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

[Staffan]

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

No no no. The goa'uld are the quori/inspired from Eberron.

 

[Alzrius]

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.

I think this needs to be highlighted, because it's a major aspect of play that seems to be glossed over in these discussions: symbolic rejections of cherished values is a form of catharsis, and does not represent an actual repudiation of those values, despite there being a vocal contingent insisting that's exactly what they mean.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wasnt that the retcon that tied the whole thing to one society and Asmodeous and forced a singular look? Instead of having near infinite variety and depth?

They had a single look and a single origin, yes.

They actually DID something with that, instead of just having a generic "well I guess evil made them".

That's the difference here. Variety solely for variety's sake with no effort or thought behind it doesn't add much. I personally didn't care that much about the singular physical appearance, but the cultural lore? Absolutely great. It made them much more interesting.

And, worth noting, Bael Turath was an empire, spanning huge areas. It wasn't a cultural monolith. That, plus it being more complicated due to the long time since it fell, made for a far more interesting situation.

But sure, reductive one-sentence summaries are a choice I guess.

 

[Scribe]

But sure, reductive one-sentence summaries are a choice I guess.

They actually DID something with that, instead of just having a generic "well I guess evil made them".

Yeah true.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah true.

I mean that literally actually is what I was just told. It literally just is "a deity of pure evil made them, all of them, and they're just like that now." There literally isn't more to it, which is one reason among several why I find the new lore so boring.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

Exactly. There is at least one more category. Possibly two.

One is, "I couldn't be bothered." They are callous, not casually cruel--they are simply unmotivated by the suffering of others, or at least the suffering of others unlike them. Cruelty requires the desire to harm. Callousness simply requires sustained indifference. It is shockingly easy for ordinary people to be callous towards others, because genuine compassion is difficult to sustain, and empathy for people who are very different from you is a skill one must learn, not a guaranteed bedrock element of human behavior. (None of this is news to you, of course; it just needs to be said.)

The other is the banality of evil, as a category. The people for whom doing monstrous things is a punch-clock affair, which they either compartmentalize so effectively it never hurts them, or genuinely feel no negative feelings about in the first place. Either way, they may even knowingly participate actively. From what I hear, we see this on display with the employees of Lex Luthor in the new Superman film. They are willing, active participants in several monstrous things, including being accessories to the outright murder of a completely innocent person killed solely because the man had a one-time positive interaction with Superman. They aren't innocent bystanders nor deceived ordinary people who will go back to being innocent bystanders once they realize the truth.

Further, to be clear, at least in the United States, military officers and enlisted personnel are permitted (or, in many cases, legally obligated) to refuse orders which are illegal. So giving the excuse "I was just following orders", at least in the United States, is explicitly not a defense. That would in fact an admission of guilt if those orders are subsequently determined to be illegal in a court martial.

 

[Charlaquin]

Exactly. There is at least one more category. Possibly two.

One is, "I couldn't be bothered." They are callous, not casually cruel--they are simply unmotivated by the suffering of others, or at least the suffering of others unlike them. Cruelty requires the desire to harm. Callousness simply requires sustained indifference. It is shockingly easy for ordinary people to be callous towards others, because genuine compassion is difficult to sustain, and empathy for people who are very different from you is a skill one must learn, not a guaranteed bedrock element of human behavior. (None of this is news to you, of course; it just needs to be said.)

The other is the banality of evil, as a category. The people for whom doing monstrous things is a punch-clock affair, which they either compartmentalize so effectively it never hurts them, or genuinely feel no negative feelings about in the first place. Either way, they may even knowingly participate actively. From what I hear, we see this on display with the employees of Lex Luthor in the new Superman film. They are willing, active participants in several monstrous things, including being accessories to the outright murder of a completely innocent person killed solely because the man had a one-time positive interaction with Superman. They aren't innocent bystanders nor deceived ordinary people who will go back to being innocent bystanders once they realize the truth.

Further, to be clear, at least in the United States, military officers and enlisted personnel are permitted (or, in many cases, legally obligated) to refuse orders which are illegal. So giving the excuse "I was just following orders", at least in the United States, is explicitly not a defense. That would in fact an admission of guilt if those orders are subsequently determined to be illegal in a court martial.

And there’s also passivity in the face of evil, not born of apathy, but out of shortsighted self-preservation. When the world is falling apart around you, yet still expects you to carry on like normal, the temptation to just check out can be incredibly powerful. It’s exhausting just to stay informed about all the crazy stuff going on, let alone to actively participate in any unified resistance. Well-meaning people who consciously think what’s happening to other people is horrible, but don’t know what they can do about it, and aren’t motivated to find out, particularly when they have their own soul-siphoning job(s) they need to do to pay their bills and put food on their tables. When even people belonging to oppressed classes but are barely managing to fly under the radar are too afraid of making themselves a target to stick their necks out for their fellows. Maybe calling that a banal evil is overly harsh, but it’s a huge part of how that small handful of bad actors are able to enact evil on a large scale despite the majority being opposed to it. Complicity is the path of least resistance.

…In D&D, of course.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And there’s also passivity in the face of evil, not born of apathy, but out of shortsighted self-preservation. When the world is falling apart around you, yet still expects you to carry on like normal, the temptation to just check out can be incredibly powerful. It’s exhausting just to stay informed about all the crazy stuff going on, let alone to actively participate in any unified resistance. Well-meaning people who consciously think what’s happening to other people is horrible, but don’t know what they can do about it, and aren’t motivated to find out, particularly when they have their own soul-siphoning job(s) they need to do to pay their bills and put food on their tables. When even people belonging to oppressed classes but are still managing to fly under the radar are too afraid of making themselves a target to stick their necks out for their fellows. Maybe calling that a banal evil is overly harsh, but it’s a huge part of how that small handful of bad actors are able to enact evil on a large scale despite the majority being opposed to it. Complicity is the path of least resistance.

…In D&D, of course.

Personally, I'd call that an aspect of the callous. "I know it's terrible, but I want to avoid trouble" is a way to compartmentalize those feelings so you don't feel bad about not doing something.

In the context of a D&D setting, I think this can be particularly useful if one wishes to have the whole "evil empire" thing, but break free of its kinda weird and nonsensical aspects. Like the fact that completely tearing down the power structure of a large civilization doesn't just magically fix things, and instead usually causes huge and horrible problems.

Maybe it's an evil empire because there's an upper crust of invested, actively evil leadership, but significant portions of the bureaucratic structure are simply people keeping their heads down. That gives the opportunity both for such people to claim responsibility for their complicity, and for us to show that political and cultural change is hard and slow and not really something heroes are equipped to address. Heroes standing up against that system, and winning, show that the system isn't an impossible monolith. It can be stopped--which means these people can help stop it. That crumbles its foundations, makes it look as weak and feeble as it really is.

 

[Staffan]

Maybe it's an evil empire because there's an upper crust of invested, actively evil leadership, but significant portions of the bureaucratic structure are simply people keeping their heads down. That gives the opportunity both for such people to claim responsibility for their complicity, and for us to show that political and cultural change is hard and slow and not really something heroes are equipped to address. Heroes standing up against that system, and winning, show that the system isn't an impossible monolith. It can be stopped--which means these people can help stop it. That crumbles its foundations, makes it look as weak and feeble as it really is.

"I'm not gonna launch those ships. Captain's orders."

 

[Laurefindel]

Personally, I'd call that an aspect of the callous. "I know it's terrible, but I want to avoid trouble" is a way to compartmentalize those feelings so you don't feel bad about not doing something.

In the context of a D&D setting, I think this can be particularly useful if one wishes to have the whole "evil empire" thing, but break free of its kinda weird and nonsensical aspects. Like the fact that completely tearing down the power structure of a large civilization doesn't just magically fix things, and instead usually causes huge and horrible problems.

Maybe it's an evil empire because there's an upper crust of invested, actively evil leadership, but significant portions of the bureaucratic structure are simply people keeping their heads down. That gives the opportunity both for such people to claim responsibility for their complicity, and for us to show that political and cultural change is hard and slow and not really something heroes are equipped to address. Heroes standing up against that system, and winning, show that the system isn't an impossible monolith. It can be stopped--which means these people can help stop it. That crumbles its foundations, makes it look as weak and feeble as it really is.

orc campaign material!