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Any sentient creature should be allowed to break tradition. There is no reason that any species of intelligent creature should be attack on sight with no questions asked....
am i the only one who thinks that humanoid Hyenas should remain as one of the:
"Hey, look, a gnoll!"
*party attacks, no question asked*races?
Yes? I'll see myself out.
Yeah, if a frikkin *demon goddess made out of pure sin and wickedness* can be redeemed, then there's no excuse for any humanoid race to not be able to choose to not be evil.
I'm not sure I need there to be good kytons or aboleths yet (purely neutral ones, who are too self-involved and / or goal-oriented / obsessive to give two figs for the grand racial evil agendas? Sure!), but gnolls, orcs, goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, etc. are fine.
They won't necessarily be *common*, and some might still be 'kill on sight' in many nations or territories, because the only orcs/gnolls/etc. known in *those* areas are wicked pillagers and slavers and anthropophages.
Bugbears, ogres, etc. I'm on the fence about. Not being evil is a harder slog for some... (That said, a coldly mercenary bugbear bounty hunter whose greatest thrill comes in running down someone who thought they got away with it and dragging them back to justice, or a 'pet' ogre kept as a mascot / brute squad by an order of knights, could be a fun non-evil NPC.)
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People did have issues with that actually and the connotations it brought forth.
sure but i'm saying they're not really the same thing and i think most people who want 'all gnoll to be evil' don't actually care if all gnolls are evil, they just don't want to fight grey enemies. gnolls not being black and white anymore, in their perception, makes it once over harder to just have a black and white struggle.
someone like who say is a lawyer at work, might not want to spend his free time dealing with nuance and political complexities and might just want to go out and defeat the evil lord.
unfortunately this type of story and has become muddled with some more troubling ideas. like I doubt anyone is really racist against gnolls, they just have a story telling tradition of being a part of the 'big bad evil guys' army.
words are getting minced here, when i don't think people are arguing gnolls can't be a part of the bbeg's army and that that type of story isn't going away, but people are acting like they are.
as has been said, i don't think the person arguing for it would kill a gnoll sitting down in a cafe, they just think that this might make attacking a group of gnolls on the road morally ambiguous and they don't want it to be unambiguous, even though there are plenty of ways to make it unambiguous.
like say all the gnolls in the bbeg's army are wearing armor with a Red gnoll print over their heart, with the first letter of the bbeg's name written in the gnoll alphabet. it becomes unambiguous and you're free to attack.
like in my campaign, while i haven't shown my players the BBEG yet, I plan for all his "minions" to be corpses of living beings slain and raised with elemental spirits. they will never have issue confusing these enemies for something else.
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The thing is though, you don't need 'always evil' races in order to tell black and white stories.
Cultists and bandits and necromancers and slavers are all pretty run of the mill 'kill the baddie' type enemies and a lot of them are going to be humans or dwarves or elves and no one really bats an eye about being okay with that if that's the kind of campaign being run.
I can completely understand that some people just want to chill out and play an epic fantasy adventure where they fight the bad guys and save the world or whatever and not really worry about exploring deeper themes and that's fine, but you don't need 'always evil' races to pull that off either.
The thing is though, you don't need 'always evil' races in order to tell black and white stories.
Cultists and bandits and necromancers and slavers are all pretty run of the mill 'kill the baddie' type enemies and a lot of them are going to be humans or dwarves or elves and no one really bats an eye about being okay with that if that's the kind of campaign being run.
I can completely understand that some people just want to chill out and play an epic fantasy adventure where they fight the bad guys and save the world or whatever and not really worry about exploring deeper themes and that's fine, but you don't need 'always evil' races to pull that off either.
which has been my point, as far as i can tell, your side and his side have been missing a whole lot of details. there's ways to tell those stories without killing all of X and he probably doesn't actually care all that much if gnolls aren't kill on sight, as long as he has something to kill on sight.
AND that there's ways to even keep some gnolls in that group of kill on sight.
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I was responding to Val'bryn2, not you just to point out.
"someone like who say is a lawyer at work, might not want to spend his free time dealing with nuance and political complexities and might just want to go out and defeat the evil lord."
Why does this argument only crop in regards to topics regarding 1) Queer topics 2) PoC and 3) not having people be inherently evil?
The Evil Lord doesn't have to be a Gnoll, having Gnolls be any alignment they can doesn't disrupt this in any way. You can have the Evil Lord command horde of evil human or gnome mercenaries, doesn't change the story.
If your players don't want to fight against the evil mercenaries because they're human but would have no problem fighting them if they're Gnolls that's an issue your players have.
"as has been said, i don't think the person arguing for it would kill a gnoll sitting down in a cafe, they just think that this might make attacking a group of gnolls on the road morally ambiguous and they don't want it to be unambiguous, even though there are plenty of ways to make it unambiguous."
This is a hypothetical non-issue of your own making. If a group of Gnolls attack your group on the road they're not going to not defend themselves and think should we let the Gnolls kill them.
All this boils down to "I want a excuse to kill someone because of their skin or fur" and not because of anything they've done.
Yes randomly attacking a group of Gnolls on the road for no reason wouldn't fly for non Evil people, even in 1st, even in 3.5.
Give them evil mercenary armor that's known for being horrendously evil, the same you do with humans or any other core races.
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The thing is though, you don't need 'always evil' races in order to tell black and white stories.
Cultists and bandits and necromancers and slavers are all pretty run of the mill 'kill the baddie' type enemies and a lot of them are going to be humans or dwarves or elves and no one really bats an eye about being okay with that if that's the kind of campaign being run.
I can completely understand that some people just want to chill out and play an epic fantasy adventure where they fight the bad guys and save the world or whatever and not really worry about exploring deeper themes and that's fine, but you don't need 'always evil' races to pull that off either.
This.
All of this.
I was responding to Val'bryn2, not you just to point out.
"someone like who say is a lawyer at work, might not want to spend his free time dealing with nuance and political complexities and might just want to go out and defeat the evil lord."
Why does this argument only crop in regards to topics regarding 1) Queer topics 2) PoC and 3) not having people be inherently evil?
well I mean, that's my point, the solution isn't to go 'that's okay', but to give them better ways to tell the story they want to tell. sorry, if i'm apparently not very good at making this clear. :/
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there's ways to tell those stories without killing all of X and he probably doesn't actually care all that much if gnolls aren't kill on sight, as long as he has something to kill on sight.Then why do Gnolls need to stay kill on sight?
they don't, you make a group of gnolls who are kill on sight, by giving them a uniform, or a name, place, and all the evil things they did, etc. it's not gnolls, it's evil people, who happen to also be gnolls.
basically, the reason all the orcs in LotRs are kill on sight, is because they follow the dark lord, not because they're orcs, if the dark lord was dead and orcs stopped attacking other people wantonly then there's no reason to keep killing them on sight, but if a particular orc band is still doing this, in that area going and finding and attacking their bandit camp isn't morally ambiguous.
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they don't, you make a group of gnolls who are kill on sight, by giving them a uniform, or a name, place, and all the evil things they did, etc. it's not gnolls, it's evil people, who happen to also be gnolls.there's ways to tell those stories without killing all of X and he probably doesn't actually care all that much if gnolls aren't kill on sight, as long as he has something to kill on sight.Then why do Gnolls need to stay kill on sight?
Then why the pushback?
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Then why the pushback?they don't, you make a group of gnolls who are kill on sight, by giving them a uniform, or a name, place, and all the evil things they did, etc. it's not gnolls, it's evil people, who happen to also be gnolls.there's ways to tell those stories without killing all of X and he probably doesn't actually care all that much if gnolls aren't kill on sight, as long as he has something to kill on sight.Then why do Gnolls need to stay kill on sight?
because I see it that both of you were talking past each other. I tried to pull the conversation in a different direction to hopefully make everyone's opinions more clear.
basically the opinions of both parties didn't appear to exclusitory to each other, so i tried to point out the ground that likely leaves everyone happy.
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And it is why certain groups use "orcs" as a racial slur these days.
People did have issues with that actually and the connotations it brought forth.
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Yes, i do wholeheartily believe that there should exist "evil" races.Those are called Fiends, not Humanoids.
We are playing a fantasy game. A game with EVIL black dragons and GOOD gold dragons.And LN ones.
Let's stot trying to make a fantasy tabletop into a social experiment,It's been a "social experiment" since it's very inception.
or else we may as well quit it, since imo "killing" in general is something that's socially unnacceptable as well. So why adventure at all! let's go become farmers!
Yes, killing is something quite serious and usually horrendous, becoming desensitized to killing is bad.
Still more socially acceptable than nipples and sex though, sadly.
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Yes, i do wholeheartily believe that there should exist "evil" races.
does that mean that there can't be specific individuals that break the mold and become good? ofc it doesn't. But those are the exceptions, and thus (again imo) shouldn't be made into a playable race.
See, I'm against this just because limiting player choice has never made the game better. Nothing about how the alignment system works leads me to believe that it is prescriptive rather than descriptive.
We are playing a fantasy game. A game with EVIL black dragons and GOOD gold dragons.
I actually remember reading about dragons who changed alignment. Evil metallic dragons were referred to as 'tarnished' dragons and good chromatic dragons were the 'redeemed' or 'vibrant' dragons I believe.
Let's stot trying to make a fantasy tabletop into a social experiment, or else we may as well quit it, since imo "killing" in general is something that's socially unnacceptable as well. So why adventure at all! let's go become farmers!
I don't think this is a genuine argument. No one is saying 'Think of the poor bloodthirsty murderers', what we are saying is that it would be more fun if we had more options to tell more stories.
Yes, killing is something quite serious and usually horrendous, becoming desensitized to killing is bad.
Still more socially acceptable than nipples and sex though, sadly.
That's not really a fair argument. Adult humans have sex all the time without it being socially stigmatized. Killing has always been socially wrong for most purposes. It's the age of the participants that creates a stigma about sex and sexuality, not the morality of the actions.
Besides that, it isn't really a refutation of the argument.
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Hyenas are not evil and do not deserve to be slaughtered.
There are fiends, and there are a lot more naturally evil beings. Gnolls used to be one of them as well. It wasn't random that they were modeled after hyenas.
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Yes, killing is something quite serious and usually horrendous, becoming desensitized to killing is bad.
Still more socially acceptable than nipples and sex though, sadly.
That's not really a fair argument. Adult humans have sex all the time without it being socially stigmatized. Killing has always been socially wrong for most purposes. It's the age of the participants that creates a stigma about sex and sexuality, not the morality of the actions.
Besides that, it isn't really a refutation of the argument.
It actually is if your not in the right social view.
And i was more referring to depictions in media, killing is perfectly fine but sexiness is a no no.
We have gladiatorial arenas and assassin guilds, but brothels? They get renamed dance halls.
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tbf, none of the animals are, or can be, evil.
it's just that the "usual" depiction of hyenas in folklore was usually... quite terrible.
Have you HEARD the laugh? Like I know better, but they sound really freaky. The coyotes around here sound like women screaming in the night sometimes, so the horror stories have a reasonable origin.
Fair enough. And in folklore cats were often considered villainous and murderous. Rats were considered filthy and evil.
So if we are going to be consistant.. then all catfolk and ratfolk should be destroyed.
Or.. instead... humanoids based on natural creatures should be treated with the same respect we treat their real-life counterparts.
Hyenas are not evil and do not deserve to be slaughtered.
There are fiends, and there are a lot more naturally evil beings. Gnolls used to be one of them as well. It wasn't random that they were modeled after hyenas.
tbf, none of the animals are, or can be, evil.
it's just that the "usual" depiction of hyenas in folklore was usually... quite terrible.
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This is true, admittedly my own interest in this comes from Lord of the Rings. No one has had issues with the orcs from there being uniformly evil, and that story became one of the grandfathers of Pathfinder.
“No one” is sort of a bold claim; there’s lots of literature on the implicit racism in LotR, especially regarding the orcs.
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The things you do in game do not reflect who you are as a person.
But you’re still you, and what mindset you go about things is something to be aware of.
Making a specific character that doesn’t see a certain creature as people is one thing [insert whatever tragic backstory remix] but when people, not their characters, are voicing their thoughts that whatever humanoid aka people, a sapient creature with free will are inherently evil and okay to kill just because of what they are not because of anything they’ve done, that’s just something to be aware of, and probably reflect on why do they think that way?
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The things you do in game do not reflect who you are as a person.But you’re still you, and what mindset you go about things is something to be aware of.
Making a specific character that doesn’t see a certain creature as people is one thing [insert whatever tragic backstory remix] but when people, not their characters, are voicing their thoughts that whatever humanoid aka people, a sapient creature with free will are inherently evil and okay to kill just because of what they are not because of anything they’ve done, that’s just something to be aware of, and probably reflect on why do they think that way?
The main difference is that gnolls aren't real. We are talking about a game, and are talking about an imaginary race of people within the context of a fictional universe.
Example: The heartless from Kingdom Hearts are inherently evil, despite having a measure of free will. It doesn't reflect on my real beliefs as a person to discuss that or say that they NEED to be destroyed on sight.
The same almost universally applies to demons, daemons, and devils. They are inherently evil, and only extremely old and powerful ones even posses a chance at changing their alignment. This is because, just like an elemental is made of it's associated element, a demon is made of evil. It's part of the nature of that creature.
Saying all that does not reflect my beliefs on race in a real world context. They are completely and distinctly separated.
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The things you do in game do not reflect who you are as a person.But you’re still you, and what mindset you go about things is something to be aware of.
Making a specific character that doesn’t see a certain creature as people is one thing [insert whatever tragic backstory remix] but when people, not their characters, are voicing their thoughts that whatever humanoid aka people, a sapient creature with free will are inherently evil and okay to kill just because of what they are not because of anything they’ve done, that’s just something to be aware of, and probably reflect on why do they think that way?
The main difference is that gnolls aren't real. We are talking about a game, and are talking about an imaginary race of people within the context of a fictional universe.
Example: The heartless from Kingdom Hearts are inherently evil, despite having a measure of free will. It doesn't reflect on my real beliefs as a person to discuss that or say that they NEED to be destroyed on sight.
The same almost universally applies to demons, daemons, and devils. They are inherently evil, and only extremely old and powerful ones even posses a chance at changing their alignment. This is because, just like an elemental is made of it's associated element, a demon is made of evil. It's part of the nature of that creature.
Saying all that does not reflect my beliefs on race in a real world context. They are completely and distinctly separated.
And the Heartless are evil, if they were statted up in Pathfinder they would be Fiends or Undead (or both).
Gnolls on the other hand are Humanoids aka People who just look different.
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Yes, killing is something quite serious and usually horrendous, becoming desensitized to killing is bad.
Still more socially acceptable than nipples and sex though, sadly.
That's not really a fair argument. Adult humans have sex all the time without it being socially stigmatized. Killing has always been socially wrong for most purposes. It's the age of the participants that creates a stigma about sex and sexuality, not the morality of the actions.
Besides that, it isn't really a refutation of the argument.
I must be misreading this.
Adult humans have sex all the time without it being socially stigmatized.
Or you've got to be joking me.
I can easily think of adult humans who've been socially stigmatized for having sex.
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Yes, killing is something quite serious and usually horrendous, becoming desensitized to killing is bad.
Still more socially acceptable than nipples and sex though, sadly.
That's not really a fair argument. Adult humans have sex all the time without it being socially stigmatized. Killing has always been socially wrong for most purposes. It's the age of the participants that creates a stigma about sex and sexuality, not the morality of the actions.
Besides that, it isn't really a refutation of the argument.
I must be misreading this.
Adult humans have sex all the time without it being socially stigmatized.
Or you've got to be joking me.
I can easily think of adult humans who've been socially stigmatized for having sex.
Look, I'm gay. I know you are making a point about LGBT sex and stigmatization and I get it, but that's not my point. A vast majority of consenting adults have sex as much as they want and no one bats an eye, as long as they do it at home. That was my point.
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another reason why the alignment system shouldn't exist number #2034
- Everyone would have to be judged on how they behave - not based on the alignment line in the monster book
another reason why the alignment system shouldn't exist number #2034
- Everyone would have to be judged on how they behave - not based on the alignment line in the monster book
That's how it's supposed to work. GMs should be using alignment to flavor the ways creatures are behaving because alignment is based on behavior.
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Fiends don’t have the free will that Humanoids do.Saying these creatures are kill on sight because of their presumed Alignment isn’t a narrative though.a)it is not "presumed", it is "established". As you yourself has said, Fiends are "Evil",
So, your characters don't attack fiends?If they’re sitting in a tea shop having a boba? No. In the middle of doing something evil? Yes.
That doesn't make their PLAYERS racists.
But they are okay with using racist elements.
And you even bring up Drow, which was even more racist back when their skin was black instead of purple or blue.
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That's how it's supposed to work. GMs should be using alignment to flavor the ways creatures are behaving because alignment is based on behavior.another reason why the alignment system shouldn't exist number #2034
- Everyone would have to be judged on how they behave - not based on the alignment line in the monster book
Yep.
And even without alignment I honestly think these arguments would still be happening.