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Am I the only person who likes removal of evil races?
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I really think people blow this crying about Orcs out of proportion, there was NEVER an actually interesting villain in this game whose reasons of being a villain boil down only to "I'm an Orc, Goblin, Drow or other evil race". And saying a whole species is inherently evil effectively diminishes all evil they do because you are saying they never could choose not to do it, which reduces them to children who don't know better. People should move on and stop flooding my yt feed with identical videos repeating the same points.Just look for better settings. You can even keep the DnD rules if you're feeling kinda lazy and just swap some names.
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It's a matter of world building. Orcs can be noble savages, or violent monsters. The main problem is humanizing these creatures. If you instead imagine a separate evolutionary path, then the race can be inherently "evil". If orcs have evolved for conflict and violence far beyond human levels, then by our standards they would be evil. At least by the philosophy of a middle ages like world. Catholics and Protestants considered each other evil for a few hundred years. A violent species that destroys humans on sight due to their violent instincts would easily be evil. Exceptions could exist, but the mass of individuals would be "evil".New lore: orcs are evolved from ducks. That explains *everything*
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I choose to play demons as though they can have empathy, but it's always calculated empathy. They are intentionally and willfully choosing to act with empathy because it meets some other goal, so even though all demons are fundamentally evil, they are not all fundamentally despicable. I say it like it's some high holy road concept thing, but it's just more of a general guideline. Demons will do anything they want to do as long as it meets their current objective. Assuming we're talking about humanoid demon creatures and not some sort of like ethereal "presence of evil" demon.So, you're playing human CEOs
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One of the most popular DnD characters is a member of an “evil” race who proves that it’s not a racial feature but a cultural one. (Yes I’m talking about Drizzt, AKA why every DnD group from ~1990 to ~2005 had *that guy* who wanted to play a drow ranger.)Drizzt is dripping with riiiiiiizzzzzzzzz God, even I took psych damage from the cringe
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One of the most popular DnD characters is a member of an “evil” race who proves that it’s not a racial feature but a cultural one. (Yes I’m talking about Drizzt, AKA why every DnD group from ~1990 to ~2005 had *that guy* who wanted to play a drow ranger.)In that case, however, Drow are the descendants of elves that followed a god that betrayed Corellon. They aren't innately evil, they are innately good/chaotic and programmed to be evil/lawful (by DND logic). Orcs are theoretically opposite. Evil/chaotic by essentialist, divinely mandated nature and capable of learning otherwise. More importantly, they're people the PCs can murder for golf with no discussion about morality... And while that's convenient for some DMs it does have some very, very obvious problems.
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I really think people blow this crying about Orcs out of proportion, there was NEVER an actually interesting villain in this game whose reasons of being a villain boil down only to "I'm an Orc, Goblin, Drow or other evil race". And saying a whole species is inherently evil effectively diminishes all evil they do because you are saying they never could choose not to do it, which reduces them to children who don't know better. People should move on and stop flooding my yt feed with identical videos repeating the same points.
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Drizzt is dripping with riiiiiiizzzzzzzzz God, even I took psych damage from the cringe
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I really think people blow this crying about Orcs out of proportion, there was NEVER an actually interesting villain in this game whose reasons of being a villain boil down only to "I'm an Orc, Goblin, Drow or other evil race". And saying a whole species is inherently evil effectively diminishes all evil they do because you are saying they never could choose not to do it, which reduces them to children who don't know better. People should move on and stop flooding my yt feed with identical videos repeating the same points.What have I missed?
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I really think people blow this crying about Orcs out of proportion, there was NEVER an actually interesting villain in this game whose reasons of being a villain boil down only to "I'm an Orc, Goblin, Drow or other evil race". And saying a whole species is inherently evil effectively diminishes all evil they do because you are saying they never could choose not to do it, which reduces them to children who don't know better. People should move on and stop flooding my yt feed with identical videos repeating the same points.I can see the arguments against the concept of evil races. It's intimately linked with real-world racism about "wrong" groups that "deserve" to be colonized or genocided. Writing the fictional world as being populated by distinct groups that have conflicting cultural motivations is more interesting than "this group is bad because they are bad." But... what about demons/devils?
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If a few minutes of reading TvTropes is anything to go by, the Tolkien never officially decided on an origin for his orcs. All of the possibilities he considered clashed with his legendarium somehow. And he had some of them that actively resisted Sauron, which makes them 'not strictly evil' I suppose. You can't be evil if you don't have free will. A tool has no evil except from what comes from the hand that wields it. So to me, orcs make more sense as a constructed organic machine, little better than automatons, and with no moral sense of their own. A dog would have more capacity for evil. But the interesting question would ask who would have the capacity to create such machines, who believes that violence is an acceptable method of achieving their goals. You say that conscience is optional for antagonists? I'd say that a complete lack of empathy is the defining quality of evil, what drives them to seek power without any care for others. Plus, having orcs lets you roll up a whole pile of mooks for your players to fight whenever you like, and if they happen to be trying to advance your BBEG's goal while completely indifferent to whether they cause pain and suffering along the way, all the better. Can't give the masterplan away if they were completely indifferent to why they were asked to do something and never asked questions about it, but it gives your players some goals to work towards and some puzzles to chew on. And yeah, Strahd's entire backstory and motivation being 'he is a dick' is difficult to make interesting. A well-intentioned extremist that thought they needed power that they then could not control and which led them to darkness has the potential for some characterisation. Strahd wanted the booty but could not get the booty and is angry about it. Plus that module is just two hundred hours of one TPK after another.I mean, if merely existing is enough motivation for IRL executives to be evil piles of shit, I don't see a need for fictional characters to need much motivation... Some people clearly just _enjoy_ lording over others...
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I can see the arguments against the concept of evil races. It's intimately linked with real-world racism about "wrong" groups that "deserve" to be colonized or genocided. Writing the fictional world as being populated by distinct groups that have conflicting cultural motivations is more interesting than "this group is bad because they are bad." But... what about demons/devils?It's interesting, so many cultures have demons or evil spirits. And sometimes those evil spirits can be turned to good, but not usually. I think DND mirroring culture in this way is still mostly OK, whereas culture has thankfully mostly moved on from *races* being good or evil.
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If a few minutes of reading TvTropes is anything to go by, the Tolkien never officially decided on an origin for his orcs. All of the possibilities he considered clashed with his legendarium somehow. And he had some of them that actively resisted Sauron, which makes them 'not strictly evil' I suppose. You can't be evil if you don't have free will. A tool has no evil except from what comes from the hand that wields it. So to me, orcs make more sense as a constructed organic machine, little better than automatons, and with no moral sense of their own. A dog would have more capacity for evil. But the interesting question would ask who would have the capacity to create such machines, who believes that violence is an acceptable method of achieving their goals. You say that conscience is optional for antagonists? I'd say that a complete lack of empathy is the defining quality of evil, what drives them to seek power without any care for others. Plus, having orcs lets you roll up a whole pile of mooks for your players to fight whenever you like, and if they happen to be trying to advance your BBEG's goal while completely indifferent to whether they cause pain and suffering along the way, all the better. Can't give the masterplan away if they were completely indifferent to why they were asked to do something and never asked questions about it, but it gives your players some goals to work towards and some puzzles to chew on. And yeah, Strahd's entire backstory and motivation being 'he is a dick' is difficult to make interesting. A well-intentioned extremist that thought they needed power that they then could not control and which led them to darkness has the potential for some characterisation. Strahd wanted the booty but could not get the booty and is angry about it. Plus that module is just two hundred hours of one TPK after another.> You can't be evil if you don't have free will. A tool has no evil except from what comes from the hand that wields it. So to me, orcs make more sense as a constructed organic machine, little better than automatons, and with no moral sense of their own. This paradox, I.e., if orcs have free will, they can be truely evil, and not just a tool. But if they're predestined to be basically evil as a race, can they really have free will? I think is basically unresolvable. That's why Tolkien could never find a clear answer.
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What have I missed?
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I can see the arguments against the concept of evil races. It's intimately linked with real-world racism about "wrong" groups that "deserve" to be colonized or genocided. Writing the fictional world as being populated by distinct groups that have conflicting cultural motivations is more interesting than "this group is bad because they are bad." But... what about demons/devils?For demons and devils, that usually goes straight into supernatural, as they're not really a race, but physical manifestations of evil energies.
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I really think people blow this crying about Orcs out of proportion, there was NEVER an actually interesting villain in this game whose reasons of being a villain boil down only to "I'm an Orc, Goblin, Drow or other evil race". And saying a whole species is inherently evil effectively diminishes all evil they do because you are saying they never could choose not to do it, which reduces them to children who don't know better. People should move on and stop flooding my yt feed with identical videos repeating the same points.
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I choose to play demons as though they can have empathy, but it's always calculated empathy. They are intentionally and willfully choosing to act with empathy because it meets some other goal, so even though all demons are fundamentally evil, they are not all fundamentally despicable. I say it like it's some high holy road concept thing, but it's just more of a general guideline. Demons will do anything they want to do as long as it meets their current objective. Assuming we're talking about humanoid demon creatures and not some sort of like ethereal "presence of evil" demon.I did have idea for a high ranking demon lord or whatever that sees overcoming his nature as a way of becoming more powerful in that to be able to act and think truly selflessly would be alien enough to his peers that it could give him an advantage
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I can see the arguments against the concept of evil races. It's intimately linked with real-world racism about "wrong" groups that "deserve" to be colonized or genocided. Writing the fictional world as being populated by distinct groups that have conflicting cultural motivations is more interesting than "this group is bad because they are bad." But... what about demons/devils?There is a bit of a distinction between each, I think. Examples below speak to mainstream D&D, where a lot of these conversations originate. Orcs are what they are as a matter of birth. Having them be essentially evil by nature of birth draws too many parallels with real-world racism, as you mentioned. Devils are evil as a matter of choice. Devils typically start as souls of evil mortals or corrupted celestials. But if celestials can be corrupted and become devils (e.g. Zariel), it stands to reason that devils have the potential to become redeemed—they just stop being devils at that point and become something else. So devils aren't quite a race as much as they are a culture that manifests physically. Demons are somewhat similar to devils, but most did not really have an origin point of being something before they became demons. They're just the physical manifestation of evil itself, which is why there are an infinite number of them. So they're not so much a race, or even a coherent culture like devils are, as much as they're a natural phenomenon. But given that they are sentient, it should likewise be possible for a demon to become good, and they too would just stop being a demon after that.
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One of the frustrating things about humans and mass communication is the "for me it's Tuesday" effect. For someone, this is the first time they've encountered "maybe orcs being innately evil isn't a good idea". They want to explore it and go through their feelings and blah blah blah. It's a day that might change their life. For someone else, it's Tuesday. We've had this conversation a thousand times before. It's old hat. It's hard to be patient to faceless newcomer #3742 when you've already done this conversation so many times. They feel stupid and slow because they blend in with all the other people who brought this up. They're bringing up points they feel are fresh and clever but have been discussed and settled already. But they're a person seeing it for the first time. Somehow. It feels like "are you stupid? We just went over this", but that's an illusion. It's new to them . (This doesn't account for bad faith actors, who are trash and should go away)Adding on to everything you’ve said, the people most likely encountering these topics for the first time usually are adolescents. I feel it helps my patience trying to keep that in mind when talking with them, since it makes sense that they may not have encountered the topic before.
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I really think people blow this crying about Orcs out of proportion, there was NEVER an actually interesting villain in this game whose reasons of being a villain boil down only to "I'm an Orc, Goblin, Drow or other evil race". And saying a whole species is inherently evil effectively diminishes all evil they do because you are saying they never could choose not to do it, which reduces them to children who don't know better. People should move on and stop flooding my yt feed with identical videos repeating the same points.
