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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 8185240" data-attributes="member: 1165">Drow are viewed as usually chaotic evil or neutral evil. Drizzt was one of the few exceptions. He wasn't neutral either, but full-on good-aligned. Drizzt's backstory was quite unique to explain how this was even possible. Drizzt became an outcast in the Underdark, an extremely dangerous place, and even surviving long enough to become an outcast was difficult enough.Many GMs aren't particularly interested in evil PCs, especially if they believe in session zero, because they don't want a conflict between evil PCs and good PCs, while most adventures are written for good or neutral PCs. Just by putting drow behind the "evil" gate ensured that PCs couldn't be drow. (Or you could do an all-evil or all-drow campaign, where this isn't an issue.) However, GMs run into a few problems with good-aligned drow:1. In some editions, drow are overpowered. Not an issue if the entire party is drow, but this is rare.2. Many GMs like evil drow, and do not want good-aligned drow in their campaign. There's all kinds of issues that come up: everyone assumes you're evil based on the reputation of the drow, you suffer penalties in the light, there are so few good-aligned drow that they typically overly resemble Drizzt (or dance naked in the moonlight, etc).3. Drow (specifically good-aligned drow) became very popular for a time. Drizzt being really badass by drow standards (and drow being really badass by D&D novel standards) is just one of many reasons for this. Lots of GMs aren't interested in "fad" PCs. This creates a conflict between player and GM: a similar conflict comes up if a player really wants to play a concept that the GM is really opposed to (like a gunslinger, a kender, an evil PC in a good party, someone from a part of the setting the GM isn't familiar or interested in, etc).R. A. Salvatore has written about many evil drow, who typically appear in the popular Drizzt series. He edited a six part series featuring evil drow (with no sign of Drizzt), but you won't get to see many players getting to play evil drow... it would frankly be easier to play a good-aligned drow in a "typical" party, even if the player has to argue with the GM a long time to get their way.Forgotten Realms authors went to great lengths to portray an incredibly evil society (one that, realistically couldn't exist) and to play a good-aligned drow you basically need to trash all of that background to explain why your character  is both different and alive (hopefully without carbon copying Drizzt's background). You end up with a character who is basically an elf, with slightly different powers, who is required to be "edgy". Baldur's Gate introduced the popular Viconia, a dark elf priestess who no longer worships Lolth but is evil and still worships an evil deity; her personality in no way resembles Drizzt.Drow work better, sort of, in other settings such as Eberron (they're not all evil, and their backstory is completely different) or Warhammer Fantasy (they are a cultural offshoot of high elves, and yeah they're almost always evil but they can see in the light, don't look different, etc). The "signature" Warhammer dark elf is probably Malus Darkblade, who is very definitely evil but maintains some audience sympathy because he keeps finding himself being tortured or manipulated by dark elves who are slightly worse than him.</blockquote>

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