D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Maxperson]

We should be looking at the near-human races (drow, orcs) and also monstrous races such as dragons, outsiders . . . . any creature that is sentient and could be considered people, we should re-examine how we treat that creature/race.

Because we wouldn't want to misunderstand literal Demons and Devils. They could be trying to capture your soul to drag it back to the Abyss or Hell for some noble cause.

 

[Maxperson]

Baby steps.

Where do you think the ideas for that unofficial write up came from?

Full adult steps are fine unless you're talking about yourself there. It came from somewhere in their own brains. I've been using orcs in every edition except for 4e and nothing like that is in any of the ones I know about.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Think good and evil and neutral and law and chaos are still necessary. But make them subjective. And a choice for humanoids. Choice is key. Free will do they have.
While also have objective alignments.
Makes for more interesting games.

I'm not a big fan of alignment at all and usually reserve it for outsiders. I find it interesting that they may be making Gnolls fiendish.

How I do it:

• Have your mortal races which make up all the various sentient creatures/monstrous and otherwise. You cannot attach alignment to them. To them good and evil is subjective and related to their values and experience.
• Have extra-planar creatures like angels demons and gods, Inevitables etc...(outsiders)

For Outsiders, they are a product of their plane. You cannot have an evil angel or a chaotic modron because 'evil' and 'good', chaos and Law is not a subjective or a behavior but, instead a designation of their status. Essentially, a warm blooded creature cannot be a reptile. If it ever a mammal became cold-blooded, it would no longer be a mammal, it would be a reptile. Hence the same with angels and devils, good/evil.

Now, mortal races are going to emulate certain entities and value specific traits of those entities.
Orcs who were created by Grumsh will tend to emulate and value the traits that embody Grumsh. To most of Orc society, those traits and values are good. The things that Grumsh hates are 'evil'. It Doesn't mean all Orcs are evil or that all orcs emulate or respect those values to the same degree - or at all.

If they are adding Gnolls as fiendish, I'd have those, more broadly, a product of their nature(not nurture): they'd be evil in the perspective of almost all other mortal's sensibilities.

 

[Aldarc]

I miss the 4E days where “unaligned” was not just reserved for beasts and animals.

 

[Umbran]

I've seen movies, read books and looked at comics were some non-human humanoid creature ate a human.

With respect, the creatures under discussion are still considered humanoids under current rules. When WotC publishes new versions of the monsters, then your position might be solid. Until then, if not prefaced with "in my campaign, these are monsters, so..." your argument will fail under the shared standard at hand.

Why would a fictional culture (not the players, who have metagame information about monster classifications) not consider one sentient creature eating another to be cannibalism?

Or, perhaps more central - what role do you believe the classification of an act as "cannibalism" plays within a culture? Why does a culture bother to have a word for it at all? Why are you not considered "meat" by your next door neighbor?

 

[Maxperson]

With respect, the creatures under discussion are still considered humanoids under current rules. When WotC publishes new versions of the monsters, then your position might be solid. Until then, if not prefaced with "in my campaign, these are monsters, so..." your argument will fail under the shared standard at hand.

Why would a fictional culture (not the players, who have metagame information about monster classifications) not consider one sentient creature eating another to be cannibalism?

Or, perhaps more central - what role do you believe the classification of an act as "cannibalism" plays within a culture? Why does a culture bother to have a word for it at all? Why are you not considered "meat" by your next door neighbor?

I don't think that many of these races, especially the evil ones, would have word for it. These aren't races that shared a common ancestor with humanity at some point. They evolved as separately and would have alien ways of thinking. In some cases they came from other universes to the ones were you find them, such as orcs being brought in from somewhere else by portals in the Forgotten Realms. Why would such an alien thinking race have a word like cannibalism? Why would they not think of their neighbor as meat, especially if that neighbor was a different race?

It's a bit different with the PC races. Dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings as races go are primarily good, and thinking of your neighbor as meat is pretty not good as things go. There's also the metagame influence of the players and DMs using these races as PCs for so long. That humanizes the non-human PC races further than they would be, considering that they too would think differently than humans due to their evolutionary process.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I'm not a big fan of alignment at all and usually reserve it for outsiders. I find it interesting that they may be making Gnolls fiendish.

How I do it:

• Have your mortal races which make up all the various sentient creatures/monstrous and otherwise. You cannot attach alignment to them. To them good and evil is subjective and related to their values and experience.
• Have extra-planar creatures like angels demons and gods, Inevitables etc...(outsiders)

For Outsiders, they are a product of their plane. You cannot have an evil angel or a chaotic modron because 'evil' and 'good', chaos and Law is not a subjective or a behavior but, instead a designation of their status. Essentially, a warm blooded creature cannot be a reptile. If it ever a mammal became cold-blooded, it would no longer be a mammal, it would be a reptile. Hence the same with angels and devils, good/evil.

Now, mortal races are going to emulate certain entities and value specific traits of those entities.
Orcs who were created by Grumsh will tend to emulate and value the traits that embody Grumsh. To most of Orc society, those traits and values are good. The things that Grumsh hates are 'evil'. It Doesn't mean all Orcs are evil or that all orcs emulate or respect those values to the same degree - or at all.

If they are adding Gnolls as fiendish, I'd have those, more broadly, a product of their nature(not nurture): they'd be evil in the perspective of almost all other mortal's sensibilities.

More needs to do with flaws with traits with ideals. In the game. Wizards needs to do more with those. Alignment is baggage in a lot of ways.

Having multiple origins of races is good. No pinpoint origin. So different alignments can be for the same race. Then you can have obviously evil. And you can have goodly and neutral ones too.

 

[Oofta]

So I went back and (re)read these articles that @Cadence provided. Yep, human beings and our capacity to demonize and slander the "other" is horrible. So is there a way as the OP asked to be inclusive and maintain heritage?

While I don't think that every depiction of evil monsters is wrong, I can see how some cross a line. For example in the current iteration of D&D I can see why people would think a hobgoblin image is a take on Samurai based on armor and the top knot. It was another case of trying to hearken back to old school D&D that may have gone too far.

But how do you describe orcs? Looking at the Keith Baker's Eberron description and the first thing I thought was stereotypical depiction of Latinos. Paraphrasing a bit "Emotional, fiery, dedicated to family and ideals but not very industrious." I don't see that as being much better, or even really being much to build off of for a generic orc as a base assumption.

What if we came up with a different descriptor? Someone mentioned "monstrous" others have noted that gnolls might be changed to "fiend".

Another possibility might be something along the lines of "Godforged". Orcs were literally created for a specific purpose, to wage never-ending war against other races. Depending on your campaign, some orcs can free themselves from their god and be used as a PC race. Orcs aren't inherently less intelligent, but their intellect is actively suppressed by Gruumsh. After all, as an evil god, Gruumsh wants slaves to do his bidding, not children who can grow and develop their own thoughts and ideas.

That way for those people that want traditional orcs, they're still there. We clarify why they aren't just another human subspecies while explaining why they have a lower intelligence while giving options for orcs that are just as smart as humans.

 

[Umbran]

Appreciate I would if people would not misconstrue my points.

Mod Note:

Consider the possibility that they are not willfully misconstruing your position. Consider the possibility that either you are not presenting your case at all well (your post was super-short, and so may not carry much nuance), or that your stated position was more divisive than you thought.

When I read you... it sure looked like an attempt to go back to the arguments of two threads I closed earlier this week... and they are doing you a service to suggest you avoid such.

 

[Xenonnonex]

If points are divisive. They can be replied to with respect.


There are obviously evil monsters. Humanoids are not monsters I do not think. So they can be many alignments. They should be given the choice of alignments. Some can be defined by their gods. While others do not have to be.