Unfucking Dungeons & Dragons

gooberascendant:

probablygoodrpgideas:

cheskamouse:

mortharris:

mortharris:

The concept of some humanoid or near-humanoid species being
naturally inclined to evil is a racist one, and, unfortunately, a prevalent one
in Dungeons & Dragons, exacerbated by the fact that these “evil species”
are frequently the “ugly” ones. Drow are a particularly glaring example – “made
black because of their ‘evil’”?! Fuck you – but the duergar – “the
slaves … learned only to enslave, really makes you think don’t it” – and
the orcs – “they feel the CALL to evil in their Gruumshy HEARTS” – are also
super not good. (There’s also a fair degree of ableism, with “insane” monsters
– in such cases, I honestly think “unaligned” would be a better description for
“too far gone to understand morality”. Evil implies a choice.)
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind so much if these weren’t supposed
to be naturally-occurring species – always evil demons or fey are fine, because
they’re made of magic and stories, although care should of course
be taken not to make them look like naturally-occurring species – but
elves are really just fragile pointy-eared monkeys, and they have excuses.
However, these evil humanoids are also genre staples and
often quite aesthetically good. To that end, I offer the Unfucking D&D Guide, which provides what I think are solutions to this
problem. (It should be noted that I am whiter than plain yogurt, so my ideas
should be taken with a grain of salt and definitely not take precedence over
the ideas of non-white folks. If I’ve said something fucked-up in this, please
let me know and I’ll fix it.)

• Duergar. Keep the “enslaved by illithids, made grim
  & psionic” bit, toss the “learnt evil from them” part. The duergar are
  joyless, or can appear so – you can play them either as gloomy and fatalistic
  or as eccentric and unreasonably concerned with “corruption” – but despite
  whatever mood they possess, make sure that they are thoroughly dedicated to
  making sure the horrors of the Underdark stay in the Underdark, and are as
  righteous and honorable as their hill and mountain cousins.
• Derro. The derro are an “insane” species; I bring
  them up only because I saw them confused with duergar in one post about racism
  in D&D. Their lore has not been constant – the current lore is “dwarves
  enslaved by illithids, tortured into madness, and now they’re eeeeeeeevil”,
  which is ableist, not racist – but their metatextual origin is among the
  detrimental robots, or Deros, of pulp author Richard Sharpe
  Shaver’s stories (or possibly delusions). “Born from the dreams of a mad author” would actually be good lore
  if you can make that author a tragic sufferer of schizophrenia in a time before
  it was understood rather than an ~*~eViL mAdMaN~*~, but in any event, change
  their type to construct, fey, or fiend, and, most importantly, don’t take
  them seriously. The derro are pulp villains, and their evil is
  grandiose and nonsensical. They ought not to be seen as realistic; they ought
  to be seen as Snidely Whiplash, Commander Claw, or Heinz Doofenshmirtz. “Reasons”
  are for other genres.
• Drow. Return drow to their mythical roots as trow,
  nocturnal hunters, tricksters, and magical artisans dwelling in the hollow
  hills. There’s high and wood elves; dark elves can find a niche. Lolthite culture
  is good villain fodder, but make sure that you can handle an “evil religion”,
  and make sure that all types of elves participate.
• Goblinoids and trolls. Make them fey, and abandon
  Tolkien for Rossetti and folktale. Goblins make cruel bargains; hobgoblins
  attend faerie courts; bugbears hide in closets and create electricity from feed
  on children’s screams; trolls lurk under bridges and love riddles. As fey, they’re
  not evil, simply alien and lacking in empathy towards mortals.
• Gnolls. If you use the Volo’s lore, change
  their type to fiend and be done with it. If you want to have them be natural
  humanoids, go read Ursula Vernon’s Digger for the best-written
  hyaena-furries in literature and base gnolls off that once you’re done crying.
• Kobolds. Kobolds are already draconic cleaner wrasses
  in lore; there’s no reason that metallic dragons can’t enjoy them as well and
  influence some populations to good.
• Illithids. The mind flayers certainly have great
  potential as villains. However, there is nothing about their psychology that
  impels them thither. Their biological requirements could easily be met by
  feeding on those close to death, whom I might imagine would willingly donate
  their brains as food or tadpole incubators in exchange for a painless death and
  the surety that their memories would live on in the illithid. Also, create
  food and water spells exist.
• Ogres. Ogres are wilderness-dwellers who prefer to
  maintain their personal territories through fear instead of actual force of
  arms; the idea of the monstrous, anthropophagous ogre is a deliberate sham.
  They are actually capable of great heroism, even if they aren’t exactly the
  sharpest tools in the shed and okay to be honest I started out trying to build
  up to a Shrek joke but I think I’d take this over canon lore.
• Orcs. Orcs are an easy fix; all you need to do is
  remove Gruumsh from the equation and they don’t have a bullshit “call to evil”;
  in Eberron, without objective gods, the people of the Shadow Marches believe
  that half-orcs are the proof that orcs and humans are one people, so there’s
  even in-game precedent for orcs as members of society.
• Yuan-ti. There are two ways to do this. One is to
  dump all the lore and just have sexy snake cults, although don’t dress them
  like Asian or Aztec stereotypes like a lot of the art does. (The 3.5 Monster
  Manual yuan-ti pureblood looks like she’s constantly accompanied by an
  inappropriate bamboo flute riff, I swear to Istus.) A sexy snake cult (and I am
  including malisons, abominations, and anathemas in the term “sexy”, not just
  purebloods) should be fun for everyone.
• The other way is to keep their personalities and dump
  everything else, because if you keep that, you get truly excellent
  villains. I mean, these fuckers. How dare they drag something as pure as
  snakes into their Ayn Rand bullshit. Villain yuan-ti should be
  something transformed from willing or deluded humanoids (histachii raise
  the sacred snakes and the children of the yuan-ti, who possess their parents’
  original race at birth). Couple that with the fact that since snakes very
  definitely have emotions, yuan-ti logically should as well, which means that
  they only think they’re above emotions. Now you have Objectivists roped
  into a magical pyramid scheme, which should offend no-one who doesn’t deserve
  it. You can mourn for the beings they once were, or just laugh in their dumb
  faces. Also, the sexy ones all look like Ayn Rand.

hey real quick request before i go to bed: reblog this post to spite tumblr user bravestcolour and all their uncritical ilk, who asked me if this post was a joke and who spat back the benefit of the doubt i gave them back in my face

This is right up there with my rant “Tolkien is not your GM.” 

Seriously, stop the concept of “evil Races”. Sure, you can have a race that is mostly evil, but they should be able because of their society, not their “evil heritage”. 

This is good stuff.

Mind Flayers are kind of alright as-is I think though. They’re Cthulhu monsters from the past future, and their psychology is meant to be truly alien, more like fey than humanoids. As aberrations, they’re more in the demon/fey area.