D&D Race You Hate the Most

[Lwaxy]

And they are still different in PF

 

[KarinsDad]

Then you need to make all races fixed, like all humans are true neutral, all elves are CG and all halflings are NG... or whatever you think fits them best. Why should they be different?

No you don't. Not all. You just have to have races have typical alignment propensities and have certain races treat other races according to custom. Dwarves kill Orcs on sight. That's what they do. If as a general rule, NPC Dwarves do this, then PC Dwarves should as a general rule do this as well.

Racial stereotyping is so silly and boring to me. And given that I have seen players equal certain races with RL cultures before I do think it is somewhat essential to abandon it.

I think racial stereotyping is exactly what people do in real life though. Ranchers hunt wolves not because they kill their livestock, but because they are seen as killers of livestock. Dolphins are consider intelligent and even benevolent, but sharks are not. So, one is slaughtered more than the other. Elephants and chimpanzees and rats and dogs are all in the top 10 animal intelligence level, but people use them for experiments and some people still mistreat them even in today's enlightened Internet knowledge sharing society. What would happen in a points of lights world where knowledge is not shared?

In a world of multiple tool using intelligent different race creatures, that racial stereotyping would still occur. Survival of species (and hence race) would still be a dominant factor. Playing the game as if it would not occur is ok, but it's not very plausible. A lot of real life "human rights" have been assigned to different races in D&D by a lot of DMs and players, rights that intelligent creatures if they actually existed probably wouldn't give. Even in our real world, there are cultural differences so diverse that some cultures on this planet want to exterminate other cultures. If this happens in the real world with cultures, why doesn't it make sense that it should happen in a fictional world with races?

What's boring is walking up to a group of Orcs and nobody in the party wants to attack them cause they might be NG and just be misunderstood. Gag. I don't want to waste a single second of my gaming time contemplating whether these particular Orcs are NG or not. I want to jump to the chase of whatever is going on (interrogating them, threatening them, or attacking them). Depending on situation, that might mean being polite and such, but as a general rule of thumb, those situations are probably pretty rare.

 

[mkill]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]: So what your pile of posts in this thread boils down to is that you want Orcs to be evil to reserve your right to shoot them on sight? Because it's too much work as DM to give the PCs a reason to fight certain enemies?

Just wow.

I could handle if a PC has a deep-seated hatred of Race X and tries to kill them on sight, but as a setting default that has so many unfortunate implications that I'd rather not go there.

 

[KarinsDad]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]: So what your pile of posts in this thread boils down to is that you want Orcs to be evil to reserve your right to shoot them on sight? Because it's too much work as DM to give the PCs a reason to fight certain enemies?

No, it's more like I want D&D games to be plausible.

It's not plausible when monsters roam city streets as if they are normal civilians. As a player, I don't want to play D&D campaign like Star Wars where there is a plethora of hundreds of different races of humanoid aliens in the majority of cities, most of whom get along for the most part shy of the worst parts of the cities.

Instead, I prefer a D&D where most "monsters" are evil and where there are few social consequences for taking them out. Monsters should be outlaws and races that are not monstrous should be known acceptable members of a given fantasy campaign setting. There should be a reason in D&D campaigns that monsters are called monsters.

And successful monster knowledge checks should let players know of creatures that are "not generally considered evil or monstrous".

Granted, every campaign will be different, but I prefer logical settings to illogical ones. For example, even in the city of Sigil, monsters walk the street and do not molest each only because of a logical reason. The Lady of Pain will throw them in a maze if they do not. They are forced to behave. Monsters in more traditional non-Sigil like areas (like the majority of areas in many campaign settings) should typically have other racial enemies (including PC races) and should typically be malevolent, not benevolent. They shouldn't be forced to behave and laws shouldn't protect them.


Note: I have no problem with monsters being in cities if they are hidden or disguised, I just have a problem with the concept of live and let live; Trolls and Humans working side by side in a city. That to me is not D&D. It's Star Wars. It's the wrong genre.

Eberron introduced a lot of this with "laws of Sharn that protect all humanoid races" and it's just lame. IMO. Meh. Sharn is too 20th century sensibilities for my tastes. As for my posts in this thread, this thread is about races that people hate. I hate monstrous PC races.

 

[Leatherhead]

I picked Kender.

I also picked subraces. Adding fire/water/earth/air/snow/forest/jungle/sand/shadow/ or whatever other noun you can think of in front of a race does not make it a brand new race. Those kinds of changes can be handled by templates, if they must be handled at all.

 

[Derren]

No, it's more like I want D&D games to be plausible.

And why is it plausible that nonhuman A is treated like an equal and nonhuman B is killed on sight?

Ok, so modern/western ranchers kill wolves on sight. But native americans for example didn't.
And if we had always killed wolves on sight dogs wouldn't exist. There are also a lot of environmental groups who fight for wolves...

So your example is more akin to "Paladins of the Bleeding Hand sect kill orcs on sight". What do other humans do? Depends.

 

[Recidivism]

No, it's more like I want D&D games to be plausible.

It's not plausible when monsters roam city streets as if they are normal civilians. As a player, I don't want to play D&D campaign like Star Wars where there is a plethora of hundreds of different races of humanoid aliens in the majority of cities, most of whom get along for the most part shy of the worst parts of the cities.

Instead, I prefer a D&D where most "monsters" are evil and where there are few social consequences for taking them out. Monsters should be outlaws and races that are not monstrous should be known acceptable members of a given fantasy campaign setting. There should be a reason in D&D campaigns that monsters are called monsters.

And successful monster knowledge checks should let players know of creatures that are "not generally considered evil or monstrous".

Granted, every campaign will be different, but I prefer logical settings to illogical ones. For example, even in the city of Sigil, monsters walk the street and do not molest each only because of a logical reason. The Lady of Pain will throw them in a maze if they do not. They are forced to behave. Monsters in more traditional non-Sigil like areas (like the majority of areas in many campaign settings) should typically have other racial enemies (including PC races) and should typically be malevolent, not benevolent. They shouldn't be forced to behave and laws shouldn't protect them.


Note: I have no problem with monsters being in cities if they are hidden or disguised, I just have a problem with the concept of live and let live; Trolls and Humans working side by side in a city. That to me is not D&D. It's Star Wars. It's the wrong genre.

Eberron introduced a lot of this with "laws of Sharn that protect all humanoid races" and it's just lame. IMO. Meh. Sharn is too 20th century sensibilities for my tastes. As for my posts in this thread, this thread is about races that people hate. I hate monstrous PC races.

Wish I could grant some more experience.

I don't totally agree with the idea of taking morality out of the question when dealing with monsters. I like the option of it being there ... as an exception to the rule. But it's certainly okay for most characters to have no qualms about killing monsters and for the campaign focus to not be on those moral sorts of questions about whether it's right or wrong to be killing them.

I also tend to dislike the menagerie angle of races. Human beings in real life have very different characteristics from other human beings. I feel like other races, even ones that on the surface seem similar to humans, should in fact be in general much more different from humans than humans are from each other. So for me, something that's even further removed from a human is problematic because its mind is probably not even comprehensible.

 

[Incenjucar]

I rather enjoy 4E's gnomes, though the tendency to depict their hair as stalks of corn is off-putting.

 

[mkill]

[MENTION=12759]Kari[/MENTION]sDad:You claim that your view is "plausible", "D&D", "typical fantasy", but I suggest that you reread your Tolkien. Would the Fellowship have succeeded if they had shot Gollum on sight?

 

[Lwaxy]

No you don't. Not all. You just have to have races have typical alignment propensities and have certain races treat other races according to custom. Dwarves kill Orcs on sight. That's what they do. If as a general rule, NPC Dwarves do this, then PC Dwarves should as a general rule do this as well.

That's why none of our dwarfs do it unless they have a special hated for orcs.

I think racial stereotyping is exactly what people do in real life though.

And this is the reason why I should have it in our worlds? Sure it may heppen here and there, but it would also happen between human tribes. Or humans and elves. Etc. Nothing to do with "monsters." I don't need real world annoyances brought into my free time.

What would happen in a points of lights world where knowledge is not shared?

I don't play "points of lights" settings. Well, in theory one of the campaigns is something similar but that's those types of games I can only allow grown ups in and I don't want to make that the rule.

In a world of multiple tool using intelligent different race creatures, that racial stereotyping would still occur.

But it would have little to do with "monsters" or not, considering everyone is way more used to a wider variety of life forms. An ooze or a gelatinous cube would probably always be considered bad, but those aren't intelligent just dangerous life forms. Same as sharks, you avoid them when possible.

Even in our real world, there are cultural differences so diverse that some cultures on this planet want to exterminate other cultures. If this happens in the real world with cultures, why doesn't it make sense that it should happen in a fictional world with races?

But it does not have to be a default thing. We have human cultures hating each other in some games (or any ther cultures) but to say any race is by default evil is just not going to cut it. I do not even think most parents would let their kids play with us is we tried to pull that off in the world of today. It wouldn't have gone over well in the 80s either. The only exception I can think of is the drow, because they are, by definition in Golarion anyway, fallen elves. Would they be redeemed they would probably look like elves again.

What's boring is walking up to a group of Orcs and nobody in the party wants to attack them cause they might be NG and just be misunderstood.

As opposed to walking up to a bunch of humans, assuming they are all good and then wondering why you get killed? No difference, really, you need to keep alert or you just might die.