Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Dr.Samurai]

Seems like we keep confusing evil culture for "biologically evil". I don't even know what the latter even means, honestly.

[Aquillion]

Reminds me of this gem from the Ur-Quan Masters:

The Captain: Do you really consider yourselves Evil?
Ilwrath: Ha! Evil! Of Course We're Evil!
Ilwrath: Dogar And Kazon Would Never Reward A Less-Than-Hideously Evil Species With Their Baleful Grace.
Ilwrath: Why We Are The Very Definition Of Evil!
Ilwrath: Everything About Us, Within And Without, Reeks Of Heinous Deeds, Deceit And Treachery!
Ilwrath: Even Our House Pets Are Rather Evil.
The Captain: But 'evil' is that which is morally bad or wrong. And if your actions are judged by your society as correct, aren't you, in fact, good?
Ilwrath: Hmmm... We ARE All Evil.
Ilwrath: We All Behave In A Mutually Agreed-Upon Fashion Of Murder, Torture, Deceit And So Forth.
Ilwrath: Our Uniform Acceptance Of This Heinous Credo Creates An Orderly And Cooperative Society
Ilwrath: Which Hardly Seems Evil.
Ilwrath: Evil Is Doing Things That Make Others Hurt Or Fear.
Ilwrath: We ALL Do That, Of Course.
Ilwrath: But Since We ALL Do Such Things, As Sanctioned By Our Culture,
Ilwrath: It Would Be 'Bad' To Do Otherwise.
Ilwrath: Which Means...
Ilwrath: Er...
Ilwrath: Puny Hu-Man, Do Not Play With Words! You Anger Both Dogar And Kazon! Now You Must Die!

[Errorname]

Of course I don't particularly see the need for gnolls to be pseudo-demons either.

Sort of the ultimate example of how Hyenas get demonized by their portrayals in popular culture, really. I don't necessarily mind it, the concept of animals scavenging tainted flesh and getting mutated into demons is a strong hook for a fantasy monster, but it's kind of funny.

If gnoll's have a natural instinct to eat dead people then most other races are going to be rather hostile to them as a default, similar to lizardfolk.

Something that I've always been kind of curious about is how different sapient taxa might interact if they filled radically different ecological niches. D&D's not really interested in that and most of it's playable races are too "human with bumpy forehead" for it to work, but how humans might interact with an obligate predator smart enough to negotiate with is something I think you could do interesting things with.

That was entirely the point made earlier: Good Deities who treat their creations as children shouldn't be surprised when some percentage of them decide to be jerkwads instead of happily communing with songbirds and making diamond warhammers.

Right, but by the same token if you treat your creations as disposable pawns, unless they literally do not have the capacity for independent thought (which is not how it tends to work in these settings), it's pretty likely that some of them are going to think "hey, this is a bad deal". Doesn't even have to be "I want to be a paragon of good", just "I don't want to take orders from you anymore"

Seems like we keep confusing evil culture for "biologically evil". I don't even know what the latter even means, honestly.

It's a nature vs nurture thing. If a writer describes Orcs as "evil", does they mean that they are taught to be evil or is it instinctual. The latter's a lot less common than it used to be, for good reason.

[awa]

Seems like we keep confusing evil culture for "biologically evil". I don't even know what the latter even means, honestly.

when I think of a biological evil species I tend to think of something like a lion something that enjoys causing pain to other creatures and has a tendency towards infanticide. If you took lions but smart you would have a species that would seem pretty evil to an outside observer. While these lion folk are naturally inclined towards behaviors commonly seen as evil they are not forced to do so, but the inclination is there and they have to work that much harder to overcome those desires something their society may or may not encourage.

The lion folk might embrace these behaviors or they might see them as evil and strict to limit, regulate, or redirect them. These might be small group mimicking real lion prides or maybe if they were large enough scale to build cities each family could have a private compound where the children are locked up until they are large enough to be safe, the wealthy might high non-lion folk guards to protect those compounds.It can be interesting from a world building perspective to try and see how a species that isn't interchangeable with a human fits into the world.

As for evil dwarves that would be very easy, normally dwarves in fiction get to cheat on their metal working they live in mountains where the iron is but the thing is the limiting factor on metal production is not iron but fuel you need a lot of wood to fuel large scale iron work like massive amounts. Thus if the dwarves are constantly needing to expand to get more wood that's going to cause problems if say anyone happens to be living in that forest. The dwarves could be a conventional empire just conquering stuff or You could take some lessons from European colonialism they had lots of cheap goods they wanted to sell in exchange for the raw materials they needed and by selling weapons to the people willing to give them what they want they can destabilize other less advanced kingdoms.

[Jophiel]

Right, but by the same token if you treat your creations as disposable pawns, unless they literally do not have the capacity for independent thought (which is not how it tends to work in these settings), it's pretty likely that some of them are going to think "hey, this is a bad deal". Doesn't even have to be "I want to be a paragon of good", just "I don't want to take orders from you anymore"

Sure, but that's all the rest of being an Evil Deity. Putting your divine thumb on the scale during creation doesn't mean you can't do all the other usual stuff: Lie about your relationship ("Are you not my children and have I not given you lands and many strong children?"), lie about the enemy ("The elves wish to destroy you for who you are but as long as you are faithful, I will defend you"), gaslighting ("You failed to conquer the elven army because YOU lacked faith"), carrot & stick ("Those who are faithful to me will have my blessing in conflict, those who oppose me with be put to the lash"), yadda yadda. Powerful individuals who are faithful get rewarded and incentivized to root out the "I don't wanna" malcontents. Malcontents growing in power get lightning bolts to the face (or more subtle intervention).

Some small percentage will "get free" regardless. They'll make for fine PC concepts or interesting NPC encounters.

Seems like we keep confusing evil culture for "biologically evil". I don't even know what the latter even means, honestly.

I assume they mean an innate drive/instinct to do things we typically consider as bad or undesirable. But, since these are beings with language and advanced culture, we judge them more harshly than a pack of beasts engaging in the same behavior. So a group of beings with a drive to eat humanoid brains would likely develop a culture around harvesting brains and be considered evil for doing it. A swarm of brain beetles that jump on people's heads and eat their brains would be neutral.

This is really what I meant when I talked about an Evil Deities making their Always Evil Race. Not so much direct brainwashing or mind control but you "play with the sliders" as it were and give 'em brains and natures innately compelled to expand territory, see other humanoids as competition, etc. Why would an Evil Deity rely on making a compelling intellectual case for tyranny and ascension through violent conflict when they can just ingrain it into the metaphorical DNA of their creations from the start to make their divine lives easier?

[OldTrees1]

Something that I've always been kind of curious about is how different sapient taxa might interact if they filled radically different ecological niches. D&D's not really interested in that and most of it's playable races are too "human with bumpy forehead" for it to work, but how humans might interact with an obligate predator smart enough to negotiate with is something I think you could do interesting things with.

The common answer has been, the obligate predator can feed off of livestock just like the human omnivores do. For some reason my mind is telling me it was usually catfolk as the obligate predators in the media.

In an adventuring party that might even be upgraded to the obligate predator rationing themselves on fallen foes in addition to mutton.

So to keep it interesting often you need to restrict the obligate predator's diet to keep the tension. I have seen "it must be part of a hunt" used to permit livestock but not allow preservation / rations. I have also seen diets that coincidentally or consequentially require sapients as the food source. In those cases logistics become an issue if there isa population of the obligate predator. Individuals could use the dying, the undesired, the "executed", or the fallen foes.

[Errorname]

when I think of a biological evil species I tend to think of something like a lion something that enjoys causing pain to other creatures and has a tendency towards infanticide.

Lions don't hunt other animals because they enjoy causing pain, they do it because otherwise they'll starve. Likewise, to my understanding infanticide in Lions tends to be observed after one male Lion takes control of a pride from another male Lion, it's not just done for the sake of it, the cubs of the old alpha represent a threat to the cubs of the new one.

Notably, all of these are pretty well precedented in human cultures. We kill things for sustainence, sometimes we kill for the fun of it, and if you overthrow a King and take his crown, his heirs are a threat to your rule that needs to be dealt with.

The common answer has been, the obligate predator can feed off of livestock just like the human omnivores do.

I was more thinking about social interactions. Even in the world we live in it's not unheard of for humans to make unspoken pacts with social predators, that's probably how dogs happened and there's a really famous story from Australia about a pod of Orcas that hunted alongside the whaling ships for a time. There's already a sort of politics to our relationship with wild animals, if you swapped out wolves or hyenas or lions with something that is smart enough to talk back I think you could create some pretty interesting political scenarios.

[OldTrees1]

This is really what I meant when I talked about an Evil Deities making their Always Evil Race. Not so much direct brainwashing or mind control but you "play with the sliders" as it were and give 'em brains and natures innately compelled to expand territory, see other humanoids as competition, etc. Why would an Evil Deity rely on making a compelling intellectual case for tyranny and ascension through violent conflict when they can just ingrain it into the metaphorical DNA of their creations from the start to make their divine lives easier?

The "playing with the sliders" mind control* might not be enough for figuratively "always" evil species. Using your example silder changes, I suspect it would be a usually evil (majority is evil), an often evil (only a plurality is evil), or even an often good (a plurality is good)**. It is much easier to believe an evil deity would leverage sliders (lower drawbacks than direct mind control) but it also has a higher variance.



* (not necessarily mind control but I am talking about its control on the mind so ...)
** Knowing they are biased towards seeing others as competition might cause them to choose to fight that urge and be more friendly than humans are. The evil deity would use their other tools to try to reduce and remove these outcomes, but I expect them to be settlement sized populations the evil deity is dealing with.

I was more thinking about social interactions. Even in the world we live in it's not unheard of for humans to make unspoken pacts with social predators, that's probably how dogs happened and there's a really famous story from Australia about a pod of Orcas that hunted alongside the whaling ships for a time. There's already a sort of politics to our relationship with wild animals, if you swapped out wolves or hyenas or lions with something that is smart enough to talk back I think you could create some pretty interesting political scenarios.

Ah, gotcha! Yes. I wish one was coming to mind, but I have seen examples in media/literature and they were interesting. You could do a lot with that in an RPG.

[awa]

Lions don't hunt other animals because they enjoy causing pain, they do it because otherwise they'll starve. Likewise, to my understanding infanticide in Lions tends to be observed after one male Lion takes control of a pride from another male Lion, it's not just done for the sake of it, the cubs of the old alpha represent a threat to the cubs of the new one.

Notably, all of these are pretty well precedented in human cultures. We kill things for sustainence, sometimes we kill for the fun of it, and if you overthrow a King and take his crown, his heirs are a threat to your rule that needs to be dealt with.



I was more thinking about social interactions. Even in the world we live in it's not unheard of for humans to make unspoken pacts with social predators, that's probably how dogs happened and there's a really famous story from Australia about a pod of Orcas that hunted alongside the whaling ships for a time. There's already a sort of politics to our relationship with wild animals, if you swapped out wolves or hyenas or lions with something that is smart enough to talk back I think you could create some pretty interesting political scenarios.

Most predators enjoy killing and do it even when there not particularly hungry.

Its not that the old lion cubs are a threat its that the female wont go into heat so long as she has cubs so the male kills off the old cubs so the female goes into heat faster. My instinct is to kill my neighbors children is not wildly better than my instinct is to kill all children.

Humans might do those things to in some circumstances to but that why humans can be any alignment. Some humans are sadists, if every member of a species was a sadist as part of their biological makeup they would be biologically more inclined to behaviors we typically describe as evil.

[Errorname]

Most predators enjoy killing and do it even when there not particularly hungry.

Predators hunting more food than they need does happen, but surplus killing isn't just a matter of sadism (it can be quite beneficial to stockpile things) and is still motivated by the simple biological fact that predators need meat to survive.

Its not that the old lion cubs are a threat its that the female wont go into heat so long as she has cubs so the male kills off the old cubs so the female goes into heat faster. My instinct is to kill my neighbors children is not wildly better than my instinct is to kill all children.

More accurately, the old cubs represent a threat to the new dominant male's ability to have his own children and will divide attention away from his own. Killing the heirs of the guy you overthrew to gain social power makes brutal pragmatic sense, whether you're a human or a lion. I don't disagree that it's ruthless and brutal, but it's not unmotivated.

Humans might do those things to in some circumstances to but that why humans can be any alignment.

There's no "might" about it, we do do these things. We kill other animals to harvest their meat and overhunting is a major problem for us. Killing for sport is less common but by no means is it rare, and while human societies generally do not create the same incentives that lions have to kill the offspring of their defeated rivals, in situations where those incentives exist it is not uncommon for it to happen. There is a reason that Hamlet's story mapped extremely cleanly onto a Lion Pride

[Jophiel]

The "playing with the sliders" mind control* might not be enough for figuratively "always" evil species. Using your example silder changes, I suspect it would be a usually evil (majority is evil), an often evil (only a plurality is evil), or even an often good (a plurality is good)**. It is much easier to believe an evil deity would leverage sliders (lower drawbacks than direct mind control) but it also has a higher variance.

Possibly. It's a fictional scenario so you can take it in whatever direction you want. An Evil Deity who attempts to exert that control over their creations and it goes very wrong for them could also be an interesting story. But the original point was "Free-willed beings can't be Always Evil" to which the obvious response is "Why would you assume that an Evil Deity would give their creations that level of choice?"

To which one may say "But that just means they're fiends", to which I firmly disagree and feel there's plenty of space to be explored between "Programmed golem" and "Independent Tabula Rasa" and that space can allow for interesting cultures and even good PC concepts.

[Errorname]

"Why would you assume that an Evil Deity would give their creations that level of choice?"

Because deities in these settings tend to not have that level of direct intervention to begin with and these creatures tend to be portrayed as acting and reproducing independently of their dark god.

[Jophiel]

Because deities in these settings tend to not have that level of direct intervention to begin with and these creatures tend to be portrayed as acting and reproducing independently of their dark god.

Sure, depends on your setting. Most settings don't spend much time on the metaphysics of race creation beyond "So and So made the elves and this other deity made gnomes". I said before that maybe you have a SuperGod who says "No one can make mortals above an INT 4 who aren't free-willed". So I guess my earlier question is better phrased as "Why would you assume that my setting with Always Evil Orcs includes a creator who was handcuffed and unable to influence them from creation?"

Like I said, I find there's a lot of interesting space to be explored. I always find it funny when people try to insist that evil orcs are "lazy". Anything is lazy if you put no effort into it. Saying "Goblins have to be evil because this book says Alignment: Evil" is lazy. Following an RPG book and saying "Everyone is just humans with rubber foreheads" is lazy (and boring, IMO). Having a strong in-setting justification for why this is so can be a lot more interesting -- though I'd still probably find it more limiting and less interesting than a setting where things run the full spectrum.

[Errorname]

So I guess my earlier question is better phrased as "Why would you assume that my setting with Always Evil Orcs includes a creator who was handcuffed and unable to influence them from creation?"

I'm more assuming that your evil deity does not have the patience or temperment to manually control the every action of tens of thousands of disposable schmucks, and would thus want them to have enough independence that they don't need to be micromanaged.

Anything is lazy if you put no effort into it.

The thing about "always evil race" is that if you start putting effort into it, it'll probably stop being "always evil", because "always anything" tends to be pretty boring.

[Psyren]

That was entirely the point made earlier: Good Deities who treat their creations as children shouldn't be surprised when some percentage of them decide to be jerkwads instead of happily communing with songbirds and making diamond warhammers. Evil Deities would be less interested in giving their creations that option. Thus, more evil halflings than cheerful and friendly ogres.

Whether they "treat their creations as children" isn't actually the point. Being a playable species means enough of them can self-determinate that the deity's plan/wishes just don't matter. Lolth would probably love it if every single Drow in creation worshiped her exclusively, but that's not what she got. Tiamat probably wants the same for chromatic dragonborn, Laduguer for Duergar, Maglubiyet for Goblins, Gruumsh for orcs, Kurtulmak for kobolds etc etc. But no matter how many these deities succeed at keeping under their thumb, enough wriggle free that they are capable of being heroic adventurers in statistically significant numbers.

Sure, depends on your setting.

I'm talking about their setting; nobody is saying that your version of Gruumsh can't have more direct influence/control over the desires/mindsets of every orc he's ever created. You can give him that power if you want. But WotC chose not to do so for their own default game, and thus he ends up with a substantial number of orcs that are capable of rebellion and rejection of his beliefs.

Because deities in these settings tend to not have that level of direct intervention to begin with and these creatures tend to be portrayed as acting and reproducing independently of their dark god.

Indeed.

You can have orcs that are universally far more subservient to Gruumsh's whims than what WotC decided to go with, that's fine. At that point you're playing in your own custom or customized setting, but those settings can be a lot of fun to play in, and to explore themes that the official printed game might find too thorny to touch. Again, that's okay.

[Dr.Samurai]

Sure, but that's all the rest of being an Evil Deity. Putting your divine thumb on the scale during creation doesn't mean you can't do all the other usual stuff: Lie about your relationship ("Are you not my children and have I not given you lands and many strong children?"), lie about the enemy ("The elves wish to destroy you for who you are but as long as you are faithful, I will defend you"), gaslighting ("You failed to conquer the elven army because YOU lacked faith"), carrot & stick ("Those who are faithful to me will have my blessing in conflict, those who oppose me with be put to the lash"), yadda yadda. Powerful individuals who are faithful get rewarded and incentivized to root out the "I don't wanna" malcontents. Malcontents growing in power get lightning bolts to the face (or more subtle intervention).

Some small percentage will "get free" regardless. They'll make for fine PC concepts or interesting NPC encounters.

I assume they mean an innate drive/instinct to do things we typically consider as bad or undesirable. But, since these are beings with language and advanced culture, we judge them more harshly than a pack of beasts engaging in the same behavior. So a group of beings with a drive to eat humanoid brains would likely develop a culture around harvesting brains and be considered evil for doing it. A swarm of brain beetles that jump on people's heads and eat their brains would be neutral.

This is really what I meant when I talked about an Evil Deities making their Always Evil Race. Not so much direct brainwashing or mind control but you "play with the sliders" as it were and give 'em brains and natures innately compelled to expand territory, see other humanoids as competition, etc. Why would an Evil Deity rely on making a compelling intellectual case for tyranny and ascension through violent conflict when they can just ingrain it into the metaphorical DNA of their creations from the start to make their divine lives easier?

I think we have similar thoughts, if not perfectly aligned, but I'm just using your posts as a jumping off point, not as a point of disagreement.

Before we had weird jungle illusion drow, we had Lolth drow. And the society there has been delved into in many novels, and to call it boring is, in my opinion, BS; something that is very easy to do, pretending that the accuser has some hidden knowledge of truly interesting stuff. You may not like it, but a culture built around deceit and back-stabbing ambition, and demon-calling and raiding, etc. was made to be interesting, whether people want to admit it or not. At the time, drow were basically always evil (in the figurative sense, of course), and of that was born Drizz't, now a cliche and easy to dunk on, but I have no qualms saying I enjoyed the Salvatore novels delving into Menzo and the Underdark and Drizz't's journey to escape it.

Lolth doesn't force her drow to be evil, but she encourages that culture, and punishes those that turn away from it or fail to succeed in it. They then embrace the culture and enforce it on their own, and so on and so on.

There is really NO REASON to delve into this and over explain it. Unless again you're confusing all of this for "biological evil".

Similarly, orcs believe in certain values, as taught to them by their gods. And their culture reflects that, and they conserve that culture and enforce that culture on each other.

To have a problem with this is to basically have a problem with evil creator deities. And also to make special non-humans creatures, since humans are allowed to have whatever type of culture/gods the story calls for, but it appears to be a problem for non-humans.

And to make another point clear; "it's boring" is purely subjective, unsubstantiated, and a cop-out reason for not including something. In fact, it's almost projection to call it lazy, since one can turn around and call it lazy that someone can't make a concept interesting. Probably best to leave "it's boring" out of the conversation.

[OldTrees1]

Before we had weird jungle illusion drow, we had Lolth drow. And the society there has been delved into in many novels
-snip-
At the time, drow were basically always evil (in the figurative sense, of course), and of that was born Drizz't, now a cliche and easy to dunk on, but I have no qualms saying I enjoyed the Salvatore novels delving into Menzo and the Underdark and Drizz't's journey to escape it.

Edit: Finished rewriting the post after I realized I had the original release dates confused. I thought Icewind Dale trilogy predated 3e but Dark Elf trilogy was released during it. I was off by a decade.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novels.

Slight tangent (does not disrupt the point of your post)
I think the drow in Menzo were closer to "usually neutral evil" (a majority were neutral evil but many were not) in the novels. The Dark Elf trilogy predates 3rd edition, so you are more familiar with the AD&D rules. However R.A.Salvatore did influence 3rd edition's version of the drow and 3rd edition labeled them as "usually neutral evil". If I am correct, then I would expect some thriving neutral drow (Jarlaxle was thriving and we should expect many others spread among the background commoner drow), and a handful of sad good drow nobodies (if Zaknafein had not been attached to a house ...). I struggle to place Vierna DoUrden since she changes over the novels. On the other hand, the named drow nobles were in places of power in the society and thus were mostly some variety of evil (LE Banare, CE Oblodra, or NE DoUrden).

[Jophiel]

I'm more assuming that your evil deity does not have the patience or temperment to manually control the every action of tens of thousands of disposable schmucks, and would thus want them to have enough independence that they don't need to be micromanaged.

Not sure why you think "Play with the slider to give them evil temperament" means micromanaging (even after I clarified that we're not talking "mind control") but if that's the only way you can imagine it then I agree it's not a good choice for anything you're playing.

"always anything" tends to be pretty boring.

Every humanoid style race always being "Humans with Rubber Foreheads" (or handwaved away with "Uh, fiend?") is indeed super boring in a game with infinite possibilities.

[awa]

Predators hunting more food than they need does happen, but surplus killing isn't just a matter of sadism (it can be quite beneficial to stockpile things) and is still motivated by the simple biological fact that predators need meat to survive.



More accurately, the old cubs represent a threat to the new dominant male's ability to have his own children and will divide attention away from his own. Killing the heirs of the guy you overthrew to gain social power makes brutal pragmatic sense, whether you're a human or a lion. I don't disagree that it's ruthless and brutal, but it's not unmotivated.



There's no "might" about it, we do do these things. We kill other animals to harvest their meat and overhunting is a major problem for us. Killing for sport is less common but by no means is it rare, and while human societies generally do not create the same incentives that lions have to kill the offspring of their defeated rivals, in situations where those incentives exist it is not uncommon for it to happen. There is a reason that Hamlet's story mapped extremely cleanly onto a Lion Pride

you seem to be willfully missing the point to the point I dont think further discussion is profitable

[Psyren]

I think we have similar thoughts, if not perfectly aligned, but I'm just using your posts as a jumping off point, not as a point of disagreement.

Before we had weird jungle illusion drow, we had Lolth drow. And the society there has been delved into in many novels, and to call it boring is, in my opinion, BS; something that is very easy to do, pretending that the accuser has some hidden knowledge of truly interesting stuff. You may not like it, but a culture built around deceit and back-stabbing ambition, and demon-calling and raiding, etc. was made to be interesting, whether people want to admit it or not. At the time, drow were basically always evil (in the figurative sense, of course), and of that was born Drizz't, now a cliche and easy to dunk on, but I have no qualms saying I enjoyed the Salvatore novels delving into Menzo and the Underdark and Drizz't's journey to escape it.

Lolth doesn't force her drow to be evil, but she encourages that culture, and punishes those that turn away from it or fail to succeed in it. They then embrace the culture and enforce it on their own, and so on and so on.

There is really NO REASON to delve into this and over explain it. Unless again you're confusing all of this for "biological evil".

Similarly, orcs believe in certain values, as taught to them by their gods. And their culture reflects that, and they conserve that culture and enforce that culture on each other.

To have a problem with this is to basically have a problem with evil creator deities. And also to make special non-humans creatures, since humans are allowed to have whatever type of culture/gods the story calls for, but it appears to be a problem for non-humans.

And to make another point clear; "it's boring" is purely subjective, unsubstantiated, and a cop-out reason for not including something. In fact, it's almost projection to call it lazy, since one can turn around and call it lazy that someone can't make a concept interesting. Probably best to leave "it's boring" out of the conversation.

Not "orcs believe"; some orcs believe. Not "drow embrace"; some drow embrace.

Why is that qualifier so easy to add with dwarves (e.g. some dwarves are evil) but so seemingly hard to add to orcs and drow?

Evil creator deities are neither infallible nor omnipotent. Sure, they want their creations to be mindless footsoldiers universally following and perpetuating their designs, but they failed at that objective - especially where the ones with PC-levels of drive and potential are concerned.

[Errorname]

And the society there has been delved into in many novels, and to call it boring is, in my opinion, BS; something that is very easy to do, pretending that the accuser has some hidden knowledge of truly interesting stuff. You may not like it, but a culture built around deceit and back-stabbing ambition, and demon-calling and raiding, etc. was made to be interesting, whether people want to admit it or not.

Saying something isn't interesting is a statement of opinion, hard to falsify. I'd agree that cutthroat politics and evil rituals and raids can all be quite interesting, but it's not impossible to botch. If you write a one-note culture full of boring characters who are all basically the same person, it's kind of hard to care no matter how interesting the surface level pitch was.

I'm not saying the Drow are that, I could easily see someone finding them one-note and tedious I personally don't agree, I think they've got more going on than a lot of other D&D races

Every humanoid style race always being "Humans with Rubber Foreheads" is indeed super boring in a game with infinite possibilities.

You don't fix humans with rubber foreheads being boring by giving them a single uniform personality for the entire race, that's honestly just making the problem worse.

you seem to be willfully missing the point to the point I dont think further discussion is profitable

Sorry, but calling carnivorous animals 'biologically evil' really bothers me. That's a real mindset that people have and it's caused a lot of ecological damage, macropredatory animals like wolves and lions are just trying to survive like any other animal, and their existence is extremely beneficial to the broader health of wild ecosystems.

That is actually a useful point to bring up with this discussion of 'evil races', none of this exists in a vacuum. Everything we write is inspired by real world sources, and if you aren't careful with what you associate with 'evil races' you're liable to get somebody cross. Now, I doubt most people are too sensitive to portraying lions badly, getting annoyed at pop cultural misrepresentations of animals isn't a common bugbear, but when you start pulling from human cultures it's best to tread carefully.

[Mordar]

Edit: Finished rewriting the post after I realized I had the original release dates confused. I thought Icewind Dale trilogy predated 3e but Dark Elf trilogy was released during it. I was off by a decade.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novels.

Slight tangent (does not disrupt the point of your post)
I think the drow in Menzo were closer to "usually neutral evil" (a majority were neutral evil but many were not) in the novels. The Dark Elf trilogy predates 3rd edition, so you are more familiar with the AD&D rules. However R.A.Salvatore did influence 3rd edition's version of the drow and 3rd edition labeled them as "usually neutral evil". If I am correct, then I would expect some thriving neutral drow (Jarlaxle was thriving and we should expect many others spread among the background commoner drow), and a handful of sad good drow nobodies (if Zaknafein had not been attached to a house ...). I struggle to place Vierna DoUrden since she changes over the novels. On the other hand, the named drow nobles were in places of power in the society and thus were mostly some variety of evil (LE Banare, CE Oblodra, or NE DoUrden).

Icewind Dale *was* decades before 3e. 1988, to be precise, so 1.25ish decades. Homeland, the "DE" trilogy I assume you mean was 1990. Still in the heyday of 2e.

Hunters Blades and War of the Spider Queen were his first D&D releases after the 3e transition.

- M

[Jophiel]

You don't fix humans with rubber foreheads being boring by giving them a single uniform personality for the entire race, that's honestly just making the problem worse.

You fix them by not making them pseudo-humans. I disagree that making them "Always Evil" means a single uniform personality (plenty of works with bad guys who express being bad in dramatically different ways) but if that's all you can make of it then you're probably better off sticking to rubber forehead humans.

And, honestly, a humanoid Borg race all with one mindset would still be better than everyone being just masked humans. When they get tired, you stop using them for some other adversary or bit of world building. Not as though orcs are the only possible thing to populate the world with.

[Errorname]

You fix them by not making them pseudo-humans.

All the classic fantasy races are pseudo-humans. We aren't talking about original settings, I agree it's cooler to go more out there and do things that are more creative than pseudo-humans, but that means creating things that are not elves or dwarves or orcs and that's not really what people want from D&D.

[Witty Username]

Not "orcs believe"; some orcs believe. Not "drow embrace"; some drow embrace.

Why is that qualifier so easy to add with dwarves (e.g. some dwarves are evil) but so seemingly hard to add to orcs and drow?

I am not sure what is being complained about, these qualifiers have existed since AD&D for all of them.

I mean it was a joke in 3rd that evil drow aren't even a thing anymore they are all chaotic good rebels against there evil kin. This isn't a new idea.

[OldTrees1]

Not "orcs believe"; some orcs believe. Not "drow embrace"; some drow embrace.

Why is that qualifier so easy to add with dwarves (e.g. some dwarves are evil) but so seemingly hard to add to orcs and drow?

The qualifier is already there. Is this just a language policing thing where you want people to always use explicit qualifiers instead of implicit or contextual qualifiers?

[Jophiel]

Some elves are evil. Like Drow

1st Ed Unearthed Arcana gave us the first real rules for Drow and Duergar and said that most were evil and PCs could be of any alignment (it actually went so far as to say the Duergar were LE with Neutral tendencies and that Drow PCs were likely outcasts). Years before Drizzt was a name in publication, we were already playing rebel Drow who were breaking the evil mold. That said, being a rebel only has impact if there's something to rebel against.

[Psyren]

The qualifier is already there. Is this just a language policing thing where you want people to always use explicit qualifiers instead of implicit or contextual qualifiers?

It's not about what I want. I'm explaining why WotC wrote explanatory language like this, or the errata in Volo's clarifying that his perspective on the races in that book is idiosyncratic, narrow, and limited to a few members of one setting at best.

[OldTrees1]

It's not about what I want. I'm explaining why WotC wrote explanatory language like this, or the errata in Volo's clarifying that his perspective on the races in that book is idiosyncratic, narrow, and limited to a few members of one setting at best.

You quoted a forum post and complained about the forum post missing a qualifier, but the post contained the qualifier you claimed was missing. The only difference was explicitly or implicitly including the qualifier. This citation link says nothing relevant.

However, maybe it is best if we just forget and ignore that post of yours. The "missing" qualifier was not missing, so your post's point was moot.

[Psyren]

You quoted a forum post and complained about the forum post missing a qualifier, but the post contained the qualifier you claimed was missing. The only difference was explicitly or implicitly including the qualifier. This citation link says nothing relevant.

I brought up the errata because merely assuming the qualifier isn't sufficient for a company in WotC's position. They recognized that; whether you also do or not doesn't actually matter to me, unless of course you start authoring first-party rulebooks at some point in the future.

That said, being a rebel only has impact if there's something to rebel against.

There is something for them to rebel against - Lolth is running a multiversal cult that is especially entrenched in a subterranean city in FR. Your Drow PC can be from there. But someone else's might not be, and thus be no more prone to a particular alignment than a dwarf is.