Do you use "evil" races?

[dren]

1. Moral ambiguity.

umm, yup. It's fun. But I torture PCs with choice vs fate all the time, so this is par for the course.

2. A misguided effort to generate variety.

Why misguided? I use elves in my world almost exactly the same as Gothmog, but the PCs actually adore the elves as the only free spirits (though in a bloodthirsty way) standing up to the tyranical rulers of the kingdom. That variety is soo much more interesting than the overused dual wielding scimitar dark elves that is an outcast among their people and have a black magical dog figurine (and you thought I was talking about Drizzit!)

Evil is. Sometimes defined by action, or word, or even thought. It's up to you to decide how and why

In my world halfings are the most evil of all. They obey all the laws, and invite you in for all their parties, but you can tell that something so sweet has to be sinister and sick and perverted inside...

 

[Gez]

I use a scale.

There are races that are the embodiment of goodness. Androsphinxes and lammasus (which I categorize as sphinxes also, by the way) are example, as well as metallic dragons, djinn, couatl, and celestials.
There are races that as nigh always good. The gnomes, for example -- there usual alignment is neutral good, meaning they are not distracted from goodness by chaotic or lawful tendancies.
There are races that are usually good. Dwarves and elves are good people, but their alignment also lead them to being lawful and chaotic. Some dwarves favor the lawful aspect to the good and may be lawful neutral, or even lawful evil, without totally betraying his dwarven nature.
Then, you have the races that are sometimes good (human and halfling).
And then, the evil races, with a similar hierarchy.
Goblins and kobolds, for example, are among the least evil. When they're evil, it's out of pettiness and fear of the other races.
Orcs and ogres are more wicked. Although, they aren't necessarily evil, they tend to that alignment because of their innate mindset.
Then you have the truly evil creatures, like chromatic dragons, and finally evil incarnate, the fiends.

 

[s/LaSH]

I sorta use evil races... My campaign is set in Medieval Europe, with fantasy races substituting for many 'real' ones. For the most part, everyone (the elves in London, Paris, Berlin, and Budapest, the dwarves in Geneva, the emigrated gnolls operating out of Mecca, the orcs whose trading vessels ply the Black Sea) is fairly moral; their cultures are different, however, and resources are not as plentiful as they are in our modern world, so to survive they have to fight every so often, and the people you fight are surely evil, right? (To quote Blackadder: "As the Good Lord said, love thy neighbour; unless he's Turkish, in which case kill the bastard.)

So if you come from one place, you're good and everyone else is evil. It's just the way things are. If you travel from Venice to Babylon via land, you'll pass through orc lands, which is just as dangerous as it would be in a purely black-and-white morality environment, because they want to kill you and take your stuff (and probably eat your horse). It's just that orcs would be careful about travelling from Kharkov to Paris too, knowing that people would likely try to kill them and take their stuff (and probably learn how to make stirrups).

However, some cultures follow a distinctly aggressive agenda. The worst of these are probably the goblins, who come from somewhere nobody knows, weild weapons nobody is familiar with, and like killing people while talking in an incomprehensible language. These are much more 'properly' evil.

Deeds, not inclinations, I suppose. I've got moral ambiguity and pure evil, and (I think) it makes sense.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I define evil in my games, listing them out. The evil races are those that commit the list items over and over again as part of their daily lives. The more items you do, the more evil you are in a detect evil spell.

Yes, this means everyone has some evil in them but no one is perfect and that is why you have religion. Plus a fantasy world is that, people have to be harder. Example I saw on the History Channel last weekend on the Csar's of Russia, Peter the Great took a number of his admin to watch the dissection of a human body, some of his 'warriors' were less than manly watching, so he has each of them take a bite from the body!

Things on the list:
..Worship of an evil god
..Cold-blooded Murder
..Cannibalism
..Torture
..Orcs

Other items come from the evil gods domains and the BoVD.

 

[The_Gneech]

Depends on the campaign I'm running at the time. If I'm trying for Tolkien, then yes, definitely. If I'm trying for Howard, then just about anything non-human is probably evil, and no small number of humans are, too. But in my space opera games, "evil" species are mostly a matter of political opposition and icky culture. Individual members of that species may be good, bad, or indifferent, particularly if they're iconoclasts among their kind.

-The Gneech

 

[Kyramus]

I only use evil races as NPCs. If a player comes up with the idea of using one, I make it plain that it will be harder for the character due to how others would treat him/her.
IE: Attack first, ask questions later type stuff.

 

[Desdichado]

My purpose is to discuss the second. The various fantasy race archetypes have ALL been based on exaggerated human traits. Tolkien's work is the easiest to use as example.
The elves are nature loving and aware of the spiritual aspects of creation.
Dwarves are motivated by honor, duty, and personal development through craftsmanship (although this archetype has changed from ancient folklore where dwarves were evil).
Orcs represent hate of all that is good. They despise the beauty in creation and seek to corrupt it, representing rebellion.

My problem with fantasy literature changing these archetypes is that it diminishes the genre. Once you have good orcs and evil elves, you have lost the uniqueness of these character races. Essentially you get humans with ugly faces or pointy ears instead of orcs and elves.

Yes, but you assume that the Tolkienian archetypes are the only ones that could possibly exist for those races, which is completely untrue. It's certainly possible to have orcs, dwarves, elves, etc. that are also archetypes of exagerated human traits, but which are not Tolkienian in nature.

In fact, I think the evil elves, dwarves and good orcs types are exactly that. But they're certainly more than just humans in rubber masks. IMO, elves could just as easily be mercurial and cruel, and were usually depicted as such in traditions and folklore. Dwarves were often tricky, cruel and miserly in Norse legend. Orcs could easily be chaotic and violent without necessarily being evil.

 

[CrusaderX]

What SHARK said.

My games are all about good vs. evil, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The forces of good are really good, and the hordes of evil are really despicable. I see no problem with evil races in a fantasy setting.

 

[WayneLigon]

It generally depends on my campaign.

In the Greatwood game, most of the humanoid races (though I only use about four; kobold, goblin, hobgoblin and orc) are in fact evil - they are servants of the dark powers and they like it that way. In that game, I wanted a definate enemy.

In the Ashara game, most of the humanoids are neutralish; they are often savage and cruel compared to most humans but then they've been pushed off into the the wastelands to live. But large cities often have a 'ghetto' of various savage humanoid types that have learned to live with humans. I wanted Ashara to be more exotic, so I wanted gnoll bodyguards for a noble, little goblin messengers, kobold pit fighting, and the occassional giant construction worker. I also wanted a thriving empire of hobgoblins. Orcs are seldom seen; they fill the role of 'mankind's enemy' in the campaign, but during the old Imperial days they were bred as slaves for the empire as a sub-human worker race. Their slave revolt pulled the pin on Imperial stability and led to the current situation. It also led to the wilds being filled with orcs that hate the very sight of humans.

So, the whole alignment thing depends on the type of campaign that you want and what sorts of situations you want to showcase.

 

[Faraer]

I think the tendency to reduce fantasy to realist fiction just set in an alternative, realistic world is terrible. Valuing characters by how they differ from the archetype, morally relativist stories about good goblins... that's not fantasy, it's just mimetic fiction in fantasyland drag. It's the very metaphysical thinning Tolkien railed and worked against. Evil is actual, like cement, and necessarily so much more so in fiction.

(The way Tolkien used race is morally problematic, but this isn't a solution.)

I agree with Joshua Dyal's post, but note that the elf/dwarf symbolism is more general than Tolkien and crops up also as morlocks/eloi, Geonosians/Kaminoans, etc.