Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[icefractal]

I mean, nothing wrong with a D&D campaign that's simple good vs evil where the sides are obvious at a glance. But you don't need evil races for that - Star Wars (IV) did it just fine with human storm-troopers (the clone thing doesn't matter, since that wasn't known initially and the story still worked).

I'm just not seeing what "Oh no, it's Orcs, better get ready to fight!" brings to the table that "Oh no, it's soldiers from the evil empire, better get ready to fight!" doesn't.

[Dr.Samurai]

Lots of sweet lore. The orc lore in Volo’s is great in my opinion.

[icefractal]

So if you compare setting-specific lore to the abstract concept of "evil empire" the latter comes up short? I'm not surprised. Perhaps try comparing it to setting-specific evil empires, like Thay or Cheliax.

Not that a given person can't prefer one to the other, but it's a matter of taste rather than "lore vs no lore".

[Errorname]

We are being mocked about how easy it is to tell villains apart and fight evil and we require race indicators to play, but now we’re being posed with these grey moral quandaries about camp followers and children and babies and who can you kill and who can’t you kill.

To be clear, I do not think you have to be presenting your players with these sorts of moral quandaries. I do think "what's it like to be an orc child" is a question that a worldbuilder should probably have an answer for, in the same way I think it's generally good to consider stuff like what people eat or what resources they have easy access to, it's an important culture shaping thing.

I do not have a problem with simple heroic adventures. I do not have a problem with games that do not raise uncomfortable moral questions. But when an entire race is written in such a way where a policy of on-sight extermination is just and necessary, that is not a story that feels like a simple heroic adventure and that is a story that is raising uncomfortable moral questions whether it realizes it or not

[Mordar]

To be clear, I do not think you have to be presenting your players with these sorts of moral quandaries. I do think "what's it like to be an orc child" is a question that a worldbuilder should probably have an answer for, in the same way I think it's generally good to consider stuff like what people eat or what resources they have easy access to, it's an important culture shaping thing.

I do not have a problem with simple heroic adventures. I do not have a problem with games that do not raise uncomfortable moral questions. But when an entire race is written in such a way where a policy of on-sight extermination is just and necessary, that is not a story that feels like a simple heroic adventure and that is a story that is raising uncomfortable moral questions whether it realizes it or not

But does killing aliens raise uncomfortable moral questions, intentionally or otherwise? Ghouls? Beholders?

I think it is only the desire/compulsion/inclination to compare Dracks or gnolls or whatever to something in real life that drives this issue.

- M

[gbaji]

But does killing aliens raise uncomfortable moral questions, intentionally or otherwise? Ghouls? Beholders?

I think it is only the desire/compulsion/inclination to compare Dracks or gnolls or whatever to something in real life that drives this issue.

And this is the issue (and maybe loops us back to the beginning a bit). The degree to which the game setting "humanizes" (for lack of a better term) various races/creatures in the game, we have to treat them (at least to some degree) the same way we'd treat human characters. If they have the ability to make choices, and know right from wrong, and have different alignments, and all the other stuff that we associate with "sentient and possibly even playable race" in a game, we have to treat them that way.

If the creature exists solely as "this is a horrible animal/creature that exists solely to kill things and/or be killed", then we tend not to have the same moral issues. So no one has an issue with blasting an Alien Facehugger, crawling along the floor, but an infant gnoll, or orc, or goblin, crawling across the same floor (in the same direction even) would (should!) be a completely different matter.


And to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a game where this was seriously a problem. Most people somewhat innately get the difference. And, barring a GM who is intentionally creating a conundrum for the players, it just doesn't come up. And if the GM is intentionally creating races in his game where it's unclear which category they fall into, and then putting the PCs into situations where they must choose whether to kill or not kill something in that "unknown" category, then that's basically the GM contriving that conflict and problem in the game. My answer is: Don't do that. Either your players just don't have the moral compass (or, I suppose, immersion in the game) to care, in which case any effort to make this into a quandary is going to be lost on them anyway, or they do, and they're never going to be happy with the situation.

There's just no good reason to do this, so don't.

[icefractal]

But does killing aliens raise uncomfortable moral questions, intentionally or otherwise? Ghouls? Beholders?

Depends on what aliens, dunnit? I imagine you're thinking of something like Xenomorphs, but what about, say, Vulcans?

"Vulcans have been seen in the woods, we should go wipe them out!" - sounds rather ****ed up, IMO.

[OldTrees1]

Then what do you do with creatures that WILL grow up to be evil? Not might, not probably, but WILL?

So I should put a child that will grow up to hurt people because of it's innate evil in a situation where it can hurt people? What sense is there to that? If a gnoll pup is going to start killing and eating people the moment it's physically capable because of divine or demonic influence I'm not going to leave it in the care of some nuns who might not be able to cope when it turns violent, I'm going to either leave it to die or put it down myself so it doesn't suffer unneccesarily. [EDIT: If my character is Evil, I might keep it to raise as an underling.]

Different GMs make different world building choices about alignments, so YMMV.

I do not consider evil alignment to be inherently worthy of a death penalty. A common world building choice is to have ~1/3rd of fantasy humans be evil. Additionally I believe your characterization of a gnoll pup is covered by your other check.

As for predatory, that was more to indicate that I would also kill the young of non-sapient species that are inherently inimical to sapient life, as well as the infants of sapient life that is inherently going to be murderous. If a giant jewel wasp was laying eggs in the bodies of paralysed sapients to be eaten from the inside out I'd kill any and all larvae, eggs or juvenile wasps as well as the adults. Any form of intrinsically evil being whose intrinsic evil is sufficient to warrant death,* any being whose life cycle is dependant on preying on sapient life in a non-consensual manner,** any being whose existence is inherently inimical to sapient life and refuses to avoid sapients to avoid harming them, all things that have to be killed for the protection of others, to do otherwise is simply negligent.

IIRC, you mentioned predatory in regards to illithid tadpoles (which grow up to be sapient neothelids). This predatory check is less about intrinsic evil and more about extremely dangerous / hazardous. I think your characterization of gnoll pups would apply here just as much as those jewel wasps or the illithid tadpoles.

So I stand by what I said. You would treat evil babies the same as other babies. You would check to see if their existence is hazardous enough, and then respond accordingly. Is this a Volo's Orc? They would probably be fine. Is it a 5E Gnoll? Probably too hazardous.

[Mordar]

If the creature exists solely as "this is a horrible animal/creature that exists solely to kill things and/or be killed", then we tend not to have the same moral issues. So no one has an issue with blasting an Alien Facehugger, crawling along the floor, but an infant gnoll, or orc, or goblin, crawling across the same floor (in the same direction even) would (should!) be a completely different matter.

And to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a game where this was seriously a problem. Most people somewhat innately get the difference. And, barring a GM who is intentionally creating a conundrum for the players, it just doesn't come up. And if the GM is intentionally creating races in his game where it's unclear which category they fall into, and then putting the PCs into situations where they must choose whether to kill or not kill something in that "unknown" category, then that's basically the GM contriving that conflict and problem in the game. My answer is: Don't do that. Either your players just don't have the moral compass (or, I suppose, immersion in the game) to care, in which case any effort to make this into a quandary is going to be lost on them anyway, or they do, and they're never going to be happy with the situation.

There's just no good reason to do this, so don't.

There's a great Call of C'thulhu scenario that hinges on this answer vis a vis ghouls. Totally different game, I get it...but really good simple story. In a game where often you're incentivized to shoot first.

While I did (and still will) use Aliens, any type of person-eating extra-terrestrial will do. Kang and Kodos, or others. They might see humanoids as cattle...and want to strip mine our world...how do we treat them?

Beholder...well, that was just to be another kind of "completely alien mindset and approach".

I do want to explore the idea of "Evil from one perspective might really be totally justifiable from another".

Depends on what aliens, dunnit? I imagine you're thinking of something like Xenomorphs, but what about, say, Vulcans?

"Vulcans have been seen in the woods, we should go wipe them out!" - sounds rather ****ed up, IMO.

Are you kidding? Probably better to whack those pointy-eared sunsaguns even before the Aliens. After all, they might be Romulans in disguise. Aside: Balance of Terror = best ST ToS episode ever. Fight!


- M

[OldTrees1]

I mean, nothing wrong with a D&D campaign that's simple good vs evil where the sides are obvious at a glance. But you don't need evil races for that - Star Wars (IV) did it just fine with human storm-troopers (the clone thing doesn't matter, since that wasn't known initially and the story still worked).

I'm just not seeing what "Oh no, it's Orcs, better get ready to fight!" brings to the table that "Oh no, it's soldiers from the evil empire, better get ready to fight!" doesn't.

Ascending additions

Assuming the Orcs are mechanically different from humans:
Oh we should expect they will be generally stronger and tougher than the Thayian soliders they are allied with. Quickly charging through their ranks and dogpiling on the mage might not be as effective. The Orc frontline is more likely to hold the line and the mage might break free of the grapple. On the other hand we are less likely to have to deal with the minor magic the thayian front line could wield.

Assuming these Orcs are figuratively always evil but only "because" rather than having lore:
It means there are fewer neutral soldiers being forced into the front lines. (common evil empire tactic)

Assuming 5E Volo's take on Orcs:
In addition to "its soldiers from the evil empire" it brings the tragedy of orcs under Gruumsh. Across the way you see Gruumsh's curse. The orcs are in an enforced endless rage that robs them of their focus just as the ability to feel the self preserving fear has been robbed from them. Gruumsh will drive their disposable corpses towards you life a force of nature.



I don't want to use Volo's take on Gruumsh, but having lore beyond/before "they do be evil" usually means the "they do be evil" is a symptom of something different that was brought to the table. The 5E Volo's take on Gruumsh would have orcs sweep through like a yearly monsoon season created by a malicious wizard. A Thayian army would feel much different from Gruumsh's flood. Of course the alternative would also bring something different. In 3E Oblund's war might be considered an evil empire (Reminder only a plurality of 3E orcs were CE, many were non evil). Oblund champion of Gruumsh assembled a mighty army of ten thousand orcs. With it they swept into the fertile lands they has been ostracized from and founded an orc kingdom stable enough and powerful enough to demand respect and peace from even the elves and dwarven settlements that had ostracized them. So while the Thayians are more likely to retreat than compromise, Oblund's war was defeated through peace.

[Witty Username]

I do not consider evil alignment to be inherently worthy of a death penalty. A common world building choice is to have ~1/3rd of fantasy humans be evil.

A brief note here, "Evil" is a player option. And at least in the games I have played it hasn't been unusual for Good, Neutral and Evil characters to work together and cooperate.

One of my favorite characters from the Baldur's Gate series, and fascinatingly on the core topic, is a rather unassuming Dwarven mercenary named Kaigen. He is proper Lawful Evil by description, and his thing is he is a greedy mercenary with as long as he gets paid he's happy. He has few to no conflicts with most characters, apart from grumbling if he thinks the party hasn't been paid enough.

What I take from characters like this is 'Evil' is alot more tolerable than people think, and can manifest in a bunch of ways. There is an argument that 'Evil' doesn't even warrant a course of action.

With that in mind, feeling justified killing children comes off as a self inflicted problem.

A quick reminder is that None of the species discussed here fit the category being complained about (Always Evil):
-Gnolls vary by setting
-Drow entire arguement is if the Evil/Non-Evil split is 51/49 or 49/51 - in FR, which Drow tend to be unusually prominent
-Orcs and gobilns are fairly well played with in my experience, only lacking some in specific examples which posibly has to due with half-orc some.

[Lord Raziere]

But does killing aliens raise uncomfortable moral questions, intentionally or otherwise?

Yes.

Why the hell would there be any other answer.

They are beings from a different environment. Its not their fault if they think or act differently from us. If they are capable of being negotiated with, its bad if we get into a war with them, just as bad getting into a war with any human nation....because war is bad.

If the aliens are super-genocidal P-Zombies that we need to genocide back, that IS STILL BAD. INCREDIBLY. HORRIBLY. BAD. It still causes all the suffering of war, all the problems of war even if you win, with no possibility of a better solution. You have to deal with the social problems of people thinking genocide is a good solution afterwards and having to convince them that its NOT because you NEVER EVER have full control over humanity, what its cultures learn and react to and what they apply their lessons to. Experiences like that shape generations, and cause problems decades or more down the line no matter what, there will be idiots who will take the wrong lesson, there will be idiots powerful enough to ENFORCE the wrong lesson for generations to come, so that their children and their children's children learn the wrong lesson, you might never see that wrong lesson be unlearned in your lifetime, on things this large of a scale with politics, cultures and so on involved, you cannot say "oh this was an exception, we'll just go back to normal afterwards" because it doesn't work like that, because when something like that is DONE? its a precedent. Its a validation of all the worst impulses of humanity. People would look back at the precedent set, and see not that reasons why it was allowed, but that it was allowed at all, and figure out ways to make sure its allowed again for worse reasons at people who do not deserve to be targeted. and people will have to fight for that precedent to not be used, for that influence to be curtailed, lessened, unlearned, dismantled, for that to NOT become normality.
it doesn't matter what moral high ground you have when you victoriously kill the genocidal hive mind aliens or whatever, your civilization will still be traumatized and hurt from that conflict, and twist that trauma to see enemies wherever they want, not to mention the kind of leaders that could easily come into power whose only experience is making everyone kill the nasty bug monsters and exploiting peoples fear and hatred of the nasty bug monsters. methods they can easily turn to do other things that are less good, and thus sooner or later will, because those are the methods that got them results and thus think maybe they can apply it to get results elsewhere. whatever outcast group of the generation (it doesn't matter which one) will sooner or later be compared to those aliens out of sheer stupidity (it doesn't matter how this stupid conclusion is reached) and they will face problems because of it, and they will have to fight tooth and nail to be accepted, maybe even just get to back to where they were before the aliens ever attacked, and more to actually get accepted.

and all that.....are the complex problems you face without having a sympathetic villain or good people on the other side of the conflict involved when you do that. because humanity is still the complex, flawed and often full of people doing bad decisions and believing stupid things no matter how simple and evil you make the opposition, and in some ways facing such a foe would only make humans worse.

[Satinavian]

Ascending additions
Assuming these Orcs are figuratively always evil but only "because" rather than having lore:
It means there are fewer neutral soldiers being forced into the front lines. (common evil empire tactic)

If you are fighting the soldiers of the evil empire, it should not matter, whether the soldiers you kill are evil, neutral or good. You are killing them because they fight for the evil empire. Killing good enemy soldiers is as moral as killing evil enemy soldiers.

[LibraryOgre]

But does killing aliens raise uncomfortable moral questions, intentionally or otherwise? Ghouls? Beholders?

I think it is only the desire/compulsion/inclination to compare Dracks or gnolls or whatever to something in real life that drives this issue.

- M

It's part of why 80s cartoons so often had the bad guys (at least the cannon fodder) be robots... if you're stabbing a bunch of rebellious teenagers, that's ****ed up. If you're stabbing Foot Clan robots, it's pizza time, dudes.

[OldTrees1]

If you are fighting the soldiers of the evil empire, it should not matter, whether the soldiers you kill are evil, neutral or good. You are killing them because they fight for the evil empire. Killing good enemy soldiers is as moral as killing evil enemy soldiers.

Please consider that paragraph in the context of the rest of the post. Those were ascending additions and we are mostly in agreement about that layer of the onion.

Adding "and they were figuratively always evil" by itself does not add much. It removes a few tactical options and adjusts a couple moral questions, but it does not change much by itself.

However if you add interesting and impactful lore that happens to also add "and they were figuratively always evil", then there is a lot added in contrast to a bland evil empire.

"Orcs are figuratively always evil" does not add much. 5E Volo's take on Gruumsh does at a lot and the resulting orcs being figuratively always evil is a side effect. Volo's take means the enemy is forced into an endless rage and robbed of the ability to feel fear. At the same time it recontextualizes the conflict as being you vs Gruumsh rather than vs the evil empire.


So in answer to icefractal's question about "what do orcs bring to the table that an evil empire doesn't", well it depends on which orcs. At a baseline the orcs will bring whatever differentiates orcs from cosmopolitian soldiers (I used higher Str as an example). Beyond that the mere change of "orcs are almost all evil" does not add much. However changing Gruumsh from the 3E version to the 5E Volo version does have cascading changes that do bring things to the table that a bland generic evil empire doesn't.

Now personally if I had to pick between Oblund's orcs, Orcs but "always" evil with no elaboration, and 5E Volo's Orcs, I would pick Oblund's orcs, followed distantly by Volo's orcs, and I would completely ignore the middle option since it adds so little.

But does killing aliens raise uncomfortable moral questions, intentionally or otherwise? Ghouls? Beholders?

I think it is only the desire/compulsion/inclination to compare Dracks or gnolls or whatever to something in real life that drives this issue.

- M

It raises moral questions. Whether they are uncomfortable is a bit subjective. One can become comfortable pondering and answering challenging moral questions.


XYZ can raise moral questions. If we assign XYZ as a symbol for something in real life, then we change what questions are going to be raised. Usually this means the questions will tend to be more charged, and more prone to a regurgitated answer rather than a considered answer.

On the other hand we can answer the questions XYZ raises itself, and then apply the lessons. Those questions will tend to have generalizable answers.

There is room for both sets of questions regardless of XYZ. I have used Mind Flayers to prompt both types of questions for me to answer.

[Satinavian]

Please consider that paragraph in the context of the rest of the post.

It was just the only part of the post i had anything to say about. I don't play 5E (and really not actually any D&D nowadays) and know of Volo's orcs only what is in this thread. And i really don't like "But they are evil so they can be killed" because that really hardcodes that one life is worth than another. It stops being about defending someone or even delivering justice and becomes "they are [insert expletive], so it's fine to kill them."

Now personally if I had to pick between Oblund's orcs, Orcs but "always" evil with no elaboration, and 5E Volo's Orcs, I would pick Oblund's orcs, followed distantly by Volo's orcs, and I would completely ignore the middle option since it adds so little.

Well, i would agree.

[OldTrees1]

It was just the only part of the post i had anything to say about. I don't play 5E (and really not actually any D&D nowadays) and know of Volo's orcs only what is in this thread. And i really don't like "But they are evil so they can be killed" because that really hardcodes that one life is worth than another. It stops being about defending someone or even delivering justice and becomes "they are [insert expletive], so it's fine to kill them."
Well, i would agree.

That context helps explain the reply.
I do not consider evil alignment to be inherently worthy of a death penalty. So I usually don't even see "But they are evil so they can be killed".

[Psyren]

Lots of sweet lore. The orc lore in Volo’s is great in my opinion.

I find it one-dimensional and reductive. 99% of it relates to fighting, and not just fighting, but "hatred of civilized races" and "destroying elves, dwarves, and humans" specifically. About the only thing they hate as much as those other races is each other; there's are paragraphs literally titled "All Are Fighters" and "Search, Destroy, Repeat." Woopty-do; the whole thing brings to mind a pre-teen incessantly banging their action figures together.

[Mordar]

Topic One
I'm moved to wonder...what is the average number of different types of adversaries encountered in an average campaign? What is the distribution of "repeat" encounters? What is the frequency of campaigns that promote/allow cultural investigation, or are even designed for the same?

Obviously no way to really answer those questions, even if we try to standardize the conditions (D&D, 26 sessions per year, moderately experienced players, consistent group of 5 + 1, etc). The discussion, though, has made me wonder about the frequency with which some of this conversation has a true table impact.

As mentioned by more than one of us, we wouldn't generally force the question of "What do you do with the infant and juvenile Dracks?", but even more...how often is a "non-standard-PC" humanoid race the featured adversary in a campaign? How often, in general, are the conditions behind the motivations of the adversaries that important, or sufficiently developed to be an engaging use of the leisure time.

Sure, a game set against the backdrop of the Eternal War between the Dwarves and the [insert other race here], examining the geopolitics, cultural mores and historical events that precipitated and perpetuate the conflict...but how often is that the case versus a more episodic campaign of dungeons, tombs, ruins and cave networks with an occasional splash of town time?

In some other game systems I think it could be much more often...but D&D seems both less (all the great monsters, the exploration of the namesake dungeons, heavy combat focus) and at times more (because orcs!) apt to run into this sort of storyline.

Topic Two
Despite the argument for grand arbitrators and the "do the races view themselves as evil" lines of commentary, I think that there are some compelling reasons why a given culture, and if a small enough campaign world, a given race can be "always Evil". One where theft by violence, accepted murder, general disregard for life etc. can make developmental sense. Confluence of things presented in OotS regarding goblins, but polished up even more, and in a setting less directly crafted and monitored by divinities.

Short lifespan, high reproduction cycle, scant resources, evolutionary drive toward physicality, dominant religion (or Religion, depending), obstructed migration, etc could lead to a sustained culture that would be viewed by modern (and even modern fantasy role playing in-world) standards as overtly evil, and even Evil. And it could even have radically different views of what is acceptable intraculturally vs. interculturally (if you will...inside the group vs outside the group?).

Can be applied to a lot of different subtypes, even.

Does this reconcile anyone's qualms about the potential for an "always Evil" race in a game?

- M

[gbaji]

I think it's also of note to point out that sometimes good/evil are used as relative terms within a single society, and other times it may be used as a label comparing different societies (which may have very different standards of morality).

Which might be extremely relevant in the context of a "member of species X raised by species Y" type scenario. Or even just "member of species X, spends time with species Y folks, and learns to broaden their views on things".

This, and many other things, tend to be problems with most alignment systems.

[Witty Username]

This, and many other things, tend to be problems with most alignment systems.

I think that this is possibly a misuse of alignment,
Alignment as personality, I have found never works well. Gnoll, Chaotic Evil, behavior, see alignment and we get a really dumb and unusable thing
Alignment as vibe of what the other traits suggest or as a component in addition to other traits tends to produce better results. Drow, Proud, Insoular, intermixed in a multilayered cult of personality filled with corruption. Tracks with Chaotic Evil.

Or on the character side rather than species/faction side
Dwarven Fighter, behavior see Lawful
Vs, Dwarven Fighter, Blacksmith and toymaker, friendly to children as it helps attract customers, stickler for contracts and promises, Disinterested in politics vibe check Lawful, Good/Neutral depending on how the character fleshes out but both work

The second one does cast doubt on the utility of alignment, which is fair, some people find it is helpful as a play aid or a learning tool to create a first character, others don't.
--
A lot of my personal opinions on species lore, and faction lore since the tropes in play have similarity, is how much table utility can I get from it. Gnoll is useless, because they don't have use cases, just use demons instead they are more flexible. Underdark Drow is useful, infighting, threat, multiple conflicting goals, outsiders and ingroups that both allow for complexity.

I personally push against no lore, as no lore helps no one. Drow, Dwarves, Humans, etc. need traits, concepts, and themes to mine. Even if I don't use them directly things to draw inspiration from is better than no things.
There is also the matter of force, no one is forcing anyone to use things they don't like. Don't like Drow society or Lolth, just don't use it. Options like Dragonlance exist that have neither.

As for evil factions like Thay, all I will say is I find that as a solution dubious as using humans as your bad guys doesn't prevent stereotyping, and can make it more prominent due to the lack of a fiction layer and unfortunately doesn't actually solve the "moral quandary" problems based on my admittedly small sample size. Not to say Thay, or Zenthil Keep, or Karnath aren't fun, they just aren't a solution to the specific problem being discussed.

Edit: Oh, and no notes on Lord Raziere, that is pretty close to my thoughts on that topic.

[Errorname]

I personally push against no lore, as no lore helps no one. Drow, Dwarves, Humans, etc. need traits, concepts, and themes to mine. Even if I don't use them directly things to draw inspiration from is better than no things.

For what it's worth I don't think anyone's advocating for no lore, I think the function of having a foundation to build on is a pretty universally recognized good thing.

[137beth]

Yes.

Why the hell would there be any other answer.

They are beings from a different environment. Its not their fault if they think or act differently from us. If they are capable of being negotiated with, its bad if we get into a war with them, just as bad getting into a war with any human nation....because war is bad.

If the aliens are super-genocidal P-Zombies that we need to genocide back, that IS STILL BAD. INCREDIBLY. HORRIBLY. BAD. It still causes all the suffering of war, all the problems of war even if you win, with no possibility of a better solution. You have to deal with the social problems of people thinking genocide is a good solution afterwards and having to convince them that its NOT because you NEVER EVER have full control over humanity, what its cultures learn and react to and what they apply their lessons to. Experiences like that shape generations, and cause problems decades or more down the line no matter what, there will be idiots who will take the wrong lesson, there will be idiots powerful enough to ENFORCE the wrong lesson for generations to come, so that their children and their children's children learn the wrong lesson, you might never see that wrong lesson be unlearned in your lifetime, on things this large of a scale with politics, cultures and so on involved, you cannot say "oh this was an exception, we'll just go back to normal afterwards" because it doesn't work like that, because when something like that is DONE? its a precedent. Its a validation of all the worst impulses of humanity. People would look back at the precedent set, and see not that reasons why it was allowed, but that it was allowed at all, and figure out ways to make sure its allowed again for worse reasons at people who do not deserve to be targeted. and people will have to fight for that precedent to not be used, for that influence to be curtailed, lessened, unlearned, dismantled, for that to NOT become normality.
it doesn't matter what moral high ground you have when you victoriously kill the genocidal hive mind aliens or whatever, your civilization will still be traumatized and hurt from that conflict, and twist that trauma to see enemies wherever they want, not to mention the kind of leaders that could easily come into power whose only experience is making everyone kill the nasty bug monsters and exploiting peoples fear and hatred of the nasty bug monsters. methods they can easily turn to do other things that are less good, and thus sooner or later will, because those are the methods that got them results and thus think maybe they can apply it to get results elsewhere. whatever outcast group of the generation (it doesn't matter which one) will sooner or later be compared to those aliens out of sheer stupidity (it doesn't matter how this stupid conclusion is reached) and they will face problems because of it, and they will have to fight tooth and nail to be accepted, maybe even just get to back to where they were before the aliens ever attacked, and more to actually get accepted.

and all that.....are the complex problems you face without having a sympathetic villain or good people on the other side of the conflict involved when you do that. because humanity is still the complex, flawed and often full of people doing bad decisions and believing stupid things no matter how simple and evil you make the opposition, and in some ways facing such a foe would only make humans worse.

Permission to put this whole thing in my extended sig, please?

[Lord Raziere]

Permission to put this whole thing in my extended sig, please?

sure, permission granted.

[earthseawizard]

Man, there's a lot of pages here. But this month we started a new campaign and 4 of my 5 players are dwarves.

[Errorname]

Man, there's a lot of pages here. But this month we started a new campaign and 4 of my 5 players are dwarves.

Oh yeah, remember when this thread was about Dwarves?

[Grim Portent]

I suppose back on the original topic, a big part of it might be how D&D handles racial stats, which has been touched on already, and D&D represents an oversized chunk of fantasy RPG gamers.

D&D dwarves are basically just humans, not just in terms of their culture being a hodge-podge of bits of our past, that's somewhat unavoidable really, but in their stats and racial abilities. D&D dwarves aren't tough, their differences from the human baseline are pretty inconsequential. Mechanically race in D&D usually boils down to +5% to some rolls, a gimmick ability that most races will never use, and some proficiencies you probably don't care about anyway.

5e Hill dwarf boils down to +1 to consitution saves and +2hp/lvl. It's not exactly exciting, nor does it scream 'tough as nails.'

Obviously what feels tough is subjective, but I've played an Ork in Rogue Trader, the average human had a really high chance to do 0 damage to me even if they hit, because Orkz are tough and shrug off blows that would leave a human at death's door. Being able to get shot in the chest with a full burst of machine gun fire and take no damage while wearing basically no armour feels awesome, especially when the humans in the party are running around in heavy armour equivalents for the same result. And it's not like it stops there, you keep getting tougher, you get better armour, become increasingly indifferent to all but the most extreme threats. You can take a shotgun blast to the bare face and grin through it because you're made of boiled leather and enthusiasm and driven by fungus beer and bloodlust. You feel, as the Orkz would put it, 'Ded 'ard.'

D&D dwarves just don't really do that. Obviously nothing in D&D does, it's not the kind of thing the system does well anyway, but if being 'tough' is basically a rounding error on your sheet compared to the supposedly delicate elves sheet, then it doesn't feel good.

[KorvinStarmast]

Man, there's a lot of pages here. But this month we started a new campaign and 4 of my 5 players are dwarves.

Should be a cool campaign.

Oh yeah, remember when this thread was about Dwarves?

Back in the good old days...

Dwarves are tough: Poison resistance and adv on poison saves
Boosts to CON are a good thing.
+2 STR +2 CON makes for a tougher fighter.

[gbaji]

I think that this is possibly a misuse of alignment,
Alignment as personality, I have found never works well. Gnoll, Chaotic Evil, behavior, see alignment and we get a really dumb and unusable thing
Alignment as vibe of what the other traits suggest or as a component in addition to other traits tends to produce better results. Drow, Proud, Insoular, intermixed in a multilayered cult of personality filled with corruption. Tracks with Chaotic Evil.

I was going in a slightly different direction though. Much of what we might consider when thinking about "mostly evil" races in a game is purely cultural and not, er... genetic, so to speak.

Orcs in a game setting may be brutal folks, who believe that personal strength shows their fitness and position in society, and thus constantly fight and kill to show this. Perhaps they enjoy eating their enemies in battle to "consume their strength" maybe. Orc children may not at all be taught not to fight in school, but "strike first and take them down fast" is the rule.

A human, looking at the resulting orcs they encounter in the world might absolutely conclude that they are "mostly evil" as a result. But within that culture, the orcs themselves would not consider any of these actions to actually be "evil" at all. They might consider very different things to be good or evil as a result. But I'm not even trying to argue whether that makes different things *actually* good or evil here (but it does create problems when the same alignment system tries to measure both things), but merely pointing out that, if this is the case, then an Orc child raised by humans would hold very different views on good and evil as an Orc child raised by Orcs.

Which seemed relevant to the whole "you find the orc nursery, what do you do?" situation.

Oh yeah, remember when this thread was about Dwarves?

Well... if we must. Honestly? I think most games go kinda off the rails when they feel the need to introduce a multitude of sub/side races. Do we really need hill dwarves, and ice dwarves, and whatnot? It just seems strange (and oddly human focused) that we never (or at least very very rarely) hear about game systems/settings where humans, simply becuse they are encountered in some other environment, now have different stats and are a different sub-race or something, yet this is done all the time with other races in games.

And I suppose this ties into my point above. I tend to prefer to make the differences between different groups of sentient people in my game worlds, different primarilly becuase of culture, and not race. Dwarves in the far north, and dwarves deep under ground, and dwarves living in forests, are all just dwarves. They may have different cultural rules, have developed different skills and whatnot, and speak different languages (maybe), but.... just like I may have many different human civilizations spread around my a games world with radically different cultures, religions, etc, I do the same thing for other races as well.

I have no problem having the dwarves living in this area be friendly and willing to trade their goods fairly with their neighbors, while the ones over there are highly suspicious of outsiders and will kill them pretty much on sight. They're all still racially dwarves though. I've just never got the whole "theses guys live in a different environment, so we'll make them both racially/physiologically different and then also have them have a different cullture". To me, that just never made sense.

Well. Other than to sell more splatbooks that is.

[Grim Portent]

Dwarves are tough: Poison resistance and adv on poison saves
Boosts to CON are a good thing.
+2 STR +2 CON makes for a tougher fighter.

Kind of, maybe? Even within the math of 5e it's barely noticable compared to the swing of a d20. In practice a dwarf fighter and an elf fighter are going to wind up with their stats being basically identical unless one goes for a dex build. The poison resistance is... there I guess. It'll come in handy against a few monsters, but most of the time it's just going to be stopping a few points of damage from spiders or weirdly placed dart traps.

D&D isn't really built for the kind of stuff to make something feel tough like mountain rock, like the alpen pine that grows against bitter winds, like the leathery backside of a wombat blocking a tunnel.