What's the problem with having no always-evil races in a fantasy game?

What's the problem with having no always-evil races in a fantasy game? It's not that hard to use bad guys that are evil by choice rather than blood

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    How many times do you intend to post this exact same thread, with this exact same question? I've lost count of the number of times I've heard this:
    >uh uh uh... what if... monster... not evil!?!
    Get a fricking life, anon. Nobody cares about your persecution fantasies.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous
    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Get a fricking life, anon.
      Rich coming from the man who's on /tg/ enough to recognize this as a recurring post.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      RIP OP

    • 2 years ago
      This thread sucks

      OP SHAMBLED

      >Get a fricking life, anon.
      Rich coming from the man who's on /tg/ enough to recognize this as a recurring post.

      OP outs himself

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    No real problem with most people, it just makes some racists angry. (Talking of those hardcore openly racists and those whom are racists but think they aren't).
    No one being born evil makes them fume.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I can assure you that that isn't it. You don't need to be racist to think that there is such a thing as inherently bad people. Sociopathy IS heritable. Meaning that there are literally inheritably bad people, so if that were the case, a racist would just be someone who doesn't deny basic genetics.

      A racist would in this example be a person who believes that sociopathy is inherent to an entire haplogroup of people. Which, just thinking about it can't be true because any such group would go extinct pretty rapidly.

      Rather, the problem in this case would be the idea that every species of non-humans just magically has identical rational moral and social instincts to humans. It's saccharine and naïve, and people only make saccharine and naïve stuff when they're intimidated by reality.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >...if that were the case, a racist would just be someone who doesn't deny basic genetics.
        That is exactly what a racist is.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Sociopathy IS heritable.
        [citation needed]

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Just look at pitbulls, even as puppies they're vicious

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >MUH PITBULLLLLL
            *sigh*

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Ferguson, C. (2010).Genetic Contributions to Antisocial Personality and Behavior. Journal of Social Psychology, 150 (2)
          >Evidence from behavioral genetics supports the conclusion that a significant amount of the variance in antisocial personality and behavior (APB) is due to genetic contributions. Many scientific fields such as psychology, medicine, and criminal justice struggle to incorporate this information with preexisting paradigms that focused exclusively on external or learned etiology of antisocial behavior. The current paper presents a meta-analytic review of behavioral genetic etiological studies of APB. Results indicated that 56% of the variance in APB can be explained through genetic influences, with 11% due to shared non-genetic influences, and 31% due to unique non-genetic influences. This data is discussed in relation to evolutionary psychological theory.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            What about the other %44?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >he flunked his 100-level Psych course
              >Heritability measures how important genetics is to a trait. A high heritability, close to 1, indicates that genetics explain a lot of the variation in a trait between different people; a low heritability, near zero, indicates that most of the variation is not genetic. Just because a trait has a high heritability doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s some specific gene that directly causes it in some obvious biological way, but it does mean that the total contribution of direct and indirect causal effects and other correlations between specific DNA variants and the trait are enough to be informative

              I think this is the most succinct definition, even if there is some other stuff on this professor's page that's the usual humdrum Lysenkoism concerning population genetics.
              http://www.nealelab.is/blog/2017/9/13/heritability-101-what-is-heritability

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              It literally says in the post.
              Note that 'explains 56% of the variance in the studied population' is not the same thing as 'half genetics, half environment'.
              If you raised all of those kids in a totally identical environment, the environmental factor would drop to 0% and the genetic explanation would rise to 100% even though they had the same genetics as the population where it explained only 56% of the variance.
              Also, only some of the variance being explained by genetics is completely consistent with some individuals being entirely genetic psychopaths and others being entirely environmental sociopaths. In reality, most antisocial people seem to have a mix of both factors, but there are a few who just seem to be horrible despite perfectly nice environments (any experienced social worker will have stories of children who were taken from antisocial mothers at birth, raised in loving homes, and turned out antisocial anyway).
              But it's easy to imagine a non-human species which is entirely composed of what would be psychopaths among humans. In fact, it's hard to believe that any realistic non-human species wouldn't have that level of deviation from human norms, because you're not even talking about something that is weird among humans. If you said that your dwarves were all shorter than 97% of humans, that wouldn't seem weird, so it isn't at all a stretch to imagine a species where every one of them is more evil than 97% of humans.
              Even if you have them set up so a few rare individuals are no more genetically inclined to evil than an average human:
              >A genetically average human raised in a society of psychopaths is almost certain to get killed or adapt by taking on psychopathic traits
              >Treating a 99% evil race as 100% evil is completely reasonable given the risks of dealing with evil monsters

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                0.56 is quite high.

                >is not the same thing as 'half genetics, half environment'.
                This is technically correct, but the layman's understanding is actually how all these PhDs use heritability. To say nothing of the ones where we've actually found the gene, like low-repeat MAO-A and propensity toward violent crime.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >But it's easy to imagine a non-human species which is entirely composed of what would be psychopaths among humans. In fact, it's hard to believe that any realistic non-human species wouldn't have that level of deviation from human norms, because you're not even talking about something that is weird among humans. If you said that your dwarves were all shorter than 97% of humans, that wouldn't seem weird, so it isn't at all a stretch to imagine a species where every one of them is more evil than 97% of humans.
                This was very succinctly explained anon, kudos.

                You're right, even a small variation in 'default behaviour' could cause a huge moral chasm between human and [non-human] species.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >antisocial personality and behavior (APB)
            Totally the same thing as always-evil orc.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Being an orc is also hereditary, though I shouldn't even mention that and instead I should just call you an idiot. When you ask if something is hereditary, and get shown that it is, you don't look clever when you move the goalposts and pretend you actually asked whether orcness was hereditary.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Dude you literally proved the point where it would just get racists angry. You can have communities be evil but that more likely to be caused by culture, religion or fricking lead poisoning then species most of the time in most functional settings.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Or it could be that people just want to kill things for fun without having to ponder on the moral dilemmas of doing so. It's part of the reason why zombies are so enjoyable.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >without having to ponder on the moral dilemmas of doing so.
        Stop with this moron talking point, it isn't actually a thing. Or are you really going to pretend people ever had a problem with killing bandits and evil wizards?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I mean, there's barely any difference between an army of mindless zombies and an army of unreasonable orcs when you take things like the ability to surrender or negociate from them.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          All sorts of contextual differences. Orcs would be characterized by tactics and strategy although through a very different cultural lens and hierarchy of priorities. The would have battlefield goals and objectives as well as an interest in self preservation although perhaps organized differently.
          >no surrender or negotiation
          They can also flee.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            But how is possible they can understand the concept and benefits of collaborating but can never do so with good races? Can't a single orc deviant conceptualize the idea and benefit of commerce over raids? Or the problems of creating more enemies than they can handle?
            I would get it from fiends, since they have no basic necesities like eating and rest, and destruction and misery are their main source of nourish, but from living beings that could have much more benefits from colaboration or just neutrality the idea of actively looking forward to cause harm for no reason is a strange thing to device (not as an individual but as a plural of many individual creatures).

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Because they fricking hate you. Its not complicated.
              Or they don't like commerce, even if they see the benefits.
              Or creating more enemies is great so they get to fight more. Or they can't even imagine a fight they can't handle.
              Lots of reasons. Not everything that thinks has to think like you.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I can get that the vast majority do think like that but is weird that not a single orc can think differently.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                That's the weird part? You can have a woman with snakes for hair that turns people into stone by looking at them, talking swords and flying galleons but its weird that all the orcs hate humans enough that none of them will talk it out? Frick, go talk to their goblin slaves, they're likely more amenable if you want to get your negotiation on.
                idk man, you need to stretch your imagination more I guess.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >but its weird that all the orcs hate humans enough that none of them will talk it out?
                At that point why even use orcs? Why not just use demons?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Because the orc are different than demons and those are differences I want to use in the game? They have culture and reason and texture that is different based on the world building? Its like you can't understand and have to make it abstract to something else.
                Easiest reason would be having a group of mortals rather than demons. I'm sure I could concoct a circumstance where the demons were limited in their time frame on the world or something like that so you can make another attempt at pretending they're equivalent, but because its in large part a game of imagination based on language, the specific descriptions and communications are important to the gameplay.
                There are lots of groups that can be communicated with in agreeable ways, but there are some that can not. I'm uncertain why this is such a difficult idea.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Easiest reason would be having a group of mortals rather than demon
                If Orcs are universally evil, can they even be considered mortals?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Mortality is not linked to being good or evil. Living things that will die are mortal.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Demons can be killed as well.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Living things anon.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                How are demons not alive?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                To get into the etymology of mortal,
                they are not destine to die. Things that are not destine to die are not mortal.
                To go past that they are not born in the sense of a mortal being. They're not birthed like a living thing, they don't have biology like a living thing, they don't die like a living thing. They have hearts, organs, vicera, etc. but are not living mortals.
                >but what difference does that make?
                It makes the difference between a demon and a mortal. They're creatures formed from metaphysical evil, they're not living beings in the conventional sense.
                >but that doesn't make sense
                Doesn't have to. Its fantastical cosmology roughly based on judeo christian cosmology, its not going to line up with biological models you're use to.
                >but in my setting they're different
                Okay. Your demons are mortals. Why are they demons?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >They're not birthed like a living thing
                Neither are orcs, they're created from fricking mud pits by dark sorcerers

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                They're still destine to die. Its in the name idiot. Mortal.
                Immortal.
                Different.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                A spirit is not living, it simply exists.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Generally they can't. Banishment or dissolution is often not considered dying.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >All races are morally gray and thus narratively interchangeable
                At that point why even use orcs? Why not just use humans?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Player tries to reason with a captured orc about the best course of action for both of them
                >Orc prefers getting kill by player over ccoperating because "lol evul!"
                Humans will try to negociate if they see the chance, that's the joke. Because when you can use other ways to sort an encounter you will, otherwise everything boilds down to "orc, welp, I guess is time to hit things" instead of "orc, I wonder if I can arrange an alliance in exchange of taking the enemy tribe as a bargain for their help"

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I'm not even sure what your green text straw man is trying to say.
                Is it that difficult for you to imagine something that hates something else enough it won't negotiate with it even under duress? What about dwarves that won't crack under torture? Similar seems enough. Orcs and dwarves aren't humans. They're going to do things differently.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >What about dwarves that won't crack under torture?
                Since when?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I'm just playing into the stereotype to make a hypothetical.
                Would it be okay to have dwarves never relent under duress? If so, how is that different than orcs that do not negotiate with humans? If not so, does that lean towards all the races basically needing to be more human for you to play the game?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                No, it's mostly about
                >Can I negociate with the orc?
                >"No"
                >Why can't I?
                >"Because all orcs are evil and wont negociate with humans?"
                >Why are all orcs evil?
                >"They are born evil"
                >So they don't have a choice in the matter
                >"No"
                >How is it different from an animal then
                >"Because they can think"
                >They can think about everything BUT that?
                >"Yes, that concept is not a possibility to them"
                >Then they're not really evil but neutral chaotic, since is not like they do evil by choice, but by nature.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                We already covered this a while back. They can think it, they just don't do it. Understanding a thing is not the same as agreeing with a thing or being thus beholden to do the thing understood. It is a possibility for them, they just don't do it.
                Yes all of them.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >The posibility exist but not a single one will use it
                Boring

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                No? Not everything needs to be negotiable, conflict can be interesting as well.
                >railroad blahabla
                Go read the rest of the thread.

                Then they might as well just be robots without any kind of independent thought period.

                Also no. Things can have a variety of thoughts, tactics, drives and interests that are incompatible with something else's thoughts, tactics, drives and interests. Again, go read the rest of the thread.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Why on Earth would you create a race with an option to choose good but that it will never, ever take it for no discernable reason?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                There have been many discernible reasons already listed.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Because I wanted there to be an evil antagonist faction with a warlike and alien disposition that provided constantly evolving encounters through out the campaign peppered through the hex map in gradually increasing ways with their own identity that can be discovered for interest (or not) but that couldn't be negotiated away?

                No anon, all of those have logical holes when you stop applying them to small groups and start trying it to apply it to large numbers of individuals, and separate tribes.
                The issue is, you can get the same result by an army of devils, which at the very least would have a reason to never do good, as good itself is harmful to them, since they're the embodiment of evil itself. Or an insect creature that acts for the hive and always obeys the insect Queen prime directive.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                None of them do. Its a fantastical world, many of the hypothetical questions I asked to shed light on the subject have been ignored. You seem legitimately incapable of understanding a concept that isn't one you agree with and fixated on saying X is the equivalent of Y when it is not and specifically can not due to the necessary contextual nature of rpgs.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Because I wanted there to be an evil antagonist faction with a warlike and alien disposition that provided constantly evolving encounters through out the campaign peppered through the hex map in gradually increasing ways with their own identity that can be discovered for interest (or not) but that couldn't be negotiated away?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Your circular argument is worthless. You say it creates variety, but in the end that is nothing but window dressing because the thought process is meaningless by our standards and those of the majority/good faction.

                It's like if you set up a game with 2 good faction and 9 "other" that you say aren't evil and have entirely unique and diverse beliefs and ways of life, but they all act evil and you can't negotiate or do anything with them but kill them.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                If you can't see the difference between describing a battle in an actual game between an army of orcs and an army or robots or devils I don't really have anything else to try and explain and it seems like you just think the game is a numbers simulation.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >and 9 others
                mans its 1 group, no one has been able to explain the problem with there being 1 group other than 'i just don't like it'

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Personally I find it stupid and patronizing. It' very "video gamey" in feel to me, like needing a big neon sign over the enemy to tell you, "yes, this is in fact the enemy and you can't do anything else with them but fight them".

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                So the problem is, this one time, in a game world where I specifically use reaction tables and open world exploration, morale and negotiation far more than most osr play, is that this one race is nasty and violent to an extent you can't negotiate with, and because of that you have decided to ignore everything about them because its suddenly irrelevant?
                Why not spy on them to study their cultural icons and rituals so you can disrupt them to undermine their morale? Why not investigate their eating habits and see if you can mess with them so they're ill supplied or won't eat their 'tainted' food? etc? Use your imagination.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Then they might as well just be robots without any kind of independent thought period.

                you guys sound kinda moronic. because something doesn’t have a reason to do something doesn't make it a robot.
                >doesnt want to converse with a human
                >ok, next time ill paint myself green, or bear the sumbol of their god, or somethinng else maybe then it might talk to me

                things require reasons. just like humans dont just spontaneously DO anything.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Then they might as well just be robots without any kind of independent thought period.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                your logic doesnt follow at all you sound autistic what if they simply dont find a reason to converse with you. they can think about conversing with a human, doesnt mean they want of have any real proclivity to.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >But how is possible they can understand the concept and benefits of collaborating but can never do so with good races?
              That isn't necessary to be evil.
              Take a typical human psychopath / antisocial person. They can absolutely understand that cooperation is sometimes a good strategy. They can in fact cooperate with each other, and form organized groups to achieve their goals. They can even cooperate with non-psychopathic people for mutual benefit sometimes. But they still despise everyone that isn't them, have no consideration for others, react with hatred and disgust towards anyone who shows weakness and empathy, and will do terrible things if it is convenient to them, or just because they love doing things which others find repugnant.
              Child abusers, communists, terrorists, and gangsters are 'all evil' groups (or at least so close to it that they might as well be), but they manage to co-operate with each other and sometimes with non-evil (or not-entirely-evil) groups.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                So you're talking about a race completly composed of psychopaths that somehow manages to not make enough enemies as to been completely wiped out despise having created antagonistic relatioships with every single neighbour?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                nta
                Works until they lose.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yes. There are literally groups of people who are that evil and manage to not be wiped out and indeed to thrive. In some cases, they ruled empires.
                It is especially easy to have a group of psychopathic people do well when they have a productive society of non-psychopathic people to prey on. Every city in the world has violent criminal gangs who routinely ruin other people's lives (often in horrific ways) to make a small profit (and often for even more petty reasons).

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >easy to have a group of psychopathic people do well when they have a productive society of non-psychopathic people to prey on
                But they don't have that, since they're all evil psycopaths.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Neighbouring groups.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Well now, we're not talking about the tribal orc who raids, but of some slave capturing orcs that subjugate other races. Now you have some more ground to work on, how they think, how motivated they're by the resources having slaves provide, etc. But, here's the deal, it will not fix the issue of gameplay loop, because a powerful orc would still send it's slaves to fight for them before sending the good orc tropes.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Depends on your orcs. What if these ones think sending slaves to fight is dishonourable?
                Not sure which gameplay loop you're worried about here.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The issue is "what if player wants to kill thing but have good as it's alignment"

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The gameplay loop is they want to kill something that has a good alignment and that somehow makes it implausible for there to be a race of evil psychopathic creatures?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                If the players have to think before ambushing a random group of creatures or can they do it because. If negotiation with enemy cretures is an option. If killing baby creatures before they grow is good or evil.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >players should always think before they ambush anything
                >not in this case but yes in others
                >not in this case but yes in others or potentially yes the creature is evil but it is also still evil to kill babies why not both

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                How do you know a race is always evil and not just mostly evil besides meta knowledge?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Sages.
                Rumour tables.
                In game lore uncovering.
                In game experiences with the group.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                But that's what I'm saying, you can only act based on your knowledge, if you go an attacks the only peacefull tribe of orcs, a wizard 100 years ago try to create to see how much the gods influenced living beings, then are you evil or just misguided?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Both. People and player characters can make mistakes. That's part of the game.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                There are generally at least some races which aren't always-evil in fantasy settings. Not really a problem anyway, since it isn't essential. A world where every intelligent being was evil could still have functional societies, since evil people are perfectly capable of doing things which benefit them, including cooperating with each other. Being evil doesn't mean that you're constantly engaged in betraying everyone for the sheer joy of it all the time.
                Moreover, orcs aren't typically depicted as having a nice society or getting on well with their neighbors.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        If you think players are going to feel worse about killing mercenaries, invaders, cultists, and slavers than zombies, you're fricking stupid.

        Quit being lazy and write an antagonist with a motivation.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Frick off with that noise.

      I just want always evil monsters because I am fricking sick and tired of ending up with this fricking entourage of baby goblins and kobolds and feeling morally obligated to found orphanages for the children of monsters I've slain. That's not fun, it's fricking deadly boring and tedious.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Then don't murder shit at the drop of the hat, I think your GM is sending a massage there, and for frick sake non leathal rules exist for most systems and include shit like non leathal spells.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          No, what happens is the DM runs a published module like Keep on the Borderlands, where you are very much supposed to kill all the evil humanoid massing in preparation for an attack on civilized lands, but then you have encounters like pic related.

          Also, you're a fricking idiot. What are you even talking about? How does nonlethal attacks relate to this at all, you stupid sack of brainless shit? It doesn't. At all. What, you think you're going to use nonlethal attacks to subdue and arrest the hundreds of evil humanoids dwelling in the Caves of Chaos, then march them back to the Keep, where what, they'll get a slap on a wrist and then be reunited with their families?

          Or do you mean using nonlethal attacks on baby orcs? Because that does not solve the problem of what to do with the fricking baby orcs, you fricking brainles twat. Think about what you're posting. Jesus Fricking Christ, you are so fricking stupid I am actually outraged. Why is something as fricking braindead as your dumb ass allowed to live? Frick killing baby orcs, it ought to be morally acceptable to kill you, you fricking moronic piece of shit. I demand the right to remove you from the gene pool before your clear genetic inferiority is allowed to spread, you insentient lump of poorly sequestered carbon.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Anon this is why I don't play system written by an idiot. Just don't play fricking DnD and don't play moronic modules on top of that.
            So ya anon, just saying someone like you should probably try something like CoC because by gods you need to get your hear out of the ass of whatever shithead you been worshiping.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Please stop polluting this board with your idiocy, preferably by shooting yourself in the face.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The issue comes when people claim that you can't use evil races more so than the existance of non-evil races.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This seems more like the thing people are currently making noise about although its probably part of the back and forth between furries and polgays of some sort.

      >What's the problem with having no always-evil races in a fantasy game? It's not that hard to use bad guys that are evil by choice rather than blood

      It removes a gameplay loop (or rather, imposes a bunch of restrictions so onerous, you're effectively in a different loop)

      Without always-evil races, you get the intrusion of morality in places you don't want it. For example, you can no longer run an ambush.

      With always-evil races, you can just ambush the orc patrol.

      With conditionally-evil races, you might be killing five LG orcs. You don't know. You have to check first. Yeah, sure, they're all wearing the Evil Overlord's uniform, but he's the Evil Overlord - he didn't ask if they wanted to join, he conscripted them. You don't even have the fig leaf of "we were attacking enemy soldiers" that modern warfare uses to legitimize murder, because you're an adventuring party, you do not have the sovereign right to engage in warfare (And even if you did, it's not like you have sent the BBEG a declaration of war, so it would still be an illegal action)

      You can *run* a game where orcs are maybe-evil instead of always-evil.

      You just cannot run a traditional game of heroes against darkness against maybe-evil orcs, because it's not part of the traditional game to stop and parlay with every fricking monster before stabbing it.

      >For example, you can no longer run an ambush.
      lolwut?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >lolwut?

        Yeah that wasn't phrased clearly, I should have been explicit that I was talking about parties of good characters only.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          So good characters can't ambush bandits because humans are neutral?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >So good characters can't ambush bandits because humans are neutral?

            Depends. How do you know they're bandits?

            Meanwhile, that very same question is irrelevant for always-evil races.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's an absurdly moronic thing to think.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >What's the problem with having no always-evil races in a fantasy game? It's not that hard to use bad guys that are evil by choice rather than blood

    It removes a gameplay loop (or rather, imposes a bunch of restrictions so onerous, you're effectively in a different loop)

    Without always-evil races, you get the intrusion of morality in places you don't want it. For example, you can no longer run an ambush.

    With always-evil races, you can just ambush the orc patrol.

    With conditionally-evil races, you might be killing five LG orcs. You don't know. You have to check first. Yeah, sure, they're all wearing the Evil Overlord's uniform, but he's the Evil Overlord - he didn't ask if they wanted to join, he conscripted them. You don't even have the fig leaf of "we were attacking enemy soldiers" that modern warfare uses to legitimize murder, because you're an adventuring party, you do not have the sovereign right to engage in warfare (And even if you did, it's not like you have sent the BBEG a declaration of war, so it would still be an illegal action)

    You can *run* a game where orcs are maybe-evil instead of always-evil.

    You just cannot run a traditional game of heroes against darkness against maybe-evil orcs, because it's not part of the traditional game to stop and parlay with every fricking monster before stabbing it.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Literally no one worth playing with, and hell, even a large amount of people who aren't still will have any moral problem with
      >These guys were dressed in the uniform of Lord Genocideus, so we killed them

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Sure, sure, you can play a neutral or evil party.

        Or I guess you can write "good" on your character sheet and engage in opportunistic murder.

        I didn't say you couldn't play a game, I said you couldn't play a traditional game of heroes.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous
    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >With conditionally-evil races, you might be killing five LG orcs. You don't know
      So... you're killing orcs not because they are evil, but because they are orcs?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Not if you're playing good characters, no. Which is why removing always-evil removes traditional gameplay options.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >What's the problem with having no always-evil races in a fantasy game? It's not that hard to use bad guys that are evil by choice rather than blood

          It removes a gameplay loop (or rather, imposes a bunch of restrictions so onerous, you're effectively in a different loop)

          Without always-evil races, you get the intrusion of morality in places you don't want it. For example, you can no longer run an ambush.

          With always-evil races, you can just ambush the orc patrol.

          With conditionally-evil races, you might be killing five LG orcs. You don't know. You have to check first. Yeah, sure, they're all wearing the Evil Overlord's uniform, but he's the Evil Overlord - he didn't ask if they wanted to join, he conscripted them. You don't even have the fig leaf of "we were attacking enemy soldiers" that modern warfare uses to legitimize murder, because you're an adventuring party, you do not have the sovereign right to engage in warfare (And even if you did, it's not like you have sent the BBEG a declaration of war, so it would still be an illegal action)

          You can *run* a game where orcs are maybe-evil instead of always-evil.

          You just cannot run a traditional game of heroes against darkness against maybe-evil orcs, because it's not part of the traditional game to stop and parlay with every fricking monster before stabbing it.

          I run a low fantasy setting with only Humans, I have literally never encountered this "problem". Maybe you're just stupid?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Sure, sure, you can play a neutral or evil party.

      Or I guess you can write "good" on your character sheet and engage in opportunistic murder.

      I didn't say you couldn't play a game, I said you couldn't play a traditional game of heroes.

      This argument makes no fricking sense. You act like anyone having the ability to be any alignment suddenly makes the game unplayable.
      Humans can be good or evil. And yet there have been generic human bandits in D&D since forever, but nobody has ever had this fake moral quandary you're pulling out of your ass of checking their alignment before ambushing them.
      Why do you act like letting orcs or goblins be good or evil that suddenly every party will have to stop everything and have a philosophical debate about good and evil before engaging in combat with anything?
      >Oh look a group of human bandits, better kill them
      >Oh look a group of orc bandits, HNNRRGHHH IM HAVING A CONFLICT OF CONSCIENCE FOR NO REASON BECAUSE EVERYTHING HAS A CAPACITY FOR GOOD AND EVIL

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Humans can be good or evil. And yet there have been generic human bandits in D&D since forever, but nobody has ever had this fake moral quandary you're pulling out of your ass of checking their alignment before ambushing them.

        What do you mean "fake moral quandary" this is literally how we play D&D and have for twenty years. Good people don't kill people unless they have to. Neutral people don't kill unless it's more convenient. Evil people go out of their way to kill because they enjoy it.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The party doesn’t HAVE to kill a group of always-evil orcs, either, so by your argument that’s also not something good characters would do.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Would a good group just wait for a roving pack of orcs to clear out a settlement, or attack before they do?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            They very well might be under obligation to do so if they discover it and want to be Good. Letting the Evil sit unacted upon or ignored should not be good. It would be neutral at best. This doesn't mean they have to charge in full moron every time, but if they're intending to be good, they have to strive against evil.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >good, neutral evil
          You mean lawful, neutral, chaotic, right?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            [...]

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          You do realize this means there's no good adventurers, right? How many of them have literally no other option but to go out on dangerous, murderous quests.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >You do realize this means there's no good adventurers, right? How many of them have literally no other option but to go out on dangerous, murderous quests.

            I've played plenty. The trick is to not kill people who don't deserve it. Hope This Helps.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Tell that to Oedipus.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              I literally agree with this, the issue is if you follow up the chain of comments, the guy I'm replying to says that the only way people can ever have it coming is if they're from a Always Evil race and everything else is murder.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >I literally agree with this, the issue is if you follow up the chain of comments, the guy I'm replying to says that the only way people can ever have it coming is if they're from a Always Evil race and everything else is murder.

                In which fricking post

    • 2 years ago
      Smaugchad

      >Simply and concisely summarizes the problem including a good perspective on the moral relativity involved plus an implicitly correct grasp of D&D alignment
      >unanimously misunderstood and/or derided
      I don't know why I'm surprised.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      If only D&D offered some kind of "Detect Alignment" bandaid to patch over its moronic alignment system

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Can’t run an ambush
      Are you moronic? Just ambush bandits/cultists/evil minions you stupid autist.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        He's reatrded, is as simple as describing the orcs camping as having stolen goods, or captives and then any logical person can reason that those orcs are raiders.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Just kill people you haven't questioned to find out if they're here voluntarily or being forced against their will

        I already said you could run neutral or evil parties. What you cannot run is good parties, not in the same way.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Or you could just not use alignment.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          A character doesn't need to do any of that to be good.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >A character doesn't need to do any of that to be good.

            If your players kill indiscriminately and you don't tell them to change their alignment away from good, why do you even play with alignment?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              I do ignore alignments because of morons like you actually, because the idea that the only way to ever be okay in hurting someone is to have absolutist proof that they're acting out of malice is stupidity. A person who signals themselves as part of the Evil Army or a bandit who uses force to rob the peasantry is fine to kill on sight, I don't need to play detective to verify he's not the gay lovechild of Stalin & Hitler to murk him.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                So killing conscripts who don't want to fight you and would run away if given the opportunity, that's morally acceptable behavior to you?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah, 100%. They're not as bad as volunteers and should be shown more mercy, but just being a conscript doesn't give you moral sanctuary against any action against you. If you're part of an army actively trying to kill dudes, those people have a right to fight back the most effective way they can.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >if you're part of an army actively trying to kill dudes

                Whoa there, who said that? The gauls who hired you? How do you know they're in the right? The enemy soldiers aren't an always-evil race so maybe they've got a point actually. Maybe they're here on a punitive expedition because the gauls raided across the border into their empire, for example.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                There's no 'humanitarian intervention' in the medieval period, if there's a foreign army in your country attacking you, they're there for plunder & conquest.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Roman punitive expeditions were humanitarian intervention and therefore didn't happen
                what are you even arguing

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The Romans coming to Gaul to murder a bunch of people in revenge deserve to die.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                nta
                Really depends on the circumstances.
                We could likely create some that would be 'acceptable' or not, or understandable in the circumstances but still not good, or some that are actually good.
                >conscripts don't want to fight but will still loot and pillage, probably acceptable
                >conscripts that just try and get the frick out in all cases peacefully, probably not good, might end up killing them in battle because sometimes its difficult to tell and that sucks, sometimes war is evil.
                >conscripts who don't want to fight and will run away but back home they're a tyrannic gestapo, likely morally acceptable
                etc
                Depends on how much you want to lean into alignment in play. I, nor my players, have any real problem with sometimes being evil. None of them, nor myself, are edgelords or running a baby rape campaign. Its just another aspect of gameplay that they deal with. Some of them tend towards running goodish characters or a bit more selfish or evil depending, but that's part of the game.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Depends on how much you want to lean into alignment in play. I, nor my players, have any real problem with sometimes being evil. None of them, nor myself, are edgelords or running a baby rape campaign. Its just another aspect of gameplay that they deal with. Some of them tend towards running goodish characters or a bit more selfish or evil depending, but that's part of the game.

                Right, all of those are fine ways of getting out of the problem, I'm not saying you can't run a campaign without always-evil enemies. Hell, in my own campaign, orcs AREN'T always-evil.

                All I'm saying is that it does change the assumptions of the game you're running and you have to change the game in response, by running more morally gray characters who are OK with the occasional innocent death, or by putting a lot more emphasis on finding out who, what and why you are fighting.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                You can also run it with characters who are not okay with innocent deaths but have to deal with it one way or another.
                One player's current character is very self deceptive about his actions, the player pulls it off really well.
                I still don't see the problem unless your players are stupid and want to be good while doing evil.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          You can ambush to capture smart guy.
          Good does not always mean stupid or good-in-all-cases.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This anon is kinda half-right. The bottom line is that DnD is a combat game, and having 'generally murderous creatures' that the party can mow down without worrying too hard about the morality of it.

      Ofc you *can* run a good game without it but, it's a non un-useful 'tool' for the GM to have, and it's not like a game is gonna be good without it.

      It's not so much that the idea of removing always [x] alignment races bothers me, so much as the rationale for it being so dumb. 'Remove always evil races or you will in the real world start thinking that every African is evil'. Ignoring that fact that 'all Blacks are evil' isn't even the "white supremacist" position, it's just a stupid argument.

      A good definition of 'sane' is being able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. What is true in DnD does not apply to the real world.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The bottom line is that DnD is a combat game, and having 'generally murderous creatures' that the party can mow down without worrying too hard about the morality of it.
        Those creatures still exist in the form of undead, constructs, vermin, and outsiders. Removing monsterous humanoids from that list doesn't really take away from that

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          It really does as elaborated repeatedly about specific descriptive context of an evil humanoid intelligent race that still has important details players can engage with.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Why focus on only part of what I wrote?
          >Ofc you *can* run a good game without it but, it's a non un-useful 'tool' for the GM to have, and it's not like a game is gonna be good without it.
          >It's not so much that the idea of removing always [x] alignment races bothers me, so much as the rationale for it being so dumb. 'Remove always evil races or you will in the real world start thinking that every African is evil'. Ignoring that fact that 'all Blacks are evil' isn't even the "white supremacist" position, it's just a stupid argument.
          >A good definition of 'sane' is being able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. What is true in DnD does not apply to the real world.

          You're not 'wrong' but why have undead/constructs/vermin outsiders to mow down when I could have all that + [insert "evil race here].

          Even you're own rebuttal points to how fundamentally dumb this all is. Can some progressive explain to me why always CE Orcs need to be removed but always CE demons are cool? Aren't demons sentient creatures? What about Beholders? Troglodytes? Mind-Flayers???

          It's so tiresome...

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Orcs and other tribal races are suppose to be living beings with normal needs, like feeding, resting, reproducing, etc. Usually cooperation leads to an easier life for them unless they have a realistic reason to not do them (religion, competing for resources, etc)
            Demons are not living beings, they are planar entities. They do not feed in any biological way, they are a manifestation of a plane, in this case, an evil chaotic plane.
            Beholders are also not normal in a biological sense, and they do not form communities, they are paranoid, they do not reproduce in a physiological way, they are paranoid of any other creature.
            Mind Flyers are a hive mind, they reproduce by assimilating other races, they also have no advantage to find by cooperating but it's not impossible.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              This is a bad assumption that has already been taken care of up thread several times up thread.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                What is?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                That other living creatures are necessarily the same as humans. They are not.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                They have the same neccesities unless you change them in some way like Saruman's magic made orcs, but all your examples are d&d monsters so I'm assuming you're using d&d lore.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Its already been covered. They can be culturally and magically different, their souls can be different.
                Your point is seemingly that evil intelligent race, if you completely decontextualize it by ignoring religion or culture, are the same as other inhuman monsters. Even then it is not. Your in game descriptions and the emergent play context will necessarily be different and not interchangeable unless you're running a 100% featureless videogame.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >They can be culturally and magically different, their souls can be different.
                What if I made a Wish to make their souls different.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Then... its the same because I already said their souls could be different? Are you drunk?
                What differences would you wish for?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Let say I use the Wish spell to say "I want all orcs not to be evil" in what way it changes orcs from generic human barbarians?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                By not having generic human barbarians.
                Seriously though, it would be an interesting mess to monkey's paw with. Lots of civil upheaval in orc societies as various groups within orc society deal with their sudden changes. Some would be guilt ridden, so flagellant penitent orc crusades perhaps, abandoning their blood thirsty gods for others, those gods needing to find other followers so strange cults popping up elsewhere. Some would likely become more pragmatic mercenaries. Their entire method of acquiring resources would have to change radically so lots of starvation.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                oh and you age 5 years I guess. Weird spell. I don't have Wish in the spell list so I'm winging it.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >Usually cooperation leads to an easier life for them unless they have a realistic reason to not do them

              It's so dumb to see you try and rationalize this. Cooperation is natural and makes life easier for them so it's bad to make them be naturally inclined towards evil, but mind flayers wouldn't benefit from cooperation with other races ergo it's fine for them to be mostly NE?

              What about ogres having a lower base intelligence than humans? Is that ok, or also "white supremacy".

              As the other anon

              It literally says in the post.
              Note that 'explains 56% of the variance in the studied population' is not the same thing as 'half genetics, half environment'.
              If you raised all of those kids in a totally identical environment, the environmental factor would drop to 0% and the genetic explanation would rise to 100% even though they had the same genetics as the population where it explained only 56% of the variance.
              Also, only some of the variance being explained by genetics is completely consistent with some individuals being entirely genetic psychopaths and others being entirely environmental sociopaths. In reality, most antisocial people seem to have a mix of both factors, but there are a few who just seem to be horrible despite perfectly nice environments (any experienced social worker will have stories of children who were taken from antisocial mothers at birth, raised in loving homes, and turned out antisocial anyway).
              But it's easy to imagine a non-human species which is entirely composed of what would be psychopaths among humans. In fact, it's hard to believe that any realistic non-human species wouldn't have that level of deviation from human norms, because you're not even talking about something that is weird among humans. If you said that your dwarves were all shorter than 97% of humans, that wouldn't seem weird, so it isn't at all a stretch to imagine a species where every one of them is more evil than 97% of humans.
              Even if you have them set up so a few rare individuals are no more genetically inclined to evil than an average human:
              >A genetically average human raised in a society of psychopaths is almost certain to get killed or adapt by taking on psychopathic traits
              >Treating a 99% evil race as 100% evil is completely reasonable given the risks of dealing with evil monsters

              pointed out:
              >It's easy to imagine a non-human species which is entirely composed of what would be psychopaths among humans. In fact, it's hard to believe that any realistic non-human species wouldn't have that level of deviation from human norms, because you're not even talking about something that is weird among humans. If you said that your dwarves were all shorter than 97% of humans, that wouldn't seem weird, so it isn't at all a stretch to imagine a species where every one of them is more evil than 97% of humans.
              How much can any fantastical "race"/species differ from humans as a baseline before it becomes "white supremacy".

              Can we not just admit that this is moronic progressive pathology?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                You're very concenred about this "white supremacy" analogy which I have never talked about, my main issue is that a completely evil race is a very hard thing to justify because usually cooperation IS easier and any resonable creature would see the benefits of doing it, unless you explain WHY they would refuse so completely and vehemently to do it.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >my main issue is that a completely evil race is a very hard thing to justify because usually cooperation IS easier and any reasonable creature would see the benefits of doing it
                I kinda agree with this, but this says more about the dumb-ness of DnD alignment system than the idea of a fantastical monster people who's behaviour is sufficiently different from the human norm that for all intents and purposes humans would find their behaviour abhorrent and would see them as "evil and in need of eradication on sight".
                >unless you explain WHY they would refuse so completely and vehemently to do it
                Well, to bring this back to the classic discussion of orcs: "Because the avg. orc is more naturally aggressive than a human*, while being less intelligent. Ergo a culture of raiding is more natural/innate to them than co-operative trading with other species of humanoids. Furthermore their God Gruumsh rewards adherence to his way of life with a chance for an immortal afterlife at his side. For all these reasons, although a LG/NG/LN orc is *technically* possible, in practise the overwhelming majority of Orcs have the CE/NE alignment, to the point that they have simple been listed as 'default CE' in the MM."

                Perhaps a further observation might go into how dumb it is to have a 'society' of chaotic creatures, but yeah... alignment is dumb, biological determinism in a fantasy context (and possible a rw context, but that's honestly irrelevant to the discussion) is not.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Evil people can and do cooperate?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Can some progressive explain to me why always CE Orcs need to be removed but always CE demons are cool? Aren't demons sentient creatures? What about Beholders? Troglodytes? Mind-Flayers?
            Well first off, orcs arent always evil. In no edition have they been solely and irredeemably evil and incapable of being neutral or good. So your first bit is wrong. The ondonti of 2e AD&D were a group of literal LG pacifist farmer orcs raised outside of the orcish culture of violence and worship of their evil gods. The Kingdom of Many-Arrows was a generally peaceful orc kingdom that sought out trade instead of battle and conquering (at least while it wasn't being manipulated by evil out groups and orc fundamentalists).

            Additionally, Orcs are Humanoids, a creature type that includes humans, elves, dwarves, and other races which are capable of good. Demons are not Humanoids, they are Fiends, a creature type denoting a soul and flesh composed of literal evil matter from the Evil dimension, with a psychology strictly bound to committing and furthering suffering and cruelty. A Beholder is a weird monstrous abomination against nature, an Aberration type creature. This entity is not just paranoid, but utterly egotistical in its paranoid delusions. It is narcissism taken to an extreme degree where only it is perfect and all else is vile squawking meat to be destroyed.
            Mind flayers are also Aberrations, parasites that have killed and assimilated the bodies of humanoids. These monstrous aliens from the future are literal sociopaths, incapable of any hood emotions like love or joy or happiness. The only pleasure they feel is the primal satisfaction of slurping down humanoid brains. They are a species of sociopathic drug addicts with mind powers.

            Its almost like D&D has specific patterns about its creature types that lots of ignorant nogames frickwits here don't understand. This entire thread is built off bad assumptions about how orcs work in ttrpgs, especially D&D.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              So it's okay to say that Demons are always CE because they're biologically hardwired to be, but it's not okay to say that Orcs are always CE because they're biologically hardwired to be?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Demons can't be biologically hardwired to be evil because they don't have biology because they're not alive.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Demons are always CE because they're biologically hardwired to be
                They arent biologically, they are ontologically hardwired to be evil. They are the souls of evil people banished to the evil dimension who take on physical form from evil matter, and fulfill the mandates and pleasures they had in their prior life, the pursuit and furtherance of cruelty and suffering and selfish desire. A rare few, 1 in millions or billions, can over come this but it is so rare as to be meaningless to the discussion. Its why they were labeled Always Evil in 3.5 where the term Always Evil originates in these stupid discussions among nogames frickwits. Can you guess what Orcs were labeled? Often Evil, denoting that they were 60% of the time evil when encountered in a random encounter chart.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Racial biases and general tendencies are real. Just look at FBI crime stats. The problem for a GM is that DnD players are mostly frickwads with no sense of nuance so if you allow a race to be 99% evil instead of 100% evil you get dozens of copypasta DeviantArt tormented wangsty loners whose identity is making up for the evils of their kin. Yawn.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's the Drow player. At least the Drow player makes some effort to treat their race as more than a statblock.

          More common now is people taking something like Tiefling (which never should have left Planescape, but that's another story), and goes "horns and red booba cool".

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >It removes a gameplay loop (or rather, imposes a bunch of restrictions so onerous, you're effectively in a different loop)
      No, it really doesn't, unless your game's story sucks such absolutely ass that you'd be better off without a story.

      >Without always-evil races, you get the intrusion of morality in places you don't want it. For example, you can no longer run an ambush.
      Yes, you can. Context is important.

      >
      With conditionally-evil races, you might be killing five LG orcs. You don't know. You have to check first. Yeah, sure, they're all wearing the Evil Overlord's uniform, but he's the Evil Overlord - he didn't ask if they wanted to join, he conscripted them.
      Yup. That's a thing we might have to grapple with eventually.
      But with that said, you're going to tell me that if the overlord's forces sent out an all human patrol, you WOULDN'T ambush them? No. Of course you fricking would. Same if it was some kind of mixed cadre on the patrol. You'd ambush them because their soldiers of the overlord, not because of their personal moralities.

      Because here's the thing in the scenario you presented. We're not fighting the metaphysical concept of evil. We're fighting an Overlord and his armies. And yeah, in the course of fighting against this, people are going to die. Sometimes, good people are going to be dragged into this war and die. That's fricking war, kiddo. If you don't have the god damn conviction to swallow that, grip your sword, and kill that fricking conscript you don't have it in you to save the world from some bastard who's going to conquer it.

      Because you know what the overlord's gonna do when he realizes the heroes opposing him won't kill people who could be good people. He's gonna go to whatever village he just conquered, and tell every military aged male "either you join my army, or everyone you love will be tortured to death."

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >For example, you can no longer run an ambush.
      Why wouldn't you? Troops run ambushes on enemy troops. If some of them happen to have been nice husbands, sons or fathers that is too bad but you wouldn't hold it against the killers personally because it's war is bigger than any of them. Now, torturing, raping and killing a surrendering foe that you could easily contain as a POW *is* outside the scope of what is necessary but I'm guessing your PCs don't want to rape and torture the orcs?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Imagine thinking it's morally wrong to kill people conscripted by an evil overlord.

      moronic cartoon morals right there. What a fricking cancer.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >you do not have the sovereign right to engage in warfare (And even if you did, it's not like you have sent the BBEG a declaration of war, so it would still be an illegal action)
      That's just legal nonsense, it's not about ethics.
      Ethics tell you that the orc patrol dressed in the evil warlord colors must be stopped. They might not be evil themselves, but they are committing violent acts upon the population.
      If stopping them makes you evil, so be it.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The issue is with your constant "uwu wat if monsters GOOD oWo" spam, furgay redditor. Remove yourself and yiff in hell.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >yiff in hell
      You say that as if yiffing wasn't the plan all along.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Pray tell, old pic-Anon, why is the pool closed?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        aids

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      we're alredy in hell

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It makes everything morally grey, and grey is bland

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yiff in hell you cancerous redditbrain homosexual

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I never run always evil races, so in theory I should support nyour post, however, please have a nice day as painfully as possible, spamming furgay Black person.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    There's no problem with having no always-evil races in a fantasy game. A few years back, if you had started a thread talking about how always-evil races didn't make sense to you conceptually and you were going to do away with that in your setting, nobody would have batted an eye.
    What people have problems with is how the subject has been broached by the industry. Making orcs and humans into a real-world social justice issue is absurd at best, and it significantly reduces the quality of discussions that can be had about the "not always-evil" question. Whereas before you could decide that you want orcs to still identifiably act in ways considered orc-like, the industry's response to the idea of orcs not always being evil is to just make them greenish-grey humans. Rather than putting more thought into behavior and morality, they put in less.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The problem is that you have this "always evil race" but not the opposite. So an elf and a dwarf may be bandits, but orcs and goblins can't be just hunters? It's like saying that good is an inherently weaker concept than evil, which is, sure, run your grimdark world in any way you want, but people will ask questions like "why is corruption real but redemtion impossible?".

      Because it's literally only a problem for sansioned settings, so it's only important for "official d&d games," which is what the discussion has always been about. No one can force you to run your private setting in any way. Frick, no one even knows what you are doing, is only an issue if you play Adventurer's Guild and the like.

      Whenever you have this issue in real life, it just goes

      >"Are all orcs evil here?"

      > "Orcs are a creation of the evil sorcerer Saldrawz, compelled to destroy everything on their path, as far as anyone knows death is the only way to stop their pitiful existance"

      or

      >"What do you mean I killed a bunch of innocent orcs!?"

      >"Orcs are just wonderers, I told you to read the setting notes, if you went and killed them because of your personal bias, it's your character's personal issue"

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Making orcs and humans into a real-world social justice issue is absurd at best
      Once again, we can blame Twitter for ruining something we like. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orcposting

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Everything with a soul has the capacity for good and evil. Anyone can choose to become good. No creature is beyond redemption or salvation, no matter how wretched and lost they may be.

    >Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    There's no problem. Plus anytime you want to remove morality you just introduce a concept such as "void-touched" foes that are truly evil and cannot be cured. Anything can be void-touched and they are visually distinct from a normal version of their race. Only smooth brains get mad at this.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Furgays are always evil, this is why they should all kill themselves.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Frick off, furgay.

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It doesn't make any difference. Evil races may not be evil inherently but they are raised in "evil" cultures, in the same vein as how mongols or vikings were "evil" for their widespread raiding practices or how americans and west africans were "evil" for their reliance on the slave trade. So if a non-evil monster exists they should have a good reason not to be evil and it should always be apparent that they're an exception.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >it should always be apparent that they’re an exception
      Unless you’re arguing that humans are an always-evil race, I don’t see how that follows. Different nations of orcs could be as different from each other as the Crimean Tatars from the Potawatomi.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No one's running a campaign big enough to illustrate the differences between crimean tatars and the potawatomi

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This thread is the irrefutable proof that alignments cause brain rot.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Alignment hasn't mattered in D&D for a while now, I don't use it in my games.

    • 2 years ago
      Smaugchad

      >This thread is the irrefutable proof that alignments cause brain rot.
      You not understanding alignment doesn't make alignment bad.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >nooo you don't understand eating shit is not bad, you just never tried it!
        I've seen enough moronic alignment arguments to regard everyone who still uses them a coprophage cultist.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >I don't understand something and it makes me MAD, this means that it's BAD and people that understand it are BAD!
          Actually moronic.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It’s literally just a Wargame Faction System that bloated out of control because Gygax was the bad kind of Autist.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because sometimes you just want a simple game about hitting things and not a more complex morally grey game with negotiations and captives and so on.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    No race in my game is inherently evil beyond Tieflings, dragonborn, kobolds, and dragons because they're demonspawn

  18. 2 years ago
    Smaugchad

    inb4 dog lovers and furgays bring into question if a good aligned character can ambush a wild animal or monster

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I don't allow evil races because it's always too close to fur-shit, plus I find allowing players to play these races from the outset really RUINS the mood of a game. It's best when all these race ARE mysterious and the players DON'T really understand them. Making them playable at the outset means you have to unmystery the mysterious. Really kills the vibe.

    Later on in a campaign, if a player dies and they've had a lot of encounters with evil or mysterious races, sure I'll allow them to play one, but until then, NO.

    • 2 years ago
      Smaugchad

      Unlocking content through play was a fantastic element of AD&D back when all that shit was consider DM only material and mystery was an explicit element of the game for players

      But then corporate profiteering came to the unfortunate conclusion that they were passing up a majority of their potential market that way

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Later on in a campaign, if a player dies and they've had a lot of encounters with evil or mysterious races, sure I'll allow them to play one, but until then, NO.
      Did that with my longest campaign. Worked out quite well to sell the tone of wild wider world and the more "civilized" nations of the more common races.

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    What's the problem with having always-evil races in a fantasy game, given how there was so much crying, physical text had to be changed? It's not that hard to just let people play what they want in a hobby about playing what you want without people crying who don't even play the games they're crying about and without companies bending the knee to delusional identity politics when morons spout false equivalencies.
    Y E T
    H E R E
    W E
    A R E

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It’s boring. Having the orcs be evil because their culture has evil values opens up more avenues for character and adventure (it lets you have, say, a PC that’s an Orc raised by humans and trying to bring the benefits of human culture to his brethren, for instance).
      Also, because D&D’s a mess (using the word “race” to refer to species, alignment being an inconsistent mess, etc), it sometimes gets caught up in racism related stuff, despite not really being a racism issue.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >"boring" was the reason for all the crying
        It wasn't.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I don't really care about Orc culture. It's utterly unimportant to me, my PC will only interact with them via killing them.
        Making them always-Evil is simply more convenient.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It was only changed on D&D, and it could have been solved by just removing alignment because is a fricking useless thing, characters change alignments all the time and so do npcs depending on the development of the game.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >it was just D&D
        And PbtA. And any other game/system/media they want to change that they have no actual interest in, beyond whether they have a black woman in it and pronouns options.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          So all the companies you aren't buying from anyway because you play GURPS?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >So all the companies you aren't buying from anyway because you play GURPS?
            First, I don't play GURPS; the 3D6 bell-curve is a pain in the ass to work with.
            Second, I learned my lesson to watch what I buy after the grifters ruined my favorite movie franchises; a company can stop caring about quality for any reason or no reason at all, and in a hobby that's based on mostly imagination and common sense, it's already a scam to pay for books, even when there's an earnest focus on quality.
            Third, what I do personally doesn't change the fact that there's literally nothing wrong with having a creature, humanoid or otherwise, whose entire population is predisposed to evil in a fictional game meant for fun revolving around imagining the impossible or improbable. It doesn't change anything I said before, actually, and isn't relevant to this discussion at all.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >company wants to sell thing
              >changes thing to sell more
              >somehow this angers the anon who doesn't buy thing

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I'm glad you ignored what I wrote. That means you've given up, and I don't have to deal with you any more.

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc are never 100% good or evil
    >Most beasts, constructs, plants, monstrosities, are unaligned
    Guess I can't kill any of them! According to morons on /tg/ you can't kill anything that isn't 100% completely totally irredeemably evil. Thank goodness I learned my morals from cartoons for babies!
    Look at this heccin sweet lil baby boy, you can't kill him because he's unaligned. Better just let him smash you to pieces otherwise you're evil now too! Don't you get that's how morality works? There's no in-between, you're good or evil!

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I'm personally not into always evil unless it's like a hive mind or something like demons, free will exists, that said, majority evil races are fine. Bad cultures exist and defectors are the exception often with reason.

  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    ITT: homosexuals who don't roll pally.
    >Detect Evil
    >If "Evil" = 1 then:
    >SMITE EVIL
    >Repeat until "Evil" = 0

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      But what if you don't know it is evil unless it has an aura of evil, is level 4, or is an undead/evil dragon?

  24. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    because it encourages a pussy attitude in a game about killing monsters. The pacifict player will go "maybe we can talk it out" to the evil troll who wants to eat your bone marrow after crushing your skull. Having evil races means there is always clear and present danger in the world not just "they are just misunderstoood gooys!"excuse. My orcs watn to kill you because they want to rule the land and love violence as wells as viewing you as as a lesser being,frick you. Same with all my goblinoids, gnolls literally worship a demon god. Stop trying to turn dnd into the prom simulator that WOTC wants it to be.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Is no different than a tiger, and tigers are neutral. You can't reason with it, so talking is out of the table, so what difference does it made if the ogre is neutral as a race? tha ogre is clearly evil, by choice, or is neutral and you can kill it because it's clear that it's nature is aggresive so it's self defense.
      Is not a player's fault if you say a monster can communicate then to try and communicate with it.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        okay here is what would happen if my players would try to talk to a troll
        >:Players:don't hurt us,we have fire, what do you want?
        >troll:to eat meat
        >players:here have all our rations
        >troll:,no FRESH meat
        combat would resume or they can try to convince the troll that they will bring it living beings to consume,which to me is a evil act. I doubt a good party would do that. If it's a trick the troll would hunt them down. Their choice really.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's the point, if you stablish that an enemy can reason than you open a possibility, if you put a tiger but somehow you give him the ability to talk you get exactly the same result, which is the kind of interaction druids have with beasts.
          And fresh meat doesn't mean "humanoid meat" so, what about pigs? is bringing pigs evil?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            it would ask for humanoid meat. So bring em goblins would be evil to me.they could try to trick the troll with pigs but it wouldn't go well as trolls in my world are dumb but not moron. They know what a pig is.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              If the troll can't eat anything but humanoid meat then is not evil per ce, is it's nature, it has no choice in the matter, If the troll chooses to eat humanoid meat then the question arises about if a troll COULD possibly choose to eat another type of meat, like animal meat. If you mind control a troll and feed him animal meat, and keep him as your servant, are you evil for enslaving a sentient being or good for using an evil man eating troll for good?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                no it enjoys it, it like to hear the screams,the begging and the despair in the eyes of it's victims. Trolls aren't serial killers who choose evil,they are evil from birth. Could a troll be raised to be good? possibly but left it it's own devices it will give in to it's urges and do what is easiest. Stop trying to rationize trolls. It's like a vampire or drow they need to be raised in a differant enviroment and you might get a good one.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The question is if a race that can reason can or cannot choose it's actions. If something benefits it then why wouldn't do that? If, as you ponder, they have no choice in the matter, then how are they different from beats following their instincts?
                Reason is a tool, and if you introduce it, player will try to use it.
                And you still havn't snwered my question, is alright to do any act to an evil race in your world? Can I enslave a troll and use it for, let's say, defend the town as a perpetual guardian slave, and be good?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                NTAYRT and I even like reaction rolls for more things than most, but assuming all things are rational maximizers is moronic.
                Its an evil troll. It likes fricking things up, doesn't care about the long term.
                >but that's not realistic
                Its a troll silly.
                Also there are tons of humans who don't think long term or have much capacity for sorting out risk/reward or cost/benefit in the moment.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >but assuming all things are rational maximizers is moronic.
                Is not about asuuming that, is about sayig such thing is impossible. Why give something the abillity to talk and not do anything with it?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                So it can yell obscenities as it murders. Or gurgle out a clue as it dies. Or because the gods made it as a punishment for an ancient slight that still roams and babels the forgotten saga. All sort of reasons an evil thing can make sounds, no reason all things that can talk have to reasonable.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Step by Step:
                >Is creature a living being Y/N
                >Can creature think Y/N
                >Can creature talk Y/N
                >Can creature reason Y/N
                >Can creature choose as an individual Y/N
                >Can creature understand the implication of it's actions Y/N

                Fiends are not really living beings, for example. Nor are angels. That's why they can be 100% evil or 100% good.
                The question is always about a living race that can use it's head and act as an individual (so no hiveminds)

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The question of can reasoning being be evil has already been answered firmly with yes. Not all reasoning beings are reasoning all the time. Not all reasons are compatible with peaceful resolution. Trolls aren't angels or devils. There is no reason all things must be reasonable, especially in a game about fantastical monsters. Sometimes things are more interesting when they are reasonable, or they have intelligence but mutually incompatible goals with other groups, or they can be negotiated with. Variety is the goal rather than some sort of streamlined flowchart where you get to be friends no matter what.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Again, is not about becoming a friend to all living beings, is about giving a tool to players and expeting none of them to use it.
                If you face an encounter and you're told you can communicate with it, then you are given the choice to try it.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Holyshit you're dense.
                Not all communications are fruitful. Take this one for example. You're a rational (supposedly) thinking sort of thing but you clearly don't understand, or don't want to understand a circumstance outside of your preconceived notions.
                I've already accepted there are some circumstances where it makes the game more interesting. You seem to think it must be available all the time despite having multiple examples placed where it isn't the case that you haven't even bothered to address.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yes, we get it. You like railroading. Even if communication isn't possible I still think you should be allowed to try and fail, spectacularly even if it comes to that, instead of just being outright told by outside sources to not even try because "no".

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I already explained I use a reaction table more than most. That combined with open dungeon exploration and reactive hex crawling is probably one of the least railroading type games you can have.
                Most of the time its not an outright hostile encounter. Occasionally it is. That's part of the game. Its not even unrealistic if that's your concern.
                No one has even said the players are being told no from an outside source. That's a thing they can discover for themselves through play. If the players are stupid enough to try and talk to the slavering troll monster covered in blood crying for flesh and bones they can.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The evil race problem is not about that specific clearly evil troll, is about every single existing troll in the setting.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                That's also fine. There's lots of races, having a few be total frickheads is not a problem. Having all of them is pretty boring but again, not a thing I'm advocating or a thing it seemed like anyone was? Someone wanted to have evil orcs and troll who like violence, go for it. Its got beared men in dresses throwing fireballs out of wands, its not implausible to imagine that the trolls are all evil monsters.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                But the question is still the same, if an orc has the possibility for good why wouldn't he take it, and if he doesn't how is it different from a beast following it's base instincts? The always evil race is a weird concept, because in the moment you take free will from it, you have something closer to a bear than to a sentient being choosing to do an evil action.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                The orc does not have the possibility for good. Its not the question you want it to be. The creature is inherently evil and can reason. Reason, logic, etc. is not inherently predisposed towards whatever you think is good.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                So orcs are mentally ill creatures that will always take the most unresonable choice against self preservation even if it's the most logical, just because they can't ever be good?
                Then again, does that mean a player who mind controls such creature is doing a good act, since otherwise by it's very nature that creature is self destructive. So you can have mind controlled orcs as slaves, and be a good person.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                jfc stop making it contemporary mental illness technocratic apparatus.
                There are irl, all sort of people who will not do the rational self preserving thing for a variety of reasons.
                >suddenly tries to have slaves and be good
                You're hopeless.
                Its a fantastical world with an objective good. We can get into free will if you really want but you're not going to have any. You have at best agency and a reactive capacity but free will is an inherently impossible concept.

                >The creature is inherently evil and can reason.
                False. If it is predisposed toward evil and cannot stray from it at all or even question it then it is not actually able to reason because it literally cannot even imagine an alternative to its state of being any more than an animal can.

                There are humans who can not for whatever reasons, usually a combination of genetic predisposition and socioeconomic conditioning that is irrevocable, stray from their inclinations.
                In a more fantastical way of imagining things, consider if its goal is evil and goes about that in a fairly reasonable manner.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Its a fantastical world with an objective good. We can get into free will if you really want but you're not going to have any. You have at best agency and a reactive capacity but free will is an inherently impossible concept.
                Weird shit anon, are good races in your world incapable of doing evil? Are those as common as evil races? How is free will an illusion if players have it?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I don't think I have any inherently good races in the game so far.
                Players for sure don't have it. We have reactive agency and some capacity for planning based on circumstance and a varying capacity to predict phenomena. We do as best we can with what we have but there are no unhindered free actions, its all material. Free will requires souls or some equivalent inherent ephemera which oddly makes it better suited for the fantastical, which does get into a funny question about souls. Having not world build a cosmology, largely because its not super important to playing the game, I haven't divided up who or what has souls or if there are good and evil souls or if they're all one and the same or whatever.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >players don't have free will
                Is this a new way to describe railroading?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I think the point is more along the lines that players are flesh automatons powered by memes without higher cognitive ability.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                lol no just vulgar materialism.

                How is that possible? If nobody has actual free will then isn't everything predetermined already to a degree because everyone is dancing to strings they don't realize they have? You're basically running a puppet show?

                Seems like there's some confusion about discussions of rpg world ontology and irl stuff.
                IRL we're reactive with degrees of agency but no unhindered capacity. Its not deterministic due to random entropy and the proliferation of variables beyond our ability to engage with. I was trying to avoid a discussion of that but here we are. Its not a puppet show, no one is running it, no one is watching.
                Game world wise, of course its a puppet show. We have various ways of adding random elements like procedural tables that help keep things unexpected but it all necessarily involves us as players directing the gameworld, characters and such.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                So then, it's more a "robot show" then? A bunch of automatons chaotically doing things within the limits of their programming and not actually able to deviate.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Deviation occurs necessarily through a lack of central organization, entropy at micro and macro scale and various limited forms of agency conflicting with each other. Its not a show. You have mild or contextual agency, you can make a decision if you're careful about it, based on what you have experienced and what you project, some of which you will be aware of and some of which will happen autonomously, but you can not make a totally free choice. There is no independent free will. Its a soul surrogate.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                How is that possible? If nobody has actual free will then isn't everything predetermined already to a degree because everyone is dancing to strings they don't realize they have? You're basically running a puppet show?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >So orcs are mentally ill creatures that will always take the most unresonable choice against self preservation even if it's the most logical, just because they can't ever be good?
                No, you fricking moron. Evil isn't 'optimize for self-destruction' it's 'fail to conform to the extremely narrow social conventions of whoever is doing the judging'. There have been entire societies of human beings who were all monstrously evil by our standards; ones where child-rape was normal, mass human sacrifice was considered moral, watching people being tortured to death was wholesome entertainment, etc. Not even restricted to the low-IQ, poor-impulse control sections of humanity either.
                Anything that isn't human is extremely unlikely to conform to the morals of one specific group of humans. That doesn't mean they are totally dysfunctional. Wasps, dolphins, Humboldt squid, and many other animals engage in behavior more repulsive than most human psychopaths and still manage to cooperate with each other.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >The creature is inherently evil and can reason.
                False. If it is predisposed toward evil and cannot stray from it at all or even question it then it is not actually able to reason because it literally cannot even imagine an alternative to its state of being any more than an animal can.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                moron alert. it simply could find only malicious intents compelling. it not being about their freedom, but what motivates them. they simply dont get off to handholding, but they do get off to guro.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                That isn't always evil because it implies they in some form choose to be what they are instead of it being a programmed drive they cannot stray from. Always evil races have always been sort of hacky to me because they clearly want to have the advantages of mindless robots/undead/golems as kill fodder but want to have their cake and eat it too by pretending they can be actual flesh and blood characters/creatures with a sense of presence instead of flesh automatons.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                eh, i dont agree. the reason we do everthing we do is that it strokes some aspect of our instints and motive in some way. you say that like freedom is some independent motivating force, which it isnt. it is that who h allows you to do what you want to do, which comes before reason.

                there isa quote by schopenhaut that goes something like
                >”I can do what I will, but I can not will what I will”
                meaning that you have the freedom to do what you want, but YOU dont decide what it is that you find compelling. your motivation comes before any intellectual reasoning. you dont decide what causes dopamine.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >That isn't always evil because it implies they in some form choose to be what they are instead of it being a programmed drive they cannot stray from.
                But humans don't choose their drives; are humans unable to be judged as moral agents?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Anon, this is how lots of animals are in real life too, including domestic cats. It's instinct towards designated prey, not evil.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Makes me think of the Elenium/Tamuli trolls when they're forced by circumstance into alliance with the man-things who are good-to-eat
              Troll: why can't I eat man-things?
              Man-thing: it would ruin our hunt, go eat a dog
              Troll: are dogs good-to-eat?
              Man-thing: don't know, go eat one and find out
              Later...
              Troll to man-thing: I hope you're not offended but dogs are more good-to-eat than man-things. I'd still eat a man-thing if I'm hungry, but I'd prefer a dog
              Heavily paraphrased, but that's the gist. Maybe your man-eating troll just hasn't tasted dog before.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >I deliberately run my game in the most boring and predictable way possible.
          Really making use of that infinite decision space, bucko.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I enjoy the simple things like regular classic ttrpgs. you can have your gay troll painter ask the party to a debate but my chad troll is gonna try to skewer the party on a kabab. We are no the same.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This, some homosexual will always go "Why can't we talk to them?" And then there'll be an argument about "How do you KNOW they're evil."
      I just want to kill some monsters, KELVIN. Enough of your bullshit, you're holding up the game.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        What the frick is wrong with just LETTING them try, and getting turned into a smear on the floor for it? Why do you guys always want to remove even the possibility?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          > Let the players try
          "See Kevin, I told you it was a fricking waste of time."
          "Frick you"
          > Don't let them try
          No argument between players, they just get on with killing the orcs.
          Why not streamline things? At least that way you can't get them into another tedious tangent, Kevin.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There's a difference between bribing the orcs and trying to play Captain Picard with the orcs.

  25. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This is all just a framing problem. If you say that a race is exactly as evil as humans, you're saying that they are extremely evil and in fact are probably maximally evil. There is no act so evil that a human, or indeed a whole society of humans, would never do it. This is how you can get away with having characters as evil as you want.

  26. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Reconsidering not dying.

  27. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    why are you moronic?

    both nature and nurture exist. some things are naturally evil some things are nurtured evil. sometimes its both, sometimes neither.

    why would everyone have the same mental template and potential?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      name an evil animal irl then

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Serial killers.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Not a race.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Polish then.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Golems are not living creatures. If I wanted that, I'd ask you to name a type of construct.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Pit bulls

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Evil implies intent. there is only one sapient creature on earth. wolf, mosquito, fleas are all pests. but what if you gave them sapience and they continued to do the things they do and dont find the abstract concepts that make up goodness to us compelling. they think but have no honor, or despise it.

        I think its small minded to think that other intellegent being would have a similar fundemental moral consious, or one at all. as those things would in all likelyhood be the product in part of their biology.

        I i dont mean opinion, but fundementally how its mind works. unless all creatures are just human minds transplanted into non human bodies removed from their peculiar makeup. a trolls higher functions might solely be focused on the acquisition of food. or an orc might have been made specifically to destroy the civilization the dark lord wanted destroyed.

  28. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Alignment Threads of /tg/

    The only people who seem to have a problem with D&D Alignment are Literal morons, Philosophy 101 Autists or people who are blatantly evil under the system disliking being called out as vile frickwits.

    Every thread on Alignment reveals these three every single time.

    Literal morons have issues with the rules and their reading comprehension tends to be shit. They misinterpret simple language and are often pigheadedly obstinate when it comes to correcting their moronic ideas.

    Phil 101 Autists are worse than Literal morons. Unable to ignore their newfound knowledge, they argue incessantly about how the system must work within all these ideas they just learned (or have only ever learned) and blatantly ignore the conditions for D&D's Objective Alignment. They only seem capable of arguing about the system as it relates to modern day, real world, Earth and not the Fantasy universe it comes from, a common aliment for certain types of shit speckled, muppet farts ala Caster/Martial disparity.

    Evil motherfrickers are the worst. Quite simply they will argue at length and with every bad faith argument they have to not be labelled the monstrous things they are. From fascists trying to not have their genocidal movements called out as the evil they are, from people who like to cause others suffering not being properly labelled, to other types who all want to be Good but are so far from it with their beliefs and actions and are unable to reconcile it with the way the system labels them.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >The only people who seem to have a problem with D&D Alignment are Literal morons, Philosophy 101 Autists or people who are blatantly evil under the system disliking being called out as vile frickwits.

      No, I just want poison to be non-Evil so that paralytic and anaesthetic ones are an available non-lethal options and Paladins can have a stiff drink.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >a whole copypasta on how people who don't like a shorthand tool that was turned into straightjacket are bad dumb doodoo
      And yet, ask ten people who defend alignments on /tg/ what alignments SHOULD be and you get four hundred different contradicting answers and seven autistic meltdowns.

  29. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The problem is telling moderns they cant do something like playing x race is an insult to their god complex
    Nurturing that complex is the only reason they showed up anyway

  30. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It makes things more complicated. Instead of just killing all the bad guys you now have to figure out if the enemy is actually evil or just misguided.

  31. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Freakshit and special snowflake PCs. That's ultimately what it boils down to. After the billionth Drizzt clone or le wacky goblin rogue, it Always Evil presents a diegetic reason why a race is off-limits as a player option.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Speaking of Drizzt, Nojheim from Dark Mirror still provides a far more nuanced explanation and justification of why “always evil” exists than most of the idiots against it can comprehend

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Care to share it? I've never read the Drizzt books.

  32. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Beats me; I much prefer killing humans anyway.

  33. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Cute creatures are naturally good.

    Ugly creatures are naturally evil.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >The only good creature is a frickable creature
      Based

  34. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The only objectively evil races in my settings are supernatural ones. Demons and Devils? Evil. Sorry, you can’t redeem that succubus to be your waifu. Non-supernatural races can be almost always evil, but there are exceptions. If there is a gnoll behind the counter at the goods shop, your first instinct shouldn’t be to attack it. Well, unless it is covered with blood and eating the shop owner.

  35. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >trolls develop the trait of gaining great pleasure from torturing and murdering their prey before they eat it, a survival-of-the-fittest trait because this minimizes the chance they'll eat random meat they come across that might be rotten or diseased
    >as trolls develop further intelligence, they also develop religion, focused around a god that provided a number of commandments to hammer in that they should follow these evolutionary traits that makes their survival more likely
    >today the Troll Bible says "Thou shalt not eat that which thou didst not squeeze the life out of", and trolls believe eating something they didn't personally murder is a sin that might condemn them to Troll Hell
    Does this make trolls evil?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Cool idea, going to use it.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Further
      >Trolls believe that Troll God is the one and only God, and that His commandments apply to all living beings, including humans
      >To a troll, the act of eating the meat of a creature you didn't have a nice day is so sickening and disgusting they struggle to even imagine it, like how Joe Average would think of having sex with his own mom
      >Humans are seen as creatures living in constant, willful sin against Troll God due to eating the meat of creatures killed by others not only being normalized, but being so commonplace it's extremely rare to find a human that doesn't regularly engage in this practice
      >As a result, when a troll encounters a human, he will immediately conclude that there's an almost nonexistant chance this is NOT some horrible creature that has committed thousands of heinous and deplorable acts
      >This all makes trolls consider humans the best prey, because if you're going to kill to eat, might as well kill the horrible sinners instead of an animal that lives according to God's commandments

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Further
      >Trolls believe that Troll God is the one and only God, and that His commandments apply to all living beings, including humans
      >To a troll, the act of eating the meat of a creature you didn't have a nice day is so sickening and disgusting they struggle to even imagine it, like how Joe Average would think of having sex with his own mom
      >Humans are seen as creatures living in constant, willful sin against Troll God due to eating the meat of creatures killed by others not only being normalized, but being so commonplace it's extremely rare to find a human that doesn't regularly engage in this practice
      >As a result, when a troll encounters a human, he will immediately conclude that there's an almost nonexistant chance this is NOT some horrible creature that has committed thousands of heinous and deplorable acts
      >This all makes trolls consider humans the best prey, because if you're going to kill to eat, might as well kill the horrible sinners instead of an animal that lives according to God's commandments

      Good shit.

  36. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because being a part of a race that has existed for thousands if not tens of thousands of years as fricking spawn of an undebatable evil being that relishes in the suffering and pain that it and it's creations do onto others (namely orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, and the like) but for some fricking reason in the last few years taking a turn that has broken so many god damn necks and spines would be stupid if it was a simple natural progression of the medium but instead it's almost as evil as said gods since it's all because of corporate greed and homosexual marketers endorsing a handful of 'lolomg randum so quirky XDD' exiled mutants of the aforementioned races or more displayed in shitty endorsed streams and literature that would be mutilated in seconds if they were in contact with any REAL examples of their race, but shitty uninspired people that watch the PG rated shite that is pumped into their cavernous skull take that garbage as gospel and bring out their "OC donut steel" tumblrite commissioned avatar into sessions and bring more fricking idiots into the growing crack on one side of the already fractured system that is playing in a tabletop rpg game in the modern day since everyone is so used to being a narcissistic homosexual from getting everything for doing nothing and not having any issues with any real hardships that can take the time to play this horseshit that we need to make real evil not a thing, red cards a thing, public statements of condemning past statements a thing, damn near level 1 revives despite the necessary purpose a soul has for the deities of the realm a thing because god forbid players are expected to not drool all over their characters sheet without making ten mistakes and still getting pats on the back for it.
    Evil races are evil, killing the babes or pregnant females of them is a GOOD thing to do, and that homosexual anthro hyena is wondering right this second on the best way to hear that bird scream as it uses its flute to get ever closer.

  37. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Gnolls, Orcs, and other carnivores are fine being predators, enemies, and antagonists. That doesn't mean that they're not people, it just means that their existence and yours don't harmonize. The comanche had flutes, too.

  38. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >person in our friend group complains he never gets invited to (insert tabletop game or social event here)
    >invite him to join us since we're starting a new campaign soon
    >ghosts me
    Ok jackass

  39. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Flipping the script can also be kinda fun. I've got players exploring a more recently colonized continent and what they don't know is that it was actually discovered by the Drow a while back and they've been using it as a prison colony. Thing is, after a couple hundred years of exiling people who went against the powers that be but were too hard to kill outright they ended up making a prison colony full of badasses who actually skew towards chaotic good and do not give a flying frick.

    I look forward to the players finding out there are drow on this continent and dreading the meeting only to make first contact and get offered a Vegemite sandwich.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Well done anon. You took a common troupe and subverted it in a way that makes sense, provides narrative excitement, and still provides the players with a good ‘gotcha’ moment. Bravo.

  40. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    stop treating literal monsters like they are ethnicities because you want to frick animals.

  41. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    the problem isn't lacking evil races, it's trying to frame the discussion of evil races as "white supremacists vs. everyone else"

  42. 2 years ago
    CN Fag

    This is a shit thread, every homosexual tries to convince others homosexuals both being too inbred to actually listen.
    Knowing this, here are my 2 cents:
    >Evil races vs moral relativism discourse in itself doesn't matter.
    Both are seen as political discourse instead of what it should be; storytelling tools, If the story heavely is manily a good vs evil narrative by the books like in mythology or folk tales, it is needed an inherently evil race where motives and alignment outside of the PCs aren't important -Simple motivations for a simple Stories-
    If you want to make the extra effort and play a long, thought provoking story that explores your players and world morality, be my guest, give anything neutrality, but don't act like one is objectively superior to the other

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >namegay doesn't read thread, shits up thinking they're the only one talking about storytelling methods in gameplay while pretending to be above it all

  43. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This only became an issue because braindead murderhobos got mad at people trying to flesh out their own settings. "Evil Race" is literally just "Excuse not to role play" for them. Don't believe any of these people pretending to be tradcaths hiding behind Gygax's crusty opinions on orcs. Not a fricking one of then actually plays that paladin as a real Man of God. No one's built a citadel to spread the faith on their games since the 90s.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This, just look at posts like

      ITT: homosexuals who don't roll pally.
      >Detect Evil
      >If "Evil" = 1 then:
      >SMITE EVIL
      >Repeat until "Evil" = 0

      . moronic smitebots should just go play a board game, clearly roleplaying is beyond them.

  44. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    There is nothing wrong with having "always evil" races.
    There is nothing wrong with not having any "always evil" races.
    What's wrong is making some fuss about either and trying to relate them to reality (or some skewed view of reality). Just make what you want as the GM and put your foot down.

  45. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why is it only humanoids that can't be always evil? Nobody complains about chromatic dragons being always evil, despite all the arguments above saying it couldn't work. Why are some of the most intelligent creatures in D&D always evil?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It's right there in the name, dumbo. People like things that are more human. It's why for example its seemingly so popular for dragons to have human forms, and why killing evil shapeshifting characters in popular media is usually not done until they shift away from human.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I am that anon, and thanks for being 100% c**tish in your reply.
        It is nice to know that any and all humanoid simply cannot have a mindset that is not directly mirroring a human. Your idea removes any need for non-human humanoids (as in, the shape) in a game. Everything becomes a completely bland shade of fricking boring. Well done, frickface.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          This is a human condition, call it a form of uncanny valley if you will. When humans see something close to a human it's just facts that it will be viewed and expected to be human-like or it doesn't compute or comes off as wrong. It's why for example the most popular races will always be humanoids that resemble humans the most like elves, and why the recent issues with orcs who over time started looking and acting more and more human. If people wanted orcs to stay terrible monsters they'd have fought to keep them as ugly pigmen.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Close, but not quite. Humans like things that look very close to humans...and things that don't look like humans at all. Hence why an orc is creepy but a harengon is cute.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I understand the concept and certainly agree with you for the most part. However, when I am playing a fantasy game, the uncanny valley is brilliant - the players are dealing with something that they expect to be like them, but which are alien in so many ways. Such as always evil (or a hive mind, or whatever cool idea you want to play with).

  46. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This sound like the sort of issue that should be addressed on an intra-group basis, rather than trying to force a universal solution on all groups and expecting praise for your attempt.

  47. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Evil is always directed to someone else
    Even israelites are good to other israelites

  48. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Nobody is going to read this, but I'm going to tell you the real reason why.

    It's because in order to find always evil races believable, you need to have a very specific kind of worldview which most people don't have. You firstly have to have a view of good and evil which holds that good and evil are real things in and of themselves. What I mean is you can't simply think "murder is evil because it causes suffering", you have to think "evil is a real thing in its own right, and murder is just one expression of evil". This kind of view of good and evil is uncommon in the west even among the deeply religious, who are the most likely to believe in it. Secondly, you have to NOT believe in nuance, free will, or the self conscious self justifications inherent to the human condition. You can't be the kind of person who watches Macbeth and enjoys it. Macbeth is all about the blurred lines between good acts and evil acts and the humans caught between them, but such a complex view of life is not compatible with always evil races, which CANNOT be caught between good and evil acts. They have to be firmly, and simply, evil.

    Let's use an example. Skaven are acceptable to the vast majority of people, while always evil Drow are not. Why? Because Skaven are not "always evil". They are "always selfish, paranoid, incapable of trusting their own siblings, and desperately ambitious", which naturally leads to them always doing evil things. It's specific. It's concrete. It's psychological. They always do evil things because they always have deep character flaws. They are much easier to believe for most people than if they were just "part of the forces of evil".
    Let's address the second point. Tolkien, creator of the orcs, always grappled with how orcs could turn good. Because they must be able to. Because he believed in free will and that everyone was caught between good and evil.

    TL;DR the problem with always evil races is that they were made by Gygax, and Gygax was a fricking weirdo.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I just realised I typed up a great wall of autism in reply to an OP which I utterly misread
      Fricking kill me

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >muh Gygax... le bad!
      Please have a nice day, mayfly.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      But see that's just it. You just described a perfectly reasonable implementation of an always evil race that is also consistent with your own views of good and evil. The skaven are always evil because it is in their nature to choose evil, not because they are physiologically incapable of good.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        But why do they do that? And why can't a single one choose the opposite?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Same reason you haven't read or internalized any of the explanations in the entire thread and need to shitpost.
          You're compelled.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        “always” + “in their nature” = “psychologically incapable”.
        If your inherent unalterable nature is to literally always “choose” X, you don’t actually have a choice.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          If it has a soul as a free will stand in, then it has an immutable nature. The immutable nature of the soul then constrains the activity of the being. You're trying to apply liberal humanism's free will to a fantastical cosmology with dualism. Doesn't work.
          >but that doesn't make sense!
          Doesn't have to. Dualism is moronic like that.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah, except most real-world Dualistic schemes don’t posit this sort of “souls have natures that constrain the activity of the being” thing. Arguably, you’re trying to cram Gnostic/Solipsistic “some people are just meat puppets” thinking into a scheme cobbled together from a hodgepodge of fantasy novels.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Most dualism have inherent unchanging qualities of the soul that then effect the material, good souls, evil souls, etc. and vice versa, usually in whatever way benefits whoever is deciding the material is evil or good at the time.
              Fantastical stuff can actually have those conditions.
              Separate fiction from reality. Its important.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          If you insist that intrinsic qualities informing choice renders free will a myth, then we do not have free will, and the term is meaningless.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I’m insisting that a choice you can’t make (whether because you don’t think of the option or because your brain has a trigger in it that goes “A back!? I must stab it!!!”) is a choice you don’t have, and that “free will” is what you do with the choices you do have.
            …also that 95% of “intrinsic” characteristics are upbringing-induced (IRL; this is much less true in fantastical settings with multiple sapient species).
            That’s my definitional argument out of the way.

            Now onto the meat:
            It’s certainly possible to design a species in such a way that groups of them will inevitably develop an evil culture. Skaven are a great example: they breed explosively (inevitably causing them to exceed their available resources, forcing them to expand and creating hunger), hungry Skaven are perfectly willing to backstab others (because that provides food, in the form of the stabbed guy), and their low sense of self-preservation and preference for insane long-shot plans ensures plenty of failures (and therefore backstabbings) which prevents their society from ever stabilizing.
            The trick is having things more interesting and complex than “their culture is evil because they’re all individually evil”. The problem is that D&D’s stupid, individualist, and badly designed alignment system doesn’t encourage this kind of thinking.
            In other words, the problem isn’t “orcs are evil”, the problem is the use of “Alignment: always Chaotic Evil” instead of “…as a result, orcs are inevitably organized into vicious and brutal bands of warriors, constantly seeking enemies to kill and plunder to take.”

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              And thus is revealed the root of the problem. The everlasting debate between people who recognize that people are mostly driven by intrinsic nature and morons who think we are born a blank slate.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >skaven
              >low sense of self-preservation
              u wot

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        But they're not actually "always evil". They have grounded, psychological flaws, which then lead to them being evil. There's a comprehensible cause and effect process going on. It's specific. They are evil because they cause unnecessary suffering without justification, and they do that because they're paranoid and ambitious and treat life cheaply and they find it incredibly difficult to trust anyone enough to feel love for them. It's not intrinsically evil to be paranoid and ambitious. It's the actions they generally take as a result of this which make them evil. That's pretty easy to swallow for most people.

        Compare that with dungeons and dragons orcs in ad&d. The reason why orcs might be evil is only vaguely described. They're just sort of...evil. The reasons you do get are a schizophrenic mix of clearly cultural values, like how they're racist or how they value conquest (the fact that this applies to basically every neutral kingdom ever doesn't help to make them believable evil as a race) as well as psychotic traits so incomprehensible and simplistic that it amounts to moronation, like how they, um, hate all living things. It's obvious why the latter isn't convincing, and it's obvious why the former just leads to people saying "well what if orc babies were raised in a good home?". Obvious, that is, unless you are Gygax.
        It's interesting that even from 2e onwards it's emphasised that racial alignments are just generalisations and that exceptions exist, and we all know how popular drizzt was, so it's pretty clear people just didn't find racial alignment believable.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >But they're not actually "always evil". They have grounded, psychological flaws, which then lead to them being evil.
          That's the same thing. There is no meaningful difference. The same lines of thinking apply to most "always evil" creatures. Orcs aren't evil just because, but because their base instincts to eat, frick, and destroy are just stronger than more abstract desires for compassion and love.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            If you read my post you'll see I actually explain why the monster manual considers orcs to be evil.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              AD&D's description is of why orc's are to be considered evil, not why they are that way.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >leads to people saying "well what if orc babies were raised in a good home?". Obvious, that is, unless you are Gygax.
          And it turns out, there's already an answer for this in the game, the Ondonti. LG pacifist orc farmers raised by a cult dedicated to a good goddess.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >flaws
          you dont actually presnt things as causes and effects if you call things “flaws”.

          It wanting to do evil is its chause and its effect is to do evil. Its not some mind boggling thing you are trying to make it out to be.

          Usually the dimmist people are the ones who see controdictions everywhere instead of actually trying to understand why something is the way it is (not meaning agreeing with, but seeing the chain of events).

          Its not even a solely Gygax thing, you can see it everywhere from conan to Three kingdoms to the bible to the vedas to the Aeniad, like holy shit guy.

  49. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    What if they always choose evil?

  50. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Look, sometimes you just need an uncomplicated “evil bad guy henchmen” to serve as cannon fodder for the BBEG. Evil races are an easy go-to for most fantasy games. If you want something that’s less persecutory, try for a sci-fi setting, they more often have the unambiguous “bad guys” be a political/cultural/ideological faction rather than a whole race of beings. Case in point: Star Wars has the Galactic Empire, they are the unambiguous ‘bad guys’ when you need such things in your adventure, and all of them are there by choice.

  51. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Now that we've hit the bump limit, I have a message for those lurking this thread.
    When people here try to tell you what is true regarding all tabletop groups, remind yourself "Nothing is true".
    When people here try to forbid you from doing things with your tabletop group, remind yourself "Everything is permitted".

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Bull Lee go back to shooting your wife and wanting to frick red headed teenage boys.

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