doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
They are stereotypes. It’s not a dirty word.Well, no. Not at all. You're asking people not to explain the obvious to you, and yet ...
Gnolls look visibly different than do humans, or elves, or goblins. That's a salient difference.
So imagine a community (and again, you specified villagers originally, which doesn't conjure up images of a walled town) that has dealt with gnolls before- always in the sense that the gnolls have attacked them. Maybe some of the villagers have lost loved ones to the gnolls, maybe they have seen gnolls eat their loved ones.
That's going to have an impact.
And I would note that you specifically didn't engage with the example I used- which was "The easiest way to understand this archetype is to flip it; if you enter a "traditional" gnoll encampment with a primarily human party, what is the reaction likely to be?
Okay, let's take this another step. Same traditional gnoll encampment, but you have a mixed party, that includes "monstrous races" but also includes a traditional elf (not a drow). How will the gnolls react to the elf?"
Again, play your way. But if you ask a question, expect people to give you answers, even one you don't like and that disagree with you.
As for your other point- maybe you don't like tropes, but that doesn't mean you call something a stereotype, and you get to decide what is good and bad. You aren't the boss of values. Just like I'm not.
As for the rest, nothing you’ve said is new information. I didn’t ask “what are the traditional depictions of stuff in dnd”, I asked what stereotypes y’all use or don’t use, and how, and if/how you’ve subverted or outright ignored them.
So, but the villagers in a world where Gnolls are usually raiders would do XYZ” is only accidentally answering the question, in that it tells me that you use stereotypical Gnolls, and thus villagers don’t trust Gnolls.
Like, cool, you could have just said, “in my games the races mostly fill the niches and narratives they do in the core books”.
