D&D 5E I thought WotC was removing biological morals?

[DarkCrisis]

I mean, why not?

All you're talking about here is Motivation. The red dragon, beholder, lich, and Balor act through Motivation. What do they want?

The Beholder might want to alleviate its madness by spreading it to as many innocent villagers as possible. Or guard its interdimensional treasure. Or be loyal to a powerful outsider.

I think this points to a flaw in marking all Orcs and Drow and such as Monsters simply by listing them in the MM. If I were in charge of it, I would not have a listing for Orc. I'd have stat blocks for the Orcs that adventures are typically going to be clashing against. Orc raiders, orc warlords, orc clerics of Gruumsh... But why do we need the stats for a lonesome baseline orc?

Another idea would be to take the race right out of it. Have a base stat for, say, Bandit, then options to make in an Orc, a Gnoll, an Elf, a Dragonborn...

Because the listing isn't talking about some Orc Farmer, it and the other listings are "Here is a sample antagonist your characters may come across."

People really need to get past the races and monsters etc arent talking about "Every Orc. Drow, Dwarf, Elf, etc etc etc" its talking about generalities. MOST Orcs you encounter will be this way. MOST Mountain Dwarves have this background. NOT ALL.

Unless your players are big edgelords you typically arent going to need stats for a basic good orc/dwarf/drow/halfling farmer and if you do just make it up.

Good whatevers and breaking the mold monsters have been around since 1E because people can think outside the box. I dont need to have it written in stone that good orcs exist. What I do need is the stats for a typical Orc Warrior for when my PCs have to deal with one in combat due to it and its kin sacking a town.

 

[Steampunkette]

They were foreign invaders occupying land that the native inhabitants had been driven from but continued to fight to reclaim. Settlers were often the ones doing the fighting, enabling the continued conquest of North America. Further, the settlers were a disease-ridden people who spread plagues among the rightful inhabitants of the continent by their presence, having grown resilient to disease themselves from the filthy conditions of European civilization.

Antagonism. Not evil.

The settlers weren't killing babies and kicking puppies and doing other horrible things. They were settling. Yeah, they shouldn't have been there. They should have known that land stolen from others isn't a place they should have lived. But that's not -evil-.

It's just wrong.

Evil was the soldiers killing people and dragging the survivors down the trail of tears.

 

[Scott Christian]

That's not what I said.

Why are high elves more intelligent than wood elves, and why are wood elves wiser than high elves?

Also, if humans get a +1 to all stats, then the average high elf is as intelligent as the average human, but not as wise as the average human, and the average wood elf is as wise as the average human, but not as smart--and neither type of elf is as charismatic as the average human is.

Sorry, but it is what you said because you were replying to my original comment:

I think the original concept of different stats was - "as compared to humans." I could be wrong, and anyone out there, feel free to correct me. But I swear when we started, that is how we viewed it. It believe it was the same for Gamma World too.

I think you are correct in the fact that you can't think about too much, because if you do, it will not make sense. That is because many gamers have this desire for "balance." If we look at the fluff descriptions of an elf, we would give them a +2 in dex, wisdom, intelligence and charisma. In fact, the original MERP did just that (different bonuses and stats, but same idea).

 

[Scott Christian]

They were foreign invaders occupying land that the native inhabitants had been driven from but continued to fight to reclaim. Settlers were often the ones doing the fighting, enabling the continued conquest of North America. Further, the settlers were a disease-ridden people who spread plagues among the rightful inhabitants of the continent by their presence, having grown resilient to disease themselves from the filthy conditions of European civilization. The settlers' own religious beliefs also necessitated that they view the beliefs of the native nations as being both false and dangerous to the soul, and therefore worthy of destruction.

So yes, the European settlers were essentially an evil horde of invaders cutting a swathe across the continent and spreading sickness as they went.

Slippery slope, but not the fallacy.
The view of alignment in D&D can't be looked at under a critical eye. It falls apart. Just like everything else in the game! And when we start holding modern ideals to a made up alignment system to fictitious things, it really falls apart.
There is a great historian whose name escapes me. Works at one of the Ivy Leagues. Holding any society, and their general actions, up to the lens of modern morals, will equate to them being evil. We will find several things that are repugnant, no matter who is doing the viewing. The same is true for make-believe lands and make-believe people.
So let's all take a step back, take a breath, and smile at one another. (But not that evil kind of smile... you know, do the nice kind of smile that comes from our culture.)



Of course I am talking about the gaming culture... What did you think I meant?

 

[Oofta]

Antagonism. Not evil.

The settlers weren't killing babies and kicking puppies and doing other horrible things. They were settling. Yeah, they shouldn't have been there. They should have known that land stolen from others isn't a place they should have lived. But that's not -evil-.

It's just wrong.

Evil was the soldiers killing people and dragging the survivors down the trail of tears.

This is starting to get into real world politics, but there were settlers who did things like give blankets that had been used by people suffering from smallpox to the native tribes knowing that it would infect and kill them.

There has been evil perpetrated by one group of people against another as long as there have been people.

 

[jayoungr]

D&D 5e is unusual in making humanoid evil innate and unchangeable.

I don't believe it does do that.

 

[Steampunkette]

This is starting to get into real world politics, but there were settlers who did things like give blankets that had been used by people suffering from smallpox to the native tribes knowing that it would infect and kill them.

There has been evil perpetrated by one group of people against another as long as there have been people.

Absolutely true. And those settlers were evil.

I'm just saying that it's disingenuous to say that all of the settlers were -evil-. They were absolutely in the wrong, and taking advantage of a terrible cruelty for their own benefit. But benefiting from the awful deeds of others doesn't make you evil.

It just makes you complicit with that evil.

If I could divorce myself from that complicitness I would. But I can't afford to move to Europe.

 

[Faolyn]

Are we going to take that down to each individual red dragon, individual beholder, Individual lich and individual Balor?

It boils down heavily, IMO, to how the creature reproduces and raises its young.

Red dragons are mortal beings who lay eggs and seemingly raises its young (instead of abandoning their eggs, like some reptiles do). There's no reason why they can't have individual alignments. They may have racial tendencies because yes, biology does influence behavior (look at any book on breeds of cat or dog, for instance), but they're intelligent enough that to channel those tendencies in a variety of ways.

Beholders are alien beings who in 5e are born out of the dreams and nightmares of other beholders, and they are not raised by their "parent." While this could mean that beholders could be of any alignment, I'd wager that the dream that spawned them probably determines their alignment and that it's unlikely that they will deviate strongly from that. Beholders are described as paranoid and xenophobic, and those tendencies likely color their dreams and therefore influence any other beholder they make. OTOH, you could also see a beholder having a happy dream and producing a good beholder from it.

It's generally assumed that the path to lichdom involves performing horrific rites which involve the murder of other sentient beings, and possibly the destruction of their souls as well. I can't imagine many good people wanting to become a lich. I suppose its possible that there's more than one way to become a lich, or that after becoming one, a lich may start regretting its actions and turn to the light side.

Demons and devils in D&D are made from the souls of evil beings--people who dedicated their lives to evil. Balors are among the most powerful of the non-unique fiends, which means they not only had to have been evil in life, but they also had to have been evil for probably centuries or millennia as they slowly rose up the ranks of their fiendish hierarchy. (Can you tell that I've forgotten if balors are devils or demons?) Can one stop being evil? Yes, but by this point in their career, it's so incredibly unlikely I'd be surprised if it happens more than once.

 

[Cadence]

If I could divorce myself from that complicitness I would. But I can't afford to move to Europe.

It feels like lots of Europe would have past evil activities it's residents benefit from too...

 

[Faolyn]

If I could divorce myself from that complicitness I would. But I can't afford to move to Europe.

Like the Europeans were any better. There is literally no group of people on this planet who didn't do horrendous things to someone else, or who helped or stood idly by while other people did horrendous things. It's just that some of those things were farther back in history than smallpox blankets.