Something that has bugged me for a long time with fantasy, and especially the Faerun setting (hence nearly fifteen years home-brewing, using Eberron and using Pathfinder) is that a lot of the villainous factions are, like the title says, too evil to win.
The Chaotic Evil groups, the Orc Hordes being a prime example, are as apt to fall on each other at the crucial point as heroes are to defeat their key members at that same point in time.
The Lawful Evil groups, again, tend to either be so bitterly involved with internal strife, even if it isn't outright brawls like the Chaotic groups, that it is a wonder that the so-called Good groups tend to have so much trouble with them.
The Neutral Evil groups tend to either have little to no impact or, again, fall apart the moment somebody sees a shiny and there's no immediate hint of reprisal.
It can feel at times like Heroes are there more to watch as these evil factions, nations and races screw themselves over than actually do the screwing over to said evil factions, nations and races in most modules and novels. And that's frustrating because it makes the villains and antagonists feel bumbling or incompetent rather than an actual literal threat, on a political, military, spiritual or economic scale
I'm not sure if it is just being a DM/GM for so long and being marinaded in fantasy tropes has given me a burning contempt for 'classical' fantasy where the 'bad guys' will inevitably self-destruct. I mean, I can get the Chaotic version of the brand doing that, but they also tend to be so prolific, fecund or self-sustaining that if they ever did band together in any meaningful way, they would be the kind of threat that a whole continent has to come together to push back, and that would be amazing to deal with.
Lawful Evil groups like the Hobgoblins, the Cult of Tiamat, who have the structure and foundation to build a working, cohesive network, should be a farm more malignant threat than they are at worst, or at best players on the global arena that are too powerful to fight directly, too valuable to trade to shun and unless something drastic happens, probably it is easier to deal with a group that will at least respect the rule of law, even if they might begrudge your interpretation of it, than a bunch of might-makes-right savages ... or at least that's how they could pitch an alliance to Good nations and races.
With the Spellplague, with magic failing, Gods being slain or being co-opted into the service of other, more powerful Gods and thus their chosen people now at the mercy of other pantheons, why did Faerun never undergo a cultural and social upheaval that altered the political landscape as much as it did the physical one? An empire of Duergar taking over a Dwarven Stronghold and offering the same trade-goods as the Dwarves could have made a distasteful yet profitable partner to a recovering Neverwinter and her exiled Open Lord, Dagult Neverember, while at the same time causing outrage and consternation amongst the Lords Alliance and threatening the already-fragile balance of power in the Northlands. A collection of Hobgoblin Legions who took over a region of Humans and Halflings when their own territory was destroyed by the Spellplague, and rejected their Gods as having failed one time too many and now served a Human God of all things, forming a small nation that instead worshipped the Old Faith and the Red Knight, who appeared to the old Hobgoblin Warlord and bitter ex-Priests as a Female Hobgoblin and challenged them to prove their worth as strategists and tactical soldiers rather than be Maglubiyet's disposable pawns. A kingdom that their neighbours really don't like and would like to liberate the people, but after a few generations, the general populace is rather happy to have stalwart soldiers protecting their farms and villages, even if the laws are hard and restrictive by most Human standards, and Legions and Banners involving Humans as well as Hobgoblins are common-place. Tiamat standing openly in a nation of Humans, Tieflings, Kobolds and Dragonborn, patrolled by broods of Blue Dragons and advised by Half-Dragon Clerics specifically bred for the role ... and while people may grumble and whine, she stands as a beacon of stability, if not a safe one, in a land where civilisation is slowly crawling back from the brink of destruction caused by the Spellplague and the threat of the Chromatic Dragons flying to destroy anything that even looks askew at their Master and Mother keeps all but the boldest or blindest from challenging the Chromatic Queen's 'right to rule' a nation who might have signed a contract with her in desperation.
Nations and factions arising from the ashes of the old order that tried, failed and tried again and then failed yet again and when the Gods returned, said Gods found their former servants and minions were sick of the old ways of doing things and refused to bend the knee unless the Gods also accepted change was inevitable? I think it would have been amazing to see Faerun permanently altered by the Spellplague, by the return, death and rebirth of the Gods themselves, to see Faerun reshaped and both Mortals and Gods forced to adapt or fall to the wayside as the more ambitious and adaptable push to the fore.
I just get annoyed that so many of these races, evil or otherwise, tend to get written into a corner and denied any chance to actually be a player or a threat on anything other than local scale, when we're told over and over again if the heroes don't throw them back, it could alter the fate of Faerun forever.
You're looking for the Midnight campaign setting. Unfortunately, the latest version is for the 3.5 edition of D&D.
The first Dragonlance campaign starts with the absence of the gods, but then they return so it might not be what you're looking for. I'm not familiar with Dark Sun but I think it's a setting where magic drained most life from the planet. Golarion had the Worldwound where the forces of good and the demons fought each other to a stalemate until the PCs arrive. (With the Worldwound closing or spreading, depending on the results of their actions.)
And you're not overthinking this. I have the same thing with other media. Thanos was incompetent in the Infinity Gauntlet comic because he would have been unbeatable if he knew what he was doing. In the Infinity War movie the heroes had 3 of the 6 infinity stones. Loki just stood there and got killed instead of sending Thanos into the heart of a star with the space stone. Dr. Strange just gave Thanos the time stone instead of turning Thanos into a baby.
This had annoyed me as well. I prefer to homebrew and am currently developing a world that is bit more broken up politically. Orcs get their own land and, and so do giants and goblins.
I see where you're coming from, Mike. My guess is that the capital E Evil factions are kept distant from full blown power because it would likely make peaceful life outside of very narrow sanctums practically impossible - esp if the forces were massed undead armies or fiends. Most of the world would be a war zone, slavery would be rampant, as would starvation and disease. Or the undead would be everywhere and ever present. Anyway, my point is that the implications of that kind of worldbuillding would lead to a much more PG-13 or R rating for adventure modules, which would make marketing them as family-friendly much more challenging.
If the factions were, say orcs or hobgoblins instead, then that would likely lead to other uncomfortable questions since a sustainable empire of either of these races would basically start looking a lot like human empires of the real life past. So this would get uncomfortable or tricky for some people b/c then they start looking a lot less obviously evil by comparison and players start asking questions about whether they should even be killing orcs and hobgoblins indiscriminately in the first place b/c the kind of culture necessary to sustain any long-term empire can't just rely on raiding and pillaging; it would need agriculture and educational institutions and reading and writing being taught to at least the upper echelon of orc/hobgoblin society. So...yeah. More moral grey areas again.
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Something that has bugged me for a long time with fantasy, and especially the Faerun setting (hence nearly fifteen years home-brewing, using Eberron and using Pathfinder) is that a lot of the villainous factions are, like the title says, too evil to win.
The Chaotic Evil groups, the Orc Hordes being a prime example, are as apt to fall on each other at the crucial point as heroes are to defeat their key members at that same point in time.
The Lawful Evil groups, again, tend to either be so bitterly involved with internal strife, even if it isn't outright brawls like the Chaotic groups, that it is a wonder that the so-called Good groups tend to have so much trouble with them.
The Neutral Evil groups tend to either have little to no impact or, again, fall apart the moment somebody sees a shiny and there's no immediate hint of reprisal.
It can feel at times like Heroes are there more to watch as these evil factions, nations and races screw themselves over than actually do the screwing over to said evil factions, nations and races in most modules and novels. And that's frustrating because it makes the villains and antagonists feel bumbling or incompetent rather than an actual literal threat, on a political, military, spiritual or economic scale
I'm not sure if it is just being a DM/GM for so long and being marinaded in fantasy tropes has given me a burning contempt for 'classical' fantasy where the 'bad guys' will inevitably self-destruct. I mean, I can get the Chaotic version of the brand doing that, but they also tend to be so prolific, fecund or self-sustaining that if they ever did band together in any meaningful way, they would be the kind of threat that a whole continent has to come together to push back, and that would be amazing to deal with.
Lawful Evil groups like the Hobgoblins, the Cult of Tiamat, who have the structure and foundation to build a working, cohesive network, should be a farm more malignant threat than they are at worst, or at best players on the global arena that are too powerful to fight directly, too valuable to trade to shun and unless something drastic happens, probably it is easier to deal with a group that will at least respect the rule of law, even if they might begrudge your interpretation of it, than a bunch of might-makes-right savages ... or at least that's how they could pitch an alliance to Good nations and races.
With the Spellplague, with magic failing, Gods being slain or being co-opted into the service of other, more powerful Gods and thus their chosen people now at the mercy of other pantheons, why did Faerun never undergo a cultural and social upheaval that altered the political landscape as much as it did the physical one? An empire of Duergar taking over a Dwarven Stronghold and offering the same trade-goods as the Dwarves could have made a distasteful yet profitable partner to a recovering Neverwinter and her exiled Open Lord, Dagult Neverember, while at the same time causing outrage and consternation amongst the Lords Alliance and threatening the already-fragile balance of power in the Northlands. A collection of Hobgoblin Legions who took over a region of Humans and Halflings when their own territory was destroyed by the Spellplague, and rejected their Gods as having failed one time too many and now served a Human God of all things, forming a small nation that instead worshipped the Old Faith and the Red Knight, who appeared to the old Hobgoblin Warlord and bitter ex-Priests as a Female Hobgoblin and challenged them to prove their worth as strategists and tactical soldiers rather than be Maglubiyet's disposable pawns. A kingdom that their neighbours really don't like and would like to liberate the people, but after a few generations, the general populace is rather happy to have stalwart soldiers protecting their farms and villages, even if the laws are hard and restrictive by most Human standards, and Legions and Banners involving Humans as well as Hobgoblins are common-place. Tiamat standing openly in a nation of Humans, Tieflings, Kobolds and Dragonborn, patrolled by broods of Blue Dragons and advised by Half-Dragon Clerics specifically bred for the role ... and while people may grumble and whine, she stands as a beacon of stability, if not a safe one, in a land where civilisation is slowly crawling back from the brink of destruction caused by the Spellplague and the threat of the Chromatic Dragons flying to destroy anything that even looks askew at their Master and Mother keeps all but the boldest or blindest from challenging the Chromatic Queen's 'right to rule' a nation who might have signed a contract with her in desperation.
Nations and factions arising from the ashes of the old order that tried, failed and tried again and then failed yet again and when the Gods returned, said Gods found their former servants and minions were sick of the old ways of doing things and refused to bend the knee unless the Gods also accepted change was inevitable? I think it would have been amazing to see Faerun permanently altered by the Spellplague, by the return, death and rebirth of the Gods themselves, to see Faerun reshaped and both Mortals and Gods forced to adapt or fall to the wayside as the more ambitious and adaptable push to the fore.
I just get annoyed that so many of these races, evil or otherwise, tend to get written into a corner and denied any chance to actually be a player or a threat on anything other than local scale, when we're told over and over again if the heroes don't throw them back, it could alter the fate of Faerun forever.
Or am I just overthinking this?
You're looking for the Midnight campaign setting. Unfortunately, the latest version is for the 3.5 edition of D&D.
The first Dragonlance campaign starts with the absence of the gods, but then they return so it might not be what you're looking for. I'm not familiar with Dark Sun but I think it's a setting where magic drained most life from the planet. Golarion had the Worldwound where the forces of good and the demons fought each other to a stalemate until the PCs arrive. (With the Worldwound closing or spreading, depending on the results of their actions.)
And you're not overthinking this. I have the same thing with other media. Thanos was incompetent in the Infinity Gauntlet comic because he would have been unbeatable if he knew what he was doing. In the Infinity War movie the heroes had 3 of the 6 infinity stones. Loki just stood there and got killed instead of sending Thanos into the heart of a star with the space stone. Dr. Strange just gave Thanos the time stone instead of turning Thanos into a baby.
This had annoyed me as well. I prefer to homebrew and am currently developing a world that is bit more broken up politically. Orcs get their own land and, and so do giants and goblins.
I want to show these races can be successful.
I see where you're coming from, Mike. My guess is that the capital E Evil factions are kept distant from full blown power because it would likely make peaceful life outside of very narrow sanctums practically impossible - esp if the forces were massed undead armies or fiends. Most of the world would be a war zone, slavery would be rampant, as would starvation and disease. Or the undead would be everywhere and ever present. Anyway, my point is that the implications of that kind of worldbuillding would lead to a much more PG-13 or R rating for adventure modules, which would make marketing them as family-friendly much more challenging.
If the factions were, say orcs or hobgoblins instead, then that would likely lead to other uncomfortable questions since a sustainable empire of either of these races would basically start looking a lot like human empires of the real life past. So this would get uncomfortable or tricky for some people b/c then they start looking a lot less obviously evil by comparison and players start asking questions about whether they should even be killing orcs and hobgoblins indiscriminately in the first place b/c the kind of culture necessary to sustain any long-term empire can't just rely on raiding and pillaging; it would need agriculture and educational institutions and reading and writing being taught to at least the upper echelon of orc/hobgoblin society. So...yeah. More moral grey areas again.