Every time people lament changes to the lore that amount to “not every member of species X is irredeemably evil” and claim the game is removing villains from it, I think how villains of so-caleld evil species fall into two cathegories: a) bland and boring and b)have something else, unrelated to their species going on for them, that makes them interesting.
No quarrel there. The only interesting thing about evil races is when you subvert the trope, but as we’ve all been doing that since the 80s that’s just become another tired trope.
Personally I just run campaigns where 90% of the people are humans.
I prefer humans to be weak so nobody chooses them. Want a lizardborn x orc cleric? Sure. Want a human fighter? Well, theeeese enemies have + x on these stats against humans.
Cuz they always are either elf or human and that is boring. Also, I’m one of those bastards who force the players to role play, yet I’m no maniac who forces them to poop and pee.
Can confirm, I run a LOT of dragons and the interesting dragon villains are generally about finding unique takes on their common traits or villains because of their response to their circumstances rather than pure random villainy. We’ve got the red dragon who self-perpetuates her own cycle of violence, we’ve got the black dragon who’s mentally broken because their worldview of being entitled to everything due to their strength collapsed after they lost a territorial struggle, we’ve got the emerald dragon who’s desire not to be bothered by their humanoid allies led them to neglect their promises, we’ve got the silver dragon who loved her friends so much she was willing to fall into necromancy to try and undo their deaths.
Also we have That Bastard With Eight Player Kills.
That said, always remember: To become cliche, something needs to work super well first- so well that everyone does it. It only crosses from great into cliche if everyone does it and forgets why and how it worked in the first place.
Young Black Dragon called Gendridd, wasn’t meant to be a major obstacle, his personally is that he’s evil mostly just because he’s having a fantastic time being an asshole and constantly taunting people (to the extent that the first and so far only lair effect he’s got is the ability to heckle people at any location in the lair). Anyways he was fully aware that he’d get one-rounded trying to fight a party of four level 7 PCs, so instead of fighting them stole the party’s unattended bags and sat in a tree to taunt them about it before flying off (he did not consider this might lead to fighting them anyway).
The party’s plan was to ambush him in his own territory, so their plan was to cut through some of the most overgrown parts of the swamp to get behind his lair and set up an ambush, instead of confronting any of his minions. However, between several spellcaster party members who had both completely dumped their strength/dexterity and couldn’t cast spells while drowning, party members wearing full heavy armour that weighed them down significantly, and bad rolls, then two of them fell into a bog, and in trying to rescue them the others also fell in and they all drowned, resulting in the first TPK.
Obviously that wasn’t a super satisfying ending, so for closure I offered to run a oneshot with a level 5 party in Gendridd’s lair, sent to avenge the original party, on condition that I wouldn’t hold back with enemy strategy and tactics (no bullshit with magic, just good enemy postioning, balanced teams that had lots of options in fights, and had actual battle plans). They made it through most of the dungeon pretty well, while constantly trading off verbal barbs with Gendridd who basically ran a snarky sports commentary the entire way through, letting them know how eager he was to crush them when they made it to HIS big boss chamber. Anyways they reached the outside of the chamber and they were just preparing to fight the skeletons who were guarding his door when he jumped out of an acid river behind them and got a Surprise Round, hitting two of them with a breath weapon and then rolling good enough initiative to knock out their fragile backline casters.
After that then he’s become popular/respected enough to get Promoted To NPC.
TLDR: First wipe due to RNGiamat cursing the d20 and a party badly suited to dealing with falling in a bog. Second wipe because Gendridd employed the secret chromatic dragon art of ‘lying to people’.
I’m known for running mostly human campaigns, but one of my favorite tricks is to run a seemingly human villain with personality traits usually associated with an evil monster, then as the adventure goes on the learn that the heraldry features the monster etc etc.
Of course they know me, so they all think it’s metaphor and inspiration.
But at the very last minute, when they think they have him cornered and taken care of all the lackeys…. SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS! He drops his magical disguise and it’s an old fashioned D&D lair boss battle!!!
I have been doing this but because I want to keep the party on guard. Also I think villains who think they are the good guys or doesn’t think what they are doing is wrong is better than I’m evil because the plot needs it.
I’d argue Devils, by their nature of being lawful as well as evil, are often interesting villains because of their “species”, but it’s kinda different when it’s a creature literally made from the primordial essence of Evil rather than just a bad dude.
I’d love to be literal devil’s advocate here and argue devils just think different, in ways usually not immediately beneficial to in-universe society but ultimately a plus by instead providing a stress test for development of what is in universe considered ‘good’. Insert the quote from Legend what is light without dark.
Understandable - I prefer lovecraftian and fey creatures for alien thought processes, and use devils more as a foil/mirror to the lawful god of cities, merchants, and wealth, whomst I hate and will take any opportunity to drag.
No, equating alignment and morality makes them both meaningless. Morality should be tied to outlooks/philosophies etc, a personal matter of how the individual acts in a situation, while alignment with the forces of good/evil/law/chaos should be a matter of absolute determinism. It’s easy to look at D&D and say it’s wrong, but just because something’s bad in D&D doesn’t mean the idea itself is bad.
I have it to where the good/evil extraplanar creatures are created as expressions of the good and evil within everything sentient.
Interestingly though it does make for compelling heroes like Drizzt and Wulfgar.
From Order of the Stick:
“Wait, aren’t dark elves evil?”
“Oh, my, no. Not since they became a player race. Now the entire species consists of Chaotic Good rebels, yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin.”
“Evil kin? Didn’t you just say they were all Chaotic Good?”
“Details.”
