D&D 5E Are humanoid mono-cultures being replaced with the Rule of Three?

[Cadence]

In regards to Bandits and other things, you'all know that the PHB states you can declare your attack, reducing an enemy down to zero HP, to be non-lethal. Which means you can technically declare your Fireball to be non-lethal damage if you wanted to when you reduce a whole bunch of schmucks down to zero HP.

I'd never thought about the part about doing that with a fireball (or the other things that seem inherently hard to not be lethal)... that does seem odd to visualize. Of course, dodging the fireball that fills the entire corridor does too. [Edit: As noted above, that looks to be only for melee weapons... like a flaming sword?]

In any case, for the bad guys you're not killing, is the next discussion the provision of proper food, shelter, and medical care while they're in custody?

But more seriously, it feels like a game where the vast majority of the rules are about killing things isn't the best game for folks who don't want to have killing things as a frequently necessary thing (how does D&D 7e look if it's predominantly exploration and social...).

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am with Mercurius on this. And am hard pressed to see it as a "trick" (I tend to run my games with some variations of this kind of stuff). A tragedy, sure. But a trick?

Withholding information to force a tragedy onto someone's character isn't just a trick, it's a dirty trick and I'd walk from any DM that attempted it.

 

[Weiley31]

Withholding information to force a tragedy onto someone's character isn't just a trick, it's a dirty trick and I'd walk from any DM that attempted it.

What if the villain of the campaign hired someone to intentionally withhold the information from the party and they didn't learn the truth until later? It's a "trick" from the villain but not the intentional trick of the DM.

 

[Reynard]

I was making broad examples without getting into specifics so the specific examples couldn't get taken apart for being bad (like "Bright"). WoW's trolls are a mishmash of cultures and religions that I'm not even going to try to name because I know I'm going to get them confused for one another, for instance. The Tauren are very much inspired by native americans, down to the accents on a lot of the characters. Whether these were good or bad depictions is up for debate, but at least WoW depicts them as people with complex cultures and histories and free will and variety.

Othering humanoid fantasy races like classical fantasy tended to do echos the way dominant races and cultures demonize and other different races and cultures. It's been a thing people have complained about for a long time. It's obviously offensive when it is done to human characters of different races than the dominant one (the mysterious orient, the noble savage). Couching it under different fantasy races or sci-fi species is just a cover for the same thing, and when it's done hamfistedly it's very othering.

I'm not sure how many ways I can say this:

If you want to avoid a situation in which it is problematic to indiscriminately kill certain creatures based on their species alone, the first step is to NOT make those species "people." Giving orcs (or whatever) culture and character, and especially making them available as PCs, is what makes it a problem using them as stock enemies. "Doc, it hurts when I move my arm like this." Don't do that. Define your stock enemies as stock enemies, and there is no more problem.

I am not interested in the kind of moral quandries some folks seem to think are entertaining. Nor am I interested in exploring genocide, racial violence or colonialism in my games. Therefore, if I regularly put "orcs" in front of PCs it is because they are horrible monsters birthed from the dark dreams of a wicked god, or whatever. And the PCs will never find a bunch of orc wives and babies huddling in the dark. That's gross.

 

[Reynard]

What if the villain of the campaign hired someone to intentionally withhold the information from the party and they didn't learn the truth until later? It's a "trick" from the villain but not the intentional trick of the DM.

One would expect that there would be some indication of the attackers' motivations in the encounter.

 

[Mirtek]

Ah okay: I never played 4E but I knew that they did something with the Gnolls that wasn't exactly like 5E's version. I know 4E Gnolls, those that willingly choose not to serve Yeenoghu, do have to worry about giving in to the Demonic Corruption of Yeenoghu. So they are capable of rejecting it, it's just that at times it can be super annoying/hard at times.

I still don't get WoTC changed Gnolls in 5E to basically be unrepentant killers.

Pre-4e the gnoll's origin was unknown even to the gnolls themselves. None of their previous pantheon actually claimed to be their creator deity. That helped Yeenoghu to lure the gnolls away from their gods, who then withered and died save for a few leftovers desperately hanging to the last crumbs of divintiy (chief among them Gorellik, but 2 others were later mentioned IIRC). The gist was that Yeenoghu ensnared the gnolls into his worship, but he had no true claim to them.

In 4e they were apparently unhappy with that background and made them into even more mindless beasts of Yeenoghu.

First words from 4e Monster Manual about Gnolls:

Gnolls are feral demon-worshipping marauders that kill, pillage, and destroy. They attack communities along the borderlands without warning and slaughter without mercy, all in the name of the demon lord Yeenoghu.

It does not get any better after that intro.

When they then released the Monster Vault as one of the core books for D&D Essentials (basically a D&D 4.5 to save the edition) it also didn't get better. It repeated what was already said in the MM and added stuff like

They follow the demon lord's edicts and the orders of his demons without question. When not marauding in Yeenoghu's name, gnolls fight among themselves and participate in ceremonies that involve acts of depravity and self-mutilation. Some gnolls are known to mate with demons or perform rituals that bind their bodies or souls to demonic forces.

I couldn't help myself but dig for when the part of them being an actual creation of Yeenoghu was first mentioned, as this is not in the orginal 4e MM and also not in the MV (although I knew it had to be from much earlier in 4e's lifetime than the MV).

So I just googled "Gnolls 4e" and looked at the sources listed and then found it. Dragon Magazin 367, the article Playing Gnolls

Yeenoghu sought to spread his hand across the mortal world by creating an army that would sow discord and terror across civilized lands. His demons numbered too few and could not remain in the mortal world indefinitely. But Yeenoghu took a few of his mightiest and most savage demons and fed them to a pack of mortal hyenas. The essence of the demons fused with the animals, and their children were the first of the gnolls—fierce humanoid creatures combining the traits of cunning hyena and vicious fiend. Yeenoghu charged the gnolls to spread horror in his name, bathing the lands in blood and bringing suffering to all things unfortunate enough to cross paths with the Children of Yeenoghu

This, to the best of my knowledge, is the first time that credit for the gnoll's origin has been attributed to Yeenoghu.

However, there's something more which I did not remember until this very research:

This is the tale gnoll mothers tell their pups and the story the scourge uses to exhort his troops. Whether it is truth or mere legend,

So while 4e brought this idea into official D&D lore, it did not fully confirm it. That honor does then indeed belong to 5e.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What if the villain of the campaign hired someone to intentionally withhold the information from the party and they didn't learn the truth until later? It's a "trick" from the villain but not the intentional trick of the DM.

I would hate it, but at least the DM is at least being creative and has an actual reason for screwing you over. The 'surprise, you made a dozen sad orphans' trick is usually just the DM satiating their own... tendencies.

 

[Weiley31]

because they are horrible monsters birthed from the dark dreams of a wicked god

So you have a bunch of Beholders masquerading as Orcs?

 

[Xeviat]

I am not interested in the kind of moral quandries some folks seem to think are entertaining. Nor am I interested in exploring genocide, racial violence or colonialism in my games. Therefore, if I regularly put "orcs" in front of PCs it is because they are horrible monsters birthed from the dark dreams of a wicked god, or whatever. And the PCs will never find a bunch of orc wives and babies huddling in the dark. That's gross.

Well, just know that when others are discussing fantasy races through the lense of racism and racial theory, and you're coming in and yelling and screaming about how it's not an issue, it really makes it look like you're arguing a different point.

 

[Reynard]

So you have a bunch of Beholders masquerading as Orcs?

No. I use orcs -- you know, soulless minions of a dark god.