What other methods do you think could help establish villainous characters without linking their evil to their ancestry? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike
10:49 I'm not at all going to claim that Thor's dark elves were done well, but the stated beef the dark elves have is that 'this universe is toxic to them.' That's a paraphrase I don't remember the exact line, but the premise is that the universe before all the stars lit up was hospitable to them. Now that everything is bathed in light all the time, Malekith's people are literally being poisoned to death. So he wants to use the reality stone and at the convergence to turn the light off and save his people. I think there's probably a lot of potential in that set up that Thor 2 had either no interest or no time to explore. Also all of that context is hidden in 2 spoken lines which is why almost no one catches it and even if you do it doesn't make Thor 2 better.
They also are making the universe safe for themselves by making it inhospitable for everyone else, and are willing to choose to do what just happened to them to everyone else
@@w4iph I mean as it's an existential threat to their entire species, one they do not seem to be able to otherwise solve, and no one else seems to be willing to aid them with, what other recourse do they have? Do they have any responsibility to other species in the face of a species wide existential threat? Like if we discovered that in order for humans to survive, we had to wipe out all other species on Australia (or wherever) would we not do that? Would we be right to not do it? The question makes them a way more interesting antagonist, in my view.
@@Lurklen The simple math is that Everyone Else is a greater number than all of the Dark Elves. Therefore the Elves are wrong for taking the path that would most increase the net suffering and entropy in the universe. The end all be all of morality is that as sentient feeling living beings, Suffering and Entropy are at the end of the Bad Things scale, The Unacceptable. Anything that would net move the scale towards that is Wrong. It is highly unlikely that the rest of the universe made a convincing argument for the dark elves to accept extinction for its sake, so of the they would do what they did, that is all they should have ever done.
@@kjj26k Exactly, we generally think the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, until the few is our entire people. It may still be right over all, but it's a hard sell to those who are doomed. It's a difficult position for an antagonist to be put in, and a tenuous one for a hero to enforce. Makes for a way more compelling story, because it challenges the narrative that the enemy in the film is pure evil. Would have been cool to see Thor try to tackle it, and maybe not have an easy answer, or perhaps realizing that while they have been villainous in their attempts to save themselves, perhaps if the rest of the universe helped them instead of villainized them it might be better for all, and he's just the god to do it. Like what if he, being an Asgardian super being, could have tried to use the stone instead, especially as it was "in" Jane. Been the bridge between Asgardians and the Dark Elves. Perhaps make a home for the Dark Elves without dooming the universe. It is the reality stone after all. Doesn't really flow with the biff bang pow narrative of Marvel movies, but you could still have their king be bent on revenge, have a big fight with him, but a secondary character realize this is a better way. Even if it was all jane's idea, Thor being willing to listen to Jane would have shown wisdom. Would be a better indicator of Thor's path to being worthy of Kingship, than what we got.
Read the Discworld saga, it's not always so clear. He has a wonderful take on undead that is actually really humanistic. But really, as these are all fictional creatures, the premise they represent is whatever you want it to be. There's really no more reason undead are any more or less problematic than orcs, except that some people don't have the same association with them. To some it's easier to dehumanize undead, than it is an orc or whatever. Which is kind of funny because an undead was, at least at one point, human.
I both like the idea of undead not always being evil and also necromancy as an inherintly anti-life thing. Zombies inherintly want to destroy life, same with skeletons or ghouls etc. Even smart ones typically hate life for whatever reason (jealousy, superiority, etc.) But certain undead can also be not evil, as in they wont immediately attack you. A creeping hand is maybe like an undead critter, it will scatter away and hide if confronted. Or, my favorite, Banshees that just hang around and are willing to talk and maybe even trade. One idea I got from Runesmith is Banshees that hold domain in a graveyard. They know where every single grave is and who was buried there. They take care of the graveyard and will guide you to the one you need to look for.
I sometimes wonder about this. I remember desperately trying to make clear that a race of sapient rats living below the primarily city in the campaign didnt need to be slaughtered on mass. And that worked out. Lol Luckily my next campaign is set on the real earth in the Renaissance so *ideally* that won't be an issue.
Essentially, I think the idea is that your villains need to have been given a choice. No matter how tough that choice is for them. Evil for evils sake is at least a character choice. Having them lose the genetic lottery is just bad writing. (And also just icky that you think some groups are just born bad tbh)
Man…. Your videos are so dang good. This was mint. I have well established in my own setting that orcs (for example) are equally capable of being both good and bad and I really appreciate this video breaking it down as to why it’s important
I disagree with some of your arguments against perceived moral determinism in fantasy (I've seen your other videos) and I outright deny some of your premisses, like the notion that it's usage would entail a less complex narrative... however, If I (or anyone really) were to build a faction or a people to whom I wanted to atribute human-like moral/ethical complexity (which is what you are going for), your advices are top-notch! I respect your take and acknowlodge the quality of your work.
Even cults can be tricky, considering real world cult recruitment practices. That being said, avoiding homogenous mobs of faceless enemies in general is effective. Barring that, there's always undead.
True, there's still the matter of getting the players to see the difference between the cultists who carry out assassinations and sacrifices, versus the low-ranking guys who cook or do laundry in the evil temple. Before running an evil cult-themed scenario, it might be good to have a movie night and rewatch _Conan the Barbarian,_ which ended with the ordinary cultists walking away after the leadership of their cult were defeated. Or, perhaps the local informant (the "guy you meet in a tavern who knows about the dungeon") is somebody who escaped the cult and is glad somebody's going to oppose it.
Don't forget constructs! Probably the most diversely useful generic bad guys. Literally any wizard who could either be the big bad or a right hand man of any other kind of villain. They can be used as primary cannon fodder types without any sense of moral guilt (who cares about an empty suit of armour?) and their presence doesn't invalidate that of other, more morally complex villains, which also gives you more diversity for your ultimate big bad. They don't just have to be a nerd they could be a charismatic military man, or a mastermind manipulator with nerd friends and lieutenants. It also avoids weird necromancy morality stuff, i.e. our immediate reaction to necromancy is to say it's inherently bad but then you think about it and it's at worst morally grey.
@@kirinthewanderer5896 Also, the whole point of classic dungeons is that they've been lost for a long time and are full of ancient treasures and secrets. Goblins and the like have to be new arrivals. Constructs, though, could have been there since the place was last in use. They can make sense there, be created in theme with the rest of the dungeon, and nobody has to feel bad about dismantling an iron golem (well, maybe the party's Artificer will feel bad about it). Treat 'em like bosses in Zelda and build them to be unique challenges, and the players will always remember that encounter.
What about the idea of some race or faction that isn't "evil", but has some objective stuff going on that can't really be just solved, with the amount of time and resources going on in a typical campaign? The easiest thing that comes to my mind is conflict around some land or other resource, but in a world where beliefs make a direct impact, religion may also be in this category. I see how it may be uncomfortable to some people, but I don't think it's offensive or lame.
mike, I freaking LOVE how you do multi-part/topic videos! It feels so fun to know what's happening for the next couple Tuesdays and thursdays and it legit makes me a little sad when they're over (like oh man I was really living in that topic for a week)--but then a new one happens so I'm happy again and excited for what's next! Idk there's just something about that format that really resonates with me, just thought you'd like to know 😊😊
The xanathar guild in dragon heist is a really strange example of some of these. Its a crime syndicate where most of the members who've been around for more than like a week are motivated in large part by fear of letting down xanathar himself and the consequences of doing so, and in a city based adventure where most of the other factions are aggressively humanoid, having a faction with some more monstrous races I think is a good change of pace, but most of the monstrous races just kinda being dumped into the xanathar guild does send kinda a weird message, even if I feel like the idea of a crime syndicate formed of various rogue peoples who feel like outcasts because the way the city and society at large is structured is inherently not suited to them is a cool concept.
Personally one of my favorite ways to have villain group of a specific ancestry without having the whole ancestry be evil is something like “the town was on good terms with the local orc settlement, but then the orc in charge was killed by his replacement, who also killed all the other orcs who opposed him so the only orcs in the area are the ones loyal to him”
Another super interesting thing you can steal for your game is the way that the cree react to Ronin's terrorism. They will not make a statement denouncing his actions, maybe because some minority or majority within the cree actually like what he's doing for the "old traditions" of their people and hate the peace as much as him. Of course they won't say anything good about him because he's a volatile terrorist doing terrible things in the eyes of other species. But they won't say anything bad about him either. You can use this cultural tension for something like hobgoblins or orcs, maybe some of the modern ones kinda like a return to strength, seen in your renegade villain, regardless of the terrible consequences. Maybe the more victories the villain wins, the more followers they can recruit from those intrigued by their actions.
Eh….interesting villain however it’s possible there could be some anthropomorphism going on in regards to you attributing human morality to monsters/villains. Where is the basis of the morality coming from? Maybe Orcs are actually all evil from a human perspective in the same way a pride of lions would be considered evil if they were humans and not lions. The males kill young regularly so they can reproduce, they reject and shun the sick old and injured, they predate on newly born infants born if the opportunity presents its self ect. Maybe some of these other monsters just have these behaviors because that’s how they survive and they just seem evil to outsiders.
I love this. It never sat well with me an entire race being evil and it's good to look at these things and always question our own thoughts on why we do things the way we do. Very good video.
I think a really interesting twist could be to make an orc culture akin to the mandalorians. Its a mercenary faction that's rented out to either, or sometimes even both sides. The king who hires the players might have well respected Manda-Orcians serving as their honor guard, while the big bad might also have a horde of manda-orcian elites. Allowing players to fight against that dnd fantasy of an orc horde, even after having met some outstanding orcs. That gives players incentives to potentially NOT go lethal on these guys, though if they do, it is part of that line of work, and gives them a far more human-feeling interrogation, and potentially even rewards the players with good faction rep or allies. "We were hired to defend this point. We lost. Contracts over, we're going home. Good game. Since we're definitely not getting paid by that evil wizard now, know any place looking for some muscle?" You can even then put someone else far more evil and actually terrible behind them, much like you would with zombies.
That's actually something that a lot of the Hobgoblins were known for in several things, if you could perform a useful service for their hordes and were willing to live by their rules, you could, normally, join. Sure, they tended to be brutal, but they're a VERY ordered society. In many ways, they heavily fit a combo of the mongols along with the arthurian take on the Romans
Question: when you said that the goblin butler made you for uncomfortable, why should you feel that way about a fantasy creature in a fantasy setting when you are not said race? You have no idea how that goblin got to be where he is or how he grew up. I don't think it was ever brought up in the campaign at any point (then again, it's been a couple of years, so I could be wrong). He could've been all alone when he was offered a job by the wizard. He could've been an aspiring magic caster when the wizard saw some potential and brought him in. It could be due to a life debt that the goblin had pledged himself to the wizard. Or he could be an "Alfred Pennyworth" in that he's the one who takes care of the wizard when he's engrossed in magic. We don't exactly know their relationship, so it is best to not assume the worst. If you see the worse in a situation, then that's not a very good outlook on life. You're just pre-judging people without even knowing who they are or where they came from based off of your own biases.
Aren't immortal extraplanar entities made of the alignment they represent? A demon without evil sounds like dehydrated water. Yes, I know about Fall-From-Grace in Planescape: Torment. She's great, but every companion in the game is extremely atypical because of interactions with an even more bizarre being: the PC.
I DM a game for my family - kiddo was 8 when we started, so I was very conscious of this. We are mostly dealing with an infestation of undead, most of which did not want to be undead and are being compelled by a necromancer. There are other complications occasionally to keep it interesting, but that's a variation I think only works for undead; if they were living creatures being compelled, killing them would still be a problem.
I watch a decent amount of DM advice videos/channels (St. Cuthbert knows there are enough of them)--usually logged out with overlapping ad & privacy blockers, to hopefully corral Google a bit. This is the video that got me to log in and subscribe. Mike, I keep coming back to you because your priorities and gut senses about interpersonal kindness are just so trustworthy. I can tell you're starting from the right place, and putting a lot of thought and effort into how to be good to people, and tell stories around the table that are healthy for everyone involved--dangerous as they may be for the PCs. It's not just that I'm in the middle of figuring out how to run a violently nationalistic hobgoblin culture responsibly; or that I can trust you to balance storytelling necessities, like the need for (some) clear, unequivocal antagonists. It's that you're also going to start the video offering earnestness and understanding to people like me, who are messes of hurt and anger right now about Palestine and western disinterest. Thank you for your great instincts. And for the time and energy you put toward leaning into them.
One of the players chose to make their character from a foreign country to the one the campaign started in, which was great. I talked to her about that other nation's culture and society, and she wrote a great back story. The PCs had not encountered any goblins yet. Teh first mention of one the got was when this character, a hunter with outlander background, pulled out her "trophy" Tiger hide to use as a sleeping mat. They asked about it, and she told the story of how she was part of a hunting party that killed the tiger and was awarded the hide because she happened to land the killing blow. Standard backstory stuff. Other players nodding their heads, until she mentioned that the tiger had killed the child of a goblin farmer. When they heard "Goblin farmer' heads perked up because the nation she was from didn't consider goblins "monsters"
I once ran a one-shot that borrowed the Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders from Exile/Avernum. They are dog-sized spiders who cheerfully ask if you'd like a bug to eat and will jabber your head off about spiderly topics; they probably have an intelligence of like 5. My players immediately tried to kill them, even after it was abundantly clear they were not aggressive and were pretty childlike. Got any tips for if your players simply aren't buying what you're selling? lol
I really, really struggle with the idea of species which used to be perceived as "monstrous" or "evil" being accepted members of human society now. When I started delving into D&D and the Forgotten Realms, those ideas were simply unheard of. Half-Orcs were barely accepted in most human settlements. The likes of orcs, goblins or drow were attacked (or run from) on sight and most people in-universe perceived them as evil by nature. There was no way the city guard would let any of them in. This made sense to me, as the dominant cultures among those species had brought nothing but violence and hatred to the outside world. And also, we're talking about a world which is heavily inspired by late mediaeval and renaissance Europe. Most people are not going to be particularly open minded or tolerant of anything that differs much from what they’re used to. Sure, I as a player know that not all Drow are evil (everyone knows Drizzt, after all) but did my character know that as well? And even if they did, would that mean they would want anything to do with a random Drow they meet? Probably not, because statistically speaking, they're very likely to be a follower of Lolth or maybe Vhaeraun e.g. very, very bad news. And yes, every DM can run their game however they want. If they want to have human societies that are more inclusive than the most progressive societies in the real world right now, they can do that. It seems kinda weird to me, though. Just look at how prevalent racism and bigotry are between humans in the real world. People of the same species! Just imagine how much worse intelligent, sentient non-human species would be treated. Well, you don't have to imagine. Our ancestors wiped out the neanderthals, for example. But I totally get why some people would not want that kind of realism in their games. But here is the thing: It's not just about individual DMs, tables or games. The campaign settings, adventures, videogames etc. just did a 180 on that matter without any explanation at all. The Forgotten Realms are suddenly very inclusive towards species that were shunned and attacked on sight only a few decades earlier. The authors didn't make any attempt to explain these huge changes. In Baldur's Gate II there was a Drow who snuck into the city of Athkatla and when people discovered her identity, they wanted to burn her at the stake. You as the player had the choice to either let it happen or to intervene. That was a great moment and of course my heroic character saved her! But he also refused to let her join the party afterwards. Saving her life was one thing, but trusting her another. In Baldur's Gate 3 there are dozens of Drow in the city of Baldur's Gate and the worst that ever happens to them is a racist remark from a douchebag npc. Very, very far from being burned at the stake. This just doesn't make any sense to me. It even breaks my immersion. And no, I am not in favour of any kind of discrimination in real life. I just fell in love with the Forgotten Realms when they were much grittier and more realistic in that regard and then those things were changed without any explanation. It really doesn't make sense in many cases. Realistically speaking, most orcs in the Forgotten Realms are members of tribes that worship evil gods and are extremely violent. So letting orcs into a city or town would lead to pointless bloodshed more often than not. It's only logical that people would therefore exclude orcs from their settlements. Would it be fair to the minority of orcs who don't act that way? Absolutely not. But that's a much more interesting topic to explore than a society that is unrealistically inclusive, in my opinion. Again, look at how refugees are treated in the real world. And they don’t come from cultures worshipping Grumsh and waging wars against humanity as a whole. Even if some racists act like they do.
I probably misremember but was the goblin servant in C2 actually the first civil goblin? The players came upon a while city of monstrous species at one point. Those were certainly civilized.
I've actually started to go in and come up with different origins for each race, and that's really started me down a path of thinking about each culture. I think a lot of this issue comes from the alignment table and people's relatively limited understanding of it. As well as the monster manual having an alignment for each creature.
I'd also like to add, for context, that I still use the term Race in my personal lore because they are grouped into legitimately different species with their own ancestry.
In my original DnD setting, the original alignment of creatures and monsters that are intelligent such as goblins and orcs are the baseline. They are what the majority are and how they define their culture. It is the ones who break away from this that are the rarity and that help to show that there are differences in individuals and sometimes even whole communities. I very much follow the vein of Drizzt Do'Urden's example, and often that is what helps to create conflict in those racial communities. Of course, I still make differences in other races too. There are dwarven assassins, greedy and proud Metallic dragonborn, and evil wood elves. I also use a cult. But I try to make my campaign be something where the party can either fight the cultists sworn to kill all dragonkind or join them, so that means making the cultists' motivations, whether they are high on the totem pole or low, be understandable, and maybe even persuasive. It makes the party have to second-guess themselves whether they are the good guys or not. Really, the only truly evil beings are ones tied to the Lower Planes or those monsters or creatures that are psychotic or sociopathic in nature. By throwing in devils, demons, and the like every now and then, it helps the party to focus on a truly evil entity and compare it to to cultists that they are fighting. I've also added in an assassin's guild who works with the cultists for the money (and in some cases, the prestige of having to kill dragons). While this can muddy the waters on who is who here, I think that helps to create some interesting situations where the party has to figure out if it's the assassins that they are fighting or the cultists.
(Long comment, apologies for the word count, but it's a complex topic and I couldn't find a shorter way to express my thoughts without sounding pithy or dismissive. Read, or not, at your own leisure.) "So yeah, fuck em." But that's so much more messed up. Like, if the alien monster that cannot be negotiated with invades your home because it is programmed at a genetic level, or designed by an evil god, or made of evil phlebotinum, to kill and destroy, then there's not really another course of action. The evil murder robot is going to kill you, so you gotta get rid of em. They're "bad". But even "goose steppers" are people. Maybe they're ideologically opposed people, maybe with a horrible ideology that you find reprehensible and is antithetical to your beliefs and way of life, but they were kids, they laugh and cry, they have all the same feelings and emotions you do. Who knows why they made that choice, maybe the pressure of a regime or culture pushed them to it, maybe there was generations of cultural momentum that said, dogs are a symbol for all evil, you gotta kill them. Maybe they just don't believe that they should let their son/friend/work buddy be murdered because he killed the wrong guy's dog, even if they think it was the wrong thing to have done. It's so much more morally tenuous to just say "Oh, no it's fine to kill those guys, they're crazy because they worship Nytholortep the Hunger Star. They're unreachable. They kill lambs. They killed my dog. They aren't like us. They made a choice. Fuck em." The reason we don't think that, isn't just because we can go meet Germans (because I gotta tell ya, as someone of German descent, some people do not feel that way about us. Some people feel that we are a bad people. That I am bad, because of my association with that people. I wasn't even alive then, and both sides of my family suffered terribly as a result of that insane regime, but in spite of all the kindly Germans out there, they still wouldn't want me at their bbq. Which is in my mind a pretty extreme belief, if one I can kind of understand someone coming to) but because it's a fiction. In real life, Indiana Jones is a bad man. He's a murderer. He's done messed up stuff, to bad people sure, but that doesn't make what he did good. Luke Skywalker is a terrorist who killed everyone on the Death Star, even the janitors and cooks, even the nurses and doctors. Batman is a fascist psycho. John Wick is a pitiless monster, more akin to a living plague than a person. But they don't exist in real life, they exist within the moral confines of their fictional premise. And in that premise they are freaking awesome! Like, it's not okay to kill Goose steppers (or your extreme and dangerous belief of choice). If they are violently attacking you, or causing direct harm, or whatever, it's a moral prerogative to stop them, and that might include killing or otherwise harming them. But it's not a good thing to do. It's a potentially necessary bad thing. But in the confines of a narrative, it's good, and maybe even fun. If an entire ancestry or species is built to extinguish life, it absolutely strips them of personhood as we understand it. But that's because *It is fundamentally wrong to kill people just because they think differently than you, even if it's something you must do because otherwise you will die.* That's why we think war is wrong. Why it should be avoided if at all possible. Because we know it's a bad solution, that puts us in a position where even if we are fighting for the right reasons, we are forced to do bad things that people should not do. It makes monsters of men. Stripping monsters of personhood is the point. They are narrative tools to allow for a heroic experience. Killing *people* even *bad people* isn't meant to be heroic. Either you make the conscious decision to role play a different morality than we have in the real world, one where you are a violent person who has a wholly different moral outlook. Or you don't. But trying to thread the needle through this half measure seems, to me, to only put you in a worse moral position. By our moral standards, most adventurers are just bad people who should have stayed home and got a real job. I also think it's weirder to consider "civilized" and integrated creatures "normal". It's a weird flattening of their existence into essentially an ideological issue, where if they had just been raised among "us" or whoever the "normal" people are, they would be "good". The point of not presenting them as alien and morally opposed by their very nature, is to grant them the moral agency and equity as any other ancestry/race/species of humanoid. So then why are we saying that they're uncivilized or evil? Isn't that just judging another culture as less than because it doesn't fit the norms of a dominant or more consolidated and technologically advanced one? It's still picking a side, but it sounds *more* condescending than them just being fundamentally different from whatever we are. Like you call the Kree culture "toxic and unhealthy", but I mean, is it? For humans (and I guess Xandarians, and by the standards of the film, and thus us) sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't working for them. They do have a bazillion year old space empire. It's kind of messed up for you to say that, what would your Kree audience say? (I kid, but you have been cancelled on Kreetube, except their super robot god already knew you would say that, so you weren't allowed on the platform anyways.) If aliens and monsters are "just like us" then we take on even more of a colonial and culturally oppressive mindset when we regard their viewpoints and motivations as automatically villainous because they clash with ours. We assume the moral right, but if all things are equal, there's no reason we should actually have it. How do we know we aren't the baddies? Maybe our culture is toxic and unhealthy by Kree standards. How can we judge them by our societal norms without being totally biased? Basically, while we do want to present a world filled with verisimilitude and characters that feel real and alive, we should be aware that we are still engaging in a moral fantasy that requires a step outside of the norms and ideals we exist in, in real life. To fail to do so is intellectually dishonest. Outside of the premise of the game, your characters are bad people. They are blood soaked reactionaries, who have killed more people than anyone you will ever meet (hopefully). They have engaged in horror and slaughter, and been responsible for suffering, often gleefully and for their own gain, as well as to push their own agendas, political, moral or religious. They see someone who is part of an extreme belief and think they can pretty much do whatever they want to them because they are "evil". It's not okay to kill extremists. It's not okay to kill anyone (even if it is at times justifiable as an action). In our world, they would be monsters. Even the nice ones. But thankfully, because this is a fiction, and we've all agreed with the premise it exists in, we don't think of them that way. They can be heroes.
I think introducing the goblin as a manservant was a smart move. If the player characters attack a servant simply because it's a goblin, they'd risk making an enemy of the master and their allies. Once the characters grow past the attack-on-instinct thing, they can meet more goblins or other 'monstrous' looking people while keeping things peaceful. Now CR can do more layered antagonists: people who joined a cult because they were desperate to improve their lot in life, as well as plenty who joined just to watch the world burn. Can any of them be talked out of it? Should the player characters even try for diplomacy? Time will tell!
It really can't be done. The problem you're running into actually affects all literature. The more real you try to make something the less real it becomes, because you can never write something as complicated as the real word. Nazis are almost the exception that proves the rule. Can all members of the Axis powers be killed without qualms? How about the Nazi who saved thousands of Chinese? And how is killing people based on their ideology really much different than centuries of religious wars? I'm sympathetic to what you want to do but there just isn't a non problematic way to do it. Better to understand that you're just playing in a fairy story and the monsters are stand ins for the concept of evil as opposed to real creatures that actually might exist.
Honestly, when it comes to dealing with orcs and hobgoblins, I always work under the impression that they don’t think they’re evil. They think they’re doing the right thing. They just want their people to live better lives and they’re perfectly willing to kill you because plenty of adventurers of burn down their villages so fuck them. If my players were to ever capture one of them, the villains would have a perfectly justifiable reason for what they’re doing. It’s not just them being evil for the sake of being evil. They want a better life for their people and they’re perfectly willing to kill you to get it.
I would say also to use the fantasy setting to its full potential, in that there are plenty of factions that are pure evil and also do not have any real life counterpart. Liches transforming themselves and maintaning their forms by killing people, and Devils being the souls of people who essentially agree to be tortured to have everything good removed from their soul are things in D&D. You could argue it's the same thing as monsters that are born evil, but here the difference is that becoming a member of those races is a choice.
It's one of the things you need to consider when you have gods, especially creator level gods that are actually interacting with things. It's one thing to turn away from Zeus for another god in the real world, but a far rarer thing when he's occasionally popped up to strike an apostate with his thunderbolt personally...
"Children have died and more children are about to die, and that *is* more important than my TH-cam video." You accidentally said that it's not more important.
In my settings Orcs were created by the gods to endlessly wage war on Humanity because Humanity needs a common enemy to fight otherwise they'll start killing each other.
First, your segment before the topic is superb, you are a really great guy Mike. Second and talking about the topic, the campaign isn't that long but at the moment I'm working more about factions (a bunch of crooked criminals that may have orcs and goblins and also elfs and humans, or a inn regented by drows that is a familiar business for generations) so my players see there aren't evil ancestries. But I would like to work the cult angle sometime and perhaps some things you said might have helped me follow a thread.
I can use all these different ideas AND still have some things be evil because *evil*. They're all tools in your arsenal, really. Just do what works (and what you like, of course).
Cults are also amazing ways to sell how irredeemable a villain is. Many real life cults recruit the desperate and distraught, cut them off from their previous lives, then wring them out for everything they can. They could see the practices used by the Cult leader to break down new recruits, build them up into a new community, then use that community to further their own ends.
Considering that you mentioned drow there is whole thing with them in FR lore that ones that are considered evil are ones that worship Lloth but there are drow that don't worship her. There are also cases like that Elmister's drow apprentice who's father become lich but still cares about his daughter and of course Drizzt who is best known case of "not all drow are evil". As far as Lloth worshipping drow goes even they are more victims of they society than being evil themselves.
Don't know if it's on your end or my headphones being weird but there's a weird roboty voice thing that briefly happened a few times, didn't affect my enjoyment of your great video just letting you know
A little timely, but I’m curious about this with say, mind flayers. The books more or less describe them as not having the capacity for anything other than evil
What are the odds! You bring up red hand of doom right after I start up my red hand campaign! I like how much the module lets you flesh out the hobgoblins
So, narratively you need a race of monsters right? You need enemies that players can kill without feeling bad. My rule for races is "anything that gives birth to children cannot be a wholly evil race." This allows for races that are evil without saying anything about society. Orcs in my worlds are outsiders, maybe having a lower tech level, but not dumb and not evil. I usually run them like Mongols. Stange rules, different gods, and different bonds and ideals, but there are no safer roads than those under Orc protection. Though I would not be lying if I didn't say there wasn't a bit of Warhammer Greenskin inspiration too. Grimgor, my beloved. Contrast this with Orcs in Percy Jackson's LOTR trilogy. They are literally created on an assembly line, built for one purpose and one purpose only. To end the world of men. Both are acceptable and neither are problematic imo. It also gets past the Drow issue, because I love RA Salvatore's Drow but... I'm not RA Salvatore, and even those have glaring problems with them. Not really related to the video's main point, just my two cents.
In my homebrew world, the "monstrous" races, which I actually always put in quotation marks, have usually been driven to raiding "civilized" races purely because they have been forced to the fringes and have to steal to survive. I find that this does a few things. My players are all politically active and conscientious, and genuinely enjoy discussing how to deal with these issues. This allows those things that we're passionate about to be seen and dealt with in our favorite hobby! It also shows that someone of any race can be driven to do "evil". In fact, the main antagonists of my campaign are the gods themselves, who are literal paragons of good. I like to show that evil is not driven by genetic markers, but by selfish acts. The "monstrous" races mostly act in perceivably evil ways when they have no choice but to think selfishly, and even the most "good" beings can act evilly when driven purely by self at the expense of all others. Hopefully that makes sense. I'm just very passionate about this subject and thought that I had a good solution.
I feel like part of the reason why I don't often have certain monstrous species mixed in with my other settlements is partly because in the settings I want to be complex I often like to include the idea that you perhaps have two different cultures running up against each other with various geopolitical pressures coming into conflict. But like the humans the monsters aren't necessarily totally united in how they want to solve these tensions, and some humans and other species that consider themselves "civilised" are more sympathetic to these monstrous races and willing to seek compromises with them than others. So one thing i've occassionally done is have it so that if I'm introducing an orc villain then perhaps its a different orc tribe that approaches the players and asks for help.
I'm DMing a game in a homebrew city of the Underdark near Neverwinter and I like how BG3 dealt with the drow - Lolth-sworn and Seldarine ones which I get inspired by. So in my city, the drows co-exist with deep gnomes and dwarves since they denounced Lolth. One of the PCs is the daughter of a Matron and she is on a journey to get free from this doctrine which is pretty cool.
If you want some real fun, you could toss in some Vulkhoor worshippers since Lolth fucked up and got at least a copy of him loose and rampaging through the Demonweb pits and occasionally breeching into Faerun. She found a way to breech into Eberron because there were drow there and got the murder scorpion for her stupidity and has had to contend with him ever since. That popped up in lore stuff thanks to the setup for Dungeons & Dragons: Online, and started as the explanation for how some heroes could go between Stormreach and a town in Faerun (which led to the Hall of Heroes that allows easy transit between the worlds), and has been referenced in various other sourcebooks. Most of his worshippers are not worshiping him to be pious, most worship and give tribute in the hopes that he leaves them alone save for some crazies because he tends to slaughter everything in his path in a chaotic evil, survival of the fittest way...
I think a good example of an evil faction done right is the cult of the absolute in baldurs gate 3. A diverse fanatical group of creatures that make for many interesting encounters both combat and social. And the cult has a bunch of layers with various members having quite different beliefs and knowledge of what the absolutes ultimate goal is
Your point at 4:47 was actually done in the early Paper Mario games, of all things. In both 64 and Thousand Year Door, you encounter villages/communities of friendly, helpful Goombas and Koopas. ("Species" that are basic enemies in the platform games) It's rarely, if ever, explain WHY some of them side with Bowser and some don't (because, you know, a Mario game isn't really going to get political), but the important part is they EXIST, and this is treated as a casual fact of the world that nobody questions. Simply by doing this, you show that their entire species aren't inherently evil. Your talk on Ronan is reminding me of another game I've played, the first Xenoblade Chronicles, which sort-of deconstructs the idea of "evil races" by having the protagonist, and by extension the players, meet the fanatics of a faction FIRST and then gradually introducing members with more nuanced motivations, before finally having you visit the world they come from and finding everyone there considers the (at that point) antagonist a violent extremist they're all ashamed of.
Funnily enough, I was supposed to release a video a few days before the events in early October, and in it I talk about how I like to interpret Goblins in a much more sympathetic way. But I got sick and had to move the video to the following week. At the end I had a line that went like “if goblins are going to be treated like the bad guy, they’re going to fight back like one” YEAH that line got cut from the video XD.
stopping at 4:47 to answer the question in my own words before finishing the video. "How do we include hordes of hobgoblins or drow or whatever else without implying that they're all born evil?" By making their CULTURE evil. but not necessarily the creatures within it. Hobgoblin culture could be by-and-large lawful evil, but still have a majority of their population be neutral, maybe even a few good-aligned members in there as well. These are the people who simply live their day to day lives on their own, the workers and crafters and farmers. They may live in a society that practices cannibalism or slavery or whatever else, but they're not the ones actively encouraging or hunting for more fodder for those practices, they kind of just put up with it and go with the flow. You could have any mix of alignments within one culture and stull have that culture be one spesific alignment. A handful of chaotic neutral hobgoblins isn't going to shift the alignment of all hobgoblin culture after all. it's just working on the collective of all hobgoblins together, and it all roughly adds up to lawful evil in the end.
The biggest stumbling block to character motivation in D&D is the alignment system. If you limit your noc factions to only the "Evil" ones being the "bad guys," you are missing out. People always hold up Raislinn from the Dragonlance novels as an example of "See! Even PCs can be evil!" Dig through some of the old Magic the Gathering novels. There's plenty of examples of the non-black mana factions being the bad guys. In the Odyssey block of books set in Otaria the biggest enemy faction is a fascist white mana crusader army trying and failing to conquer the continent. The black mana cabal faction is really just minding it's own business by setting up trade cities and running gladiatorial pit fights. The entire old Kamigawa trilogy of books revolves around a black mana aligned rogue struggling to undo the world ending cataclysmic war caused by the white mana king seeking immortality at the expense of the spirit world. The second and third books in the first Ravnica trilogy are full of non-black mana factions almost ending the world. Book two revolves around an Izzet mad scientist letting the tools of his world domination plot break free and try to destroy the world. Book three swings back and forth between the Simic trying to mutate and rule every living being in the world, and the Azorius trying to litigate all the other factions into prisons. The worst part is there's one perfect example of this in D&D lore. The lawful good Greyhawk diety Pholtus is, for all intents and purposes, a nazi. His followers are more than likely nazis. They're a lawful good villain faction. The reliance on alignment as a check box to denote which npcs can be killed with impunity is one of the most childish and outdated systems in D&D that is still in the books even though it never worked in the first place.
You know how the classic "you meet a wizard in a tavern who gives you the adventure" is played out? Well, who else would know stuff about distant places? The answer is travelers who have already passed through the adventure locale and came away with firsthand observations or that area's gossip/legends. Those don't have to be humans. They could be elves or dwarves . . . or they could be wandering goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, lizardfolk, etc. who aren't up to anything bad. They could be in town to trade, buying food maybe, or cloth to repair their traveling clothes. Orcs might come into town to sell off a magic item they found in a dungeon -- they don't know the language for the item's activation word so it's useless to them, but they know the humans will give them gold for it. Nonhumans who are simply trading or moving on in the morning aren't only good for establishing cultural complexity, they're an opportunity for the party to learn a few things that no human could yet know about adventuring opportunities beyond the borders of human lands. Some might say that it wouldn't happen because the humans would drive off or slay goblin or orc travelers if they showed up in town. Well, then, why don't they do that to Dragonborn or Tieflings? If the town doesn't kill lizard-like (heck, dragon-like!) monster-people, or fiend-people, then it's probably safe for a group of unusual visitors seeking to buy and sell. If the town is more likely to show prejudice to that wandering family of orcs just trying to buy food, consider having a ranger with them to make introductions. Complications make for interesting situations, and that makes the game more fun.
I have a goblin cook npc, straight goblin goofiness whilst describing his mad obsession with making the perfect meals. I had him roll a profession check the first two nights for how good the food is, and crit both times. He was able to use crazy ingredients the party gave him. Ended up moving into PCs manor.
in a world Im developing, i definitely prefer the idea that goblins aren't evil, but that goblins and humans are competing for similar biomes (though goblins are better at exploiting marginal spaces within a human environment, like abandoned spaces) and so they come into conflict for sociological reasons rather than difference in alignment. This makes it a lot easier to justify why one group of goblins might enjoy legal standing with the local human government but another doesnt. One abides by a treaty, the other are outlaws (just as humans can be upstanding citizens or dangerous brigands)
If you play more political/war campain can also make the orcs, for esample, an enemy kingdom that is at war against the home nation of the players for land or resources, whitou any need to make one the two side the "evil", or both are evil in the eyes of they enemy. In a campain I played for esample our party defended a village against orcs marauder and killed many of them, but we didn't do it because they were evil but because if we didn't kill them they would have take away sheeps and grains. In medieval setting people rading the neighbours for resources or treasures should be quite normal.
Hey, do you know where I can do more research on “one of the good ones”? Also, when making nonhuman races servants, you can always make their boss evil or them displeased with their job. That opens up even more story threads
As someone whose D&D group lands firmly in the Venn diagram with the furry fandom, I can tell you that some players absolutely think of gnolls as a relatable species.
I was proud of my explanation for evil perception of orcs. In the beginning, the world was so volatile that the races were torn on the best way to survive. Most wanted to plant themselves and make a home. The majority of orcs decided it was better to keep moving because what was safe today may not be safe tomorrow. Things as bad as they were, all factions/races were struggling and fighting for resources. Through perception, the majority of orcs were my world’s first raiders. As time passed, some kept the lifestyle and remain perceived evil. And as we know in the real world, people focus on the bad more than the good.
One of my players is an orc, and I'm working on a band of orc raiders based on Sparta with a hint of nomad. They're like Grog's family: not so much evil as misguided and set in their ways. I'm hoping my player will be an ambassador for them as the game progresses, but I could also see him being like "Guys, you abandoned me as an infant because the stars said I'd be 'too soft.' Fuck all of you." This gave me some good tips for the tribe, so thanks!
For my campaign setting i made sure to make the steryotypical evil monster races just a faction or regional occurrence. My orcs were made by the god of celebration and everywhere that the fanatical cult that hates them is in control the orcs are pushed to the dark caves and have taken to violence. Everywhere else theyre rich in culture snd loved in towns. You can wear both hats as a gm
In one of my campaigns I had a cultist serial killer summon a spined devil and an imp and attacked the players, and after dispatching the devils, the players were still torn and felt guilty when they questioned and then killed the cultist, that was when I realised the only ways I can create truly monstrous creatures my players can kill without remorse such as the devils themselves, undead, or literal monsters like giant worms and mind flayers/beholders, even if some of those can also be given nuance, they're not loaded or charged in any way.
It seems glaringly obvious when you look at it in retrospect, but, antagonists (whether true "villains" or merely opposition) with depth and nuance really do help draw players in, and aid with immersion. Granted, be sure you know what your players want, not just from Session Zero, but, checking in for feedback every so often. Sometimes, it can feel good to stand fast against a faceless horde. By "faceless", that could mean where their faces are concealed, or, there's so many moving in the chaos of the battlefield, so details are nearly impossible to come by in the moment.
19:06 Are you saying here that any person in a cult is completely irredeemable? What if they've been "brainwashed" or coerced in some way? Are you saying the people without the mental fortitude to resist such influences are not worth trying to reintegrate into more mainstream society? In D&D it's quite possible that they're under some sort of magical influence and their actual soul is metaphorically screaming in torment at the actions they're being forced to do. What if they've joined the cult simply because, for instance, a sibling has been kidnapped and "programmed" by the cult and now they're there trying to keep that unfortunate from harm but have to go along with the cult's wishes whilst biding their time.
This is certainly one of those examples where there’s potential for a much deeper story. The ultimate goal of the video is to establish a baseline where people can still run the same type of pulp-style game but without writing off all the enemies as evil by birth. It’s also worth noting that real-world cults are different from the cults in D&D adventures (real-world cults are usually scams to get money from their members, whereas D&D cults use real magic to try to conquer or end the world), but either way, you could totally tell a story about somebody challenging their programming/indoctrination and trying to atone.
One could make a campaign where the pcs start in a "classic" fantastisch world and are tanken with killing alot of orcs. But before the end the players will learn that the orks are not mindless and just try to survive and try to Integrate. Its just where ever they go they are met with aggression and thus have to steal and fight to survive
Good video. I prefer more realistic (or at least as realistic as a game about magic and mythological creatures can get) and/or morally diverse setting when playing. To that end, for my current campaign, I have introduced one traditionally evil species to one player's character as part of their backstory. My approach was that of cultural exposure/understanding. Basically, I painted that species' actions as understandably aggressive/hostile (from an outside perspective) but the character grew up exposed to that with a deeper understanding and therefore knows that such acts are not out of pure malice; and that there is greater meaning other than just that they are evil. I am looking forward to the possible session where the character can take the chance/opportunity to shine by using that knowledge to solve a problem and/or propel the story further.
The opposite of this, is... how would you make an "all evil" species... what does that mean, what are the implications? the current 5e Gnoll Lore shows in some ways how to do it right I think... and I think a lesson can be taken from gnolls, but I would take it a step further... what are the implications of this? Waht happens when these entities are freed from wahtever controls them? I feel most people who do make a species/creature all inherently evil almost always miss the mark, because there is an inherent existential horror to that, and if you dont include in-universe debates, and some level of existentialism, or a way to free them... then you arent doing it "right" (not that I think this is a good idea in any way)
As someone who played a Goblin in their first PF2e campaign, is currently playing a Ratfolk in another, nearly played a Kobold in a 3.5e campaign, (...That's not 'nearly' as in 'I had a better idea for that campaign' that's 'nearly' as in 'I built a Kobold and the campaign collapsed before Session 1' - It happens sometimes), and who used to read the webcomic Goblins, the comment you highlighted at 3:16 _annoys_ me for reasons that go far beyond the scope of this video.
In my world, I handled the Drow by having there be a Drow empire, with more traditional views, as well as communities closer to the surface who are against them. There are also forces within that empire that are not towing the party line as it were. It makes for some really good storylines when you have a half-Drow in your party.
You could also decide as a group on pokemon rules. If you defeat an enemy it is automatically nonlethal unless there is some dramatically significantly reason for it to be lethal. Sure it won't fit gritty campaigns but for others then after the fight you have to deal with them still. Even if they are unquestionably bad guys that you are arresting they still get a chance to be funny, have connections, justify their actions, or simply exist beyond that fight.
I'm recreating and rewriting the background and social status of the goblins for my own homebrew world building project by utilizing the mythology of the real world and history with some twists. For example, hobgoblin is originally a household spirit or sprites and belongs to hobs, along with bogles, goblins, redcaps, bluecaps and brownies and the way how modern fantasy describes hobbies is often very different from what the creatures are like in original mythology and old folklore, where hobbies are naturally civilized but mischievous and playful (except redcap who dyes its hat red with fresh blood). The twist I'm developing, on the other hand, examines the hobs' relationship with the mythological kobolds/kobaloi and the god of death Orcus and orcs/orceans (which requires the mix-matching of some geographically separated mythologies). Also unresolved is the hobgoblin's connection to Puck, púca, bauchan, boggart, bugbear and boobach (bwbach) but these are probably variants of bogles.
Part2 In the homebrew world I'm creating, however, whether the hobs are antagonists or enemies depends on the situation and the decisions, and the decisions have consequences, such as that harming an innocent and innocent goblin can be declared an outlaw and a wanted notice issued for the perpetrators. The situation is more about large-scale politics, such as why a certain city has ended in a war with bobs, but then it is good to build a good background, motive and history for that conflict.
I don’t know that it was obvious to everyone that the topic would cover genocide when they clicked on the video, so that is the purpose of the disclaimer. Not everyone might be in the mood for that topic in a video like this right now, and so it seemed pretty important to address that, and hopefully make it clear that my goal is not to be careless or callous about the topic given recent events.
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What other methods do you think could help establish villainous characters without linking their evil to their ancestry?
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10:49 I'm not at all going to claim that Thor's dark elves were done well, but the stated beef the dark elves have is that 'this universe is toxic to them.' That's a paraphrase I don't remember the exact line, but the premise is that the universe before all the stars lit up was hospitable to them. Now that everything is bathed in light all the time, Malekith's people are literally being poisoned to death. So he wants to use the reality stone and at the convergence to turn the light off and save his people.
I think there's probably a lot of potential in that set up that Thor 2 had either no interest or no time to explore. Also all of that context is hidden in 2 spoken lines which is why almost no one catches it and even if you do it doesn't make Thor 2 better.
They also are making the universe safe for themselves by making it inhospitable for everyone else, and are willing to choose to do what just happened to them to everyone else
@@w4iph I mean as it's an existential threat to their entire species, one they do not seem to be able to otherwise solve, and no one else seems to be willing to aid them with, what other recourse do they have? Do they have any responsibility to other species in the face of a species wide existential threat?
Like if we discovered that in order for humans to survive, we had to wipe out all other species on Australia (or wherever) would we not do that? Would we be right to not do it? The question makes them a way more interesting antagonist, in my view.
@@Lurklen it does make them interesting. Also, humans would slaughter anything and we'd be wrong to do it. Lol
@@Lurklen
The simple math is that Everyone Else is a greater number than all of the Dark Elves. Therefore the Elves are wrong for taking the path that would most increase the net suffering and entropy in the universe.
The end all be all of morality is that as sentient feeling living beings, Suffering and Entropy are at the end of the Bad Things scale, The Unacceptable. Anything that would net move the scale towards that is Wrong.
It is highly unlikely that the rest of the universe made a convincing argument for the dark elves to accept extinction for its sake, so of the they would do what they did, that is all they should have ever done.
@@kjj26k Exactly, we generally think the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, until the few is our entire people. It may still be right over all, but it's a hard sell to those who are doomed. It's a difficult position for an antagonist to be put in, and a tenuous one for a hero to enforce. Makes for a way more compelling story, because it challenges the narrative that the enemy in the film is pure evil.
Would have been cool to see Thor try to tackle it, and maybe not have an easy answer, or perhaps realizing that while they have been villainous in their attempts to save themselves, perhaps if the rest of the universe helped them instead of villainized them it might be better for all, and he's just the god to do it.
Like what if he, being an Asgardian super being, could have tried to use the stone instead, especially as it was "in" Jane. Been the bridge between Asgardians and the Dark Elves. Perhaps make a home for the Dark Elves without dooming the universe. It is the reality stone after all. Doesn't really flow with the biff bang pow narrative of Marvel movies, but you could still have their king be bent on revenge, have a big fight with him, but a secondary character realize this is a better way. Even if it was all jane's idea, Thor being willing to listen to Jane would have shown wisdom.
Would be a better indicator of Thor's path to being worthy of Kingship, than what we got.
I love using undead in my games because it’s perfectly clear they’re evil and want to do evil things and need to die…for the most part
Read the Discworld saga, it's not always so clear. He has a wonderful take on undead that is actually really humanistic. But really, as these are all fictional creatures, the premise they represent is whatever you want it to be. There's really no more reason undead are any more or less problematic than orcs, except that some people don't have the same association with them. To some it's easier to dehumanize undead, than it is an orc or whatever. Which is kind of funny because an undead was, at least at one point, human.
I both like the idea of undead not always being evil and also necromancy as an inherintly anti-life thing. Zombies inherintly want to destroy life, same with skeletons or ghouls etc. Even smart ones typically hate life for whatever reason (jealousy, superiority, etc.)
But certain undead can also be not evil, as in they wont immediately attack you. A creeping hand is maybe like an undead critter, it will scatter away and hide if confronted. Or, my favorite, Banshees that just hang around and are willing to talk and maybe even trade.
One idea I got from Runesmith is Banshees that hold domain in a graveyard. They know where every single grave is and who was buried there. They take care of the graveyard and will guide you to the one you need to look for.
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I sometimes wonder about this. I remember desperately trying to make clear that a race of sapient rats living below the primarily city in the campaign didnt need to be slaughtered on mass. And that worked out. Lol
Luckily my next campaign is set on the real earth in the Renaissance so *ideally* that won't be an issue.
Essentially, I think the idea is that your villains need to have been given a choice. No matter how tough that choice is for them. Evil for evils sake is at least a character choice. Having them lose the genetic lottery is just bad writing. (And also just icky that you think some groups are just born bad tbh)
It's just boring for the most part too. When a world has zero nuance it's just not soon that interesting.
Man…. Your videos are so dang good. This was mint.
I have well established in my own setting that orcs (for example) are equally capable of being both good and bad and I really appreciate this video breaking it down as to why it’s important
I disagree with some of your arguments against perceived moral determinism in fantasy (I've seen your other videos) and I outright deny some of your premisses, like the notion that it's usage would entail a less complex narrative... however, If I (or anyone really) were to build a faction or a people to whom I wanted to atribute human-like moral/ethical complexity (which is what you are going for), your advices are top-notch! I respect your take and acknowlodge the quality of your work.
Thank you!
Even cults can be tricky, considering real world cult recruitment practices. That being said, avoiding homogenous mobs of faceless enemies in general is effective. Barring that, there's always undead.
True, there's still the matter of getting the players to see the difference between the cultists who carry out assassinations and sacrifices, versus the low-ranking guys who cook or do laundry in the evil temple. Before running an evil cult-themed scenario, it might be good to have a movie night and rewatch _Conan the Barbarian,_ which ended with the ordinary cultists walking away after the leadership of their cult were defeated. Or, perhaps the local informant (the "guy you meet in a tavern who knows about the dungeon") is somebody who escaped the cult and is glad somebody's going to oppose it.
Don't forget constructs! Probably the most diversely useful generic bad guys. Literally any wizard who could either be the big bad or a right hand man of any other kind of villain. They can be used as primary cannon fodder types without any sense of moral guilt (who cares about an empty suit of armour?) and their presence doesn't invalidate that of other, more morally complex villains, which also gives you more diversity for your ultimate big bad. They don't just have to be a nerd they could be a charismatic military man, or a mastermind manipulator with nerd friends and lieutenants. It also avoids weird necromancy morality stuff, i.e. our immediate reaction to necromancy is to say it's inherently bad but then you think about it and it's at worst morally grey.
@@kirinthewanderer5896 Also, the whole point of classic dungeons is that they've been lost for a long time and are full of ancient treasures and secrets. Goblins and the like have to be new arrivals. Constructs, though, could have been there since the place was last in use. They can make sense there, be created in theme with the rest of the dungeon, and nobody has to feel bad about dismantling an iron golem (well, maybe the party's Artificer will feel bad about it). Treat 'em like bosses in Zelda and build them to be unique challenges, and the players will always remember that encounter.
@@SingularityOrbit Exactly!
What about the idea of some race or faction that isn't "evil", but has some objective stuff going on that can't really be just solved, with the amount of time and resources going on in a typical campaign? The easiest thing that comes to my mind is conflict around some land or other resource, but in a world where beliefs make a direct impact, religion may also be in this category. I see how it may be uncomfortable to some people, but I don't think it's offensive or lame.
mike, I freaking LOVE how you do multi-part/topic videos! It feels so fun to know what's happening for the next couple Tuesdays and thursdays and it legit makes me a little sad when they're over (like oh man I was really living in that topic for a week)--but then a new one happens so I'm happy again and excited for what's next! Idk there's just something about that format that really resonates with me, just thought you'd like to know 😊😊
Thank you! It’s fun to call my shots and declare what the next few videos will be, I’m glad you’re enjoying that :)
The xanathar guild in dragon heist is a really strange example of some of these. Its a crime syndicate where most of the members who've been around for more than like a week are motivated in large part by fear of letting down xanathar himself and the consequences of doing so, and in a city based adventure where most of the other factions are aggressively humanoid, having a faction with some more monstrous races I think is a good change of pace, but most of the monstrous races just kinda being dumped into the xanathar guild does send kinda a weird message, even if I feel like the idea of a crime syndicate formed of various rogue peoples who feel like outcasts because the way the city and society at large is structured is inherently not suited to them is a cool concept.
Good points of Thor 2: Interactions between Thor/Loki/Freya/Odin.
Bad points of Thor 2: Basically everything else
Personally one of my favorite ways to have villain group of a specific ancestry without having the whole ancestry be evil is something like “the town was on good terms with the local orc settlement, but then the orc in charge was killed by his replacement, who also killed all the other orcs who opposed him so the only orcs in the area are the ones loyal to him”
Another super interesting thing you can steal for your game is the way that the cree react to Ronin's terrorism. They will not make a statement denouncing his actions, maybe because some minority or majority within the cree actually like what he's doing for the "old traditions" of their people and hate the peace as much as him. Of course they won't say anything good about him because he's a volatile terrorist doing terrible things in the eyes of other species. But they won't say anything bad about him either. You can use this cultural tension for something like hobgoblins or orcs, maybe some of the modern ones kinda like a return to strength, seen in your renegade villain, regardless of the terrible consequences. Maybe the more victories the villain wins, the more followers they can recruit from those intrigued by their actions.
Eh….interesting villain however it’s possible there could be some anthropomorphism going on in regards to you attributing human morality to monsters/villains. Where is the basis of the morality coming from? Maybe Orcs are actually all evil from a human perspective in the same way a pride of lions would be considered evil if they were humans and not lions. The males kill young regularly so they can reproduce, they reject and shun the sick old and injured, they predate on newly born infants born if the opportunity presents its self ect. Maybe some of these other monsters just have these behaviors because that’s how they survive and they just seem evil to outsiders.
"Two real world American political factions"
Oh boy. That video won't be controversial at all.
I love this. It never sat well with me an entire race being evil and it's good to look at these things and always question our own thoughts on why we do things the way we do. Very good video.
I think a really interesting twist could be to make an orc culture akin to the mandalorians. Its a mercenary faction that's rented out to either, or sometimes even both sides. The king who hires the players might have well respected Manda-Orcians serving as their honor guard, while the big bad might also have a horde of manda-orcian elites. Allowing players to fight against that dnd fantasy of an orc horde, even after having met some outstanding orcs.
That gives players incentives to potentially NOT go lethal on these guys, though if they do, it is part of that line of work, and gives them a far more human-feeling interrogation, and potentially even rewards the players with good faction rep or allies. "We were hired to defend this point. We lost. Contracts over, we're going home. Good game. Since we're definitely not getting paid by that evil wizard now, know any place looking for some muscle?" You can even then put someone else far more evil and actually terrible behind them, much like you would with zombies.
That's actually something that a lot of the Hobgoblins were known for in several things, if you could perform a useful service for their hordes and were willing to live by their rules, you could, normally, join. Sure, they tended to be brutal, but they're a VERY ordered society. In many ways, they heavily fit a combo of the mongols along with the arthurian take on the Romans
Question: when you said that the goblin butler made you for uncomfortable, why should you feel that way about a fantasy creature in a fantasy setting when you are not said race? You have no idea how that goblin got to be where he is or how he grew up. I don't think it was ever brought up in the campaign at any point (then again, it's been a couple of years, so I could be wrong). He could've been all alone when he was offered a job by the wizard. He could've been an aspiring magic caster when the wizard saw some potential and brought him in. It could be due to a life debt that the goblin had pledged himself to the wizard. Or he could be an "Alfred Pennyworth" in that he's the one who takes care of the wizard when he's engrossed in magic. We don't exactly know their relationship, so it is best to not assume the worst. If you see the worse in a situation, then that's not a very good outlook on life. You're just pre-judging people without even knowing who they are or where they came from based off of your own biases.
You could also have a peaceful hobgoblin homestead or campsite, showing there are multiple goodnatured hobgoblins
Aren't immortal extraplanar entities made of the alignment they represent?
A demon without evil sounds like dehydrated water.
Yes, I know about Fall-From-Grace in Planescape: Torment. She's great, but every companion in the game is extremely atypical because of interactions with an even more bizarre being: the PC.
I DM a game for my family - kiddo was 8 when we started, so I was very conscious of this. We are mostly dealing with an infestation of undead, most of which did not want to be undead and are being compelled by a necromancer. There are other complications occasionally to keep it interesting, but that's a variation I think only works for undead; if they were living creatures being compelled, killing them would still be a problem.
I´m german. Thanks for saying I´m not evil. Wuhu!
I watch a decent amount of DM advice videos/channels (St. Cuthbert knows there are enough of them)--usually logged out with overlapping ad & privacy blockers, to hopefully corral Google a bit. This is the video that got me to log in and subscribe.
Mike, I keep coming back to you because your priorities and gut senses about interpersonal kindness are just so trustworthy. I can tell you're starting from the right place, and putting a lot of thought and effort into how to be good to people, and tell stories around the table that are healthy for everyone involved--dangerous as they may be for the PCs. It's not just that I'm in the middle of figuring out how to run a violently nationalistic hobgoblin culture responsibly; or that I can trust you to balance storytelling necessities, like the need for (some) clear, unequivocal antagonists. It's that you're also going to start the video offering earnestness and understanding to people like me, who are messes of hurt and anger right now about Palestine and western disinterest. Thank you for your great instincts. And for the time and energy you put toward leaning into them.
One of the players chose to make their character from a foreign country to the one the campaign started in, which was great.
I talked to her about that other nation's culture and society, and she wrote a great back story.
The PCs had not encountered any goblins yet.
Teh first mention of one the got was when this character, a hunter with outlander background, pulled out her "trophy" Tiger hide to use as a sleeping mat.
They asked about it, and she told the story of how she was part of a hunting party that killed the tiger and was awarded the hide because she happened to land the killing blow.
Standard backstory stuff. Other players nodding their heads, until she mentioned that the tiger had killed the child of a goblin farmer.
When they heard "Goblin farmer' heads perked up because the nation she was from didn't consider goblins "monsters"
I once ran a one-shot that borrowed the Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders from Exile/Avernum. They are dog-sized spiders who cheerfully ask if you'd like a bug to eat and will jabber your head off about spiderly topics; they probably have an intelligence of like 5.
My players immediately tried to kill them, even after it was abundantly clear they were not aggressive and were pretty childlike.
Got any tips for if your players simply aren't buying what you're selling? lol
I really, really struggle with the idea of species which used to be perceived as "monstrous" or "evil" being accepted members of human society now. When I started delving into D&D and the Forgotten Realms, those ideas were simply unheard of. Half-Orcs were barely accepted in most human settlements. The likes of orcs, goblins or drow were attacked (or run from) on sight and most people in-universe perceived them as evil by nature. There was no way the city guard would let any of them in. This made sense to me, as the dominant cultures among those species had brought nothing but violence and hatred to the outside world. And also, we're talking about a world which is heavily inspired by late mediaeval and renaissance Europe. Most people are not going to be particularly open minded or tolerant of anything that differs much from what they’re used to. Sure, I as a player know that not all Drow are evil (everyone knows Drizzt, after all) but did my character know that as well? And even if they did, would that mean they would want anything to do with a random Drow they meet? Probably not, because statistically speaking, they're very likely to be a follower of Lolth or maybe Vhaeraun e.g. very, very bad news.
And yes, every DM can run their game however they want. If they want to have human societies that are more inclusive than the most progressive societies in the real world right now, they can do that. It seems kinda weird to me, though. Just look at how prevalent racism and bigotry are between humans in the real world. People of the same species! Just imagine how much worse intelligent, sentient non-human species would be treated. Well, you don't have to imagine. Our ancestors wiped out the neanderthals, for example. But I totally get why some people would not want that kind of realism in their games.
But here is the thing: It's not just about individual DMs, tables or games. The campaign settings, adventures, videogames etc. just did a 180 on that matter without any explanation at all. The Forgotten Realms are suddenly very inclusive towards species that were shunned and attacked on sight only a few decades earlier. The authors didn't make any attempt to explain these huge changes. In Baldur's Gate II there was a Drow who snuck into the city of Athkatla and when people discovered her identity, they wanted to burn her at the stake. You as the player had the choice to either let it happen or to intervene. That was a great moment and of course my heroic character saved her! But he also refused to let her join the party afterwards. Saving her life was one thing, but trusting her another. In Baldur's Gate 3 there are dozens of Drow in the city of Baldur's Gate and the worst that ever happens to them is a racist remark from a douchebag npc. Very, very far from being burned at the stake.
This just doesn't make any sense to me. It even breaks my immersion. And no, I am not in favour of any kind of discrimination in real life. I just fell in love with the Forgotten Realms when they were much grittier and more realistic in that regard and then those things were changed without any explanation. It really doesn't make sense in many cases. Realistically speaking, most orcs in the Forgotten Realms are members of tribes that worship evil gods and are extremely violent. So letting orcs into a city or town would lead to pointless bloodshed more often than not. It's only logical that people would therefore exclude orcs from their settlements. Would it be fair to the minority of orcs who don't act that way? Absolutely not. But that's a much more interesting topic to explore than a society that is unrealistically inclusive, in my opinion. Again, look at how refugees are treated in the real world. And they don’t come from cultures worshipping Grumsh and waging wars against humanity as a whole. Even if some racists act like they do.
I probably misremember but was the goblin servant in C2 actually the first civil goblin? The players came upon a while city of monstrous species at one point. Those were certainly civilized.
I've actually started to go in and come up with different origins for each race, and that's really started me down a path of thinking about each culture. I think a lot of this issue comes from the alignment table and people's relatively limited understanding of it. As well as the monster manual having an alignment for each creature.
I'd also like to add, for context, that I still use the term Race in my personal lore because they are grouped into legitimately different species with their own ancestry.
In my original DnD setting, the original alignment of creatures and monsters that are intelligent such as goblins and orcs are the baseline. They are what the majority are and how they define their culture. It is the ones who break away from this that are the rarity and that help to show that there are differences in individuals and sometimes even whole communities. I very much follow the vein of Drizzt Do'Urden's example, and often that is what helps to create conflict in those racial communities.
Of course, I still make differences in other races too. There are dwarven assassins, greedy and proud Metallic dragonborn, and evil wood elves. I also use a cult. But I try to make my campaign be something where the party can either fight the cultists sworn to kill all dragonkind or join them, so that means making the cultists' motivations, whether they are high on the totem pole or low, be understandable, and maybe even persuasive. It makes the party have to second-guess themselves whether they are the good guys or not.
Really, the only truly evil beings are ones tied to the Lower Planes or those monsters or creatures that are psychotic or sociopathic in nature. By throwing in devils, demons, and the like every now and then, it helps the party to focus on a truly evil entity and compare it to to cultists that they are fighting. I've also added in an assassin's guild who works with the cultists for the money (and in some cases, the prestige of having to kill dragons). While this can muddy the waters on who is who here, I think that helps to create some interesting situations where the party has to figure out if it's the assassins that they are fighting or the cultists.
(Long comment, apologies for the word count, but it's a complex topic and I couldn't find a shorter way to express my thoughts without sounding pithy or dismissive. Read, or not, at your own leisure.)
"So yeah, fuck em." But that's so much more messed up. Like, if the alien monster that cannot be negotiated with invades your home because it is programmed at a genetic level, or designed by an evil god, or made of evil phlebotinum, to kill and destroy, then there's not really another course of action. The evil murder robot is going to kill you, so you gotta get rid of em. They're "bad". But even "goose steppers" are people. Maybe they're ideologically opposed people, maybe with a horrible ideology that you find reprehensible and is antithetical to your beliefs and way of life, but they were kids, they laugh and cry, they have all the same feelings and emotions you do. Who knows why they made that choice, maybe the pressure of a regime or culture pushed them to it, maybe there was generations of cultural momentum that said, dogs are a symbol for all evil, you gotta kill them. Maybe they just don't believe that they should let their son/friend/work buddy be murdered because he killed the wrong guy's dog, even if they think it was the wrong thing to have done. It's so much more morally tenuous to just say "Oh, no it's fine to kill those guys, they're crazy because they worship Nytholortep the Hunger Star. They're unreachable. They kill lambs. They killed my dog. They aren't like us. They made a choice. Fuck em."
The reason we don't think that, isn't just because we can go meet Germans (because I gotta tell ya, as someone of German descent, some people do not feel that way about us. Some people feel that we are a bad people. That I am bad, because of my association with that people. I wasn't even alive then, and both sides of my family suffered terribly as a result of that insane regime, but in spite of all the kindly Germans out there, they still wouldn't want me at their bbq. Which is in my mind a pretty extreme belief, if one I can kind of understand someone coming to) but because it's a fiction. In real life, Indiana Jones is a bad man. He's a murderer. He's done messed up stuff, to bad people sure, but that doesn't make what he did good. Luke Skywalker is a terrorist who killed everyone on the Death Star, even the janitors and cooks, even the nurses and doctors. Batman is a fascist psycho. John Wick is a pitiless monster, more akin to a living plague than a person. But they don't exist in real life, they exist within the moral confines of their fictional premise. And in that premise they are freaking awesome! Like, it's not okay to kill Goose steppers (or your extreme and dangerous belief of choice). If they are violently attacking you, or causing direct harm, or whatever, it's a moral prerogative to stop them, and that might include killing or otherwise harming them. But it's not a good thing to do. It's a potentially necessary bad thing. But in the confines of a narrative, it's good, and maybe even fun.
If an entire ancestry or species is built to extinguish life, it absolutely strips them of personhood as we understand it. But that's because *It is fundamentally wrong to kill people just because they think differently than you, even if it's something you must do because otherwise you will die.* That's why we think war is wrong. Why it should be avoided if at all possible. Because we know it's a bad solution, that puts us in a position where even if we are fighting for the right reasons, we are forced to do bad things that people should not do. It makes monsters of men. Stripping monsters of personhood is the point. They are narrative tools to allow for a heroic experience. Killing *people* even *bad people* isn't meant to be heroic. Either you make the conscious decision to role play a different morality than we have in the real world, one where you are a violent person who has a wholly different moral outlook. Or you don't. But trying to thread the needle through this half measure seems, to me, to only put you in a worse moral position. By our moral standards, most adventurers are just bad people who should have stayed home and got a real job.
I also think it's weirder to consider "civilized" and integrated creatures "normal". It's a weird flattening of their existence into essentially an ideological issue, where if they had just been raised among "us" or whoever the "normal" people are, they would be "good". The point of not presenting them as alien and morally opposed by their very nature, is to grant them the moral agency and equity as any other ancestry/race/species of humanoid. So then why are we saying that they're uncivilized or evil? Isn't that just judging another culture as less than because it doesn't fit the norms of a dominant or more consolidated and technologically advanced one? It's still picking a side, but it sounds *more* condescending than them just being fundamentally different from whatever we are. Like you call the Kree culture "toxic and unhealthy", but I mean, is it? For humans (and I guess Xandarians, and by the standards of the film, and thus us) sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't working for them. They do have a bazillion year old space empire. It's kind of messed up for you to say that, what would your Kree audience say? (I kid, but you have been cancelled on Kreetube, except their super robot god already knew you would say that, so you weren't allowed on the platform anyways.) If aliens and monsters are "just like us" then we take on even more of a colonial and culturally oppressive mindset when we regard their viewpoints and motivations as automatically villainous because they clash with ours. We assume the moral right, but if all things are equal, there's no reason we should actually have it. How do we know we aren't the baddies? Maybe our culture is toxic and unhealthy by Kree standards. How can we judge them by our societal norms without being totally biased?
Basically, while we do want to present a world filled with verisimilitude and characters that feel real and alive, we should be aware that we are still engaging in a moral fantasy that requires a step outside of the norms and ideals we exist in, in real life. To fail to do so is intellectually dishonest. Outside of the premise of the game, your characters are bad people. They are blood soaked reactionaries, who have killed more people than anyone you will ever meet (hopefully). They have engaged in horror and slaughter, and been responsible for suffering, often gleefully and for their own gain, as well as to push their own agendas, political, moral or religious. They see someone who is part of an extreme belief and think they can pretty much do whatever they want to them because they are "evil". It's not okay to kill extremists. It's not okay to kill anyone (even if it is at times justifiable as an action). In our world, they would be monsters. Even the nice ones. But thankfully, because this is a fiction, and we've all agreed with the premise it exists in, we don't think of them that way. They can be heroes.
I think introducing the goblin as a manservant was a smart move. If the player characters attack a servant simply because it's a goblin, they'd risk making an enemy of the master and their allies. Once the characters grow past the attack-on-instinct thing, they can meet more goblins or other 'monstrous' looking people while keeping things peaceful.
Now CR can do more layered antagonists: people who joined a cult because they were desperate to improve their lot in life, as well as plenty who joined just to watch the world burn. Can any of them be talked out of it? Should the player characters even try for diplomacy? Time will tell!
It really can't be done. The problem you're running into actually affects all literature. The more real you try to make something the less real it becomes, because you can never write something as complicated as the real word.
Nazis are almost the exception that proves the rule. Can all members of the Axis powers be killed without qualms? How about the Nazi who saved thousands of Chinese?
And how is killing people based on their ideology really much different than centuries of religious wars?
I'm sympathetic to what you want to do but there just isn't a non problematic way to do it. Better to understand that you're just playing in a fairy story and the monsters are stand ins for the concept of evil as opposed to real creatures that actually might exist.
Honestly, when it comes to dealing with orcs and hobgoblins, I always work under the impression that they don’t think they’re evil. They think they’re doing the right thing. They just want their people to live better lives and they’re perfectly willing to kill you because plenty of adventurers of burn down their villages so fuck them. If my players were to ever capture one of them, the villains would have a perfectly justifiable reason for what they’re doing. It’s not just them being evil for the sake of being evil. They want a better life for their people and they’re perfectly willing to kill you to get it.
Enjoyed the subject, but orcs are my favourite faction in a certain francise( in space and fantasy) but your narrative was very interesting.
Carl has returned
in a few marvel animated shows they explain it a bit if i remember corectly
🙄
Thank you, just thank you for the trigger warning / disclaimer. You are a very understanding and kind person.
I would say also to use the fantasy setting to its full potential, in that there are plenty of factions that are pure evil and also do not have any real life counterpart.
Liches transforming themselves and maintaning their forms by killing people, and Devils being the souls of people who essentially agree to be tortured to have everything good removed from their soul are things in D&D. You could argue it's the same thing as monsters that are born evil, but here the difference is that becoming a member of those races is a choice.
It's one of the things you need to consider when you have gods, especially creator level gods that are actually interacting with things. It's one thing to turn away from Zeus for another god in the real world, but a far rarer thing when he's occasionally popped up to strike an apostate with his thunderbolt personally...
"Children have died and more children are about to die, and that *is* more important than my TH-cam video." You accidentally said that it's not more important.
Oops, good catch. I'll adjust the subtitles, hopefully the sentiment is still clear from watching the video :)
In my settings Orcs were created by the gods to endlessly wage war on Humanity because Humanity needs a common enemy to fight otherwise they'll start killing each other.
First, your segment before the topic is superb, you are a really great guy Mike. Second and talking about the topic, the campaign isn't that long but at the moment I'm working more about factions (a bunch of crooked criminals that may have orcs and goblins and also elfs and humans, or a inn regented by drows that is a familiar business for generations) so my players see there aren't evil ancestries. But I would like to work the cult angle sometime and perhaps some things you said might have helped me follow a thread.
I can use all these different ideas AND still have some things be evil because *evil*. They're all tools in your arsenal, really. Just do what works (and what you like, of course).
I just wanted to say thank you again. The Pathfinder Giveaway box showed up last Saturday and I love it so much already!
I’m so glad! 😁
Cults are also amazing ways to sell how irredeemable a villain is. Many real life cults recruit the desperate and distraught, cut them off from their previous lives, then wring them out for everything they can. They could see the practices used by the Cult leader to break down new recruits, build them up into a new community, then use that community to further their own ends.
1st
Considering that you mentioned drow there is whole thing with them in FR lore that ones that are considered evil are ones that worship Lloth but there are drow that don't worship her. There are also cases like that Elmister's drow apprentice who's father become lich but still cares about his daughter and of course Drizzt who is best known case of "not all drow are evil". As far as Lloth worshipping drow goes even they are more victims of they society than being evil themselves.
Don't know if it's on your end or my headphones being weird but there's a weird roboty voice thing that briefly happened a few times, didn't affect my enjoyment of your great video just letting you know
A little timely, but I’m curious about this with say, mind flayers. The books more or less describe them as not having the capacity for anything other than evil
What are the odds! You bring up red hand of doom right after I start up my red hand campaign!
I like how much the module lets you flesh out the hobgoblins
Got damnit, we are going to have some Gnoll defamation?
Good work on the video!
So, narratively you need a race of monsters right? You need enemies that players can kill without feeling bad. My rule for races is "anything that gives birth to children cannot be a wholly evil race."
This allows for races that are evil without saying anything about society.
Orcs in my worlds are outsiders, maybe having a lower tech level, but not dumb and not evil. I usually run them like Mongols. Stange rules, different gods, and different bonds and ideals, but there are no safer roads than those under Orc protection. Though I would not be lying if I didn't say there wasn't a bit of Warhammer Greenskin inspiration too. Grimgor, my beloved.
Contrast this with Orcs in Percy Jackson's LOTR trilogy. They are literally created on an assembly line, built for one purpose and one purpose only. To end the world of men.
Both are acceptable and neither are problematic imo.
It also gets past the Drow issue, because I love RA Salvatore's Drow but... I'm not RA Salvatore, and even those have glaring problems with them.
Not really related to the video's main point, just my two cents.
Very well said!
In my homebrew world, the "monstrous" races, which I actually always put in quotation marks, have usually been driven to raiding "civilized" races purely because they have been forced to the fringes and have to steal to survive.
I find that this does a few things. My players are all politically active and conscientious, and genuinely enjoy discussing how to deal with these issues. This allows those things that we're passionate about to be seen and dealt with in our favorite hobby!
It also shows that someone of any race can be driven to do "evil". In fact, the main antagonists of my campaign are the gods themselves, who are literal paragons of good.
I like to show that evil is not driven by genetic markers, but by selfish acts. The "monstrous" races mostly act in perceivably evil ways when they have no choice but to think selfishly, and even the most "good" beings can act evilly when driven purely by self at the expense of all others.
Hopefully that makes sense. I'm just very passionate about this subject and thought that I had a good solution.
I feel like part of the reason why I don't often have certain monstrous species mixed in with my other settlements is partly because in the settings I want to be complex I often like to include the idea that you perhaps have two different cultures running up against each other with various geopolitical pressures coming into conflict. But like the humans the monsters aren't necessarily totally united in how they want to solve these tensions, and some humans and other species that consider themselves "civilised" are more sympathetic to these monstrous races and willing to seek compromises with them than others. So one thing i've occassionally done is have it so that if I'm introducing an orc villain then perhaps its a different orc tribe that approaches the players and asks for help.
I feel that of all the D&D settings, Eberron does this the best.
I'm DMing a game in a homebrew city of the Underdark near Neverwinter and I like how BG3 dealt with the drow - Lolth-sworn and Seldarine ones which I get inspired by. So in my city, the drows co-exist with deep gnomes and dwarves since they denounced Lolth. One of the PCs is the daughter of a Matron and she is on a journey to get free from this doctrine which is pretty cool.
If you want some real fun, you could toss in some Vulkhoor worshippers since Lolth fucked up and got at least a copy of him loose and rampaging through the Demonweb pits and occasionally breeching into Faerun. She found a way to breech into Eberron because there were drow there and got the murder scorpion for her stupidity and has had to contend with him ever since.
That popped up in lore stuff thanks to the setup for Dungeons & Dragons: Online, and started as the explanation for how some heroes could go between Stormreach and a town in Faerun (which led to the Hall of Heroes that allows easy transit between the worlds), and has been referenced in various other sourcebooks.
Most of his worshippers are not worshiping him to be pious, most worship and give tribute in the hopes that he leaves them alone save for some crazies because he tends to slaughter everything in his path in a chaotic evil, survival of the fittest way...
I think a good example of an evil faction done right is the cult of the absolute in baldurs gate 3. A diverse fanatical group of creatures that make for many interesting encounters both combat and social. And the cult has a bunch of layers with various members having quite different beliefs and knowledge of what the absolutes ultimate goal is
Your point at 4:47 was actually done in the early Paper Mario games, of all things. In both 64 and Thousand Year Door, you encounter villages/communities of friendly, helpful Goombas and Koopas. ("Species" that are basic enemies in the platform games) It's rarely, if ever, explain WHY some of them side with Bowser and some don't (because, you know, a Mario game isn't really going to get political), but the important part is they EXIST, and this is treated as a casual fact of the world that nobody questions. Simply by doing this, you show that their entire species aren't inherently evil.
Your talk on Ronan is reminding me of another game I've played, the first Xenoblade Chronicles, which sort-of deconstructs the idea of "evil races" by having the protagonist, and by extension the players, meet the fanatics of a faction FIRST and then gradually introducing members with more nuanced motivations, before finally having you visit the world they come from and finding everyone there considers the (at that point) antagonist a violent extremist they're all ashamed of.
Funnily enough, I was supposed to release a video a few days before the events in early October, and in it I talk about how I like to interpret Goblins in a much more sympathetic way. But I got sick and had to move the video to the following week.
At the end I had a line that went like “if goblins are going to be treated like the bad guy, they’re going to fight back like one”
YEAH that line got cut from the video XD.
stopping at 4:47 to answer the question in my own words before finishing the video.
"How do we include hordes of hobgoblins or drow or whatever else without implying that they're all born evil?"
By making their CULTURE evil. but not necessarily the creatures within it. Hobgoblin culture could be by-and-large lawful evil, but still have a majority of their population be neutral, maybe even a few good-aligned members in there as well. These are the people who simply live their day to day lives on their own, the workers and crafters and farmers. They may live in a society that practices cannibalism or slavery or whatever else, but they're not the ones actively encouraging or hunting for more fodder for those practices, they kind of just put up with it and go with the flow.
You could have any mix of alignments within one culture and stull have that culture be one spesific alignment. A handful of chaotic neutral hobgoblins isn't going to shift the alignment of all hobgoblin culture after all. it's just working on the collective of all hobgoblins together, and it all roughly adds up to lawful evil in the end.
The biggest stumbling block to character motivation in D&D is the alignment system. If you limit your noc factions to only the "Evil" ones being the "bad guys," you are missing out.
People always hold up Raislinn from the Dragonlance novels as an example of "See! Even PCs can be evil!" Dig through some of the old Magic the Gathering novels. There's plenty of examples of the non-black mana factions being the bad guys.
In the Odyssey block of books set in Otaria the biggest enemy faction is a fascist white mana crusader army trying and failing to conquer the continent. The black mana cabal faction is really just minding it's own business by setting up trade cities and running gladiatorial pit fights.
The entire old Kamigawa trilogy of books revolves around a black mana aligned rogue struggling to undo the world ending cataclysmic war caused by the white mana king seeking immortality at the expense of the spirit world.
The second and third books in the first Ravnica trilogy are full of non-black mana factions almost ending the world. Book two revolves around an Izzet mad scientist letting the tools of his world domination plot break free and try to destroy the world. Book three swings back and forth between the Simic trying to mutate and rule every living being in the world, and the Azorius trying to litigate all the other factions into prisons.
The worst part is there's one perfect example of this in D&D lore. The lawful good Greyhawk diety Pholtus is, for all intents and purposes, a nazi. His followers are more than likely nazis. They're a lawful good villain faction.
The reliance on alignment as a check box to denote which npcs can be killed with impunity is one of the most childish and outdated systems in D&D that is still in the books even though it never worked in the first place.
You know how the classic "you meet a wizard in a tavern who gives you the adventure" is played out? Well, who else would know stuff about distant places? The answer is travelers who have already passed through the adventure locale and came away with firsthand observations or that area's gossip/legends. Those don't have to be humans. They could be elves or dwarves . . . or they could be wandering goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, lizardfolk, etc. who aren't up to anything bad. They could be in town to trade, buying food maybe, or cloth to repair their traveling clothes. Orcs might come into town to sell off a magic item they found in a dungeon -- they don't know the language for the item's activation word so it's useless to them, but they know the humans will give them gold for it. Nonhumans who are simply trading or moving on in the morning aren't only good for establishing cultural complexity, they're an opportunity for the party to learn a few things that no human could yet know about adventuring opportunities beyond the borders of human lands.
Some might say that it wouldn't happen because the humans would drive off or slay goblin or orc travelers if they showed up in town. Well, then, why don't they do that to Dragonborn or Tieflings? If the town doesn't kill lizard-like (heck, dragon-like!) monster-people, or fiend-people, then it's probably safe for a group of unusual visitors seeking to buy and sell. If the town is more likely to show prejudice to that wandering family of orcs just trying to buy food, consider having a ranger with them to make introductions. Complications make for interesting situations, and that makes the game more fun.
As someone living in Israel right now I'm so appreciative of your content Mike! Really helped me get through the day...
I have a goblin cook npc, straight goblin goofiness whilst describing his mad obsession with making the perfect meals. I had him roll a profession check the first two nights for how good the food is, and crit both times. He was able to use crazy ingredients the party gave him. Ended up moving into PCs manor.
in a world Im developing, i definitely prefer the idea that goblins aren't evil, but that goblins and humans are competing for similar biomes (though goblins are better at exploiting marginal spaces within a human environment, like abandoned spaces) and so they come into conflict for sociological reasons rather than difference in alignment.
This makes it a lot easier to justify why one group of goblins might enjoy legal standing with the local human government but another doesnt. One abides by a treaty, the other are outlaws (just as humans can be upstanding citizens or dangerous brigands)
If you play more political/war campain can also make the orcs, for esample, an enemy kingdom that is at war against the home nation of the players for land or resources, whitou any need to make one the two side the "evil", or both are evil in the eyes of they enemy.
In a campain I played for esample our party defended a village against orcs marauder and killed many of them, but we didn't do it because they were evil but because if we didn't kill them they would have take away sheeps and grains. In medieval setting people rading the neighbours for resources or treasures should be quite normal.
Hey, do you know where I can do more research on “one of the good ones”?
Also, when making nonhuman races servants, you can always make their boss evil or them displeased with their job. That opens up even more story threads
As someone whose D&D group lands firmly in the Venn diagram with the furry fandom, I can tell you that some players absolutely think of gnolls as a relatable species.
I was proud of my explanation for evil perception of orcs. In the beginning, the world was so volatile that the races were torn on the best way to survive. Most wanted to plant themselves and make a home. The majority of orcs decided it was better to keep moving because what was safe today may not be safe tomorrow. Things as bad as they were, all factions/races were struggling and fighting for resources. Through perception, the majority of orcs were my world’s first raiders. As time passed, some kept the lifestyle and remain perceived evil. And as we know in the real world, people focus on the bad more than the good.
I think you may have inadvertently aided Malekeith in plunging the MCU into darkness with all that shade you're throwing.
One of my players is an orc, and I'm working on a band of orc raiders based on Sparta with a hint of nomad. They're like Grog's family: not so much evil as misguided and set in their ways. I'm hoping my player will be an ambassador for them as the game progresses, but I could also see him being like "Guys, you abandoned me as an infant because the stars said I'd be 'too soft.' Fuck all of you."
This gave me some good tips for the tribe, so thanks!
For my campaign setting i made sure to make the steryotypical evil monster races just a faction or regional occurrence.
My orcs were made by the god of celebration and everywhere that the fanatical cult that hates them is in control the orcs are pushed to the dark caves and have taken to violence. Everywhere else theyre rich in culture snd loved in towns.
You can wear both hats as a gm
I read your title as "without gentrification" and I don't think that is much different from the actual title 😅
Oof this came out at a time. Appreciate the disclaimer, for sure.
In one of my campaigns I had a cultist serial killer summon a spined devil and an imp and attacked the players, and after dispatching the devils, the players were still torn and felt guilty when they questioned and then killed the cultist, that was when I realised the only ways I can create truly monstrous creatures my players can kill without remorse such as the devils themselves, undead, or literal monsters like giant worms and mind flayers/beholders, even if some of those can also be given nuance, they're not loaded or charged in any way.
It seems glaringly obvious when you look at it in retrospect, but, antagonists (whether true "villains" or merely opposition) with depth and nuance really do help draw players in, and aid with immersion. Granted, be sure you know what your players want, not just from Session Zero, but, checking in for feedback every so often.
Sometimes, it can feel good to stand fast against a faceless horde. By "faceless", that could mean where their faces are concealed, or, there's so many moving in the chaos of the battlefield, so details are nearly impossible to come by in the moment.
god dang i'm always happy when i see one of your videos in my feed. Always super insightful and fun to watch
19:06 Are you saying here that any person in a cult is completely irredeemable? What if they've been "brainwashed" or coerced in some way? Are you saying the people without the mental fortitude to resist such influences are not worth trying to reintegrate into more mainstream society? In D&D it's quite possible that they're under some sort of magical influence and their actual soul is metaphorically screaming in torment at the actions they're being forced to do. What if they've joined the cult simply because, for instance, a sibling has been kidnapped and "programmed" by the cult and now they're there trying to keep that unfortunate from harm but have to go along with the cult's wishes whilst biding their time.
This is certainly one of those examples where there’s potential for a much deeper story. The ultimate goal of the video is to establish a baseline where people can still run the same type of pulp-style game but without writing off all the enemies as evil by birth.
It’s also worth noting that real-world cults are different from the cults in D&D adventures (real-world cults are usually scams to get money from their members, whereas D&D cults use real magic to try to conquer or end the world), but either way, you could totally tell a story about somebody challenging their programming/indoctrination and trying to atone.
One could make a campaign where the pcs start in a "classic" fantastisch world and are tanken with killing alot of orcs. But before the end the players will learn that the orks are not mindless and just try to survive and try to Integrate. Its just where ever they go they are met with aggression and thus have to steal and fight to survive
Good video. I prefer more realistic (or at least as realistic as a game about magic and mythological creatures can get) and/or morally diverse setting when playing.
To that end, for my current campaign, I have introduced one traditionally evil species to one player's character as part of their backstory. My approach was that of cultural exposure/understanding. Basically, I painted that species' actions as understandably aggressive/hostile (from an outside perspective) but the character grew up exposed to that with a deeper understanding and therefore knows that such acts are not out of pure malice; and that there is greater meaning other than just that they are evil.
I am looking forward to the possible session where the character can take the chance/opportunity to shine by using that knowledge to solve a problem and/or propel the story further.
The opposite of this, is... how would you make an "all evil" species... what does that mean, what are the implications? the current 5e Gnoll Lore shows in some ways how to do it right I think... and I think a lesson can be taken from gnolls, but I would take it a step further... what are the implications of this? Waht happens when these entities are freed from wahtever controls them?
I feel most people who do make a species/creature all inherently evil almost always miss the mark, because there is an inherent existential horror to that, and if you dont include in-universe debates, and some level of existentialism, or a way to free them... then you arent doing it "right" (not that I think this is a good idea in any way)
As someone who played a Goblin in their first PF2e campaign, is currently playing a Ratfolk in another, nearly played a Kobold in a 3.5e campaign, (...That's not 'nearly' as in 'I had a better idea for that campaign' that's 'nearly' as in 'I built a Kobold and the campaign collapsed before Session 1' - It happens sometimes), and who used to read the webcomic Goblins, the comment you highlighted at 3:16 _annoys_ me for reasons that go far beyond the scope of this video.
Interduce a neutral village of enemy species In the middle of a Festival that sweeps the party into the party
In my world, I handled the Drow by having there be a Drow empire, with more traditional views, as well as communities closer to the surface who are against them.
There are also forces within that empire that are not towing the party line as it were. It makes for some really good storylines when you have a half-Drow in your party.
Good video. How would you use the same mental scaffolding to address the chaos/ order dichotomy? Inherently chaotic / lawful races vs factions.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
You could also decide as a group on pokemon rules. If you defeat an enemy it is automatically nonlethal unless there is some dramatically significantly reason for it to be lethal. Sure it won't fit gritty campaigns but for others then after the fight you have to deal with them still. Even if they are unquestionably bad guys that you are arresting they still get a chance to be funny, have connections, justify their actions, or simply exist beyond that fight.
I'm recreating and rewriting the background and social status of the goblins for my own homebrew world building project by utilizing the mythology of the real world and history with some twists. For example, hobgoblin is originally a household spirit or sprites and belongs to hobs, along with bogles, goblins, redcaps, bluecaps and brownies and the way how modern fantasy describes hobbies is often very different from what the creatures are like in original mythology and old folklore, where hobbies are naturally civilized but mischievous and playful (except redcap who dyes its hat red with fresh blood). The twist I'm developing, on the other hand, examines the hobs' relationship with the mythological kobolds/kobaloi and the god of death Orcus and orcs/orceans (which requires the mix-matching of some geographically separated mythologies). Also unresolved is the hobgoblin's connection to Puck, púca, bauchan, boggart, bugbear and boobach (bwbach) but these are probably variants of bogles.
Part2 In the homebrew world I'm creating, however, whether the hobs are antagonists or enemies depends on the situation and the decisions, and the decisions have consequences, such as that harming an innocent and innocent goblin can be declared an outlaw and a wanted notice issued for the perpetrators. The situation is more about large-scale politics, such as why a certain city has ended in a war with bobs, but then it is good to build a good background, motive and history for that conflict.
All I can say is wow. People worry about slighting an imaginary species unfairly?? No wonder the game is falling apart amongst younger generations...
You probably could have saved yourself this video by just pointing at BG3 and saying "So, hey, do that." ;p
The fact we have to have these sort of *blatantly obvious* disclaimers is stupid. It’s so petty that it won’t ever achieve anything
I don’t know that it was obvious to everyone that the topic would cover genocide when they clicked on the video, so that is the purpose of the disclaimer. Not everyone might be in the mood for that topic in a video like this right now, and so it seemed pretty important to address that, and hopefully make it clear that my goal is not to be careless or callous about the topic given recent events.