What is the best version of El? This poll is closed. |
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Elminster | 20 | 6.45% | |
Elmara | 20 | 6.45% | |
Entwine | 13 | 4.19% | |
GURPS | 99 | 31.94% | |
El Kabong | 153 | 49.35% | |
Elves | 5 | 1.61% | |
Total: | 310 votes |
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Well, the epic destiny is actually reinforcing the always evil thing - it's specifically tied to the Realms narrative where the dark elves were a good and just people, but were seduced by Wendonai and Lolth, ultimately falling into corruption and becoming the drow. The rebirth is just becoming a dark elf again - but it doesn't disrupt the narrative of drow as innately evil (an actual, objective fact - see Tangled Webs and Windwalker, especially.)
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 19:49 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 16:52 |
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The whole idea of innately evil species is just a horrible clusterfuck. What the hell was wrong with "These dudes are trying to kill us so we'll kill them right back." Why do nerds need a license to murder people on sight?
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 19:56 |
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WordMercenary posted:The whole idea of innately evil species is just a horrible clusterfuck. What the hell was wrong with "These dudes are trying to kill us so we'll kill them right back." Why do nerds need a license to murder people on sight? I don't think it's that so much as just D&D's mythic origins, where there are definite goods and evils and servants of that evil; D&D was probably introduced to expanding that out into entire races by Tolkien and then just kept going with it because people wanted to fight evil things like they had read about!
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 19:58 |
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Dehumanizing (de-elfinizing?) the enemy is sort of a natural human thing to do when you're talking about wiping out vast swaths of particular people on sight, so that aspect of it isn't really surprising or unusual or even restricted to D&D/elfgames. I do think that it would probably be better to leave the "always evil" stuff for actual monsters and stuff that isn't obviously intelligent. Not out of any moral component necessarily but just because I find the whole concept of an entire species+culture that is always unquestionably Evil pretty boring and I want to make players work harder than that.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:05 |
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The funny thing is that even Tolkien recognized that the whole Always CE thing was bad. He thought every orc being evil was incompatible with them having free will. IIRC he proposed a couple of fixes in his letters (like them all being some sort of golem), but he never wrote one into anything.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:10 |
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Tulul posted:The funny thing is that even Tolkien recognized that the whole Always CE thing was bad. He thought every orc being evil was incompatible with them having free will. IIRC he proposed a couple of fixes in his letters (like them all being some sort of golem), but he never wrote one into anything. Part of this was connected to religion. He literally could not accept his own writings of orcs alongside his religious beliefs - the idea of an actual race being wholesale denied redemption was anathema.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:25 |
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Obviously underground elves should have spots and poo poo because they're made of fungus and not plants. Also they should get fatter with age as the great sporing approaches.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:26 |
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Epic Destiny: Re-enact An Arc Of Swampthing.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:28 |
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Mr. Maltose posted:Obviously underground elves should have spots and poo poo because they're made of fungus and not plants. Also they should get fatter with age as the great sporing approaches. There's an Oglaf for that!
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:30 |
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Since we're taking about alternate takes on lovely D&D races, I've decided that from now on orcs are basically Mandalorians from the Star Wars EU: they're not a race, they're a warrior quasi-religion/culture that accepts members of any race as long as they practice the Six Actions: know how to speak orcish; wear armour; know how to defend yourself, your family and your clan; raise your children as orcs; contribute to the welfare of the clan (in practice, by tithing a tenth of your income to the clan coffers); and rally to the Khan's banner when called upon. The orcish homeland is far away so for most people "orcs" are itinerant religious warriors who hire themselves out as mercenaries or bodyguards to make their living and deliberately ignore the concept of race. The orcish homeland is actually a big, rich country with loads of different races all living normal lives while also practising the Six Actions (you need to know how to fight, not fight for a living). Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Aug 17, 2014 |
# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:30 |
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Ed Greenwood's original underground elves for the Realms were albino and had fungus associations later repurposed as Ghaunadaur. So yes you can do that if you want!
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:30 |
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Mr. Maltose posted:Obviously underground elves should have spots and poo poo because they're made of fungus and not plants. Also they should get fatter with age as the great sporing approaches. This is literally what RPGnet admin Shannon Applecline? did when he was given the opportunity to invent underground elves for Glorantha. While all elves in glorantha are Man + Plant, dark elves are Man + Fungus.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:35 |
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Yeah my inspiration was half that half The Grey, where the ideological differences of Plant And Fungus are shown to be a matter of wildly different worldview as opposed to any malice on either party. Except a dinosaur plant but he was a jerk anyway.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:35 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Since we're taking about alternate takes on lovely D&D races, I've decided that from now on orcs are basically Mandalorians from the Star Wars EU: they're not a race, they're a warrior quasi-religion/culture that accepts members of any race as long as they practice the Six Actions: know how to speak orcish; wear armour; know how to defend yourself, your family and your clan; raise your children as orcs; contribute to the welfare of the clan (in practice, by tithing a tenth of your income to the clan coffers); and rally to the Khan's banner when called upon. this is really cool
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 20:36 |
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Make Elves Jem'Hadar imo
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:07 |
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Forums Terrorist posted:Make Elves Jem'Hadar imo This is, no poo poo, the inspiration for halflings in my game.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:10 |
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Only if we get Weyoun out of the deal too.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:10 |
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The 13th Age Bestiary presents 5 different approaches to the Drow. There's a really nice one in there about them being the plasuibly-deniable agents who do the Elf Queen's dirty work.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:14 |
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To jump back to audiobook versions of RPGs for a second: OctaNe read by Henry Rollins
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:16 |
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D&D Next read by Don Imus and Fred Phelps' ghost
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:27 |
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Arivia posted:My phone ate this post so I'm going to note again that there was not 1 but 2 Greyhawk campaign settings produced during 3.0, not including the Living Greyhawk rules. You could get all the Geoff to stuff your face with that you wanted. I have a feeling they either misspoke and meant to say there is no CG in development yet or that they will quickly backtrack and say that's what they meant to say in the first place. There are a few good reasons to hold back on releasing a new FRCG. The Sundering hasn't wrapped up yet in adventures and novels. And the last one had a strong feeling of rushed shoddiness.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:28 |
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Arivia posted:Ed Greenwood's original underground elves for the Realms were albino and had fungus associations later repurposed as Ghaunadaur. So yes you can do that if you want! Huh, I guess my old FR campaign used this as a base for our Drow, no idea. They were ghost white with bright red eyes for good 'oh gently caress what are those' fuel, instead of being spider obsessed they were fungus farmers and all (including some creepy rear end 'priests of fungus' who let that poo poo grow on their skin) and the whole 'surface vs underground' war thing was based on ancient civil wars that both sides blamed the other on instead of one being objectively evil or good.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:31 |
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Huh, I guess my old FR campaign used this as a base for our Drow, no idea. They were ghost white with bright red eyes for good 'oh gently caress what are those' fuel, instead of being spider obsessed they were fungus farmers and all (including some creepy rear end 'priests of fungus' who let that poo poo grow on their skin) and the whole 'surface vs underground' war thing was based on ancient civil wars that both sides blamed the other on instead of one being objectively evil or good. That's pretty much exactly the actual FR drow. I'm not sure where your DM got the pale white with red eyes from, but the priests of fungus are just priests of Ghaunadaur, there are some drow communities that don't follow Lolth, and all drow farm fungus pretty much.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 21:34 |
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I am registering my approval for fantasy settings that are thinly veiled rip offs of Deep Space Nine.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 22:11 |
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WordMercenary posted:I am registering my approval for fantasy settings that are thinly veiled rip offs of Deep Space Nine. Unfortunately, the new 'all evil, all the time' race are the firesoul 'pah wraith' genasi. But at least it ain't drowface.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 22:16 |
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Drowtalk:Ewen Cluney posted:The thing with drow, like a lot of D&D-isms, is that they're something Gygax & co. carelessly tossed into the game that has since become Sacred Writ, so that rather than Gygax's free-flowing fantasy gumbo, it's a bunch of cliches that have been run into the ground for 40 years. Its cliches are unbelievably ripe for mocking, subverting, or just plain improving. (Emphasis mine.) I want to know everything about this.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 22:18 |
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inklesspen posted:Drowtalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EKTw50Uf8M
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 22:38 |
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Uh, this might be a bit better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 23:03 |
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inklesspen posted:Drowtalk: http://goblinsociety.tumblr.com/post/94095332335/trying-to-fix-drow http://goblinsociety.tumblr.com/post/94666832405/elves-in-alcina And as a bonus, Ben Lehman's zany idea for dwarves: http://binghsien.tumblr.com/post/94098388127/so-what-if-all-the-dwarves-we-see-out-in-the
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 23:14 |
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Ewen Cluney posted:And as a bonus, Ben Lehman's zany idea for dwarves: This completely explains Dwarf Fortress.
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# ? Aug 17, 2014 23:39 |
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I wrote up this alternate orc idea a while ago, with a little inspirational help from Ben Baugh. Enjoy my purple prose!quote:In the beginning, as on many other worlds, the gods chose where to place their children as the world was being formed.
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 00:21 |
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Ewen Cluney posted:Here's what he's posted about it so far: Traditionally, Elves are pretty xenophobic, if you took that a bit further than being an adventurer would be a form of rebellion against society. I quite like this interpretation of Drow.
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 00:42 |
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mllaneza posted:The 13th Age Bestiary presents 5 different approaches to the Drow. There's a really nice one in there about them being the plasuibly-deniable agents who do the Elf Queen's dirty work. A Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Aug 18, 2014 |
# ? Aug 18, 2014 02:05 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:I wrote up this alternate orc idea a while ago, with a little inspirational help from Ben Baugh. Enjoy my purple prose! Pretty good! I have notes for a campaign setting where humans are newcomers and Orcish is the common speech. The orcs follow a Roman (ish) model of forming trading colonies everywhere; why destroy when you can just conquer and why conquer when you can get the same benefits by simply dominating travel and trade?
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 02:10 |
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Sorry, noted 4e MMO Everquest Next solves the drow problem in the best way: They are elves who are dragonpeople. Deal with it.
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 02:10 |
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I think Shadowrun should get the award for weirdest Drow, which are the Night Ones. They're an elf variant that's covered in a thin layer of hair, range in color from black to orange, and have a sun allergy.
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 02:21 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:This is still "evil black elves" and therefore doesn't fix any of the problems with drow. All you've done is invert it so it's no longer "good white folk fell from grace and became black" and is instead "black people learned better than their savage ways and became civilised white folk," which is somehow even more racist. That's fair; it was kind of off-the-cuff. The idea was that they're oppressed, not evil, which is why I specified that various demons rule their homeland. North Korea was more of an inspiration than anything. Making the blue coloration a consequence of their native diet meant it's both a visual indication of their recent past and something that can change. If I were to expand on it, I would've said that surface dwellers claim to possess the original, "uncorrupted" versions of historical rituals and traditions from underground. And that they change from blue to green (not black to white), or various other pigmentations based on what they eat and what the ambient magic is like. This is a risky one: a major strength of fantasy is making metaphors literal, and this captures the idea of the place someone lives figuratively coloring their perception and representing it as literally coloring their bodies; but skin color is already a contentious and overloaded symbol in reality, so perhaps it's just too risky an element to preserve when attempting the already possibly futile task of rehabilitating a discredited idea.
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 03:11 |
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The best drow are Night Elves.
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 03:12 |
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new idea: elves of any flavor don't exist, and we come up more interesting fantasy species than longlived pointy-ear humans
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 03:14 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 16:52 |
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Elves are cool, just say they come in a variety of skin tones like literally everything else that exists
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# ? Aug 18, 2014 03:16 |