Why hate onthe drow? (Forked Thread: How is FR changing with 4E?)

[Fenes]

Well, "a few hundred miles" is reaaaaally long way when you have to walk. I'm talking a really long ways away. Second, those drow were added to world by the designers because of Drizzt, so I find it silly to characterize that he then in turn doesn't fit the world based on elements that were added because of him.


To be honest, I don't think Drizzt would be confortable around those other drow. He already has a home, a group of friends, and has found some measure of acceptance. I would go so far as to say that it would be out of character for Drizzt to just run off with those other drow 'simply because they are there.'

Drizzt spent a number of years in Waterdeep. And it's not a question whether or not he'd feel good about them - it's simply not believable that he spends so much time in angst and self-pity about being an outcast when he should know that there are lots of other non-evil drows around.
That he muses about so many things, but never about other good drow is rather silly, and strnweghtens the perception that he doesn't really develop, or change.

 

[Set]

One issue I've got with Drizzt is not even a little bit unique to Drizzt.

He's kinda down on himself, despite being utterly unbeatable. It's like reading Wolverine complaining about how he got mindjobbed sixty billion years ago, when he's immortal and unkillable, or Superman wax philosophical about being 'the last son of Krypton' (yanno, not counting the couple thousand Kandorians, clones, and other Kryptonians who have showed up over the years) when he's pretty much unstoppable and has the respect and nigh-worship of half of the planet.

It's harder to sympathize with the guy who always wins. He's not the moody loner who hangs with the eccentric kids. He's the perfect-toothed quarterback valedictorian who got a shiny car for his sweet sixteenth and is dating the prom queen.

Artemis Entreri is many times more interesting to me, because he's actually kinda morally complex and he's human and fallible and has gotten his peepee well-and-truly smacked on occasion. (Granted, now that he's got his own books I've heard, I suspect he's also become infallible and gained 'plot immunity,' but I haven't read them, so he's still cool in my little world of ignorance...)

I kinda want to read about a D&D character who is *heroic,* and it's hard to portray 'heroic,' when the character doesn't seem to be able to lose, or, worse, has uber powers or unfair / unbeatable advantages.

Huzzah, Drizzt plowed through 1000 Orcs. Next our bold hero will smack around 1000 pre-schoolers and steal their lunch money, which will be roughly an equivalent challenge at his level (and might take longer, 'cause they'll run).

 

[Dragonbait]

He's kinda down on himself, despite being utterly unbeatable. ...I kinda want to read about a D&D character who is *heroic,* and it's hard to portray 'heroic,' when the character doesn't seem to be able to lose, or, worse, has uber powers or unfair / unbeatable advantages.

You're in the minority. Take a look at the characters of the FR novels: Epic heroes and gods. The public has spoken and they WANT characters like the drow, not someone who has a hard time of it. Greenwood was commenting about this issue on an old Mortality Radio interview.

Anecdote from Salvatore himself: Drizzt was never his character. People always assumed that it was and always asked him about it. So one day he decided to make Drizzt (1st level ranger). His crew was in a dungeon fighting goblins. Drizzt hits a gobbo with several arrows and it does not die. Instead, the gobbo runs. He chases the goblin and shoots it several more times. It's still not dead. By now Drizzt has separated himself from the rest of his group. The goblin stops, turns around, and transforms into its true form: an ogre mage. The ogre does cone of cold and kills Salvatore's Drizzt character. The GM then says "There. He's dead. Now make a real character."

 

[Ahglock]

There are good Steven Segal movies??

I wouldn't say good, but there are some that aren't bad.

 

[drothgery]

What fantasy authors would you consider to be the top talent then?

Jordan's the best world builder of any recent writer I've read, period. Sanderson's got talent there, so we'll see what he does after Memory of Light and finishing off Mistborn.

As crafters of prose, Tad Williams, Guy Gavriel Kay, and just maybe Jacqueline Carey are in a class by themselves.

Terry Pratchett does humor in fantasy like no one else.

But for the whole package? Steven Brust and Lois McMaster Bujold do it the most consistently. Jordan did for the first half of Wheel of Time, but was only batting about .500 on the second half.

 

[grickherder]

I dislike the drow because they've become overdone and cliched. There's been fallen elves since LotR, but those were the orcs. I like an underworld type place in the campaigns I run, but there is not a single elf in there. Especially not any "drow".

Drizzt is a pretty worthless character as well. He's pretty much incapable of relationships (being the boring constant outsider) and lacks other things that make conflicts interesting in books. I don't enjoy the essentially pornographic hero-mongering which surrounds Drizzt whenever he appears in a novel. It's shallow, cliched and pathetic. There's no actual theme there. No meaningful conflict, no real characterization. Just the setting up of bowling pins for Drizzt to knock over again and again.

It's about as exciting as watching professional bowling on television. Predictable and pointless.

 

[Jack99]

IME there is really no great hartred for the Drow - if you look at the whole D&D player base. On the internet however, where you´ll meet loads of experienced DMs and players, it´s something else.

Because they took a good look at Driizt and the Salvatore books and thought:
"I can do better."
"While sleeping."

You know a lot of experienced DM's that have had multiple books on the NY Best-seller list?

 

[grickherder]

You know a lot of experienced DM's that have had multiple books on the NY Best-seller list?

I'm not a huge fan of any form of expression with a design goal of sales.

 

[icarusfallz]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but Drizz't was a two weapon wielding FIGHTER before he ever multi'd into ranger, according to the books themselves. I dunno if this matters to anyone, but it kinda messes with the game-design idea that two-weapon rangers are based on him.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Didn't Greyhawk do it as pockets of caverns, some of which ran pretty deep?

If so, then memory has failed me.

These are the differences I do remember. In Greyhawk almost nobody on the surface knows about the underdark and it's an adventure in itself to even get to it. In the Forgotten Realms the underdark is common knowledge and there seems to be an entrance to it at the bottom of every farking dungeon.

It'll be interesting to see how the Darklands are handled in Paizo's Golarion. I'll read up on it. I already know their drow are better. Golarion's drow are demon-worshipping taint-souled ratsasses. If a normal elf lets his soul get too smutty he can spontaneously turn into a drow.

Sam