For the life of me, I'll never understand how some folks don't see that making an entire species of sentient humanoids all evil is a BAD IDEA. If you incorporate *any* feature or trait that is tied to a real life race onto an evil race - it looks like you're tying the two together. #TTRPG - ThreadSky

dicefunctional.bsky.social • 50 days ago

For the life of me, I'll never understand how some folks don't see that making an entire species of sentient humanoids all evil is a BAD IDEA.

If you incorporate *any* feature or trait that is tied to a real life race onto an evil race - it looks like you're tying the two together.

#TTRPG

Comments

tnmakesit.bsky.social•50 days ago

I think a lot of this kind of comes down to the fact that what we think of as race in the real world and what is portrayed as race in the fantasy genre are VERY different things.

In the real world we are all the same species with a wide variety of ethnicities with unique cultural practices.

tnmakesit.bsky.social•50 days ago

In the realm of fantasy, we understand that Elves, Orcs, Lizardfolk, etc are all different species. They share biological differences from each other that make them different. Yet there is really nothing stopping anyone for having all three share one culture despite being biologically different.

tnmakesit.bsky.social•50 days ago

Now I say all this not to imply all Elves, Orcs, and Lizardfolk have to share the same culture - that's just not how culture works. Instead, I am saying that all three species can have members that are a part of the same cultural group. With other members of those species having different cultures.

tnmakesit.bsky.social•50 days ago

The only reason this is not as prevalent as I personally would want it to be is due to how human-centric fantasy worlds are. Older fantasy authors - Tolkien, Lewis, and even Greenwood write through a human-centric lens (especially Greenwood).

Which is why the concept of "evil races" comes about.

tnmakesit.bsky.social•50 days ago

So yes. Evil Races are dumb, but they exist because of author bias towards humans when we should be writing our worlds with a holistic viewpoint incorporating all races.

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

Correct, really, our terminology is at least part of the issue, but also how it gets handled in some of the most popular games.

Like. Species of a character and culture of a character should be two separate things. But there are a decent number of games that...don't bother with that.

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

The idea of homogenizing and entire species to be evil already has a host of issues associated with it, including but not limited to;

How is an entire species all evil?

Why? Wouldn't that make everyone else want them dead?

Why wouldn't they try easier methods instead of just pillaging?

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

Take Goblins and Orcs in most* fantasy.

They're depicted as rampant, vicious hordes that raid any village they find, and take what they need.

The act of doing so 1) means they've constantly at risk of violent death, 2) always have targets on them, and 3) are solely dependent on their victims.

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

Alternatively, they could just make villages and fucking FARM AND RANCH.

Like! It's not difficult! It's a basic logical issue!

We need food and shelter. If we do nothing but pillage, folks will try to kill us.

Therefore.

Make a fucking village and DON'T KILL PEOPLE.

racastor.bsky.social•50 days ago

Sure, but there are actual living humans who could make a village and hire people to farm and ranch and everything they could ask for and live in peace and joy, never doing labor and basking in the affection of loved ones til the end of their days. And yet they still choose to violently pillage.

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

Correct, but there's always more depictions of humans past that.

There's shown variety with them. Orcs, Goblins, Drow, etc, they don't always get that. They show up as "The Raiding and Pillaging Guys", but never are shown...just being guys.

racastor.bsky.social•50 days ago

It's not an issue that gets tackled a lot, though there are some good examples out there. Saltmarsh and Night Below immediately spring to mind.

I think ultimately it comes from placing Western culture on a pedestal and wanting a dehumanized foe whose death has no moral implications.

ziggybull.bsky.social•50 days ago

And it's not like a campaign can't have orcs and goblins as enemies. Just that being an enemy isn't the entirety of their species' culture.
Like, the orcs the party fights could be the outcasts from a distant orc city that exiles criminals instead of imprisoning or executing them.

nihehmenh.bsky.social•50 days ago

I’m not a literary scholar at all but that won’t stop me from dropping it all at Tolkien’s feet. His binary outlook of Good vs. Evil influenced fantasy for decades to the point that Orc=Evil was a given.

ziggybull.bsky.social•50 days ago

And even Tolkien had some later regrets about that. From some of his letters you can tell the man was binary in his thinking but Catholic enough to realize making and an entire people be beyond redemption was problematic.

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

There's even a passage by Tolkien that says something like, of all the species except the elves, SOME at least served Morgoth and later Sauron. Suggesting that even among the orcs and goblins, there were those who didn't.

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

Random orc A: "Okay, so I want food, and I don't have any. The hooms down the valley have food - and longbows. Do I want to go down the valley and risk dying on an empty stomach... or should I chase down some goats and give this farming thing a go? It's a lot of work... less chance of dying hungry."

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

Exactly!

It's just basic, logical cost-risk analysis!

A - Risk death for a one time boost to resources.

B - Take time, get a long term regularly delivering resource.

What a tough decision!

nuggetthenonbiner.bsky.social•50 days ago

Even IF an entire SPECIES were ONTOLOGICALLY NATURALLY EVIL, they'd at least eventually gather "If we make people think we're good we can Evil a whole lot more than if everyone knows we're evil, and, bonus, decieving them like that is also evil!"

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

Or just: "If we keep being too blatant about this, we're going to tick somebody off to the point they drive us to extinction. Let's try to be subtle about our evil, or at least keep it inside our own sovereign borders."

nuggetthenonbiner.bsky.social•50 days ago

Also:

For the early years you can play with a truly innately evil species wrestling with what that means, getting into arguments about what's more evil than what, even have Evil Versus Evil conflicts thar appear.

Even Evil is allowed variance and conflicting stances and ideologies!

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

As we all know, people are less likely to invade other nations if they keep their distasteful behaviour (tm) at home - and are profitable trading partners.

torekdva.bsky.social•50 days ago

Yeah just viewing things like that in black and white limits your options anyways and makes things so flat. You're doing yourself a disservice by locking yourself into those hard rules

wolfwraithpress.bsky.social•50 days ago

Actual motivations for evil are more interesting anyways. Show me the weakness in the sentient spirit!

xstoryteller.bsky.social•50 days ago

the entire reason both the Orcs and the Drow were evil races in AD&D is because their deities literally bound them to evil and did not allow goodness or light to be part of their lives.

Guess what 20th level characters were expected to do to their gods - and in AD&D they could manage it.

ziggybull.bsky.social•50 days ago

Like making an underground variant of elves who, for the longest time, were almost all sadistic and vile, and the main thing that differentiated them from their surface kin was their dark skin?

dicefunctional.bsky.social•50 days ago

Yep, or like making short green people with long, typically hooked noses, then making their entire culture "Raids and kills; they are evil."

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

Their divine patrons being blatantly evil has to do a lot of heavy lifting. And once the rule 'more worshippers = more power' comes into play, the smarter deities should slam the brakes on all the warring and raiding and ensure their people have ample reason to love them.

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

Or at least to see them as necessary, like the Aztec gods who wanted human sacrifices so they could keep the universe from collapsing.

grendelkinarts.bsky.social•50 days ago

"Hey, Lolth? Why am I supposed to murder my boyfriend? If you want dude's hearts, I can BUY ogre slaves and cut them up. Theirs are a lot bigger, too."
"I actually use the emotional anguish to weave the webs that are your species' afterlife. No hearts = oblivion."
"Damn. Makes sense."

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply