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

[Aldarc]

The thing is, half of those things you mention are already a FR, Eberron and Mystara thing at the moment since ages ago. So its hardly a slope, its moreso "Maybe the worldbuilding isn't always the best and we can afford to look at it, see what works, rip out what doesn't, and don't put stuff on a pedastal just because it was written by someone else" and that's going to get me dumping on Dragonlance for another few hours.

Yeah, that's true. Eberron was first published in 2004. The same year as World of Warcraft even. That was 17 years ago, so how slippery of a slope are we talking about here? Seventeen years is longer than 3e and 4e's combined lifetime. Seventeen years is about the average age of a 5e player. They are players have lived their entire lives in the shadow of popular media that have humanized and recontextualized the "monsters" of older settings and games.

Also, Golarion has also been re-examining and evolving its own problematic tropes as well (e.g., orcs, hobgoblins, goblins, the Mwangi Expanse, etc.).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It’s… less bad than dark skin being the thing that visually marks them as evil, but… I’m still not keen on it.

Yeah... Like I said earlier (In this thread? In one of these threads...) the solution WotC seems to be going for just redefine what the always evil acceptable kill targets are. Instead of 'the drow are evil' it is 'Lolthite drow are evil, oh and we visually marked them for your convenience." It certainly is an improvement, and not even an insignificant one. I still have to say I find it lacking. But perhaps it just is too much to expect anything more than simplistic outdated cartoon morality from D&D?

 

[Lanefan]

Since I was just reminded elsewhere this exists, what's the general feeling on the new lore that drow who worship Lolth have supernaturally-occurring markings on their skin?

View attachment 142045

What if WotC just decided to have all the evil gods start marking their followers just so we know which drow or orcs or whatever are Chaotic Evil and which ones are chill? Maybe Gruumsh could also expand his followers from just orcs to a more diverse group including humans and ogres and cyclopes and such instead of just being the orc god.

So Evil members of a society would quite literally walk around with "I'm Evil" stickers painted on them.

Under the heading of Really Dumb Ideas, let's file this and forget it. Quickly.

 

[Aldarc]

So Evil members of a society would quite literally walk around with "I'm Evil" stickers painted on them.

Under the heading of Really Dumb Ideas, let's file this and forget it. Quickly.

Is it too soon to go full Godwin yet?

Edit:

 

[ReshiIRE]

Is it too soon to go full Godwin yet?

To be fair, while I thought of that myself, there is a significant difference between weearing a uniform of evil and literally have supernaturally, unable to remove without changing your entire worldview marks on your body.

 

[Aldarc]

To be fair, while I thought of that myself, there is a significant difference between weearing a uniform of evil and literally have supernaturally, unable to remove without changing your entire worldview marks on your body.

There are further remarks that I could make about a number of the attendees of the rally in Charlottesville, VA.

 

[ReshiIRE]

There are further remarks that I could make about a number of the attendees of the rally in Charlottesville, VA.

You're forgotting those people chose those entirely to have on their body, whereas with religion that can really depend but can vary a lot.

There is a difference in origin but not in function really.

I'm not against the idea for certain gods that just want everyone to know but it's. Hrm.

 

[Aldarc]

You're forgotting those people chose those entirely to have on their body, whereas with religion that can really depend but can vary a lot.

There is a difference in origin but not in function really.

I'm not against the idea for certain gods that just want everyone to know but it's. Hrm.

I'm not sure how these supernatural tattoos work. If they are considered "marks of honor" from these particular drow bestowed on them by the veneration of Lloth, then it's mostly a difference without much of a distinction.

But the major point is that we can clearly see cases of people in society today who walk around with marks of evil painted/tattooed on them, covered by clothes or not. So it is not as far-fetched as it is made out to be. It may have even been the source of inspiration for these Llothian drow.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

OK, so this has been bugging me for a while, so I'm going to ask it here:

Why is it ALWAYS orcs and drow? Why is nobody agitating for representation of good ogres, or duergar who don't worship Laduguer?

Orcs are often described using language that was used to dehumanize non-Europeans, which people find distasteful. With drow it's more along the lines of "why is it the black elves that are evil"?

For me personally, the sentiment about orcs has enough merit to it that I just don't use them at all (also I've never found them particularly interesting and didn't read LotR as a kid). I do use drow, but in the context that Lolthite society is largely crumbling from being unable to fend off against many Underdark threats due to its instability, leading to many of them becoming refugees or deserters from dying cities. This means some drow are Lolthites who feel the drow have earned the Spider Queen's wrath and are being punished while others have turned away from and despise Lolth; of the drow NPCs I've introduced in my current campaign so far, two despise Lolth, and one hates all the gods.

To be honest, I'm kind of glad that there hasn't been much attention given to duergar because I'd rather use them as described (with the caveat that the dwarves in my current campaign are mostly pretty Evil themselves, so there's not actually much of a difference between them).

 

[Mirtek]

To be fair, while I thought of that myself, there is a significant difference between weearing a uniform of evil and literally have supernaturally, unable to remove without changing your entire worldview marks on your body.

Oh, I thought it was about how they forced other groups to wear visible marks, not those they wore themselvee