There's been a lot of discussion about a lot of themes in this thread already, some of which I agree with, and some of which I don't. If the Drow were always evil, all the time, Eilistraee and her follower would literally not exist, and she's been around since 2e. If the Orcs were always evil, all the time, we would not have the many-arrows nation, which WoTc have been building towards since 3.5e.

But I'd just like to say that so far, i actually think Larian has done a halfway decent job at depicting some of the traditionally more evil races. Most of their antagonistic characters are people, they are not in a great place, socially, they are basically enslaved to the cult of the absolute, but they are actually just a bunch of people of varying evil-ness and motivations, instead of cartoonish cardboard cutouts that are designed to be hit with an adventurer's sword. And I like that. I know not everyone likes that idea of turning what should be adventurer-fodder into actual characters, and I've seen it turn out poorly in actual tabletop groups where one player got really up in arms about killing a bunch of bandits of mixed humanoid races, that were trying to kill us at the time; and then another player who was trying to discuss the ethical implications of murdering a bunch of goblins, also while they were trying to kill us at the time (we eventually solved the goblin problem peacefully, as they weren't actually doing raiding, and had even tried to trade with a nearby town).

However, just because me the player feels like goblins are people and you probably shouldn't slaughter them en masse, doesn't mean that any character i make will feel the same way (which is, in fact, why the aforementioned discussion about the ethics of goblin murdering began).

I guess this might tie in with my preference of genres. I like rpgs and adventures, I'm less enthusiastic about hack-and-slash. Having intelligent creatures that also just so happen to be doing bad things, and how your character feels about having to kill them is more rpg. Having hoards of cardboard cutouts with no nuance, that you aren't supposed to question the existence of is H&S. And if I want H&S I'll go play Diablo (or, i won't because fuck blizzard, but you get the idea).

Last edited by Piff; 03/08/21 11:09 PM.