Evil Socities in DnD

[delericho]

What I am wondering is it bad to have an evil society where misandry, misogyny, torture, sacrifice and racism exist? Is having societies like this in game settings basically saying any of the above are okay?

No, and no.

My preference is very much for the 'default' society of the campaign world to be essentially like that in the new Battlestar Galactica - the question of whether a woman can be president, or a fighter pilot, or whatever else just doesn't get asked because the answer is "yes of course". (And the same applies to black characters, homosexual characters, etc, of course.)

Beyond that, I don't see problems with presenting any and all deviations from that norm. Especially if Evil societies are labelled as such.

Do they belong at all in official settings?

Ah, now that's a different question. In principle, my answer remains the same, but WotC need to tread very carefully in such areas. On balance, I would rather they err towards 'offensive' material, rather than neutering the game... but I can see that they'll probably prefer the opposite route.

(Of course, it should be possible to present 'edgy' material without being offensive, but that's easier said than done.)

I would also be quite interested in a "mature audiences" imprint that takes a much more shades-of-gray/mature look at such topics. I certainly feel there's a place for adult material, especially in a game primarily played by adults, but it should be labelled as such! (And by 'adult', I don't mean "blood and boobs". I mean actual adult material, please.)

 

[Umbran]

What I am wondering is it bad to have an evil society where misandry, misogyny, torture, sacrifice and racism exist? Is having societies like this in game settings basically saying any of the above are okay?

My opinion is that it is does not do that because the good characters and societies view these acts with horror and something to be stopped.

Pretty much. I mean, the good guys need someone to fight, right? You want the bad guys to be good, too? How's that gonna work?

It isn't like having the bad guys be really, really bad is something made up for RPGs. Those Drow? They're pretty much Burroughs' "black martians" with the serial numbers filed off.

There's actually two different questions: 1) Should you have incredibly nasty villains in your setting? 2) How specific and detailed should you be in describing how nasty they are?

 

[GSHamster]

I think a lot of the problem comes when people try to "subvert" the trope of the evil society. Like present a member of that society who in a lot of other ways is very admirable. Or they attempt moral relativity with the society, like demonstrate that the "good" society acts very much like the "evil" society in some fashion.

A real world example might be an individual like Field Marshal Erwin Rommel of Nazi Germany. There are groups of people who feel that these individuals are admirable in spite of their cause. While other groups feel honoring these individuals also glorifies their cause, making the cause less evil.

 

[delericho]

I do think it's a little bit disturbing that the iconic "evil version of a PC race" society is matriarchal and dark-skinned.

Perhaps, but that wasn't WotC's (or TSR's) choice - 1st Edition has a bunch of those "evil versions" - Drow, Duergar, etc. It also has a whole bunch of other evil societies, such as the Mind Flayers, Beholders, Aboleths...

It's just that the drow caught the collective imagination, and so became iconic. Whether that's because of their place in GDQ, or because of Drizzt, or because, hey, hot women, doesn't really matter. TSR presented them amongst a bunch of alternatives and they became iconic, not the other way around.

Or, to say the same thing in far fewer words: that one isn't their fault.

 

[Yora]

So you don't think WOTC should use the drow society or do a new book like the book of ultimate evil?

No. But there is cartoonish and "pathetic" evil, and there's psychological horror.

Just having villians whose evil is mostly "and it is also said they murdered all the children" and who are otherwise just antagonistic to the PCs are relatively tame. It gets glossed over with but their victims usually remain statistics. That's the typical hollywood blockbuster evil or Harry Potter evil. Sure it's evil, but without the nasty details. And that's also how demons, drow, or evil priests are almost univerally portrayed in D&D products. That's "child safe" within certain limits and for the last decades nobody worries about that. WotC can and will run with that perfectly fine.

I havn't read the 4th Edition version, but I think the 3rd Edition Book of Vile Darkness was an almost complete failure. They might even genuinely had the plan to get more mature and ambigous, but all they really did was release a book with a higher degree of gore and even more over the top stereotypical evil with extra disgusting details. Because evil is disgusting, that's basically the concept behind the whole book. And in the end, it ended up being even more immature than most 3rd Edition books.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

DnD campaigns mostly portray the bad guys as Bond-level villains. An evil society of people would not see themselves as evil or corrupt, but instead as taking imperfect measures to address their own societal challenges. There would be all sorts of justifications for why their society is the best system in an imperfect world.

 

[amerigoV]

My opinion is that it is does not do that because the good characters and societies view these acts with horror and something to be stopped.

First off, I have no problem with them in the game and I do not think it promotes such things.

That said, the quoted statement may not be entirely true. What is "good" for society may not be "good" for the individual, which may result in some questionable outcomes. For example, a LG society may imprison and try to reform a clan of Orcs that has been marauding the region. Part of that process may be training them to live in a "proper" society. Forcing an imprisoned race to work (to learn the value of it) is not all that different than slavery, even if the cruelty is not there. Our own (Western) history is fraught with horrors brought on when we acting to bring civilization to the "savages".

(if it were simple, there would not be the 9 alignments of old)

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

C.E. societies never make any sense to me - I do not get why they don't simply implode. How they managed to get so much as the bread baked every morning?

That said, C.E. groups can and do serve a useful function in the game setting.

 

[GhostBear]

The darker the shadow, the brighter the light.

You cannot have "good" without also having "evil".

Granted, I have a very hard time with absolute good and evil in my games. A lot of it has to do with perspective and context. What is evil to one person may be not only acceptable, but seen as a good thing to another.

Example: Giving a hungry person a meal. One person may see it as a good deed - you're feeding the hungry. Another may see it as an evil deed - you're enabling dependance and possibly laziness.

You can argue that the second person is being harsh, but giving the intent - wanting the hungry person to be motivated enough to feed himself - is a good one.

There are some things that are exceptionally difficult (if not outright impossible) to justify both ways - pure sexism is an example - but much of the real world is not that black and white.

Thankfully, in gaming we can adjust the contrast to be as stark or vague as we please.

But no, including an "evil" society in no way is an approval of what happens in that society. Your "good" heroes need to have a reason to exist, after all, and in standard fantasy that means finding the "evil" in the world and removing it.

 

[Mallus]

In the heated sexism thread the drow were brought up as an example of misandry.

That was kinda, well, ridiculous.

What I am wondering is it bad to have an evil society where misandry, misogyny, torture, sacrifice and racism exist?

No, it's not.

Is having societies like this in game settings basically saying any of the above are okay?

No. That's like asking if the Sopranos were an endorsement of the Mafia, or if Chinatown endorsed incest and fraud.

My opinion is that it is does not do that because the good characters and societies view these acts with horror and something to be stopped.

And evil characters have a place where they fit in!

]Do they belong at all in official settings?

Yes. Absolutely.