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

[Paul Farquhar]

"Goblin markets" as a concept in fantasy/urban fantasy generally don't involve actual goblins in the D&D sense though!

And Rossetti's poem of the same name has more to do with people being horny AF than anything else.

Sure, like everything else, it’s about sex. But you could still turn it into an adventure where the PCs are asked to go to the goblin market and rescue someone who has been seduced.

It’s fair to mention that the 2025 goblin has acquired lore recently, it’s not entirely retuned to its pre-Tolikien state.

Baby-theft though, that's solidly fey, through and through. Even though Elves/Eladrin should be the main people doing it but D&D is too cowardly to pin it on them.

Whether you call them elves or goblins (or boggarts where I come from) largely depends on where you are from. But they look much the same - small and ugly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

He shoots like 3 or 4 of them!

He does but you can't go around talking smack about cowboy movies and then not see the resemblance there, that this is sort of a "fair fight" in the same sense as those movies - this is just literally cops and robbers instead of cowboys, as I earlier alluded to.

Also, your "his attitude is no different" just completely fails because of the way the movie literally shows his attitude! With the bank robber, there's almost camaraderie, there's certainly a connection, like a "we're both dangerous people but I'm more dangerous than you" attitude. He doesn't show hatred towards them.

Whereas his hate for the serial killer is absolutely visceral and burning, almost disorienting to him. He sees him as precisely hard-on and butcher-knife figure he talks to the mayor about.

 

[Umbran]

Baby-theft though, that's solidly fey, through and through. Even though Elves/Eladrin should be the main people doing it but D&D is too cowardly to pin it on them.

What? A noble fey actually going to the mortal realm and (gasp) touching a mewling humanspawn? Perish the thought!

That's what they have underlings for. Jareth the Goblin King didn't grab Toby personally.

 

[Scribe]

Whether you call them elves or goblins (or boggarts where I come from) largely depends on where you are from. But they look much the same - small and ugly.

The terms matter. Elves, considering we are talking D&D here...have they EVER been described as small and ugly?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Whether you call them elves or goblins (or boggarts where I come from) largely depends on where you are from. But they look much the same - small and ugly.

No that's just wrong, and I'm surprised you say that given you previously talked about Labyrinth (and the upcoming remake thereof) in this context. Jareth is an Elf or an Eladrin in D&D terms. He's the baby-thief in chief, the goblins merely do his bidding. In Celtic myth, it's not little ugly unseelie fey as the only ones stealing human babies, but the Sidhe as well.

D&D 2024 is really lame for making goblins into Official Fey (TM) and not doing the same for Elves/Eladrin, I will honestly die on this hill. Pick a lane!

What? A noble fey actually going to the mortal realm and (gasp) touching a mewling humanspawn? Perish the thought!

That's what they have underlings for. Jared the Goblin King didn't grab Toby personally.

Quite right, but ultimately he is the commissioner of the baby-theft, the one requiring the human baby!

The terms matter. Elves, considering we are talking D&D here...have they EVER been described as small and ugly?

As a whole? No.

In earlier editions they were sometimes (usually?) smaller than humans, and in 2E and arguably in Mystara in BECMI/RC I can think of a couple of specific types of elf which weren't cute.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The terms matter. Elves, considering we are talking D&D here...have they EVER been described as small and ugly?

In mythology, yes. I’m not fond of Rowling, but she got her elves right.

 

[TwoSix]

Harry: Well, I’m all broken up about that man’s rights.[/I]

At no point are you actually meant to feel sympathetic towards the DA’s argument because the man they happen to be talking about is a serial killer, but are we really meant to think Harry thinks differently about any other criminal? I don’t think so.

Dirty Harry isn't really the first or last movie to applaud vigilantism. (Which the character absolutely is.)

That's a long-simmering, unsolvable tension in the way our society is constructed.

 

[AlViking]

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.

I linked to his blog post so you could read it but I didn't want to copy/paste the whole thing. It was just an interesting way to adapt to the new rules if you want. The takeaway I had is that if you decide to have gnolls as fiends, make them fiends in mortal form while also retaining gnolls as humans in a fur suit. You could something similar with orcs if you want to keep a group of orcs as always the bad guys. In my campaign, the few times I've used gnolls they were created from jackals that were raised to be hosts that are transformed into gnolls in a special ceremony.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I find I can't get past the partial nature of the fixes. As long as they took the view that everything was strictly fictional and had absolutely no bearing on the real world, I didn't have an issue - orcs were orcs, not a stand-in for anyone in the real world, so depict them however you want.

That said, I can certainly understand why others too issue with that approach, and can understand WotC feeling the need to make a change. But when doing that, I then needed them to apply it consistently. If orcs are a stand-in for people in the real world, then I have a problem with them being depicted as anything other than human.

Similarly, I have a problem with them removing orcs and drow from the MM on the grounds that they're humanoids, while reclassifying other intelligent creatures as fey, or fiends, or otherwise as monsters so they can still be slaughtered casually.

Basically, they've adopted just enough of a more sensitive approach to make me really uncomfortable with ever coming back to the game.

You know it’s amazing. Having fought death dogs, hell hounds, and other 4 legged canine monsters, I have not chosen to abuse dogs. In fact I still donate to animal charities.

It’s almost like I can tell these are fantasy creatures and don’t over generalize to real world creatures and actions.

If only there was some way to apply this to drow and orcs…

 

[Scribe]

In mythology, yes.

Right. Mythology, Folk Lore, Fairy Tales. Sure.

D&D? Nah man.