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.
this is cool, but in volo's guide and Monster manual it states that they were born after hyaenas ate Yeenoghu's kills.
this is cool, but in volo's guide and Monster manual it states that they were born after hyaenas ate Yeenoghu's kills.
And that, right there, is the problem: Now they're not really a sentient race of free-willed individuals - they're uplifted beasts. Uplifted by a demon, no less. And that locks them in their 2-dimensional role as cardboard cutout villains suitable for nothing more than slaughter. Cannonfodder. Little packets of XP.
And it's not that there cannot be a place for that. But if I wanted the official version, I really didn't have to go to the trouble of making a thread, right? =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Indeed, much like Oozes, Fiends, and the vast majority of Monstrosities and Abominations. D&D is a combat centric game. Ergo, it needs things for you to engage in combat with, and as it's also a fantasy game they can't just pull a CoD and put a bunch of people in differently colored clothes on the other side and tell you to go get 'em. Thus they create various segments of monstrous beings for you to fight as well.
Really, if you want to do this, some guidelines on what traits you are willing to entertain would be helpful. If the only thing you're doing is throwing out the official lore, then you can literally say gnolls are anything from orcs with muzzles and a bit more hair to a hyper enlightened race that has found the secret to inner peace. If anything goes, then really you should just ask for general thoughts on a possible culture. When you give a specific race as an example, people are going to try to use the official material as a starting point.
Really, if you just want to reject the "PC fodder" aspect of the setup, then they can just be an alternate flavor of tiefling. Same basic premise of their originating as a result of demonic influence, but free-willed instead of inherently evil.
It don't have to be. I feel like I can reasonably claim that your's likely is - but mine isn't, at least not to any high degree.
But you're right that combat is part of the game. I just have to admit I don't really understand the appeal of murdering faceless cardboard cutouts. This is a fantasy game - above all else - yet you insist that if we can pare off all the fantasy, and just stick with stats and cardboard, that's better.
Coming in here and repeating the official lore is more than welcome, but truly superfluous. I'm familiar, nuff said. What I'm after are ways to improve gnolls, expanding their gnollishness without losing it. Now, you may say that their gnollishness is in the official lore - and that's fine. But it's also a conversation ender, right? That's your line, and then mine is 'I don't care', and then there's really little else to talk about. Then we're just going over the same thing again and again. And I'm really not trying to convince you: You play the way you like. Seriously. Just, please, can you return the favor?
Also, I'll make more threads like this. This isn't about gnolls. And since you bring it up, next will be oozes. Provided I remember. I often don't.
My gnolls have no link to Yeenoghu - like I've said, they're more feral druid in nature. But the tiefling-parallel is a good idea, if one likes the demon angle, but not the 'mindless plague' angle. Might be cool if they had a reaction spell - such as Fiery Rebuke, like a tiefling - it would certainly push them up a notch, threat-wise.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It's not about "my" game being combat centric; the vast majority of the rules are based around combat. The vast majority of spells are combat oriented. The vast majority of class features are combat oriented. Combat is demonstrably the area of the game that gets the most focus by a large margin. And I've played in games that placed less emphasis on straight combat, with varying mileage (most official "mystery" modules I've played in are both painfully transparent in what's going on and yet drawn out for a frustratingly long time before admitting what's right in front of everyone's face). And I am not insisting we pare off all fantasy, however part of fantasy is having monolithic forces that simply exist to follow their core nature. Evil is an important part of fantasy, and what really makes the point of how twisted Evil is in nature is to show how it corrupts and twists elements of the world to serve it and there's no untwisting them after. Ergo things like official gnolls, that are very explicitly the product of one of the highest Evils doing some twisting of the world. It's not lazy writing to say that there are implacable forces in fantasy, even if it's not a trope you enjoy. It's the logical endpoint of the "protagonist vs supernatural" conflict, which itself is just "protagonist vs nature/environment" when the "nature/environment" is not something that occurs in the real world.
Honestly, if you're going "feral druid" you're probably just retreading a lot of the same ground we have with orcs, if with a bit more nature theming going for them. Unless you want to attempt to write some new stat blocks from the ground up then in terms of natural equipment they're oriented towards running up to the enemy and killing them, ergo you're looking at your basic pack predator mentality as the most likely starting point of the culture. You can spin that however you want from "noble forest dweller" to "vicious tribal" from there. Can shift the ceaseless hunger to just a volatile temper.
And honestly, purely as a personal take, trying to give Oozes "depth" is just being contrary for its own sake. Not everything in the monster manual is going to be sapient; most Oozes have a 1 or 2 in INT and are unaligned for crying out loud. They're literally just a particular variety of supernatural animals.
As much as I hate where this discussion is going, I would like to state that I think generic bad guys can be amazing and awful.
In a generic heroic or mythical fantasy setting, where the heroes are the good guys and must save the good people, unexplicably bad things must exist as a counterpart. Because if those bad guys are grey in morality, then suddenly the good guys aren't good anymore, and the story amd game does a big 180 turn on what its about. The LOTR and Hobbit have this done really well: orcs and uruk-hai were made by a bad wizard, so they are bad. Sauron is the most fantasy villain of all time: he lives in a place called Mordor (spooky name) and made a corrupting ring in a volcano called Mt Doom and tries to conquer the world with it, whilst being super magical and physically powerful. The spiders of mirkwood ate bad because they are animalistic and try to eat everything, including our heroes. The nazghul are bad guys because they are the servants of the bbeg Sauron. Pitted against the pbviously good guys of the fellowship/company of dwarfs, elves, other dwarfs, hobbits, men and the 3 good wizards, it has created one of (if not THE) best works of fantasy literature of all time.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a game where the players aren't good, where they're in it for money of power or even survival, then grey creatures work really well. Pulling from one of my favourite games, League of Legends (don't let that distract you from this, I love the lore of the game, the gameplay... less), the region of Noxus seem to be the bad guys at first glance and Demacia their righteous opposite. But Noxus isn't all that bad, whilst they do conquer EVERYONE, they do let people join as equal citizens, and don't force new religions on people, or force warriors and tradesman to switch specialities, as everyone has power in their own thing, and Noxus wants that to thrive. That doesn't sound too bad right?
Demacia is meant to be good. They are all stalwart warriors, offering a safe place for everybody to hide from the dark magics of the world, and be a beacon of hope and sanctuary. Except for anyone with any magic, then you will be tortured and locked up, or forced to become a mageseeker and rat out other mages in order to protect your own hide. The kingdoms government are trying to stop magic from existing, whilst the powerful mage Sylas seeks to uproot the dynasty and let mages rule, offering no "good" solution to it.
In a war between Demacia and Noxus, there are so many greys that work because the story is based on it. In a normal Dnd campaign, that could cause confusion if not the main focus of the story, as it means that noone is punished on either side too heavily.
I prefer the standard dnd approach of heroic fantasy so I like having generic bad guys (sorry Acromos, hut the "poor writing" excuse can't really be used when Tolkien himself made generic bad guys some of the most famous literature chracters ever and was able to invent 6 thousand years of history with them in it), but definitely create more morally grey creatures/lore whem running gothic or even fey-themed games, because thats the genre that grey morals fits better into.
Its fantasy. Its make believe. Its a bunch of old, crappy plastic dice rolling on a kitchen table at 3am to the joy/tears of a bunch of nerds who have had way to many crisps and sweets and red bull.
So its fine to have morally grey and set in stone bad guys, because its all not real anyways.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
That said, I have got a fey themed campaign where gnolls are the spawn of a daemon - the unholy child of a fey and demon lord. This is why they are hyena like - they laugh and cackle at jokes, but can turn on you if their desire for fun (mostly torture and pillaging) is not met. They play a joker-esque role, where they are pretty interesting but actually only have surface level motives as far as the heroes are concerned (as in it appears like they just want chaos for the sake of chaos). They are ruled by the females (as per hyena cultures irl. Pretty cool stuff looking at testosterone levels in animals tbh, especially across sexes) and create swamps in forests/grasslands using their unholy nature and destruction magic, weilded by shamans (matriarchs). They still have the basic elements of normal gnolls (they want to pillage and burn stuff, but this time its cause of an unseelie fey desire for mischief and laughter combined with a demons desire for souls and destruction). Still just bad guys who anyone sane would kill on sight, but with some twists to make them fit into my setting better.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
The vast majority of the rules are based around combat.
No - see, I get where you're coming from, but that's mistaken. The vast majority of what needs simulation style rules is combat. It's possible to use soft rules for combat, but it's hardly popular, I've never met anyone who'd play such a game (myself being the exception, of course).
I'll grant you that 5e is even less detailed on social interactions and other aspect of actual ROLE playing than previous versions of D&D.
And honestly, purely as a personal take, trying to give Oozes "depth" is just being contrary for its own sake.
Oh no - no no no no, you couldn't be more wrong. For one thing, I dislike that you think I'd bother doing something just to spite you. But no, I already have reasonably detailed ecologies for oozes, where they come from, what they do, how they exist - and also the ways in which some of them absorb memories from the poor unfortunate sapients they dissolve, and start seeking out places 'they' remember and repeating behaviors 'they' had.
And yes, I have elder oozes who have absorbed wizards at some point and become spellcasters. But the question of actual intelligence is left deliberately unresolved.
I think maybe this is where we come off on the wrong foot. You clearly do not attach value to depth for it's own sake - and I absolutely do. I don't GM fights, I GM stories. Players who join my games because they want their stats to outdo the stats of enemies quickly leave - despite my insistance on making it clear in advance what type of GM I am.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
As much as I hate where this discussion is going, I would like to state that I think generic bad guys can be amazing and awful.
In a generic heroic or mythical fantasy setting, where the heroes are the good guys and must save the good people, unexplicably bad things must exist as a counterpart. Because if those bad guys are grey in morality, then suddenly the good guys aren't good anymore, and the story amd game does a big 180 turn on what its about. The LOTR and Hobbit have this done really well: orcs and uruk-hai were made by a bad wizard, so they are bad. Sauron is the most fantasy villain of all time: he lives in a place called Mordor (spooky name) and made a corrupting ring in a volcano called Mt Doom and tries to conquer the world with it, whilst being super magical and physically powerful. The spiders of mirkwood ate bad because they are animalistic and try to eat everything, including our heroes. The nazghul are bad guys because they are the servants of the bbeg Sauron. Pitted against the pbviously good guys of the fellowship/company of dwarfs, elves, other dwarfs, hobbits, men and the 3 good wizards, it has created one of (if not THE) best works of fantasy literature of all time.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a game where the players aren't good, where they're in it for money of power or even survival, then grey creatures work really well. Pulling from one of my favourite games, League of Legends (don't let that distract you from this, I love the lore of the game, the gameplay... less), the region of Noxus seem to be the bad guys at first glance and Demacia their righteous opposite. But Noxus isn't all that bad, whilst they do conquer EVERYONE, they do let people join as equal citizens, and don't force new religions on people, or force warriors and tradesman to switch specialities, as everyone has power in their own thing, and Noxus wants that to thrive. That doesn't sound too bad right?
Demacia is meant to be good. They are all stalwart warriors, offering a safe place for everybody to hide from the dark magics of the world, and be a beacon of hope and sanctuary. Except for anyone with any magic, then you will be tortured and locked up, or forced to become a mageseeker and rat out other mages in order to protect your own hide. The kingdoms government are trying to stop magic from existing, whilst the powerful mage Sylas seeks to uproot the dynasty and let mages rule, offering no "good" solution to it.
In a war between Demacia and Noxus, there are so many greys that work because the story is based on it. In a normal Dnd campaign, that could cause confusion if not the main focus of the story, as it means that noone is punished on either side too heavily.
I prefer the standard dnd approach of heroic fantasy so I like having generic bad guys (sorry Acromos, hut the "poor writing" excuse can't really be used when Tolkien himself made generic bad guys some of the most famous literature chracters ever and was able to invent 6 thousand years of history with them in it), but definitely create more morally grey creatures/lore whem running gothic or even fey-themed games, because thats the genre that grey morals fits better into.
Its fantasy. Its make believe. Its a bunch of old, crappy plastic dice rolling on a kitchen table at 3am to the joy/tears of a bunch of nerds who have had way to many crisps and sweets and red bull.
So its fine to have morally grey and set in stone bad guys, because its all not real anyways.
I dislike generic badguys. I think that much should be clear. But much as that is the case, once a conflict has been described, it does become generic to a point: Demacia and Noxus are enemies, and will fight. Bam. In my homebrew world, there is a conflict between humans and their attempt at civilzation, and ... nature, which actively resists. Nature actually resists because the druids make it so - they're just not so polite as to inform human society of this. So towns above a certain size tend to run into unexpected trouble, and burn to the ground. The landscape is littered with such ruins. The druids aren't evil (well, since they may well be gnolls, sometimes they are) but they're fighting for nature, and against civilisation. I like that. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but I cannot really tell a story I don't like. So this is my story. I like it.
Players aren't necessarily good, but I absolutely do not except their 'goodness' to be their motivation, or the 'evilness' of the enemies to be theirs - or that difference to be the reason why they fight. The real, unaligned ambition of the human cities is expansion - and the real, unaligned ambition of 'nature' in the guise of the druids, is to stop humans from taking their ... stuff.
I find 2 dimensional enemies, and crappy good v evil motivations, but be a copout. Bad writing. Unimaginative. Tolkien get's a partial pass because he was (kinda-sorta) the first, and because he does a number of other things exceptionally well. But even with him, and even when reading his books from age 11 and on, I found the orcs to be paper thin. And unconvincing. It just doesn't feel like they can create a society (for want of a better word) that can stand on it's own. How do they supply their troops? Do they just forage everything? Really??? I just don't find it believable.
Ace of Rogues said .. hang on ... "you can literally say gnolls are anything from orcs with muzzles and a bit more hair". And that's precisely my point. Or ... maybe my point is exactly the opposite? My gnolls occupy a niche similar to that of the american natives - plainsdwellers, with temporary settlements, a warrior culture (which I think is propably an unfair comparison, but it's a trope, whether it's fair or not). My orcs do no such thing. They are mountain dwellers, with strongholds and deep roots, a varied caste structure despite their chaotic alignments - and they're certainly not anyone's favourite neighbors, but they are manageable, well, because of a lot of things, but let's just say I've background for the orcs just like I do for gnolls.
There are desert orcs too, living in the broken wreckage of the legacy of the Skybreaker. Again, different story.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
That said, I have got a fey themed campaign where gnolls are the spawn of a daemon - the unholy child of a fey and demon lord. This is why they are hyena like - they laugh and cackle at jokes, but can turn on you if their desire for fun (mostly torture and pillaging) is not met. They play a joker-esque role, where they are pretty interesting but actually only have surface level motives as far as the heroes are concerned (as in it appears like they just want chaos for the sake of chaos). They are ruled by the females (as per hyena cultures irl. Pretty cool stuff looking at testosterone levels in animals tbh, especially across sexes) and create swamps in forests/grasslands using their unholy nature and destruction magic, weilded by shamans (matriarchs). They still have the basic elements of normal gnolls (they want to pillage and burn stuff, but this time its cause of an unseelie fey desire for mischief and laughter combined with a demons desire for souls and destruction). Still just bad guys who anyone sane would kill on sight, but with some twists to make them fit into my setting better.
See? I love this stuff. It's much, much better than the official line. It doesn't take much, and while I tend to get exhaustively detailed, that's not the point. It's to ... make it live. Breathe. Seem real, within it's context.
Anyways, good show - thanks for sharing =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I’m not saying you’re reacting to me personally, but if you’re that determined to make everything in the game into what is essentially a humanoid, that’s just contrariness for its own sake, or at least it sure looks like it. And no, D&D is inherently combat centric. I’ve seen softer, more cinematic systems like the various World of Darkness properties or Star Wars TTRPGs. A fraction of their material is devoted to combat systems relative to D&D. It does incorporate other elements and you can choose to ignore or reduce the prevalence of combat in your games, but the system is expressly designed with emphasis on combat and dungeon crawling.
In a world I made, a group of gnolls was blessed with a consience by fey creatures, and that group of gnolls killed all the evil gnolls and turned their backs on yeenoghu (probably spelled that wrong) and now their descendants are a peacfull and admired race.
In a world I made, a group of gnolls was blessed with a consience by fey creatures, and that group of gnolls killed all the evil gnolls and turned their backs on yeenoghu (probably spelled that wrong) and now their descendants are a peacfull and admired race.
Must have taken awhile =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I know this is old, but maybe someone can still take away something fun from this.
In my Homebrew, I have so far made one large population of gnolls that reside in a forest with enormous trees, where they more or less reign supreme as the top predator... even if they don't do so overwhelmingly, it's a rather fragile position.
Gnolls live in a tribe like structure, where there is a matriarch who is the (spiritual) leader, and where there is one who is the Great Hunter. In fact, a lot of Gnoll culture is about the hunt: they live to hunt, and they live to die for it. The Great Hunter is simply the one who initially has taken down the biggest, baddest prey in a hunt. But then, those Great Hunters make an pact with the forest where they swear they will not die in any other place than in the hunt. This allows them to age beyond normal lifespans, and even to go without food and water (though they still feel the severe effects of malnutrition/dehydration. Essentially all that kills them is someone acting with intent to kill). Once the Great Hunter actually dies, the only way to appoint a new Great Hunter is if one of the remaining pack members of the Great Hunter kills whoever killed the previous Great Hunter.
The Great Hunter also gets privilege of appointing his pack to lead the hunt. Patriarchs/Matriarchs of are also pack leaders, but only get to choose of their own direct kin who gets to hunt with them. If a member of a family remains unchosen, they may get picked by a different packleader.
If none get chosen at all... that doesn't reflect well on their status, and they effectively become the lowest ranking members of the tribe, only feeding on the left-overs and scraps.
For fun smaller aspects of their culture, Gnolls make tokens off of their kills if there's any left. This could be jewelry, or totems, or even whole houses made out of nothing but the skin and bones of their prey.
I haven't really said much about the Matriarchs of the tribes, and I'm still trying to work them out, but essentially, they are the ones who facilitate the pact of the Great Hunter, among many other things.
I know this is old, but maybe someone can still take away something fun from this.
In my Homebrew, I have so far made one large population of gnolls that reside in a forest with enormous trees, where they more or less reign supreme as the top predator... even if they don't do so overwhelmingly, it's a rather fragile position.
Gnolls live in a tribe like structure, where there is a matriarch who is the (spiritual) leader, and where there is one who is the Great Hunter. In fact, a lot of Gnoll culture is about the hunt: they live to hunt, and they live to die for it. The Great Hunter is simply the one who initially has taken down the biggest, baddest prey in a hunt. But then, those Great Hunters make an pact with the forest where they swear they will not die in any other place than in the hunt. This allows them to age beyond normal lifespans, and even to go without food and water (though they still feel the severe effects of malnutrition/dehydration. Essentially all that kills them is someone acting with intent to kill). Once the Great Hunter actually dies, the only way to appoint a new Great Hunter is if one of the remaining pack members of the Great Hunter kills whoever killed the previous Great Hunter.
The Great Hunter also gets privilege of appointing his pack to lead the hunt. Patriarchs/Matriarchs of are also pack leaders, but only get to choose of their own direct kin who gets to hunt with them. If a member of a family remains unchosen, they may get picked by a different packleader.
If none get chosen at all... that doesn't reflect well on their status, and they effectively become the lowest ranking members of the tribe, only feeding on the left-overs and scraps.
For fun smaller aspects of their culture, Gnolls make tokens off of their kills if there's any left. This could be jewelry, or totems, or even whole houses made out of nothing but the skin and bones of their prey.
I haven't really said much about the Matriarchs of the tribes, and I'm still trying to work them out, but essentially, they are the ones who facilitate the pact of the Great Hunter, among many other things.
Hm. This is actually pretty great. The Great Hunter idea is a thing of modest genius. Not as revolutionary as to beggar belief, but still a brilliant spin on their overall savagery and way of life. Well done! =)
I can't help but imagine gnoll cascass cities - whole settlements built inside the rib cages of mammoth, behirs and megapedes, wyverns, rocs - and with an ancient dragon as the Great Chieftains .. 'castle'.
Maybe an arena where gnolls will fight to get on the most prestigious hunts.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Gnolls are gnome troll combinations now. I did this. Be happy for the tiny troll you get to play when you select the gnoll option on your gnome, not knowing why it's there.
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I make strange but effective solutions to your DM problems!
Gnolls are gnome troll combinations now. I did this. Be happy for the tiny troll you get to play when you select the gnoll option on your gnome, not knowing why it's there.
lul wut? Well that's certainly novel =)
Actually, I should do one of these about trolls. You can drop this again, there!
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
There is one gnoll in my world who is able to coexist among humans, and that is due to his human mom. No, its not his Human genetics Which make him able to coexist with humans, its because his mom taught him biting stangers was bad. Exept if the crew is trying to plunder said strangers. His mom is a pirate captain.
Gnolls know what they want and get exactly what they want. I don't think there is anything really nuanced, here. The real failing of writers is trying to turn absolutely everything into a relatable or misunderstood villain, because that is somehow more deep and full of truth than someone that is well understood and clearly an enemy.
Gnolls know what they want and get exactly what they want. I don't think there is anything really nuanced, here. The real failing of writers is trying to turn absolutely everything into a relatable or misunderstood villain, because that is somehow more deep and full of truth than someone that is well understood and clearly an enemy.
That is a valid point that I politely disagree with. I think absolutely anything and everything with more than animal IQ needs motivation: Why are you doing this, what are you trying to achieve. No one - zero exceptions - is evil for the purpose of being evil. Also, I have to say it's just plain boring: Here's a group of beings that are evil for no discernible reason. That just doesn't do anything for me. Your mileage may vary, but to me that's just bad penmanship.
Hence, this thread.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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this is cool, but in volo's guide and Monster manual it states that they were born after hyaenas ate Yeenoghu's kills.
i am monkeish i hail the monke lord :D:D:D:D
pm me the word tomato
Also praise Jeff the Romba, go feed him clay.
And that, right there, is the problem: Now they're not really a sentient race of free-willed individuals - they're uplifted beasts. Uplifted by a demon, no less. And that locks them in their 2-dimensional role as cardboard cutout villains suitable for nothing more than slaughter. Cannonfodder. Little packets of XP.
And it's not that there cannot be a place for that. But if I wanted the official version, I really didn't have to go to the trouble of making a thread, right? =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Indeed, much like Oozes, Fiends, and the vast majority of Monstrosities and Abominations. D&D is a combat centric game. Ergo, it needs things for you to engage in combat with, and as it's also a fantasy game they can't just pull a CoD and put a bunch of people in differently colored clothes on the other side and tell you to go get 'em. Thus they create various segments of monstrous beings for you to fight as well.
Really, if you want to do this, some guidelines on what traits you are willing to entertain would be helpful. If the only thing you're doing is throwing out the official lore, then you can literally say gnolls are anything from orcs with muzzles and a bit more hair to a hyper enlightened race that has found the secret to inner peace. If anything goes, then really you should just ask for general thoughts on a possible culture. When you give a specific race as an example, people are going to try to use the official material as a starting point.
Really, if you just want to reject the "PC fodder" aspect of the setup, then they can just be an alternate flavor of tiefling. Same basic premise of their originating as a result of demonic influence, but free-willed instead of inherently evil.
It don't have to be. I feel like I can reasonably claim that your's likely is - but mine isn't, at least not to any high degree.
But you're right that combat is part of the game. I just have to admit I don't really understand the appeal of murdering faceless cardboard cutouts. This is a fantasy game - above all else - yet you insist that if we can pare off all the fantasy, and just stick with stats and cardboard, that's better.
Coming in here and repeating the official lore is more than welcome, but truly superfluous. I'm familiar, nuff said. What I'm after are ways to improve gnolls, expanding their gnollishness without losing it. Now, you may say that their gnollishness is in the official lore - and that's fine. But it's also a conversation ender, right? That's your line, and then mine is 'I don't care', and then there's really little else to talk about. Then we're just going over the same thing again and again. And I'm really not trying to convince you: You play the way you like. Seriously. Just, please, can you return the favor?
Also, I'll make more threads like this. This isn't about gnolls. And since you bring it up, next will be oozes. Provided I remember. I often don't.
My gnolls have no link to Yeenoghu - like I've said, they're more feral druid in nature. But the tiefling-parallel is a good idea, if one likes the demon angle, but not the 'mindless plague' angle. Might be cool if they had a reaction spell - such as Fiery Rebuke, like a tiefling - it would certainly push them up a notch, threat-wise.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It's not about "my" game being combat centric; the vast majority of the rules are based around combat. The vast majority of spells are combat oriented. The vast majority of class features are combat oriented. Combat is demonstrably the area of the game that gets the most focus by a large margin. And I've played in games that placed less emphasis on straight combat, with varying mileage (most official "mystery" modules I've played in are both painfully transparent in what's going on and yet drawn out for a frustratingly long time before admitting what's right in front of everyone's face). And I am not insisting we pare off all fantasy, however part of fantasy is having monolithic forces that simply exist to follow their core nature. Evil is an important part of fantasy, and what really makes the point of how twisted Evil is in nature is to show how it corrupts and twists elements of the world to serve it and there's no untwisting them after. Ergo things like official gnolls, that are very explicitly the product of one of the highest Evils doing some twisting of the world. It's not lazy writing to say that there are implacable forces in fantasy, even if it's not a trope you enjoy. It's the logical endpoint of the "protagonist vs supernatural" conflict, which itself is just "protagonist vs nature/environment" when the "nature/environment" is not something that occurs in the real world.
Honestly, if you're going "feral druid" you're probably just retreading a lot of the same ground we have with orcs, if with a bit more nature theming going for them. Unless you want to attempt to write some new stat blocks from the ground up then in terms of natural equipment they're oriented towards running up to the enemy and killing them, ergo you're looking at your basic pack predator mentality as the most likely starting point of the culture. You can spin that however you want from "noble forest dweller" to "vicious tribal" from there. Can shift the ceaseless hunger to just a volatile temper.
And honestly, purely as a personal take, trying to give Oozes "depth" is just being contrary for its own sake. Not everything in the monster manual is going to be sapient; most Oozes have a 1 or 2 in INT and are unaligned for crying out loud. They're literally just a particular variety of supernatural animals.
As much as I hate where this discussion is going, I would like to state that I think generic bad guys can be amazing and awful.
In a generic heroic or mythical fantasy setting, where the heroes are the good guys and must save the good people, unexplicably bad things must exist as a counterpart. Because if those bad guys are grey in morality, then suddenly the good guys aren't good anymore, and the story amd game does a big 180 turn on what its about. The LOTR and Hobbit have this done really well: orcs and uruk-hai were made by a bad wizard, so they are bad. Sauron is the most fantasy villain of all time: he lives in a place called Mordor (spooky name) and made a corrupting ring in a volcano called Mt Doom and tries to conquer the world with it, whilst being super magical and physically powerful. The spiders of mirkwood ate bad because they are animalistic and try to eat everything, including our heroes. The nazghul are bad guys because they are the servants of the bbeg Sauron. Pitted against the pbviously good guys of the fellowship/company of dwarfs, elves, other dwarfs, hobbits, men and the 3 good wizards, it has created one of (if not THE) best works of fantasy literature of all time.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a game where the players aren't good, where they're in it for money of power or even survival, then grey creatures work really well. Pulling from one of my favourite games, League of Legends (don't let that distract you from this, I love the lore of the game, the gameplay... less), the region of Noxus seem to be the bad guys at first glance and Demacia their righteous opposite. But Noxus isn't all that bad, whilst they do conquer EVERYONE, they do let people join as equal citizens, and don't force new religions on people, or force warriors and tradesman to switch specialities, as everyone has power in their own thing, and Noxus wants that to thrive. That doesn't sound too bad right?
Demacia is meant to be good. They are all stalwart warriors, offering a safe place for everybody to hide from the dark magics of the world, and be a beacon of hope and sanctuary. Except for anyone with any magic, then you will be tortured and locked up, or forced to become a mageseeker and rat out other mages in order to protect your own hide. The kingdoms government are trying to stop magic from existing, whilst the powerful mage Sylas seeks to uproot the dynasty and let mages rule, offering no "good" solution to it.
In a war between Demacia and Noxus, there are so many greys that work because the story is based on it. In a normal Dnd campaign, that could cause confusion if not the main focus of the story, as it means that noone is punished on either side too heavily.
I prefer the standard dnd approach of heroic fantasy so I like having generic bad guys (sorry Acromos, hut the "poor writing" excuse can't really be used when Tolkien himself made generic bad guys some of the most famous literature chracters ever and was able to invent 6 thousand years of history with them in it), but definitely create more morally grey creatures/lore whem running gothic or even fey-themed games, because thats the genre that grey morals fits better into.
Its fantasy. Its make believe. Its a bunch of old, crappy plastic dice rolling on a kitchen table at 3am to the joy/tears of a bunch of nerds who have had way to many crisps and sweets and red bull.
So its fine to have morally grey and set in stone bad guys, because its all not real anyways.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
That said, I have got a fey themed campaign where gnolls are the spawn of a daemon - the unholy child of a fey and demon lord. This is why they are hyena like - they laugh and cackle at jokes, but can turn on you if their desire for fun (mostly torture and pillaging) is not met. They play a joker-esque role, where they are pretty interesting but actually only have surface level motives as far as the heroes are concerned (as in it appears like they just want chaos for the sake of chaos). They are ruled by the females (as per hyena cultures irl. Pretty cool stuff looking at testosterone levels in animals tbh, especially across sexes) and create swamps in forests/grasslands using their unholy nature and destruction magic, weilded by shamans (matriarchs). They still have the basic elements of normal gnolls (they want to pillage and burn stuff, but this time its cause of an unseelie fey desire for mischief and laughter combined with a demons desire for souls and destruction). Still just bad guys who anyone sane would kill on sight, but with some twists to make them fit into my setting better.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
No - see, I get where you're coming from, but that's mistaken. The vast majority of what needs simulation style rules is combat. It's possible to use soft rules for combat, but it's hardly popular, I've never met anyone who'd play such a game (myself being the exception, of course).
I'll grant you that 5e is even less detailed on social interactions and other aspect of actual ROLE playing than previous versions of D&D.
Oh no - no no no no, you couldn't be more wrong. For one thing, I dislike that you think I'd bother doing something just to spite you. But no, I already have reasonably detailed ecologies for oozes, where they come from, what they do, how they exist - and also the ways in which some of them absorb memories from the poor unfortunate sapients they dissolve, and start seeking out places 'they' remember and repeating behaviors 'they' had.
And yes, I have elder oozes who have absorbed wizards at some point and become spellcasters. But the question of actual intelligence is left deliberately unresolved.
I think maybe this is where we come off on the wrong foot. You clearly do not attach value to depth for it's own sake - and I absolutely do. I don't GM fights, I GM stories. Players who join my games because they want their stats to outdo the stats of enemies quickly leave - despite my insistance on making it clear in advance what type of GM I am.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I dislike generic badguys. I think that much should be clear. But much as that is the case, once a conflict has been described, it does become generic to a point: Demacia and Noxus are enemies, and will fight. Bam. In my homebrew world, there is a conflict between humans and their attempt at civilzation, and ... nature, which actively resists. Nature actually resists because the druids make it so - they're just not so polite as to inform human society of this. So towns above a certain size tend to run into unexpected trouble, and burn to the ground. The landscape is littered with such ruins. The druids aren't evil (well, since they may well be gnolls, sometimes they are) but they're fighting for nature, and against civilisation. I like that. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but I cannot really tell a story I don't like. So this is my story. I like it.
Players aren't necessarily good, but I absolutely do not except their 'goodness' to be their motivation, or the 'evilness' of the enemies to be theirs - or that difference to be the reason why they fight. The real, unaligned ambition of the human cities is expansion - and the real, unaligned ambition of 'nature' in the guise of the druids, is to stop humans from taking their ... stuff.
I find 2 dimensional enemies, and crappy good v evil motivations, but be a copout. Bad writing. Unimaginative. Tolkien get's a partial pass because he was (kinda-sorta) the first, and because he does a number of other things exceptionally well. But even with him, and even when reading his books from age 11 and on, I found the orcs to be paper thin. And unconvincing. It just doesn't feel like they can create a society (for want of a better word) that can stand on it's own. How do they supply their troops? Do they just forage everything? Really??? I just don't find it believable.
Ace of Rogues said .. hang on ... "you can literally say gnolls are anything from orcs with muzzles and a bit more hair". And that's precisely my point. Or ... maybe my point is exactly the opposite? My gnolls occupy a niche similar to that of the american natives - plainsdwellers, with temporary settlements, a warrior culture (which I think is propably an unfair comparison, but it's a trope, whether it's fair or not). My orcs do no such thing. They are mountain dwellers, with strongholds and deep roots, a varied caste structure despite their chaotic alignments - and they're certainly not anyone's favourite neighbors, but they are manageable, well, because of a lot of things, but let's just say I've background for the orcs just like I do for gnolls.
There are desert orcs too, living in the broken wreckage of the legacy of the Skybreaker. Again, different story.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
See? I love this stuff. It's much, much better than the official line. It doesn't take much, and while I tend to get exhaustively detailed, that's not the point. It's to ... make it live. Breathe. Seem real, within it's context.
Anyways, good show - thanks for sharing =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I’m not saying you’re reacting to me personally, but if you’re that determined to make everything in the game into what is essentially a humanoid, that’s just contrariness for its own sake, or at least it sure looks like it. And no, D&D is inherently combat centric. I’ve seen softer, more cinematic systems like the various World of Darkness properties or Star Wars TTRPGs. A fraction of their material is devoted to combat systems relative to D&D. It does incorporate other elements and you can choose to ignore or reduce the prevalence of combat in your games, but the system is expressly designed with emphasis on combat and dungeon crawling.
In a world I made, a group of gnolls was blessed with a consience by fey creatures, and that group of gnolls killed all the evil gnolls and turned their backs on yeenoghu (probably spelled that wrong) and now their descendants are a peacfull and admired race.
Must have taken awhile =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I know this is old, but maybe someone can still take away something fun from this.
In my Homebrew, I have so far made one large population of gnolls that reside in a forest with enormous trees, where they more or less reign supreme as the top predator... even if they don't do so overwhelmingly, it's a rather fragile position.
Gnolls live in a tribe like structure, where there is a matriarch who is the (spiritual) leader, and where there is one who is the Great Hunter. In fact, a lot of Gnoll culture is about the hunt: they live to hunt, and they live to die for it. The Great Hunter is simply the one who initially has taken down the biggest, baddest prey in a hunt. But then, those Great Hunters make an pact with the forest where they swear they will not die in any other place than in the hunt. This allows them to age beyond normal lifespans, and even to go without food and water (though they still feel the severe effects of malnutrition/dehydration. Essentially all that kills them is someone acting with intent to kill). Once the Great Hunter actually dies, the only way to appoint a new Great Hunter is if one of the remaining pack members of the Great Hunter kills whoever killed the previous Great Hunter.
The Great Hunter also gets privilege of appointing his pack to lead the hunt. Patriarchs/Matriarchs of are also pack leaders, but only get to choose of their own direct kin who gets to hunt with them. If a member of a family remains unchosen, they may get picked by a different packleader.
If none get chosen at all... that doesn't reflect well on their status, and they effectively become the lowest ranking members of the tribe, only feeding on the left-overs and scraps.
For fun smaller aspects of their culture, Gnolls make tokens off of their kills if there's any left. This could be jewelry, or totems, or even whole houses made out of nothing but the skin and bones of their prey.
I haven't really said much about the Matriarchs of the tribes, and I'm still trying to work them out, but essentially, they are the ones who facilitate the pact of the Great Hunter, among many other things.
Hm. This is actually pretty great. The Great Hunter idea is a thing of modest genius. Not as revolutionary as to beggar belief, but still a brilliant spin on their overall savagery and way of life. Well done! =)
I can't help but imagine gnoll cascass cities - whole settlements built inside the rib cages of mammoth, behirs and megapedes, wyverns, rocs - and with an ancient dragon as the Great Chieftains .. 'castle'.
Maybe an arena where gnolls will fight to get on the most prestigious hunts.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Gnolls are gnome troll combinations now. I did this. Be happy for the tiny troll you get to play when you select the gnoll option on your gnome, not knowing why it's there.
I make strange but effective solutions to your DM problems!
Homebrew: Monsters Species Spells Background(s)
I am secretly a green dragon. Also a Demon Lord.
lul wut? Well that's certainly novel =)
Actually, I should do one of these about trolls. You can drop this again, there!
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
There is one gnoll in my world who is able to coexist among humans, and that is due to his human mom. No, its not his Human genetics Which make him able to coexist with humans, its because his mom taught him biting stangers was bad. Exept if the crew is trying to plunder said strangers. His mom is a pirate captain.
Gnolls know what they want and get exactly what they want. I don't think there is anything really nuanced, here. The real failing of writers is trying to turn absolutely everything into a relatable or misunderstood villain, because that is somehow more deep and full of truth than someone that is well understood and clearly an enemy.
That is a valid point that I politely disagree with. I think absolutely anything and everything with more than animal IQ needs motivation: Why are you doing this, what are you trying to achieve. No one - zero exceptions - is evil for the purpose of being evil. Also, I have to say it's just plain boring: Here's a group of beings that are evil for no discernible reason. That just doesn't do anything for me. Your mileage may vary, but to me that's just bad penmanship.
Hence, this thread.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.