D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Remathilis]

Exactly, nothing about this is 'Evil'.

I'd love to play a play a paladin in your game...

 

[ezo]

"Since you know as well as we do the right, as the world goes, is only in question between equal power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - the Melean Dialogue, a dramatization of an incredibly evil event

Survival of the fittest is, from a social standpoint, pretty damn evil. At its worst, you end up with Social Darwinism; from an individual standpoint, it is at best a dismissal of what it is we owe each other; it's the "and I did not speak up"; it's the literal banality of evil. Somewhere in-between you have the above quote; the strong doing what they want and the weak suffering what they must.

Who knows what is right? By whose standard? By what culture? In what era? What do we owe each other? Am I my brother's keeper? And so on... The weak do not suffer what they must. They can choose to fight back in their own defense, they suffer by their own choice.

Survival of the fittest is nature's way---it is neither good nor evil. Sometimes you survive by teamwork, other times by acting on your own. The weak can work together to overcome the strong. Then the strongest of the weak becomes the strong.

To say "the orc is violent and savage and must therefore be slaughtered on sight because these things make it evil" is justifying many of the atrocities mankind as perpetrated on ourselves throughout history. If the orc attacks and you must destroy it in your own defense, this is not evil. It is survival of the fittest. You are fitter than the orc. Or are you just evil for doing so?

No culture has the right to destroy another simply because they deem it evil, or that culture is evil itself. The orc conquest and destroys because they do so to survive--for plunder, food, equipment, etc. and their means for destroying is savagery and violence.

 

[Hussar]

That sounds like what happened with that THAC0 npc in the Witchlight publication!

Bingo. Just a hint of pretty gentle ribbing and folks lost their poop.

But decades of dog whistling so hard that folks swallowed the whistle is supposed to be no problem at all.

 

[ezo]

I'd love to play a play a paladin in your game...

Considering paladins can be any alignment at this point... why not?

Of course, the two paladins that have been played so far in my current game have both died... But not because they were good, evil, or in between.

 

[Remathilis]

That all sounds very Klingon to me.

I wonder what the reaction would be if Star Trek TNG was released in 2024.

"A Klingon as a member of the Enterprise crew? That goes against the lore. He would never listen to a captain who hadn't personally bested him in combat! Star Trek is ruined".

 

[MGibster]

The way out of that cycle isn’t trying to redeem words like violent to be some sort of neutral word but to stop using those words to describe people.

What word do you use to describe a people you primarily know for raiding your territory and the territories of your neighbors?

 

[Scribe]

I'd love to play a play a paladin in your game...

It's a target rich environment.

 

[Scribe]

What word do you use to describe a people you primarily know for raiding your territory and the territories of your neighbors?

Raiders.

 

[ezo]

The way out of that cycle isn’t trying to redeem words like violent to be some sort of neutral word but to stop using those words to describe people.

Or to recognize being violent isn't necessarily being evil.

There are many people who are violent due to the fact they commit violent acts. Violence is not evil, in an of itself. Sometimes violence can be used in the defense of others. Violence is also commited in contests and sports, does that make those individuals evil? Of course not.

How is this hard to understand?

I would ask you the same thing. A word is just a word, after all. If someone does violence, I call them violent.

 

[Hussar]

What word do you use to describe a people you primarily know for raiding your territory and the territories of your neighbors?

Wellll..... why are we decribing a people as only raiding your territory and the territories of your neighbours if they aren't inherently evil?

Here's a thought, why not give descriptions of orcs that AREN'T primarily raiding territory and commiting violence?