Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kaeso 02-20-06, 12:24 AM	One of my players has a Drow PC, and I was wondering, how NPC's should react? I was thinking that all people would either be unfriendly to him automaticly, but that this could manifest in anger or fear. What would you do?
Bloodtide_the_Red 02-20-06, 12:35 AM	Basicaly, I do it like 'a black in the early 20th century South.' So Stores and Inns suddenly have nothing to buy or no rooms to rent. Folks don't know anything helpful. They can't walk through front doors and such. They get no help from the goverment, such as 'oh one of them was attacked..eh, lets go get some donuts'. They get no support from clerics 'we don't heal thier kind'. Then the lots of violence too. BT
Zasheir 02-20-06, 12:50 AM	Depending on the region, NPC reactions would not only be unfriendly or uncooperative, but extremely fearful and violent. If he's with a party of non-drow who accept him for whatever reason, he should be entering towns and cities either invisible or in stealth, staying out of the way as much as possible. The legacy of the drow is a long standing and terrible one, and the surfacers have every reason to be extremely and violently prejudiced against drow. They'd never accept that PC, only in very rare cases and certain places.
Lord Karsus 02-20-06, 01:08 AM	-Overall, I think that Bloodtide's way of handling things is the best for handling the game. Having a Drow on the surface may work well in novels, but technically, it is a lot more complicated. -Many people would simply attack a Drow without provocation. Better to get them before they get you. That, however, wouldn't be fun for PCs, or the DM.
Zasheir 02-20-06, 01:53 AM	-Many people would simply attack a Drow without provocation. Better to get them before they get you. That, however, wouldn't be fun for PCs, or the DM. I rarely allow a player to play a drow PC. Unless it's an evil campaign or a specific location/patron (Eilistraee/Cormanthor area etc) drow aren't meant to be good aligned or in a mixed party. If a player truly insists, you'd better believe he's going to have a hard time interacting with any surfacer, and it actually is quite enjoyable for both DM and player if done right.
Lord Karsus 02-20-06, 02:00 AM	I rarely allow a player to play a drow PC. Unless it's an evil campaign or a specific location/patron (Eilistraee/Cormanthor area etc) drow aren't meant to be good aligned or in a mixed party. If a player truly insists, you'd better believe he's going to have a hard time interacting with any surfacer, and it actually is quite enjoyable for both DM and player if done right. -No, no, I mean that it wouldn't be fun for the Player and for the DM if, everytime the Drow PC visits a village, the entire plays gets up in arms and tries to exterminate the Drow filth. At first, I am sure it might be amusing, but after a while, I think it would get old for all parties involved.
warlockco 02-20-06, 02:04 AM	Hat of Disguise
Lord Karsus 02-20-06, 02:09 AM	Hat of Disguise -True. That and/or a decent Disguise check.
Donraj 02-20-06, 03:32 AM	-Overall, I think that Bloodtide's way of handling things is the best for handling the game. Having a Drow on the surface may work well in novels, but technically, it is a lot more complicated. Um. That's also kind of the way it worked in the novels.
Caelan 02-20-06, 08:17 AM	I would say that yes a drow on the surface would not receive a warm welcome. Look at Drizzt Do`Urden, he has been on the surface for sometime and still receive a very cold reception when he travels to areas that do not know of him. This should always be the case, especially in areas like the Dalelands where the drow are an everyday threat. I will have a possibility of having two drow PC's in an upcoming campaign. One will be a male rogue, the other a priestess of Eilistraee. Even the fact that she is a Priestess of Eilistraee will not keep her initially from persecution. Just remember that if the group establishes itself in an area and the drow PC proves his good intentions that for some of the more open-minded populace the predijust will fade. For those not so open, the PC will never be accepted. Anywhere outside the area the drow pc can expect the same treatment that he first encountered. Hope this helps.
Herobane 02-20-06, 05:38 PM	Have some of me good pals the Dwarves come in and beat him up with brick sticks. That's what you do to a tiny little elfling. Unless he's a fighter/mage/thief specializing in evocation spells like me...
Herobane 02-20-06, 05:40 PM	My helpful suggestion is to figure out an interesting/unique plot hook to get him back into the Underdark , where he is more like a normal citizen. Unless he was banished from the Underdark, in which case he's totally screwed.
Lord Karsus 02-20-06, 06:14 PM	Have some of me good pals the Dwarves come in and beat him up with brick sticks. That's what you do to a tiny little elfling. Unless he's a fighter/mage/thief specializing in evocation spells like me... -Eh, gimme an Elf anyday. But, I don't want to stray off topic...
kaeso 02-20-06, 09:03 PM	My helpful suggestion is to figure out an interesting/unique plot hook to get him back into the Underdark , where he is more like a normal citizen. Unless he was banished from the Underdark, in which case he's totally screwed. I wasn't planning on taking him to the Underdark, and doing so would just make things difficult for the other 2 players. It's weird, my players are terrible at roleplaying, and no matter how much I urge them or help them, they can't figure out decent ways to explain them all being together. I print out guides to writing a background and the still don't take the time to use them, so they don't have backgrounds, and they don't bother to explain why they even talk to each other. They all have A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. far too badly for any of them to sit still in one town, even in an imaginary world. I think I'll go w/ the Hat of Disguise.
Bloodtide_the_Red 02-20-06, 11:54 PM	Well, you could always have fun with this.... If he is going to act normal, like a human, then treat him as one. Floks will just call him a 'black elf', they know he is not a real Drow. Real Drow come out at night and murder and steal; Real Drow have all sorts of Dark Magic; Real Drow do nothing but evil 24/7. So the elf with dark skin who walks into the tavern and oders a mug of ale, is not a 'real drow'. Real Drow don't drink in taverns with thier human buddies. BT
Swiftblade 03-17-06, 05:20 PM	Well, I don't mind letting my players play Drow, only one of them does, most of them just kill them on sight. But I typically run up north in the Silver Marches when I am running characters that are drow, so it makes it a little easier because of Drizzt. Everywhere else, if you were ever picked on in school, just act like that to his character. Since most people can't play out or understand the social degredation that was put on the black people back then or even in some aspects of society today. But otherwise if possible, I would rec using the 1920's version of black society for Drow. I think it is fun for people who have not been persecuted to understand what it feels like.
ElGrecoETAC 03-17-06, 05:44 PM	A mix of fear, anger, and hatred would be appropriate. The average human from the North wouldn't want anything to do with a Drow. On the other hand, he would probably assume that the Drow in question was perfectly capable of killing him. The endstate of the encounter would be determined by the interaction that occurred between said PC and commoners. The humans probably wouldn't try anything against him on their own unless the Drow gave them reason to think he was weaker than what his reputation would ordinarily suggest. Armed humans, professional soldiers, knights, adventurers, and the like would of course react differently. Depending on their temperament, alignment, and experience, they might negotiate or offer violence.
Shavit 03-19-06, 07:58 AM	NPC will generaly have one catagory worse then the normal situation (details in diplomacy skill), most will ignore him, point at him, taunt him, attack him, arrast him, outcast him and so on so the PC most likly will have to be hooded and disguised most of the time, trying to avoid all Racesists Races :) Putting a side for a minute the problems of playing and DMing drow on Non-Underdark campaigns you can have much fun and great stories! I really recomment it! The number of Plot hooks avaliable for the DM is just too much, from the common ignoring to framing murder and plain evil that the DM can hook and the player will have to escape from. Moving from town to town after cleanning one's name and still being outcast for his Drow heiratige, the campaign can be everflowing and intresting more then ever! And don't forget one day the drow can wake up and give-in to the darkness since he is always to blame! GREAT POSSIBILITIES!
Gallameed 03-19-06, 08:51 AM	Drow are feared as evil sadistic inhuman creatures who delight in murder that are in the habit of creeping up from their dark citys of evil deep below the earth and wiping out whole villiages then carrying anyone unlucky enough to be left alive kicking and screaming back to the unescapable alien world of the underdark to be sacarificed on an altar to the terrible spider goddess or used as slaves and tortured until death. *pant* So all in all, most Faerunians will be very accepting of a drow PC and will offer them a warm welcome, invite them into their homes and let them sleep in the same room as the kids. Not on the bad, Jack the ripper - he sleep on the bed!
BrianCritchley 03-19-06, 10:19 PM	cold reactions if not outright hatred depending on areas. if the party is adventureing in the area where driozzt is well known is seems that they can cash in on his rep to gain a degree of "well.. we'll give ya a shot" elsewhere odds are they'd be attacked on sight. that being said if they adventure in an area long eneugh they would be accepted. they likely wouldn't be embraced but they'd be accepted
GungHo 03-20-06, 04:20 PM	I think Sojourn put it the most succintly. Paraphrasing -- "It's a Drizzit! Kill it!" Most people won't know what a dark elf is, or if they do, would have heard some tales about ritual sacrifice, demon worship, dogs and cats living together... more of a boogey man than "underground elves." It'd probably take a local, well-learned sage or a town "retired" adventurer to even know a dark elf was, or even that it was an elf rather than a goblin gone wrong or some sort of shadow beast that eats babies... unless of course the town has had a lot of interaction with drow (e.g. Shadowdale). A dark elf could get by in some places by simply acting tough and browbeating everyone to go away. However, sooner or later, the local hero/sheriff/mercenary band will come calling. Additionally, it won't matter how nice the dark elf is... if given the chance, most surfacers would rather kill it, so getting wounded or in a precarious situation while "saving the town" may not be a good idea. In short... I'd make it hard on him. And, I'd probably request that the other PCs be kinda hard on him too, even if they have a real reason to trust him (which, if they didn't, then why do they let this armed psychopath in their midst... I wouldn't go to sleep around him, and I certainly wouldn't let him take watch)... even the slightest hint of betrayal should/would be jumped on.
theonlygolux 03-20-06, 05:35 PM	If he's playing a good aligned drow, you should kill him off and tell him to try reading some FR novels not by Mr Salvatore, that and grow some imagination. If he's not, it could be really fun. I had a player recently who was trying to play an evil drow pretending to be a good drow in a group of good adventurers. he was busted (by mistake) and was wasted, as he had come in at level 1 and the others were 5 and 6, but it was fun while it lasted.
BrianCritchley 03-20-06, 07:24 PM	nothing wrong with a good aligned drow, I play one who has NO similarity to drizzt, other then we happen to be adventuering in the silverymoon area good drow =/ drizzt clone.
Mecha_Pope 03-21-06, 10:43 AM	Do what Drizzt did. Make friends with very important and powerful people. When your drinkin' buddy is the King of the Battlehammer Clan, the people of Icewind Dale Have to accept you. or ignore you. Whatever.
thedm321 04-13-06, 09:30 PM	what i did with my drow pcs is have gaurds of towns attack them and stuff like that. I also did what salvatore did with drizzt, over time, let him be accepted. One of the problems is I don't know what he is like. If he's a paladin (for some, strange reason) then he should be treated well. If he's A chaotic Evil Blackgaurd that rampages through town and kills everybody, then he shouldn't be treated well. ;)
thedm321 04-13-06, 09:34 PM	I think Sojourn put it the most succintly. Paraphrasing -- "It's a Drizzit! Kill it!" Most people won't know what a dark elf is, or if they do, would have heard some tales about ritual sacrifice, demon worship, dogs and cats living together... more of a boogey man than "underground elves." It'd probably take a local, well-learned sage or a town "retired" adventurer to even know a dark elf was, or even that it was an elf rather than a goblin gone wrong or some sort of shadow beast that eats babies... unless of course the town has had a lot of interaction with drow (e.g. Shadowdale). A dark elf could get by in some places by simply acting tough and browbeating everyone to go away. However, sooner or later, the local hero/sheriff/mercenary band will come calling. Additionally, it won't matter how nice the dark elf is... if given the chance, most surfacers would rather kill it, so getting wounded or in a precarious situation while "saving the town" may not be a good idea. In short... I'd make it hard on him. And, I'd probably request that the other PCs be kinda hard on him too, even if they have a real reason to trust him (which, if they didn't, then why do they let this armed psychopath in their midst... I wouldn't go to sleep around him, and I certainly wouldn't let him take watch)... even the slightest hint of betrayal should/would be jumped on. I would have to argue, a lot of people know what a drow is. Just look at the gaurds of Bryn Shander, from Sojourn. They knew what a drow was.
kaeso 04-14-06, 01:36 PM	ya, so far my group of geniuses has managed to almost start a fight in a tavern. The human barbarian "Conan" (creative I know haha) and the drow rogue "Rizzen" randomly ended up at the same table in a tavern. I played it as though everyone was watching them, and if Rizzen made any fast moves, several people in the tavern would stand up to make sure he didn't do anything. They left, and tried to break into the basement of the tavern to steal stuff (I have no idea what they thought was down there). The barmaid heard them, and Rizzen cast darkness on the barmaid so she wouldn't see him. He and the barbarian were talking out of character, and decided they wanted to "light this mofo." They proceeded to make a Roman candle, and I paused them before they threw it to remind them of possible repercussions of their actions (I wouldn't usually do this, but they were all playing for their first times, so I felt I had to point out how stupid they were being). I told them that they were already in deep 'cause even without the darkness spell the townspeople would immediately suspect the drow of breaking in, simply becuase they are predjudiced. If they burnt down the tavern, they would certainly have a riot on their hands. Also, they are both chaotic neutral (lucky me) and that doesn't mean they go around randomly lighting up taverns for no reason. Thankfully, they decided not burn it, and they left. They went to a shop to buy some stuff, and there we introduced our 3rd pc, who is a male human wizard. He was intrigued when he saw a drow in the shop that wasn't killing everyone, and so when the drow and barbarian left to camp out of town (I recommended they leave, since they had just pointed themselves out to the entire town, and it's awfully early to start killing them off) and the wizard is trying to follow them to observe them. They have no idea why Conan and Rizzen are together, and right now Rizzen is staying up to keep watch for the night. I think we're just going to assume that Conan has no idea how dangerous drow are, or he's too stupid to care. Oh, and Conan speaks in an Arnold Schwartzeneger accent. It's awesome.
JaiaDrottsingr 04-15-06, 02:48 PM	-Overall, I think that Bloodtide's way of handling things is the best for handling the game. Having a Drow on the surface may work well in novels, but technically, it is a lot more complicated. The only reason I remade Jaia was because I wanted to make a novel as well! Finally I do bow to your wisdom.
JaiaDrottsingr 04-15-06, 02:54 PM	good drow =/ drizzt clone. Why does no one ever understand? Drizzt = poor example of a Chaotic Good Drow! I mean, Brian is right, most good drow are very different from Drizzt.
morbid_freak 04-15-06, 06:24 PM	Good drow... Good demons... Good mindflayers... NO MORE! My usual DM will pretty much let people do what their want, but he will respond accordingly and make PCs pay for stupid decisions... EX: PC: I want to be a good half-fiend monk. Response: You will level up about once for every six times the other players do... Paladins will attack you on sight. And merchants will charge you twice as much for merchandise. Eventually your miserable unwanted existence will drive your PC to a life of misery and finally suicide. PC: I want the spellfire feat. Response: An even trade then, -2 off all your stats. PC: I want to be Drow Response: The other PCs kill you for the experience. Anyway! Whenever I DM, I create campaigns that limit what the PCs can do. No creating characters with races with an ECL over 1, etc. The few times I allowed a Drow PC... I made sure they didn't leave their balls in the Underdark, unlike a certain ranger... so they were very able to deal with the "racism" EX: Drow PC: Sell me this potion NPC: No, get out of my store filthy drow! Drow PC:*leaves, robs store in the night, kills NPC, and leaves town*
LadyM 04-15-06, 07:14 PM	I play a female drow monk, but then again, I'm not playing FR with her. In this setting drow was a standard PC-option. I had just gotten a little familiar with FR, so at that time, I didn't know Drizzt yet, therefor she certainly ain't no Drizzt-clone. In the setting I'm playing most Drow are evil too, so when she was introduced to the party, the first reaction was, they wanted to kill her. I play with them for a half year real time and they now slowly beginning te trust her.
Lord Karsus 04-15-06, 11:27 PM	The only reason I remade Jaia was because I wanted to make a novel as well! Finally I do bow to your wisdom. -Eventually, everyone bows to Lord Karsus! :evillaugh
JaiaDrottsingr 04-16-06, 11:55 AM	The only reason I remade Jaia was because I wanted to make a novel as well! Finally I do bow to your wisdom. ADDITION TO THE ABOVE: Or, rather, nod my head in acknoledgement.
Lord Karsus 04-16-06, 11:56 PM	ADDITION TO THE ABOVE: Or, rather, nod my head in acknoledgement. -Denial is the first step...
JaiaDrottsingr 04-17-06, 04:49 PM	Or, rather, correction of stupidity. :P
Priest_of_Shaundakul 04-18-06, 11:19 AM	"Rizzen" hm? That's the patron of Malice from the Drizzt novels. Interesting... :cool:
Max the Immortal 04-19-06, 12:45 PM	One way to handle things is to emphasize the fear factor. Drow are scary. Very scary. A typical drow warrior is reputed to be able to kill a group of twelve human warriors without breaking a sweat (and this is often true). No human commoner is going to want to get into a fight with a drow. No human soldier is going to want to get into a fight with a drow. No group of human soldiers is going to want to get into a fight with a drow unless it poses an immediate threat. Hell, no mob of humans with pitchforks is going to try to kill a drow, because drow are also expected to be powerful wizards than can char-broil an angry mob with a couple of fireball spells. The only people who would actually have the guts to take on a drow are important NPCs (who are generally too smart to go around attacking people with no provocation) and the occasional local blowhard who overestimates his own combat prowess. Another, probably easier way of doing things is the Dark cloak Method. The drow PC wears a hooded cloak and gloves in human settlements. Nobody tries to find out what's under the cowl because they really would rather not know. Cloaked figures may be fairly commonplace in some areas: When you see a different cloaked figure every couple of weeks, you get used to it. Nine times out of ten it's just some vain guy with a skin condition, anyway. Yes, a little suspension of disbelief is necessary, but it certainly makes things easier for the players and the DM.
kaeso 04-19-06, 05:16 PM	I love the cloak idea, but I'm not sure my player will go for it. My group likes to cause mischief, especially the drow player, so he might or might not agree to it. Either way I'll definitely suggest it to him.
Wolfboy 04-22-06, 02:01 AM	Well... they are hard to deal with since you have the stories about them and most are... wait about 99.999999 % are, so the surface dwellers hate them, I just left it in the underdark, and let them do something oh yea... if they go to the Icewind Dale they might get a slighty better reception thks to Drizzt, if they are good.
Wolfboy 04-22-06, 02:07 AM	I forgot...if the drow is evil, have fun being hunted, if not and he or she..just appeared...have fun being hunted :P
JaiaDrottsingr 04-22-06, 07:24 AM	Would wolfboy be a gnoll or the Tolkein version of warg/worg?