Are drow inherently evil? And other D&D racial restrictions that have been loosened over the years

[HeroMarine]

Alignment is a moronic concept that doesn't make sense outside of sunday morning Disney cartoons, and you grown ups look silly as fuck discussing it.

Just sayin.

No, it makes a ton of sense. You're just morally retarded - never fully developed into an adult.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Alignment is a moronic concept that doesn't make sense outside of sunday morning Disney cartoons, and you grown ups look silly as fuck discussing it.

Alignment is a concept borrowed from some of the fantasy literature on which Dungeons & Dragons is based --- in particular, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and Michael Moorcock's Elric stories, but also influenced by other works including Tolkien's The Hobbit. It makes perfect sense in the typical D&D setting, where good (law) and evil (chaos) are real metaphysical forces that give spells to clerics and anti-clerics, affect wizardly magic, determine faction alliances, and so forth. The extension of alignment into a two-axis system with law/chaos dissociated from good/evil perhaps makes less sense, but it is possible to define law and chaos (or some other pair of opposing concepts) in a way fitting a particular campaign setting so that this second alignment axis has similar importance to the good/evil axis while being orthogonal to it and being clearly and coherently defined.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If alignment doesn't make sense explain why libtards are always evil.

 

[JamesDixon]

Alignment is a moronic concept that doesn't make sense outside of sunday morning Disney cartoons, and you grown ups look silly as fuck discussing it.

Just sayin.



P.S: which is the reason Greg Stafford's Glorantha continues to be the thinking man's fantasy setting.

So you are saying that good, neutrality, evil, law, and chaos do not exist in the slightest in the real world. I'd like you to explain that one to people. Do give us a master level lecture on this important concept of yours.

 

[JamesDixon]

In a separate thought. JarlFrank and my Malignost setting does have racial alignments. They are just on the good, neutral, and evil axis due to how the game begins at creation and there hasn't been time to establish lawful, neutral, or chaos government types. I did ensure that the only way a race can change its alignment is only by using a Wish spell. The reason is that gods that were married couples created these races in their image.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

So you are saying that good, neutrality, evil, law, and chaos do not exist in the slightest in the real world. I'd like you to explain that one to people. Do give us a master level lecture on this important concept of yours.

I'll do it for him:
>Everything is relative, dude.
>Like, sometimes people just do things and things just happen.
>Maybe to you sacrificing infants to a literal spider demon is evil, but, like, to the Drow, um, that's their culture, bro. We can't judge them and stuff.
>It's just a game, bro. Can't I just play pretend?

 

[JamesDixon]

So you are saying that good, neutrality, evil, law, and chaos do not exist in the slightest in the real world. I'd like you to explain that one to people. Do give us a master level lecture on this important concept of yours.

I'll do it for him:
>Everything is relative, dude.
>Like, sometimes people just do things and things just happen.
>Maybe to you sacrificing infants to a literal spider demon is evil, but, like, to the Drow, um, that's their culture, bro. We can't judge them and stuff.
>It's just a game, bro. Can't I just play pretend?

That ignores all of the established writings on what alignments are. There is no relativism there since good (selfless) and evil (selfish) exists. That's the point of reference. Is an act selfless or selfish? People are some real morons.

 

[HeroMarine]

So you are saying that good, neutrality, evil, law, and chaos do not exist in the slightest in the real world. I'd like you to explain that one to people. Do give us a master level lecture on this important concept of yours.

I'll do it for him:
>Everything is relative, dude.

I remember being really confused by this type of thought. When I was 13.

 

[JarlFrank]

Drow are dark-skinned, that answers OP's question.

 

[NecroLord]

In a separate thought. JarlFrank and my Malignost setting does have racial alignments. They are just on the good, neutral, and evil axis due to how the game begins at creation and there hasn't been time to establish lawful, neutral, or chaos government types. I did ensure that the only way a race can change its alignment is only by using a Wish spell. The reason is that gods that were married couples created these races in their image.

In a separate thought. @JarlFrank and my Malignost setting does have racial alignments

So all the african americans of Malignost will be chaotic evil?

 

[JamesDixon]

In a separate thought. JarlFrank and my Malignost setting does have racial alignments. They are just on the good, neutral, and evil axis due to how the game begins at creation and there hasn't been time to establish lawful, neutral, or chaos government types. I did ensure that the only way a race can change its alignment is only by using a Wish spell. The reason is that gods that were married couples created these races in their image.

In a separate thought. @JarlFrank and my Malignost setting does have racial alignments

So all the african americans of Malignost will be chaotic evil?

No, there isn't a law/neutral/chaos axis at the start of the game for the races. They are just evil and they're called Gallu. That's Babylonian for demon. They were created by Malignost (LG) and Iltani (CE). Their skin color is grey to black as per Mesopotamian myths. All the other races are all white.

 

[NecroLord]

A lawful good deity was/is married to a chaotic evil one?
That's....very interesting.

 

[JamesDixon]

A lawful good deity was/is married to a chaotic evil one?
That's....very interesting.

I never said anything about them being married. If you want to know more ask in my AD&D campaign thread.

 

[NecroLord]

A lawful good deity was/is married to a chaotic evil one?
That's....very interesting.

I never said anything about them being married. If you want to know more ask in my AD&D campaign thread.

I thought you said something about the races being formed as a result of the unions between the deities,no?
Fuck it,maybe I'm just a bit tired.

 

[Nortar]

lawful good
married to
chaotic evil

Many such cases.

 

[JamesDixon]

A lawful good deity was/is married to a chaotic evil one?
That's....very interesting.

I never said anything about them being married. If you want to know more ask in my AD&D campaign thread.

I thought you said something about the races being formed as a result of the unions between the deities,no?
Fuck it,maybe I'm just a bit tired.

I also said to ask about this in my AD&D 2E Myths of Malignost thread.

 

[NecroLord]

 

[Reinhardt]

literally this in final quest in druid's questline in ddo. "lol, we fled underdark, fuck lolth!" "oh, look, some surfacers, let's kill them and take their stuff!" last one before dying miserably "fuck you, niggers! i shouldn't have listened to you!"

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Alignment is a moronic concept that doesn't make sense outside of sunday morning Disney cartoons, and you grown ups look silly as fuck discussing it.

Alignment is a concept borrowed from some of the fantasy literature on which Dungeons & Dragons is based --- in particular, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and Michael Moorcock's Elric stories, but also influenced by other works including Tolkien's The Hobbit. It makes perfect sense in the typical D&D setting, where good (law) and evil (chaos) are real metaphysical forces that give spells to clerics and anti-clerics, affect wizardly magic, determine faction alliances, and so forth. The extension of alignment into a two-axis system with law/chaos dissociated from good/evil perhaps makes less sense, but it is possible to define law and chaos (or some other pair of opposing concepts) in a way fitting a particular campaign setting so that this second alignment axis has similar importance to the good/evil axis while being orthogonal to it and being clearly and coherently defined.

I don’t think it worked. Law/chaos has always taken a back seat to good/evil ever since the second axis was added. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer either single axis alignment or 6+ axes of alignment.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yes, I've pointed out on many occasions that Gygax's definitions of law & chaos were not anywhere near as coherent as they should have been, sometimes overlap with good & evil, and do not achieve the primal importance of good & evil to the typical fantasy campaign setting.

TSR's Planescape Campaign setting from 1994, written by David Zeb Cook, did manage to integrate law & chaos into the setting in such as a way as to truly rival good & evil in importance, though it still suffered from the conflation of several distinct concepts into each of law & chaos, since this was perpetuated from 1st edition to 2nd edition AD&D (the latter also by David Zeb Cook).

It's certainly possible to conceive of a setting with a clearly-defined, orthogonal, important 2nd axis of alignment. The Thief trilogy, for example, has an opposition between the lawful Hammerites and the chaotic Pagans, with the villains of the first game being evil Pagans, and the villains of the second game being an evil offshoot of the Hammerites. Arcanum effectively has technology versus magic as its 2nd alignment axis.

 

[NecroLord]

Yes, I've pointed out on many occasions that Gygax's definitions of law & chaos were not anywhere near as coherent as they should have been, sometimes overlap with good & evil, and do not achieve the primal importance of good & evil to the typical fantasy campaign setting.

TSR's Planescape Campaign setting from 1994, written by David Zeb Cook, did manage to integrate law & chaos into the setting in such as a way as to truly rival good & evil in importance, though it still suffered from the conflation of several distinct concepts into each of law & chaos, since this was perpetuated from 1st edition to 2nd edition AD&D (the latter also by David Zeb Cook).

It's certainly possible to conceive of a setting with a clearly-defined, orthogonal, important 2nd axis of alignment. The Thief trilogy, for example, has an opposition between the lawful Hammerites and the chaotic Pagans, with the villains of the first game being evil Pagans, and the villains of the second game being an evil offshoot of the Hammerites. Arcanum effectively has technology versus magic as its 2nd alignment axis.

Garrett himself is the very embodiment of Chaos I would say. He makes his own way,in spite all odds,but we have to account for the fact that he is also manipulated by the Keepers.
The Lady of Pain is Lawful Neutral and purely interested in keeping Sigil stable and in balance.
As much as some people hate the alignment system of D&D,it has become an almost inseparable part of it,for good or ill.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Garrett himself is the very embodiment of Chaos I would say. He makes his own way,in spite all odds,but we have to account for the fact that he is also manipulated by the Keepers.

Garrett is emphatically not associated with either Law or Chaos in the context of his setting, although he does temporarily ally with the Hammerites late in the first game in order to thwart a plot by a Pagan deity(?) and then temporarily allies with the Pagans late in the second game in order to thwart the Mechanists. The Keepers not only collect knowledge but also represent balance of a sort, and Garrett finds himself assisting his old mentors in all three games, though unwillingly at first.

The Lady of Pain is Lawful Neutral and purely interested in keeping Sigil stable and in balance.

AD&D describes a desire for maintaining a balance as one version of True Neutral alignment (though I personally have always found this to be rather silly), and in any case the Lady of Pain is so alien and inscrutable that she is really beyond alignment.

As much as some people hate the alignment system of D&D,it has become an almost inseparable part of it,for good or ill.

 

[NecroLord]

A Thief P&P RPG would be awesome.
There already is a fan made one https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/Thief:_the_Role_Playing_Game
Haven't tried it yet,but it might be just interesting.

 

[Silva]

Alignment is a moronic concept that doesn't make sense outside of sunday morning Disney cartoons, and you grown ups look silly as fuck discussing it.

Alignment is a concept borrowed from some of the fantasy literature on which Dungeons & Dragons is based --- in particular, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and Michael Moorcock's Elric stories, but also influenced by other works including Tolkien's The Hobbit. It makes perfect sense in the typical D&D setting, where good (law) and evil (chaos) are real metaphysical forces that give spells to clerics and anti-clerics, affect wizardly magic, determine faction alliances, and so forth. The extension of alignment into a two-axis system with law/chaos dissociated from good/evil perhaps makes less sense, but it is possible to define law and chaos (or some other pair of opposing concepts) in a way fitting a particular campaign setting so that this second alignment axis has similar importance to the good/evil axis while being orthogonal to it and being clearly and coherently defined.

I know of it's origins. It continues to be silly. I mean, the good-evil axis that is.

Chaos-order is fine though and if I play planescape these days I'd suggest people to keep it, since it's an interesting cosmological concept to fuel dilemmas and adventures. Even then, I'd probably keep the focus on the individual concepts each plane embodies: despair, hope, fear, courage, instinct, emotion, honor, betrayal, etc. and how those intersect with players convictions (or the factions').

 

[NecroLord]

Good and Evil are the major Cosmic Forces of the D&D Universe.
Sure,there is also Law and Chaos,but I would say that the struggle between those two pales in comparison to the battle between Good and Evil.
Let's put it this way:
A Paladin is in bed with two bitches,one is Lawful,the other is Good. He must please both of them by being Good in his actions(generous,benevolent,selfless) and Lawful in his demeanor(respecting the authority of the land he is currently in,respecting the leaders of his church/organization,following a well structured code of honor). More often than not,he will be forced to choose between Good and Law through the course of his career. Can he strongly adhere to both? Or does he choose Good as the main bitch and Law as the side bitch? A breach of etiquette,disobeying orders,and a night of drunkenness(Unlawful actions which a Paladin does not commit easily) can be forgiven but violence,greed,bloodshed,unjustly slaying a foe who has yielded(Flagrant betrayals of Good)? Yeah,guess which one of those actions will make a Paladin fall...

Good and Evil are the end goals. Law and Chaos are the manners in which someone operates to pursue those goals. Neutrality is,I would say,not giving a fuck about either Good or Evil. It's survival.