Good Drow

[Grazzt]

First of all I have not bought a copy of Dragon since probably 1993.

I did however, buy the Fiend Folio and Unearthed Arcana back when they came out and I know for a fact that there were NO good Drow to begin with.

And just to jump in to the discussion, you are wrong my friend. Check page 10 in UA under "Dark Elves", second column, fourth paragraph, last sentence:

"Drow are generally evil and chaotic in nature, though players characters are not required to be so."

And the next paragraph talks about drow PCs being outcast from his or her homeland..blah blah blah.

Listen, I hate Drizzt as much as anybody (maybe more), but not all drow are evil, and not all good drow are Drizzt wannabes. And according to UA (1985) you could in fact have good drow elves....and this would be before Drizzt came into being (officially I mean).

 

[Dinkeldog]

Hmmm, and here I thought I was the one running the One True and Correct Game (TM).

Silly me, guess I was wrong.

 

[AuroraGyps]

There's a group of good Drow mentioned in Elaine Cunningham's "Daughter of the Drow. I can't remember the details right now, but they live on the surface and one of their members, maybe a priestess, is the drow sister of Storm Silverhand and her other chosen sisters.
As for there being good Drow, over the many centuries they've been evil, there has to be some that are not. The percentage would be small, but it's a great possibility. I'd almost consider it a "gene" thing... that once many years ago they weren't like they are now and that sometimes, a drow that's born will be a throwback.

 

[Redleg06]

The topic was a good Drow SOCIETY.

You all inferred I thought that every non-evil Drow was a Drizzt wannabe, whereas I said that good Drow societies were marketed to pander to that type of player. So I ran with it. And boy did a lot of gaskets blow over that one!

My point was...

A) A "good" Drow SOCIETY defeats the purpose. It exists because once you have a good Drow society you can get about the business of playing Drow Rangers and Paladins with all the kewl Drow and said class benefits without having to actually deal with Drow society, which is what makes them Drow in the first place. (Their move into the basement of the world was a social change remember?)

B) If you added up all the "one-good-Drows" out there you could wipe out all of the evil Drow by sheer weight of numbers alone!


Clear as mud? Thought so....

(BTW "Drow are generally evil and chaotic in nature" is as close to a hard and fast rule as you can get in an RPG. Of course it does not HAVE to be evil, as long as you GM allows it. But then again a Paladin does not HAVE to be LG as long as your GM allows it. D&D is a fantasy world that does have inherently evil creatures. If we are going to ignore that fact, why not just ditch the whole alignment system period? Most other games (successful and otherwise) dont use alignment. Why should we?)

 

[Grazzt]

Clear as mud? Thought so....

My aren't we snippy tonite.

 

[Grazzt]

B) If you added up all the "one-good-Drows" out there you could wipe out all of the evil Drow by sheer weight of numbers alone!

Ah yes but if you took the "one good drow" from say 100 different games and added them up, wouldn't you also have to take all the evil drow from the same 100 games and add them up as well? Only seems fair to do it that way.

 

[Dragongirl]

Ah yes but if you took the "one good drow" from say 100 different games and added them up, wouldn't you also have to take all the evil drow from the same 100 games and add them up as well? Only seems fair to do it that way.

Got im there oh dark master of critterdom!

 

[Grazzt]

A) A "good" Drow SOCIETY defeats the purpose. )

Even though I don't agree with a lot of what ya said above, I do agree with this statement...at least where it concerns my campaign. There is no good drow society in my world, and there never will be. It just doesn't fit the concept of the drow, at least the way I see it (dark, evil, etc.). And I believe my players would agree with me.

Believe it or not, we have never had a PC play a drow; not in my 1e campaign (which has been going steady since 1983 or so) or my 3e campaign (going since 2000). None of my players (all 1e vets) have ever wanted to play a drow (good or evil).

So- evil drow/good drow, whatever makes ya happy.

 

[Larry Fitz]

I always thought that the paragraph about outcasts in the Fiend Folio was the inspiration for Drizzt myself. If Mr Salvatore is out there (Remember me? I'm one of the thousands of people you saw at GenCon this year.... no? Are you sure? Hmmm...) could you possibly start a thread where you tell us what the inspiration was?

In the Twin Crowns Campaign setting we have Skur, who are modeled after the norse Dark Elves and have a more diabolic origin than the standard D&D Dark Elves. I'm against making the Dark Elves the good guys. I agree with the Leg, a good Drow society is just a cover for people who don't want the hassle of coping with the prejudice an evil race's member SHOULD encounter.

With the advent of 3E we can have Evil Dark Elf Rangers (yay!), and how's this for a dichotomy, you cold have a LE DE Ranger who hunts DARK ELVES! This may be a case where a GM makes an allowance for a Good Ranger to be able to hunt their own race though...

As for Drizzt wannabes, how about a Duergar Paladin with a Couatl sidekick.....?

Larry Fitzgerald
Instigator/Mendicant
Living Imagination Inc.
Streets of Silver-Coming Soon

"A dark elf with a black panther? Yes, he came through here spouting some nonsense about being a hero and not a spy for those evil skur. I exercised my perogative as a Count and a Privateer and we killed him as an enemy of King William, his pet would have made a fine bedspread, but it turned into a small statue..."
Captain Donatello Duros, Count of Thume

 

[ninjajester]

why on earth wouldn't good drow congregate? if one drow escapes from drow society because he/she has a good outlook on life, and discovers 2 or 3 other good drow in the course of their travels, why wouldn't they hook up? and if these 3 or 4 drow eventually settle down, why wouldn't they do so in the same area, probably secluded from the rest of society? wouldn't it eventually get out that if you're a drow and good that you would be welcome there?

i don't understand your point, redleg. of course, it seems to be changing as the conversation goes on, so maybe that's why. do you by chance post elsewhere under the name randolpho? have you had to play with too many munchkin and drizzt fanboys? relax! no good drow in your game? that's cool. it's your game. but making blanket statements like you've been doing about THE GAME sort of puts you in the rabid fanboy department yourself...