D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Chaosmancer]

An observation from actual play. I felt that my players completely underestimated a villain because he happened to be a kobold. It had no real mechanical effect, but the players still treated a character they knew was a wizard as if he would be a pushover.

Conclusion: players, not just NPCs, can make judgements based on racial stereotypes.

Oh yeah, people will make all sort of assumptions based on early tropes, and not realize how poorly those apply at high levels.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think the point is that the attitudes of players mirror the attitudes of the common folk. Why should it be a surprise that NPCs would be xenophobic when players are xenophobic? Not all players are xenophobic. Not all NPCs are xenophobic. You shift the baseline dependent on the fictional culture.

This... doesn't make sense to me. My players are often not xenophobic. I don't think I've ever had a xenophobic player? Maybe that is why it doesn't make sense to me to have the majority of NPCs be Xenophobic. Which isn't to say I've never done it, I did have one village that was notably xenophobic. The players wanted to burn the place to the ground, but it was too much effort for such a remote village. They just never went back.

 

[Chaosmancer]

One of the things I liked about Dragonlance was that elves, dwarves, and humans were very much distrustful of each other, often to the point of violence in some cases. So it's not always just the "monster races" that get this treatment.

So, have you ever seen someone in one of these threads or on Reddit say "Adding elves to my world? You better be ready to be shot on sight or run out of town, everyone hates elves in my world"? Because I have seen that for Dragonborn, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi, Kobolds, Goblins AND Orcs.

Meanwhile, I read Dragonlance, and one of the main characters was Tanis Half-Elven, and I never remember much between the elves and humans beyond the typical "humans should stay out of our pristine forest, we are better than everyone" haughy elf BS.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Adding elves to my world? You better be ready to be shot on sight or run out of town, everyone hates elves in my world"

Isn’t that standard?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, have you ever seen someone in one of these threads or on Reddit say "Adding elves to my world? You better be ready to be shot on sight or run out of town, everyone hates elves in my world"? Because I have seen that for Dragonborn, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi, Kobolds, Goblins AND Orcs.

Meanwhile, I read Dragonlance, and one of the main characters was Tanis Half-Elven, and I never remember much between the elves and humans beyond the typical "humans should stay out of our pristine forest, we are better than everyone" haughy elf BS.

Tanis was mistrusted and looked down upon by almost everyone who didn't know him personally, and some (like his stepfather and cousin) who did. And the elves and dwarves both had to be talked into allowing human refugees to even enter their lands, let alone settle on them. The initial reaction of both to humanity and each other was xenophobic isolation, and the humans didn't much care for either of them themselves for their part.

It's all there in the Chronicles Trilogy, most of it in the first book. Not that I see any reason to harp on the popularity (or lack thereof) of such views in fantasy literature or gaming towards any race. Why does this matter again?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn’t that standard?

I know dislike of elves is pretty common in settings I make, although not by everyone of course. But then, my thought process on these issues is largely informed by Dragonlance (as described above) and a little by Spelljammer (with the blatantly speces-ist Elven Empire).

 

[Chaosmancer]

Tanis was mistrusted and looked down upon by almost everyone who didn't know him personally, and some (like his stepfather and cousin) who did. And the elves and dwarves both had to be talked into allowing human refugees to even enter their lands, let alone settle on them. The initial reaction of both to humanity and each other was xenophobic isolation, and the humans didn't much care for either of them themselves for their part.

It's all there in the Chronicles Trilogy, most of it in the first book. Not that I see any reason to harp on the popularity (or lack thereof) of such views in fantasy literature or gaming towards any race. Why does this matter again?

It has been decades since I read the books. Guess I'm not seeing how that is much different from any refugees being let into any kingdom. Very, very rarely have I seen a story where refugees were allowed in without any issue or need to convince someone... and usually in those cases it is a matter of "People? I needed people! This is excellent!"

 

[Pauln6]

It has been decades since I read the books. Guess I'm not seeing how that is much different from any refugees being let into any kingdom. Very, very rarely have I seen a story where refugees were allowed in without any issue or need to convince someone... and usually in those cases it is a matter of "People? I needed people! This is excellent!"

The Ovions in Battlestar Galactica welcomed refugees with (six) open arms.

 

[Pauln6]

This... doesn't make sense to me. My players are often not xenophobic. I don't think I've ever had a xenophobic player? Maybe that is why it doesn't make sense to me to have the majority of NPCs be Xenophobic. Which isn't to say I've never done it, I did have one village that was notably xenophobic. The players wanted to burn the place to the ground, but it was too much effort for such a remote village. They just never went back.

I meant rather that we are only discussing this because some players are xenophobic. Like the song from Avenue Q - Everyone's a Little Racist.

 

[Stormonu]

I wish they would bring back a morale score for monsters/NPCs to give us a baseline on how easy it is to intimidate them. It would not be too hard to make adjustments on fly.

Honestly, a Wisdom save should suffice for that sort of thing if needed.