So .. gnolls are mindlessly destructive creatures, all day, every day. They don't do anything for fun (except perhaps slaughter innocents), they produce nothing (maybe corpses?), they apparently have no culture beyond raiding and pillaging. They are, to my knowledge, the least interesting race in fantasy.

No child rearing, no religious practices, no culture, music, art, no society - just, nothing.

I do not subscribe to this for any intelligent species. 

In my homebrew world, gnolls are still nomadic raiders with poor personal hygiene, limited peaceful contact with other races (but some - all races come to town from time to time to buy and sell, some under close watch), and questionable morals. Their males have a tendency to kill each other off, so the race is like 80% female. Not quite like lions, with one male pr. pride, but still with a very great deal of violent competition among the males. It is a male-dominated society - except where the females feel strongly about it. So while the males kill each over who should be king, the females control most of everything else. 

Gnolls are a nomadic tribespeople. The cycle of their lives follow their breeding cycle closely. They follow prey, and they're not above migrating to active war zones - where they may sign on as mercenaries for one side or the other (or technically both), but may also simply scavenge. For food, and equipment. But their breeding cycle is important: Every year, large numbers of pups are born, and this feeds into a natural cycle of male offspring competing - often with fatal outcomes - for position, throwing themselves into raids in order to gain status, in order go favor with female gnolls. Meanwhile, the (mostly temporary) rise in numbers, meaning increased need for food and equipment, which again feeds into the raiding. 

Hence, seasonal raiding is a direct result of a large number of cute little fuzzy gnollings. 

One alternative to raiding - at least in years with enough food - is hunting. Gnolls hunt and eat anything they can bring down, but for (mostly male) gnolls seeking status, it's an attractive option to hunt something particularly dangerous, like wyvern, giant scorpion, dire lion or elemental. These hunts form the basis of gnoll craftsmanship. Gnolls aren't big on industry - they neither farm nor mine nor raise much livestock, and so they have few materials for crafting. What they do have is wyvern fangs and stingers, scorpion chitin, lion skins and elemental heartstone. What gnolls craft isn't plentiful, but it's almost always exceptional materials - and very great care goes into producing something noteworthy, special .. powerful.

Gnoll culture has two primary drivers: For males, it's conquest, brawn, victory. Male gnolls are involved in a constant pissing contest, climbing over each other ('s dead bodies) to reach the peak of power (for as long as they can keep it). For females, it's centered on the rearing of strong offspring, getting enough food for young maybe twice the number of the adults of the tribe, and on top of that almost all praciticalities needed to keep the tribe alive. 

Gnoll culture flows from a few religious beliefs, and their hunting, raiding and conquests. Their art consists mostly of paintings on animal hides, their shields, and the occasional monument built from the various remains of defeated enemies - broken weapons, at the less gory end of the scale. 

Man this is getting lenghty. In terms of religion, gnolls casters overwhelmingly are female - and mostly druids. I'm sure they're supposed to have some devil worship background ... only they don't. Their religious beliefs are darwinian in nature, survival of the fittest, might makes right, all that jazz.

I'll stop here. Please, if you have any opinion - pro or con - post. My gnolls can only stand to benefit from both =)

Gnolls are awesome. I've built a whole campaign around them before. Did you know that gnolls weren't always under Yeenoghu's influence? Once, they were far more civilized beings, more primal than outright demonic, created by a being known as Gorellik. However, Gorellik was murdered and... I think eaten by Yeenoghu, leading to the demon prince taking all gnolls under his hairy wing. 

Enough about the past, though, this is about gnolls the way they're presented in 5e. Namely, as something far from an intelligent species. Imo, gnolls should not be classified as humanoids. As they are, they're fiendish through and through. You shouldn't treat a gnoll like you would a goblin, or an orc, or a troll. They are worse. So much worse. They are born from hunger, they live by hunger, and they die by hunger. They only exist to cause torment and shed blood and fill their bottomless bellies, because everything a gnoll devours is transported directly into the gullet of Yeenoghu. They are quite literally vicious gluttony incarnate, and share few philosophical differences with maw demons.

So, you really shouldn't approach gnolls like a culture of individuals. (Though it's totally okay if you do, I'm just going off of how gnolls are presented in 5e source material, I often make them more civilized in my own homebrew settings.) Instead, They're more like a force. A blight that, while ordinarily dangerous, is truly terrifying if properly organized (in the campaign I wrote, Gorellik's son was gathering a bunch of gnolls in order to try and summon Yeenoghu and kill him, by causing a demonic incursion, but I digress.)

Anyways, I'm running out of steam on my gnoll-rant, but gnolls are really cool and I have a bunch of awesome gnoll warbands that I like to throw at different groups of players every now and then and they're the best. 

As for your own gnoll culture ideas, I don't have a ton of input, except for in one area. You mention several times about the differences between the males and females, but if you're drawing from real hynas for inspiration, it is good to note that hyena packs (at least spotted hyena, I'm not super knowledgeable of others) are pretty much strictly matriarchal. In fact, female hyenas are actually often more aggressive and domineering than males, which is largely what leads to this role. If it were up to me, I would change up the gender roles. Female gnolls would be the hyper-aggressive top dogs, while males would be at the bottom of the social ladder, though again based off of hyenas females would still be responsible for raising children. 

The problem is you're looking at Gnolls as if they are a race. They definitely aren't: they are the spawn of the Demon of Hunger, Yeenoghu. They are just fat-ass hyenas that ate too many spoiled kills of this god, and exploded into a bipedal, semi-humanoid hyena creature. Since they were created by Yeenoghu, they only care for what he cares for, which is: hunger and satiating said hunger. They are more like ancient humans: they live to survive, making sure that when they eat, they eat good, because they don't know when they'll do it next. 

Not every creature in D&D needs to be redeemable. These are the spawn of a literal demon king, one who's desires are to rule the world and feast on whoever and whatever he wants, and has instilled that in his creations. Volo's describes the Gnolls really well, detailing how they pop up every so often after Yeenoghu's excursions on the material plane, and how they act as a force that brings in other evil creatures such as ghouls looking for flesh to eat or trolls because.... trolls like that life as well.

Obviously your world is your world, but in standard D&D lore: Gnolls are hungry. Why? Demons. Not humanoid at all, they're just demonic forces. 

Slightly tongue in cheek option for you from my game:

There is no Demonic heritage or origin to them and Gnolls are descended from a single mafia style family called "the Cackle". They hire themselves out as muscle and bodyguards, do "favours" and get involved in all sorts of nefarious activity and have two legitimate businesses of refuse collection and raising Otyugh. The Otyugh are feed with the collelcted refuse and then rented out to towns and cities to help with refuse management and sewer cleaning.

Quote from TheHumbug >>

Gnolls are awesome. I've built a whole campaign around them before. Did you know that gnolls weren't always under Yeenoghu's influence? Once, they were far more civilized beings, more primal than outright demonic, created by a being known as Gorellik. However, Gorellik was murdered and... I think eaten by Yeenoghu, leading to the demon prince taking all gnolls under his hairy wing. 

Enough about the past, though, this is about gnolls the way they're presented in 5e. Namely, as something far from an intelligent species. Imo, gnolls should not be classified as humanoids. As they are, they're fiendish through and through. You shouldn't treat a gnoll like you would a goblin, or an orc, or a troll. They are worse. So much worse. They are born from hunger, they live by hunger, and they die by hunger. They only exist to cause torment and shed blood and fill their bottomless bellies, because everything a gnoll devours is transported directly into the gullet of Yeenoghu. They are quite literally vicious gluttony incarnate, and share few philosophical differences with maw demons.

So, you really shouldn't approach gnolls like a culture of individuals. (Though it's totally okay if you do, I'm just going off of how gnolls are presented in 5e source material, I often make them more civilized in my own homebrew settings.) Instead, They're more like a force. A blight that, while ordinarily dangerous, is truly terrifying if properly organized (in the campaign I wrote, Gorellik's son was gathering a bunch of gnolls in order to try and summon Yeenoghu and kill him, by causing a demonic incursion, but I digress.)

Anyways, I'm running out of steam on my gnoll-rant, but gnolls are really cool and I have a bunch of awesome gnoll warbands that I like to throw at different groups of players every now and then and they're the best. 

As for your own gnoll culture ideas, I don't have a ton of input, except for in one area. You mention several times about the differences between the males and females, but if you're drawing from real hynas for inspiration, it is good to note that hyena packs (at least spotted hyena, I'm not super knowledgeable of others) are pretty much strictly matriarchal. In fact, female hyenas are actually often more aggressive and domineering than males, which is largely what leads to this role. If it were up to me, I would change up the gender roles. Female gnolls would be the hyper-aggressive top dogs, while males would be at the bottom of the social ladder, though again based off of hyenas females would still be responsible for raising children. 

 
I've considered many times to just roll with gnolls as they're presented, and you're spot on in that regard - inspired thoughts building on how they're 'supposed' to be. I don't do intelligent species that way. Kind of on principle. In spite, even. I refuse to accept that fundamentally intelligent creatures will act so stupidly. Even if RL tells us different =)

I know hyena's are different, that's not what I'm going for. What I want is the dichotomy of gnoll culture, a reason for them to constantly go to war, and a foundation for something else: Child rearing (which, I admit, eventually leads the same way). 

Something that played at the back of my mind when I thought up my gnoll interpretation was the Lizard King. If you're not old enough to remember the 2e Monstrous Manual, the lizard king was a ... lizard folk on steroids. Larger, stronger, deadlier. This is essentially how I picture the top male: Someone too one-sided to be a good ruler, but like, really, really good in a fight. Or bad - but that would be if you're on the other side. 

But yes! If done right, gnolls as a demon spawned plague on the world are also awesome =)

Quote from BramblefootDruid >>

The problem is you're looking at Gnolls as if they are a race. They definitely aren't: they are the spawn of the Demon of Hunger, Yeenoghu. They are just fat-ass hyenas that ate too many spoiled kills of this god, and exploded into a bipedal, semi-humanoid hyena creature. Since they were created by Yeenoghu, they only care for what he cares for, which is: hunger and satiating said hunger. They are more like ancient humans: they live to survive, making sure that when they eat, they eat good, because they don't know when they'll do it next. 

Not every creature in D&D needs to be redeemable. These are the spawn of a literal demon king, one who's desires are to rule the world and feast on whoever and whatever he wants, and has instilled that in his creations. Volo's describes the Gnolls really well, detailing how they pop up every so often after Yeenoghu's excursions on the material plane, and how they act as a force that brings in other evil creatures such as ghouls looking for flesh to eat or trolls because.... trolls like that life as well.

Obviously your world is your world, but in standard D&D lore: Gnolls are hungry. Why? Demons. Not humanoid at all, they're just demonic forces. 

 No, that's not the problem. 

The problem is that - as the 'spawn of the demon of hunger' - gnolls are 2-dimensional. Sure, they'll fill a niche, serve a purpose, and they'll do that well. But that's not what I want. 

I'm not saying everyone needs to want what I want - not at all. But my homebrew is primarily fuelled by the meetings and clashes of conflicting cultures. It's fuelled by grey zones, not by simple black-and-white scenarios where any dead X is a good X. That's why the druids. The gnolls are a powerful darwinian force, outbreeding and outfighting most other races, at least short term. They fill another niche in my world, and my games: The opposite end of the spectrum from humans - a race caught up in their own miserable cycle, breeding too fast to sustain themselves in their environment without conflict with others. They cannot help being what they are. 

That creates another problem for me: My goblins are the same, outgrowing their habitats (even quicker) and needing to take the ressources of others to feed themselves. But .. goblins are another topic.

Quote from Rob76 >>

Slightly tongue in cheek option for you from my game:

There is no Demonic heritage or origin to them and Gnolls are descended from a single mafia style family called "the Cackle". They hire themselves out as muscle and bodyguards, do "favours" and get involved in all sorts of nefarious activity and have two legitimate businesses of refuse collection and raising Otyugh. The Otyugh are feed with the collelcted refuse and then rented out to towns and cities to help with refuse management and sewer cleaning.

Nice =)

Too clever for my taste. I like to divide my intelligent monsters into groups of: 

• Above human intelligence
• Human intelligence
• Not quite human intelligence

Gnolls fall into the last, and all of the first are ... technically extinct or close to it (otherwise, humans wouldn't be dominant). But yes, this is a funny and clever idea. I love the otyugh husbandry thing. 

One thing to note that there's a recent official story where they go into the mind of a powerful Gnoll, reinforcing WotC's take on them as per 5e lore. That particular Gnoll's mind is basic. It's stimulus-response. It's not thought. It's not reasoning. One couldn't even call it motivation. It's programming with hardcoded, dogmatic, scripted logic. An affliction of great power over the mind was struggling greatly to keep the Gnoll in question on-task and barely able to do so, something that required no effort from the disease on most others (with the exception of a certain Chekhov's Gun that allowed someone to use that very same affliction to peer into and influence the minds of others with the same affliction and made the person with the plot device immune to influence which is how peering into the Gnoll's mind happened in the story).

If someone rejects that lore, that person will be going off the map and will have to come up with new lore as to why something that bursts out of cursed hyenas fully grown (killing the hyenas like fully-grown xenomorphs bursting out of their chests) and was unintentionally created by a ravenous, single-minded deity would have a culture that includes child rearing when no mating or children exist. (If hyenas eat meats left by Gnolls' or Yeenoghu's slaughtering, they become cursed to eat ceaselessly to near-death at which point a fully grown Gnoll explodes out of them.)

The thing that makes Gnolls unique is their singular destructive disposition without restraint of directive or purpose. They're not comparable to anything natural. Take that away and someone can replace them with any other creature. Their purpose was to be something akin to a rampant, errant thing destroying everything since their creation was never intended but Yeenoghu couldn't have cared any less about it. Yeenoghu waffles between amusement and offense regarding Gnolls and their overdriven instincts—instincts that do not include self-preservation, just mindless slaughter.

If someone wants Gnolls to have a culture, that person must start over from scratch and toss out what makes Gnolls into the iconic creatures they are. It's fine to do that, but one must understand the loss of something unique in the fictional worlds when doing so.

I know of a story where a Hag had to learn conservation of ecosystems to survive on a secluded island due to her killing off her original food source. In official lore, Hags do not coexist with their environment. They are a blight... but if they can bargain (and they excel at it), they can reason. Reasoning lets them go off-script with the right motivations. Add that one thing—the ability to reason—to Gnolls (while ignoring that its absence is part of what makes a Gnoll a Gnoll), then a Gnoll can decide its own motivation and change its own nature and have a culture that's not hard-coded into them, maybe even learn to procreate more traditionally and less destructively.

Honestly, I'd go the other way with gnolls and use their characterization as a force rather than a culture; suppose instead of just sweeping across the land they're making brief raids to wipe out settlements or something along those lines and then fading back and seeming to drop off the face of the earth. It becomes a mystery; why are they behaving differently? Why those locations? Where do they disappear to? The cool thing about creatures that are essentially a force is that they can be harnessed and redirected. And, as a corollary, if someone else has done it, the players might be able to turn that around on them...

For me, Gnolls are a simple and yet confusing bunch. Like many others have stated, their entire being is literally just “me hungy, me kill, me eat, me still hungy” and repeat. I have to say though, I love your way of envisioning Gnolls; a tribal structure not too dissimilar to that of the hyenas we know and love/hate (depends lol). I would love to see where that leads in your campaign, and honestly, if you’d allow it, I’d absolutely love to read some of how the campaign’s gone so far if you have any notes or anything. If not or you don’t want to share, that’s fine, I just have an appetite for reading that’s as insatiable as a Gnoll’s hunger for flesh XD

But back to Gnolls. Like I said, your campaign presents an awesome and unique way of portaying Gnolls. For those who want to keep the 5e Gnoll the ravenous beast it is, I have a little something for you, right out of the Abyss. Quite literally though, as this little tidbit was found in the 5e version of Out Of The Abyss! Cast your mind to the Labyrinth, where Baphomet’s (demon of minotaurs btw) servants have roamed for centuries. With the rise of many demon lords into the Underdark, their ferocity has only grown. Yeenoghu himself is taking Gnolls into the Labyrinth, making forays into minotaur territory in a bold move. Kurr, a Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu, is now leading a group of ten Gnolls through the Labyrinth, all of whom slaughter anyone in their path. All except Kurr, however.

To quote the book itself, “Unknown to his Gnoll progeny, Kurr has succumbed to a form of madness that quells his feral demeanour. He’s lost his appetite for carnage and is overcome with guilt for all of the creatures he has slain. When his pack happens upon the party, he sends his Gnolls into battle but doesn't partake of the violence, hoping that the characters slaughter his brethren. Once they are dead, Kurr bows his head solemnly, begs Yeenoghu’s forgiveness (first in his own language then in Abyssal), and then throws himself at the party’s mercy.”

Furthermore, this is a form of permanent madness that can be cured, reverting him back to your typical feral Gnoll. In addition, “while afflicted with this madness, Kurr cannot bring himself to kill any living creature except in self-defence.” So while yes, it is officially possible for a Gnoll to become somewhat civilised, the fact that it took demonically influenced madness to bring about this change of heart shows just how ridiculous the amount of power required is to break a Gnoll’s nature and convert it to a being that shows intelligence and empathy.

To hammer down the point, this random encounter is a once-off. “Any subsequent occurrence at this encounter is with a pack of 3d6 Gnolls. These Gnolls came to the Underdark with Yeenoghu. They cackle and scream the demon lord's name as they tear into their prey.” 5e Gnolls are literal garbage trucks with teeth that will ravenously tear through any living creature in the name of hunger and their creator and master. It took demonic madness to convert a Gnoll to some level of peace, and even then, the madness isn’t permanent, able to be removed with something like Greater Restoration or Remove Curse (because of Out Of The Abyss’s special rules for demonic madness, Remove Curse works on short-term, long-term, and permanent madness caused during the campaign).

Again though, I absolutely love the idea of Gnolls being more than what 5e has written them as, and I love your idea. Also, again though, if you really need to test your party, then your typical 5e Gnoll will do just fine. Maybe you want to shake up your party’s pacifist and make them change beliefs, show them how some creatures are evil through and through, unable to be turned to the light. Really, Gnolls got a pretty plain hand on the surface, but if you delve into their lore or make your own, you can get some really fun and interesting results! When I get around to making my campaign, I’m definitely throwing a pack of these hyena-faced gluttons at my party XD

This is a bit of an aside but I was reading up on Hyena after posting on this thread to see if there was a good way to do some non-Yeenoghu Gnoll culture and, aside from them being as intelligent as some primates, something I read sparked a little train of thought.

Some people who study Hyena in the wild have found that Hyena travel in single file when hunting/stalking prey. This then prompted me to think of a certain line from Star Wars: A New Hope; "Sand People travel single file to hide their numbers". So how about treating Gnolls like Sand People/Tusken Raiders as fololows:

They are somewhat Xenophobic of other races, highly protective of territory they view as theirs, slow to trust but always keep their word, each Gnoll is given a Hyena when they reach adulthood and they can develope an almost mystical bond with it (which could mimic the PHB Ranger Beastmaster abilites), despite their reputations can work with others and bring non-Gnolls into their clans once their trust is earned and to paraphrase from the Tusken Raider wikipedia entry:

"Although the Gnolls are aggressive and violent by nature, they have deep-seated traditions that they cling to tightly. Young Gnolls are required to prove their adulthood in various physical activities. While the Gnolls have no written language, the most revered member of a Gnoll clan is the storyteller. They knows the life-story of every member of the clan, and also knows of the clan's history. The storyteller is required to memorize the histories word-for-word, eliminating any chance for misinterpretation or distortion. Apprentice storytellers often are more hard-pressed to prove themselves than warriors, for a single mistake in reciting the histories means instant death by decapitation."

Theis would give you a more "Lawful" attuned version of Gnolls with traditions and ways of their own and you can use Yeenoghu like a Bogeyman style entity the Gnolls fear and have some other entity or God they revere or give them a more Druidic/Circle of the Land approach to the world.

The gnolls prepare a feast, and you’re on the menu. Yet whoever will come is invited to the feast, and will be seen as an honorary gnoll even if they were once seen as just food. It’s as if some humans were preparing livestock to eat, one of the cows decided to eat with the humans, and the humans let the cow do so.

For they are all one in Yeenogu’s hunger.

Never alone. Never afraid. Never hungry.

Gnolls are not meant to be understood or admired for anything.  They are meant to be feared and fought, with hope they are utterly defeated and quickly.  They are, in a sense, the incarnation of the devil's army on earth.  They are beings that derive their only pleasure from the misery of others, and that pleasure is extraordinarily short lived.  They live more in fear of wrath from their god that drives them than in the glory of victory.

Quote from Fifinger >>

The gnolls prepare a feast, and you’re on the menu. Yet whoever will come is invited to the feast, and will be seen as an honorary gnoll even if they were once seen as just food. It’s as if some humans were preparing livestock to eat, one of the cows decided to eat with the humans, and the humans let the cow do so.

For they are all one in Yeenogu’s hunger.

Never alone. Never afraid. Never hungry.

Quote from inew >>

Go to Volo's guide to monsters and see the pages on them, like how they turn dead gnolls in to gnoll withering, and a way you can bring back males. Also humans can gain a Gnoll's features by "praying" to Yeneeguo.

Quote from MusicScout >>

Gnolls are not meant to be understood or admired for anything.  They are meant to be feared and fought, with hope they are utterly defeated and quickly.  They are, in a sense, the incarnation of the devil's army on earth.  They are beings that derive their only pleasure from the misery of others, and that pleasure is extraordinarily short lived.  They live more in fear of wrath from their god that drives them than in the glory of victory.

 And this doesn't strike you as the least bit 2-dimensional?

I mean, not that nothing can ever just be simple, 2-dimensional, black and white. But it is decidedly not why I play RPG's. I want races - all of them - to have depth and character and many different options for interaction. Gnolls, as standard, can be killed. The end. And I don't want that. Now, my game isn't your's, unless you happen to be one of my players, and that would surprise me. So I'm by no means trying you how to play. 

As an aside, I can agree that gnolls are a good 2-dimensional enemy. Or you know, an evil one, but in a good way.

I have no quarrel with gnolls being CE - I have a problem with them acting like they're unintelligent. Even if, let's be honest, they're hardly the brightest of creatures.

But yea, you could have the hunger act like blood in Vampire: Less control, more power (I haven't played Vampire since forever, is that even how it works?!). When gnolls visit town, guards would require to see plenty of food stocks, and traders who meet with them would be sure to have ample refreshments ready. In particularly hard years, gnolls might spread like locusts. 

I could totally see that work =)

Once again, we return to the point that they’re not designed to be a people the way humans, orcs, etc. are. MotM even changed their supertype to “Monstrosity”, which was a good way to clarify the distinction. They’re not truly an intelligent species, they’re hyenas crudely uplifted by dark magic expressly for the purpose of creating monsters that kill and devour on a large scale. The two-dimensionality is the point; they were expressly created both in and out of universe to embody a ceaseless appetite for destruction.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Once again, we return to the point that they’re not designed to be a people the way humans, orcs, etc. are. MotM even changed their supertype to “Monstrosity”, which was a good way to clarify the distinction. They’re not truly an intelligent species, they’re hyenas crudely uplifted by dark magic expressly for the purpose of creating monsters that kill and devour on a large scale. The two-dimensionality is the point; they were expressly created both in and out of universe to embody a ceaseless appetite for destruction.

 I think this is true, but I'd like to talk a bit about why WOTC would do this...

in Past editions, it was commonly accepted that groups like Orcs or Goblins were just little monsters who exist solely to be killed by adventurers. Drow were Elves, but EEEEVIL. An entire race of people could just be evil, top to bottom, and the average player didn't give it much thought.

Then, as time passed, more complex stories started to be written. One of the most famous D&D characters of all time is a Drow. Games like Warcraft shifted the average fantasy reader's understanding of Orcs from being big ugly monsters to more of a proud, traditionalist warrior race. Minotaurs are heroes, Goblins are more likely to elicit squees of delight instead of screams of fear... now all those illustrations of a group of adventurers storming into a goblin camp and slaughtering everything in sight suddenly seems like a horrific moment for the goblins, and not a moment of glory for the heroes.

WOTC has a problem now... what do they show their heroes doing that will be seen as universally heroic? They can't just keep pitting them against demons and undead... you need at least one more "mundane" enemy that's still capable of, say... building a camp and wielding weaponry. Something you could show a first level fighter kicking one off the side of a cliff and everyone cheers. That's why Gnoll are the way they are... they're not mindless killing machines because that's a good story idea... they're mindless killing machines because it makes it easier to write stories where the enemy is completely devoid of sympathy.

I mean, D&D is a sword and sorcery RPG. I know this is a bit of a hot take, but it does need a broad suite of creatures that players can uncritically kill without dealing with the implications. Humanoids have been pretty comprehensively moved off that menu, with reason, ergo on the living being end of things you’re left with stuff like hags, illithids, and gnolls where “it’s just their nature” is used to justify their fundamental antagonism and thus the perpetual green light on fighting them. No, it’s not a deep and nuanced characterization, but that doesn’t make it inherently suspect. Sometimes a narrative simply calls for antagonists that exist to be uncritically opposed and slain.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Once again, we return to the point that they’re not designed to be a people the way humans, orcs, etc. are. 

 I do not care, at all. The designers - bless their souls - are actively crap at their jobs, and it doesn't help that the publisher is terrified of real life concepts like slavery, but subscribes - as you say - to the wholesale slaughter of random 'monster' so designated. 

Not on my watch. My games have the whole boatload of human depravity, hatred and sin and bloodsoaked conflict criss-cross front and back. But no sentient species is reduced to moral free cannon fodder. 

But maybe I should have picked another race for the first of these =)

I mean, if you don’t want to run your game that way it’s your prerogative, but it’s very much a staple of any genre of fantastic fiction, not some failing of the D&D writers in particular. Also, exactly to what degree gnolls qualify as “sentient” under the common use of the term is arguably up in the air. One could make a case that within the official material they’re closer to organic automatons. They’re animals given a crude uplift and a basic set of directives and impulses hard-coded into their minds.

As a final point, one of the drawing points of fantasy/sci-fi for some is the opportunity to explore other modes of being. People reject “always Evil” because that’s not how human beings work, but we’re not talking about human beings here. We’re talking about beings directly spawned by magic. It seems a bit narrow to say the human experience is the only mode of existence in such a setting.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

I mean, if you don’t want to run your game that way it’s your prerogative, but it’s very much a staple of any kind of fantastic fiction, not some failing of the D&D writers in particular. Also, exactly to what degree gnolls qualify as “sentient” under the common use of the term is arguably up in the air. One could make a case that within the official material they’re closer to organic automatons. They’re animals given a crude uplift and a basic set of directives and impulses hard-coded into their minds.

As a final point, one of the drawing points of fantasy/sci-fi for some is the opportunity to explore other modes of being. People reject “always Evil” because that’s not how human beings work, but we’re not talking about human beings here. We’re talking about beings directly spawned by magic. It seems a bit narrow to say the human experience is the only mode of existence in such a setting.

 No, you're right, it's a failing of writers in general - while the D&D writers are universally awful, this particular failing isn't theirs alone. 

Pains have been taken to pound out the fact that gnolls are below consideration as sentient, and that in no way changes the fact that they are 2 dimensional cardboard standees, and I don't want that in my games, which is why I post threads for the single purpose of absorbing further ideas on how to make them unboring. Flesh golems are organic automatons. If you want gnolls to be the same in your game, that's your prerogative.

I believe you're the only one talking about any human experience. I believe what I've said is that all races come to town occasionally to trade. The one does not quite equate the other, do you think?