Quote from: Omega;936729One of the things I REALLY dislike about 5e is the incessant push to make races that previously might have been talked with now into kill crazed demon spawn. Gnolls are the prime example and that goes back to 3e. But now more and more humanoids seem to be psychos that attack on sight.

Good point. Ye olde reaction table had plenty of room for non-sanguinary encounters with just about everything.

Quote from: The Butcher;936734Good point. Ye olde reaction table had plenty of room for non-sanguinary encounters with just about everything.

Problem solved. But you can bet we'll talk about it for 20 page, anyway.:-/

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;936655Humanoids (e.g. orcs, goblins, gnolls, etc) exist solely as bags of XP, gaining XP is based on killing stuff, loot comes from kills, etc. There have been elaborate justifications for using humanoids specifically: they're evil, not people, meat robots, Tolkien did it first, whatever.

Does anyone here portray humanoids as just people too? Or provide sound reasoning (i.e. not alignment) behind their actions a la "god hates orcs"? How did that work out?

As with most things   in gaming its  setting and to a a degree system dependent

I often don't use humanoids but I have setting in which they are Fae, people with different thought processes and ecological niches and one  in which Orcs are literally soulless monsters made by the Adversary in mockery of mankind.

How people react to them is also determined by setting, generally "people" meaning PC races here have human like thought processes and as such relations are often hostile or exploitative though tempered by honor codes, religion  or cultural traits such a hospitality requirements

Heck often other "people" aren't like us and it can be fun to see my mostly Modern WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) player base deal with cultures that anything like ours but are accurate to anthropology  within playable limits

Open cultures like modernity are generally fairly rare, mostly to my understanding caused by the peculiarities of the changes wrought by the  manorial and Christianity mixed with a smidgen of Rome

In a world where a passing stranger can possibly kill you and use your dead ancestors as slave labor, the usual "Christendom West of the Hajnal" thinking much less Progressive, Liberal or any of they other modern  contrivance isn't going to fly. Heck pre Christian Vikings or anyone else  didn't think anywhere close to the way we do .

Now there are limits, I have better knowledge of and strong preference for Western cultures and something like the outstanding Tekumel setting is a bit much for me  

A couple of examples, the common Orc

In Midrea my main world, Orcs are basically humanoid  Burroughs Martians  mixed with Fremen from Dune and a bit of Spelljammer Scro -- they are fairly uncommon but have a distinct culture and honor

In my "most generic" world they are a Homo Sapiens derivative H. Sapiens Piltdowni , these are savage and primitive , not typically noble but not evil and capable of good and evil

and in the newer worlds, Orcs have  no inherent capacity for good and no souls, only a weak demonic animus . They can and should be killed on sight for the XP and the gold and the community and the faith  though Half Orcs while often wicked have souls

Trollpak, RuneQuest, Chaosium 1982

I dont think about goblinoids such as orcs and other creatures "just ugly people". Their similarity to human would be the incarnation of all "unhuman" in human nature. Different goblinoids can be very different from each other but this is the basic premise. They can be temporarily placated if they see an advantage to it. But  they will undoubtedly trick you, kill you, torture and abuse everyone you care about you for the fun of it and take your stuff or just destroy it out of spite. There can never be a peacefull coexistence. Thats why you kill them and take their stuff , which they probably looted from some unfortunate farmer or merchant they brutally killed to get in the first place.

Quote from: CRKrueger;936722First: "Can we write stand-ins for real minorities with tact?"
Now: "Anyone portray humanoids as people instead of targets?"

Rpg.net have a mod slot you trying out for or are you just trying to win a bet?

Didn't even notice he did both threads.

Closing thread.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;936761Didn't even notice he did both threads.

Closing thread.

Probably a good call. This thread wasn't necessarily bad but it shows a trend from the OP poster that makes me somewhat wonder what he's trying to accomplish with his recent topics. It might be nothing, I don't want to rush to judgment, but it could also be something.

Anyways, contrary to what many posted here, my Dark Albion campaign (and the Dark Albion setting itself) absolutely DOES portray all humanoids (all non-humans) as totally irredeemable spawns of chaos out to corrupt and ultimately destroy all that is good, and usually humanity itself.  This is in following with the religious worldview of the medieval world.

Some chaos creatures (frogmen, goblins, etc) can theoretically be negotiated with to a very limited extent in the short term (others, like Elves, are almost certainly too alien or aloof to ever be negotiated with, though they could possibly be manipulated in other ways).  But in the long-term, they're evil, and at the very least the Cleric PCs (and any who are devout followers of the Unconquered Sun) are duty-bound to destroy them if they possibly can.


(actually, there is a single mentioned non-human species that is somewhat of an exception to this rule... but that's a spoiler)