NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8443127" data-attributes="member: 6915329">Sounds about right. Do you assume that monsters should always be ready to attack? Because I'm fine with monsters that are docile until something provokes them. Especially monsters with nearly human levels of Intelligence.The description doesn't say that. It says one group of travelers reported being aided by yetis. So a DM can say that this was actually true in their campaign, or that this was a myth in their campaign, or can ignore it completely. I don't see how that's a problem. It's actually really helpful, because it helps a DM to think of the creature as something other than a meat-shaped bag of XP.Right, just like how you're free to change things where the monster entry says "maybe this, maybe that."As do I. But the loss of agency only happened because those monsters were evil first, so the PCs could kill them and not risk losing XP to an alignment change. When their gods were detailed later, they were made to be evil, because of course an evil monster race wouldn't worship non-evil gods (which is why orcs have an evil god of medicine and fertility, an evil god of strength and loyalty, and an evil god of tactics, and an evil creator who is angry because the other gods cheated him out of good land). In 3e, a lot of these gods and their races became more evil (like with the drow fetus thing), because 3e liked to turn things up to eleven.And then when 5e rolled around, the decided that simply worshiping evil gods wasn't enough to justify the creature being evil, that the gods had to be so evil as to micromanage their worshiper's lives (but good and neutral gods don't do this, and thus their creations are prone to turning evil on their own, without godly interference). From a meta-historical perspective, the evil gods are just a justification to killing monsters for XP.And this doesn't answer the question of what would happen if you chose not to have Gruumsh or Maglubiyet or Lolth or whoever in your game, or to say that those gods aren't actually evil, or that they don't micromanage their creations. Because the books don't discuss what the societies of "free" orcs or goblins or drow are like; just the occasional rebellious individual. You either have to accept 40+ years of lore that say the same thing, or break brand new ground in deciding what a society of orcs, goblinoids, drow, or whatever other race would be like if they weren't controlled by evil. And most inexperienced worldbuilders aren't going to be able to do that.Which is why I feel that removing or reworking this sort of nonsense doesn't lead to blandness. It leads to options, to providing inspiration for coming up with things that make sense. Yeah, it's a bit more labor-intensive than just having the book spell everything out for you, but just going by what the book says isn't necessarily great.And this is why Micah Sweet is wrong when they say "and then make sure that readers understand that exceptions exist." Because as you say, it is factually true that Gruumsh created orcs to be evil. There's no exceptions there. There's no possibility for a world where Gruumsh didn't make orcs to be evil.* It's barely even a possibility for there to not be Gruumsh!Yeah, you can say "this one orc isn't evil," but the explanations are either problematic (orcs are evil, unless they're raised/influenced by non-orcs) or just silly (this orc wasn't born evil).I had a brief conversation (online) with a new DM who honestly didn't realize that you didn't have to the players what exactly they were fighting. There will be DMs who don't know that you can rewrite the lore, or feel they need "permission."-----*Imagine a setting where Gruumsh created orcs to be the strong, virile race--not evil, but good in battle, because Gruumsh thinks victory in battle against a stronger foe is the best thing. And there's plenty of monsters to fight against, especially the primordial beasts that roamed the land when the gods were actively making people. I don't see this as bland. You remove the evil while keeping the primary aspect of orcs being a tough, warrior race. And it's easy to decide that some of these orcs prefer easy rather than hard prey and thus could still have raider orcs while not making the entire race into raiders.Why are you comparing mortal, flesh-and-blood humanoids to fiends and undead? You do realize that fiends and undead have a very alien mindset and physiology due to what passes for their biology, right?And if you're fine with "emerald dragons are mostly lawful and reclusive, but there can be exceptions," then you should be fine with "halflings are mostly weak, but here's an exception: a bodybuilding halfling who is strong." But strangely, you want there to be limitations on the halfling. Hmm.</blockquote>

Verification