead of making these non-human monsters more human, you make them so non-human that it's impossible to compare them to humans. I hadn't thought of that.
This question was posted by me in another thread, which quickly became a complete shitshow. A couple of people suggested to make a new thread on the topic, so here it is.
Orcs, goblins, and many other species have rather... questionable backgrounds, to say the least. This thread is to discuss how to use these species as "Bad Guys" without the racist connotations that are so closely tied to them.
Now, someone suggested that to make orcs, for instance, evil because of their actions, not just because "they're orcs so it's okay to kill them." My question is, what are some reasons why someone could be seen as objectively Evil? And how would I ensure that these traits are 100% reprehensible, so my players and I don't feel guilty for killing them?
Oh hey, I told you I would participate and then I missed you starting this thread because it was in another subforum, sorry!
I think a lot of people have already given you a lot of good advice regarding making orcs and goblins into real people so I'm going to go a different way. Make them somehow alien and less like people. What if they are something of a viral curse instead of a stable population of people? What if orcs are what you turn into if you fight with orcs and give in to the rage of battle? What if goblins are what you turn in to if you lose some property to goblins and start obsessing over your belongings and hording and protecting them?
Hmm, that's an interesting idea. I think you'd have to take it even further than that though, and make them not just alien and evil, but truly incomprehensibly alien. Orcs don't have battle rage, they are hard-wired to view the color green as the color of death and assume anyone wearing it is asking to be put down -- which helps explain why they were thought to hate elves so much, since elves often wear nature-based color schemes. They don't form tribes, their culture is based on triadic units (three adults, of any mix of genders, with different combinations generally having different functions within their society) which are maintained for life -- kill one member of the triad, and the other two become homicidal/suicidal and fight to the death. They aren't raiding or conquering, they simply have no concept of personal property so if they wander into someone else's territory and survive the subsequent fight... hey, free houses
Start from the things old-school D&D "knows" about orcs, and work backwards to come up with explanations for the behavior that simply don't make any sense to outsiders, at least not on the surface. That still does open the door down the road for a PC or NPC anthropologist to crack the code on their behavior, of course, but at least you've gone from "evil just because the game needs enemies" to "we assume they're evil because every interaction with them ends in bloodshed, even though we don't know why"
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My personal preference in D&D is to make Orcs and Goblins just part of the world, with their motives and morals independent of what they are.
Gnolls, on the other hand, I consider as Irredeemable. They are the embodiment of hunger. To say that making all gnolls dangerous and evil is bad is like saying that not all mimics will try to eat you. They aren't people, they just look like people, vaguely, until you get close and notice that they are hyena-creatures which stand on their hind legs.
I think of Gnolls along the lines of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park. Someone earlier mentioned condemning them even in their youth, and in Jurassic park they aptly state about the velociraptors, "They're lethal at 8 months, and I do mean lethal". Gnolls take a lot of their scariness from the fact that they are beasts, not people. They're humanoid only in shape, and I view that as only because Yeenoghu sought to make them that way so they could use weapons and scare people more.
Orcs and Goblins are people. Gnolls are Monsters. That's my stance on it, at any rate.
To say that making all gnolls dangerous and evil is bad is like saying that not all mimics will try to eat you
It all depends on the campaign and the world. There's an entire town in Exandria where gnolls -- at least one particular clan of gnolls, anyway -- are viewed as just people, and they live side by side with the halflings and humans
Also, the party I'm DMing for ran into an oni not too long ago that had a pet mimic
Lore isn't inviolate, is what it comes down to. If you have a problem with something in your world, or just want to play around and subvert expectations, then change the lore. It's your world. And if you don't, then don't
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
The user B_X_Gnome has sent me the following message 30 minutes ago. I won't request that this thread be locked yet as it's gotten to an interesting and insightful conversation. Just worth calling Gnome out for this. Needless to say, I've reported the message for harassment.
How interesting. Yesterday seems to have been the day for messaging people. Mine was related to a very long dead mount, but still...
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I can't see any issue with creating a world where orcs, golblins or any other race/species is "generally of evil nature" Having MOST of the "good" races/species in the world hold an inherent distrust of another race can easily be outlined by showing how the local communities of said creatures are savage raiders and pillagers. Maybe it's because I read so much fiction from the FR setting that I have an opinion that some of the creatures are, for the most part, evil. It's my exposure to those fringe members of these creatures that allows me to see that "don't trust a drow" can be a really smart rule to follow for the most part. It's the street smart view that if you run across a drow there is a MUCH higher chance they ARE evil than not. To help players understand the world, they can (and likely SHOULD) encounter the odd, rare instance of a non-evil creature from these races. that creature can even reiterate that the party being wary of him/her is reasonable, as they know first hand just how evil MOST of their kin are.
People get too hung up on "most are evil" as something of a social gaffe, not recognizing that the only social gaffes in fantasy are those you impose, since it's a not-real world you're exploring. In high fantasy someone almost has to be the "evil" you're fighting against, so being sure to show that they are evil, through their acts, beliefs and way of living is a big thing. Introducing the enemy as hated just because they're green is lazy and won't get much buy-in from most players anyway.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Be at least somewhat thankful you can’t see it. A lot of it depends on what evil is. This is why the prior posts over and over speak to the context, to the social structure and system that supports why they are so, without falling trap to the assertion of evil.
the key term is “generally” — that allows the necessary freedom from something being inherently such, and simply choosing such. In some worlds, it is entirely possible that kindness, empathy, and independence are all Evil things.
People don’t get caught up in most are evil, they get caught up in “all are evil”. Because the argument that it is just a game ignored the fact that the kinds of harm being talked about are real for the people affected, even if it is a game, and that harm can be measured and tracked and shown to have significant long term effects.
It isn’t just about that, however — it is how the cultures of many of these beings were literally based on stereotypes of people of color and other minority populations. The same things said about them were said to real life people — and being slapped in the face by it while trying to pretend does not feel good and can bring back up traumas and other harms.
that’s the why people get “caught up” in it while pretending. So it isn’t a social gaffe, it is essentially like being punched in the face. There is a crap ton of stuff I could toss, but gah, I hate working for free.
The stuff mentioned is a lot like the way that people in real life deal with the folks who are stigmatized — you know, let’s cross the street so we don’t have to be near that man. He’s the sort that is dangerous. I see it on TV and my folks told me about it. You know, you hang around with them enough and you are going to get in trouble because their kind is trouble.
those sorts of things have a real life basis — they do not add to the necessary conflict, nor are they confined to a game because the people who play these things do not only exist in a pretend world, and no matter how strange something is, all of them draw from the world around us in some way.
saying it is pretend doesn’t change that it still causes harm.
check out previous posts where I talk about the bad guys I use.
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My own background is in Philosphy and i certainly appreciate the use of ideology in creating villains. Do your Facists have a strong element of Darwinism in their beliefs - i.e. valuing strength and denigrating weakness?
Great discussion overall from folks in this thread.
I'd just like to point out that Charles Darwinism disowned Social Darwinism. Darwin's theory of Evolution mentions nothing about "strength" or "weakness". Rather, it was about why species develop into other species, which is dependent on the relative merits of particular traits given a particular physical and ecological environment that made it easier for certain traits to flourish. If it was as simple as "strong survive, weak perish", that would not have accounted for the diversity of finches that Darwin observed on the Galapagos islands, finches which were a keystone to Darwin's theory.
My own background is in Philosphy and i certainly appreciate the use of ideology in creating villains. Do your Facists have a strong element of Darwinism in their beliefs - i.e. valuing strength and denigrating weakness?
Great discussion overall from folks in this thread.
I'd just like to point out that Charles Darwinism disowned Social Darwinism. Darwin's theory of Evolution mentions nothing about "strength" or "weakness". Rather, it was about why species develop into other species, which is dependent on the relative merits of particular traits given a particular physical and ecological environment that made it easier for certain traits to flourish. If it was as simple as "strong survive, weak perish", that would not have accounted for the diversity of finches that Darwin observed on the Galapagos islands, finches which were a keystone to Darwin's theory.
Heh. My response pointed out the same thing.
Just not as well.
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Thanks! Just wanted to correct how pop culture tends to misinterpret Charles's main idea. He was not a perfect person, but it's disappointing that many people misuse his theory by not bothering to quote him at all and instead relying on the eugenicists who tried to extract what they wanted to hear him say.
To keep is simple, you have to, in-lore, magicallydesign a creature to be so detrimental that it is a necessity to fight it. As I pointed out earlier, a popular lore has it that Gnolls are curses causually created by Yeenoghu and are not nurtured to be what they are. They burst from hyenas that overgorged themselves on food so much as to die, and Gnolls are single-mindedly driven on eating with every development they make designed to that purpose. This version has Gnolls as magical things that are not natural to the world, and Gnolls must be fought simply out of necessity as they leave mindless carnage in their wake.
Yet, there are other lores where Gnolls have a complicated society as part of a natural process and are nurtured to become what people expect them to be, but if their traditional upbringing is interrupted, they can be quirky but not harmful individuals. This is what you need to avoid if you cannot spend enough time to show the necessity of fighting Gnolls.
When it comes to nurtured creatures, they always have a choice (unless they sneeze, then nobody has a choice). Their choices determine whether or not it is necessary to deal with them and sometimes determine the manner in which to deal with them. Those determinations are only enacted by yet more choices, though. This lengthens the whole story. If you're looking for quick combat scenarios for the sake of combat, avoid doing this.
For just-go-kill-this combat, keep it decidedly simple and resort to unnatural magicks as the reason. That breaks the link to real life.
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deadPan_c, I am so sorry to hear about that. It seems that a bunch of folks who are very invested in an idea of "reverse racism" and others who are just bound and determined to hurt wotc are really giving it their all since i arrived here.
I had someone from a different thread (now locked) inform me that I was to treat them with respect, while I had watched them be disrespectful for a two dozen posts. It was not a pleasant exchange, because I have a very low tolerance for people demanding respect from me. Which is an understatement.
I am also way too educated and proud of it, and that can be a bit of an annoyance all of the time.
but at the same time, all of it is a perfect way to illustrate a couple things:
1 -- nothing separates reality from the game worlds because the game is played in reality. If there was separation, threads like this wouldn't exist, and all those folks wouldn't be having the urge to act that way.
2 -- we are condemning their actions, the same way we do those of goblins, orcs, and gnolls -- but I have serious doubts that any of them are inherently evil. They are products of the society they come out of, and they have the same capacity for kindness, empathy, and change that everyone else has.
Including goblins, orcs, and, ok, well, maybe not mindless, animalistic gnolls who are only in it for survival, not because they have a motivation of kill all good things (which would require sapience, at the least).
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Absolutely. It's like any religion. There are those that follow the scripture of whatever religion, and then there's extremists of it.
So if the goal is looking for something, that's why I was saying an religious "zealots" specifically.
And yes, you could have other races/species - but the question was how to make orcs, goblins, etc., be "evil" so that the party doesn't feel bad killing them.
So I am just addressing what the OP is apparently looking for.
How is that racism in any fashion? It's literally magic that made the orcs the way they are; their god is evil and infused that hatred for everything and evil directly into them.
If folks are digging that deep - you have to wonder why people are killing human bandits, too. I mean, they're probably victims of circumstance - let's sit down and not fight - let's bring a shrink in and find out why you ended up becoming human bandits. Was it daddy issues? Abandonment? Let's just feel bad for everyone who isn't an unthinking, zero intelligence monster at that point.
I am all for not every monster being the alignment they're portrayed in - Hades, in my off week game I run - the party (which is heavy into RP and being in character) - managed to befriend these kobolds - and actually helped them establish a trade route of sorts (they live in a swamp and there's plants used for healing potions there) - with a neighboring town. The kobolds supply the plants that are dangerous to get to, to the town; and the town gives them food, leathers, etc.
Now that said, everyone's game at every table is different.
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I really liked seeing this and thank you for it.
Please bear with me, I am old and I am wordy...
Those assorted isms and whatsit are systems, they are collections of established mores, norms, history and assorted social constructs that ultimately have the purpose to create stigmatization.
Those affected are going to vary in their responses in those zero session situations based on the real world, and the depth of or lack of understanding of the participants. I am Lakota and Malian and Dutch in my heritage, born to parents who married illegally and my birth is essentially the product of a crime (miscegenation) that later was recognized for the horror it was.
I am a principle DEI executive for a healthcare company, and I do that while ensuring medical care is performed. I can genuinely and truly say that I only went down the convoluted path that got me to where I am because I played 1e. The stuff I loved to learn and to know and to use and to work into my games led me down a path that caused me to end up with more letters after my name than I want to shake a stick at -- sociology, psychology, religion, psychiatry, pharmacology, business, Computer Engineering (haven't done that one in 20 years and grateful, lol). The normal collection is PhD, MS, MA and then a crapton of bachelors.
I don't tell you that because of I want to assert authority or expertise or anything. I say all of that because I learned things you just did from simply playing the game, and being someone who first heard the n-word from my own grandparents and great grandparents as a very small child. When I got to kindergarten, someone said "look at the n word" and I looked around for a football player because that was the context I understood it within.
The oldest members of my family who are still alive only managed to deal with the racism I dealt with inside my family in the last decade. They, too, never really saw it from the perspective of what it was like living in it -- and I never trusted them enough to really explain it because when one does you get a lot of buts and whatever and people mocking what you say (and these days, accusations of wokeness).
A lot of folks want to make the argument that the game doesn't exist in the real world -- and yet it does. It is the creation of this world, and this world will feed into the game world, and that will include all the crappy stuff. I can genuinely say that between all the assorted "things I am", I have heard everything said about orcs and the rest as an entire species said bout me and people who happen to be like me along some axis of Other or another.
Hell, not too long ago I was informed that I and folks like me were as a great a threat to the world as a nuclear bomb, and that is not an exaggeration. My existence represents to some an existential threat, just like that mass of Orcs and Goblins and Gnolls. I will point out, as well, that in this particular case, it was a religious leader speaking on part of his religion, and it is a big one.
I am not going to say anything about that at a table of people who have a history of mistreating me. If the Dm is good, the games are fun, I am going to want to be there *despite* all of that because just like in the real world, I cannot escape it, and sometimes being able to chop those people who have hurt you every single day for your entire life through the lens of a metaphor or allegory or just plain pretend (and cops and robbers has a very different feel if you are Black or LGBT or a girl) makes me feel a tiny bit better and it is easy to get swept up in the moment.
But I am still going to be aware of the racism in the game or the misogyny in the game or the transphobia in the game. And eventually i will drift away because maybe there is a game where it doesn't exist.
One part of this game is that it does need conflict. Among the conflicts that we can easily rely on -- drawn from the only examples we already know of -- the real world -- is this kind.
There are lots of options presented here. I even offered to write up a custom set of Lore. Because i work around this stuff professionally does not mean I am good at it, lol -- I like to think I am, and my general success rate shows I have a knack, but meh, whatever. And I will tell you that the rules for the game may not exist in world, but those rules exist in reality and they have real world impacts.
ostracism and stigma are known to have actual physical harm to the body, even if there is not physical impact. The continued, ongoing impact of it -- even pretend, ieven in a game -- has real world long term health implications and creates a set of problems that ultimately we all have to deal with in terms of mortality, birth complications and more.
When folks are saying that Gobins can't all be evil, they don't mean that the band of orcs they fight ight now can't be evil. THey mean that all the orcs ont h world cannot be evil, and so there must be a reason for these particular orcs to be evil.
Now, what are the reasons that folks have said I am a risk to the world? What makes me and the millions of others like me in that way so evil?
The reason for that evil ness matters just as much, and all of it comes down to a really true principle that few will take the time to discuss because they already feel that they known it -- but usually, they don't.
What is "good" in that world?
What is "evil" in that world?
if D&D is truly a different world, then what is good or evil may be completely different from here -- or it might be better than here. Or, yeah, it might be the same, lol.
I didn't choose fascism as the basis for my Gobs because I have an inherent problem with fascism -- I did it because in my life and experience, fascism represents a potent, powerful evil force that the heroes of this world can oppose. It gives me a way to set up a culture where it is *hard* to be good, and so those who are tend to be more adaptable and persevering in ways than those who are not -- perfect for becoming adventurers. Perfect for leading people in rebellion.
Conflict achieved. I dropped in all the evils I could find.
And then I set it up so that if the players just mindlessly accept the idea that all goblins are evil, then they will fall into the same trap of racism in a pretend fantasy world and be just as bad as the others -- even though there is another tricky element involved: they are the dominant power, and there can be no racism against the dominant power.
this new way of looking at things for you is encouraging to me. It will hopefully lead to changes by you -- and note they don't have to be big changes. There is a band of Orcs who are defiant and struggling and maybe the adventurers can help them overthrow, -- because why is Gruumsh seen as evil? maybe that is how he has been described by the "good kingdoms" for so long that no one actually knows who or how he is?
Maybe this band wants to resist, to fight back, to prove that he isn't evil.
Write the lore up, drop it in a player ear. bang -- all orcs aren't evil. The PC's never even have to encounter them, merely hear about them.
That's all.
The Racial ASI's are a similar but unrelated issue and I ain't got the words to repeat what I said previously.
But, really, all of this is to say Thank You for having been willing to have that moment of seeing things.
and thank you to CharlesthePlant for reaching you with their time, energy, and effort.
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This is the crux of the issue in my view: a being described in those terms is too close to home for some people for justified reasons. While I’m not usually one of them, I don’t want to antagonize them either.
Know that I have come to absolutely despise how fantasy human-ish species seems to have become little more than symbols for real life human race topics. In my non-roleplaying setting, I made all the non-human people spirits magically generated from forces related to natural, psychological, and philosophical concepts in large part because I wanted to put as much distance I could between them and human race metaphors. (EDIT: and the humans are ethnically diverse). I say this not as a boast, but as a demonstration of just how tired I am of it.
However, D&D orcs, goblinoids, and so on had parallels with malicious depictions of indigenous peoples longer than I’ve been alive. They’re already there and not even well hidden. To the point where I’m not sure I even what to used cleaned up versions of them anymore.
Have they? Because when I started D&D... here's what I saw...
Orcs...
Goblins -
Kobolds -
These were just "monsters" that were written as evil. They often showed up in massive groups.
Over the years, yes, lore has been added to flesh out how these beings existed. Because original D&D didn't really have a set "setting" per se.
But now that they've adopted Forgotten Realms, they've created more lore.
And in doing so, have created a "complication" where people are sensitive to these former "monsters."
But I lean back to - why even fight human bandits at that point?
Why not find out why they became bandits? Did their fathers abuse them? Run out on them? Were they victims of circumstance too?
It rapidly becomes a very slippery slope where you begin to wonder at what point is someone being too "extreme" about it?
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Foundational: human bandits always have a reason to be bandits. maybe it was their fathers ran out on them, Maybe is was abuse, maybe the Baron of the area they all lived in evicted them, maybe they had a dragon swoop in and wipe out their lives.
That *should* be known. At some point, it can come out. That does not excuse what they do when they engage in banditry, but it offers additional solutions to the problem besides "all bandits are evil".
In other words, if you were to look back over the whole of this thread, you would see people repeat exactly that thing you dismiss over and over and over again.
There is no slippery slope beyond the one saying "all of X are evil" -- that is the slippery slope, in and of itself, by itself, and all alone.
in 1980 we had conversations about how all of those *exact creatures you show the original art for* could not possibly be evil. At freaking GenCon, fer crying out loud.
Not only is this not new, it is something that was baked into the game by people who based those characters -- outside the little art used that you shared -- on how they saw different kinds of people in the real world.
On purpose.
Your disbelief is not evidence of that being wrong.
(and apologies if I come across terse -- a different thread had outright racism in it and I am not a pleased panther at the moment.)
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You’re missing the point. The issue people have with orcs is not that they’ve been coded as an antagonistic faction, those are necessary for an adventure story and in a fantasy setting it’s reasonable for there to be overlap between “species” and “culture”. The issue is that a lot of the “savage primitive” coding that went into the various monster races reflects doctrine used to justify racism.
Now do hobgoblins from the 1e Monster Manual
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Oh hey, I told you I would participate and then I missed you starting this thread because it was in another subforum, sorry!
I think a lot of people have already given you a lot of good advice regarding making orcs and goblins into real people so I'm going to go a different way. Make them somehow alien and less like people. What if they are something of a viral curse instead of a stable population of people? What if orcs are what you turn into if you fight with orcs and give in to the rage of battle? What if goblins are what you turn in to if you lose some property to goblins and start obsessing over your belongings and hording and protecting them?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
No worries about missing the thread. I figured it would fit this sub better.
I like the idea. I've always been a fan of zombie-esque, viral monsters. My only worry is that it could be taken as even more racist than the usual depiction of such monsters, but I guess one could take them in such a "these monsters are effectively aliens" direction, that there's no way they could possibly be compared to any real-world people or cultures.
It's an interesting thought; if instead of making these non-human monsters more human, you make them so non-human that it's impossible to compare them to humans. I hadn't thought of that.
[REDACTED]
Hmm, that's an interesting idea. I think you'd have to take it even further than that though, and make them not just alien and evil, but truly incomprehensibly alien. Orcs don't have battle rage, they are hard-wired to view the color green as the color of death and assume anyone wearing it is asking to be put down -- which helps explain why they were thought to hate elves so much, since elves often wear nature-based color schemes. They don't form tribes, their culture is based on triadic units (three adults, of any mix of genders, with different combinations generally having different functions within their society) which are maintained for life -- kill one member of the triad, and the other two become homicidal/suicidal and fight to the death. They aren't raiding or conquering, they simply have no concept of personal property so if they wander into someone else's territory and survive the subsequent fight... hey, free houses
Start from the things old-school D&D "knows" about orcs, and work backwards to come up with explanations for the behavior that simply don't make any sense to outsiders, at least not on the surface. That still does open the door down the road for a PC or NPC anthropologist to crack the code on their behavior, of course, but at least you've gone from "evil just because the game needs enemies" to "we assume they're evil because every interaction with them ends in bloodshed, even though we don't know why"
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Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
My personal preference in D&D is to make Orcs and Goblins just part of the world, with their motives and morals independent of what they are.
Gnolls, on the other hand, I consider as Irredeemable. They are the embodiment of hunger. To say that making all gnolls dangerous and evil is bad is like saying that not all mimics will try to eat you. They aren't people, they just look like people, vaguely, until you get close and notice that they are hyena-creatures which stand on their hind legs.
I think of Gnolls along the lines of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park. Someone earlier mentioned condemning them even in their youth, and in Jurassic park they aptly state about the velociraptors, "They're lethal at 8 months, and I do mean lethal". Gnolls take a lot of their scariness from the fact that they are beasts, not people. They're humanoid only in shape, and I view that as only because Yeenoghu sought to make them that way so they could use weapons and scare people more.
Orcs and Goblins are people. Gnolls are Monsters. That's my stance on it, at any rate.
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It all depends on the campaign and the world. There's an entire town in Exandria where gnolls -- at least one particular clan of gnolls, anyway -- are viewed as just people, and they live side by side with the halflings and humans
Also, the party I'm DMing for ran into an oni not too long ago that had a pet mimic
Lore isn't inviolate, is what it comes down to. If you have a problem with something in your world, or just want to play around and subvert expectations, then change the lore. It's your world. And if you don't, then don't
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Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
How interesting. Yesterday seems to have been the day for messaging people. Mine was related to a very long dead mount, but still...
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
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I can't see any issue with creating a world where orcs, golblins or any other race/species is "generally of evil nature" Having MOST of the "good" races/species in the world hold an inherent distrust of another race can easily be outlined by showing how the local communities of said creatures are savage raiders and pillagers. Maybe it's because I read so much fiction from the FR setting that I have an opinion that some of the creatures are, for the most part, evil. It's my exposure to those fringe members of these creatures that allows me to see that "don't trust a drow" can be a really smart rule to follow for the most part. It's the street smart view that if you run across a drow there is a MUCH higher chance they ARE evil than not. To help players understand the world, they can (and likely SHOULD) encounter the odd, rare instance of a non-evil creature from these races. that creature can even reiterate that the party being wary of him/her is reasonable, as they know first hand just how evil MOST of their kin are.
People get too hung up on "most are evil" as something of a social gaffe, not recognizing that the only social gaffes in fantasy are those you impose, since it's a not-real world you're exploring. In high fantasy someone almost has to be the "evil" you're fighting against, so being sure to show that they are evil, through their acts, beliefs and way of living is a big thing. Introducing the enemy as hated just because they're green is lazy and won't get much buy-in from most players anyway.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Be at least somewhat thankful you can’t see it. A lot of it depends on what evil is. This is why the prior posts over and over speak to the context, to the social structure and system that supports why they are so, without falling trap to the assertion of evil.
the key term is “generally” — that allows the necessary freedom from something being inherently such, and simply choosing such. In some worlds, it is entirely possible that kindness, empathy, and independence are all Evil things.
People don’t get caught up in most are evil, they get caught up in “all are evil”. Because the argument that it is just a game ignored the fact that the kinds of harm being talked about are real for the people affected, even if it is a game, and that harm can be measured and tracked and shown to have significant long term effects.
It isn’t just about that, however — it is how the cultures of many of these beings were literally based on stereotypes of people of color and other minority populations. The same things said about them were said to real life people — and being slapped in the face by it while trying to pretend does not feel good and can bring back up traumas and other harms.
that’s the why people get “caught up” in it while pretending. So it isn’t a social gaffe, it is essentially like being punched in the face. There is a crap ton of stuff I could toss, but gah, I hate working for free.
The stuff mentioned is a lot like the way that people in real life deal with the folks who are stigmatized — you know, let’s cross the street so we don’t have to be near that man. He’s the sort that is dangerous. I see it on TV and my folks told me about it. You know, you hang around with them enough and you are going to get in trouble because their kind is trouble.
those sorts of things have a real life basis — they do not add to the necessary conflict, nor are they confined to a game because the people who play these things do not only exist in a pretend world, and no matter how strange something is, all of them draw from the world around us in some way.
saying it is pretend doesn’t change that it still causes harm.
check out previous posts where I talk about the bad guys I use.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Great discussion overall from folks in this thread.
I'd just like to point out that Charles Darwinism disowned Social Darwinism. Darwin's theory of Evolution mentions nothing about "strength" or "weakness". Rather, it was about why species develop into other species, which is dependent on the relative merits of particular traits given a particular physical and ecological environment that made it easier for certain traits to flourish. If it was as simple as "strong survive, weak perish", that would not have accounted for the diversity of finches that Darwin observed on the Galapagos islands, finches which were a keystone to Darwin's theory.
Heh. My response pointed out the same thing.
Just not as well.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Thanks! Just wanted to correct how pop culture tends to misinterpret Charles's main idea. He was not a perfect person, but it's disappointing that many people misuse his theory by not bothering to quote him at all and instead relying on the eugenicists who tried to extract what they wanted to hear him say.
To keep is simple, you have to, in-lore, magically design a creature to be so detrimental that it is a necessity to fight it. As I pointed out earlier, a popular lore has it that Gnolls are curses causually created by Yeenoghu and are not nurtured to be what they are. They burst from hyenas that overgorged themselves on food so much as to die, and Gnolls are single-mindedly driven on eating with every development they make designed to that purpose. This version has Gnolls as magical things that are not natural to the world, and Gnolls must be fought simply out of necessity as they leave mindless carnage in their wake.
Yet, there are other lores where Gnolls have a complicated society as part of a natural process and are nurtured to become what people expect them to be, but if their traditional upbringing is interrupted, they can be quirky but not harmful individuals. This is what you need to avoid if you cannot spend enough time to show the necessity of fighting Gnolls.
When it comes to nurtured creatures, they always have a choice (unless they sneeze, then nobody has a choice). Their choices determine whether or not it is necessary to deal with them and sometimes determine the manner in which to deal with them. Those determinations are only enacted by yet more choices, though. This lengthens the whole story. If you're looking for quick combat scenarios for the sake of combat, avoid doing this.
For just-go-kill-this combat, keep it decidedly simple and resort to unnatural magicks as the reason. That breaks the link to real life.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
deadPan_c, I am so sorry to hear about that. It seems that a bunch of folks who are very invested in an idea of "reverse racism" and others who are just bound and determined to hurt wotc are really giving it their all since i arrived here.
I had someone from a different thread (now locked) inform me that I was to treat them with respect, while I had watched them be disrespectful for a two dozen posts. It was not a pleasant exchange, because I have a very low tolerance for people demanding respect from me. Which is an understatement.
I am also way too educated and proud of it, and that can be a bit of an annoyance all of the time.
but at the same time, all of it is a perfect way to illustrate a couple things:
1 -- nothing separates reality from the game worlds because the game is played in reality. If there was separation, threads like this wouldn't exist, and all those folks wouldn't be having the urge to act that way.
2 -- we are condemning their actions, the same way we do those of goblins, orcs, and gnolls -- but I have serious doubts that any of them are inherently evil. They are products of the society they come out of, and they have the same capacity for kindness, empathy, and change that everyone else has.
Including goblins, orcs, and, ok, well, maybe not mindless, animalistic gnolls who are only in it for survival, not because they have a motivation of kill all good things (which would require sapience, at the least).
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds