D&D 5E I thought WotC was removing biological morals?

[Faolyn]

5e is pretty sparse on the lore, so I went back to 3e for this.

"Courtship among red dragons can be a perilous affair, because most would-be suitors are treated as dangerous rivals. Successful red dragon courtship usually involves a younger dragon with fairly high status among its peers carefully approaching an older one. Females do most of the courting, but males are also known to do so. After mating, the younger dragon is usually left to guard the eggs. Most red wyrmlings are left to fend for themselves."

You might get the occasional red dragon of a different alignment, but most are evil and leave their young to survive or not.

OK, so red dragons are less likely to have an external force teaching them. But I believe both blue and green dragons have been noted as being really good parents. At least back in 2e, which is the last Draconomicon I read. Can't remember what 3x says about it.

But as for being abandoned... have you ever read the webcomic Digger?

 

[Oofta]

So it's okay for devils to be evil because they came from lemures which come from evil people? Personally I question whether all devils originate this way because the blood wars would indicate that there simply isn't enough supply for the demand. Demons? Well, demons are spontaneously spawned from the Abyss, no mention of evil souls.

But in some versions of the origin of orcs* they were "Made of stone and slime through the sorcery of Morgoth". Which is pretty much what I assumed Jackson showed in the LOTR movies, the Urak-Hai weren't "born" they were artificially created and excavated.

So if, as the LOTR movies showed, orcs were just pulled out of the muck fully formed would it make a difference?

*There is no one true answer for this, I'm not sure even Tolkien ever decided.

 

[Cadence]

So it's okay for devils to be evil because they came from lemures which come from evil people? Personally I question whether all devils originate this way because the blood wars would indicate that there simply isn't enough supply for the demand. Demons? Well, demons are spontaneously spawned from the Abyss, no mention of evil souls.

But in some versions of the origin of orcs* they were "Made of stone and slime through the sorcery of Morgoth". Which is pretty much what I assumed Jackson showed in the LOTR movies, the Urak-Hai weren't "born" they were artificially created and excavated.

So if, as the LOTR movies showed, orcs were just pulled out of the muck fully formed would it make a difference?

*There is no one true answer for this, I'm not sure even Tolkien ever decided.

I think I'd at least like things subject to "Hold Person" and "Charm Person" to be consistent with personhood in the sense of having free will and not being locked in to alignment. (Which then leads to the question of what counts as a person...).

 

[DarkCrisis]

Go read the 5e description on orcs. Show me the word "most" where it comes to their evil.

And then explain why saying "sure, most orcs are evil murdering rapist warmongers, but not Bob here; he's a good guy" is somehow better.

Again it’s taking about generality in a book of monsters for your make believe game to have foes to fight or encounter. Orcs you encounter will generally be evil. Flumphs you encounter will generally be good.

it doesn’t need to spell out every little thing for you. Use your imagination. Evil Flumphs that farm fish in a river. Look I just made that up thanks to my humanity ability to think for myself beyond what’s written in a game for make believe.

 

[Maxperson]

So it's okay for devils to be evil because they came from lemures which come from evil people? Personally I question whether all devils originate this way because the blood wars would indicate that there simply isn't enough supply for the demand. Demons? Well, demons are spontaneously spawned from the Abyss, no mention of evil souls.

There are an infinite number of prime settings generating souls for Hell.

 

[Maxperson]

Again it’s taking about generality in a book of monsters for your make believe game to have foes to fight or encounter. Orcs you encounter will generally be evil. Flumphs you encounter will generally be good.

it doesn’t need to spell out every little thing for you. Use your imagination. Evil Flumphs that farm fish in a river. Look I just made that up thanks to my humanity ability to think for myself beyond what’s written in a game for make believe.

That and the alignment section at the beginning of the MM encourages DMs to depart from listed alignments.

 

[Oofta]

There are an infinite number of prime settings generating souls for Hell.

Aren't there also an infinite number of Avernus settings for Hell?

 

[Faolyn]

How many people looking to run or play D&D are really going to get much use out of paragraphs of text in a Monster Manual on good gnolls or sahuagin unless they're a PC race? Why have these creatures in the Monster Manual, which is largely devoted to an to agnostic monsters, if they aren't antagonists? Should they be relocated to a book of humanoids or something?

Maybe they should be. Or maybe a future MM should be divided into "monsters," "humanoids," and "beasts" sections.

Say that monsters are unnatural intelligent beings that--due to being creations of gods, the result of ancient curses, being truly alien beings, or similar effects--are Mostly [Alignment] and mostly perform a specific role. There's monsters that are of different alignment and who choose different roles, but those are fairly rare. Some of those monsters may be of humanoid form, but they are not biologically or psychologically humanoid. That's more like a camouflage than anything else.

Humanoids are people. They likely will have biological tendencies towards a particular mindset but not towards good or evil. Orcs may be temperamental or prefer showing their emotions physically or by shouting them loudly, but are no more going to be murderous than anyone else is.

Beasts are animal-intelligent beings that are either natural (real world) or fantastic (griffons, etc.). Thus, some of them may be vicious predators or highly and violently territorial, but they're not evil.

Edit: There should probably be a different term than "humanoid" here, since not all people are necessarily humanoid.

 

[Maxperson]

Aren't there also an infinite number of Avernus settings for Hell?

Does it matter? Infinite is infinite. You never run out.

 

[Cadence]

Does it matter? Infinite is infinite. You never run out.

Would it result in bad things if one is countably infinite but the other is uncountably (or more) so.