Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Racist Tropes on Drow STOP IT

Agreed ...
I was and still am dissapointed by friendly welcome my Drow get inside the Grove.

There are some things that play in your favor

1. You have slaughtered some goblins. It could be a ruse, of course but the tieflings are also desperate

2. You are not a full blown drow party.

3. Kagha actually does not mind the drows as long as they act as her mercenary.



I guess some kind of a check would not harm, though.

Im aware ...
Those are good arguments for letting you in or allowing you to trade ... it may even explain Zevlors attempt to ask you for a help.

But how about the others?

That short haired elf druid is willing to tell you that she is sending birds to search for Halsin (that roll should be done with story disadvantage bcs you are drow imho).
Rath asking you for help ...
Those 3 arguing Tieflings allway listens to your wisdom no matter wich one you support ... instead something like: "Are we as low as a Drow now? I say we must stay and help!"
The Tiefling parents hopes you help them save their child ... and they have no way to know so soon that you were helping at gate.
Or Alfira telling you her "hearthmelting" tale? What does she expect from you? To cry? My Drow would laugh if Larian would dare to allow me.
Or that small Tiefling vendor/thief duo ... would they even dare?

I must admit that even after all the books and lore i read, that i am not 100% sure how a seldarine drow would behave. Some dialogue options seem unfitting for a race that tries to get rid of it's heritage.

Reading Drizzt and the War of the Spider Queen books shows most Drow as either outright evil and racist towards anything else Drow (or mighty enough to threaten them) or as uncaring, self-centered Individuals that hardly respect anyone else and think them "beneath" themselves.

So the welcome in the grove should be much more guarded at first. I would even go for a persuasion/deception check to make the conversation go in a drows favor (If we get Duergar the same applies).

If you fail those checks the whole grove should be on high alert when talking to you and only allow you in because you helped. This can get better by helping ofc.

Exactly!

I'm ok with the way this is handled. If they forced a Drow PC to pass a lot of checks, it could force you to play another path, instead of leaving this path open, and I'd rather have this than be shoehorned into playing the other path. As far as "no way to know what happened at the gate", news travels fast in a closed community, and this is very definitely that. It's not like we see everyone involved at the gate, and know where they go after we get let in. It's not like we're the stereotypical Drow after all, we are running around on the surface, during the day.

I would say its barely tolerable ...
But that is the most positive description i would give it.

Not necesarily ...
As i said, i would just like some differences in their reactions.

Specific exmples:

- If you suggest those arguing Tieflings (Lia, Roland and Cal) as some "regular race" ... that they should leave and dont give a f*ck about refugees ... they would listen to you.
UNLESS you are Drow (and you suggest them to leave) ... that would be argument for that Girl (Lia) to do exact oposite you suggested, bcs they certainly dont want to be the same selfish assholes as "a Drow".

- Those two kids (Mattis and i dunno, Silfi i gues but the link does not work)
Should in my opinion certainly not even try to steal from Drow, Duergar or Half-Orc ... the reason is simple, they would be too affraid of them.

- Arabella parents (Marricko and Locke)
Should certainly not expect you to care about safety of their child ...
And they should not asking you for help right away ... only when offered they should take it, since they indeed are desperate.
Of course if you fail to save the girl and you tell them, they should be quite furious about you, since they "never should have thrusted a Drow in the first place".

- Guarding druid (Jeorna)
Should just say that she would never allow such filth as you are to enter this sacred ground ... and she should be acting much more hostile, until she is told that Kagha wanted to speak with us.

- The old cook (Okta)
Should in my opinion offer to SELL you a bowl of anything she was cooking for some symbolic price ... like 1g ... just dont give you freely.
And you on the other hand should certainly have option to [Persuate] or [Intimidate] her to threat you with respect you (as a hero from the gate) deserve. :P

- Kids training Tiefling (Asharak, link isnt working sadly)
Should never in my opinion ask you to raise spirits for the kids ... you are something like a boogeyman for them after all. :-/
Instead he should ask you to leave, since you are frightening them.

- The training Tiefling (Guex)
Should try to avoid interaction with you for the very same reason.
Unless you litteraly ask him to tell you what is his problem.

And last but certainly not least:
- Alfira the ba ... the singi ... well, that blue/purple Tiefling on the cliff.
Should certainly not be telling you tail of her master playing the lute and sing while they were attacked ...
And if so, your Drow should certainly have option to laugh at her instead of offering comfort ... and then she should say that she should have never expect any different from *your kind*.

Of course all those things should be bypassable, by using discuise self ...
Or by saving both Tiefling childern first (both Arabella and Mirkon).

See?
Almost none dicerolls included and completely different experience.
Thats what im talking about.

When i play evil race, i want the world to react on me being evil race ...
The same if i create a Gnome in full game (especialy if Deep Gnome) ... and Duergars in the Underdark will not try to enslave me on sight (with possibility to do some HARD persuation check, or use a Tadpole) ... i shall be incredibly dissapointed.

Yeah ...
The problem here is that they have much more important stuff to deal with (arested kid) ... so i kinda doubt they would even care about what happened at gate, unless it specificaly involves them.

Actualy we do.

Well, this still may (even tho i admit that chances are quite low) be a placeholder ...

But yes, this one is true ... Drow usualy dont come out at sunlight, but there still is decades (maybe even milenia ) of many other, much more disturbing rumors of our race ... i would certainly not cast them all out just bcs i meet a Drow during the day.

That's one of those situations where they might reconsider with something like "Leave and I will find you. Then I will hang your skins on the nearest tree to show what happens to those who displease me."


Well, I would still be happy to have an interaction with the bard. Maybe not as easy. For example, my drow sorcerer has a weakness for music and art, which is one of his redeeming qualities.

P.S. Deep gnomes are not really considered evil and according to Bart (the gnome from the windmill), they have no problems to live in Baldur's Gate.

P.S.2 I do not think a complete overhaul is needed but perhaps an extra check or two and replacing persuasion with intimidation on 1-2 places should do the trick.

I never said they are ... nor i was talking about their lives in Baldur's Gate.

The title of the article claims that the Drow were based on racist tropes, but in the entire article they didn't mention exactly what those tropes were.

As far as I can tell, the Drow were based largely on tropes of 15th-century Italian aristocracy, with a heavy dose of Dunning-Kruger, and a dash of white supremacy. If Niccolò Machiavelli, Donald Trump, and Richard Spencer are upset about how much the larger part of Drow society resembles them, I can't say I feel very sympathetic for them.

Generally in stories, societies like this are described as dystopian, counterproductive and horrible to live in.

Imperium of Man is one such example. GW did not start rewriting the Imperium but rather point out its supposed to be a parody and things taken too far. Its not a manifesto of how things should be and I think thats what most of the knuckleheads misunderstand.
Just as the OP completely misunderstands what the point of all these depictions is. I blame it on lack of education and critical thinking skills when something is observed as a surface level literal translation rather than analyzing the concept in the entire context.

Before this used to be a unique problem with the religious rightwing but now we have... people like OP who probably mean well but end up ruining everything.

My 2 cents on "inherent" and "culturally" evil:

I find that both can work in a fictional setting, especially with more outlandish and explicitly magical beings. The idea that a fiend will stop being a fiend and become something else if their alignment changes is a good example of how a creature made in part up by planar energies can be "inherently" good or evil without it being a problem. If anything, it can open up for a lot of interesting storytelling or worldbuilding.

I think it is more problematic to have mortals be "inherently" evil. Mortals aren't really "essential" like a planar creature might be, because a Drow that changes their alignment would still be Drow. Mortals are also very much a result of their material conditions. Orcs being hostile with humans can be easily explained without making them inherently evil simply by the fact that these groups are in competition over land and resources. A competition that humans have largely won, making it difficult for orcs to establish a stable society that furthers social and technological progress. And as humans leverage their better position more and more, the harder it will be for orcs to establish themselves apart from them.

Continuing with orcs and humans, let's look at a specific example: The Elder Scrolls. The Orsimer have been in conflict with their human neighbors for most of their history in Tamriel and the emerging human dominance of the continent under the Skyrim Conquests, the Alessian Order, the Reman Empire, and the Septim Empire meant that building a civilization apart from humans entirely just wouldn't work. Humans were everywhere orcs had enough numbers to become more than minor tribal groups. So they were perpetual outsiders, often clashing with their neighbors and orcish warlords who amassed too much power (Orsinium) were invaded to prevent them becoming a threat. Then an orcish leader who was both willing and able to make a place for the orcs under the dominant human forces emerged; King Kurog in the Alliance War and Gortwog gro-Nagorm during the Warp in the West.

So what changed? Orcs went from being tribal enemy creatures seen as little more than savages in early games to become members of Tamriel's society, where the Imperial Legion in particular has found a new appreciation of their martial culture. The sacking of Orsinium in the early 4th Era also show that the bretons and redguards are just as responsible for much of this cycle of violence as the orcs were. We also see the orc strongholds in Skyrim live in relative peace with their nord neighbors for a long time when this change happens in the 3rd Era.


There are other situations and interactions in a world that might throw additional difficulties into certain people getting along. Mind Flayers, for example, are dependent on eating people's brains to survive and have natural psionic abilities. They also have behavior similar to that of a hive-mind, even if it isn't absolute. This means that living alongside Mind Flayers would be virtually impossible on anything resembling a larger scale.

Yeesh, can you imagine if animals recognized emotions in other animals and thought for one second that they didn't want to eat each other because it made them feel bad? Every naturally developed carnivore would die out and we'd have way too many herbivores. I don't think plants would be able to outgrow the herbivore population. If you want to bring inter-species relations to a humanitarian point by projecting a strictly human perspective, that's pretty speciesist of you. If you want to apply moral and ethical dilemmas to differently adapted species, you'd have to draw the very human idea that intelligence guides actions. Of course, if you boil all intelligence driven actions down to 9 blocks of alignment and calculate an individual's EXACT alignment via a history of actions barring any obfuscation, I'm pretty sure you'd already know why the beings in this world act the way they do. People may not be born racist or speciesist, but I'd be shocked if a hungry tiger decided not to eat an abandoned calf, just as I'd be shocked if trauma responses don't incite fear within communities. A self-perpetuating cycle when fathomed that WILL NEVER cease to exist in some form, similar to how all intelligence driven actions are boiled down into 9 blocks of alignment.

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

Jaysus. A black hole topic that just continues to spiral downwards into an unfathomable abyss. A fitting theme for the holidays.

I've always thought that, at least in regards to sentient free-willed mortal beings, inherent evil was a mistake, and this belief goes back many years beyond 5e. (Anthropomorphic personifications is an entirely different kettle of fish, and they shouldn't really be compared)

But I don't understand people's aversion to the new "cultural" evil angle, even though it's really not a new angle at all, and WOTC have been heading towards this for many years, because evil is and always has been a cultural and social concept that can and has changed depending on the beliefs and practices of people.
We humans made it up, it's fake.
Things like inherent good, evil, law, and chaos are for deities, celestials, and fiends, not pointy ear Elfy bois. This isn't Tolkien, people are allowed to have complex moral systems within their established societies.

Now, I have strong opinions regarding the recent errata changes, but my biggest concerns are not about the changes made to Drow at all.

Because what you call complex isn't complex, it's shallow. Mind Flayers aren't evil because they're evil, they're evil because they eat and enslave people.



How to tell me you've never read Tolkien without telling me you've never read Tolkien.

"Good is good. Bad is bad. Good, bad, good, bad, good... Bad... Good.". Thumb Wars.

Everyone has choices. Every day. Will you do good? Will you do bad? Regardless of race.

Vegetables are good. Cake and candy are bad. Eat veges. Good. Eat candy. Bad.

Love people. Good. Hate people. Bad.

Society promotes love and respect. Good.

Society promotes violence, slavery, hate and murder. Bad.

Interestingly, many don't call something bad until it hurts them. "A violent society isn't bad. They have just as much right to live their way as I do.". Until they invade, butcher the person's family and cart them off as slaves.

Just because a character is a drow, that doesn't make them bad. However, if most Drow society is violent, cruel and vicious, it makes sense that people will instinctively not trust them on sight, maybe even kill them.

I think Larian set up the story well. If you play a Drow and help save the grove, you gain their trust. Otherwise, they would not even consider trusting you.

That said, if a race like gnolls eat people, and naturally crave humanoid flesh, that's bad. If a gnoll chooses to not do this, great. That's a good gnoll. But if they are few and far between, it's pretty safe to call the race bad.

I'm sure the Valar and all the Elves living under their rule in Aman totally agree with you.

This topic is very delicate as many may have sensitive opinions about these issues. One thing that comes to mind is, when it comes to the Drow/Dark Elves, it seems to be a common theme in fantasy settings for them to be seen in a different light among other races. For example, in Elder Scrolls, the Dark Elves are arrogant and racist as well, especially against Argonians who they used to keep as slaves. This theme for dark elves has existed for a very, very, very long time and I believe that when this theme was created there was no hidden agenda as these issues where not as blatant hundreds of years ago. Each race at that time practically lived in their own region. We have to be careful how we connect some of these issues to fantasy settings.