Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Jophiel]

"If you want setting lore, buy setting splats" is also a reasonable expectation. Especially since there's plenty of setting lore available completely for free too.

I happen to think it's inferior to providing a complete race in the book and the supposed downsides to having a complete race in the book strike me as non-issues. YMMV and all that.

[Metastachydium]

3) They don't (repeated for emphasis). Higher level species could have been included. Their omission is a choice by WotC rather than a restriction on what WotC could have done. They have done it before (3E). This is one area where Psyren with insist on the status quo while I will critique WotC's unforced omission.
4) They do. WotC made a decision to have the power curve of PCs be an irregular mess. They wanted big irregular spikes at 5th, 11th, 17th and that makes everything, including higher level species, harder to design around. Multiclassing runs into friction around those levels. A higher level species is like multiclassing into a monster class (Troll 3 / Cleric 2 as a 5th level character).

Yup. Have I mentioned that the Midgard Dwarf discussed to death earlier is perfectly competitive with an Artificer (a strong, but annoying to use class in 3.5) of the same ECL?

Again, I am approaching things is a less-5e centric fashion, and thinking back to both previous editions and other games. For example, at what level do +1 or +2 skill bonuses become trivialized, particularly in a standard mixed party? And then how much later for a +1 save bonus to become marginalized (never trivialized, I don't think).

That depends on the skill system of the game in general. A 5e race granting an extra proficiency means that proficiency scales throughout the character's entire progression, while a 3.5e race granting a +2 to a skill means that bonus becomes less and less meaningful as the character goes up.

Interestingly enough, that's not actually true. It depends on the skill and build in question. 3.5 skill modifiers go higher than 5e "special purpose ability check" modifiers because while 5e ones might sometimes scale better on their own and automatically, 3.5 has an impossible amount of ways to add just another +1-to-Big Number to skill checks – racial bonuses being a source that stacks with all other bonuses.

[OldTrees1]

My hope would be for *all* the races to have ballpark-balanced power to their racial traits. No character level adjustment muck, all intended for play from the start, but either with something that under current paradigms would be OP for starting characters (but would be the norm in a system designed to accommodate) or evolves to remain valuable at 10th level too. That does mean no "full monster version" Troll as a player character, perhaps...but doesn't mean an evolving DR trait couldn't be included.

- M

When I play a "monster" interesting higher level species, I don't want the "pale imitation" version of the interesting species. (Especially since that usually means removing the interesting bits).

So I want a system that can balance characters with an imbalance between the power each gets from their species. This would involve the PC with the stronger species paying for that strength with other character build resources (feats, levels*, ...).
* Monster classes seem to work better than Racial Hit Dice (RHD) which worked better than Level Adjustment (LA). It also means you can utilize the level by level multiclassing rules if they are functional enough.

Ideally this would be designed so each character could start from 1st level together.

I think this would be compatible with what you want. Most species would be roughly comparable and thus use the main system.

[Mordar]

You say you're not talking about the current edition of D&D but then you throw out conclusions like "arguing for more evolution in racial traits." Yeah, they agree with you, which is why they changed how those kinds of bonuses work in the current game. I know you said you haven't played it, but maybe give it a try then? It's hard to discuss "evolution" if you're stuck on outdated content.

Sorry, I used evolution as a replacement for "scales up as the character levels". Which, as you pointed out, you endorse and already happens in some segments of 5e.

When I play a "monster" interesting higher level species, I don't want the "pale imitation" version of the interesting species. (Especially since that usually means removing the interesting bits).

So I want a system that can balance characters with an imbalance between the power each gets from their species. This would involve the PC with the stronger species paying for that strength with other character build resources (feats, levels*, ...).
* Monster classes seem to work better than Racial Hit Dice (RHD) which worked better than Level Adjustment (LA). It also means you can utilize the level by level multiclassing rules if they are functional enough.

Ideally this would be designed so each character could start from 1st level together.

Yes, that makes sense. Troll, not trollkin. What kind of offsets lets your Troll play with my Dwarf? Has to be more than just deferred advancement, right? Like you said with LA, Savage Species, IIRC, really kind of needed starting level for the party to be 4 or 5 before most of the monsters were available, and I think we'd need Character Level 6 for the Troll/Dwarf combo to play in 3x. So a level development table specific to Trolls? Mandatory feat selections? Things like that?

- M

[Witty Username]

Because expecting material from books labeled as core to the game actually be core to the game is reasonable? WotC themselves set that expectation, so following through on it makes more sense than the reverse.

It does have consequences though. Like why does every setting need 3 kinds of elves and one of those elves is 'Dark Elves' which are universally reviled with one exception?
(Check your PHB, its in there)

Now you could say that such shouldn't be core, but that could apply to all sorts of things we have personal frustration with.

And we are talking about Homogeneity, not just product quality. Everything needing the same species, classes, gods and monsters does contribute to that.

And every setting book has caviots to ensure this,
Just want to ignore Eberron's planar cosmology, here's how.
Remember that you actually want to play Spelljammer, just have the ork warboss crash on Dragonlance, it will be fine and be the same experience.
Except Ravnica, that one has no such sidebars or sections, which given mtg is actually kinda weird all things considered.

[Errorname]

My objection to your comment is that I feel like all of the focuses in this conversation are backwards. So it's not that the knights of Cormyr are good because they are brave and noble and defend others. They are "good" because the orcs are ugly and brutish and subhuman. And the reason the orcs are ugly brutish and subhuman is so that the knights of Cormyr can be good. I don't think that's the right way to look at it, and it's why I've struggled to agree with virtually anything I've read on this so far.

The presence of brave and noble defenders of 'civilization' from the barbarous other is a necessary part of this whole equation, it's present in all the real dehumanizing narratives that make the fantasy version so unpalatable to me.

Yes, that makes sense. Troll, not trollkin. What kind of offsets lets your Troll play with my Dwarf? Has to be more than just deferred advancement, right?

Large size has it's own potential drawbacks that can be implemented. If your Dwarf only takes up a 1x1 square while my Troll needs 2x2 squares, that extra size means passages that the Dwarf can easily navigate become impassable for the Troll. Depending on how you design your game that could be really punishing, from what I've heard the 2x2 units in the new Rogue Trader CRPG are pretty underwhelming because of gear and movement restrictions.

[Psyren]

It does have conequenes though. Like why does every setting need 3 kinds of elves and one of those elves is 'Dark Elves' which are universally reviled with one exception?
(Check your PHB, its in there)

...That's literally what I'm taking issue with? Thanks?

"X playable race is universally reviled," to the extent such a thing should even exist in the printed game at all, should be highly setting-specific (and preferably contextualized by a specific timeframe or period in that setting.)

Now you could say that such shouldn't be core, but that could apply to all sorts of things we have personal frustration with.

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.)

I happen to think it's inferior to providing a complete race in the book and the supposed downsides to having a complete race in the book strike me as non-issues. YMMV and all that.

Our diverging definitions of "complete race" appear to be the issue then.

Interestingly enough, that's not actually true. It depends on the skill and build in question. 3.5 skill modifiers go higher than 5e "special purpose ability check" modifiers because while 5e ones might sometimes scale better on their own and automatically, 3.5 has an impossible amount of ways to add just another +1-to-Big Number to skill checks – racial bonuses being a source that stacks with all other bonuses.

The racial bonuses themselves tend to be a tiny component of that Jenga tower of bonuses from the other sources though - +1 to +2 in most cases. That's all I was saying.

Sorry, I used evolution as a replacement for "scales up as the character levels". Which, as you pointed out, you endorse and already happens in some segments of 5e.

- M

Ah - then yes. And even the stuff that doesn't scale tends to be useful at multiple levels, such as being able to Hide / Disengage as a bonus action, or having extra base reach and speed.

[Dr.Samurai]

The presence of brave and noble defenders of 'civilization' from the barbarous other is a necessary part of this whole equation, it's present in all the real dehumanizing narratives that make the fantasy version so unpalatable to me.

So to understand you clearly, wouldn't you object to any enemies being depicted as barbarous? It seems to me that you don't think anyone is "barbarous" and that depictions of that nature are somehow unjust and shouldn't be done. Is that correct? It seems to go beyond "an entire race is being depicted this way" and more like "no one is really like this, so these depictions are inappropriate on their face".

If I am understanding you correctly... I definitely disagree.

[JusticeZero]

Personally, I go to great effort to make sure that the enemies I populate my world with are morally black and white. I don't typically have people fighting bandits, or even enemy soldiers. It has happened a few times. However, a list of things that I can remember them fighting include:
* Expansionist hive mind animated fungi
* Soul trapped conscripts who they watched die instantly when they tried to surrender or flee — I wanted them upset at the controller and sickened at the need to fight
* Demon analogues who took the time to thank them when killed and thus desummoned back to their home plane
* Summoned enraged beasts
* Literal pieces of the ground rising up against them
* Sentient disease clouds known for possessing the bodies of those they killed, and which they've yet to permanently destroy any of
* Peasants in a place where they literally can't be killed permanently in any way that matters (Regeneration 3 and respawn at HP negative max as a planar property)
* A rogue construct left over in an abandoned facility

I just... I see too much hate already, I don't want to put it in my games. I don't have racism in my game world. I don't see it as necessary, and people who claim it is seem to be suffering from a failure of imagination, and possibly a suspicious desire for such things.

[Errorname]

So to understand you clearly, wouldn't you object to any enemies being depicted as barbarous? It seems to me that you don't think anyone is "barbarous" and that depictions of that nature are somehow unjust and shouldn't be done. Is that correct? It seems to go beyond "an entire race is being depicted this way" and more like "no one is really like this, so these depictions are inappropriate on their face".

I have no illusions about any innate goodness of humanity, people can be brutal and vicious on a truly staggering scale. But the thing is that "this entire race of people are evil savages who are an existential threat to our civilization so we have to kill them" is historically the sort of lie that gets broken out to in order to justify horrific atrocities. So yes, the fact that it is specifically an entire race being depicted that way is a major part of it, it's replicating the exact sort of narrative that gets used to justify actual crimes against humanity except in a story that accepts that framing as completely accurate.

[Dr.Samurai]

I have no illusions about any innate goodness of humanity, people can be brutal and vicious on a truly staggering scale. But the thing is that "this entire race of people are evil savages who are an existential threat to our civilization so we have to kill them" is historically the sort of lie that gets broken out to in order to justify horrific atrocities. So yes, the fact that it is specifically an entire race being depicted that way is a major part of it, it's replicating the exact sort of narrative that gets used to justify actual crimes against humanity except in a story that accepts that framing as completely accurate.

I think the devil is in the details here and saying that it's the "exact sort of narrative" and "completely accurate" is really just glossing over all of the fantasy elements to try and create a 1 to 1 parallel to the real world. There are enough differences, and I'm far removed from any moment in time when this was done, that focusing on it doesn't make sense to me.

Also, every time I speak of this, it's reactive, and every time you speak of it, it's proactive, so that's another point of contention we're not really addressing. You are framing this as "the good guys have given themselves a reason to go out and hunt these people in cold blood", where my framing is more like "these creatures have come to kill and pillage, so the good guys have to rally against them and fend them off".

Anyways, I think we're clearly at an impasse so, thanks for the conversation .

On the topic of dwarves, but still not exactly on topic, I wouldn't mind seeing an expansion of racial traits at various levels, so it's not just at level 1 where you gain racial features. Maybe a group of racial feats for each race, and you get a free racial feat at level 5 or something like that. Though I know WotC currently subscribes to the "less is more" school of publishing, so this is just a pipe dream.

[OldTrees1]

Yes, that makes sense. Troll, not trollkin. What kind of offsets lets your Troll play with my Dwarf? Has to be more than just deferred advancement, right? Like you said with LA, Savage Species, IIRC, really kind of needed starting level for the party to be 4 or 5 before most of the monsters were available, and I think we'd need Character Level 6 for the Troll/Dwarf combo to play in 3x. So a level development table specific to Trolls? Mandatory feat selections? Things like that?

- M

Yes level development tables (Savage Species is my favorite book), mandatory feat selections, or something like that.

This forum had a homebrew project to refine the monster classes from Savage Species. I am currently running a 3x campaign where one of the PCs is a Green Dragon from there. It also had a Troll 5 / Crusader 1 NPC in the same NPC party as an Orc Sorcerer 6. That level development table was sufficient for starting the characters at 1st level in 3E.

For 5E I think some species could be handled with a mandatory feat. We have one 5E example in a UA that let Dragonborn get their Wings through a feat. For other species I think a 1-5 level class would make sense.

Using 5E and Troll as an example:
Troll might have Regen per round, Large size, Increased Str/Con, Natural armor (probably treated as a replacement AC), and Keen senses.
Base: Regen 1hp per -long time- (time shrinks with prof bonus), Powerful Build, Natural Armor (AC=10+Dex+Con).
Scent could be a feat. Increasing the regen to 1/round would probably cost levels. Same goes for the size increase. Maybe a 5 level class. They would get scent at 2nd, and grow to large at 5th. The other levels would reduce the cooldown on the Regen.

With that rough sketch of 5E Troll, I would expect the player to alternate levels during 1-10 and then continue with their classes from 11-20. This means their large size would be around 9th-10th level. Alternatively they might just level up to Troll 5 and then take a class.

[Psyren]

Personally, I go to great effort to make sure that the enemies I populate my world with are morally black and white. I don't typically have people fighting bandits, or even enemy soldiers. It has happened a few times. However, a list of things that I can remember them fighting include:
* Expansionist hive mind animated fungi
* Soul trapped conscripts who they watched die instantly when they tried to surrender or flee — I wanted them upset at the controller and sickened at the need to fight
* Demon analogues who took the time to thank them when killed and thus desummoned back to their home plane
* Summoned enraged beasts
* Literal pieces of the ground rising up against them
* Sentient disease clouds known for possessing the bodies of those they killed, and which they've yet to permanently destroy any of
* Peasants in a place where they literally can't be killed permanently in any way that matters (Regeneration 3 and respawn at HP negative max as a planar property)
* A rogue construct left over in an abandoned facility

I just... I see too much hate already, I don't want to put it in my games. I don't have racism in my game world. I don't see it as necessary, and people who claim it is seem to be suffering from a failure of imagination, and possibly a suspicious desire for such things.

For the record, I'm fine with enemy bandits and soldiers. Banditry and soldiering are things you do, not things you are.

Where I'm going to raise my eyebrows is if all your evil bandits just happen to be orcs, with nary a single evil dwarf etc in sight.

On the topic of dwarves, but still not exactly on topic, I wouldn't mind seeing an expansion of racial traits at various levels, so it's not just at level 1 where you gain racial features. Maybe a group of racial feats for each race, and you get a free racial feat at level 5 or something like that. Though I know WotC currently subscribes to the "less is more" school of publishing, so this is just a pipe dream.

They do have this sort of thing currently though:

1) As noted, there are some racials that "turn on" (or upgrade) at higher levels. Aasimar get their Celestial Revelation feature at 3rd for instance, and Eladrin unlock the additional effect of their Fey Step at 3rd as well. Similarly, the new Dragonborn will gain the ability to sprout wings at 5th level.

2) If they do go the feats route - the racial feats we've gotten so far (e.g. Elven Accuracy, Dragon Fear etc) have been half-feats, and that was before the feat power creep we've seen recently. While that's not the same as them being free, you can fit them into builds pretty easily. I have little doubt we'll get more of them, especially with core getting newcomers like Goliaths, but that may be after the PHB.

[137beth]

Personally, I go to great effort to make sure that the enemies I populate my world with are morally black and white. I don't typically have people fighting bandits, or even enemy soldiers. It has happened a few times. However, a list of things that I can remember them fighting include:
* Expansionist hive mind animated fungi
* Soul trapped conscripts who they watched die instantly when they tried to surrender or flee — I wanted them upset at the controller and sickened at the need to fight
* Demon analogues who took the time to thank them when killed and thus desummoned back to their home plane
* Summoned enraged beasts
* Literal pieces of the ground rising up against them
* Sentient disease clouds known for possessing the bodies of those they killed, and which they've yet to permanently destroy any of
* Peasants in a place where they literally can't be killed permanently in any way that matters (Regeneration 3 and respawn at HP negative max as a planar property)
* A rogue construct left over in an abandoned facility

I just... I see too much hate already, I don't want to put it in my games. I don't have racism in my game world.

Permission to put this in my extended sig?

I'll also just zero in on one line to say

* Soul trapped conscripts who they watched die instantly when they tried to surrender or flee — I wanted them upset at the controller and sickened at the need to fight

If I were a player in your game I'd probably react the way you intend. The most baffling part of this whole argument to me is when people see the situation you describe: innocent people being mind-controlled into fighting the players, and insist it somehow enables guilt-free killing of the victims of mind-control.

[JusticeZero]

saying that it's the "exact sort of narrative" and "completely accurate" is really just glossing over all of the fantasy elements to try and create a 1 to 1 parallel to the real world. There are enough differences, and I'm far removed from any moment in time when this was done, that focusing on it doesn't make sense to me.
...
You are framing this as "the good guys have given themselves a reason to go out and hunt these people in cold blood", where my framing is more like "these creatures have come to kill and pillage, so the good guys have to rally against them and fend them off"..

Part of the issue is that not everyone at a given table has the luxury of separation that you have. I personally have to deal with trauma from just such a historical thing — regular counseling appointments are a thing for me — and for a while there it was a trend to make the "always evil" enemies look a bit like parts of my family album; I don't want to have to deal with it in my entertainment and so I don't, but I regularly see people defending the necessity of replicating that stuff in various forms.
So in my games, I don't just mindlessly replicate the bad old days, I don't have fantasy racism and I don't have evil sentient races of individuals.
And part of that is that everything has to justify its inclusion — because if I'm having to redact content, I might as well do a full spring cleaning — including stuff like, among other things we haven't actually mentioned in a while, dwarves.

[JusticeZero]

Permission to put this in my extended sig?

I'm not sure if there's a specific part you were looking at, but quote as you will.
The soul trapped conscripts really slam dunked that villain through the moral event horizon, as was intended for someone trying to become a god in the setting.

[Mordar]

I'll also just zero in on one line to say

If I were a player in your game I'd probably react the way you intend. The most baffling part of this whole argument to me is when people see the situation you describe: innocent people being mind-controlled into fighting the players, and insist it somehow enables guilt-free killing of the victims of mind-control.

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

[JusticeZero]

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.

Just to clarify the situation — the conscripts weren't even mind controlled. They were ordered to kill the party despite being absurdly under level for the task and not having any apparent reason to hate them, then every conscript who objected or tried to run immediately got the graphic headasplode treatment. The party felt like they had just failed by winning, but they had to go through them to get to the ritual site, and it was too late to try to avoid the encounter.
They still feel bad about it, and were very disturbed to learn that the way the world works rewarded them with a mythic level, thus highlighting something about how that setting was set up... Which is another important piece of information to deal with.

[Dr.Samurai]

The most baffling part of this whole argument to me is when people see the situation you describe: innocent people being mind-controlled into fighting the players, and insist it somehow enables guilt-free killing of the victims of mind-control.

I don't think this argument has even delved into mind controlled people until right now, so not sure what you're referring to.

But that said... do you mean to say "guilt" here? Because yeah, I would not feel guilty. I keep saying this but it bears repeating, the way people are speaking in this thread seems like the only way to be "good" is to lay down your arms and allow yourself to be annihilated. I consider that an immoral act. And to go back to my discussion with Lord Raziere, where "escaping" the evil is assumed to be moral, consider that if you are able to deal with an existential crisis and choose instead to run, you may be leaving that existential threat to annihilate others that are more helpless than you are. All in some attempt to remain "pure". Similarly, feeling guilty means you think you did something wrong, and all you did was defend your own life. Eventually we're going to start asking if your own life has value, and to what end should you be morally allowed to defend it, etc.

I mention this just to highlight that it's a mistake to consider any of these things as morally superior.

Part of the issue is that not everyone at a given table has the luxury of separation that you have. I personally have to deal with trauma from just such a historical thing — regular counseling appointments are a thing for me — and for a while there it was a trend to make the "always evil" enemies look a bit like parts of my family album; I don't want to have to deal with it in my entertainment and so I don't...

You should definitely do whatever is appropriate for your table.

but I regularly see people defending the necessity of replicating that stuff in various forms.

I don't know precisely what "stuff" you're referring to, but none of this is necessary, even the game itself. However I find it interesting and fun, and if someone is going to say that it's wrong and shouldn't be in the game, I'll certainly chime in with my two cents on that.

So in my games, I don't just mindlessly replicate the bad old days, I don't have fantasy racism and I don't have evil sentient races of individuals.
And part of that is that everything has to justify its inclusion — because if I'm having to redact content, I might as well do a full spring cleaning — including stuff like, among other things we haven't actually mentioned in a while, dwarves.

Makes sense. I find evil sentient creatures far more interesting than the list you gave earlier.

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.

Agreed.

And I'll highlight again that for some reason the grief over killing the enemies somehow trumps the grief over the pain caused by the enemies, or that would have been caused by the enemies, to the point where the heroes feel guilty over doing it. It begs the question, were these creatures doing anything wrong, or should the heroes allowed them to live and carry on with their actions?

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

Depends on the setting. On Middle Earth, dwarves are natural sprinters; very dangerous over short distances .

[Mordar]

Depends on the setting. On Middle Earth, dwarves are natural sprinters; very dangerous over short distances .

In this thread, of all places, you bring THAT up? No greater harm to dwarfkind than the decision by dwarfhaters to render Gimli, Son of Gloin, the true hero of the saga, a punchline so the pretty boys can look heroic has ever been visited on dwarves than this...at least by humankind I think you might be looking for trouble.

- M

[Errorname]

Where I'm going to raise my eyebrows is if all your evil bandits just happen to be orcs, with nary a single evil dwarf etc in sight.

Yep. I feel like we've been pretty clear that the issue isn't really the presence of characters who do evil, but rather turning that evil behaviour into a racial characteristic. That more than anything is the problematic element.

But that said... do you mean to say "guilt" here? Because yeah, I would not feel guilty.

A better word is probably pity or sympathy, but guilt doesn't seem inappropriate to me. You can take an action that you know is ultimately correct and necessary and still feel guilty about it.

I keep saying this but it bears repeating, the way people are speaking in this thread seems like the only way to be "good" is to lay down your arms and allow yourself to be annihilated.

To be clear I do not think this and have not claimed this.

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?

I'd say because that sort of thing is typically left the purview of Orcs and other monsters, but Elf raiders aren't that uncommon. I think it's because Dwarves tend to be played as very sedentary, they live in their mountains and won't come out unless something forces their hand. Raiders need to cover a lot of ground very quickly, it's difficult to imagine Dwarves who don't run very fast, generally aren't depicted as cavaliers and tend to have the naval prowess you'd expect from an extremely landlocked kingdom making effective raiders, whereas Elves can be translated into a nomadic culture very easily.

[Mordar]

I'd say because that sort of thing is typically left the purview of Orcs and other monsters, but Elf raiders aren't that uncommon. I think it's because Dwarves tend to be played as very sedentary, they live in their mountains and won't come out unless something forces their hand. Raiders need to cover a lot of ground very quickly, it's difficult to imagine Dwarves who don't run very fast, generally aren't depicted as cavaliers and tend to have the naval prowess you'd expect from an extremely landlocked kingdom making effective raiders, whereas Elves can be translated into a nomadic culture very easily.

Also because they walk so slowly that everyone runs away...so when the dwarves pick up all the stuff left behind, they aren't raiding or marauding...they're just performing eco-friendly janitorial duties.

Less jokingly, I don't think sedentary is a good adjective. Dwarves are active and generally very physical. I suspect you meant something more like...ponderous? Deliberate? Measured?

I once knew an exceptionally fast dwarf. It only took him an hour to watch "60 Minutes".

- M

[137beth]

I'm not sure if there's a specific part you were looking at, but quote as you will.
The soul trapped conscripts really slam dunked that villain through the moral event horizon, as was intended for someone trying to become a god in the setting.

Thanks!

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

You quoted me, but your post says the quote is originally from OldTrees1. I don't have a response to the substance of your post, I'm just pointing out an editing error.

I don't think this argument has even delved into mind controlled people until right now, so not sure what you're referring to.

Here's just one of many examples from this thread, arguing that "evil races" make sense because they are mind-controlled by evil gods

I don't know about people committed to it because "It says so in the Monster Manual" but I think it's pretty logical that the Deity of Peace, Love & Understanding is going to imbue their people with free will (including the potential to do evil) whereas the Deity of Blood, Slavery & Pain is going to keep their thumb on the scales to oppress their mortal creations. Enough free will to be self-sufficient and have a spark of creativity but not so much (except for the rare individual) that they decide en masse that blood, slavery & pain ain't the yoke they want to be under. Why on earth would an evil deity decide that their creations need a fair shake and display an respectful philosophy regarding self-determination?

"Hey, I'm really into tyranny, slavery, murder and torture but I think it's super important that you find your own way there..."

[Errorname]

Less jokingly, I don't think sedentary is a good adjective. Dwarves are active and generally very physical. I suspect you meant something more like...ponderous? Deliberate? Measured?

In this context sedentary is correct, unless you're proposing that Dwarves are actually a nomadic culture.

[Mordar]

In this context sedentary is correct, unless you're proposing that Dwarves are actually a nomadic culture.

Ah, a new application...my background heavily biases me towards the "inactive" denotation and makes me think only of the individual. Knowledge expanded!

- M

[Lord Raziere]

@ Dr. Samurai:
when your two main points are "I want evil races I can kill without guilt!" and "I hate redemption stories/sympathetic enemies" its hard to conclude anything OTHER than genocide being the solution being advocated for.

One tells me you don't care about making exceptions and find sparing the civilians of an enemy stronghold bothersome at best, the other tells me you find giving anyone a chance to change their ways too much of a distraction from you being the morally clean one. Combine them and I don't see a heroism or good person being what is advocated for. The sentiments combined may not outright state it, but they do imply it enough that its not a hard conclusion to draw. You say you want a species of people to kill then you want deny any of them the chance of not being evil, that doesn't leave a lot of options to go from there as to solving the problem.

And its a very weird hill to die upon, defending some moral sanctity of....what? some bizarre expanded definition of self-defense that looks lot like rambo going on a rampage? the right to not care about the consequences of winning? I have only talked about or advocated for redeeming any creature ONCE in this thread and that was a side point to my main point of Even If Your Morally Right To Genocide This P-Zombie Super Evil Race, You Still Have To Deal With Humans Taking The Wrong Lessons From That Afterwards Even If It Was Right To Do At The Time.

not because self defense is evil or anything, it isn't, but life goes on after the self-defense is done. If you hurt people, lash out after that self-defense is done because of the trauma you got FROM defending yourself, that is a bad thing! It sucks that something you had to do to survive can influence you to hurt others later, but thats the reality, its not inherently a moral judgment, could be something out of your control and you have to just learn to reign it in, to control it as best you can. Thats just, a plausible story one could have about a veteran of the war against the Evilinians. A child growing up to a teenager bullying someone else because the displace the trauma of losing one of their parents being killed by Evilinians onto someone else and inflicting more harm because they were harmed themselves, is a plausible story. A politician engineering it to look like the Evilinians have returned so they can get into power by deceiving everyone by using the dead Evilinians as plausible scapegoat Because They Really Were That Evil and no is shedding tears about them and becoming an evil tyrant is a plausible story! None of this is grey morality inherently, the bully is just wrong, the tyrant is evil, the traumatized vet shouldn't be hurting people, its that two of these problems can't be solved by killing things. It could be considered grey morality from a certain point of view, but then both kinds of thinking are just points of view.

and the whole "imposing realness" thing just makes me think....um okay? sorry this reality is not to your liking, but this is the only one we know of. Thus the only reality any creative person can draw upon to make anything. Thus the source of any problem, and any thing is drawn from somewhere, by its very nature. This relationship art and entertainment has with reality is inextricable, you can't have DnD without all the things that inspired it, all the things that contributed to it, thats just true for all media. I can't make up a thing that is basically a pen and not claim it has nothing to do with pens in our real world, its clearly a freaking pen and is pen-coded because it works like a pen no matter how much I try to claim its not a pen, it serves the same function. Whether or not I think its a pen explicitly doesn't matter when everyone can clearly see how pen-shaped it is and thus concludes its a pen and thus treats it like a pen. If I want people to not call that thing a pen, I have to do more work to convince people it doesn't work like one, otherwise a pen is just a pen, rose by any other name and all that. And its hard to come up with something that people won't just call a pen, intention doesn't matter, it works like pen therefore pen. and they're right to call it a pen, because clearly it is no matter what fantasy dressing up is made of the pen, nothing is original under the sun, all works are built on what came before them, their ideas, what they teach, how they express their ideas and such and so on. The idea of pen, and thus the idea of fantasy pen doesn't come from the void, it taken from somewhere and remixed.
This is not a moral issue to me, this is simply How It Works. How it has proven to work with numerous works and genres existing because they were inspired by someone and made something like what they were inspired by.

You, Dr. Samurai, seem really really opposed to examining any of this. On a forum of low stakes arguments that won't affect anything. WotC will never look at us and take any of our ideas in the specific. I will never get the chance to make a DnD the way I want. You just seem to want a hollywood plot: good guys defend, bad guys dead, no complexity or consequences, roll credits. Not mcuh to say about that. You seem to devote an awful lot of thought to something that doesn't require much. I have not once said what you want is wrong or bad, or anything. I explored hypotheticals involving black and white morality, but I consider them apt demonstrations on why I don't do such morality, they lack the nuance to assess reasonable responses, what one's actual resources are and so on and so forth, as it prioritizes principles you may not be able to live up to over what you can actually do.

(and again, to all the people saying Black and White morality can have nuance, that doesn't convince me the ways of thinking are distinct enough to MATTER, because again, how many exceptions do you make before the shades start showing? how many good, considerate things does a Grey character do before they're just a saint without calling them that? it makes me think the whole thing is silly and matter of how you label this or that rather than what actual good is done, and thus not particularly useful)

I have in fact, consistently conceded the one thing your claim your arguing FOR: the existence of evil creatures and the saving of the day from them. That is NOT what is being examined or talked about by me! I'm talking about What Happens After! I'm examining it in a context of history that I find interesting and want to talk about and you don't, a context that other people seem to find interesting and agree with. If you don't want to examine it....okay. But we can't do that if your busy going "No I don't want that!" because thats all your point is. You don't want it. Okay. I have nothing to say to that. What can I say? That these things alternatively just don't happen? Restate stock "But in Your Campaign..." script? I don't think I need to. I think your a fellow person who knows how roleplaying games work and doesn't need "of course whatever you want for your table" to be explained to them. I've conceded the point your arguing for in this thread and literally examining everything else the aftermath, yet you still disagree with me for what......

not handling a purely chaotic evil race the way you want me to? what will take for this to be a discussion where it seems your not hurt? I feel like I can't help you because you just want to deny and not have any of what I'm interested in at every turn. I keep explaining and clarifying my position, but it doesn't seem to help and your acting as if this is the first time we're talking when its not. Like.....why did I bother conceding the existence of chaotic evil races which I have been explicitly doing in my points here, when even my treatment of them, which has explicitly not been redeeming or saving them in any way, is still treated as this thing you want to speak out against? Like the whole examination of the consequences of defending people from Evilinians has nothing to do with you who explicitly doesn't want to view the aftermath. I'mma be honest, I don't think I'll ever satisfy you, nor do I ever think I will ever want to satisfy you, my restaurant is just not serving the food you want, sorry thats what I cook here at Lonely Ol' Raziere's, this ol dingy rundown diner, perhaps try seemingly far more popular restaurant over there that agrees with you? And its fine if I can't satisfy you! I was just exploring a hypothetical and the consequences of that hypothetical, perhaps making a point about what this do to people from the context I'm interested in, but MAN is it annoying to explain to you that I'm not catering to you, that it wasn't meant for Your Elfgames, nor does anything we discuss here impact Your Elfgames, and that people being interested in other things than what your interested in exploring will NEVER impact Your Elfgames, and that What You Want, Dr. Samurai is IMMATERIAL to what I'm talking about, other than Stock Regurgitation of "Well, all campaigns are different, do whatever you want at your table!" cause thats all I have to say to you constantly wanting DnD The Action Movie regardless of what I'm talking about, because I. Can't. Do Anything. About. What. You. Want. Or the times we live in, or how other people have hurt you, or what I believe and am interested in, or anything like that!

Thats all I can really say on the matter.

[OldTrees1]

In this context sedentary is correct, unless you're proposing that Dwarves are actually a nomadic culture.

I don't know about Dwarves, but now I am picturing a nomadic society that mines tunnels through the earth. Every so often they surface to trade, and then they continue their tunnel.

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

Rampaging, probably not.
Marauding, yes on occasion.
Raiders, in some settings, but usually not.

I see dwarven aggression as more likely to be invading to secure mineral rights. I expect them to use bunkers and literal undermining of fortifications. A bit like Kobolds in that regard.

[Dr.Samurai]

In this thread, of all places, you bring THAT up? No greater harm to dwarfkind than the decision by dwarfhaters to render Gimli, Son of Gloin, the true hero of the saga, a punchline so the pretty boys can look heroic has ever been visited on dwarves than this...at least by humankind I think you might be looking for trouble.

- M

I know, I know. Forgive me!

A better word is probably pity or sympathy, but guilt doesn't seem inappropriate to me. You can take an action that you know is ultimately correct and necessary and still feel guilty about it.

Sure, but I wouldn't assume that anyone would or should, and so doing this specifically to invoke the feeling as a DM seems off.

@ Dr. Samurai:
when your two main points are "I want evil races I can kill without guilt!" and "I hate redemption stories/sympathetic enemies" its hard to conclude anything OTHER than genocide being the solution being advocated for.

No, I don't think it's that hard. I think you and others are hyper-fixated on "logical" consequences to doing things other than the worldview you espouse, and so "genocide" is what quickly comes to mind.

For the record, I like orcs, and I like the lore, and I like playing half-orc characters. It's less that I want evil races to kill without guilt, and more that I object to the reasons given to remove the lore. Similarly, I have stated repeatedly that sympathetic villains can be fun and interesting and I like them. But when you're being mocked for liking straight evil villains, the language changes in kind.

One tells me you don't care about making exceptions and find sparing the civilians of an enemy stronghold bothersome at best, the other tells me you find giving anyone a chance to change their ways too much of a distraction from you being the morally clean one. Combine them and I don't see a heroism or good person being what is advocated for. The sentiments combined may not outright state it, but they do imply it enough that its not a hard conclusion to draw. You say you want a species of people to kill then you want deny any of them the chance of not being evil, that doesn't leave a lot of options to go from there as to solving the problem.

I mean... not much to say if this is how you're interpreting what I've been saying.

I don't see heroism in anything you've explained either. I see abdication of responsibility, cowardice, self-destructive sympathy, etc. But nothing that looks remotely like heroism.

not because self defense is evil or anything, it isn't, but life goes on after the self-defense is done. If you hurt people, lash out after that self-defense is done because of the trauma you got FROM defending yourself, that is a bad thing! It sucks that something you had to do to survive can influence you to hurt others later, but thats the reality, its not inherently a moral judgment, could be something out of your control and you have to just learn to reign it in, to control it as best you can. Thats just, a plausible story one could have about a veteran of the war against the Evilinians. A child growing up to a teenager bullying someone else because the displace the trauma of losing one of their parents being killed by Evilinians onto someone else and inflicting more harm because they were harmed themselves, is a plausible story. A politician engineering it to look like the Evilinians have returned so they can get into power by deceiving everyone by using the dead Evilinians as plausible scapegoat Because They Really Were That Evil and no is shedding tears about them and becoming an evil tyrant is a plausible story! None of this is grey morality inherently, the bully is just wrong, the tyrant is evil, the traumatized vet shouldn't be hurting people, its that two of these problems can't be solved by killing things. It could be considered grey morality from a certain point of view, but then both kinds of thinking are just points of view.

You made a pretty straightforward claim. Mordar asked if killing aliens (he had been referring to xenomorphs previously if I remember correctly) raise uncomfortable questions. And you replied with a very confident and strident and unyielding "Yes. Why the hell would there be any other answer?"

Then there were walls of text explaining why you think that, and I disagreed with all of it. Now, you can say that you're just positing a possibility and it's just one way of looking at things that you are trying to explore, but it sure as hell did not come across that way originally.

and the whole "imposing realness" thing just makes me think....um okay? sorry this reality is not to your liking, but this is the only one we know of.

Um no... this is your (dim) view of reality. As you asserted, again, very confidently, you think that defending yourself against a genocidal alien species is still bad because humans will screw it up in the aftermath because they are stupid and bloodthirsty.

That's not reality. That's just a bad take on reality.

You, Dr. Samurai, seem really really opposed to examining any of this.

Not seem; am. I have said it a couple of times now that I'm not interested in this. There is nothing worthy of exploring here. The sympathetic villain is a well worn trope at this point. We've all read Ender's Game, we know what ruthless brutality in the face of an unknown threat looks like. There's nothing new being said here.

You just seem to want a hollywood plot:

I want to be able to have a hollywood plot, with orcs and drow and gnolls, etc. I don't want these things excised from the game because some people think they see the world in a better way than others and the game needs to reflect that worldview.

good guys defend, bad guys dead, no complexity or consequences, roll credits.

Another assertion without anything to back it up. You have gotten so defensive and have provided very little, despite the walls of text, to substantiate anything you've said.

You can have complexity and consequences without 1. making the bad guys sympathetic, and 2. making the good guys into douchebags.

For all the people making claims about "bad writing", it seems there's a dearth of imagination in this thread.

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. That instead of having a straightforward enemy to fight against, there has to be some convoluted blurry enemy to struggle against with a resolution that only asks more questions.

I'm saying the game should allow for both, and keeping evil race lore is a part of that. I'm happy to agree with anyone on this.

You seem to devote an awful lot of thought to something that doesn't require much.

Oh goodness, I see you're really bothered by this. I responded to your points with my opinions. I'm not sure what I said that broke the discussion and requires this sort of sad response but here we are lol.

I have not once said what you want is wrong or bad, or anything. I explored hypotheticals involving black and white morality, but I consider them apt demonstrations on why I don't do such morality, they lack the nuance to assess reasonable responses, what one's actual resources are and so on and so forth, as it prioritizes principles you may not be able to live up to over what you can actually do.

They were not hypotheticals. You asserted a positive claim in response to a question. I disagreed. We can certainly leave it there at this point, since you seem perturbed over all of this.

I have in fact, consistently conceded the one thing your claim your arguing FOR: the existence of evil creatures and the saving of the day from them. That is NOT what is being examined or talked about by me! I'm talking about What Happens After! I'm examining it in a context of history that I find interesting and want to talk about and you don't, a context that other people seem to find interesting and agree with. If you don't want to examine it....okay. But we can't do that if your busy going "No I don't want that!" because thats all your point is. You don't want it. Okay. I have nothing to say to that. What can I say? That these things alternatively just don't happen? Restate stock "But in Your Campaign..." script? I don't think I need to. I think your a fellow person who knows how roleplaying games work and doesn't need "of course whatever you want for your table" to be explained to them. I've conceded the point your arguing for in this thread and literally examining everything else the aftermath, yet you still disagree with me for what......

I agreed with you on the point about having complexity without sympathetic villains, maybe you missed the part where I said that. I just don't agree with your take on humanity, and I suspect that perspective on humanity also informs the desire for sympathetic villains and the tendency for people to judge the heroes more harshly than the villains, all of which we've seen throughout the conversation in this thread.

what will take for this to be a discussion where it seems your not hurt?

I'm not hurt, I thought we were just giving our opinions.

I feel like I can't help you

I don't need help and didn't ask for help. I thought we were just talking about evil creatures trying to kill people and whether the reactions to that were moral or not.

Thats all I can really say on the matter.

No problem.


With regards to dwarven marauders, they don't do it because, as a race, they don't value raiding and pillaging. It's that simple. But since we're changing the lore to "every race does exactly what all the other races do", then we will have dwarven marauders and dwarven slavers (other than the Duergar) and dwarven longbowman and dwarven everything. Each culture and race will look precisely like the next one and everything will be superior for it. To Mordar's point though, dwarf marauders will be poor raiders because they are slow. Begs the question why they would do it but [insert meta reason here].

[pothocboots]

I don't know about Dwarves, but now I am picturing a nomadic society that mines tunnels through the earth. Every so often they surface to trade, and then they continue their tunnel.

I would have them be kobolds.

I see dwarven aggression as more likely to be invading to secure mineral rights. I expect them to use bunkers and literal undermining of fortifications. A bit like Kobolds in that regard.

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.

[Errorname]

Sure, but I wouldn't assume that anyone would or should, and so doing this specifically to invoke the feeling as a DM seems off.

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.

Not seem; am. I have said it a couple of times now that I'm not interested in this. There is nothing worthy of exploring here. The sympathetic villain is a well worn trope at this point. We've all read Ender's Game, we know what ruthless brutality in the face of an unknown threat looks like. There's nothing new being said here.

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.

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. That instead of having a straightforward enemy to fight against, there has to be some convoluted blurry enemy to struggle against with a resolution that only asks more questions.

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.