D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[Remathilis]

Yup, agree! In the olden days all of these were considered nightmare creatures, just like zombies and vampires and such. And thus protection and self-defense against them was the standard operating procedure.

But as time goes on and more and more stories and ideas about all manner of these things goes on... someone gets the idea of "nightmare creature but GOOD!". And thus we get the era of adding "humanity" to nightmare creatures. Vampires that aren't horrific monsters but just misunderstood. Zombies that don't want to eat living creatures. Orcs that rebel against their clans' ideals. After all... if "good" Humans can include some of the most evil scum in their ranks, there's no reason why an "evil" intelligent species wouldn't include some good ones as well. And people will make up stories about them... slowly turning these species away from just being "monsters" and into fully-realized cultures with people on all sides of it.

Some players don't want to add "humanity" to nightmare creatures and instead keep them all just violence and death incarnate to be destroyed at the whims of the players and their PCs. Which is fine if that's what they personally want in their own game. But they just can't expect every other player and the game's designers to go along with those ideas necessarily. It's not their job to make the game that those players want. So instead, those players who want to keep orcs and goblins as nightmare creatures will just have to adjust their personal game themselves. And I know that gets a lot of them bent out of shape... having to do their own work on their game rather than it being handed to them exactly as they want it to be... but that's the way things go sometimes.

But D&D has not had a very consistent view of them even in the earliest days. Orcs were nightmare creatures, but also creatures of flesh and blood who birth and raise children. They aren't undead or unnatural beings, nor are they beasts with no capacity to think or reason. They were evil because the Monster Manual said they were evil, and the excuses for why (evil society, dominated by evil gods) came later.

I don't want to litigate the orcs debate again, because I still accept the notion that most orcs you would meet are evil is a valid play style. My concern though is that then being evil justified a lot of actions we would consider heinous war crimes. Even if they are creatures bent towards evil, they are living natural creatures and that alone should warrant certain rules of engagement. The idea that you can barge into their homes, kill their families and take their stuff because they are evil just seems so... Repellent when you consider ** gestures vaguely at several world conflicts **.

So I think KotB, even keeping the idea that the humanoids of the Caves are majority evil-intended and malicious to the keep, should be redone to remove the overt colonial elements from the story. Several people have suggested good alternatives to why the Caves would have various humanoids and not their families. (A staging ground for an invading army, gathered by the Temple of Chaos, is perfect in its simplicity).

 

[Staffan]

I like the one where I get the Darts from my dart board...and I kill someone with them. Far easier to kill them with those darts I specialized in than that big honkin sword you have!!!

"Why is that?"

Better be careful or you'll get a dart through the eye...you will!!!

Not that kind of darts. This kind of darts:

 

[Oofta]

I'm 100% fine with moving non-combatants and children out of the line of fire when it comes to official products, simulation be damned. The game loses little for moving baby kobolds off the battlefield, and what it did lose is nothing I lament being rid of. Simulation is all well and good, but I'm willing to concede this unrealistic part if it means never seeing a "what so we do with the children of the tribe we just eradicated?" Again..

It never really matters much who the enemy is. If they're biological beings the creatures you kill are someone's child, someone's spouse or parent. They can be the most despicable Nazi imaginary and still be a loving father. It doesn't really matter if the enemies are goblins or you're playing a WW II sim, in the real world war and combat has repercussions for innocents. But I don't find it to be a "moral dilemma" to have babies in a war zone because there is virtually never a good answer, especially considering how many combats the PCs hit in a typical day. If I wanted a pacifist game or a game where I don't have to worry about this, I'd play a different type of game. Much like virtually every action shooter video game I've ever played, nobody will ever see the ugly side. Because it's a game and I get tired of every monster being an undead or fiend.

On the other hand if you want that, it's easy as pie to add it back in. I don't want to play that game but I'm not going to tell anyone else what to do at their table. It's just vastly easier to add this stuff in than to take it out of a published campaign.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

The art needs to represent the "heavy" gamers--the majority IME--out there. Too many are depcited as slender, young, etc. which many of us aren't. It fails to represent IMO.

I have a fat cleric now. And finding a good mini for him is not easy!

Same for my old evil 1e barbarian…like a lineman with a belly! But the minis are all ripped or movie-conan like. Come on!

We need belly and eye patch and…character

 

[Remathilis]

It never really matters much who the enemy is. If they're biological beings the creatures you kill are someone's child, someone's spouse or parent. They can be the most despicable Nazi imaginary and still be a loving father. It doesn't really matter if the enemies are goblins or you're playing a WW II sim, in the real world war and combat has repercussions for innocents. But I don't find it to be a "moral dilemma" to have babies in a war zone because there is virtually never a good answer, especially considering how many combats the PCs hit in a typical day. If I wanted a pacifist game or a game where I don't have to worry about this, I'd play a different type of game. Much like virtually every action shooter video game I've ever played, nobody will ever see the ugly side. Because it's a game and I get tired of every monster being an undead or fiend.

On the other hand if you want that, it's easy as pie to add it back in. I don't want to play that game but I'm not going to tell anyone else what to do at their table. It's just vastly easier to add this stuff in than to take it out of a published campaign.

Yeah, I got dragged a while back for suggesting that the violence in D&D ago be viewed in the same lens as violence in the real world. That if you moved the Keep on the Borderlands onto any modern nation's border, the PCs would be war criminals for their treatment of prisoners, non-combatants, and spoils of war. "But Remathilis, D&D is a fantasy game, it's not supposed to be realistic". Ok. Then it's not realistic for children to be conspicuously absent from a war zone so that should not be a problem either. If you're not going to fix the underlying problem behind D&D's view on righteous violence, we can at least mitigate some of the worst aspects of it.

Seriously, I'm past the whole edgy "what are you going to do with the gobin toddlers, Mr Paladin?" Scenario. The game should move past that too. It's the least it can do.

 

[Oofta]

I have a fat cleric now. And finding a good mini for him is not easy!

Same for my old evil 1e barbarian…like a lineman with a belly! But the minis are all ripped or movie-conan like. Come on!

We need belly and eye patch and…character

I had to make mine on Heroforge.com so I feel your pain.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is true, and kind of made me think of something.

Some people want their horror movies to be like the original Alien, where you have this horrific creature that has no real reason or explanation, but it's going to hunt you down and kill you.

I'ts the horror of the monster that comes after you. Part of the reason it is so horrific is because it has a purpose to HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU, and you may not even understand what or why it is, or where it even comes from.

Others want to have it more humanized. Instead of Jason being some nightmare creature that is killing teenagers, they want a more human type story where they may be able to actually empathize with him. Perhaps he's just misunderstood.

I suppose, in some ways, it's kind of like what type of horror you prefer. The one where it is just evil incarnate and they are there because they are going to kill you if you don't find a way to stop them...

Or the one where there are two sides of every coin.

Except both kinds of story are not currently treated equally. Seems like instead if you want that classic horror the folks folks who prefer the more human horror, rather than respecting your preference, just think you're a terrible person. It has become a morality judgement.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But the setting doesn’t make logical sense. There are multiple hostile factions living right next to another without problem, and it’s not clear how all the creatures have enough to eat.

Meanwhile, your issue is with the presence of children in a highly dangerous area within walking distance of an owlbear lair.

Then adjust the setting as little as needed to make it make sense. Separate the factions out more. Don't make it a different adventures with the same names to fuel nostalgia sales.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, I got dragged a while back for suggesting that the violence in D&D ago be viewed in the same lens as violence in the real world. That if you moved the Keep on the Borderlands onto any modern nation's border, the PCs would be war criminals for their treatment of prisoners, non-combatants, and spoils of war. "But Remathilis, D&D is a fantasy game, it's not supposed to be realistic". Ok. Then it's not realistic for children to be conspicuously absent from a war zone so that should not be a problem either. If you're not going to fix the underlying problem behind D&D's view on righteous violence, we can at least mitigate some of the worst aspects of it.

Seriously, I'm past the whole edgy "what are you going to do with the gobin toddlers, Mr Paladin?" Scenario. The game should move past that too. It's the least it can do.

Far too often "edgy moral dilemmas" are really just "f*** you if you decide to play anything other than a neutral or evil PC". Frequently there simply are no good options in real life and I don't want to deal with it when I'm playing a game for fun and relaxation.

 

[Scribe]

The art needs to represent the "heavy" gamers--the majority IME--out there. Too many are depcited as slender, young, etc. which many of us aren't. It fails to represent IMO.

As I have noted before, if I cannot look like peak Arnold, what's even the point of calling it Fantasy.