Which villainous race(s) are next on the chopping block?

[CapnWildefyr]

We have RTS to take care of that. Warcraft II for the win
Which is why on some game nights, we'd play Chainmail ( a few times) or Swords and Spells (OD&D's last supplement, which was Chainmail reinvigorated to match D&D) to have table top battles.

Good point, that. We were wargamers first, TTRPG (D&D, Traveller, MA, Gamma World, Boot Hill) were added to our list so our 'back and forth' was a bit more seamless than what you may run into now: TTRPGers who may, or may not, have a taste for war games, or table top war games.

Just wanted to say thanks for mentioning Boot Hill and Gamma World. Easy to die in them but who cares? Rabbits with guns. Death rays. And BH - roll up a character in what, 5 minutes and start shooting. Good times.

I did run a combo BattleSystem/2e game once, a 'fighter's campaign' with almost no magic. Went pretty well but wasn't much call to do it again from my group. Never tried Chainmail.

[Millstone85]

A contractual relationship is still a contractual relationship, your line is incredibly thin so I'm having a hard time seeing how it couldn't be applied to both sides, celestial and fiend

When selling your services, these can vary in nature and number. A celestial wouldn't attempt to deprive you of the ability to refuse them further services. A fiend would twist your contractual relationship until you are forced to serve them in all things and forever.

When selling your soul/self, you have only the one, so it is an all-or-nothing deal. A celestial wouldn't want you to commit such self-harm. A fiend, well, it would save them the trouble.

So why would their be a practical difference between signing a contract to serve Torm as a Warlock or being a Cleric of Torm, you will end up in his Divine Domain either way.

I would expect a god like Torm to reserve his divine realm to those who adore him and/or live by his ideals. His angels might offer pact magic, but I highly doubt he would allow them to include "House-of-the-Triad citizenship" in such a trade.

This came about in the question of whether signing a pact to become a Devil for the express purpose of joining the Blood War and fighting Demons to preserve the existence of the Multiverse is a good act.

Gotta admit, as trolley problems go, the Blood War is a fascinating one. How much cooler would Zariel's backstory be if, instead of thinking that she could take on devils and demons both in one fell swoop (like, whut? ), she directly came to the conclusion that Baator was the lesser and necessary evil? Or maybe the General of Gehenna could be revealed as a previous celestial observer of the Blood War, who decided to take an active role in preventing any winner to ever emerge from it. And from there you could indeed have a whole host of Blood-War locks.

[Chaosmancer]

I'm still stuck on how you'd do this other than having two completely separate rulesets. Which is obnoxious enough that I'll put up with the "DM fiat" method of letting events bubble up. There aren't even any rulesets I'd be willing to use just for the realm management. It's something that fundamentally doesn't work in a TTRPG in my opinion, since the level of abstraction is just so different.

And the more you try to have interacting systems, the more (at much-faster-than-linear pace) the workload grows. I run two games weekly, plus work full time. There's absolutely no way I could handle doing the full-granularity even for a single weekly game, at least if the world is more than just paper thickness or super tiny.

It isn't out yet, but Matt Colville has a system that seems to be really good for this sort of thing. It isn't quite what I want, I have his Stronghold's book and I've had to modify somethings, but he is setting up something fairly abstracted that can be delved into more, from the look of the preview material.

And, I'm with Max. Some of our best games have been rebuilding towns or cities, and making your character important on the larger scale. My character negotiated a trade deal recently that is going to get us the wealth to upgrade our soldiers, who despite being poorly equipped have been devastatingly effective because of the magic of the party. And that level is cool, but then also we went to a new city following a quest line and there wasn't even a question of us cutting the line and meeting with the city leaders, because we were important enough that treating us like commoners wasn't acceptable. And that is also a very cool feeling to realize that because of your influence, you are getting the VIP treatment.


Edit: Reading more comments... I think part of the disconnect is that you are running multiple groups in a single setting that interact with each other. I never attempt that, too much overhead work to line people up and then you have potential frustrations between groups as one group ruins the plans for a second by accident.


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The bottom line, then, appears to be that don't want me to play D&D differently than you play D&D.

If you cannot possibly play DnD differently than the official books lay out, then I guess not. But since this is a half a degree of change that 90% of players probably won't even notice, I'm not sure why deciding to change it back would be so hard for you.


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Your presumption that each instance of a D&D game is an attempt to "create art" seems a bit broad.

Just out of curiosity: are you a game designer?

I am not a game designer. I am an author.

But "art" is a very broad term sometimes. Comic strips in the newspaper are often considered "low art" or "ephemera". Same with things like the design of a bar sign or an advertisement. And, while they aren't "important" I'm sure you can imagine how badly it could go if people just decided "well, that advertisement is just featuring made up people, so it doesn't matter how we portray them".


And... as an author, as someone who dives into criticism and world-building, it aggravates me to no end to see people dismiss any possible consequences for what they do because "they aren't real people". Because at the end of the day, what they are saying is that only real people can impact the world. Mickey Mouse? Pointless. Superman? Can't change the world. Frodo Baggins? Can't change people's minds.

And since I just named two of the biggest world-wide characters and a character very minorly partially responsible for creating DnD, I'm sure you get the point that saying fictional people can't matter makes no sense. Just because they are imaginary people in an imaginary world doesn't mean that they can't impact the world we live in. Whether it is just the local people who overhear you at your FLGS or world wide.

What you create has consequences.


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When selling your services, these can vary in nature and number. A celestial wouldn't attempt to deprive you of the ability to refuse them further services. A fiend would twist your contractual relationship until you are forced to serve them in all things and forever.

When selling your soul/self, you have only the one, so it is an all-or-nothing deal. A celestial wouldn't want you to commit such self-harm. A fiend, well, it would save them the trouble.

I would expect a god like Torm to reserve his divine realm to those who adore him and/or live by his ideals. His angels might offer pact magic, but I highly doubt he would allow them to include "House-of-the-Triad citizenship" in such a trade.

I'm not disagreeing with you on the actual by-play that occurs, but trying to highlight where the objectiveness of the system breaks down to make things a bit of a mess if taken seriously. In actual play, yeah, Fiends are going to try and twist things, but importantly in my setting I have Devil's offer contracts where good is possible to achieve.

I actually had a player make a contract in a game once, and she ended up as the Archduchess of Stygia, just getting pulled deeper and deeper. She saved an entire group of people, and they stayed saved for their entire lifetimes, but end result also netted us an official Devil Religion in the Elven Kingdom (that was entirely another player's choice, which was beautiful, as they basically relied on her being their good friend and didn't think through where it would all lead)


But, back on topic, you said something that I think highlights the issue a bit. You said "A celestial wouldn't want you to commit such self-harm." Now, I know you didn't mean this to be taken in this manner, but let us run with this for a bit. The act of selling your soul is Evil because it is harmful to your self. Sounds fair, if a Celestial allowed you to sell your soul then that would be an evil act just like a fiend. However, wouldn't this also in an objective "the act is what matters" system, mean that a heroic self-sacrifice is Evil?

Again, if I am working from the position that motivation and intention don't matter, and selling your soul to a fiend to protect people is Evil because it is self-harm, then sacrificing yourself to hold the line and let civilians or your allies escape would be Evil for the same reason. Self-Harm in the defense of others.

And I know the typical response that I might see from some other posters is that "well, the devil will twist the deal to make it cause more harm than good" but that leads us to a second problem. My character becomes evil because of the actions of someone else. Classic trope, heroes retrieve an item for a secret villain. They have no idea that this is the case, and the villain uses the McGuffin to suck the souls out of a city of people, killing thousands. Are the player's evil for helping to aid the villain's plans? I think there would be a lot of player's highly ticked off if they got metaphysically labeled Evil for being tricked by the villain. And yet, we seem to be fine doing that to people for making deals with fiends.

And the only reason I can think of, is because "well, you should know better, they are fiends" but the problem I've found with that over the year is that it leads to boring interactions. The players never make deals with anything, they are never tempted to take an offer of help from anything they know via the metagame is Evil. I had a player who once was on a quest to discover immortality, they weren't a good person, but not an evil one. The group encountered an Aboleth, knowing what it was out of character, but not really sure in character, and it started psychically offering them deals. It offered this character a recipe for immortality... and they just flat said no. Because Aboleths are evil. So that entire thread just snapped off, because they wouldn't even entertain the notion.

Trapped demon? They won't make a deal with it, they'll just ignore it. A fiend offers them help? They ignore it. All of these potential tropes are immediately dead on arrival, because those beings are Evil therefore we don't make deals with them. It is why I get so much more use out of Fey, because they don't have that immediate flashing sign that tells players to ignore them.

Gotta admit, as trolley problems go, the Blood War is a fascinating one. How much cooler would Zariel's backstory be if, instead of thinking that she could take on devils and demons both in one fell swoop (like, whut? ), she directly came to the conclusion that Baator was the lesser and necessary evil? Or maybe the General of Gehenna could be revealed as a previous celestial observer of the Blood War, who decided to take an active role in preventing any winner to ever emerge from it. And from there you could indeed have a whole host of Blood-War locks.

I actually did change Zariel's backstory to basically be that. She was the first being Asmodeus convinced to join him, before the creation of the Nine Hells. A powerful angel who guarded the gate as he recovered from the process of forming the Nine Hells.

I also shifted Avernus. It has a special property that highlights bot how bad-ass my version of Zariel is, but why none of the major players dare to set foot on Avernus to fight there. It is a massive bronze "disc" inscribed with a planet sized runic circle. Anything killed in Avernus stays dead instead of being sent back to its home plane. It not only makes Zariel freakin' scary as hell (she fought there alone until Asmodeus could start recruiting) but it also acts as the ultimate deterrent. The Gods and Demon Lords may want to destroy the Nine Hells, but getting past the Gate means risking their eternal existence, and that is a bit pricey for them.


But yes, I think it makes for a much more interesting story, and for a much more tempting view for means of deals and such, if everyone can agree that the Devils are the lesser of two Evils. That gives them some leverage since then all they have to do is convince you they are more effective than the Gods.

[KorvinStarmast]

And... as an author, as someone who dives into criticism and world-building, it aggravates me to no end to see people dismiss any possible consequences for what they do because "they aren't real people".

Some people - and in my experience, more than don't - treat D&D as a game, and no more than that. Your aggravation is a self-inflicted wound, an own goal, for a significant proportion of cases.

Others, myself included, like to slowly build a world through emergent game play. But you are utterly unaffected by what we do at our table. If you are a published author, then your stories, since they are perhaps spread over a significant population, may have consequences. I have read a great deal of fiction, many genres; very few have had an impact on me. (I will give a shout out to Robin Hobb for inspiring me to approach world building differently, for example).

In a nutshell: Sturgeon's Law applies to writing as well.

I recommend that you read my commentary here on black dragons, are they inherently evil?

Spoiler: FWIW

Show

I wrote that answer long before I read the Order of the Stick from first strip forward.

Back before there was an internet {AD&D days} I had a blue dragon ruling a realm as a part of my game world. (Granted, this blue dragon was a very tough master to please, but their servants did their level best ...).

[Tanarii]

It's worth noting that even most of the demi-human PHB playable races have an typical Alignment listed for them. It's not like entire non-human races commonly having an associated alignment is restricted to the "frequently evil" humanoids. They just have gods influencing them from birth throughout their lives, and a feedback loop from the resulting culture that reinforces it.

That godly influence on moral and social attitudes a fantastic bit of 5e lore. Just as the added detail on cultures provided by Volos. I already enjoyed that book, but this discussion has cemented for me how genius and important the it really was. As is the alignment lore for "normally evil" humanoids.

Show, don't tell. And 5e has done that in spades.

[Warder]

It's worth noting that even most of the demi-human PHB playable races have an typical Alignment listed for them. It's not like entire non-human races commonly having an associated alignment is restricted to the "frequently evil" humanoids. They just have gods influencing them from birth throughout their lives, and a feedback loop from the resulting culture that reinforces it.

That godly influence on moral and social attitudes a fantastic bit of 5e lore. Just as the added detail on cultures provided by Volos. I already enjoyed that book, but this discussion has cemented for me how genius and important the it really was. As is the alignment lore for "normally evil" humanoids.

Show, don't tell. And 5e has done that in spades.

I really agree with this. Contrast that to the new Candlekeep book where they removed alignment from monster statblocks entirely, and it's pretty obvious that WotC is steamrolling in one particular direction, and there's no stopping that train. :/

[Tanarii]

I really agree with this. Contrast that to the new Candlekeep book where they removed alignment from monster statblocks entirely, and it's pretty obvious that WotC is steamrolling in one particular direction, and there's no stopping that train. :/

See, now THAT is something Wotc could do to address the complaints of the folks complaining. Just remove alignments entirely. That'd cause some grognard screaming, possibly including mine. But at least they'd be doing something meaningful.

Not this incredibly poorly thought out Tasha's "ability score adjustments are cultural, you can more them around" hack of a rule, which does absolutely nothing meaningful.

[Naanomi]

She was the first being Asmodeus convinced to join him, before the creation of the Nine Hells. A powerful angel who guarded the gate as he recovered from the process of forming the Nine Hells.

Note that in official lore, Asmodeus *absolutely* did not create the Nine Hells... it (probably, depending on which backstory of Asmodeus we accept as true) preceded him by uncountable eons. It came into existence 'naturally' (or, according to the laws of the nascent Outer Planes as they developed); with a little help from the actions of the Baernaloth, perhaps Ahriman, and maybe the presence of Piscaethces. A whole race of fiends occupied the place and then... something... and were (mostly) gone before he took over.

It frames Asmodeus (and other Planar Rulers) in a much different light and role than default expectations if he can create new planes of existence (just as it did in 4e when he somehow threw an entire infinite plane into another one... justifying it by saying he became a God, who *also* don't have the power to do anything like that... something 5e swept under the rug and quietly retconned away). He is powerful, supremely important in the cosmos; but not a world-builder in that way.

[Segev]

If you cannot possibly play DnD differently than the official books lay out, then I guess not. But since this is a half a degree of change that 90% of players probably won't even notice, I'm not sure why deciding to change it back would be so hard for you.

Logically, then, if 90% of players wouldn't notice, and you can play D&D differently than the official books lay out, why don't you just play it the way you are requesting the change to be made, rather than requesting the change be made to the official books?

You can play it differently than the official books lay out, so you can play it with the change you're requesting. 90% of players probably wouldn't notice, according to you, if the change was made, so you have to accept that (at least) 90% of players probably don't see a problem with it as things are. If the change is so minor that it's no big deal to "change things back" for a personal game, why are you insisting/demanding/requesting/arguing for the change to be made in the first place, rather than taking your own advice and just playing D&D the way you want to play it?

Note: I was skimming and came across this bit I quoted. I don't know what change you're advocating for because I didn't go back to look for context. I am simply pointing out what I believe to be a very bad argument for your apparent position that something should change. "It won't matter if it changes, and won't hurt you, and most people won't notice, and you can ignore the change," is more an argument for why you can just change it for your personal games rather than pushing for it to change in the official books.

A push to have the official books changed to match your desires suggests that it is NOT possible to play the game differently than the official books read, OR that it is NOT likely that most players wouldn't notice, or that it is NOT so inconsequential a change that it wouldn't impact the rest of the game in a way that makes it hard to revert the change.

If your argument as I quoted it is true, then you can make the change without needing the books to change.

[MaxWilson]

But, back on topic, you said something that I think highlights the issue a bit. You said "A celestial wouldn't want you to commit such self-harm." Now, I know you didn't mean this to be taken in this manner, but let us run with this for a bit. The act of selling your soul is Evil because it is harmful to your self. Sounds fair, if a Celestial allowed you to sell your soul then that would be an evil act just like a fiend. However, wouldn't this also in an objective "the act is what matters" system, mean that a heroic self-sacrifice is Evil?

Again, if I am working from the position that motivation and intention don't matter, and selling your soul to a fiend to protect people is Evil because it is self-harm, then sacrificing yourself to hold the line and let civilians or your allies escape would be Evil for the same reason. Self-Harm in the defense of others.

And I know the typical response that I might see from some other posters is that "well, the devil will twist the deal to make it cause more harm than good" but that leads us to a second problem. My character becomes evil because of the actions of someone else. Classic trope, heroes retrieve an item for a secret villain. They have no idea that this is the case, and the villain uses the McGuffin to suck the souls out of a city of people, killing thousands. Are the player's evil for helping to aid the villain's plans? I think there would be a lot of player's highly ticked off if they got metaphysically labeled Evil for being tricked by the villain. And yet, we seem to be fine doing that to people for making deals with fiends.

And the only reason I can think of, is because "well, you should know better, they are fiends" but the problem I've found with that over the year is that it leads to boring interactions. The players never make deals with anything, they are never tempted to take an offer of help from anything they know via the metagame is Evil. I had a player who once was on a quest to discover immortality, they weren't a good person, but not an evil one. The group encountered an Aboleth, knowing what it was out of character, but not really sure in character, and it started psychically offering them deals. It offered this character a recipe for immortality... and they just flat said no. Because Aboleths are evil. So that entire thread just snapped off, because they wouldn't even entertain the notion.

Trapped demon? They won't make a deal with it, they'll just ignore it. A fiend offers them help? They ignore it. All of these potential tropes are immediately dead on arrival, because those beings are Evil therefore we don't make deals with them. It is why I get so much more use out of Fey, because they don't have that immediate flashing sign that tells players to ignore them.

It kind of sounds like the issue here may be at least partly that the players are overestimating the demons--as if they're all masterminds of Xanatos gambits. Immortality, well of course they'd refuse, that's too big a lure, obviously someone's going to get exploited there. But what if a trapped and starving Nalfeshnee in an ancient pentagram offers to answer questions about the recent or distant past in exchange for a bucket of water to quench its thirst?

I think in order to make an offer of immortality recipe credible it has to come from someone who would believably be offering it to you, which means either it's someone who doesn't want anything from you in return (the wise old master on top of a mountain, or a dead sage whose words are written in his journal that you found) or someone who expects to get something of equivalent value from you. If you've got the Aboleth over a barrel then the offer might be real (although the recipe could still turn out to be incredibly difficult to execute and/or require terrible things like cutting out your own heart with a bone spoon) but out of the blue it smells too good to be true. No wonder they were wary, in-character and out-.

As for fiends, my biggest problem with 5E-style warlocks is how bad the fiends apparently are at wriggling out of their obligations. "If you murder your parents I will whisper secrets in your ear that will grant you access to power you have never before dreamed" should be one way to become a Fiendlock, but 90%+ of the time it should result in nothing useful due to malicious compliance (e.g. the whispers happen when the character is asleep after the murders, so he never becomes a warlock), unless the character spots the flaw and clarifies the contract in advance. On the other hand, if the DM makes it clear that THIS particular Fiendlock beat a fiend at the contract game at least once (in backstory) and got it to actually deliver as promised, maybe you'll find players more willing to entertain fiendish offers as a tough-but-not-impossible challenge in extremis.

[Millstone85]

But, back on topic, you said something that I think highlights the issue a bit. You said "A celestial wouldn't want you to commit such self-harm." Now, I know you didn't mean this to be taken in this manner, but let us run with this for a bit. The act of selling your soul is Evil because it is harmful to your self. Sounds fair, if a Celestial allowed you to sell your soul then that would be an evil act just like a fiend. However, wouldn't this also in an objective "the act is what matters" system, mean that a heroic self-sacrifice is Evil?

Sorry, but no, I don't feel like running with this. My phrasing could have been better, but I indeed didn't mean that the celestial wouldn't let you commit the evil act of selling your soul. Rather, the celestial themself wouldn't commit the evil act of owning a soul other than their own.

[Segev]

Also, "self-harm" being defined as including "allowing yourself to be in danger of being harmed without that being your goal" is a bad idea. It muddies the concept in a way that hinders discussion.

In context, it's almost always true (and fairly obvious) that "self-harm" refers to deliberately self-destructive acts with the self-destruction as the implied motive. "Self-sacrifice" is the term typically used when there is risk - even certitude - of harm coming to oneself, but the motive is decidedly not the damage to oneself and said damage would be avoided if the one performing the self-sacrifice could achieve the same ends with less harm to himself.

The word "sacrifice" implies, if not outright denotes, that the one performing it would not be engaging in it without something else he values more being obtained/achieved/protected in return. If the loss/harm/whatever is a positive, it's not a "sacrifice."

"Yes, let me sacrifice this cursed item that has done nothing but make me miserable my whole life in return for a cheeseburger! I will gladly do it!" is pretty clearly not a 'sacrifice' so much as an excuse to get rid of the cursed item.

Skeletor having to "sacrifice" He-Man on an altar to gain ultimate power is hardly a sacrifice. He gets to kill somebody he hates and gets power out of the bargain. He'd probably "sacrifice" He-Man on that altar if he had to pay something for the privilege and got nothing but He-Man's death in return. At any point where the "sacrifice" is, itself, a prize, it's not really a sacrifice at all.

Thus, to bring this back around, "self-harm" and "self-sacrifice" are conceptually distinct in these sorts of discussions, because self-sacrifice is never the kind of self-harm that one might deem to be "evil." People may confuse one for the other, but there is a difference, even if only those who know the inner workings of the mind and soul making the choices can ultimately be sure.

[JoeJ]

If you cannot possibly play DnD differently than the official books lay out, then I guess not. But since this is a half a degree of change that 90% of players probably won't even notice, I'm not sure why deciding to change it back would be so hard for you.

It's no harder for you than it is for me. Since the only thing wrong with leaving it alone is that it's not to your personal taste, you should be the one to change it for your game.

[Chaosmancer]

Some people - and in my experience, more than don't - treat D&D as a game, and no more than that. Your aggravation is a self-inflicted wound, an own goal, for a significant proportion of cases.

Others, myself included, like to slowly build a world through emergent game play. But you are utterly unaffected by what we do at our table. If you are a published author, then your stories, since they are perhaps spread over a significant population, may have consequences. I have read a great deal of fiction, many genres; very few have had an impact on me. (I will give a shout out to Robin Hobb for inspiring me to approach world building differently, for example).

In a nutshell: Sturgeon's Law applies to writing as well.

I recommend that you read my commentary here on black dragons, are they inherently evil?

Spoiler: FWIW

Show

I wrote that answer long before I read the Order of the Stick from first strip forward.

Back before there was an internet {AD&D days} I had a blue dragon ruling a realm as a part of my game world. (Granted, this blue dragon was a very tough master to please, but their servants did their level best ...).

Do you think I am somehow unaware that my frustrations come from myself? Or that I'm am not personally injured every time someone does something I don't like in a game dozens if not hundreds of miles away from me in the privacy of their own home?

And yet, you mention something, I'm going to pull it out. "since they are perhaps spread over a significant population, may have consequences." This little bit. You acknowledge that it is possible for fictional worlds to affect people if they are spread over a large enough audience. Games too. People make millions off of Football, and that is just a game. So being a game and being fictional don't prevent things from having an impact. Size does.

Dungeons and Dragons is estimated to have a player base of 13 MILLION people. To give some context, here are some book series that have an estimated number of sales around 13 million.

Matilda
The Outsiders
Grapes of Wrath
The Old Man and the Sea
Dante's Divine Comedy
Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy
The Exorcist
50 Shades of Grey
The Life of Pi
Farhenheit 451

You likely recognize at least one of these. Four or Five of them were turned into major movies that I've seen. So, do you think that just maybe how DnD presents its default setting might matter beyond your table? Matter enough that just saying "fictional people don't matter" is a short-sighted way to view it?

Yes, what you do at your table only affects a small number of people. What DnD presents as its default world affects millions. So, perhaps we shouldn't dismiss it out of hand just because I am not personally affected by your table.


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See, now THAT is something Wotc could do to address the complaints of the folks complaining. Just remove alignments entirely. That'd cause some grognard screaming, possibly including mine. But at least they'd be doing something meaningful.

A change I'd welcome with open arms. I haven't used official alignment for... pretty much ever.



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Note that in official lore, Asmodeus *absolutely* did not create the Nine Hells... it (probably, depending on which backstory of Asmodeus we accept as true) preceded him by uncountable eons. It came into existence 'naturally' (or, according to the laws of the nascent Outer Planes as they developed); with a little help from the actions of the Baernaloth, perhaps Ahriman, and maybe the presence of Piscaethces. A whole race of fiends occupied the place and then... something... and were (mostly) gone before he took over.

It frames Asmodeus (and other Planar Rulers) in a much different light and role than default expectations if he can create new planes of existence (just as it did in 4e when he somehow threw an entire infinite plane into another one... justifying it by saying he became a God, who *also* don't have the power to do anything like that... something 5e swept under the rug and quietly retconned away). He is powerful, supremely important in the cosmos; but not a world-builder in that way.

I am aware my personal homebrew lore isn't the official lore.

In truth, in my setting his "real body" is bigger than the Hells, but that is some deep lore of my world to explain why you can't get around Avernus.


And again, yeah, I homebrewed that. I know it isn't official lore.


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Logically, then, if 90% of players wouldn't notice, and you can play D&D differently than the official books lay out, why don't you just play it the way you are requesting the change to be made, rather than requesting the change be made to the official books?

You can play it differently than the official books lay out, so you can play it with the change you're requesting. 90% of players probably wouldn't notice, according to you, if the change was made, so you have to accept that (at least) 90% of players probably don't see a problem with it as things are. If the change is so minor that it's no big deal to "change things back" for a personal game, why are you insisting/demanding/requesting/arguing for the change to be made in the first place, rather than taking your own advice and just playing D&D the way you want to play it?

Note: I was skimming and came across this bit I quoted. I don't know what change you're advocating for because I didn't go back to look for context. I am simply pointing out what I believe to be a very bad argument for your apparent position that something should change. "It won't matter if it changes, and won't hurt you, and most people won't notice, and you can ignore the change," is more an argument for why you can just change it for your personal games rather than pushing for it to change in the official books.

A push to have the official books changed to match your desires suggests that it is NOT possible to play the game differently than the official books read, OR that it is NOT likely that most players wouldn't notice, or that it is NOT so inconsequential a change that it wouldn't impact the rest of the game in a way that makes it hard to revert the change.

If your argument as I quoted it is true, then you can make the change without needing the books to change.

Of course I can change it. I have changed it. And my players likely haven't realized I changed it, because it never occurred to them that the fact I can have them interacting peacefully with Orcs is something that is so revolutionary.

But, it does matter how DnD presents itself. It does matter that DnD is accepting this idea that there are groups of people, who are people, who are born violent and savage and evil. They are born naturally criminal, uncivilized and a threat to the "good people" of the world.

Advocating for or against that narrative matters when we are talking about a world-wide game. Even though each individual table can change it without their players likely noticing that they changed it.

Unless you happen to present babies to be murdered less they grow up evil.


Out of Post Order

Also, "self-harm" being defined as including "allowing yourself to be in danger of being harmed without that being your goal" is a bad idea. It muddies the concept in a way that hinders discussion.

In context, it's almost always true (and fairly obvious) that "self-harm" refers to deliberately self-destructive acts with the self-destruction as the implied motive. "Self-sacrifice" is the term typically used when there is risk - even certitude - of harm coming to oneself, but the motive is decidedly not the damage to oneself and said damage would be avoided if the one performing the self-sacrifice could achieve the same ends with less harm to himself.

The word "sacrifice" implies, if not outright denotes, that the one performing it would not be engaging in it without something else he values more being obtained/achieved/protected in return. If the loss/harm/whatever is a positive, it's not a "sacrifice."

"Yes, let me sacrifice this cursed item that has done nothing but make me miserable my whole life in return for a cheeseburger! I will gladly do it!" is pretty clearly not a 'sacrifice' so much as an excuse to get rid of the cursed item.

Skeletor having to "sacrifice" He-Man on an altar to gain ultimate power is hardly a sacrifice. He gets to kill somebody he hates and gets power out of the bargain. He'd probably "sacrifice" He-Man on that altar if he had to pay something for the privilege and got nothing but He-Man's death in return. At any point where the "sacrifice" is, itself, a prize, it's not really a sacrifice at all.

Thus, to bring this back around, "self-harm" and "self-sacrifice" are conceptually distinct in these sorts of discussions, because self-sacrifice is never the kind of self-harm that one might deem to be "evil." People may confuse one for the other, but there is a difference, even if only those who know the inner workings of the mind and soul making the choices can ultimately be sure.

Sure, that is a legitimate way of looking at it, but I was again told that I must be approaching this from a place where the action is more important than the motivation or the reason.

Killing an innocent man is just as evil if you do it for laughs or if you do it to save a million lives from eternal slavery. It is the action that matters.

And so the action of "knowingly taking an action which causes harm to yourself" can't include the motivations or the goals, because I was told that those things do not apply to this objective framework.

And if the motivation does matter, if a sacrifice is heroic, then how is sacrificing yourself by selling your soul, so that you can fight eternally in the Blood War to protect innocent lives an evil act? Your motivation is the same as a heroic sacrifice by throwing yourself into a portal or something else to protect people, if that is good, why is the pact evil?


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It kind of sounds like the issue here may be at least partly that the players are overestimating the demons--as if they're all masterminds of Xanatos gambits. Immortality, well of course they'd refuse, that's too big a lure, obviously someone's going to get exploited there. But what if a trapped and starving Nalfeshnee in an ancient pentagram offers to answer questions about the recent or distant past in exchange for a bucket of water to quench its thirst?

I think in order to make an offer of immortality recipe credible it has to come from someone who would believably be offering it to you, which means either it's someone who doesn't want anything from you in return (the wise old master on top of a mountain, or a dead sage whose words are written in his journal that you found) or someone who expects to get something of equivalent value from you. If you've got the Aboleth over a barrel then the offer might be real (although the recipe could still turn out to be incredibly difficult to execute and/or require terrible things like cutting out your own heart with a bone spoon) but out of the blue it smells too good to be true. No wonder they were wary, in-character and out-.

As for fiends, my biggest problem with 5E-style warlocks is how bad the fiends apparently are at wriggling out of their obligations. "If you murder your parents I will whisper secrets in your ear that will grant you access to power you have never before dreamed" should be one way to become a Fiendlock, but 90%+ of the time it should result in nothing useful due to malicious compliance (e.g. the whispers happen when the character is asleep after the murders, so he never becomes a warlock), unless the character spots the flaw and clarifies the contract in advance. On the other hand, if the DM makes it clear that THIS particular Fiendlock beat a fiend at the contract game at least once (in backstory) and got it to actually deliver as promised, maybe you'll find players more willing to entertain fiendish offers as a tough-but-not-impossible challenge in extremis.

The player's actual response was "Because I want to do it myself", but I am still convinced it was just that the Aboleth was evil. They are smart enough to have that sort of thing, and I can't remember quite why it was offering things... I think it was just trying to avoid a fight because the player's found it by accident looking for something else.

And, maybe they are overestimating the genius of their foes, but they'd immediately call BS on the Nalfesheen, since they don't need to eat or drink. Or they'd just let it continue to thirst. Every player I've had except the one has pretty much always taken the position of "if it is evil and offering a deal, the answer is no"


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Sorry, but no, I don't feel like running with this. My phrasing could have been better, but I indeed didn't mean that the celestial wouldn't let you commit the evil act of selling your soul. Rather, the celestial themself wouldn't commit the evil act of owning a soul other than their own.

Fair enough, but that just leaves us kind of floundering.

Pacts with Celestials can't be evil because Celestials won't make evil pacts. But Pacts with Fiends are always Evil because Fiends will always make Evil Pacts. It is basically a tautology. We can't say anything about the Objective Good or Objective Evil of the pacts, because they are good or evil based on who you make the pact with.


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It's no harder for you than it is for me. Since the only thing wrong with leaving it alone is that it's not to your personal taste, you should be the one to change it for your game.

I would say there is far more wrong than just my personal taste. Otherwise I wouldn't still be arguing about this.

[zzzzzzzz414]

The main thing I'm getting out of this thread is that I should probably avoid putting the intricacies of the default as-written Great Wheel and of goblinoid/drow/orc/other "evil race" cosmology in particular in my campaign at all, unless i specifically want to suddenly change the genre to "Cosmic Horror", and the longterm goals of any party of halfway-good (by any definition I'm willing to entertain, anyway) PCs to "Attack and Dethrone God".

Like really I'm not sure what self-described defender of justice and right, of sufficient power to do something about it, doesn't look at this bureaucratic cosmological horrorshow and go "oh wow this entire system and everyone involved in its creation needs to go in the garbage, like, yesterday. we gotta burn this whole thing to the ground." And like that's all very good and fun but it also can't be the plot of every campaign, so that makes positioning it as the default cosmology of the default setting, and a core part of the default (inborn and practically universal, apparently) moral character of several default playable races, a bit of a problem.

[JoeJ]

I would say there is far more wrong than just my personal taste. Otherwise I wouldn't still be arguing about this.

And in saying that, you would be in error. Your dislike for a trope =/= it's a bad or harmful trope.

[Naanomi]

I am aware my personal homebrew lore isn't the official lore.

I get that, but as soon as you start taking someone who is 'an important Outsider who nominally rules an important part of the Outer Planes' and turn him into 'a universe sculpting cornerstone of reality' then... it isn't just your interpretation or version of the same character; it is an entirely different concept that happens to both share a name with a character from Dante.

Which is fine, of course, for your own setting... but becomes rather irrelevant for cosmology discussions of an established setting

[OldTrees1]

The main thing I'm getting out of this thread is that I should probably avoid putting the intricacies of the default as-written Great Wheel and of goblinoid/drow/orc/other "evil race" cosmology in particular in my campaign at all, unless i specifically want to suddenly change the genre to "Cosmic Horror", and the longterm goals of any party of halfway-good (by any definition I'm willing to entertain, anyway) PCs to "Attack and Dethrone God".

Like really I'm not sure what self-described defender of justice and right, of sufficient power to do something about it, doesn't look at this bureaucratic cosmological horrorshow and go "oh wow this entire system and everyone involved in its creation needs to go in the garbage, like, yesterday. we gotta burn this whole thing to the ground." And like that's all very good and fun but it also can't be the plot of every campaign, so that makes positioning it as the default cosmology of the default setting, and a core part of the default (inborn and practically universal, apparently) moral character of several default playable races, a bit of a problem.

That was my reaction to the 5E Gnolls.

I am curious, what about Ghouls and Illithids using their default lore? I suspect there is some differentiation, but I am curious either way.

[Naanomi]

Like really I'm not sure what self-described defender of justice and right, of sufficient power to do something about it

Well, and there is the rub to some degree... it would take top tier adventurers to overturn individual things on that scale, and it would still be virtually impossible to overturn the specifics of the entire system. Heroes do good and defend justice and right on the local level, and sometimes (just like in real life) one has to be nominally satisfied with pushing out incremental and local gains in the face of adversity

That was my reaction to the 5E Gnolls.

The change in Gnoll lore was pretty frustrating. Nothing compared to the treatment Yugoloth got (for different reasons, obviously), but still annoying... especially when some established settings had gnoll civilizations and the like

[Chaosmancer]

And in saying that, you would be in error. Your dislike for a trope =/= it's a bad or harmful trope.

And your desire to keep a tradition doesn't mean that the tradition is good, either now or moving forward into the future.

We can argue all day about why I am a bad person for wanting a game I love to not point to people who are very clearly close to human and saying "those people are evil, because they are born that way" but I'm not going to feel bad about advocating for that to change.


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I get that, but as soon as you start taking someone who is 'an important Outsider who nominally rules an important part of the Outer Planes' and turn him into 'a universe sculpting cornerstone of reality' then... it isn't just your interpretation or version of the same character; it is an entirely different concept that happens to both share a name with a character from Dante.

Which is fine, of course, for your own setting... but becomes rather irrelevant for cosmology discussions of an established setting

Okay???

Millstone was musing about how it could be interesting to change Zariel's lore. I told them about how I had changed Zariel's lore. I in no way was trying to use my setting to discuss cosmology in any way shape or form. It was a complete tangent.

I guess I'm sorry for confusing you with a tangent? I'm really not seeing what your issue is here.

Well, and there is the rub to some degree... it would take top tier adventurers to overturn individual things on that scale, and it would still be virtually impossible to overturn the specifics of the entire system. Heroes do good and defend justice and right on the local level, and sometimes (just like in real life) one has to be nominally satisfied with pushing out incremental and local gains in the face of adversity

See that is... highly frustrating in a game about being heroes, including in it the idea that you ultimately can't change anything. Sure, that happens in a lot of fiction, I get it, but DnD allows (in some versions) the players to literally challenge the gods and overthrow the sources of Evil. It doesn't sit right to also be told "ultimately, everything is unfair and you can't change that. Do what little good you can."

The change in Gnoll lore was pretty frustrating. Nothing compared to the treatment Yugoloth got (for different reasons, obviously), but still annoying... especially when some established settings had gnoll civilizations and the like

I've gone back and forth on them. I think the 5e lore is good for an enemy. But some settings have gnolls that are some of my favorite characters in fiction, so I teeter-totter on it.

[Segev]

We can argue all day about why I am a bad person for wanting a game I love to not point to people who are very clearly close to human and saying "those people are evil, because they are born that way" but I'm not going to feel bad about advocating for that to change.

First off, I don't think anybody called you a bad person for this, just pointed out that demanding a change you don't think anybody would notice doesn't make sense compared to simply saying it's something you change.

Secondly, the trouble is that 5e already doesn't do that (with the exception of gnolls, for some strange reason). The description of orcs and goblins and all the like isn't saying "they're born evil." It's characterizing their cultures and the typical antagonist-creatures that PCs are expected to encounter.

Therefore, the insinuation that the game does claim "they're born evil" even in 5e and that this requires some sort of affirmative change is an insinuation that those who like the game as-is are bad people because they want to justify killing orc babies, at least when this whole conversation is taken as context. And since the proposed change may allege that all it wants to do is stop insisting XYZ race is "always evil," but seems to do more than just that in most cases when we see the actual proposed changes, it starts to feel like "do it our way or you're a bad person."

5e already does what you say you change and nobody notices in your games. So it's not really a change. Because of this, an insistence that it must still change naturally causes people to interpret that as "must change further," and the examples they see from other changes along this vein that are demanded are NOT minor and seem hostile to D&D as it was developed, the purpose of D&D as a pretendy-fun-time action-adventure, and to imply that people are wicked for liking D&D up until now and going forward if they don't wholeheartedly support these changes.

Now, you may well not intend that implication. And it may seem to you that anybody who infers this attack on their character and the game is factually wrong. But this is where a lot of the pushback comes from. A lot of the change seems like change-for-the-sake-of-change and/or to be cloaking bad changes in a veil of "only bad people would dare question this." Again, even if that's not your intent, that line of attack has been taken often enough that people perceive it, especially on the internet with just text to work from.

[MaxWilson]

We can argue all day about why I am a bad person for wanting *snip*

Where did you get the idea that having a bad idea makes you a bad person?

[Naanomi]

See that is... highly frustrating in a game about being heroes, including in it the idea that you ultimately can't change anything. Sure, that happens in a lot of fiction, I get it, but DnD allows (in some versions) the players to literally challenge the gods and overthrow the sources of Evil. It doesn't sit right to also be told "ultimately, everything is unfair and you can't change that. Do what little good you can."

I mean... every setting ever that you cannot literally rewrite reality in your wake will have some cap on what you can accomplish in your goals. DnD, outside of perhaps Immortals Boxed Set stuff (which was... a mess) has never been a setting of 'overturning the entire applecart'; even if you get to epic levels and kill one particularly bothersome Evil God; there are uncountable more still out there. If you overthrow Asmodeus, it doesn't end Lawful Evilness in the universe; just a period of disruption until someone takes his place. Shut the gate to the Far Realm? The unimaginable threat is still lurking just beyond the seams of reality waiting for a chance to spill back in.

One of the truths of the Planescape setting, one that has echoed through DnD since it became the primary cosmology model, is one of the often incomprehensible scale of the universe, and of each individual's small part in it. And yet, 'center of all': even in that vast ocean you can affect change that matters to you; accomplish goals that do make a difference on a scale that is still somehow important. I find... grandeur in this sort of 'bigger than you' setting, one that is cheapened a little if the only reason Evil still exists at all is just because some PC hasn't rolled well enough to stop it yet.

Heck, in Darksun (a setting I have had a lot of fun in) you are lucky to just survive day to day being good, let alone accomplishing anything. In Ravenloft you are lucky just to keep being Good at all whether you like it or not.

[JoeJ]

And your desire to keep a tradition doesn't mean that the tradition is good, either now or moving forward into the future.

Right, but since you want to change it, the burden is on you to show why. Your individual preference is not a sufficient reason for others to change.

We can argue all day about why I am a bad person for wanting a game I love to not point to people who are very clearly close to human and saying "those people are evil, because they are born that way" but I'm not going to feel bad about advocating for that to change.

As far as I've seen, nobody has called you a bad person expect you yourself, just now.

[zzzzzzzz414]

Well, and there is the rub to some degree... it would take top tier adventurers to overturn individual things on that scale, and it would still be virtually impossible to overturn the specifics of the entire system. Heroes do good and defend justice and right on the local level, and sometimes (just like in real life) one has to be nominally satisfied with pushing out incremental and local gains in the face of adversity.

That's most people's response to large-scale institutional evils in real life, certainly. And likely the reaction of most people in-universe, even the ones that do know about cosmology. But, well, these are PCs we're talking about, not taking such things lying down is basically their job description and "virtually impossible" is just something the NPCs say to make their eventual victory feel even more awesome.

If someone described an evil, immortal king who uses what essentially amounts to a form of mind control plus massive social pressure to subjugate an entire race of people and make them perform unspeakable atrocities against their will (or bend their will into wanting to commit atrocities, whatever the ethically and mechanically accurate phrasing is), and a cold, unjust judgement system decided to place the blame entirely on said people for those atrocities after death, sending their souls to act as cannon fodder for that same king in an eternal war, the reaction of most DnD parties will probably be "Wow, we should probably kill that guy at some point." (Or, at worst, "Wow, someone will probably pay us a lot of money to kill that guy at some point.) And with the sort of tone FR and DnD in general goes for, the fact that said king also happens to be a god would probably be viewed as part of the challenge, not some kind of insurmountable barrier to killing what is clearly a great evil in need of some killing. And so with this in mind, while I can't really address the "more alien creatures/more robust worldbuilding" side of the argument, the argument that it makes hack n' slash, no guilt adventures simpler and easier is...odd. Because this explanation for Orcs' evilness (and the similar ones for goblins, drow, etc.) very much doesn't achieve that, at least by my reckoning, because this is something that very much doesn't fade smoothly and painlessly into the background of an old-fashioned hacky slashy beer'n'pretzels dungeon crawl.

I can't speak for anyone else's table, but if I as a player had this exposition dropped on me in the aftermath of raiding an orc shrine or whatever, my response would not be to go "Can murderize all these things with zero remorse, got it." It would be to go "Wow that's pretty effed up" and assume a plot hook leading to the eventual overthrow of this Gruumsh guy is being dropped. My next move isn't going to be to run to the nearest archmage while screaming "ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD" obviously, but I'm definitely going to be looking for more info on the gods and outer planes, asking for leads on who might be working to depose him right now, figuring out how to get to his plane, how to kill him, if anyone's successfully killed a god before, how exactly this whole effed up soul judgement system works, and generally assuming that the father of all BBEGs has been dropped in my lap, and whatever we were doing before was a prelude to this massively larger plot. I'm definitely not going to be wantonly murdering a lot of orcs if i can help it, seeing as they apparently aren't even fully in control of their actions.

And if we got to the end of the campaign and the Gruumsh issue hadn't been addressed, I'd feel...well, about as confused and unfulfilled as I would if any obvious ongoing atrocity were left inexplicably unadressed. "Congrats, you guys saved the valley from the green dragon, campaign over!" "Uh, wait, were we gonna do anything about that big child-slavery empire across the mountains that you've been telling us about...?"

None of this "multiversally condemned slaves to evil god" stuff seems terribly conducive to guilt-free hack'n'slash gameplay as opposed to just using, like, slavers or something, is my point. YMMV obviously, but I can't imagine this sort of response is terribly uncommon, especially among first time players hooked in on DnD's well-publicized generic premise of "heroic fantasy evil-fighting simulator". Which is who this all boils down to in the end.

There's an argument to be made that this sort of thing is just part of the setting for campaigns emphasizing elemental evil and futile-yet-heroic struggle etc. and players who have properly bought in shouldn't try to abolish the inherent evilness of orcs/goblins/drow and their evil gods any more than they'd try to abolish, say, the laws of gravity, but, whew. "This entire race of intelligent beings is doomed to a wretched existence through factors outside of their control and the best any one of them can hope for is to die mercifully in the womb and there is absolutely nothing you or anyone else will ever be able to do about it because that's just the natural way of things" is one heck of a premise to ask for buy in on. "The multiverse is ruled by unjust laws and tyrants beyond your power. Here's a bugbear to kill, it lacks free will but not sapience. Screw you." Cripes, at least Dark Sun's evils are, like, hypothetically solvable and not written into the fabric of reality itself.

I hope this doesn't come off as a rant, a lot of this isn't really directed at you specifically. Just commenting on some odd dysjunction between what some people (WOTC included) say these particular "evil race" explanations are supposed to do, and what they appear to actually do.

EDIT: Ah, ninja'd. Shouldn't have gone to get supper in the middle of typing that lol

And yet, 'center of all': even in that vast ocean you can affect change that matters to you; accomplish goals that do make a difference on a scale that is still somehow important. I find... grandeur in this sort of 'bigger than you' setting, one that is cheapened a little if the only reason Evil still exists at all is just because some PC hasn't rolled well enough to stop it yet.

I can partly appreciate that. A lot of it is in the presentation I suppose.

[Tanarii]

That was my reaction to the 5E Gnolls.

I love what they did with 5e gnolls. But ...

The change in Gnoll lore was pretty frustrating. Nothing compared to the treatment Yugoloth got (for different reasons, obviously), but still annoying... especially when some established settings had gnoll civilizations and the like

... I totally get that some people might be frustrated by the sudden change in lore.

Like, what they did to 5e elves half way through the edition was incredibly frustrating to me. I choose to ignore the optional change in lore in an optional splatbook. But if it was a primary change in one of the core rule books, it'd probably make me rant even more incessantly about it.

If I was trying to run 5 Mystara, Gnoll lore would all have to be tossed out. But so would most humanoid lore from Volos. BECMI humanoids in The Known World had an almost comical aspect to them. Despite being literally born the reincarnation of evil souls. Which was pretty good lore showing why they're "ordinarily evil" in it's own right.

Like really I'm not sure what self-described defender of justice and right, of sufficient power to do something about it, doesn't look at this bureaucratic cosmological horrorshow and go "oh wow this entire system and everyone involved in its creation needs to go in the garbage, like, yesterday. we gotta burn this whole thing to the ground."

Me. I'm all of those things, including the power to do something about it as the DM.

Seriously though, defenders of all that is fair and upright (and possibly uptight) wanting to do something about the cesspit of the lower planes and he denizens of them and what they do to their particular material planes is a central point in most outer planar adventures that don't go all Planescape with Berkiness.

[MaxWilson]

That's most people's response to large-scale institutional evils in real life, certainly. And likely the reaction of most people in-universe, even the ones that do know about cosmology. But, well, these are PCs we're talking about, not taking such things lying down is basically their job description and "virtually impossible" is just something the NPCs say to make their eventual victory feel even more awesome.

I thought their job description was "steal anything NPCs own that isn't nailed down while running away from anything that looks remotely like a fair fight"?

Seriously though, zzzzzzzz414, I think you're generalizing from specific genre assumptions from your own experience that don't always apply elsewhere.

If someone described an evil, immortal king who uses what essentially amounts to a form of mind control plus massive social pressure to subjugate an entire race of people and make them perform unspeakable atrocities against their will (or bend their will into wanting to commit atrocities, whatever the ethically and mechanically accurate phrasing is), and a cold, unjust judgement system decided to place the blame entirely on said people for those atrocities after death, sending their souls to act as cannon fodder for that same king in an eternal war, the reaction of most DnD parties will probably be "Wow, we should probably kill that guy at some point."

Or maybe "Boy, I sure hope we never run into that guy, ever, because he sounds like he'd tear us into tiny pieces and flush those pieces into the Negative Energy Plane."

I just got my new hardcopy of the 5E Cthulhu book this morning so Unspeakable Cosmic Horrors that cannot be defeated with finality, only temporarily thwarted at best, are very much on my mind right now, and anyone who hears about Hastur and thinks "we should probably kill that guy at some point" is doomed to disappointment and/or madness when they discover that's just not even a metaphysical possibility any more than defeating Death is. And of course that way is good for gameplay too, because it's an infinite game:

On infinite games, emphasis mine: "There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite games are those instrumental activities - from sports to politics to wars - in which the participants obey rules, recognize boundaries and announce winners and losers. The infinite game - there is only one - includes any authentic interaction, from touching to culture, that changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game. A finite player seeks power; the infinite one displays self-sufficient strength. Finite games are theatrical, necessitating an audience; infinite ones are dramatic, involving participants..."

[zzzzzzzz414]

I thought their job description was "steal anything NPCs own that isn't nailed down while running away from anything that looks remotely like a fair fight"?

Seriously though, zzzzzzzz414, I think you're generalizing from specific genre assumptions from your own experience that don't always apply elsewhere.

*shrug*. As I said, YMMV. Presentation is a big part of this and I can't judge every table situation. "Evil God-Emperor mentally enslaving a whole people" just doesn't, at first or even second or third glance, lend itself all that well to a heroic fantasy campaign where murdering said people en-masse is fun and easy XP. Which is why the people saying it does (which to be clear, does not necessarily include you) confuse me.

Or maybe "Boy, I sure hope we never run into that guy, ever, because he sounds like he'd tear us into tiny pieces and flush those pieces into the Negative Energy Plane."

I just got my new hardcopy of the 5E Cthulhu book this morning so Unspeakable Cosmic Horrors that cannot be defeated with finality, only temporarily thwarted at best, are very much on my mind right now, and anyone who hears about Hastur and thinks "we should probably kill that guy at some point" is doomed to disappointment and/or madness when they discover that's just not even a metaphysical possibility any more than defeating Death is. And of course that way is good for gameplay too, because there's always more work for player characters to do.

Playing and presenting the situation as actual cosmic horror is, obviously, a whole different thing and genre, and sets player expectations in an entirely different direction. (Although if Hastur is mind-controlling certain people to aggressively attack others, "murder all of them on sight and then don't really do anything else but that" seems like a...suboptimal solution. Though in this instance I guess the dark-grey-on-black morality does actually serve the tone and genre.)

[JoeJ]

*shrug*. As I said, YMMV. Presentation is a big part of this and I can't judge every table situation. "Evil God-Emperor mentally enslaving a whole people" just doesn't, at first or even second or third glance, lend itself all that well to a heroic fantasy campaign where murdering said people en-masse is fun and easy XP. Which is why the people saying it does (which to be clear, does not necessarily include you) confuse me.

I have not gotten the impression that there is a lot of overlap between those two concepts. IME, the "Evil God-Emperor mentally enslaving a whole people" idea typically results in situations where killing them en-masse is not a realistic option, either practically or morally.

[zzzzzzzz414]

I have not gotten the impression that there is a lot of overlap between those two concepts. IME, the "Evil God-Emperor mentally enslaving a whole people" idea typically results in situations where killing them en-masse is not a realistic option, either practically or morally.

Right. Except that Orcs are in fact mentally enslaved/influenced/coerced/(whatever, severity varying by table) by default in 5e, with the whole "Gruumsh constantly in their heads urging them to commit violence" thing.

This is presented by some (mostly earlier in the thread I think) as the reason why killing them en-masse/on sight is the moral option, which is weird. It's also weird for this to be part of what is essentially the default generic setup in 5e, because that turns the entire existence of a pretty common race into campaign-defining raw cosmic horror.