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

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by 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?

Why do you think DF doesn't have "bad guy" races who are evil? This is the thing about you b-dog, you always come up with critiques that are just not true.

1. You are the GM. You can make any race completely evil if you want to. That is what GURPS is about...giving you control of customization of your world. You and I can both GM a DF game and yours can be full of horror and elder things and psionics and born evil races, while mine can be full of puppies and flowers and leprechauns with pots of gold, or whatever.
2. If you look at DF2, the following monsters are all listed as being "Truly evil": as-Sharak, Doomchild, Flaming Skull, Mindwarper, Peshkali, and Toxifier. That's six right there. Listed as being truly evil.

So I don't get where you have this idea that there are no truly evil things in DF.

Yeah, GURPS isn't D&D, so it doesn't have D&D's alignment system. And yeah, there seems to be a good percentage of GURPS players who aren't all that interested in absolute, genetic, racial evil. But you can do what ever you want to. That is what GURPS is all about. GURPS doesn't stop you from running the game you want. You want Dungeon Horror? You can do that. You want to play with black/white morality? You can do that. You can do whatever you want.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by trooper6

1. You are the GM. You can make any race completely evil if you want to.

I've met authors (in a writing club I go to on occasion lead by Lizard of GURPS Lands Out of Time fame) that had Elves as an effectively "evil" race.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I've met authors (in a writing club I go to on occasion lead by Lizard of GURPS Lands Out of Time fame) that had Elves as an effectively "evil" race.

I don't think b-dog understands that GURPS doesn't have canon in its genre books...it just has options. And even in setting books like Banestorm there is a lot of leeway for the GM decide what is going on and how the world will be.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I've met authors (in a writing club I go to on occasion lead by Lizard of GURPS Lands Out of Time fame) that had Elves as an effectively "evil" race.

Sanctimonious pointy-eared back-to-nature types that kill people just for cutting down a tree, even if using perfectly reasonable and not-very-harmful logging techniques, and hunt down "evil" creatures based on the color of their skin and the existence/non-existence of tusks? Evil? NAW!

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by trooper6

2. If you look at DF2, the following monsters are all listed as being "Truly evil": as-Sharak, Doomchild, Flaming Skull, Mindwarper, Peshkali, and Toxifier. That's six right there. Listed as being truly evil.

So I don't get where you have this idea that there are no truly evil things in DF.

Those are all demons except the Mind Warper which is an Elder Thing. I am talking about mortal races like orcs and trolls and such.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Those are all demons except the Mind Warper which is an Elder Thing. I am talking about mortal races like orcs and trolls and such.

This is what you do. You say: "In my DF game, all orcs and trolls are inherently evil."

Nothing in the books says they are or aren't inherently evil. Pick whatever race you want from DF3 and just call them inherently evil. Nothing is stopping you.

[Wraithe]

Well, I mean, the thing that makes a Race "Evil" is all really a cultural thing. For starters, the definition of "Evil and Good" are from YOUR perspective. The "Evil" see it differently (as other have pointed out in this thread).

So make the "Bad guys" culture something that is clearly "Evil" from the predominant culture perspective. I've got Ogres as playable in my (non DF) campaign, but they're clearly Not Nice Folks. (Anthrophage - Hellooo Severe OPH! :)) OTOH, I've actually made Goblins into an underground version of Elves (naturalists, etc), which explains their hatred of the Dvergr (Dwarves) - Despoiling Miners. I figure on having some fun with the PC's once they start running into the first evidence of these tensions.

Probably the best examples of making an "Evil" culture that pop to mind that are based in some form of logic:

Ganiks from the "Horseclans" novels by Robert Adams (Covered in "GURPS Horseclans") "They are the descendants of radical vegetarian conservationists who consider all non-human species endangered and eat only other humans."

Charonese from "The Golden Globe" by John Varley
Useful Excerpt: "To my way of thinking, any Charonese living at the age of four or five years must already be insane, by any standard I can understand."

Interestingly - the Charonese are a partial result of having too much ability to heal injury, which is CERTAINLY something one could work into a campaign containing magical healing.

The main thing is, that for a race/culture to be so alien as to be seen as fundamentally evil - it's going to take some serious thought as to WHY they are "evil".

So the question becomes: Do you want the players to UNDERSTAND why they're "evil" or do you just need them to be "The Enemy"?

If it's the latter - it's easier to just slap the "They're evil!" title on them and wipe 'em out like cockroaches.

[trooper6]

I never really get b-dog. He always has ideas...very specific ideas...about what he wants. He knows what he wants and what justification for it. For example:

Originally Posted by 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.

So...what is stopping him from having ogres, troll, gnolls, etc created by evil gods? Nothing.

b-dog, you've got your ideas. Go for it!

Just tell your players that all those races are inherently evil and were created by evil gods solely to be evil.

I don't see where the problem is. Other people might not like your idea, but they aren't running your game. You don't need approval from anyone but your players. Run your game the way you want to. GURPS is build flexibly so that you can have pure evil races in your campaigns, and I can have no moral absolutes in mine...and we can both be fine.

[sieurin]

I dont see the problem either. You have the orcoid races, you have dark elves, heavens to murgatroid, you have people who are the spawn of unmentionable abominations. Just say "You cant play these guys in my campaign, they are just monsters". Then play them as monsters.

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

"Troll" in folklore here (me = Swedish) is very much a word that tends to mean "humanoid supernatural being". If you ran a DF campaign based on actual Scandinavian folklore and some guy tells my adventurer to go and slay "trolls", I would groan, facepalm and tell him to be more specific.

Furthermore, when we played oldschool dungeon crawls, we didnt need the opposition to be evil. Face it, we were mercenaries in it for the dough and excitement, specialists in killing stuff; we generally just needed a clear enemy. "These guys are raiding farmers"; "these guys are sacrificing people to their deity"; "these guys have been at war with my people for generations" are all perfectly good reasons for there being an enemy that people either dont mind if you kill (and take their stuff) or even pay you to kill and take their stuff. Morals never entered into it. Thats for those high-falutin' "high fantasy" types that go on quests and stuff.

Erik

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by sieurin

I dont see the problem either. You have the orcoid races, you have dark elves, heavens to murgatroid, you have people who are the spawn of unmentionable abominations. Just say "You cant play these guys in my campaign, they are just monsters". Then play them as monsters.

Well I would love to have some write ups or a DF pdf for bad guy races. I think that GURPS writers do a good job at giving ideas for how to fit things into your campaign.