[DF] Why not have some pure "bad guy" races in DF?

[b-dog]

I have been thinking about the old school D&D and how they had bad guy races such ogres, trolls, gnolls, trolls, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins etc. These races were nasty and evil on the whole; although there were exceptions who were not eviland possibly even good. I just think these races could have been created by evil gods or maybe were corrupted faerie races or whatever, who knows. I mean in folk-lore a bugbear is an evil faerie and goblins are mischievious and malicious faeries. Trolls and ogres liked to eat people. And orcs who were created by Tolkien were considered an evil race or at least very hateful and nasty.

I mean if you want more complicated races then maybe lizardmen, coleopterans, cat-folk and the like would be races that battle over resourses and territory with humanity and they would have a logical social structure. So there would be enough of those kinds of races already so why not have some that are just a bad guy race?

[Evil Roy Slade]

Why not? Good question.

[Lonewulf]

Trolls were actually complicated in Scandinavian folklore; they were a bit more complicated than "likes to eat people".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls

The Vitterfolk would capture humans to use as slaves, or at least as prisoners amongst them; that's about the worst you can expect (as well as steal your food and spoil your beer!) But they're a bit more complicated than you're making them out to be.

As for the ultimate answer to why no "pure" evil monsters? I think it's because society is moving away from that kind of perspective as a whole. To be honest, the idea of a race being "innately" evil, and their children being "innately" evil (would you kill a Hobgoblin kid? If so, you're already touching on what makes the concept disturbing), is rather reminiscent of the ideas of a race being "superior" to another, or another race being "inferior", thanks to genetics.

Also, it's fun to make the evil monsters look, from their own perspective, to actually be rather sympathetic and understandable. It also, I would argue, makes for better (or at least more in-depth and complicated) storytelling. It's easy to invent a bogeyman; it's harder to make the bogeyman likable.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

To be honest, the idea of a race being "innately" evil, and their children being "innately" evil (would you kill a Hobgoblin kid? If so, you're already touching on what makes the concept disturbing), is rather reminiscent of the ideas of a race being "superior" to another, or another race being "inferior", thanks to genetics.

I've considered making a dungeon contain [bad race of the week] women, children, elderly, invalids, etc. and see how the players react. A Knight/Fighter/Warrior might reply along the vein of "How can you shoot women and children?" / "Simple, don't lead them as much!" but a Holy Warrior/Paladin or Cleric or just a decent person might react differently. It might actually make for a decent game.

[b-dog]

On the other hand why not make Shoggoths have real motivations like protecting their children and the elderly? Or demons who really feel that they only wanted independance of thought and because of that they were imprisoned in Hell? I guess in DF then these kinds of monsters would lose their coolness as bad guys and would instead be something that could be reasoned with. I think that is one reason I have always like the goblinoid races because they really didn't understand much besides force and brutality. It makes them different than "natural" races that like lizard-men.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Or demons who really feel that they only wanted independance of thought and because of that they were imprisoned in Hell?

I have a setting idea where this is entirely true. That demons are the "rebels", and are actually sympathetic characters.

I'm not sure how this hurts the setting.

I guess in DF then these kinds of monsters would lose their coolness as bad guys and would instead be something that could be reasoned with.

"Coolness as bad guys"? You're kidding, right? I don't agree with that at all.

And humans, who are one of the best examples of a "neutral" race, can always be reasoned with? I think I can pull several examples out of history where that's not true.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

I have a setting idea where this is entirely true. That demons are the "rebels", and are actually sympathetic characters.

I'm not sure how this hurts the setting.



"Coolness as bad guys"? You're kidding, right?

And humans, who are one of the best examples of a "neutral" race, can always be reasoned with? I think I can pull several examples out of history where that's not true.

There are already a lot of neutral races so why not some evil ones?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

As for the ultimate answer to why no "pure" evil monsters? I think it's because society is moving away from that kind of perspective as a whole. To be honest, the idea of a race being "innately" evil, and their children being "innately" evil (would you kill a Hobgoblin kid? If so, you're already touching on what makes the concept disturbing), is rather reminiscent of the ideas of a race being "superior" to another, or another race being "inferior", thanks to genetics.

Just an aside: I don't think that's true. The problem is that we're human and react to human things in a human fashion.

Let me offer a different perspective. If you were to go toe-to-toe with an Alien's brood, would you really hesitate to burn a nest filled with face-hugger eggs? Face-huggers are "baby" aliens, but I don't think many of us would hesitate to slaughter them all. It's not really a question of morality: these things will kill us if we do not kill us. There is no talking to them, making deals with them, or loving their children and turning them good. They are rapacious monsters that eat everything, obviously, and there is no redeeming them.

Which isn't to say that there isn't plenty of sci-fi drama to be gained from realizing that an inhuman race isn't without compassion or merit, and coming to an understanding. However, once the "baby" stops being a cute kid with little fingers and toes and huge eyes, and instead becomes a fanged monstrosity that's merely smaller than an adult, we lose alot of sympathy for it.

"Would you kill a baby hobgoblin?" looks like a morality test, but to me, it's really a test of how sympathetic the hobgoblin is. I don't think many people would hesitate to kill a "baby monster" if that baby monster was a parasitic larva or a screaming, fanged creature with scrawny legs, clutching claws and over-sized head.

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

The problem is that we're human and react to human things in a human fashion.
...
I don't think many people would hesitate to kill a "baby monster" if that baby monster was a parasitic larva or a screaming, fanged creature with scrawny legs, clutching claws and over-sized head.

I imagine this is a big part of the perception of "moral quandary"—What the "evil race" looks like.

Consider all of the stereotypically evil races that people impose this quandary on: Hobgoblins, orcs, goblins, drow elves, etc. What do they all have in common? They all look more or less humanoid. Is anyone going to think twice about wiping out a nursery of beholders? Probably not. A red dragon hatchling? Doubtful. Even in settings where dragons are not only sentient but among the most intelligent beings in the world, if you stumble across a red dragon wyrmling, you kill it. Or you run away, depending on who you are.

But as soon as you start making that dragon look more like a human—upright posture, arms with gripping hands, somewhere between four and eight feet tall, for example—what do you have? First, you have the stereotypical "lizardman" or "dragonborn" or whatever. Second, you have people who wouldn't have batted an eye at sticking a blade through that red dragon wyrmling suddenly thinking about whether or not it's moral to do the same thing with the same level of indiscrimination to a "humany-looking" version of it.

So perhaps one good route to take if you want irrevocably evil races in your game without having players trying to examine moral dilemmas that you don't want to be part of your game is to make those evil races distinctly inhuman. Not just "oh it's an orc and it has tusk-things and is angry all the time", but something with four legs and three eyes that communicates through a chirp-based language.

In short, dehumanize the enemy. Hell, even if the enemy is human, they can be dehumanized. The most well-known example of this would be Imperial grunt-level soldiers in Star Wars (both Storm Troopers and Tai Fighter pilots). On the outside, they all look the same (and sure, they might all look the same on the inside, too, but it wouldn't matter even if they didn't). You never see their faces. Their voices sound strange because of the distortion of their helmets and such. By comparison, the "good guys" wear helmets that let you see their faces. (Edit: Obviously, it's harder to take this route in some situations than others, because for some species (e.g. Humans) it makes little sense to have infants wearing the same dehumanizing gear as the adults.) Simple things like this go a long way towards taking what would otherwise be a morally gray situation and turning it into guilt-free massacre.

[smurf]

I thought it was all crass. The bad guys are X is a sort of moral pov to be righteous and to justify behaving like bastards.

However, I am thinking of running a DF soon and I am very much tempted by this idea now it is proposed. Simply come up with an absurd mix of 'evil' types and roll dice on it, who are the evil people this week.