D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[delericho]

I think the best way of doing it is to say "If you're fully infected, it's over, you're done, no going back, but we can stop future infections by doing X or Y".

But how can you ever be sure?

 

[Maxperson]

Well, if you want to know how Keith is handling gnolls in Eberron perhaps start with his blog. iFAQ: Fiendish Gnolls in Eberron? explains how he's handling it. It's change in lore so is there a way to keep his lore while also changing to follow the new rules? I was going to paraphrase, but instead let's just read what he said.

"So first of all, in making gnolls fiends, I would emphasize the horror of that concept. The 2025 Monster Manual calls them Fiends in Feral Flesh, and I’d really double down on that. The point is that these aren’t just humanoids that have decided to be cruel—they are shells housing ravenous immortal spirits of pure evil. I would go straight to The Exorcist and play up the deeply unnatural nature of this. In describing fiendish gnolls, I’d depict the fiend within twisting their bodies—hearing bones snap and reknit as their jaws extend to impossible width, emphasizing their unnatural ability to ignore pain and fight until they’re torn apart, their ability to consume impossible amounts of flesh. Beyond the physical, I’d consider other things that make them feel unnatural. I’ve talked before about gnoll mimicry; with fiendish gnolls, I’d straight up have them speak with the voices of people the adventurers have lost in war (because they’re fiends of Rak Tulkhesh), or have a troop of gnolls all speak with one voice. I’d consider having a gnoll with a distinctive personality who engages with the adventurers, who keeps coming back in the body of different gnolls. Because to me, the point is that the individual GNOLL isn’t a fiend; it’s a mortal creature of flesh and blood. But that mortal creature has no will or identity of its own; it’s just a vessel for an immortal fiend."

First, that's not how he is handling gnolls in Eberron, but simply an answer to someone's question about how he would do it. "Would do" is not "is doing."

Second, his last paragraph shows how he would do it if he were to do it.

"So, I have no issue with the new Monster Manual presenting gnolls as fiends, and I’d be happy to embrace that and go all in on the horrific aspects of it… for the servants of Rak Tulkhesh and the Wild Heart. But the whole point of the Znir gnolls is that they have broken the hold the overlords once had over them, and I would keep them as humanoids in my 2025 campaign."

He has no issue with SOME gnolls being fiendish, but he would absolutely not make them all fiendish. He would maintain the integrity of his former gnolls as not being fiends and being humanoids.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

his is why we like things like Shakespearean tragedies. There is an emotional catharsis that kind of drama achieves.

Whilst I don't disagree with what you're saying I do think it's worth noting that sometimes even Shakespeare kind of goes so far that things cease to really be cathartic and becomes something else instead - horrifying and not really in a fun way either - Titus Andronicus, for example.

Whereas MacBeth's violence is much more palatable, despite there being a lot of it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah but I do have to say, I think they too became less enjoyable as they became more keen on this cheap and simplistic/propagandistic idea of Harry as an "Avenging Angel" rather that as you correctly point out, a really screwed-up guy from the first movie.

I'd also say the second one, Magnum Force, is kinda okay in this regard, because Harry still seems messed up, and the answer to murderous cops who execute criminals willy-nilly and the politicians who aid them is to blow away said murderous cops and detonate (!!!) the politicians who aid them. Which is like, almost radical? Even if he's mostly doing it because he's mad with them for thinking they're him! (It's a very modern comic book kind of movie!).

Magnum Force is almost a response to the people who thought Dirty Harry was an endorsement of vigilante justice. So I agree on that one. Look, I don't disagree that the films don't get more propagandist. I just still find them extremely entertaining. Even some of the humor that I disagree with with the message of, I find amusing. I do get as an artistic endeavor, the movies aren't any where near the first one (there is something very well crafted about that first film).

Those movies were very much formative in how I thought about the morality and ideology movies and media put, and how I wrestled with it.

Part of it for me is I have never really gone to movies to get moral philosophy (for that I had my parents, religion, philosophy, etc). I think film is a weak medium for telling you how to live the good life.

Yeah I think when it's just bang bang whoa holy hell boom bang bang I think it's a lot easier to take than when it's bang bang "Here is a speech explaining why I am morally correct to murder people" boom bang bang.

I watch a lot of movies with messages about violence i just don't agree with. I love Ip Man for example but here is blatant propaganda in that movie. I think the trick is to enjoy the violence, but understand how a movie might be trying to manipulate you

Jack Bauer has a similar if slower evolution to a flanderized version of himself, like Dirty Harry. And like Harry, even when he's flanderized, the writers occasionally remember the original character and let it show through.

I don't know. I would have to go back and rewatch 24, but he was doing pretty shady things with torture from very early on if I remember correctly . I don know that they actually had a split writing staff in terms of politics, so it isn't like it was always one way or the other (after all the villain in I think season 5 was basically a stand in for Nixon).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But how can you ever be sure?

You have to find a way to communicate this certainly to the players. The easiest way, but not necessarily the most interesting is to have an "expert" NPC, a sage, or a reliable speaker-for-the-gods or the like just tell them. Or there's some tablet which explains the curse or disease or whatever in detail, and is from a plausible source.

The players, in my experience, won't expect to be lied to, won't look for "BUT IS IT TRUE?!!??!" unless:

A) You as a DM have a history of messing with them in this way. In which case, you've made your bed...

B) You keep dropping hints and making faces or whatever to make the players become suspicious of something they shouldn't be. Again this is on you. I've seen DMs do this, even just a few weeks ago, a DM was trying to be mysterious but his overacting and mugging managed to convince us that there was a problem where there was none. But he's new and learning and otherwise very good!

There is also the scenario where the players get a bizarre idea in their head and decide to be suspicious for no sane reason (we've all been there lol), in which case, find a way to dispel it.

 

[Maxperson]

There is no reason you can't treat orcs that way. It is only when we choose to apply personhood to a thing THEN treat it as something worthy of eradication that things get problematic.

Think out it this way: orcs, over the years, have evolved into "people" RPG-wise (thanks WoW!). Currently, there are a few games and other media with skeletons and zombies with personhood. If that catches on, culturally, undead will be off the "stock enemies" list too.

The problem is conflating fictional morals with real world morals when they aren't connected. If I decide to create a PC who is a serial killer and I roleplay out his sick and twisted desires, my real world morality is 100% unchanged. I the player don't suddenly have the morals of a serial killer.

 

[Alzrius]

The problem is conflating fictional morals with real world morals when they aren't connected. If I decide to create a PC who is a serial killer and I roleplay out his sick and twisted desires, my real world morality is 100% unchanged. I the player don't suddenly have the morals of a serial killer.

Isn't that what Jeff Lindsay said?

 

[TwoSix]

But how can you ever be sure?

Well, you're the DM, so....

And you make sure the players are aware of that, and that it isn't ambiguous. At best, a once-a-campaign special narrative event might cure someone once (and let's face it, it's probably a PC).

 

[Maxperson]

It may not trigger you to go commit violence (and I am NOT saying it does) but if you say believe in pacifism and your favorite movie IS Predator, I do question how you square a believe that violence isn't the answer with enjoying a movie that says violence isn't the answer, it's the question and the answer is Yes.

Because pure fiction and reality are not connected. Enjoying watching things blow up and be killed has no bearing whatsoever on personal beliefs. That movie is only "It's the question and the answer is yes." for a purely fictional space that does not exist and never will, so it's completely irrelevant to a real world belief.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I love Ip Man for example but here is blatant propaganda in that movie.

For me that propaganda is so awful and lame that it ruins the movie in the same way it having some terrible musical numbers would. It's like "ewww". The most hilarious example of lame propaganda remains Hero, which has an ending so propagandistic that it completely destroys the momentum of the movie like it hit a wall and turns tragedy into entirely unintentionally very funny farce.

I don know that they actually had a split writing staff in terms of politics

I actually know for a fact they did, because I used to be a 24-head and knew about the showrunner and writers back in the day. But it was also a time when politics tended to be more nuanced generally. And yes we all love S5 and President Fixon or whatever he was called lol.

In S1 Jack does finally get pushed into torturing someone but it:

A) Doesn't work

B) Backfires horribly

So it clearly doesn't approve of torture in S1. Nor does S2, even though it works once in that IIRC, Jack himself gets mad about them torturing someone.

I could go on for uh, a lot of posts about the weird attitudes to torture in 24, it's actually kind of an interesting subject - if I had to sum it up over all seasons I'd say "24's attitude to torture is that it is pointless and wrong and achieves nothing except when Jack Bauer himself does it or supervises it". Like, not just "good guys" or CTU doing it - it fails and is wrong unless it's Jack (and sometimes it fails and is wrong when he does it, just increasingly rarely as the show goes on, I think the last "incorrect torture" is of that English guy in what, S4?).

Sorry getting WAAAAAY off topic here lol.