What's your Bad Guy race like?

[Nifft]

Actually, this has allways been a huge pet peeve of mine in games: that a creature's race (orc, goblin) gives you wholsale rights to slaughter them. It's a Tolkien idea that (while I love Tolkien) I could do without in RPGs.

Trouble is, the black-and-white morality of D&D is a staple of the genre. You need some source of disposable evil minions if you're going to have unambiguous butt-kicking for goodness. And that's exactly what some players want -- "bad guys, git 'em!"

For a non-Tolkien implementation, we could go with black hats for all the bad guys, but somehow that's worse.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nightchilde-2]

The big-bad in my just-started Eberron campaign this go-round will be an Aerenal elf True Necromancer who has discovered the ties between the Aerenal religion and the Blood of Vol..and decided the Blood of Vol is correct. He went so far as to shun his former religion as to carve off his facial tattoo (Willing Deformity feat), leaving him with a skull-shaped scar on his face. I like recurring villains.

In my last Eberron campaign, it was a human Cardinal of the Silver Flame who was dedicated to starting a new Inquisition; this time against the warforged.

Other past BBEGs (d20 anyway) included an elven lich in Forgotten Realms (that the PCs fought against for a full year real-time) and a Great Wyrm red dragon that the PCs never actually faced; but they faced his 21st-level kobold sorcerer flunkie (and got a humiliating defeat a couple of times at the hand of said kobold), and a former serial-killer mohrg.

 

[Desdichado]

Actually, this has allways been a huge pet peeve of mine in games: that a creature's race (orc, goblin) gives you wholsale rights to slaughter them. It's a Tolkien idea that (while I love Tolkien) I could do without in RPGs.

Yeah--my answer of elves is a bit tongue in cheek (although I actually have developed a campaign around that idea, I've never actually run it, and currently am not running, so perhaps the question is a bit moot to me at the moment.)

More often than not, though--I like to take the "evil" races, make them not necessarily evil, and not have any evil races at all. Evil individuals or powers can come from any race.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Trouble is, the black-and-white morality of D&D is a staple of the genre. You need some source of disposable evil minions if you're going to have unambiguous butt-kicking for goodness. And that's exactly what some players want -- "bad guys, git 'em!"

A recent in-character discussion between two PCs regarding the Fair Folk:

"You are racist!"

"Fair Folk aren't human, so a certain amount of racism is certainly applicable..."

 

[sjmiller]

In my campaign the bad guys have, so far, been dwarves. They are monotheistic, xenophobic, isolationist, and a tad fanatical (imagine that!). It all started out when I discovered that out of the nine players in my initial group, none of them chose, or even contemplated, playing a dwarf. Since I had never ran across this before, I thought it would be fun to play with the dwarves a little. So, they are now plotting to take over the world, or at least as much of the world as they know about.

 

[spectre72]

Since everyone in my campaing prefers elves as player characters I have made the Elves in my Eberron game their main enemy.

Take Eberron Elves and make them evil necromancers....

Throw in zepplins, muskets, cannons, and the Vol...

Then have the elves kick the rest of the races while they are down from the last war and you have the start of my campaign..

They are looking for a gold dragon orb and will kill everyone who gets in their way...

And the result is a party almost entirely composed of humans, a rare occurance with my group.

 

[GreatLemur]

Trouble is, the black-and-white morality of D&D is a staple of the genre. You need some source of disposable evil minions if you're going to have unambiguous butt-kicking for goodness. And that's exactly what some players want -- "bad guys, git 'em!"

Well, if you've gotta have unquestionable "kill on sight" enemies, there are ways of doing it that make a lot more sense than an "evil race". The undead are the obvious solution, of course, and constructs work, too (hey, they don't have to be technically evil; just in the service of evil). And, of course, there are always fiends and other lower planes beasties. And people in the service of / dominated by evil supernatural powers (But maybe that's not all that unambiguous?).

 

[Desdichado]

Well, if you've gotta have unquestionable "kill on sight" enemies, there are ways of doing it that make a lot more sense than an "evil race". The undead are the obvious solution, of course, and constructs work, too (hey, they don't have to be technically evil; just in the service of evil). And, of course, there are always fiends and other lower planes beasties. And people in the service of / dominated by evil supernatural powers (But maybe that's not all that unambiguous?).

Why do you gotta have that? I think it's actually much more interesting if you don't.

 

[Nifft]

Why do you gotta have that? I think it's actually much more interesting if you don't.

Some folks like "interesting" and ambiguous.
Other folks like "Bad guys! Git 'em!".

It's a matter of group-wide taste and play style.

See the post at the top of this page, or the quote inside the post above yours.

-- N

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Trouble is, the black-and-white morality of D&D is a staple of the genre.

I'm not arguing this, but I don't think that it's entirely true, either. I don't believe D&D has a black-and-white morality. I think they have an illusion of black-and-white morality that most people choose to believe.

Here's what I mean by this ... and I'll refrain from using real life examples to try and keep it from getting into a debate. But, if the morality of D&D were black and white, then we should be able to make statements like killing, lying, cheating, rape, disrespect for life, etc are all wrong.

But the truth is, D&D's main staple is the combat system. In fact, unless you take the Justicar PrC class (or burn a feat) it is actually a system that penalizes anyone wishing to do nonlethal damage to their opponents. In truth, the game designers premise is that combat would be lethal. In a black-and-white morality I personally think that would make most of the adventures "black" by definition and not "white." [I fully assert that this is my own opinion and it is based on the opinion that killing demonstrates a lack of respect for life - even if the life is evil or attempting to accomplish evil things.]

To me, that means that D&D's assumed game morality is either circumstantial (meaning that its okay to kill evil in most circumstances but not okay to kill good in most circumstances) or that at the very least it isn't black and white. I think we have an illusion of black-and-white morality because the game designers paint it that way ... but the reality is that the illusion is really quite circumstantial.

Like I said, not trying to argue it ... just illustrate that D&D morality is more circumstantial than anything else.

Back to the op's initial question ... the BBEGs in my campaigns are often members of the PC races gone bad (or undead and evil outsiders).