The Campaign Builder's Guild

Good Morning, One and All.

Campaign and setting design can be looked at through many different lenses.  And these perspectives change as we change, mature as we mature.  Many of us can look back fondly at setings we designed and the games played therein fondly, while simultaneously knowing we do things much differently today.  We tinker, changing subtly and shifting focus, but when we look back, the differences can be stark.

One such lense was brought into focus a few months ago, in an earlier thread.  There was a small skirmish dealing with monsters and how they are percieved, versus fun and simplicity.
I make no secret that my current setting is messy and complicated.  One such complication is racial issues due to a lack of racial alignment.  Orcash (orcs) are thinking creatures, and while they were created to be one of the servant races of Anthraxus (the Ogrillite races), that was millenia ago.  Orcs are not born any more evil than humans, in Celtricia.  But are they born Chaotic-Evil in your setting?
my version

SO how does alignment and race affect your setting?  Can a group of adventures attack a pack of orcs just because they are orcs?  How do tribes of humanoids operate, alone or together?  How do the folk in the cities look at those who live in tribes?  DO the Ogres live in towns?

How do you do it and why?  Or have you thought about it in this light?

Personally then I like and use the Eberron approach.  things are not colour coded for your convinientcy.
I tend to assign aligment to races based on thier motive, ambition, and how they go around attaining those. goblins are not neccesarely considered evil because they are goblins. but a tribe or nation of goblins whose culture revolves around raiding and taking slaves would be considered evil. but so would an elven or a human nation with the same culture. In short. sapient races are by default not evil by birth, assuming no special circumstances, since it simple doesn't make sense to me.

The difficulty in deciding whether or not you can fight someone when there isn't a simple system of alignment is one of the reasons I prefer to play all my games non-lethal except for the really obviously bad (aka "the Nazi effect").

Agreed with the above posters. I've stopped having things conveniently color coded in my games for awhile now. That said, there are still things that can be killed pretty much on-sight. In my setting, full-blooded orcs have that distinction, as their entire culture revolves around taking slaves and doing unspeakable acts to them.

Granted, no party should be off the hook for killing someone or something that is obviously either a) not a typical member of their race or b) actively attempting to surrender or make diplomatic overtures.

Quote from: Stargate525I've stopped having things conveniently color coded in my games for awhile now. That said, there are still things that can be killed pretty much on-sight. In my setting, full-blooded orcs have that distinction, as their entire culture revolves around taking slaves and doing unspeakable acts to them.

Granted, no party should be off the hook for killing someone or something that is obviously either a) not a typical member of their race or b) actively attempting to surrender or make diplomatic overtures.

So it's okay to kill the adults, but you spare the babies.

Personally I'm just such a contrarian that I keep wanting to make the most evil creatures of normal fantasy into the main (not-evil) races of my settings.  So now I've got a fantasy setting populated by demons and whatnot.  (It doesn't hurt that Evil often gets cooler designs than Good.)

I tend to go for the "hive of scum and villainy" effect.  So races might not be born evil, and everyone tolerates one another on that level, but personal conflicts result in violence all the time and no one bats an eye.  So no to racism but yes to killing and mayhem, and good and evil aren't particularly prevalent themes.  There's still prejudice, but not a kill-on-sight policy.

An exception, though, are leechkin outside of the Twilight Cities in CE, who are usually attacked on sight, frankly because they're usually dangerous.  Non-duergar dwarves in my current goblin campaign would probably be treated the same way in most places the player has visited so far.  Actually in that campaign, I am going for a more "born evil" approach, but I'm trying to make it so grandiose and overblown that it becomes comical.  And, of course, the player is a stereotypical "bad guy," albeit of the cannon fodder variety.

Quote from: TillumniPersonally then I like and use the Eberron approach.  things are not colour coded for your convinientcy.
I tend to assign aligment to races based on thier motive, ambition, and how they go around attaining those. goblins are not neccesarely considered evil because they are goblins. but a tribe or nation of goblins whose culture revolves around raiding and taking slaves would be considered evil. but so would an elven or a human nation with the same culture. In short. sapient races are by default not evil by birth, assuming no special circumstances, since it simple doesn't make sense to me.

I assign alignment to races based on motive, ambition...So a race as a whole will have racial motivations?  Are you describing cultural motivations?  Your comment about elves sounds that way...this is another part of the same conversation, race vs. culture....Thank you for bringing it up.  

A potentially pertinent question: would a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, even anthropomorphic wolves preying on a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, humanoid deer be evil by birth?  Let's say there's not much other meat available; the wolf-people are carnivorous and can't switch to vegetarianism; their culture is a direct ougrowth of the pack mentality/alpha-male/strongest rules society already evident among wolves.  If they refuse to eat the deer-people, they and their young will starve.  In other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?

Quote from: SteerpikeA potentially pertinent question: would a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, even anthropomorphic wolves preying on a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, humanoid deer be evil by birth?  Let's say there's not much other meat available; the wolf-people are carnivorous and can't switch to vegetarianism; their culture is a direct ougrowth of the pack mentality/alpha-male/strongest rules society already evident among wolves.  If they refuse to eat the deer-people, they and their young will starve.  In other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?

Depends on the ethos of the setting, in terms of setting design.  Steerpike, I can give you pages of moral Conundrums, and LC could give you more.  I'll tell you now that the Deerfolk's religion is all about the evilness or injustice of the Wolf people.

One of the implicit questions here is if there IS an overarching morality in a setting, and if not, what the consequences are.  Many alignent systems would say that the wolf folk are only evil if they have a choice.  Others would say they they are evil anyways.  

I'd say it all depends on the gods of the Lupine Curse World...

Quote from: SteerpikeIn other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?

Do the wolves realize the deer to be sentient, intelligent, and awakened? This is something explored very well in the Ender series, in my opinion.

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawSo it's okay to kill the adults, but you spare the babies.

Well, now they have no parents...

Spare them, take them in and try to conform them society, sure.

Quote from: Lord VreegI assign alignment to races based on motive, ambition...So a race as a whole will have racial motivations?  Are you describing cultural motivations?  Your comment about elves sounds that way...this is another part of the same conversation, race vs. culture....Thank you for bringing it up.  

ya, Cultural motivation. perhaps using the phrase "I assing aligment to race" in my first reply might not had been the best wording. with that said, then culture and race can be very closely related, due to natural fear and distancing from other races, or racial traits that will end up affecting the culture.  
Using the Elves as an example. then thier lifespan might lead to a culture reflecting that things doesn't need to be rushed, but that same lifespan might also develiope a culture where elves see themself as the only proper ruler of the world, thier long life span allowing them to ensure stability in the goverment and adminstration and essentially going roman on the other nations, for thier own good offcourse, where ever or not the current generation of humans likes it.

In short, Cultural motivation, but the culture have to believeable reflect the traits of the races that's part of it.

Alright, interesting topic. However this seems to pre-suppose a couple things. First that evil exists (easily debatable) and it also seems to imply that evil isn't relative (to a lesser extent). However, those are not the core issues of this post. Disregarding that here is what I have to say.

Quote from: SteerpikeA potentially pertinent question: would a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, even anthropomorphic wolves preying on a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, humanoid deer be evil by birth? Let's say there's not much other meat available; the wolf-people are carnivorous and can't switch to vegetarianism; their culture is a direct ougrowth of the pack mentality/alpha-male/strongest rules society already evident among wolves. If they refuse to eat the deer-people, they and their young will starve. In other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?

Simple answer, no they aren't.

Longer answer, yes and no. Depending on tech level, they could find alternate ways of acquiring flesh (cloning, vat meat, etc). However this situation seems highly unlikely, no other possible sources of edible meat? How does that function? So depending on the variables how they go about acquiring the flesh could be "evil", or it could just be part of nature (this being seen as not "evil" by most people).

Now as to how it works in settings, usually I forgo alignment/good and evil altogether. This is most likely because I don't play tabletops, and have no reason for need an "evil race" or bad guys. Usually conflict come from inter-cultural clashes or political machinations.

There are two notable exceptions (that spring to mind). The first is the Black Bloodline from Prismatic. These things are straight up evil, but there's a reason. They're basically the equivalent of demons/devils/evil incarnate. Tainted by the Dark Splinter they live to cause suffering (causing suffering = bad thing) and destruction (destruction = usually/often a bad thing). So yes, there was a right out evil "race" (or multiple races) but its because of this taint that caused them to do these things. So even though the Black Bloodline was evil, it was due to their actions (the root cause of wich is the taint).

Now the second case is more interesting. It revolves around The Calm in the Eye of the Realmstorm (henceforth know as The Calm and/or The Eye). I made this setting because it was going to be used in a game (video game) by myself and a friend. I needed two sides and said, hey lets divide by Good and Evil. Now as I was fleshing out these races I noticed that for the evil ones I was making their cultures rather brutish, or revolved around something evil (slavery, pillaging, moral indiference) so once again it came down to culture.

So, to conclude I think that you can't have an evil "race" just races that have "evil cultures".

I guess what I was trying to interrogate in th wolf example a bit was the idea that culture and biology are 100% distinct.  If your customs are based in part around your biology, are they justified on the basis of good/evil, or does your biology itself acquire a moralistic slant?  It's not an arguement for racism per se (human races have negiligible genetic differences, so our cultural variation can't be blamed on biology), but it could be for a kind of "speciesism."

Quote from: SteerpikeI guess what I was trying to interrogate in th wolf example a bit was the idea that culture and biology are 100% distinct.  If your customs are based in part around your biology, are they justified on the basis of good/evil, or does your biology itself acquire a moralistic slant?  It's not an arguement for racism per se (human races have negiligible genetic differences, so our cultural variation can't be blamed on biology), but it could be for a kind of "speciesism."

But it missed one possible element:
If the deer have always been eaten by the wolves then might the deer culture have evolved to accept that fact.
The way you set it up assumes that the deer will place morality upon the eating of their kind.

Either that or there is some objective standard of evil that can be applied regardless of the views of the participants.  This latter is one of the reasons I really detest the establishment of objective Good and Evil.

Right, so the deer could be set up to provide the wolves with periodic sacrifices in return for, say, protection from other predators.  A long-standing, formalized tradition of reciprocal assistance and symbiosis.

Of course, tell that to the deer about to be sacrificed.  Even given the right upbringing that emphasizes sacrifice as part of a rich cultural heritage, I think some of those deer aren't going to be too happy about the situation.  Utilitarian logic might seem to justify things, but on an individual level the arrangement would still seem abhorrent from the deer's perspective, I suspect.  Any way you slice it (bad pun), that's going to be one terrified deer come sacrifice day, and it's an intelligent, living thing about to be sacrficied not because it chose to, but because its culture and family have essentially sold it to the lesser of two evils.

It's like the old Mayan sacrifices - at the end of the day, even if human sacrifice was part of a rich religious tradition, it's still murder.  Or like the burqa - even though the women wearing burqas may do so voluntarily, they're still going to be malnourished and sun-deprived, and they're still participating in a system that most of the rest of the world recognzies as oppressive and patriarchal.