What Makes a Race Evil? [Archive] - Wizards Community

What Makes a Race Evil? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Quenditar
04-27-08, 04:00 AM I've been fine-tuning races for my world, and one potential problem I've run into is that one race is evolving into a stereotypical type of race. Big, dumb, fractious, and violent. The original idea was a race with tighter and more exclusive (male) social bonds; loyalty is either complete or nonexistent, and a large polity is likely to fall apart into fighting factions on the death of the king and stay that way, usually with periodic slaughters of villages. It doesn't matter who is in the village; the world is divided into a small group of allies unto death, a group of inferiors controlled by force, and the big wide world of potential enemies looking for any chance to make off with your stuff.

Their strongest competitors don't suffer from that problem; they are less prone to murdering their own kind than humans (although that doesn't say much) and noticeably better at cooperation within their own kind. They have been known to make anarchism work, though there are too many threats from other races to make it stable. The flipside is that their sense of moral obligation doesn't extend outside the race; radical philosophy may proclaim the equal moral value of all language-using races, but such arguments are treated with the respect we give the idea that children and chickens are morally equal. If other races are allowed to keep their lands and lives, that is because it's not worth the effort right now to exterminate them.

So, are both races evil? If yes, why?

And do both make sense?
Space_Dragon
04-27-08, 08:57 AM Sounds like a classic case of Chaotic Evil on one hand and Lawful Evil on the other.

The first race is only workable if the intertribal wars are permeated with relative peace. They can't constantly be fighting each other, or they'd die out. Perhaps the internecine wars only take place when they breed themselves out of control?

The second race is in some ways less survivable than the first, for the simple reason that no one would be able to stand them. No other race would be stupid enough to trade or cooperate with these guys, and their neighbors would all gang up on them in a war of extermination before long. The only way around this would be to make them either very powerful, or very subtle.
Talisman
04-27-08, 06:44 PM Race A sounds CE to CN...I could even see the very rare CG or N individual emerging from their ranks. They're chaotic because they have a tight circle of allies and to Hell with everyone else, and because they apparently devolve into anarchy upon the death of the king. They're evil because they don't play well with others - if the rest of the world consists of "inferiors" and "enemies." Sounds rather Orcish.

Race B sounds like NE to me - the "anarchism" part (it's anarchy, BTW) seems to preclude their being lawful, but they're clearly organized, and they have a sense of moral obligation to their own race. They're evil because they're hypocrites - they preach equality but ignore it when it's inconvenient, and not only fight with, but "extermine" other races when it's feasable. Sounds like hobgoblins.

As Space_Dragon noted, Race B could only exist if (1) they were stronger than their enemies (or as strong - battles between equals are always the bloodiest), (2) they were extremely subtle and sneaky, (3) their enemies were distracted by a worse threat, or (4) they controlled some vital resource, in such a way that their enemies couldn't simply kill them and take it. As written, they're too untrustworthy to have as neighbors - you'd have to kill or enslave them out of self-defense, knowing that if you don't, they'll be massacring you as soon as they have the power to do so.

Race A sounds more viable, assuming they're consigned to the "wilderness barbarian" niche. They couldn't really make it in civilized lands, but on the fringes of the civilized world - absolutely. Perhaps they're being pushed back by the advancing humans/dwarves/whatever. Perhaps they organize into a vast horde every generation or so, and spill out to ravage the countryside.
Quenditar
04-28-08, 12:25 AM I posted this because I'm interested in how the definition of the "moral group" so controls the perception of evil. Are there any good threads on that? I've never been much of a person for philosophy, but I'm willing to try to follow an argument on this subject.

Race A started as an idea for tweaking society to be less stable and more violent, and I didn't realize for a long time that I'd reinvented orcs because I also thought of the high intragroup stability and willingness to sacrifice; while a clan leader might be unseated in a formal duel, poisoning or ambush is not acceptable.

I developed Race B from their own point of view (more accurately, from the point of view of one major culture), in which they're peaceful, decent people living next to aggressive, unreasonable creatures (Race A), contemptible races too savage to live in a spirit of peaceful cooperation with but reasonable enough to make tentative deals with (e.g. humans), and a few races peaceful and unthreatening enough to be treated as near-equals (e.g. gnomes). I had pegged them as LN, on the upper half of the long, gentle slope of enlightened self-interest, and it hadn't crossed my mind that they could be on the lower half until I looked back into their antiquity before liberal moral codes had the opportunity to sink in. It doesn't help that while the whole society may add up to LE, the individual members can and do lead virtuous lives in monoracial communities, and I'm not a believer in a "latent" evil alignment inhering in creatures who do no evil all their lives but would if some unusual circumstance were met.

Also, it's interesting to note that deviations from the human condition either way - towards less or more acceptance of one's own kind - fall into evil, while humans themselves aren't considered evil. Humans must have instincts to treat humans of a different appearance or culture as sub-human, threatening, and acceptable to exterminate, seeing how frequently that happens, yet they are by definition neutral as a race.

In my world as written, Race B is situated so their only real enemies are Race A; I think Race B's organizational talent will win out over Race A's greater bravery, more aggressive disposition, and higher birthrate, at least until Race A learns how to organize.

Does it change anything to know that Race A and Race B are not of the same type (Humanoid vs. Dragon)? In a previous campaign I ruled that the cannibalism taboo did not apply across type lines (don't ask why that ruling was needed).
JulesCARV
04-29-08, 03:00 AM I think that people tend to overplay their hand in claiming that societies with very high homicide rates couldn't be sustained. Such societies -- at least among humans -- are sustained in real life. There are societies where something like 1/3rd of men die violently. (Of course, one might claim that that couldn't work for a race with a much longer lifespan and slower reproduction, like drow.)

Given that D&D worlds are generally portrayed as being saturated with pandemic violence, where taking a walk on a country road for a day is likely to lead to a fight with bandits or somesuch, such a high homicide rate might be the norm for typical non-"enlightened" races, such as goblins, halfllings, humans, orcs, etc. (By "enlightened" races, I mean the ones portrayed as good and generally very long-lived -- dwarves, elves, and gnomes come ot mind.)

Such widespread violence, of course, limits the level of social complexity and interdependence, but thanks to D&D magic, a society can achieve far more materially with far less interdependence, peace, or cooperation than would be required without magic: building a castle doesn't require hundreds of laborers, and dozens of farmers to feed them, tailors to clothe them, etc, in an interdependent economy. A bard with a decent perform check and a lyre of building is enough.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Quenditar 04-27-08, 04:00 AM	I've been fine-tuning races for my world, and one potential problem I've run into is that one race is evolving into a stereotypical type of race. Big, dumb, fractious, and violent. The original idea was a race with tighter and more exclusive (male) social bonds; loyalty is either complete or nonexistent, and a large polity is likely to fall apart into fighting factions on the death of the king and stay that way, usually with periodic slaughters of villages. It doesn't matter who is in the village; the world is divided into a small group of allies unto death, a group of inferiors controlled by force, and the big wide world of potential enemies looking for any chance to make off with your stuff. Their strongest competitors don't suffer from that problem; they are less prone to murdering their own kind than humans (although that doesn't say much) and noticeably better at cooperation within their own kind. They have been known to make anarchism work, though there are too many threats from other races to make it stable. The flipside is that their sense of moral obligation doesn't extend outside the race; radical philosophy may proclaim the equal moral value of all language-using races, but such arguments are treated with the respect we give the idea that children and chickens are morally equal. If other races are allowed to keep their lands and lives, that is because it's not worth the effort right now to exterminate them. So, are both races evil? If yes, why? And do both make sense?
Space_Dragon 04-27-08, 08:57 AM	Sounds like a classic case of Chaotic Evil on one hand and Lawful Evil on the other. The first race is only workable if the intertribal wars are permeated with relative peace. They can't constantly be fighting each other, or they'd die out. Perhaps the internecine wars only take place when they breed themselves out of control? The second race is in some ways less survivable than the first, for the simple reason that no one would be able to stand them. No other race would be stupid enough to trade or cooperate with these guys, and their neighbors would all gang up on them in a war of extermination before long. The only way around this would be to make them either very powerful, or very subtle.
Talisman 04-27-08, 06:44 PM	Race A sounds CE to CN...I could even see the very rare CG or N individual emerging from their ranks. They're chaotic because they have a tight circle of allies and to Hell with everyone else, and because they apparently devolve into anarchy upon the death of the king. They're evil because they don't play well with others - if the rest of the world consists of "inferiors" and "enemies." Sounds rather Orcish. Race B sounds like NE to me - the "anarchism" part (it's anarchy, BTW) seems to preclude their being lawful, but they're clearly organized, and they have a sense of moral obligation to their own race. They're evil because they're hypocrites - they preach equality but ignore it when it's inconvenient, and not only fight with, but "extermine" other races when it's feasable. Sounds like hobgoblins. As Space_Dragon noted, Race B could only exist if (1) they were stronger than their enemies (or as strong - battles between equals are always the bloodiest), (2) they were extremely subtle and sneaky, (3) their enemies were distracted by a worse threat, or (4) they controlled some vital resource, in such a way that their enemies couldn't simply kill them and take it. As written, they're too untrustworthy to have as neighbors - you'd have to kill or enslave them out of self-defense, knowing that if you don't, they'll be massacring you as soon as they have the power to do so. Race A sounds more viable, assuming they're consigned to the "wilderness barbarian" niche. They couldn't really make it in civilized lands, but on the fringes of the civilized world - absolutely. Perhaps they're being pushed back by the advancing humans/dwarves/whatever. Perhaps they organize into a vast horde every generation or so, and spill out to ravage the countryside.
Quenditar 04-28-08, 12:25 AM	I posted this because I'm interested in how the definition of the "moral group" so controls the perception of evil. Are there any good threads on that? I've never been much of a person for philosophy, but I'm willing to try to follow an argument on this subject. Race A started as an idea for tweaking society to be less stable and more violent, and I didn't realize for a long time that I'd reinvented orcs because I also thought of the high intragroup stability and willingness to sacrifice; while a clan leader might be unseated in a formal duel, poisoning or ambush is not acceptable. I developed Race B from their own point of view (more accurately, from the point of view of one major culture), in which they're peaceful, decent people living next to aggressive, unreasonable creatures (Race A), contemptible races too savage to live in a spirit of peaceful cooperation with but reasonable enough to make tentative deals with (e.g. humans), and a few races peaceful and unthreatening enough to be treated as near-equals (e.g. gnomes). I had pegged them as LN, on the upper half of the long, gentle slope of enlightened self-interest, and it hadn't crossed my mind that they could be on the lower half until I looked back into their antiquity before liberal moral codes had the opportunity to sink in. It doesn't help that while the whole society may add up to LE, the individual members can and do lead virtuous lives in monoracial communities, and I'm not a believer in a "latent" evil alignment inhering in creatures who do no evil all their lives but would if some unusual circumstance were met. Also, it's interesting to note that deviations from the human condition either way - towards less or more acceptance of one's own kind - fall into evil, while humans themselves aren't considered evil. Humans must have instincts to treat humans of a different appearance or culture as sub-human, threatening, and acceptable to exterminate, seeing how frequently that happens, yet they are by definition neutral as a race. In my world as written, Race B is situated so their only real enemies are Race A; I think Race B's organizational talent will win out over Race A's greater bravery, more aggressive disposition, and higher birthrate, at least until Race A learns how to organize. Does it change anything to know that Race A and Race B are not of the same type (Humanoid vs. Dragon)? In a previous campaign I ruled that the cannibalism taboo did not apply across type lines (don't ask why that ruling was needed).
JulesCARV 04-29-08, 03:00 AM	I think that people tend to overplay their hand in claiming that societies with very high homicide rates couldn't be sustained. Such societies -- at least among humans -- are sustained in real life. There are societies where something like 1/3rd of men die violently. (Of course, one might claim that that couldn't work for a race with a much longer lifespan and slower reproduction, like drow.) Given that D&D worlds are generally portrayed as being saturated with pandemic violence, where taking a walk on a country road for a day is likely to lead to a fight with bandits or somesuch, such a high homicide rate might be the norm for typical non-"enlightened" races, such as goblins, halfllings, humans, orcs, etc. (By "enlightened" races, I mean the ones portrayed as good and generally very long-lived -- dwarves, elves, and gnomes come ot mind.) Such widespread violence, of course, limits the level of social complexity and interdependence, but thanks to D&D magic, a society can achieve far more materially with far less interdependence, peace, or cooperation than would be required without magic: building a castle doesn't require hundreds of laborers, and dozens of farmers to feed them, tailors to clothe them, etc, in an interdependent economy. A bard with a decent perform check and a lyre of building is enough.