D&D General In 2025 FR D&D should PCs any longer be wary of the 'evil' humanoids?

[Charlaquin]

That to me falls into the category of "ignorant". I did mention four possibilities.

Eh, I wouldn’t say a soldier “just following orders” or a civilian passively accepting a rapidly worsening status quo because it hasn’t directly impacted them (yet) is ignorant.

 

[Charlaquin]

That inspires the thought of reskinning the Illithid as the Gou'ald from Stargate.

Do I lose my nerd credentials if I say I’ve never watched Stargate?

 

[Voadam]

Do I lose my nerd credentials if I say I’ve never watched Stargate?

Its not binary, your credit score does go down though.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My point was that they tried NOT make them seem people. I don't think Tolkien got out of his way to make them have some kind of society, or even a lot of what we may call free will. When I think of Tolkien orcs, I don't think "mmm, a civilization with a functional society, where everyone has free will, where a small part of the population is conscripted into armed service to fight a war and who happen to be on the opposite side of us" [while, as you mention, "us" is the side of Elves, who are for most part not nice guys in the first place]. If it was his intent, then it failed to convey it to me and I dare say he could have done a better job.

They obviously have societey and seem to have free will too, although they are probably more suspectible to manipulation by "dark powers" than most people. BUt it is not like humans or even maiar are immune to that. Sorry this just does not work, they are people with names, a society, culture. They come across as people, and mass extermination of them would feel wrong.

And it is not like Tolkien was unaware of this issue, as he struggled with as is evident in his letters, and he was never fully happy with the fate and nature of the orcs.

If we don't apply our modern sensitivities, we can accept a lot of things. Think of the Thirty Years War, where both sides killed half of Germany's civilian population and thought they were on the side of Good doing this.

People usually think they're side of the good. Even when doing horrible things with great confidence. Especially then, in fact. What is the issue with alignment and other such "objective" declarations of morality, that we end up in situations where horrible things are "objectively good" according to the system.

Sure.

And we can still root for them. What I find weird and uncomfortable, is that a lot of people seem to not want moral nuance or complexity. They want to play characters who are objectively good, but still do things that are from any even-semi realistic moral perspective rather questionable. How about just play characters that are not morally perfect? Like not outright villains, but just people who feel anger and fear, experience realistic emotions and prejudices, that do not always do the right things? I have far less issue with a person who plays a vengeful barbarian that slaughters fleeing enemies in anger, with the player understanding that this is rather messed up thing to do, than a player who does the same but insists that their lawful good paladin was perfectly justified in doing that.

But should the cow kill you preemptively after you renounce eating her (while looking hungrily at her calf)?

Well, that seems like a complicated moral question. Thus excellent material for RPGs.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Do I lose my nerd credentials if I say I’ve never watched Stargate?

Its not binary, your credit score does go down though.

Yup

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Do I lose my nerd credentials if I say I’ve never watched Stargate?

It is not terribly good. Not a great loss. I also found it hilarious that they wrote it "Stargåte," so I always insisted pronouncing it like it was a proper Swedish word. I think the original movie was OK though.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It is not terribly good. Not a great loss. I also found it hilarious that they wrote it "Stargåte," so I always insisted pronouncing it like it was a proper Swedish word. I think the original movie was OK though.

I enjoyed it, the early seasons are a bit mixed, season 2 was poor but I thought the show got better, I enjoyed it and Atlantis but did not watch the end for real life reasons at the time.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Every single Tiefling being recognizable on sight to those who know their history as having been descended from a member of a specific fallen empire was a fascinating concept and it's too bad more wasn't done with it.

Huh. Tieflings are descended from the ruling dynasties of the first civilizations in my setting. I must have accidentally reinvented something 4e did. Again.

 

[Voadam]

It is not terribly good. Not a great loss. I also found it hilarious that they wrote it "Stargåte," so I always insisted pronouncing it like it was a proper Swedish word. I think the original movie was OK though.

James Spader, Kurt Russell, Ancient Egypt, and Sci-Fi. I liked it.

The movie didn't have any non-English letters. In the title that is.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

And we can still root for them. What I find weird and uncomfortable, is that a lot of people seem to not want moral nuance or complexity.

They live complicated lives and sometimes want something simpler than exploring nuance and complexity to break with their regular complex and nuanced games. I mean, you can be the most deep philosopher in the world and sometimes enjoy an action hero movie, can't you? You can be the most lawful person in the world and enjoy a film where someone act as a vigilante sometimes? There is also a cathartic value: in real life, beheading your coworker when they irritate you is generally frowned upon, and acting it through roleplay, or seeing it in a theatre, helps one process natural feelings without enacting them in real life. So you behead a dragon instead, despite not applying all the possible ways of dealing peacefully with the situation. It doesn't mean people do not want moral nuance and complexity, it is that sometimes, they might want something else to complement their regular complex and nuanced game, where they ensure that the cattle raiders are given a fair trial when brought to justice in the cattle-owner village and will have long debate on whether they should defend these prisonners against the local population who want them hanged without considering that they let their cattle graze on the cattle raider ancestral and unmarked land.

They want to play characters who are objectively good,

Not necessarily. You can play people according to the morality of their character : if you're playing cultist of Aurile, you're content to have the people of Icewind Dale die of hunger and long for the rise of cannibalism among the local population, because, well, that's the will of the Goddess and it's right to serve her. You can play people who are objectively adept of a Blue and Orange morality, or roleplay a low moral scum (most Eberron characters with film noir inspiration, would fall into this category) or simply, like most real life human, unconcerned but happy to rationalize his actions as good. I haven't seen so many people wanting to play character who are objectively good. They mostly are good in setting, at best (ie, like you said, they'll be OK not to apply any sort of mercy to prisonners, saying "we didn't invent the Geneva Conventions yet").

but still do things that are from any even-semi realistic moral perspective rather questionable.

Semi-realistic moral perspective include real life moral perspective of people and civilization we would find morally corrupt by our standard. I'd say that they want to do thing that are "by our current moral perspective, rather questionable" would be a better way to formulate it. Elizabeth the First certainly had some degree of morality by which her acts were justified (and you'll probably find people nowadays to say she was a great queen), yet we wouldn't today accept her political, religious or colonial violence.

How about just play characters that are not morally perfect? Like not outright villains, but just people who feel anger and fear, experience realistic emotions and prejudices, that do not always do the right things? I have far less issue with a person who plays a vengeful barbarian that slaughters fleeing enemies in anger, with the player understanding that this is rather messed up thing to do, than a player who does the same but insists that their lawful good paladin was perfectly justified in doing that.

I have no issue with either. In both cases, they are understanding that they are playing a character: a fictional misguided barbarian slaughtering fleeing enemy in anger and thinks he's right because he's raised to despise cowards who flee, or who think he's wrong and acknowledge his flaws, or a fictional misguided paladin who think he's right because, basically, he think his god/the society he lived in told him he is. All are flawed by our standards (and we are flawed by other standards), some recognizing it or not, and their behaviour implies nothing on the player, who in both case is playing a character in a fictional world that operates by different values than our current values. If you're playing Horatius, can't you at the same time say that Horatius was perfectly justified in killing a Roman woman (his sister) for mourning the death of an enemy of the country, as demonstrated by the success of his (father's) appeal to the people of Rome, and understand that such behaviour would be unacceptable today?

I'd be more worried if a player truly believed his paladin character was good in real life and not just good in the flawed context of his surroundings.