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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6211273" data-attributes="member: 6677017">While my campaigns vary in how serious vs light I want them to be, I tend to assume that the same sorts of prejudices exist as have existed for most of real world history, but throw fantasy races into the mix.I don't tend to have many humanoid races that are inescapably evil. A typical orc is evil because of a combination of inborn tendencies (lack of empathy, a short fuse) and his upbringing in a society filled with people with the same tendencies. There are good orcs, they just have to try a lot harder, and are consequently very rare.That's how I handle most good or evil races. To relate to the real world, many traits we would associate with alignment in D&D can be mapped to areas of the brain. Certain parts of the brain have an effect on empathy, for instance. If you image that evil races tend to have the D&D equivalent of low function in that part of the brain, while good races tend to have very high functions in that area (with humans somewhere in the middle and varying significantly by individual), it makes sense how free will can exist, but some species can be overall good or evil.That causes some serious problems with race relations.Amongst the races, and cultures of any particular species (including humans) I tend to maintain whatever prejudices make sense. In some cases that means they are less pronounced than in real history, while in others they are just as strong.I also tend to have less integration amongst the species. So even a city like Waterdeep is probably at least 80% human.I really wouldn't have much patience with PCs being racist jerks, since I tend to want parties of heroes, but I have no problem with a bit of friction in the world and the party. The thing about adventurers is that they aren't the norm. They tend to have unlikely allies, and to have seen enough of the world that petty squabbles between human societies or between humanoid races aren't all that important to them anymore.</blockquote>

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