Portraying fantasy societies realistically instead of on the evil/good axis

[Kobold Stew]

I find D&D players have a tendency to exert no thought when attacking things even if the target isn't clearly and objectively evil.

<snip etc.>

I agree with you completely -- it's not evident to me from your response that I had made that clear. What I was describing was not my belief (as i had hoped my final "Obviously." had shown) but my understanding of the legacy situation that gave rise to the question in the OP.

I was describing what I saw was the principal advantage (in terms of gameplay) of removing these ethical questions. I don't see that as an improvement or (for me) fun.

 

[delericho]

Something that really annoys me is that societies in D&D are either "good demi-humans" or "evil ugly people." I won't go into my hatred of D&D's "ugly = evil" aesthetic.

You mean, like Drow?

Why can't we portray societies of orcs, goblins, brain-eating squids, dark elves, snake-human hybrids, etc as just funny-looking humans like we do for the "pretty" dwarves, elves, hobbits, and gnomes?

You can. Indeed, Eberron does.

 

[Starfox]

What would be the point of that? If everything in the game acts like funny-looking humans, then why not just have everything in the game be humans...

Your take here is interesting, and connects to a discussion I've been having RL lately; fantasy as science-fiction versus fantasy as fairytales.

Fantasy as science fiction tries to draw the logical conclusions of phenomena in the fantasy world. I feel this is very much the camp you are in here. Species are depicted as radically different, and their culture is seen as the result of their natures. Other things typical of this sub-genre is that the consequences of magic are carried to it's logical conclusion. If there are flying ships, there is commerce and ports inland. If hippogriffs are good mounts, there will be military units as well as scouts and perhaps even police riding them. Magical development is similar to technological development, and has similar effects on society. This is Eberon, with it's lightning rail.

I find my SF-like settings work best with non-humans around and reasonably different. The non-humans you'll make peaceful contact with are those with human-like psyche - those too alien to coexist either live quite isolated or are just remnants of populations that survived mutually genocidal clashes with metahumanity.

Fantasy as fairytales are different in that results are much more spotty and conclusions much less clear. Reality is governed more by story logic than by social science. The fact that the poor farmboy could find and afford a pair of flying shoes at the market does not imply that flying shoes are common everyday items. In fact, the king is amazed at these flying shoes. In such a setting, other races (rather than species) are usually humans in funny masks. Really more of an excuse to avoid naming human stereotypes, rather than saying "jew" or "black", we say "gnome" or "dwarf" (no relationship to rl racial stereotypes implied). Or they are just included for novelty value.

While I am mostly in the Fantasy as SF camp, I appreciate the Fantasy as Fairytales tropes too. Going too far in either direction makes me feel I lost something. As an example, a PC in a Pathfinder Skull & Shackles game recently got interested in buying a flying mount. What flying mounts are available in this pirate city? If they are available, does that mean the city has an areal patrol scouting for ships? Does every city have this? Ought other pirates also own flying mounts? The answers to these questions can fundamentally change the setting from something quasi-historical to something like the Flintstones, depending on how you integrate it all.

In my fairytale settings, most people are humans, which allows the few non-humans to be exceptional even when they really are much the same inside. A race can be exemplified by a single member, whose origin is either left mysterious or just ignored. In my fairytale settings, it is often possible to change race depending on your interests and what magic you employ. Sometimes, being "the fairy of the grove" is actually a magical job; by making a connection with the magic of the grove, your body changes to accommodate that magic. You become an fairy, even if you were born human.

I realize that what I describe as my fairytale settings are actually rather SF-inspired still, as I bother to make sense of a lot of things that a true fairytale could just explain by "a wizard did it" or jist not bother to explain it at all.

Who are you meaning to include in your "we"?

Well, I admit the "we" is ambiguous here. I suppose "we" is anyone who agrees with the statement. "We" here is also cheap rhetoric, implying that this is the common view, what the reader "ought" to think, tough this is never proven or even argued.

Many are aware of the evils perpetuated in colonialism, but the opium war seems to be one of the less known facets. Colonialism in Africa is much more well-known but in my eyes it was more benign, as it is what ended slavery there. At about this point I feel the discussion is moving into politics, so I'll stop here.

Either way, this is just a tangent to my subject, which was that evil is very much in the eye of the beholder. What from the inside looks sophisticated and good can form the outside seem random and evil. Funny, the "we" I used actually illustrates that inside/outside view. Those who share my views on what is good/evil here become "we", the rest are "them". An illustration of the issue I was trying to point out, even if an unintended one.

 

[Celebrim]

Your take here is interesting, and connects to a discussion I've been having RL lately; fantasy as science-fiction versus fantasy as fairytales.

The thing is, I like chocolate in my peanut butter.

I don't feel I lean entirely in one direction or the other. My world is alien and filled with alien things, and in that sense it can be seen as science fiction. It's not quite Eberron, but it has been Eberron or something like it at various points in its past and might again rise to that status. Some level of magic as technology does exist. Much of the magic items that can be found can in a sense be seen as artifacts of more advanced civilizations. Fundamental science fiction questions like, "What does it mean to be human?", inform my conception of the major races. I do attempt to seriously investigate the question, "If we assume this feature not found in our world exists, how does that change the history and culture of the imagined world compared to our own?" For example, my current campaign was motivated by brain storming a few years ago on the question, "What does heresy really mean in polytheistic religion of competing beliefs? Is one god's heresy simply another god's truth, or are there things that all societies would accept as heretical?" That itself was motivated by thinking about the question, "What is religion really like in a world were you have say 1000 openly active and openly involved gods?"

So while there is a lot of speculative sociology going on to try to make the world feel consistent and 'real' and well realized, I still believe that the Grimm's fairy tales are one of my major influences. It's a world of talking magical cats, disinherited princes, dysfunctional families, child eating witches living in cottages, dangerous little people, marauding dragons, the unexpected luck of third sons, enchanted castles, and hopefully happy endings where the wicked and the righteous are paid in full. Of course, my other two biggest influences are I believe HP Lovecraft and JRR Tolkien.

 

[Starfox]

The TORG game had a "social axiom" rating that I feel is useful here. A world with a high social axiom is good at using all of it's resources, whatever those resources might be. In a magical world, that means using magic to the full, for any and all purposes, and we get "magic as technology". Conversely, a world with high tech but low social has something much like weird science - high technology but poorly utilized and distributed.

We have a fascinating historical example of a high social but low tech culture in the Aztecs. (Arguably many other historical cultures also qualify, but the Aztec seem the best example to me.) They build huge cites, had a centralized government, and international trade - all without knowing metalworking beyond precious metals or using the wheel.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Something that really annoys me is that societies in D&D are either "good demi-humans" or "evil ugly people." I won't go into my hatred of D&D's "ugly = evil" aesthetic.

Why can't we portray societies of orcs, goblins, brain-eating squids, dark elves, snake-human hybrids, etc as just funny-looking humans like we do for the "pretty" dwarves, elves, hobbits, and gnomes? It would go a long way towards explaining how they can raise their own children without eating them and don't destroy themselves with paranoia and blood rage.

D&D is a game, and not remotely realistic.

Alignments were often a "team", as in the PCs were "team good" and the bad guys were "team evil" so you didn't have to hold back or do CSI or Detect Evil before you wiped out the obviously evil opponents.

The more humanlike a race, the more likely they will be not entirely evil. PCs might hold back from slaughtering orcs and goblins, especially if they have made friends with half-orcs (or there's one on their team!). A group of evil orcs isn't really different from a group of evil human bandits. You might be able to "correct" both groups.

In order to avoid situations where children are being abandoned into the wilderness (at best) adventures generally leave out orcish and goblin noncombatants. You rarely attack orc villages, instead, you attack raiding camps, where everyone is either part of the orcish military or is a civilian employee of said military. (Even orcs need clerks, even if they're all illiterate. They just have good memories.) It's not realistic to never run into these, but for the sake of a comfortable game it's probably best to avoid these.

Over time, monolithic "evil demihuman" societies show up less in adventures due to real-life societal changes, and I suspect we still see a lot of them due to inertia.

I do not believe an all-evil society is impossible. Daleks are a great example of this. (Yes, you read that right.) I got to read one of the old Doctor Who RPGs, and they went into detail on how Dalek society works. Daleks are evil to non-Daleks (or to Daleks that are different to them) but not to each other. There's no backstabbing either, unless Davros is doing something funny. The most experienced Dalek is automatically the leader, the next most-experienced ones are its lieutenants, and so forth. Of course, they have no respect for non-Daleks (or even different Daleks), so unless the PCs are Daleks (and that's not possible) they will always be opponents. The "trope" of evil always backstabbing evil need not apply.

This same kind of "nice to your own kind" pops up sometimes in D&D. Reggelids (evil spellcasters in the Dark Sun setting) have very similar rules. They automatically submit to the most powerful spellcasters among them. (They're evil because they're perfectly willing to sacrifice entire villages of halflings for more power, but it's power to their group, not to individuals.) Thri-kreen were depicted as chaotic neutral in general, but always acted lawful good toward clutchmates. Even the most chaotic evil thri-kreen raider isn't likely to backstab a clutchmate.

Dark elves being all (well, mostly) evil isn't really a problem. They are heavily influenced by their evil god, and even those that don't worship her have to hide this. Dark elves being chaotic evil is the real problem. Evil drow would destroy other Houses but not members of their own. Chaotic evil drow kill their own siblings, parents, even offspring, as they're all viewed as rivals. Other than the ridiculous backstabbing, an society of evil-god worshiping humans would not be much different.

Yuan-ti are biologically modified. They might literally all be lacking empathy for anyone (even other yuan-ti!), creating at minimum extremely selfish neutral yuan-ti. And most won't be afraid of the law or moral repercussions of screwing over others to help themselves and/or their group.

Mind flayers aren't just biologically modified, they're Cthulhu. Same with beholders and many other aberrant creatures. If they're being played as "squid-headed humans" the DM is doing something wrong. They're actually worse than vampires. A vampire can at least try not to kill people (and starve, or at least spread out their bites), or perhaps only bite "evil" people.

Demons are virtually always evil and are almost impossible to redeem.

The game rules sometimes make the "pretty and good" demihumans ridiculous. For instance, if you're an evil sun elf cleric in the Forgotten Realms, who do you worship? Many sun elves are racist and so aren't likely to worship an evil human deity such as Bane. They won't worship a drow deity either. There are literally no evil elven gods in the FR pantheon, unless the DM feels like inventing one. (Warhammer does this much better. The chaotic evil god Bloody-Handed Kaine is an evil god within the elven pantheon, and is worshiped mostly but not entirely by the dark elves. Dark elves, using disguises,* can infiltrate high elf society and convert members to the worship of Khaine. Or Slaanesh.)

*They don't look much different.

 

[Starfox]

Something that really annoys me is that societies in D&D are either "good demi-humans" or "evil ugly people." I won't go into my hatred of D&D's "ugly = evil" aesthetic.

The idea that beautiful is good comes to us from the Greeks. Their idea of beauty was a balanced perfection. Outer beauty showed inner harmony, and those blessed by the gods with physical beauty were thought to be blessed in other manners also. Beauty in this case was a quality seen most strongly in young men and boys.

 

[Meatboy]

I've got two answers for this, one wher I'll try to help the OP and one in where I'll refute the OP.

1. If you're going to take a stab at realism for your societies my first bit of advice would be to bust out a knife and trim the heck out of setient races. There is no need to have goblins and kobolds or orcs, hobgoblins, other burly warlike race of choice all trying to occupy the same niche. Once you're down to a manageable number then you can really start figuring out how the ones you have left are different and go from there.

If you really need to have the kitchen sink approach then you could also treat all races as funny looking humans but have larger social groups and countries that define people not their race.


2. On the other hand humans and their social norms, at least according to science*, all byproducts of evolution. Everything we do is because at some point in the past it gave our ancestors an advantage when mating.

This all goes out the window however when you toss in active gods.

Taking BTB goblins as an example they are not marginalized, misunderstood short people who live in holes.
They are the children of Maglubiyet, The Lord of Battle.

It's pretty difficult to ascribe modern morals to groups magically linked to deities who in turn are tied to absolute universal forces.

*This is not a discussion on the validity of evolution.

 

[WayneLigon]

...although [slavery] falls apart when you can just mass-produce golems to do all labor, freeing up the slaves to work in service and maintenance and worry about boredom and no OSHA compliance rather than being whipped by sadistic taskmasters under a burning sun.

Nobody can afford to mass-produce golems. The cost alone would mean only kings and merchant princes would have them, plus the fifth level casters who have blown all their feats on item creation don't grow on trees.

And even so: Terry Pratchett might have something to say about that...

 

[Starfox]

Nobody can afford to mass-produce golems. The cost alone would mean only kings and merchant princes would have them, plus the fifth level casters who have blown all their feats on item creation don't grow on trees.

If golems are productive enough, they would be used. If not, then further research is needed. And as magic improved production, a greater surplus is generated, allowing for greater salaries. Rising salaries in turn make autogoleming more and more competitive, further increasing productivity and creating room for further increase in profitability and salaries...

[Insert random text about how industrialization brought on the amazing modern world, and simply exchange all tech words for magic words.]