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

[Scribe]

What was your definition ?

At its most basic.

Good is selfless, sacrificing for others.
Evil is selfish, greedy, and self absorbed.
Law is orderly, society above the individual.
Chaos is is about personal freedom, over any kind of societal structure.

 

[wizard71]

I assumed you meant "aren't" always evil?

If alignment is subjective, yes. My PC is LG in his own mind, CG to his allies, NE to his enemies. But D&D has always played alignment is objective; my PC IS LG. He is on team law and good in the cosmic football game. And it's done that as a way of excusing the violence that is the core gameplay loop.

If mindflayers raise slaves and conquer new lands to increase its breeding stock needed to maintain its dietary needs, it's no different than a rancher that moves farther west to gain new grazing lands for its cattle. But make a module you're supposed to fight a bunch of ranchers to free their livestock and people are going to get uppity (Well, maybe not PeTA). So, you make them evil squid men with a desire for brains tartar and the game smiles at the cognitive dissonance. But to the mind-flayer, he's not much different than your rancher who also would like to eat and keeps lesser beings as its food supply. It doesn't care any more about the village it destroyed and the people it captured than the rancher did about the cattle he acquired. The difference is the mind-flayer's cattle are sapient and they look like us.

D&D's morality is already rather sus, and perhaps its only attempt at hail Mary is "but they're cosmically EVIL" to justify why you put goblins to the sword rather than engage in geopolitical diplomacy and international law. They game ain't as much fun to bust in, serve warrants, and demand the goblins show up at court at 10am. Graying up the morality further means the violence is justified even less.

The reason you don't engage with goblins and orcs from a geopolitical standpoint is simple. Their societies do not function at the same level. They never seem to rise above the hunter/gatherer stage in most D&D settings. I have seen the orcs of Thar and a mention of Throtyl in Dragon Lance but that is about it. Their cultures are savage. Most goblins will knife each other in the back for the most trivial things. Art, culture, philosophy, trade and such are concepts that seem to be above them. The only long-term strategy that have is how do I get my next meal. They see violence as the best option and resort to it time and time again. Sure, you can create goblin and orc cultures and have them ape humans, but we have so many humans in funny suits with the various pc races that I don't see what adding goblins, orcs or kobolds brings to the table.

 

[ezo]

I assumed you meant "aren't" always evil?

LOL yes, thanks, I've edited the post (that's what happens when you rush...).

If alignment is subjective, yes. My PC is LG in his own mind, CG to his allies, NE to his enemies. But D&D has always played alignment is objective; my PC IS LG. He is on team law and good in the cosmic football game. And it's done that as a way of excusing the violence that is the core gameplay loop.

Fortunately today we have moved past much of this thinking, so justifiable (slippery slope!) violence is excusable, but blatant violence is not--at least not on the part of a LG paladin.

If mindflayers raise slaves and conquer new lands to increase its breeding stock needed to maintain its dietary needs, it's no different than a rancher that moves farther west to gain new grazing lands for its cattle. But make a module you're supposed to fight a bunch of ranchers to free their livestock and people are going to get uppity (Well, maybe not PeTA).

It depends: is the rancher grazing lands already used by another people? If so, people will get upset. If not, people likely won't get upset.

So, you make them evil squid men with a desire for brains tartar and the game smiles at the cognitive dissonance. But to the mind-flayer, he's not much different than your rancher who also would like to eat and keeps lesser beings as its food supply. It doesn't care any more about the village it destroyed and the people it captured than the rancher did about the cattle he acquired. The difference is the mind-flayer's cattle are sapient and they look like us.

Again, its a loose analogy... To the mind flayer, their cattle really isn't sapient, and they don't care if they look like us, because to them we're tasty.

D&D's morality is already rather sus, and perhaps its only attempt at hail Mary is "but they're cosmically EVIL" to justify why you put goblins to the sword rather than engage in geopolitical diplomacy and international law. They game ain't as much fun to bust in, serve warrants, and demand the goblins show up at court at 10am. Graying up the morality further means the violence is justified even less.

Sure, but busting in the door of goblins who aren't doing anything evil and slaying them without "just cause" isn't really a good view nowadays; 40 years ago it certainly was... but 40 years ago the world as different in a lot of ways.

Anyway, ignore the above if you wish, my point was (and always has been) that an antagonist doesn't even have to be "evil" period, whether innately or not, they just have to be someone who opposed you in some way.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

As others have already pointed out in various places, when you look at D&D that had species specific statblocks for humanoids, they didn't vary much anyway. They were already vanilla.

What they've provided, instead, are ROLE specific statblocks. I find that more useful, as a GM, than species-specific.

For many it's not just absence of a stat blocks but all the missing text. I was thumbing through older edition monster manuals and was reminded just how much interesting and useful expository info used to be included in monster entries. Also, I disagree on the statblocks, they have often been at minimum useful demarcation in design even in small interesting ways. Shining a light on generic statblocks and effectively pointing out how uninteresting all humanoid species are in 5E now is not a good thing.

 

[sevenbastard]

Orcs whatever let's get to my list of real gripes.

The Lich removes the Phylactery and replaces it with a Spirit Jar. Seriously we have to dumb down the game because the word is obscure and hard to spell.

Full disclosure had to look up how it was spelled.

Why don't we just change the name from Lich to Undead Magic Guys if we are simplifying game.

(Looks at next page sees Lizardfolk are now Elemental earth creatures throws book across room and wonders when the world left him behind)

 

[Bedrockgames]

At its most basic.

Good is selfless, sacrificing for others.
Evil is selfish, greedy, and self absorbed.
Law is orderly, society above the individual.
Chaos is is about personal freedom, over any kind of societal structure.

Thanks. I assume we are talking proposed D&D definition of evil and not a general real world proposal. I would say I think for me evil needs a little more than just selfishness. Like that would be part of it, but selfishness could also be part of chaos. I think for evil to matter you need to have some element of cruelty or a willingness to overlook the suffering of others

 

[Scribe]

Thanks. I assume we are talking proposed D&D definition of evil and not a general real world proposal. I would say I think for me evil needs a little more than just selfishness. Like that would be part of it, but selfishness could also be part of chaos. I think for evil to matter you need to have some element of cruelty or a willingness to overlook the suffering of others

I believe cruelty to fall under selfishness, and overlooking the suffering of others to not be Evil, but more Neutral.

Either way, I'm not looking to define morality for everyone, when I look at popular morality today, I see a great deal of selfishness, of "what about me", huge amounts of judgmental, almost religious, delusional, levels of self righteousness.

I don't see a lot of Good.

 

[Parmandur]

Orcs whatever let's get to my list of real gripes.

The Lich removes the Phylactery and replaces it with a Spirit Jar. Seriously we have to dumb down the game because the word is obscure and hard to spell.

Full disclosure had to look up how it was spelled.

Why don't we just change the name from Lich to Undead Magic Guys if we are simplifying game.

(Looks at next page sees Lizardfolk are now Elemental earth creatures throws book across room and wonders when the world left him behind)

It doesn't have to do with spelling at all, Phylactery is an anti-Semitic thing is the issue.

 

[ezo]

I don't see selfish as evil, but neutral. For example, wanting what is "my due" is only evil if it means depriving someone else of what is due them. Giving up some of "my due" to aid another or make certain they had plenty, would be good.

But to say I want what is mine--no more, no less, while selfish because I am only thinking of myself, is not evil IMO.

 

[Scribe]

I don't see selfish as evil, but neutral. For example, wanting what is "my due" is only evil if it means depriving someone else of what is due them. Giving up some of "my due" to aid another or make certain they had plenty, would be good.

But to say I want what is mine--no more, no less, while selfish because I am only thinking of myself, is not evil IMO.

Wanting your due, either through effort and compensation or need, is not selfish, to me.

Its wanting more than that, ever increasing, it's wanting what your neighbor has, it's entitlement.

Essentially to me, its modern western culture.