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I love Lolth and her Drow and so I'd like to make a point: Everyone who doesnt care Lolth and her Drow-please keep your opinions to yourself if you are unable to clarify that they are just that--your opinions. I respect all opininons but realize that you dont speak for everyone! There are an incredible amount of players who still love Lolth and her Drow and would love to see more of her. As far as the Lolth and the Drow go, i dont feel that they have been overly done. Drow are cool and i use them when a scenario requires it. My players-ages ranging from 21-43-love the Drow and always get a bit nervous when coming across them-which is rare. Anyway, i dont mind if individuals dont care for the Drow and Lolth, but please dont give your opinions out as though you are speaking for the majority, for you are not. One more point, i play with experienced players both in Southern California and up north in Castro Valley,and speak with other friends/players throughout the country, and none have yet to find someone-anyone-who talk down about the Drow or Lolth. Sorry if i come across a bit bothered, but i'd like the fine people at Paizo to know that there are an incredible amount of players out there that wouldnt mind seeing more of her and her Drow. All i am asking is that the Drow haters clarify that you arent speaking for the majority for id like to see more of them in modules. Thanks for you understanding and consideration.
Thoth-Amon
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Caveat: Lolth and her Drow are a wonderful addition if rarely used. They should never become a common occurance. In fact-and this is my opinion, players shouldnt even see Drowsign until at least 6th level. As far as i am concerned, Drow shouldnt even be introduced until 10th level. Drow, to me, are a medium to high level problem and as far as Lolth and her Yoccols go, they shouldnt even be introduced till players reach levels into the medium double digits. I agree they can be overly done-no doubt, but used sparingly, can and are a wonderful feature when adventuring in the underdark. I am Dm'ing an experienced bunch of players(7), and they are all on or about 9th level and have only seen Drowsign. It entertains me that they are nervous about the possibility of meeting a scouting party head on and are taking every precaution for what they feel may be the inevitable. This is how Drow should be encountered in my book. I like to keep them at a mythological level-only rumored in existence. Never should they become commonplace, Never! That being said, even though i loved the D series when i was a kid, a series like that should never be made again. I dont agree with any series that feature too much Drow for they must be an extremely rare encounter and ONLY for high level characters. Lets keep the mystique. Lets never make them common. Just my opinion.
Thoth-Amon
First adventure I ever DM'ed was "Descent into the Depths of the Earth." Helluva way to start off but the previous DM had quit playing after the Giant series and the friends that had introduced me to gaming were stuck with an 11th level party and no one to finish their quest.
Baptism by fire, I didn't actually get to run a 1st level adventure as DM until six months later.
I love the drow and Lolth, but I've never run a campaign since then that featured them prominently because I felt I could never do Gary Gygax's originals justice.
The Drow have had their time, for far to long. time to herald the rise of a new race to strike fear and terror into parties till someone makes a cash cow out of a heroic upstart. Thats right FEAR the Mongrelman!
Persoanlly I have nothing specific against the drow, outside of original "vualt of the drow" drow good. Menzoberenzzan drow overdone, to death, ad infinitum.
In fact The drow race is like Metallica, great for the first couple of albums, and crap after the long haul. Also the end of the beginning of a race of munchkinesue PCs.
Not that iparticularly have anything against munchkins, I just enjoy hunting things harder the seal pups.
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I like the drow, but it is probably the case that Drizzt has done them quite a lot of harm, ultimately, through overexposure (and the fact that Salvatore ain't a great writer, though that is not the issue here). I found the War of the Spider Queen series refreshing, in the respect that the drow in it were thoroughly unpleasant (though again, it suffers a bit as great literature).
I think there are two aspects about the drow that militate against them: (1) they are overfamiliar, through the iconic modules and then being flogged to eath in FR through supplements and novels, and (2) they are tricky to actually do well in 3E because of the +2 CR and ECL - there is an interesting article on the WOTC D&D website by Dave Noonan concerning creating an adventure with drow, where he points out that the CR penalty makes them hard to make really tough for characters of the appropriate level because they don't have enough HD.
Notwithstanding, the drow are incredibly cool, and I love'em. I'm not sure why, but I am sure there is some sort of sexual thing about a bunch of gorgeous, spider-worshipping dominatrixes living in palatial splendour and willing to exterminate everone they don't like (which is, er, everyone). Rich, mad, bad and beautiful - or maybe I'm the kinky one.
Anyway, I would say there is plenty of life left in the drow, but there needs to be a re-evaluation or reinvention before they will be seriously looked at again in a published module. The above-mentioned Dave Noonan article says he is designing a module for Eberron with the drow in, but of course Eberron drow are a completely different kettle of fish - mostly primitive tribesmen: cool, but, y'know, not the same.
I suspect a few years of quiet from the dusky-skinned psychos and the comments on the boards will be more like "Whatever happened to the drow? Now, they were great....."
I agree, Thoth-Amon. I for one, have taken special care to keep drow extremely rare (in 25+ years of gaming, can still count on one hand the number of appearances). IMC, they are often little more than legends, whispered about and feared but rarely encountered. My players also all shift in their seats at the tiniest hint of drow. With all due humility, I believe I've done a good job of keeping them in high regard and have decades of mileage for them (at this rate anyway). I do recognize that most others view them as overdone (especially in FR) and since I don't play 3.5, I can only pity those who are now constrained to fully play these creatures as intended because of the new "helpful" game mechanics.
Anyhoo...
Long live Lolth and her minions!!
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I love Lolth and her Drow and so I'd like to make a point: Everyone who doesnt care Lolth and her Drow-please keep your opinions to yourself if you are unable to clarify that they are just that--your opinions. I respect all opininons but realize that you dont speak for everyone! There are an incredible amount of players who still love Lolth and her Drow and would love to see more of her. As far as the Lolth and the Drow go, i dont feel that they have been overly done. Drow are cool and i use them when a scenario requires it. My players-ages ranging from 21-43-love the Drow and always get a bit nervous when coming across them-which is rare. Anyway, i dont mind if individuals dont care for the Drow and Lolth, but please dont give your opinions out as though you are speaking for the majority, for you are not. One more point, i play with experienced players both in Southern California and up north in Castro Valley,and speak with other friends/players throughout the country, and none have yet to find someone-anyone-who talk down about the Drow or Lolth. Sorry if i come across a bit bothered, but i'd like the fine people at Paizo to know that there are an incredible amount of players out there that wouldnt mind seeing more of her and her Drow. All i am asking is that the Drow haters clarify that you arent speaking for the majority for id like to see more of them in modules. Thanks for you understanding and consideration.
Thoth-Amon
Easy there, big guy.
I understand your opinion, and I agree with a lot of what you say in this post, and I LOVE drow, in both the traditional and Eberron-based incarnations. However, I think that everyone here knows that a post by any particular so-and-so is just that: their opinion. That's why IMHO and IMO keep showing up in posts on these boards, and developed from the long listing of "in my humble opinion," and "in my opinion" because of the need some people had in stressing that this posting is only the opinion of one person. But the Paizo staff is bright enough to figure that out without sticking in the IMHO; I think that if they do scale back any drow in the future, it will be due to the high NUMBER of posts, not the specific posts from people of high status on these boards.
I guess the summary here is that the vast majority of what we all read and write here is an opinion, and I hope we can all get over the need to remind each other in each post that "this is just my opinion," if only so that I don't have to see those stupid IMHO's popping up all over the place.
Just my opinion.
Back in 1st edition, I always equiped the Drow with asian weapons and the trappings of asian cultures to make them more foreign and exotic. It also was a great way to bring those long forgotten Oriental adventures rules into a Western campaign world. To me now, drow are less exotic, and I find it hard to follow the whole Lloth/Lolth and whether she is in power in this world or that. Still, The Drow are a great evil force. I used to run The Forrest of Doom from an old Dragon Magavine as a prelude to the Slavers campaign and then follow it up with GDQ1-7. I'll admit that while I liked the initial FR Drow Novels, They really set the type for the drow in 2ed. Novels running a realm has always bothered me. It killed Dark Sun, and the Realms is showing some wear. Hopefully the Drow can shake this taint and become unique once again.
ASEO out
I guess I have the advantage (being comparatively new to D&D)that I haven't yet been burned out on the drow. I find them very interesting. Granted much like the various underwater creatures out there I find that far from overusing them that it's rare to find my PCs in a situation where I CAN use them. It's so unusual for our games to take them into the Uderdark. Still our Forgotten Realms campaign has seen a fun little cameo by Jezz the Lame and has the possibility of traveling north into drow country.
That said--who exactly has been going around dissing the "Lolth and her drow"? I certainly haven't seen it.
That said--who exactly has been going around dissing the "Lolth and her drow"? I certainly haven't seen it.
I haven´t any thread at hand, but many gamers (me included) think that drow have been somewhat overused. Come to think of it, perhaps not overused in adventures, rather in books, novels, comic books, artwork, minis, etc. And a certain drow ranger using two scimitars just has been done to death, which is perhaps the main reason behind the anti-drow sentiments. The drow setting published quite a while ago in dungeon was very good, so there is potential if done right.
I´m using them sparingly as well - my group is level 10 now, and they encountered one single drow to date in the most recent adventure. In that encounter, my NPC cleric died (not by the hands of the drow), so they probably won´t forget it anytime soon. The drow nearly coup de graced the monk PC, who just in time could shake off the hold person spell...
I´m just waiting to see what happens when they meet Edralve at the end of the slavers campaign...
Stefan