Why hate onthe drow? (Forked Thread: How is FR changing with 4E?)

[CleverNickName]

AND the drow in general are super-popular most likely due to Drizz't and the spider-web bikinis and many people feel that they were force-fed drow info.

Mmm, spiderweb bikinis. At least spidersilk bikinis are more believable (and probably more comfortable) than chainmail bikinis.

I think the drow hate came from the frustration and arguments over how to pronounce the word "drow." Some say it is pronounced like "bow," others say it is pronounced like "sow."

Sorry for stealing your joke, Nifft.

Drow get no love at my table, on both sides of the DM screen. As a DM, I hate it when a player wants to roll up a "cool new drow" character, because as others have stated, there is nothing cool or new about them...every single time, it is just another Drizzt clone. Bank on it.

And from the players' perspective, drow get no love because they are overpowered. The spell immunity, the free poisoned weapons, the spell-like abilities, even their secret sign language, all reek of DM one-up-manship:

"How come I can't do that?"
"Because I said so. Neener, neener."

Hopefully, one day the drow will be cool...balanced enough to be a player or a monster, with enough versimilitude to not be another clone of an overly popular archetype. Because game mechanics and fanboy zeal aside, I really like the whole underground spider-worshipping badguys theme they've got going. And spiderweb bikinis.

 

[knightofround]

I think the problem with the Drow is not so much that they are Drow, but that they have become the D&D equivalent of the emo movement. =)

For the record, I am making the Drow Neutral-Good mercenaries in my next campaign. And making them ninjas. =)

 

[Rechan]

Guy the OP was quoting here.

I meant shoot Drizzt in the face with a gun that fires badgers, not kill off all drow.

My introduction into Fantasy was "The Crystal Shard". I read the Drizzt series through "Servant of the Shard". I had read far too many of the books before Drizzt's "stoic angst of a good, wonderful, rainbow-crapping peacenik goodie two-shoes" struck me. I could no longer get through those sap-saturated essays without a shot of whiskey. Never wrong, never hurt, never makes a mistake. The guy touched a unicorn for God's sake; I expected the next novel involved him walking on water.

His whole issue of "Wandering the world as an outcaste" also seems a little off, given that there's this goddess called Eilistrae who has a whole gaggle of Good Drow that Drizzt could just go hang out with, but that would kill his "Snowflake" cred.

And the Drow race has gotten a bit... played out. They got too popular, too over-exposed, and have really lost their luster. Now they come off as the "Too Cool for School" bad "Oh I'm so eeeevil" type.

Sidenote: It's funny. I actually did make a Drow character for a freeform game. Except that he was a right nasty bastard. And he was using an illusion spell to pose as a blind surface elf, because he was on the run for murdering several priestesses.

 

[Steely Dan]

Also, 3e/4e's ranger(s) is based heavily on the mystical two-sword style of said character

It actually started with 2nd Ed (1989), two or three years after The Crystal Shard series came out. So starting with 2nd Ed, suddenly ranger became synonymous with dual wielding, for the record, I, like you, don't think it should be that way

As for drow, aside from dusky, rough trade boy, I love drow, always have, ever since I first saw the picture in the 1st Ed FF (or was it MM II?).

…They would make slamming shemales.

 

[Draksila]

If I may add my 2 copper....

I have no problems with PCs playing good representatives of evil races. I've allowed it before. But I ensure that the world reacts appropriately to them; if they go about undisguised with any but their true friends or those who know the good they've done, they're reviled as an evil creature who may be the spy for an invasion or (among their own kind) as a traitor who has betrayed his own kin for his own advantage. The Outcast Rating in 3E Ravenloft was an interesting attempt to stat this phenomenon that I'd been role-playing for years; if you wish to renounce your birth and upbringing, it's an uphill struggle to convince Joe Villager that you're truly changed and it isn't all a trick to steal his cattle and rape his daughter. As my player base has changed over the years, I've seen more and more of them want to play reformed evil characters without paying the in-game social cost for it, using Drizzt as an excuse.

Note that I realize that this means I have Drizzt fanboy hate, not Drizzt hate per-se. As for Drizzt himself, I frankly think he's boring. I've read the books, and the character is wooden and kind of masturbatory. Add to this that Salvatore can't seem to write a book without it being a clone of one of his other books, and I have no real respect for the author. I mean, as much as I loved the developments of the Star Wars New Jedi Order, the man immediately used his book as an excuse to dress Luke Skywalker in a dark cloak with two lightsabers and slaughter religious fanatics. Drizzt and the minions of Lolth, anyone?

 

[Samuel Leming]

I did always wonder how a supposedly Chaotic Evil race had assembled themselves into perfect castes, and had such a lawful-aligned (at least based on the definition in the PHB) city in Menzoberanzen (spelled wrong I'm sure).

Here's how:

So how did I build the society of Menzoberranzan and the drow in the Forgotten Realms? From the work of Gary Gygax and Ed Greenwood for some details, to be sure, but the real secret can be found in the pages of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Hey, I’m an Italian kid from Massachusetts! What can I say?

 

[Hairfoot]

I got the Fiend Folio when I was about 14 and I loved the drow. It was a cool idea that somewhere, hiding from the light, were the evil cousins of the surface elves. I thought it would be fun for an a campaign to include an encounter with them sometime.

But everyone else thought they were cool, too. So cool that the game got crowded with reformed drow characters in every second party. Then Drizzt came along to confirm the archetype and become a demigod figure for all the geek pre-goths that WotC is now gunning for with the warlock tiefling 4E bonanza.

What could have been great in moderation has become cliche through over-exposure. That's why I now "hate on" the drow.

 

[Steely Dan]

the warlock tiefling 4E bonanza.

This cracked me up – dig it.

I do have a drow who is a warlock in my ongoing Planescape campaign!

…But he's unaligned, has the feytouched pact and is homosexual (his lover being an incubus).

 

[Desdichado]

Eeek, mad rant?!

That's the coolest thing Salvatore has ever said about the drow.

 

[DonAdam]

Eilistrae is annoying. Drizz't was compelling as an exception. Those are stock answers.

But let's be honest: there's an inherent tendency for any shared-world popular villain to become good. You can count the number of hugely popular comic book villains that have stayed evil for long periods of time on one hand. Magneto? Venom?

I will say something in defense Salvatore's version of the drow: he had to find some way to make the drow function as a society. Chaos-worshipping slaughter-happy dark elves makes sense for a random encounter, but not much else. I rather liked that he chose to make a chaotic evil society have a veneer of stifling rules, but only one real rule: don't get caught. Even if everyone knows you did it, if you're not caught you're not punished.

But I've gotten to the point where people whining about drow and Drizz't is waaaay more annoying than any Drizz't fandom. I'm not going to comment on whether its a bandwagon effect or people giving their honest opinion--I can't judge intentions--but its frequency is a little grating.

Then again, I have never had anyone try to do an annoying copycat or goth thing in my groups. I bet most people haven't, either. So maybe its time we just breath take a deep, collective breath and let it all go?

If we hold on to all this rage towards drow, we won't have any spite left for emo kids playing tieflings. And that would be the real tragedy.