Dragon #298: The Drow issue


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AFAIC, Drow USED to be cool..Circa late 1970's and early 1980's...The D series module presented them quite well....but

When UA came out and there were official rules to use them as a PC race, it all went downhill form there..."they've got crosspistols, and the drow chicks are HOT! Lolth is a BABE..I want to play one!"

FR took it to the extreme..Drow everywhere..even good ones that lived above ground...then a goddess of good drow...yuck...

I love the Realms but TSR turned what was possibly the coolest NPC race of villains (along with Mind Flayers and Beholders) ever in the D&D game into your average everyday monster to slay..like Orcs and Goblins...

boring....

I don't ignore them in my campaigns (FR or otherwise) I simply ignore anything written about them that was published after Q1.

IMO, of course...
 


Since the lauch of third edition, Drow is the theme that has been requested the most by Dragon's readers.

I play in two games, both of which feature different versions of drow. As a player, I still have fun when we fight psycho dark elves with traps built into their armor and skin.
 

Jesse Decker said:
Since the lauch of third edition, Drow is the theme that has been requested the most by Dragon's readers.

I play in two games, both of which feature different versions of drow. As a player, I still have fun when we fight psycho dark elves with traps built into their armor and skin.

Pah Jesse, you shouldn't bow to popular taste, just to mine. ;)
 


Isn't beautiful and crafty and evil more interesting than orcs or mind flayers?
Well, orcs are mooks and thugs as written, so of course they have no class. An old idea this, but with a bit of thought, orcs can be turned into mongol-types, and the romance of a barbarian horde flows forth with them. Put them on large, strong horses and arm them with composite bows (and the required feats, may need a fighter or barbarian level or two for that) and hit and run tactics, and let them take over half the countryside in raids. The kubla-orcs become mooks no more, and the PCs can do pin-cushion impressions if they want a stand-up fight from them.

Mind flayers have the potential to be the thinking DM's favourites. They're more black and white sci-fi B movie horrors from out of space than they are sex, drugs and rock'n'roll like the drow. But they do have an ineffable sense of gentlemanly class and a scientific disposition which the dark elves lack, and which makes me want to have them strut around with canes, stroking their tentacles in thought - when they're not sucking brains. :) I haven't read that book on illithid, but with all that brainpower and knowledge, my money's on them (and maybe D&D's answer to cthulhoid horror, the aboleth) to truly get stuff done at the end of the day.

Hmm....
 
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Personally I hope people might try out Slitheren. They are good for underground and some times above ground fighting. PLUS they make sense to me! :) But drow...well they used to be cool until I had people playing them ALL the time as good guys. It doesn't work well for me. Now Queen of Lies, that's different! :)
 

Since the lauch of third edition, Drow is the theme that has been requested the most by Dragon's readers.
Does your research say whether they are most interested in drow as PCs, or drow as opponents? It would be interesting to find out. :D
 
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