I am sorry if this is something basic that has been discussed to death before but I feel like I need to get this out of my system before I ruin friendships by wishing centuries of humiliation on people for the way they play pretend.
I had a casual chat with a friend and fellow GM about our current campaigns and worldbuilding. At some point beast races come up and I mention I like gnolls and give a few short details about their society in my setting. In response I get an explanation that he can’t have this kind of characterization because of Goebbles level bullshittery about how beastmen are inherently savage and destructive and basically a swarm of pests that has to be put down. And how this is necessary in order to address the moral issues of what to do with beastmen non-combatants. Essentially giving players moral license to commit genocide and still be considered “good” in-universe.
It felt so fucking unreal seeing how normally chill people can almost reproduce word for word the vile shit that Zionists are using right fucking now as a justification for mass murder and not have a single moment of “oh shit wait wtf am I saying”. I had to step away from the keyboard and calm down. I hate how concept of “sapient creatures that are completely and irredeemably evil and are specifically designed to be slaughtered” is seen as something completely normal and even expected. Gygax was a piece of shit genocide enthusiast who deserves to rot in hell and it’s high time that we move on from colonial plunder sims with dragons and obligatory others that exist only to be killed and looted.
You are building an imaginary world and there are no limits. The genre is literally called imagination. There is no excuse for consciously designing entire species that are designated for slaughter and reproducing some of the vilest ideologies ever thought up by humans as a pillar of your worldbuilding.
That’s it I guess. That’s the rant. Thanks for reading. I am doing my best trying to give positive portrayals of non-human societies in my games and also trying to get my friends to play other games that aren’t built from around breaking into others’ homes to kill them and take their stuff.
We already have a group of semi-intelligent four-limbed upright-walking baddies you can mindlessly slaughter, they’re called undead. Works great too because the undead masses generally don’t have free will. Replace undead with robots for a sci-fi setting.
If you’re killing and plundering sapient (is that the right word?) creatures for no good reason, you’re the baddies.
Even undead were conscious in Discworld, which I found always compelling in it’s willingness to sympathize with (almost) all creatures. But they were a subset which had maintained consciousness when undead, while some had no such capabilities (I think?)
I guess you run into the issue though, which many zombie things run into) that the only way to make unconscious zombie fights harder is increased health and more of them. Anything else starts to not make sense, because any strategy/skillful use of something starts to make one reconsider.
Is there a solution to this anyone can think of? Zombies great in logistics/traps but somehow not consciousness? Is that possible? Zombies who can cast spells in directed ways without consciousness?
PF2e has, among other zombie types:
- Shamblers, slow old brain biters
- Husks, more predatory, like L4D Leapers
- Shock zombies that are temporarily supercharged by electrical damage
- Sulpher zombies that can spew blinding smoke and explode on death
- Tar zombies that can cover PCs in flammable tar to slow them
Plus you can add extra abilities to them, like sickening attackers, an aura of rot that putrifies open wounds, limbs that fall off on a crit and start attacking independently of the zombie, swarms that spill out on death, and the classic acid spitting.
Sounds fun! Is there a way this is explained in any lore sense for RPG senses? I guess we already have to believe warlocks and wizards and shit, but they usually have explanations
Even the undead can have story and feelings. The shambling horde isn’t shambling 24/7.
I think there was a bit in Guild Wars 2 where one sector is under the rule of a necromancer, but it’s mentioned that families appreciate that they don’t have to leave their beloved ancestors.
Well if inherently evil races aren’t real, how do you explain white people?
I’m gonna make a hotep tabletop game where the orc equivalent are yakubians.
TTRPG writers need to learn the lesson that video games learned in the 90s: the universally-acknowledged acceptable target of unlimited violence is the nazis. The D&D shorthand for this are the mortal worshippers of demons and evil gods (there’s usually at least one obvious fascist god of tyranny or something), characters that are consciously choosing to side with unfathomable cosmic evil because they’ll personally get some small benefit.
Tolkien honestly fucked up and ruined fantasy with orcs, I wish Le Guin was the defining influence
One of my favorite parts of LotR was that conversation between orcs complaining about their shit bosses and lamenting having to be part of Sauron’s stupid war! It’s so humanizing, and yet Tolkien still couldn’t commit to that because of…Catholic guilt & anxiety?
His Catholic guilt is why he started to reconsider them though. His view of orcs as inherently evil was something he regretted expressly because it went against his views as a Catholic. He didn’t like the implication of beings that are irredeemable, and had changed his original idea of them being created evil since he rejected the premise that evil can create new life. The fact that Orcs hated their masters gave him a reason to settle on them being pre-existing, but corrupted. Then there is shit about “rational souls” and more of the Legendarium or whatever that I cannot fathom.
So it is quite literally the opposite
In that scenario, D&D probably still exists but is even worse because they hew closer to stuff like Conan and have all the not-even-metaphorical racism present in that. I suppose there could just as easily have been a reckoning against that racism earlier in time.
The difference is that it’s usually every member of those races who worships the evil patron/matron god of their race (PCs and dual-scimitar-wielding chaotic good types notwithstanding), which also happens to be the only major god of that race. The default should be that most people are neutral, and “racial” gods probably either shouldn’t exist or should at least be one option among many for that race.
Every good DM I know basically ignores alignment and gives characters at least a hint at a realistic set of motivations. A few months ago I ran The Sunless Citadel for a group that I recruited on this site, and one of the characters in that module is a were-rat (Alignment: Always lawful evil according the 3rd ed monster manual) known as the rat king who attacks the players on sight, and the most memorable thing he can possibly do is land a bite attack and make a character roll a fort save against lycanthropy.
In my interpretation, the rat king was a solo adventurer who had also come to the ruins looking for the golden apple that cures all diseases. When they and the party first bumped into each other, they actually did shoot at each other - a result of everyone being on edge from fumbling around in the dark, fighting skeletons - but when they and the party realized that they didn’t actually have to kill each other, they stopped fighting and talked it out. The rat king joined the party, helped them fight some actual non-sapient monsters and capture the necromancer at the bottom of the dungeon, and then at the end of the adventure the party rewarded him by giving him the golden apple to cure his lycanthropy.
…which he didn’t actually want to do, so he pocketed it with a “…thanks!” and then ran off with the valuable loot before they could change their mind. Way more interesting of a side story than “a big rat jumps out at you, roll initiative”, and it played out just because I asked myself “what would this character be doing in this dungeon” and played them accordingly.
I say this loving Baldur’s Gate 3, but it was super disturbing to me that all the goblins are treated as straight up evil to the point where you’re allowed to kill goblin children without consequence.
It’s a deeply problematic thing in D&D that they’ve never really bothered too hard to deal with
Even as every other competitor completely blows past them in terms of complexity and nuance
Hell, fuckin’ Pathfinder elevated goblins to one of the playable ancestries, with the alchemist class being represented by a goblin!
