Monster Races

[Gilmh]

So the other day I tried to create a character. Open word, let the imagination flow, and there you go, character created. It had quite a nice background (of course, nothing comparable to some really amazing things I've seen here, but for me, it was o.k.). I go to the new character creation wizard (great tool by the way), I insert everything, when I press preview, surprise surprise, my alignment and race didn't match. I go to lore, and discover that monstrous races can only be neutral (not including Lawfull Neutral) or Evil.

 The purpose of this post is to find why good monster races were forbidden (my guess is that there were more good drow than evil drow, much like there were more special races than normal races when the subraces were banned), if there is an exception besides a cleric of Azata (like there is an exception for evil and Chaotic Neutral alignments) and if in the future it is planed to change.

[Tanman]

You eluded to the problem in your guess. Too many good monstrous races as a pose to neutral or evil races. Please note this is based on what I have seen in the past and my opinion. In V2 when the the monstrous races were allowed to have good alignment we had funny stories where Orcs/Half Orcs would just out of the blue have a good streak in their biography submission...or the Drow would be suddenly be good for no apparent reason *even* coming out of the Underdark...the Underdark being a place  where there  is  only malice, thirst for power and evil. Yet we were having stories of Drow that were LG...NG. It just simply did not make sense.

I believe that these are the main crux of it.

Good monster races are forbidden at character creation, but that doesn't mean that you can't work towards an alignment you want. BUT please remember this takes a long long time. You will have to continually play the alignment that you set yourself at the beginning.

I do not see this changed at all in the future.

[Acacea]

One of the reasons that we had so many 'good' monster races is that evil was completely off limits at submission and CN was restricted, which are the most common alignments of those races. It was understandable, but does leave you kind of wondering why have them, but not the right alignments, but then worry about having too many good ones, right?

Now the problem is somewhat loosened, though - evil is available to many players eventually, so its inaccessibility is no longer 'as big' of an issue; now is the time to fill out the ranks of monster races with things matching what they're about, because it's got a long time of unavailability to make up for. I think that just like existing PCs have to work pretty hard to slide down to evil, it is intended that for a monster race it is an uphill climb to Good. It also serves to act as a tiny barrier for the numbers of these races submitted, with the looser but still present alignment restrictions.

[Gilmh]

Right, so the only way for a monstrous race to have good alignment is through rp, just like evil in V2. Thanks for your answers.

[Faldred]

There is one "loophole" to the monstrous race alignment rules -- a Cleric of Az'atta may be of a good alignment, which opens up, via the one-step rule, CG and NG for those Clerics.

On the whole, I personally would have no problem approving a well-written bio for any race of any alignment that the player qualifies for, but I don't set the policy.  As others have pointed out, the policy is there to prevent the more unrealistic cases without having to put the character approvers into a position of having to justify a very subjective decision on approval or not for each individual case.

[darkstorme]

The fact of the matter is that on the whole, it's nature vs. nurture.  In cases where monstrous race PCs grew up in their native environment, it's actually both. *chuckles*

A half-orc who grew up among orcs might be neutral, but would be very unlikely to be good, as any inclinations that way would have been beaten out of him at a very early age, if he survived at all.

A good dark elf who didn't follow Az'atta would likely be dead long before they made it to the Surface.. and those very few who might make it are already well-represented.  Because of the inherent "coolness" to the subrace, we had a large case of "elves with a suntan"... which doesn't properly reflect the turmoil that a good-inclined dark elf would suffer.  Neutral, in the underground realm of the Dark Elves, virtually is good.

Likewise for goblins, duergar, and all the evil-inclined creatures out there whose progeny decide they want to shake off the shackles of their birth and go out into the world as a PC.  Eventually, perhaps, good submissions will be opened for monstrous races... with an astonishingly stringent set of requirements - and we'll have our "exceptions to the rule"... in the frequency that they should occur.