[ SECRET POST #5834 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5834 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #835.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

A pretty straightforward solution could be to have those characters come from a particular cultural microcosm that is generally evil, does evil things, and has evil values. You don't have to say "all of this race is evil," you can say "the particular group of this race that this character is from, believes they are evil and evil is great/praiseworthy/respectable/the only way to survive."

The result is the same: a story about a character who rebels against what they were told all their lives and truly believed were innate traits, which turned out were traits that could be overcome (or at least handled and dealt with) even if habit and worldviews are hard to change.

It achieves the same emotional beats and actually makes more sense that way than The Special Exception somehow rebelling against traits we're supposed to believe were "innate" that applies to entire races.

[(Anonymous)]

This is my favorite "fix" for D&D races like orcs and drow. It's not innate, but a chunk of their society worships an evil god, so it's the /culture/ the character then unlearns, which is plenty challenging.

Or you can do "against their nature" with traits that aren't good/evil, which can be fun without getting nearly as messy. Elves that hate nature, dwarves that love flying, genasi dealing with their opposing elements, etc

[(Anonymous)]

Yes! I mean, say you're a goblin. You've lived your whole life in a shitty environment with lots of monsters and a high likelihood of death. You're fighting over scraps. You have no particular taboo about killing other races, so if they show up, you're happy to try to kill them and take their stuff. It's hard to see beyond a daily struggle, and goblins who try to do something else with their lives tend to end up dead (or worse, in the case of evil gods). Sometimes a dark wizard shows up and enslaves you. This isn't "evil", this is a shitty life.

[(Anonymous)]

This can be a very interesting way to go, but doesn't this leaves the "good" vs "evil" trope a bit? I think it's the opposite to the trope.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah I mean, at the end of the day, I *don't* particularly have a problem with the idea of always-evil races existing in a fantasy setting, but I also don't think there's really any occasion where it's necessary to have them, either. I don't think there's any interesting story you can only tell using that concept.