Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ainamacar" data-source="post: 5924466" data-attributes="member: 70709">I wonder if there might be a way for us to have our cake at eat it to, so that the narrative presented in the game works smoothly with a stark black-and-white moral universe or one with many shades of gray.  The presentation of setting information and lore is often taken as a "God's-eye-view" of the setting's reality, and usually not a very nuanced one.  What if, instead, the game presented materials more commonly from perspectives within the setting, or maybe even something akin to the unreliable narrator?A DM could run with the grayness by accepting that many perspectives have merit, or the DM (and probably many within the setting) can dispense with "the lies of the monsters." Even lies add color.  In short, spend less time writing about the inherent moral status of drow and more time telling or showing us what actors within the setting think about the drow.Sometimes D&D already does this in a wishy-washy way by  acknowledging that "some say this" and "others say that" in order not to  lock the lore of game down.  That does keep things open, but at least for me it also doesn't engage very consistently.  A strong perspective, even a false one, is often more engaging.Take your temperature on this concept with the following specific example: How would you feel about the non-mechanical part of the goblin monster entry consisting primarily or partly of what a bugbear warlord tells his young bugbear warlordlings about the goblins he rules?  Even if the bugbear generalizes too broadly about goblins this is perhaps less objectionable than if the game presents these as objective (and universal) facts about goblins.  Furthermore, other specific "lore snippets" might suggest a different source.Or perhaps the elven entry is presented as the eyewitness record of a wood elf diplomat at the coronation of a new high elf king.  Written well it could reflect that traditional elven pride (and some differences between the two subcultures), but also enough self-awareness to not entirely embrace the hagiographic paean to elf culture and history recited during the coronation itself.</blockquote>

Verification