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 think "cultural values" are a better mechanism for that. Like america teaches that capitalism and individualism are good values. Anyone raised here gets a lot of that, but it's not an innate property of being from Ohio

Yep, thanks. And I found a source that has an archive [here](https://ia903109.us.archive.org/8/items/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine062.pdf).

Ms. Drizzt, isn't that the kindergarten teacher that has a magic school bus?

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".

Gonna write my short story about the orc barbarians who destroy human colonies that get too close to orc territory, not because they're inherently evil, but because they've seen what human greed for power and domination does to subjugated races, the flow of magic, and the health of the earth. So they view humans as evil. "Your kind knows nothing but exploitation! You drain the lands of their nutrients to feed cities of sycophants until they are fat! Tell me, adventurer, when was the last time you heard of a dragon attacking an orc caravan? We have no fear of such beings as they only attack the depraved greed of man." "Attacked the village? Do your handlers even lie to hired blades? Yes we burned the village you call Argath, but no one was harmed. Humans, as dangerous as you are, are still cowards. Surrounding a mining village and telling them to leave when they're outnumbered ten to one is hardly, what you would call, a negotiation. We sent hunters to escort them out of the mountains of Gri'ut Kar and burned the village to ensure the trek was one way."

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.

No that's Ms.Frizzle. Drizzt is that dude who sings in Limp Bizkit

> 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. Philosophically debatable, but a reasonable perspective. More germane to TTRPGs, I think it’s a legitimately interesting way to frame orcs, both more in line with the original source material (which as you say is nebulous to their origin) and interesting for players and GMs to deal with. To me it’s so important that different ancestries/creatures be legitimately alien. If I can find a facsimile of an ancestry in real life Earth, it’s not foreign enough that I want an ancestry. I don’t need orcs that are tribal warriors or Mexican, we have Mexico and tribes on Earth. This is one area where Pathfinder and D&D both miss the mark for me… but not Warhammer, where they’re a psychic fungus, or LotR, where they’re test tube mooks. > 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. Definitely a good way to make a villain. But I’m not convinced any one trait makes a good villain! There are a lot of villains who have empathy, across media. Adrian Veidt in Watchmen, Roy Batty in Bladerunner, Lucifer in Paradise Lost, Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. All heroes are alike; each great villain is evil in their own way. I ran Ravenloft in 3.5 and adored playing Strahd, it’s so fun to twirl the figurative moustache. To me a huge strength of tabletop is that we get to savor things more emotionally vs intellectually compared to other entertainment, since we’re acting it out, and with simple characters you can flat out bathe in it. I don’t play 5e but I would run Ravenloft if it meant getting to run rampant with Strahd again. Anyone who has never GMed before, believe me, I’ve never found anything like Snidley Whiplashing it up, 22 ounces of fresh cut ham on rye. All the joy of being despicable, none of the culpability.

Man, this was always sad when I finally realized it. I always thought "racial alignment" was about the culture of those races conditioning those who grew up in those civilizations being raised with certain beliefs to serve as a guideline in how individuals of those races would be depicted in setting. (Or supernatural compulsions for things like Devils, Demons, Modrons, etc... but that's different) Then I realized most people that I played with just used it as an excuse to be openly racist. It's for the best that the system is being removed, people just don't know how to use it without causing problems. This is why we can't have nice things.

Just look for better settings. You can even keep the DnD rules if you're feeling kinda lazy and just swap some names.

New lore: orcs are evolved from ducks. That explains *everything*

So, you're playing human CEOs

Drizzt is dripping with riiiiiiizzzzzzzzz God, even I took psych damage from the cringe

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.

I long for the day when people stop kissing Tolkein's ass and try to make everything about him, whatever direction it goes.

Does his rizz come from his drip?

What have I missed?

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?

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...