Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Psyren]

This attitude, to be absolutely clear, is what I'm arguing against. The notion that in order to have complexity you have to get rid of evil races.

There are tons and tons of universally evil races in D&D that I (and I'm willing to bet the rest of the pro-nuance crowd) have no problem with being there. They're just generally not expected to be playable.

Devils are an evil race. Demons are an evil race. Yugoloths are an evil race. Mindflayers are an evil race. Aboleths, Beholders, Hags, Draconians/Chromatic Dragons, and many intelligent undead all exist.

And regarding the "Orc lore" they didn't remove it - they just reframed it as what it was, the narrow perspective of one guy in one setting with an agenda based on his preconceived notions. The errata outright instructs you to use the parts that inspire you and disregard the rest.

[Witty Username]

Yes, and? There are indeed a bunch of things I think should and shouldn't be in core, but race is the subject of the thread (dwarves specifically, and the design principles in their orbit.)

Sorry if I have overstepped, but I took this statement below as an endorsement of core "as it is"

Sure - but we're nowhere near that being an issue. Both the current and new core contain a whopping 9 races, that's a fraction of the overall total and hardly a monumental accommodation for any setting.

And I thought of an example where you would find fault with core as it is currently presented is constraining in an unreasonable way. Since I am on the fence on Core in concept*, but not really in favor of Core in its current form. At least if it is a road map that all official settings are not permitted to deviate from, since that would disqualify I think every official setting we have in 5e except FR and Spelljammer. And in all honesty even FR comes out a bit odd and it is the default setting.

On Species, my big concern is subspecies. I don't think we need more than one elf, dwarf, or whatever in core. A lot of the distinction got cut for fair enough reasons with the Ability score changes, so I am not convinced we need a mountain dwarf and hill dwarf. Put that in Dragonlance where it belongs. And then you can draw more natural lines for other settings.

And then Elf examples because dear god they are like bloody cockroaches, Eberron can complete its shift into elves being entirely cultural (except drow I guess), FR can keep Lolth and Mensoborezen without polluting other settings.


*I have reservations, but not an opinion, many of the game systems I am familiar with suggest a setting, even if they are more flexible than that suggestion. I have a few data points from OSR gaming, but its only a few, and they tend to be rules sets that assume you can find other materials. or are relentlessly light - Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is one of the reference points I have and its 45 pages. Its class system is 4 pages long. Assuming it has any metric value in relation to D&D feels dubious.

--
The Always Evil thing, I am not sure if that is a thing in D&D, As far back as AD&D there have been good aligned Demons and Devils. and mixed portrayals since. Heck, can't you make Zariel good aligned in that one module? in case your party bard has more Swag than Asmodeus.

As for species connections to alignment, I don't see the issue for making generalizations at the world building layer. Like say, if Star Wars described humans as primarily represented by the Galactic Empire, a ruthless regime founded on the dark reflection of an ancient religion it has effectively eradicated. That tracks. Would Star Wars be better if humans were eradicated? Well yes but that is beside the point.

As for orcs are evil as the end justification , see Genesis of the Daleks for most of my opinion on that, The Doctor explains it better than I could.

[Errorname]

There are tons and tons of universally evil races in D&D that I (and I'm willing to bet the rest of the pro-nuance crowd) have no problem with being there. They're just generally not expected to be playable.

Devils are an evil race. Demons are an evil race. Yugoloths are an evil race. Mindflayers are an evil race. Aboleths, Beholders, Hags, Draconians/Chromatic Dragons, and many intelligent undead all exist.

I think the chromatic/metallic division is a little silly, but if you asked me to cut one I'd say the metallics. I certainly don't have an issue with dragons being functionally always evil.

I do think you can run into these problems with more inhuman species, it's not impossible to stray into uncomfortable territory, but the function of something like an Illithid is inhuman enough that have to be trying a lot harder to get there.

[OldTrees1]

I would have them be kobolds.

That would be a funny sight. A tunnel opens in the city market and kobold traders pop out. "Come buy our rocks!"

You can contrast them with what they do once they get those mineral rights. A more stoic society would settle down and mine those minerals for as long as they can sustain a society. Whereas the more fast paced kobolds would strip mine everything easy and then move to the next site.

As for the dwarf marauders if they must be aggressive aboveground, give them mechas/tanks.

Good ideas. Nomadic kobolds and marauding dwarves both competing over mineral rights.

[Psyren]

Sorry if I have overstepped, but I took this statement below as an endorsement of core "as it is"

...You thought my factual statement on the numerical count of races in the PHB was an endorsement of its legacy-FR-centric take on near-universally evil drow?

I... genuinely don't even know how you could have gotten there from what I said

And I thought of an example where you would find fault with core as it is currently presented is constraining in an unreasonable way. Since I am on the fence on Core in concept*, but not really in favor of Core in its current form. At least if it is a road map that all official settings are not permitted to deviate from, since that would disqualify I think every official setting we have in 5e except FR and Spelljammer. And in all honesty even FR comes out a bit odd and it is the default setting.

It's not the default setting anymore, that's the point. And the sooner the core books stop pretending it is, the better.

On Species, my big concern is subspecies. I don't think we need more than one elf, dwarf, or whatever in core. A lot of the distinction got cut for fair enough reasons with the Ability score changes, so I am not convinced we need a mountain dwarf and hill dwarf. Put that in Dragonlance where it belongs. And then you can draw more natural lines for other settings.

I agree with you that the Hill Dwarf/Mountain Dwarf distinction no longer needs to be there, because their differences were entirely cultural. One was parochial/nature dwarves that liked hikes and the other was militant/stronghold dwarf that trained with armor. You can, and should, represent such purely cultural distinctions between two members of the same species via their Background.

But elves are better different, because they actually alter their biology depending on their environment; that's been their deal for multiple editions now, and it's why we have so many different flavors across multiple editions and even within 5e itself. Underdark Elves, Wood Elves, High Elves, Sea Elves, Astral Elves, Season Elves, Shadow Elves etc. Relegating that to background would not adequately capture the differences between them (Watsonian), and since people expect elves to flavor themselves by environment they're willing to pay for new varietals (Doylist.) So for both reasons, we get different species and subspecies of elf, including in the new core where they're called "Elf Lineages."

I think the chromatic/metallic division is a little silly, but if you asked me to cut one I'd say the metallics. I certainly don't have an issue with dragons being functionally always evil.

I do think you can run into these problems with more inhuman species, it's not impossible to stray into uncomfortable territory, but the function of something like an Illithid is inhuman enough that have to be trying a lot harder to get there.

I agree that you can run into such trouble with any such species, but with those at least you can much more credibly say they lack free will - because they're not playable. I'd much more readily buy 99.9% of Illithids constantly hearing Ilsensine's voice in their head, or 99.9% of chromatic dragons hearing Tiamat's, than I would with Gruumsh and the orcs; maybe that's how he intended them to work when he made them, but he failed and it just didn't pan out - in the printed game, anyway.

[Jophiel]

Strange argument to make in defense of the always chaotic evil race. "This race is bad, go kill them" isn't exactly a story that has much to say or explore either, and what it does have to say often isn't worth saying.

I don't think that has to be the story just because you included some Evil Orcs. Hopefully your story has tons of other interesting interactions, moments, NPCs, environments, puzzles, other critters, etc that the whole thing doesn't hinge on the alignment of some orcs. Even if the story of the moment is as simple as "Rescue the mayor's cat from the ruined temple", and the temple is full of orcs, I'd hope you have more stuff planned than just philosophical conflicts about the true nature of orc-dom OR a series of rooms with four angry evil orcs each.

From personal experience, I assume most of the people who are cool with Always Evil Orcs have already run the spectrum from "These are evil 'cause the MM says so" to "Man, but what if, to the orcs, WE were the enemy" and all the points in between. There's nothing new under the sun: you had "But, to the goblins..." letters in Dragon back from its early days. Been there, done that. Ain't no one who's been running games for years and not already come up with "I'm gonna make this rich take on [race] life" all on their own. I don't think landing one place on the spectrum is more sophisticated or interesting than the others but I do think that Always Evil Orcs can be played perfectly entertainingly and most other people feeling this way are likely making informed choices based on game experience both ways.

[Errorname]

I agree that you can run into such trouble with any such species, but with those at least you can much more credibly say they lack free will.

See, I was more thinking that you have more distance. Psychic brain eating squids and giant fire breathing lizards are by default inhuman in a way that a humanoid barbarian is not.

[Witty Username]

I agree with you that the Hill Dwarf/Mountain Dwarf distinction no longer needs to be there, because their differences were entirely cultural. One was parochial/nature dwarves that liked hikes and the other was militant/stronghold dwarf that trained with armor. You can, and should, represent such purely cultural distinctions between two members of the same species via their Background.

But elves are better different, because they actually alter their biology depending on their environment; that's been their deal for multiple editions now, and it's why we have so many different flavors across multiple editions and even within 5e itself. Underdark Elves, Wood Elves, High Elves, Sea Elves, Astral Elves, Season Elves, Shadow Elves etc. Relegating that to background would not adequately capture the differences between them (Watsonian), and since people expect elves to flavor themselves by environment they're willing to pay for new varietals (Doylist.) So for both reasons, we get different species and subspecies of elf, including in the new core where they're called "Elf Lineages."

Dwarves in Dragonlance are like that as well, or at least I got that impression. The distinctions between Mountain and Hill Dwarves as I understood it was partially lingering effects of the Cataclysm, and Hill dwarves being forced to live on the surface. Sure the time table on that is complete nonsense (something like 2 generations) but the idea at least was there. And more explicit with Gully dwarves as their stuff is explicitly having been beaten to christ from the worst affected regions of the Cataclysm. And the Deep dwarves that are a bit of a drow equivalent (sunlight sensitivity, evil, unusually high aptitude for magic)

Also, Elves being reduced does have an advantage for basically every MTG setting (If Wotc is going to keep doing those), as elf distinction is much less obvious. the Planeshift line (3rd party? Wotc but the MTG team) and Ravnica have pretty tortured justifications for the PHB elves. And FR elf differences have been are pretty light outside of Drow and the Avariel (did they make the jump to 5e, I haven't seen them outside of the UA). And I suppose Sea Elves but I haven't seen them actually used much.
That and we lost the weapon training and the Wis vs Int, and how much was the movement speed and different list for the cantrip is actually meaningful and biology rather than culture?

[Dr.Samurai]

Why wouldn't you feel bad about that? Being forced to take the life of a victim of the real villain and who has no desire to hurt you isn't exactly a feel-good moment.

Again, there is a differentiation between "feel bad" and "feel guilty". My comment was in response to you saying feeling "guilty" is reasonable, to which I said sure but I as a DM wouldn't expect players to feel guilty as a reliable reaction to this. In other words, if I was trying to make the players feel guilty about something (only Pelor knows why) I wouldn't use this scenario to do it.

That's different to feeling pity or sympathy, as you said.

Strange argument to make in defense of the always chaotic evil race.

It's not an argument in defense of orc lore. It's an explanation for why I'm not interested in "exploring" these concepts. They are not new. The only novel thing here, as far as I can tell, is the idea that lore should not include evil races. But maybe even that isn't new, I don't know. But certainly "maybe we're the bad guys" isn't new by any stretch.

"This race is bad, go kill them"

Again, you're the only one framing it this way. "These people raided this border town", "These people pillaged this port", "These people are kidnapping our own for ritual sacrifice" etc.

If you replace Orc with Thayan, no issue right? That remains the case if you just keep it as orcs. They are doing bad things, so the good guys have to act. Super simple concept.

isn't exactly a story that has much to say or explore either, and what it does have to say often isn't worth saying.

I'm not the one appealing to 1. some standard of writing, 2. the need to say or explore anything, and 3. for that to be worthy of anything.

And I'm not the one claiming that a concept is necessarily all or none of those things.

Nobody is saying that you can't do straightforward stories with simple morality. Do you think that the Evil Empire in Star Wars is some convoluted blurry enemy in a struggle that only asks more questions because it's made up of humans.

Star Wars has races that are good and evil. So does D&D.

It bothers you and others. That's fine. But all of this thread has been an attempt to explain why the game should remove something, with the only parameter being "it bothers me", couched in language like "that's boring" "that lacks complexity" etc.

There are tons and tons of universally evil races in D&D that I (and I'm willing to bet the rest of the pro-nuance crowd) have no problem with being there.

Evil races can't be complex.
Evil races can't be interesting.
Evil races must reflect something in the real world.
If something in the real world is reflected in the game and makes me uncomfortable, it must be removed.
Evil races is bad writing.
The only way the game can be entertaining is if the villains allow you to explore concepts of good and evil.

And the list goes on. This is the opposite of nuance .

Devils are an evil race. Demons are an evil race. Yugoloths are an evil race. Mindflayers are an evil race. Aboleths, Beholders, Hags, Draconians/Chromatic Dragons, and many intelligent undead all exist.

Orcs are an evil race. So are drow.

And if fiends can be redeemed, how can you still call them an evil race? Simple; the same way you can call orcs an evil race despite the fact that not all of them are evil. It's a generalization that happens to apply to most of them.

The Always Evil thing, I am not sure if that is a thing in D&D, As far back as AD&D there have been good aligned Demons and Devils. and mixed portrayals since. Heck, can't you make Zariel good aligned in that one module? in case your party bard has more Swag than Asmodeus.

Exactly. In fact, when we finished Descent into Avernus we redeemed Zariel.

The lines being drawn here are incredibly thin, nearly invisible. Zariel despite being an angel, had enough free will to fall and become an archduke of Avernus. Then she still had enough free will to redeem herself and ascend back into a celestial. What are we even talking about here?

I don't think that has to be the story just because you included some Evil Orcs. Hopefully your story has tons of other interesting interactions, moments, NPCs, environments, puzzles, other critters, etc that the whole thing doesn't hinge on the alignment of some orcs. Even if the story of the moment is as simple as "Rescue the mayor's cat from the ruined temple", and the temple is full of orcs, I'd hope you have more stuff planned than just philosophical conflicts about the true nature of orc-dom OR a series of rooms with four angry evil orcs each.

From personal experience, I assume most of the people who are cool with Always Evil Orcs have already run the spectrum from "These are evil 'cause the MM says so" to "Man, but what if, to the orcs, WE were the enemy" and all the points in between. There's nothing new under the sun: you had "But, to the goblins..." letters in Dragon back from its early days. Been there, done that. Ain't no one who's been running games for years and not already come up with "I'm gonna make this rich take on [race] life" all on their own. I don't think landing one place on the spectrum is more sophisticated or interesting than the others but I do think that Always Evil Orcs can be played perfectly entertainingly and most other people feeling this way are likely making informed choices based on game experience both ways.

Correct. If every time orcs show up in a campaign, they are evil worshipers of Gruumsh, it's okay. Not every encounter needs to be some philosophical reflection on morality. The idea that the interactions are interesting only if some orcs are depicted as good is a lie.

Player: Wow DM, it seems every time we encounter orcs, they are evil.
DM: Yes, the god they worship demands that they raid and pillage and conquer.
Player: So does that mean all orcs are evil?
DM: No, not all. But most orcs comply with their gods' demands, and believe they will be rewarded for their brutality. It is the rare orc that ignores the orcish pantheon, and follows their own way. But an orc that puts their strength and resilience in the service and defense of others, would be a mighty ally and champion for good indeed.

Bam, pretty simple. Not all that complicated.

And as far as experiences go, I mentioned earlier that in our current campaign, there were three instances in which we came across enemy children. The first my character avoided the encounter with a successful Deception check. Despite my character not being good, I thought killing children would be evil if I could avoid the encounter (mind you they are giant children, so roughly like ogres in physical size and strength), and my character is not evil. Second encounter I avoided fighting them despite them being in the melee and focused on the adult giants. Each turn I tried to convince the adults to tell them to leave. They remained and the party took them out. I wound up killing the last one as it was landing attacks on me. DM told us they were more like young adults for what it's worth. Third time, I tried to make a deal with the giant that was guarding the children to not raise an alarm and we would let them escape. He basically delayed us knowing that more giants were coming, and then he ran to take the kids away anyways once the combat ensued.

So in our current game, the giants are evil for all intents and purposes. They are raiding the surrounding valley and killing whole towns and villages. We have discovered that they are in service to the drow. Etc etc. Despite that, the character I am playing is still trying not to kill their children. But that's a choice I am making for roleplay reasons. The other players in my party, as an example, were more than willing to kill the giant children to avoid alarms being raised, or facing them in the future in combat. For the DM's part, they are not emotionally vested in whether we do or do not kill giant children. It's not a test or a gotcha or anything. There's no wrong answer. I think the only consideration which I uncovered through dialogue with my legendary sword is that had I killed one of the children in cold blood, it seems to me that I may have lost attunement to the sword. It wasn't that explicit, but it seems like the sword checks to see if it is being used "properly". In this case, the young giant that was attacking me was seen as a viable target, and this didn't trigger the sword to leave. Apart from that magic item though (which I didn't know about until after the second encounter with young giants), there's no pressure in the game to handle this in any specific way, which means that this intrinsic value that everyone is foisting on scenarios like this doesn't exist. It's only there if you put it there.

[Psyren]

Dwarves in Dragonlance are like that as well, or at least I got that impression. The distinctions between Mountain and Hill Dwarves as I understood it was partially lingering effects of the Cataclysm, and Hill dwarves being forced to live on the surface. Sure the time table on that is complete nonsense (something like 2 generations) but the idea at least was there. And more explicit with Gully dwarves as their stuff is explicitly having been beaten to christ from the worst affected regions of the Cataclysm. And the Deep dwarves that are a bit of a drow equivalent (sunlight sensitivity, evil, unusually high aptitude for magic)

I'm not saying Dwarves can't change from living in a different biome - or Humans for that matter - but my point is they have nothing on what happens to elves in the same situation.

See, I was more thinking that you have more distance. Psychic brain eating squids and giant fire breathing lizards are by default inhuman in a way that a humanoid barbarian is not.

That too, sure.

Also, Elves being reduced does have an advantage for basically every MTG setting (If Wotc is going to keep doing those), as elf distinction is much less obvious. the Planeshift line (3rd party? Wotc but the MTG team) and Ravnica have pretty tortured justifications for the PHB elves. And FR elf differences have been are pretty light outside of Drow and the Avariel (did they make the jump to 5e, I haven't seen them outside of the UA). And I suppose Sea Elves but I haven't seen them actually used much.

Sea Elves are more of a thing in Krynn IIRC, but they show up in pretty much any of the major settings that have an ocean (i.e. all of them except maybe Ravenloft and I assume Athas.)

Evil races can't be complex.
Evil races can't be interesting.
Evil races must reflect something in the real world.
If something in the real world is reflected in the game and makes me uncomfortable, it must be removed.
Evil races is bad writing.
The only way the game can be entertaining is if the villains allow you to explore concepts of good and evil.

And the list goes on. This is the opposite of nuance .

The evil races I listed tick all these boxes As usual, good DMs like Larian are pretty instructive here.

Orcs are an evil race. So are drow.

At your table.
To paraphrase something I read: "everyone is entitled to their houserules, stated as printed."

And if fiends can be redeemed, how can you still call them an evil race?

Fiends are made of evil; redeeming them is indeed possible, but causes them to not be fiends anymore. Falling works the same way; when Zariel fell, she stopped being a solar completely and became an archdevil. Orcs don't work that way, they're humanoids.

[Witty Username]

The evil races I listed tick all these boxes As usual, good DMs like Larian are pretty instructive here.

Too be fair, Larian's weakest point of writing seems to be evil characters. There is like one character I buy as Evil and is also not outright cartoonish. And I still don't actually like Asterion.

[Errorname]

Again, you're the only one framing it this way. "These people raided this border town", "These people pillaged this port", "These people are kidnapping our own for ritual sacrifice" etc.

All of those are perfectly acceptable villainous deeds in my book. The problem comes when the reason why they happen is "because they're from the savage subhuman race, and that's what they do"

It bothers you and others. That's fine. But all of this thread has been an attempt to explain why the game should remove something, with the only parameter being "it bothers me", couched in language like "that's boring" "that lacks complexity" etc.

I am not trying to hide that it bothers me by saying it's boring. It bothers me and it doesn't even have the decency to be interesting.

Evil races can't be complex.
Evil races can't be interesting.

I would say that if you succeed at writing an "always evil race" that's complex and interesting, what you're going to finish with probably won't actually be an "always evil race".

If something in the real world is reflected in the game and makes me uncomfortable, it must be removed.

So here's the thing, I am not against including uncomfortable things in a fantasy story. A writer who is trying to make their audience uncomfortable and explore concepts that are sad or upsetting can write stuff that is very effective and thought provoking.

Generally speaking that's not what's happening with an always evil race. This is not something that comes about when a writer wants to make thoughtful commentary on upsetting real world concepts, it's something that comes about because the writers wants disposable people for their hero to slaughter without having to think about it. It's hack writing that also happens to be extremely uncomfortable despite the entire purpose of the trope being an attempt to avoid that discomfort.

The evil races I listed tick all these boxes As usual, good DMs like Larian are pretty instructive here.

Honestly BG3 mostly avoids this? It's basically only a problem with their goblins I'd say, with every other race you've got a decent diversity of characters

[Psyren]

Honestly BG3 mostly avoids this? It's basically only a problem with their goblins I'd say, with every other race you've got a decent diversity of characters

No, I don't mean the humanoids. I meant their actual Always Evil races - the devils like Raphael and Mizora, the mindflayers with their Grand Design, and hags like Auntie Ethel. Larian showed how you can write truly vicious and irredeemable antagonists very well.

[JusticeZero]

Orcs are an evil race. So are drow.

Orcs have regularly portrayed as basically people in my family album with weird dental stuff for a long time, so I want to point out that I have been cringing every time I hear a variant on that for the past what, four decades?

If every time orcs show up in a campaign, they are evil worshipers of Gruumsh, it's okay. Not every encounter needs to be some philosophical reflection on morality.

I go to therapy every other week for PTSD because I grew up as a human equivalent of someone whose family was viewed as worshipping a Gruumsh analogue. Because my family was seen as not following the "good" religion, it was acceptable to commit any number of atrocities. I honestly wouldn't have blamed them for picking up a magic greataxe and going raiding.

...in our current campaign, there were three instances in which we came across enemy children.
The first my character avoided the encounter...
Second encounter I avoided fighting them...They remained and the party took them out. I wound up killing the last one as it was landing attacks on me. DM told us they were more like young adults for what it's worth.

So basically your GM, a person who I will assume does not have my particular ethnic history and background, rigged your encounter that the orcs would act in certain awful ways.

Do you not see how this
1) reflects on.... your GM's handling of things, and
2) might be more than a little bit uncomfortable to people who might be at your table who orcs have regularly been created to be stereotypes of?

If I was in an OSR campaign built with the Bad Old Days ideas baked in, me personally as a player would most likely be defined as happily following an Evil god and a member of an Always Evil race. I'm culturally deviant in ways that I have no power to change. And that isn't necessarily obvious to others at the table.
A huge part of the Bad Old Days is creating a fantasy that the Other is Evil, then going out of its way to fulfill and justify that idea.

I'm sick of it.

I'd like to be able to play in a game sometimes without knowing that there's a good chance I will be reminded that I'm an evil monster. But people keep claiming that it's vitally important that these harmful tropes have to be repeated in ways that directly feeds into a power fantasy that some players have experience with being inherently on the wrong end of.

It was never okay. It was always a bad trope. It needs to be taken to the vets office for one last time. I'm sorry that some people miss it and feel attached to it, but y'all literally scare me and my friends and that's not great for the hobby as a whole. And because we're scared of this stuff, we probably won't tell you... we just sneak away and stop playing.

[Grim Portent]

Way way off topic now, but...assuming the mind-controlled have any degree of efficacy and reasonable options (level of "reasonable" depends very much on how likely they are to make you dead before you can try other options), it should absolutely enable guilt-free defense up to and including death.

Guilt-free doesn't mean you don't feel horrible about the situation though. Grief /= guilt.

Radical topic change.

Q: Why aren't dwarves rampaging, marauding raiders? Is it really that every other race can just calmly walk away from them and they never catch up?

- M

Warhammer does have the Chaos Dwarves, capturing travellers, razing cities and carrying off the people as slaves and so on is kind of their thing. They do have the help of the much faster hobgoblins, but refugees can only run so fast anyway and the dawi-zharr can pursue for longer than most people can flee. They don't rampage very often, being more focused on their internal matters, so it's usually just the odd slave raid against the other civilisations, but from time to time they march forth with arcane guns and daemonic cannons and lay waste to all in their path before retreating with the spoils of war.

It wouldn't actually be hard to portray more traditional pseudo-norse dwarves as raiders either. Popping out of tunnels in the night to steal valuables, burn buildings and kidnap people to serve as menial labour akin to a classic bit of longboat viking piracy. In a context where they are the primary underground race the areas within a given distance of their own lands can be riddled with tunnels dug to allow dwarven raiding parties to access isolated settlements with little warning and disappear rapidly, and marching an army to their gates in reprisal could be nearly as hard as sailing to Norway or Denmark to exact revenge upon the norse would have been. Wouldn't even change the visuals much, just have non-dwarf people sweeping floors, shoveling ****, serving food and drink, acting as scribes, farm labourers and other iron-age slavery stuff when you go to a dwarven settlement.

[Lord Raziere]

Orcs have regularly portrayed as basically people in my family album with weird dental stuff for a long time, so I want to point out that I have been cringing every time I hear a variant on that for the past what, four decades?

I go to therapy every other week for PTSD because I grew up as a human equivalent of someone whose family was viewed as worshipping a Gruumsh analogue. Because my family was seen as not following the "good" religion, it was acceptable to commit any number of atrocities. I honestly wouldn't have blamed them for picking up a magic greataxe and going raiding.

So basically your GM, a person who I will assume does not have my particular ethnic history and background, rigged your encounter that the orcs would act in certain awful ways.

Do you not see how this
1) reflects on.... your GM's handling of things, and
2) might be more than a little bit uncomfortable to people who might be at your table who orcs have regularly been created to be stereotypes of?

If I was in an OSR campaign built with the Bad Old Days ideas baked in, me personally as a player would most likely be defined as happily following an Evil god and a member of an Always Evil race. I'm culturally deviant in ways that I have no power to change. And that isn't necessarily obvious to others at the table.
A huge part of the Bad Old Days is creating a fantasy that the Other is Evil, then going out of its way to fulfill and justify that idea.

I'm sick of it.

I'd like to be able to play in a game sometimes without knowing that there's a good chance I will be reminded that I'm an evil monster. But people keep claiming that it's vitally important that these harmful tropes have to be repeated in ways that directly feeds into a power fantasy that some players have experience with being inherently on the wrong end of.

It was never okay. It was always a bad trope. It needs to be taken to the vets office for one last time. I'm sorry that some people miss it and feel attached to it, but y'all literally scare me and my friends and that's not great for the hobby as a whole. And because we're scared of this stuff, we probably won't tell you... we just sneak away and stop playing.

I do not have your background. My own troubles with being the Other is ways less physical or obvious than that.

But I agree with you. I have seen too much, and know too much to see it any differently. and due to how my mind works, what was I raised on, I cannot look at this trope as something positive. If people are being scared away because of such a trope....is this not proof enough? Its all fun and games until someone sees themselves in something being demonized. That, and valuing a fictional trope's existence over actual people and how its affecting them isn't a good set of priorities to me.

[Psyren]

The fact is that orcs' history, i.e. what Tolkien had in mind when he invented them and what Gygax had in mind when he brought them into D&D, makes it impossible for a company as large as WotC to completely divorce them from their problematic roots. You can declare your intent to do so over hill and dale, and an individual DM can certainly reduce them to being nothing but mindless malefactors devoid of allegory or choice at their table, but WotC was and is right to recognize their greater responsibility in this regard and take action.

Dwarves and Elves had a similarly clear, but far more flattering/benign, inspiration - one that conveniently positioned them to be heroes by default for decades.

[Dr.Samurai]

At your table.
To paraphrase something I read: "everyone is entitled to their houserules, stated as printed."

Ah, so you concede the lore has changed. That's a good start.

Fiends are made of evil; redeeming them is indeed possible, but causes them to not be fiends anymore. Falling works the same way; when Zariel fell, she stopped being a solar completely and became an archdevil. Orcs don't work that way, they're humanoids.

Forgive me, I thought earlier you made "free will" the sticking point. I see now that it's "made of evil" that is what matters. So I guess orcs were never an evil race after all.

All of those are perfectly acceptable villainous deeds in my book. The problem comes when the reason why they happen is "because they're from the savage subhuman race, and that's what they do"

What should it look like when a creator deity is an embodiment of rage, violence, and conquest? Do you think that the reason elves and dwarves are the way they are has nothing to do with how Corellon and Moradin are? What should Gruumsh look like in this post-evil orc world, and who are his followers?

Secondly, what in the world do you mean by "subhuman"? You keep using this term like a bludgeon and I'm not sure what it is meant to mean. Are you saying that any race depicted as living in clans or tribes, outside of walls or fortifications are "subhuman"? Is it any creature that doesn't show the trappings of medieval europeans that is "subhuman"? Orcs have culture, language, religion, values, hierarchy, taboos, etc. Orcs can be found in cities and towns, etc. and are generally treated as other people, if maybe not distrusted given how orcs are elsewhere. Where exactly are they being treated as "subhuman"?

I would say that if you succeed at writing an "always evil race" that's complex and interesting, what you're going to finish with probably won't actually be an "always evil race".

I don't see many arguments for an always evil race that is evil across the board, to every single representative, or that is evil due to mind control, so I don't know why we keep talking about this.

Secondly, we keep hopping back and forth between the story can't be complex and interesting, and the villain isn't complex and interesting. Difficult to respond when we keep switching back and forth.

So here's the thing, I am not against including uncomfortable things in a fantasy story. A writer who is trying to make their audience uncomfortable and explore concepts that are sad or upsetting can write stuff that is very effective and thought provoking.

Generally speaking that's not what's happening with an always evil race. This is not something that comes about when a writer wants to make thoughtful commentary on upsetting real world concepts, it's something that comes about because the writers wants disposable people for their hero to slaughter without having to think about it. It's hack writing that also happens to be extremely uncomfortable despite the entire purpose of the trope being an attempt to avoid that discomfort.

I disagree with most of this; the idea that the DM is a writer, and is trying to make the audience uncomfortable and explore concepts/give thoughtful commentary, etc. It's a game, and I keep coming back to that.

But more to the point, what would be an example of an enemy that isn't "uncomfortable"?

So basically your GM, a person who I will assume does not have my particular ethnic history and background, rigged your encounter that the orcs would act in certain awful ways.

I have no clue what your ethnicity is, or my DM's for that matter, and I don't see how it's relevant. I don't think the DM rigged anything. They were giants. They're evil. They acted like evil giants would. Why should I as a player expect anything different?

Do you not see how this
1) reflects on.... your GM's handling of things, and
2) might be more than a little bit uncomfortable to people who might be at your table who orcs have regularly been created to be stereotypes of?

Have you reflected on your own handling of these things?

I have been told that orcs are a caricature of me and people like me. I don't care. I don't agree, and I don't need it to be true. There are much more important things to worry over in life than to squint at something hard enough for it to offend me.

I'm sorry that some people miss it and feel attached to it, but y'all literally scare me and my friends and that's not great for the hobby as a whole.

Forgive me as I laugh at the irony of you "othering" the people that disagree with you over orcs lol. Now we're scary?

It's my opinion that morphing the game to accommodate people this easily scared is not great for the hobby as a whole. So we're at an impasse.

And because we're scared of this stuff, we probably won't tell you... we just sneak away and stop playing.

So you say. It seems you probably recognize that there are better ways to handle this though, right?

[Witty Username]

Because this will dramatically change my opinion on the subject, does this concern apply to evil religions as well?
Because that hits on a couple coping mechanisms I have and would like to keep.

[BRC]

Because this will dramatically change my opinion on the subject, does this concern apply to evil religions as well?
Because that hits on a couple coping mechanisms I have and would like to keep.

To use my terms, evil religions are Definitional enemies. A member of an evil religion can stop being evil by stopping following that religion. A religion is a form of ideology, and I don't think anybody will object to the idea of evil ideologies in their fantasy action adventure game.


Like, I think you DO need to be careful to not just use "Evil religion" as a bare fig leaf over "Evil People". "The Drow All worship the evil goddess Lolth" is pretty close to "The Drow are just Evil", where Lolth is the "Evil Drow Goddess that the Drow all worship".


Edit:
Personally, my go-to rule is to just try to avoid having the fantasy races all perfectly match to the in-universe cultures, especially if you're going to make some of those cultures "Evil" or "Savage"/Uncivilized.

Like, let's say I want a culture of Evil Barbarians that regularly raid the civilized peoples and are often recruited into the armies of the Dark Lord with promises of wealth and power.

Okay, that's pretty cliche, and probably not great, but the least I can do is not have all the Barbarians be the same race.

The "Barbarian Lands" have Orcs in them, sure, but they've also got Humans and Ogres and Elves and Dwarves, and I've got Orcs and Humans and Ogres and Elves and Dwarves elsewhere in the setting as well, and don't call the Barbarian ones "Dark Elves" and "Dark Dwarves". They're Elves and Dwarves from the barbarian lands.

The whole "Evil Religion" thing can help the same way. If Grumsh is the Evil God Of Orcs Worshipped by Orcs, then that's pretty close to "all orcs are evil and belong to the evil religion". If Karabog is the God worshiped by the Barbarians, that's different.

[Mordar]

So...the why aren't dwarves raiders and marauders was really just a joke about movement speed.

But with all of the other conversation in the thread going towards broad accusations and counter-accusations, projections and assumptions, and all of that other, I put forth this:

Dwarves could be an interesting and complex "always evil" race.

If we approach this from a D&D adjacent standard, and say the following actions map to evil (I find it likely to be a consensus): Disregard for life; Disregard for property rights of others; Rule via strength of arms; Fierce territoriality. This is not an isolated city, or one faction of this race in this setting. It is all of them, perhaps spread across a smaller range than other races might have. Communities can communicate with one another. They can trade with one another. And of course, they can war with one another.

No Evulz, no puppy-kicking or kitten-eating. No bad God on high saying "stab down upon the elf with vindictive stabbings". A reasonable, though likely not desirable, pathway to a cultural mindset that blankets the entire race in such a way that standard "high fantasy" worlds would view as definitely evil. Individually the dwarves might not be "bad", but their world places an indelible stamp on them that the rightness of "murder" (as defined by the high-fantasy world norms), theft, depraved indifference, "oppressive regime" (again as defined by the high fantasy terms), and even forms of cannibalism are valued cultural truths. We avoid at least two very common Evil Tropes here, and hold to those exclusions, because they are hamfisted and crappy in game, and [redacted] out of game.

Now, of course it is the nature of our stories that in time evolution will occur and this race will likely either assimilate other cultural truths - over many generations - or be pushed into extinction (or reduced so far as to be effectively extinct). But for the centuries-wide window of this RPG world, dwarves = "always evil".

Scarcity and isolation are heavy drivers of the story, stagnation propagating and uploading the established "tradition". Intense drive to protect dwarfkind. Intrusion of others "exploring" new areas. Decisions all predicated on survival of the species, all leading to an "always evil" race that would be a playable faction as well as a hated in-world threat. Dangerous raiders and killers all.

This takes much of dwarfiness that appeals to me, maintains it, but puts a significantly different spin on those same hallmarks. Survivors. Traditionalists. Artisans. They don't care about the outsiders' perspectives on their culture. They don't care what the Orc/Human/Elf/Gnome High Priest Dingleberry says the Gods say about their actions. They will survive.

Can you imagine the conditions that would lead to such a culture, and find it a reasonable exploration of the [human] condition, if such things are important to you?

Can you agree that such a culture, while clearly savage and immoral by modern standards (you know, within the last few millennia), could be internally consistent, give rise to interesting and potentially heroic characters, and hold a valuable place in an RPG (or fantasy fiction) setting?

Or is it just me?

- M

[Grim Portent]

So...the why aren't dwarves raiders and marauders was really just a joke about movement speed.

But with all of the other conversation in the thread going towards broad accusations and counter-accusations, projections and assumptions, and all of that other, I put forth this:

Dwarves could be an interesting and complex "always evil" race.

If we approach this from a D&D adjacent standard, and say the following actions map to evil (I find it likely to be a consensus): Disregard for life; Disregard for property rights of others; Rule via strength of arms; Fierce territoriality. This is not an isolated city, or one faction of this race in this setting. It is all of them, perhaps spread across a smaller range than other races might have. Communities can communicate with one another. They can trade with one another. And of course, they can war with one another.

No Evulz, no puppy-kicking or kitten-eating. No bad God on high saying "stab down upon the elf with vindictive stabbings". A reasonable, though likely not desirable, pathway to a cultural mindset that blankets the entire race in such a way that standard "high fantasy" worlds would view as definitely evil. Individually the dwarves might not be "bad", but their world places an indelible stamp on them that the rightness of "murder" (as defined by the high-fantasy world norms), theft, depraved indifference, "oppressive regime" (again as defined by the high fantasy terms), and even forms of cannibalism are valued cultural truths. We avoid at least two very common Evil Tropes here, and hold to those exclusions, because they are hamfisted and crappy in game, and [redacted] out of game.

Now, of course it is the nature of our stories that in time evolution will occur and this race will likely either assimilate other cultural truths - over many generations - or be pushed into extinction (or reduced so far as to be effectively extinct). But for the centuries-wide window of this RPG world, dwarves = "always evil".

Scarcity and isolation are heavy drivers of the story, stagnation propagating and uploading the established "tradition". Intense drive to protect dwarfkind. Intrusion of others "exploring" new areas. Decisions all predicated on survival of the species, all leading to an "always evil" race that would be a playable faction as well as a hated in-world threat. Dangerous raiders and killers all.

This takes much of dwarfiness that appeals to me, maintains it, but puts a significantly different spin on those same hallmarks. Survivors. Traditionalists. Artisans. They don't care about the outsiders' perspectives on their culture. They don't care what the Orc/Human/Elf/Gnome High Priest Dingleberry says the Gods say about their actions. They will survive.

Can you imagine the conditions that would lead to such a culture, and find it a reasonable exploration of the [human] condition, if such things are important to you?

Can you agree that such a culture, while clearly savage and immoral by modern standards (you know, within the last few millennia), could be internally consistent, give rise to interesting and potentially heroic characters, and hold a valuable place in an RPG (or fantasy fiction) setting?

Or is it just me?

- M

Yeah, they could work. There's a wealth of evil stuff to be done with dwarves. Industry run rampant, oppressive traditions, disregard for individuality, nationalism, so on and so forth.

Personally my preferred angle for evil dwarves leans heavily on the idea that only dwarves matter. Or more precisely only Clans matter, and non-dwarves don't have Clans (that the dwarves recognise) and as such have only what significance a dwarf is willing to give them. All dwarves have a Clan, made up of extended family, all dwarves obey their clan head or are exiled from the family, all disputes within a clan are settled by the clan head, all disputes between clans are settled by the noble the clan swears fealty to, disputes between nobles by their lieges and so on. Humans, elves, orcs and so on don't have clans, and so have no legal standing. They are outlaws, non-persons. A dwarf can do whatever they want to a clanless being because there is no one to advocate on its behalf.

If a dwarf decides they like a non-dwarf they might adopt them, either as property or as an honorary dwarf. In either case they are now part of the holdings of the adopters clan. This is basically the same as being a slave from a legal perspective, it's just that the owner is being nice about it. Dwarves don't necessarily screw over everyone they meet, but only because it's not profitable to do so, traders stop coming if you always break deals or rob them, but deciding to break deals with clanless or enslave them, or even hunt them for sport is not considered morally or criminally wrong among the dwarves, because legality is morality to them, and legality is determined by having a clan advocate.

Similarly, a clan dwarf in foreign lands does not respect the laws and traditions of those lands, because there is still no clan to speak with. They don't break the law willy nilly or anything, but they don't see breaking human laws as bad because to them humans don't have laws to break.

[Errorname]

Are you saying that any race depicted as living in clans or tribes, outside of walls or fortifications are "subhuman"? Is it any creature that doesn't show the trappings of medieval europeans that is "subhuman"?

No. In case it is not clear, the frequent tendency of fantasy stories to use sloppily drawn caricatures of real human cultures as monsters to be slain rather than people in their own right is a huge part of the problem.

I disagree with most of this; the idea that the DM is a writer, and is trying to make the audience uncomfortable and explore concepts/give thoughtful commentary, etc. It's a game, and I keep coming back to that.

For what it's worth, I've been talking in terms of the fantasy genre in general and not specifically within the context of D&D, I just don't feel a need to draw a hard distinction between writers making fiction and DMs running games. There's a lot of overlap there, a lot of fantasy fiction started out as somebody's D&D game.

[Psyren]

Ah, so you concede the lore has changed. That's a good start.

"Concede" implies I was saying otherwise; I've been pretty clear that Tolkien-era lore is something they're moving away from, which would necessitate change, so this shouldn't exactly be a groundbreaking revelation.

Forgive me, I thought earlier you made "free will" the sticking point. I see now that it's "made of evil" that is what matters. So I guess orcs were never an evil race after all.

You appear to be implying there's some kind of contradiction here, but these two go hand in hand. Orcs have free will because they're not made of evil, nor do they have alien/aberrant brains - Gruumsh's wishes notwithstanding.

What should it look like when a creator deity is an embodiment of rage, violence, and conquest? Do you think that the reason elves and dwarves are the way they are has nothing to do with how Corellon and Moradin are? What should Gruumsh look like in this post-evil orc world, and who are his followers?

Gruumsh would be just like Lolth, Maglubiyet, Kurtulmak etc - an evil deity trying to dominate the destinies of as many of his creations as possible, and increasingly failing to do so as more and more of them slip through his fingers and find their own way across the multiverse. In some settings he will be more successful, in some less, but it will never* be 100% or 0%.

*focusing on printed settings. Obviously, your own table can have him be totally successful or unsuccessful at this, just like you can make Lolth etc be.

[BRC]

So...the why aren't dwarves raiders and marauders was really just a joke about movement speed.

But with all of the other conversation in the thread going towards broad accusations and counter-accusations, projections and assumptions, and all of that other, I put forth this:

Dwarves could be an interesting and complex "always evil" race.

If we approach this from a D&D adjacent standard, and say the following actions map to evil (I find it likely to be a consensus): Disregard for life; Disregard for property rights of others; Rule via strength of arms; Fierce territoriality. This is not an isolated city, or one faction of this race in this setting. It is all of them, perhaps spread across a smaller range than other races might have. Communities can communicate with one another. They can trade with one another. And of course, they can war with one another.

No Evulz, no puppy-kicking or kitten-eating. No bad God on high saying "stab down upon the elf with vindictive stabbings". A reasonable, though likely not desirable, pathway to a cultural mindset that blankets the entire race in such a way that standard "high fantasy" worlds would view as definitely evil. Individually the dwarves might not be "bad", but their world places an indelible stamp on them that the rightness of "murder" (as defined by the high-fantasy world norms), theft, depraved indifference, "oppressive regime" (again as defined by the high fantasy terms), and even forms of cannibalism are valued cultural truths. We avoid at least two very common Evil Tropes here, and hold to those exclusions, because they are hamfisted and crappy in game, and [redacted] out of game.

Now, of course it is the nature of our stories that in time evolution will occur and this race will likely either assimilate other cultural truths - over many generations - or be pushed into extinction (or reduced so far as to be effectively extinct). But for the centuries-wide window of this RPG world, dwarves = "always evil".

Scarcity and isolation are heavy drivers of the story, stagnation propagating and uploading the established "tradition". Intense drive to protect dwarfkind. Intrusion of others "exploring" new areas. Decisions all predicated on survival of the species, all leading to an "always evil" race that would be a playable faction as well as a hated in-world threat. Dangerous raiders and killers all.

This takes much of dwarfiness that appeals to me, maintains it, but puts a significantly different spin on those same hallmarks. Survivors. Traditionalists. Artisans. They don't care about the outsiders' perspectives on their culture. They don't care what the Orc/Human/Elf/Gnome High Priest Dingleberry says the Gods say about their actions. They will survive.

Can you imagine the conditions that would lead to such a culture, and find it a reasonable exploration of the [human] condition, if such things are important to you?

Can you agree that such a culture, while clearly savage and immoral by modern standards (you know, within the last few millennia), could be internally consistent, give rise to interesting and potentially heroic characters, and hold a valuable place in an RPG (or fantasy fiction) setting?

Or is it just me?

- M

Hrmm, I'd be tempted to mix in some notes from Discworld Dwarves, or at least the Deep Downers.

Spiritually, culturally, the Dwarves view reality as something that occurs below the surface. The Sky is ever-changing, but the Stone remembers. The ultimate truth is that which is etched in the stone of a dwarf-hold. Anything less than that is questionable, is rumor. If the Truth is not recorded, then history stops, and in a metaphorical, but very real way, the world ends. If all you can trust is that which is etched in stone, then a gap in the record, in the chain of cause and effect, will unmoor you from the past. Even if the Record resumes, it cannot be trusted because that gap could contain crucial context.


So, the histories must be recorded. They must specifically be etched in the great slabs of the Dwarf-Holds (the only thing that can be trusted to remain intact. Anything less is an unacceptable risk). Which means the Dwarf-holds must be occupied. Dwarves must live there to record the history, which means they must be defended, which means the warriors must be armed, which means the forges must be fed, which means the Mines must be worked. Or else, they risk the End of History.

And all of those Dwarves must be fed.

Anything above ground isn't recorded, and therefore isn't real to the Dwarves. Dwarves don't like spending time above ground. The more of their life spent under the transient sky, the less real that Dwarf is. Dwarves can and do trade for food, but culturally speaking, large-scale mercantile commerce isn't especially common. You trade away real things, the crafts of the dwarf-holds, to the dreams and figments of the surface world. Besides, if you are reliant on trade for survival, you're vulnerable to the whims of surface dwellers, who, see above, are not real.


So the Dwarves become a slaver-empire. The people of the surface are not real, nothing up there matters. Dwarven warriors raid and pillage freely (it doesn't matter. The people they're taking from could lose everything to some other threat tomorrow, and are not in the records anyway. Life aboveground is so unstable that it's not worth respecting). They take slaves to work their fields, to feed the dwarf-holds (that's the only way to ensure History Does not End while subjecting the minimum number of Dwarves to a disgraceful life above ground). Crimes they commit are forgotten, but any trespass that has effect on life in the dwarf-holds is recorded and eternally remembered.


If you speak to a Dwarf, they do not revel in Cruelty. They care about protecting their people and traditions. If you didn't know what they do, then their obsession with keeping the records would come across as an interesting cultural quirk. "Dwarves view the records not being kept as an Apocalyptic scenario, huh, isn't that funny". But they commit numerous atrocities in the name of that goal.

[Mordar]

So the Dwarves become a slaver-empire. The people of the surface are not real, nothing up there matters. Dwarven warriors raid and pillage freely (it doesn't matter. The people they're taking from could lose everything to some other threat tomorrow, and are not in the records anyway. Life aboveground is so unstable that it's not worth respecting). They take slaves to work their fields, to feed the dwarf-holds (that's the only way to ensure History Does not End while subjecting the minimum number of Dwarves to a disgraceful life above ground). Crimes they commit are forgotten, but any trespass that has effect on life in the dwarf-holds is recorded and eternally remembered.

I was by design and intent not offering this option. The scarcity element precludes it for my initial foray. Cannibalism might be an opening though...

If you speak to a Dwarf, they do not revel in Cruelty. They care about protecting their people and traditions. If you didn't know what they do, then their obsession with keeping the records would come across as an interesting cultural quirk. "Dwarves view the records not being kept as an Apocalyptic scenario, huh, isn't that funny". But they commit numerous atrocities in the name of that goal.

This is the crux of the idea for me.

- M

[OldTrees1]

So...the why aren't dwarves raiders and marauders was really just a joke about movement speed.

Indeed, but it is interesting to think about.

But with all of the other conversation in the thread going towards broad accusations and counter-accusations, projections and assumptions, and all of that other, I put forth this:

Dwarves could be an interesting and complex "always evil" race.

That would be a challenge for 2 reasons. 1 is being discussed in the other conversation. The other is how difficult it is to get to the figurative "always".

No Evulz, no puppy-kicking or kitten-eating. No bad God on high saying "stab down upon the elf with vindictive stabbings". A reasonable, though likely not desirable, pathway to a cultural mindset that blankets the entire race in such a way that standard "high fantasy" worlds would view as definitely evil. Individually the dwarves might not be "bad", but their world places an indelible stamp on them that the rightness of "murder" (as defined by the high-fantasy world norms), theft, depraved indifference, "oppressive regime" (again as defined by the high fantasy terms), and even forms of cannibalism are valued cultural truths. We avoid at least two very common Evil Tropes here, and hold to those exclusions, because they are hamfisted and crappy in game, and [redacted] out of game.

Now, of course it is the nature of our stories that in time evolution will occur and this race will likely either assimilate other cultural truths - over many generations - or be pushed into extinction (or reduced so far as to be effectively extinct). But for the centuries-wide window of this RPG world, dwarves = "always evil".

I expect, even in the limited time window, that this would be at most "usually" evil or maybe only "often" evil instead of a figuratively always evil population. The society might promote and make excuses for survivalist self interest through direct harm to others, however I expect the individuals to vary in their opportunities and practice of the society's ideals.

Can you imagine the conditions that would lead to such a culture, and find it a reasonable exploration of the [human] condition, if such things are important to you?

Can you agree that such a culture, while clearly savage and immoral by modern standards (you know, within the last few millennia), could be internally consistent, give rise to interesting and potentially heroic characters, and hold a valuable place in an RPG (or fantasy fiction) setting?

Or is it just me?

- M

I can imagine conditions that rise to such a culture and it is a reasonable exploration (if such a thing is important to you). I think wasteland survival would work as a contributing factor.

I would not label it as savage, but yes it would be an evil society that would be internally consistent. I see it having potential for interesting heroic characters.

I don't see it reaching the figurative "always". It would probably be similar to Thay in its distribution.

[Dr.Samurai]

@Mordar: How would these dwarves be different from the Duergar? I don't think the Duergar are evil because of their deity.

[BRC]

I was by design and intent not offering this option. The scarcity element precludes it for my initial foray. Cannibalism might be an opening though...

I guess that's the other way to do it.


Dwarves will raid and pillage others when desperate. But their chosen lifestyle, living in underground cities and spending as little time above ground as possible, is incompatible with large-scale agriculture, which in turn makes it incompatible with the scale of civilization that Dwarven culture specifically says is the "Correct" way to live. Asking dwarves to spend their lives farming the surface is asking them to commit spiritual suicide.


As a result, Dwarves are perpetually on the edge of famine. They're constantly desperate. They're loath to trade their own treasures on the surface (The surface world isn't real after all. Sending a crafted good to the surface is an insult to the crafter), but anything taken from the surface can be freely and gladly traded for food. So, raiding for food or treasure is their response to the threat of famine. It's only when they're desperate, but they're frequently desperate. Even the most stable dwarf-hold is only a mold outbreak in the storeroom or a slight price increase from their trade partners away from becoming "Desperate" enough to turn to raiding and pillaging.

[JusticeZero]

But more to the point, what would be an example of an enemy that isn't "uncomfortable"?

I gave a bunch of them and I have others.

I have no clue what your ethnicity is, or my DM's for that matter, and I don't see how it's relevant. I don't think the DM rigged anything. They were giants. They're evil. They acted like evil giants would. Why should I as a player expect anything different?

There is a whole cycle to real world hate. "Group X is inherently defective. Evidence 1: Group X follows a culture that is antithetical to Us Good People. Evidence 2: Group X fights us Good People. Therefore, we can feel good about fighting them." And all of the pieces support each other, so it looks like it makes sense. Except that the response to having a bunch of strange-to-you people show up and attack you tends to be to cling to your perfectly reasonable and not at all terrible cultural icons and fight back.
You're right: You don't know my ethnicity, and you don't need to. It's the cycle that is going on here that's at issue.

Forgive me as I laugh at the irony of you "othering" the people that disagree with you over orcs lol. Now we're scary?

Someone brought up the definitions of "Definitionally Evil". As I recall, you scoffed that there is no definitional evil in the world you deal with.
However. A troublingly large segment of the dominant culture I have no choice but to live in is Definitionally Evil toward me. I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out how, because the specifics don't matter.
That's not "othering" or cruelty, that's a statement of fact. There are entire groups of people who hold public power and who are accepted as "Good" who, if I cross them in the wrong circumstances, I will be made to lose my ability to breathe and circulate blood, for reasons I realistically can't do anything about. And your mode of play is generally one which they use to indoctrinate more people. It tells us things about your GM that should be unacceptable in modern society.

It's my opinion that morphing the game to accommodate people this easily scared is not great for the hobby as a whole.

And I'm concerned about having to share a hobby with people who literally want to definitionally kill me and who have succeeded with people I know who are empowered by Bad Old Days tropes.
I don't consider myself easily scared, but you know, I don't like going to funerals.

People who defend the Bad Old Days trope of "Always Evil Sentient Races" are a warning flag for a reason.