Good Drow

[National Acrobat]

You know, to each his own I would guess. As a DM, I use several elven subraces. I don't have Drow, but I have a Dark Elf race that is generally evil but not everyone of them are. There are also evil members of the surface elven races as well. I just don't get why every 'good' drow is a Drizzt wannabe. Hell, the last FR campaign I was in had a drow in the party, but she was evil and worshipped Kiaransalee.

 

[Redleg06]

I just don't get why every 'good' drow is a Drizzt wannabe. Hell, the last FR campaign I was in had a drow in the party, but she was evil and worshipped Kiaransalee. [/B]

As I said for the millionth time, if I were to add up every "good" Drow PC I encoutnered I can tell you they FAR outnumber the evil ones. I have no problem with and evil Drow PC. But we are talking about a game of fantasy with general good vs evil wherecertain races are considered inheritantly evil. I think that is a basic staple of D&D (sort of like Tolkein's orcs were inherently evil.)

Now in my world orcs were made by elves to be their footsoldiers in a war (there is always a war) when attrition was getting to much for the Elves. (Yes this is a puposeful variation on the Tolkein orcs created in mokery of elves). Thus orcs are not inherently evil, but they are one-track-minded killing machines. So yes, you could have a subterrainian race of dark-skinned evles with hand-crossbows and really kewl abilities that are not inherently evil. My point is that the Drow back-story is that they are evil, even before Forgetten Realms appeared, and initially in FR they were inherently evil too. So leave 'em that way. Otherwise they are just Elves with different skin pigmentation.

 

[National Acrobat]

Hey, Redleg I agree with you wholeheartedly. I just don't see why more people just don't make generic 'dark elves' like many do, so that they can ignore the whole 'good v. evil' drow thing. I know that they people that I have played with that want good drow have really wanted the powers of a drow without the baggage of being evil. They have also assumed that they will be embraced by the surface just because they are good.

 

[Redleg06]

Right. Although, a CN Drow would be tantamount to evil in the eyes of many considering the nature of being CN. (An alignment often used as an excuse to behave however, whenever you want.)


It's just that right around the late '80s early '90s, at Cons, and at College and back at the ol' gaming store there were a LOT of "one-good-Drows" running around. I got quite sick of the paradigm.

And of course a NE or CE Drow would be a bit of a break from the usual mold too.

 

[National Acrobat]

Yeah, I know about the influx of good drow. My group experienced the whole "drizzit" is cool thing at one point. I had always had just generic, 'dark elves' for years in my homebrew.

I am the one who played the CE Priestess of Kiaransalee, in a mostly Nuetral aligned group. It was startling for the players to remember what an evil drow was like. We did the Night Below campaign and my character was the Underdark guide for the party. My Church ordered me to accompany the players to eliminate as much Underdark competition in the area as I could. No one played a drow for a long time after that.

 

[Redleg06]

Hee-hee! I bet! I have never played an evil character. There always seems to be a paladin in the party and I just did not want to front-load the inner-party conflict. It is an interesting idea though.

 

[National Acrobat]

It was the greatest role play challenge ever for me. The group was a bunch of mercenary types. They were rarely prodded to do anything unless they got something in return. No paladins, no rangers and the only other cleric was True Neutral. I gave her highest score over to charisma and she was oh so sweet when she needed to be. At some point she got a Ring of Mind Shielding. It certainly made things interesting for awhile. She got mad at the other priest one night and used her Animate Dead powers to attack some Derro. The group was shocked for weeks afterwards. It was fun, but a real challenge.

 

[rounser]

You can always direct the drow-wannabes to half-drow. They look almost as kewl, have no obligation to be evil, and you can even swing it that they'd be even more angsty than a pureblood drow because of their hybrid ancestry.

It's also an acid test for whether they're wanting to play a drow just for what they think are kewl powerz or not (even though they're more than cancelled out by the ECL), because half-elves (even with the half-drow darkvision free extra tacked on) are not a powergamer's choice, generally...

 

[Ghoti]

Sir Hawkeye/hammymchamham,

No coincidence involved, yes my name is pronounced as fish. It is nice to see that there are a couple of intellectuals out there!

As for not allowing good drow into a game. I would not say no right off the bat, I would want to hear the background involved. I do not think it is right to call them a "Drizzt wannabe" just because they have been inspired by a story about a good drow.

Redleg, I was going to ask, but you answered it already, you have your own world. That is fine then if you don't allow good drow, but FR has good drow, you can't deny that and you can't blame "Dizzt wannabes" for this fact.

I do not buy into conspiracy theories.

If you don't allow good drow because they are "Dizzt wannabes" then do you allow players to play a human barbarian with a greatsword (Conan wannabe), a human mage with a staff (Gandalf/Elminster wannabe), a dwarf fighter with a battleaxe (Gimli/any dwarf in a story wannabe), an elf archer (Legolas wannabe).

Seems you just have issues with drow.

Myself I am more partial to CN drow as characters as they aren't inherently evil.

rounser,
Where are the stats for half-drow?

 

[Mr Fidgit]

Ghoti, half-drow are from FR. the only difference between them and other half-elves is 60' darkvision (stat-wise)