Why are drow so popular anyway? It's not all that fair that drow get such favoritism over other races
general badassery, i'd imagine.
Also if you read the link @Aliteri alluded to on the second page it's kind of a wish fulfillment class for people. After all, most people playing these games are human.
Like the comic says from the link by @Aliteri since Drow became playable the whole species consists of nothing but Chaotic Good rebels, yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin. Chaotic Good can be considered the best alignment because it combines a good heart with a free will and who doesn't want freedom and goodness amirite? And to clear up my position, I do want to have the freedom to choose to play a drow
It would make such a hazzle for devs. They'd be facing less-than-pleasant choosing between either creating tons and tons of Exclusive-to-Drow interaction or having game world and NPCs pretty much ignoring the fact PC is a Drow. For me personally it always felt bit pointless playing a drow or half orc or such, if the game world never reminds me of my race in any relevant fashion.
Hmm, perhaps some sort of Despised Races - reaction bundle where various NPCs respond in same hostile/frightened fashion to Drow, Duergar and Half-Orc PCs alike.
I'm totally against drow (or any despised/prejudiced) race for CHARNAME because it makes no sense and I justify Viconia with the hood (that she gets in BG2 portrait instead of not even drow BG1one) she hides her drow-ness in and she tries to blend in the group and to avoid eye contact with strangers.
Exactly my feelings as well. It would be way too time consuming to make a Drow race and to have NPC interactions that deal with your race and it would make very little sense from a storyline standpoint as well. I do love Drows though and I hope it will be possible to be one in Baldur's Gate 3 but I just don't see it happening for EE. I did start an elf before with dark skin and put a dark elf portrait for my PC and I was playing pretending to be a drow. I wasn't fooling anyone though, they all knew I was just rubbing coal on my face....
Oh I would like to see a drow in the game, not for the reason of being them so powerful, but because I want to see how all other would react to them. Think of Imoen saying something like "You really should have accepted my offer to paint your face a little bit more mainstream" when you get attacked or Minsc saying "Everytime Minsc is seeing you, I think of smashing the dark out of your face, but then Boo holds me back and says your a good One"
But I also now what a lot of work would that be and so that's really not something that I want to delay the release of BgEE. And a drow without any new Dialoque Options or without sometimes getting attacked by people, would be nothing worth to play for me.
Hum... not bad idea, even if add specific NPC interactions would be a difficult work, but in my mind, I have some difficulty to believe that Elhan and Ellesime would be agree to seek help from a drow to save Suldanessellar .
While it's a great idea, i'm forced to disagree with it because they'd have to implement new drow-specific dialog all over the game world where stigma against drow is shown (or the devs could just ignore it and treat the PC like a human for the most part, like they handled it in NWN2...).
While it's a great idea, i'm forced to disagree with it because they'd have to implement new drow-specific dialog all over the game world where stigma against drow is shown (or the devs could just ignore it and treat the PC like a human for the most part, like they handled it in NWN2...).
The problem with that is, they are Drow, even Drow that have fled the underdark would take insult at being called a " Elf "
Now am no dev guy but I dont think it would be that hard, you wouldnt need a drow-specific dialog all over the game, let me tell you why.
I play D&D with and only Drow toons this is how normally it works.
When I go into a town or city I have to roll a dice, If I get 3 or less, guards, vender's basically any NPC spots me, then I have to roll again to see what happens, 1-2, the guards attack me 3-4 am thrown out the city 5-6 they put up with me, but vender's charge me more for anything i want to buy.
How you translate that into game could be as follows.
A guard NPC in town / city areas walks up to you and dose a " Drow check " if your a drow and he spots you, you get to try and talk your way in, bribe the guard or attack him, a " Drow check " could just be a simple spot check done by a guard when you enter the map.
Now some things can effect my dice rolls, if am on good terms with a guard or the ruler of the city, I can come in with out trouble, your rep in game can show this.
So you see you CAN have the feeling of being a drow with out to much effect on convos, I mean no sane Drow would walk around with out a hood anyway, so most NPC's would not be sure on your race.
More than a decade later and people still wanna be Drizzt, eh? Some things never change.
Seems like it would be an easy feature to implement, so I don't see any harm in it. I'd scale back the Magic Resistance quite a bit for the sake of multiplayer balance. My 2nd Edition books are no longer with me, but I remember that magic resistance faded the longer a dark elf spent on the surface. Since Gorion's Ward spent the last 18 years or so in Candlekeep, you probably shouldn't have any, to be honest.
The social consequences of being a dwarf are but a little prank compared to those of being a drow. In Faerun, dwarves are pretty common and commonly accepted, so of course their race wouldn't be acknowledged in every encounter. You could at worst run into the occasional grouch who doesn't trust/like dwarves, or whatever race other than their own, and treats you with contempt but it can hardly go beyond that.
A drow, on the other hand... They are not just "enemies of the surface world": they are feared and loathed, killed on sight by the guards of most big cities and literally soaked in prejudice. If Drizzt novels are any indication of how drows are perceived in the surface world (and I see no reason why they shouldn't), being a "good" drow is not going to make you any more likable in the vast majority of situations. In this regard, @kamuizin is right: Viconia unrealistically faces but a few minor inconvenices compared to what she should for being a drow. That's fine, though, for if everyone tried to kill her on sight that would sorta kill the fun, too. But a drow CHARNAME is another story: they're the main character, the party leader, the one who does the talking and carries the reputation. Giving a drow CHARNAME the same kind of "easy life" as given to a CHARNAME of any other race would be unfair and excessively unrealistic, imho.
Then again, as I said, I'm NOT too adamant about this. I'm just sharing my thoughts, that's all.
Well, here we have options to overcome the problem. Would you not agree that if the party was lead by an paladin whit 16 in charisma, or an bard whit 18, that party should have the posibility to negotiate its way out of certains encounter. An party lead by an warrior whit 9 in charisma would have bigger problem running around whit an drow in the party.
There are lots of encounters witch could be killed off whithout having an impact on the story( this people can attack if viconia is in party and you dont manage to talk your way out of it) There simply is to few problems for an unkown drow running around, its like putting an snake into an town and see how long it last if you get my point. People should give an drow problem , or an half orc for that sake. Or an dwarf( not in the same way, but dwarf is looked down on in fr, sort of anyways) Playing as an orc is just plain stupid if not the plot is written for it, else it would never make sense
Could not this be done? Inside the "rules" they have to follow? There is to little diffrent from having 18 vs 3 in charisma, thats for sure, think how mutch this count in real life,hehe.. Looks and charisma is everything when for.eks speaking for an "drow", trying to get other people to accept his/hers presens, not starting to throw stone at "it",hehe
@FillaFillason - I've just realized the post you quoted is missing a "not" where it would be fundamental to have one. Forgetting to type negations where they should really, really appear is something I seemingly get a lot. What the post should read is "I'm not too adamant about this", meaning that I won't cry if the drow subrace is made available. I will just likely skip it for roleplaying purposes, and its availability won't spoil my gaming experience
Well, the same here, but I would not play as it I think. Unless the main story is changed,hehe. But I think this is a place where they could improve the game? Making more encounters for a party whit viconia letting there be a couple of options depending on your. partys charisma, strength etc... You should at least notice that you protect an creature 99% of the world will kill on sight if getting an chance... And here they could made strength and charisma/wisdom count as well for the outcome, would have been fun whit more options, if you do x , y happens. If you doesn't do x, then z happends.
A drow, on the other hand... They are not just "enemies of the surface world": they are feared and loathed, killed on sight by the guards of most big cities and literally soaked in prejudice. If Drizzt novels are any indication of how drows are perceived in the surface world (and I see no reason why they shouldn't), being a "good" drow is not going to make you any more likable in the vast majority of situations. In this regard, @kamuizin is right: Viconia unrealistically faces but a few minor inconvenices compared to what she should for being a drow. That's fine, though, for if everyone tried to kill her on sight that would sorta kill the fun, too. But a drow CHARNAME is another story: they're the main character, the party leader, the one who does the talking and carries the reputation. Giving a drow CHARNAME the same kind of "easy life" as given to a CHARNAME of any other race would be unfair and excessively unrealistic, imho.
This is more of a charisma problem I guess, a stat that is easy to boost and that doesn't have that much weight in the game. However, the introduction of drows would only make it that much more game-breaking, since it would be a miracle that a random public enemy manages to travel the Coast without any problem. Viconia herself admits to have been in the face of death multiple times before she meets CHARNAME. Two drows in a party? That unrealistic.
But I do agree that half-orcs should obtain a good strenght and constitution bonus along with a huge charisma drop.
Why would anyone throw a fit over Drow being included in the game? Even if they do add content to the game involving Drow, it would not deter you from playing any other character. It would not affect you one bit.
Said inclusions would only work on ONE part of the game. If you don't like it, don't play as a Drow?
Just because a developer adds something YOU WILL NEVER PLAY and WILL NEVER EFFECT other player characters, is no reason to either not buy the game, or not play the game.
This senseless argument is stupid at best, and honestly alot of people have come up with some very good arguments for putting Drow into the game.
The statement that all Drow would be killed on contact - WRONG If Drizzt killed everyone who ever called him a name, or attacked him then yes he would have a negative attitude towards him throughout Faerun all the time. But because he showed excellent character, and did not kill many of his would be killers and simply got out of the situation, is also what helped his reputation.
The inclusion of people not trusting Drow could be easy.
There are many things in the game that cause others to not trust you through your actions depending on how you play anyway. Like being evil, whether or not you become a renowned thief, or become known for the way you interact with the world in general.
In BG2 you can be a half-orc I believe, and it DOES effect the way you interact with the world.
Also, (although I've never played the first one) in BG2 the way you act within the game and the way you play as your chosen alignment effects game-play as well.
So, honestly, I think a Drow would work perfectly fine in BG if such things were taken into consideration. When it comes to a game, many liberties can be taken with respect to the IP. And you can do many things which pay homage, yet give you a bit more freedom within a realm that you wish could happen in the original IP.
The IP should not be law, but a guideline. Overstepped when needed, and followed strictly when it could potentially ruin a re-imagining like this.
The IP is a law, by definition. It's property, so you are able to use it, but you cannot change and use it as you please, you have to get permission for everything you do with it. That's why it was so hard to start BG:EE in the first place
As I recall, the "Drow Females are sexy" thing came out of a pic in the 1e module Q1, "Queen of the Demonweb Pits", which introduced Lolth in the first place, where she was depicted in a bathingsuit-like outfit resembling white cobwebs on black. And as Lolth is depicted as being a sexy female elf with black skin and white hair in some of the pics (not so much with the Spider with the head of a female Drow that is another one of those pics), people playing the game (mostly men at the time) went "Whoa, sexy!" (in fact, in Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, you get the option to buy that same bathingsuit- the black stuff is seethrough, but the white stuff covers the assets in a way that you aren't going to scandalize the town if you go out in it. Then again, the "Boom's Garden" section offers fetishwear, so who knows?)
As for Half-Ogres, that is mentioned in 1e, I think. It came out of one of the earlier Dragon Magazines, where two of the Gygax brothers were playing them. Upside- big and strong. Downsides- slow, stupid, take larger than man-sized damage from weapons (i.e. smaller and normal human size damage from a longsword is 1d8- larger than Man-sized takes 1d12. Two Handed Swords for S/M is 1d10. L is 3d6, etc.) Plus, most armor won't fit you, to have it tailored to your size costs more, reaction problems, etc.
As to the person who wants to play a beholder- most magic items wouldn't fit you/don't work. You couldn't use weapons (no hands), no armor (won't fit) or anything that needs a human-ish body to make it work (boots, gloves, helms, rings. I mean, I know you're being facetious, but really...
I loved "Queen of the Demonweb Pits". Some of the stuff in that module was hilarious. The plane it was on was so chaotic, that weird stuff would happen for no particular reason. There was a table of stuff you could find/weird effects, like a cupboard full of glass goblets that would suddenly appear, and the goblets fall off and shatter, one by one, on the floor. One of my characters found a laundry basket full of underwear that glowed in the dark, and took it home as part of her loot. (Hey, you'll never know when you might need underwear that glows in the dark!)
Otherwise, FR-lorewise, there's the Drow in the temple of Eilistraee in the Promenade in Skullport. First mentioned in FOR2, Drow of the Underdark, Eilistraee is a good-aligned Drow Goddess (and the only one, AFAIK). It would have been nice to show off some of the other Drow Gods, like Vheraun, since they were introduced back in 1991 (which is the date of copyright on FOR2). One of the "Seven Sisters" of the Forgotten Realms also happens to be Drow, Qilué Veladorn, and she's a high priestess of Eilistraee, whose backstory is that she and other dark elf children were playing, when they heard a female voice telling them to go smite some evils that had appeared to threaten that area of the world. They got swords and did so, and the voice was Eilistraee, and she made Qilué her priestess afterwards, and the area they had cleansed became the temple in the Promenade in Skullport, and the Drow there patrol to keep evil from re-invading that area. In fact, adventurers are sometimes hired to beef up the patrols, and since the temple heals those who need it, the unhired adventurers are paying off the cost of being healed for free (out of gratitude, presumably).
There is also a nation in the Shining South where Drow intermarried with the human nobility, so that most of them are now half-Drow (from Demihumans of the Realms, written by Roger Moore, copyright 1998) and that would be Dambrath. One of the Kits available for a half-Drow is Dambraii Runaway, although the description does say that even Half-Drow are hated on sight in most places and mistreated, and that most cope by becoming adventurers.
I'd say, though, that even for a Drow or half-Drow, as your reputation and level increases, it's not that people are less likely to discriminate against them, but less likely to do it openly. A merchant, faced with a successful adventurer wearing items dripping magical power and obviously well able to use them, is not going to be so foolish as to openly piss off such a person by sneering at them or trying to hurt them. Common sense (not so common any more, I know) would tell you this. "This person can crush me like a bug with a swat from one hand- let me treat him like he's the animal feces I scrape off my shoes at the end of the day. That'll show him!"
Being a Drow in bg1 and bg2 can be great, just to have a better relation with Viconia, or a different relation. I usualy play a chaotic neutral char with an evil team.
Being a Drow in bg1 and bg2 can be great, just to have a better relation with Viconia, or a different relation. I usualy play a chaotic neutral char with an evil team.
How was your reputation on thouse playthorugh? did you have to slay some priest or locals to get the rep. down or did you skip quest like finding rings, cats etc?
Hey @LadyRhian, don't spoil my beholder request!! Just kidding (but a beholder main char would be awersome, and Bhaal had sex even with a bunny, why not a mother hive? XD. At least my mind flayer request was left on my wish list !
Now serious, if we where on Icewind Dale, i would see no problem, as there the plot is put more aside for a game flow itself, but in baldur's gate...
BG1, is the most receptive for a drow, only a few problematic points but BG2 would surely lead to an astronomic group of inbalances, and above all i quote one that unseless someone has a good explanation for that, think in a drow main char is not an option:
Chapter 6, after leave underdark how a Drow main char would deal with the surface elfs?
@Edvin viconia ONLY survived that encounter cos the elvens make a deal with main char, you think they would make the same with a drow main char? Ok it's how you see it, i just don't see this working out.
Comments
I was just kidding, guys!
And I never implied that sex with drows would, could or should be inherently bad LOL
Like the comic says from the link by @Aliteri since Drow became playable the whole species consists of nothing but Chaotic Good rebels, yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin. Chaotic Good can be considered the best alignment because it combines a good heart with a free will and who doesn't want freedom and goodness amirite? And to clear up my position, I do want to have the freedom to choose to play a drow
hardoned roleplayers
Hmm, perhaps some sort of Despised Races - reaction bundle where various NPCs respond in same hostile/frightened fashion to Drow, Duergar and Half-Orc PCs alike.
Exactly my feelings as well. It would be way too time consuming to make a Drow race and to have NPC interactions that deal with your race and it would make very little sense from a storyline standpoint as well. I do love Drows though and I hope it will be possible to be one in Baldur's Gate 3 but I just don't see it happening for EE. I did start an elf before with dark skin and put a dark elf portrait for my PC and I was playing pretending to be a drow. I wasn't fooling anyone though, they all knew I was just rubbing coal on my face....
LOL, you got it.
Think of Imoen saying something like "You really should have accepted my offer to paint your face a little bit more mainstream" when you get attacked or Minsc saying "Everytime Minsc is seeing you, I think of smashing the dark out of your face, but then Boo holds me back and says your a good One"
But I also now what a lot of work would that be and so that's really not something that I want to delay the release of BgEE.
And a drow without any new Dialoque Options or without sometimes getting attacked by people, would be nothing worth to play for me.
Now am no dev guy but I dont think it would be that hard, you wouldnt need a drow-specific dialog all over the game, let me tell you why.
I play D&D with and only Drow toons this is how normally it works.
When I go into a town or city I have to roll a dice, If I get 3 or less, guards, vender's basically any NPC spots me, then I have to roll again to see what happens, 1-2, the guards attack me 3-4 am thrown out the city 5-6 they put up with me, but vender's charge me more for anything i want to buy.
How you translate that into game could be as follows.
A guard NPC in town / city areas walks up to you and dose a " Drow check " if your a drow and he spots you, you get to try and talk your way in, bribe the guard or attack him, a " Drow check " could just be a simple spot check done by a guard when you enter the map.
Now some things can effect my dice rolls, if am on good terms with a guard or the ruler of the city, I can come in with out trouble, your rep in game can show this.
So you see you CAN have the feeling of being a drow with out to much effect on convos, I mean no sane Drow would walk around with out a hood anyway, so most NPC's would not be sure on your race.
Seems like it would be an easy feature to implement, so I don't see any harm in it. I'd scale back the Magic Resistance quite a bit for the sake of multiplayer balance. My 2nd Edition books are no longer with me, but I remember that magic resistance faded the longer a dark elf spent on the surface. Since Gorion's Ward spent the last 18 years or so in Candlekeep, you probably shouldn't have any, to be honest.
There are lots of encounters witch could be killed off whithout having an impact on the story( this people can attack if viconia is in party and you dont manage to talk your way out of it) There simply is to few problems for an unkown drow running around, its like putting an snake into an town and see how long it last if you get my point. People should give an drow problem , or an half orc for that sake. Or an dwarf( not in the same way, but dwarf is looked down on in fr, sort of anyways) Playing as an orc is just plain stupid if not the plot is written for it, else it would never make sense
Could not this be done? Inside the "rules" they have to follow? There is to little diffrent from having 18 vs 3 in charisma, thats for sure, think how mutch this count in real life,hehe.. Looks and charisma is everything when for.eks speaking for an "drow", trying to get other people to accept his/hers presens, not starting to throw stone at "it",hehe
Well, the same here, but I would not play as it I think. Unless the main story is changed,hehe. But I think this is a place where they could improve the game? Making more encounters for a party whit viconia letting there be a couple of options depending on your. partys charisma, strength etc... You should at least notice that you protect an creature 99% of the world will kill on sight if getting an chance... And here they could made strength and charisma/wisdom count as well for the outcome, would have been fun whit more options, if you do x , y happens. If you doesn't do x, then z happends.
Or would that be impossible due to the contract?
Why would anyone throw a fit over Drow being included in the game? Even if they do add content to the game involving Drow, it would not deter you from playing any other character. It would not affect you one bit.
Said inclusions would only work on ONE part of the game. If you don't like it, don't play as a Drow?
Just because a developer adds something YOU WILL NEVER PLAY and WILL NEVER EFFECT other player characters, is no reason to either not buy the game, or not play the game.
This senseless argument is stupid at best, and honestly alot of people have come up with some very good arguments for putting Drow into the game.
The statement that all Drow would be killed on contact - WRONG
If Drizzt killed everyone who ever called him a name, or attacked him then yes he would have a negative attitude towards him throughout Faerun all the time. But because he showed excellent character, and did not kill many of his would be killers and simply got out of the situation, is also what helped his reputation.
The inclusion of people not trusting Drow could be easy.
There are many things in the game that cause others to not trust you through your actions depending on how you play anyway. Like being evil, whether or not you become a renowned thief, or become known for the way you interact with the world in general.
In BG2 you can be a half-orc I believe, and it DOES effect the way you interact with the world.
Also, (although I've never played the first one) in BG2 the way you act within the game and the way you play as your chosen alignment effects game-play as well.
So, honestly, I think a Drow would work perfectly fine in BG if such things were taken into consideration. When it comes to a game, many liberties can be taken with respect to the IP. And you can do many things which pay homage, yet give you a bit more freedom within a realm that you wish could happen in the original IP.
The IP should not be law, but a guideline. Overstepped when needed, and followed strictly when it could potentially ruin a re-imagining like this.
As for Half-Ogres, that is mentioned in 1e, I think. It came out of one of the earlier Dragon Magazines, where two of the Gygax brothers were playing them. Upside- big and strong. Downsides- slow, stupid, take larger than man-sized damage from weapons (i.e. smaller and normal human size damage from a longsword is 1d8- larger than Man-sized takes 1d12. Two Handed Swords for S/M is 1d10. L is 3d6, etc.) Plus, most armor won't fit you, to have it tailored to your size costs more, reaction problems, etc.
As to the person who wants to play a beholder- most magic items wouldn't fit you/don't work. You couldn't use weapons (no hands), no armor (won't fit) or anything that needs a human-ish body to make it work (boots, gloves, helms, rings. I mean, I know you're being facetious, but really...
I loved "Queen of the Demonweb Pits". Some of the stuff in that module was hilarious. The plane it was on was so chaotic, that weird stuff would happen for no particular reason. There was a table of stuff you could find/weird effects, like a cupboard full of glass goblets that would suddenly appear, and the goblets fall off and shatter, one by one, on the floor. One of my characters found a laundry basket full of underwear that glowed in the dark, and took it home as part of her loot. (Hey, you'll never know when you might need underwear that glows in the dark!)
Otherwise, FR-lorewise, there's the Drow in the temple of Eilistraee in the Promenade in Skullport. First mentioned in FOR2, Drow of the Underdark, Eilistraee is a good-aligned Drow Goddess (and the only one, AFAIK). It would have been nice to show off some of the other Drow Gods, like Vheraun, since they were introduced back in 1991 (which is the date of copyright on FOR2). One of the "Seven Sisters" of the Forgotten Realms also happens to be Drow, Qilué Veladorn, and she's a high priestess of Eilistraee, whose backstory is that she and other dark elf children were playing, when they heard a female voice telling them to go smite some evils that had appeared to threaten that area of the world. They got swords and did so, and the voice was Eilistraee, and she made Qilué her priestess afterwards, and the area they had cleansed became the temple in the Promenade in Skullport, and the Drow there patrol to keep evil from re-invading that area. In fact, adventurers are sometimes hired to beef up the patrols, and since the temple heals those who need it, the unhired adventurers are paying off the cost of being healed for free (out of gratitude, presumably).
There is also a nation in the Shining South where Drow intermarried with the human nobility, so that most of them are now half-Drow (from Demihumans of the Realms, written by Roger Moore, copyright 1998) and that would be Dambrath. One of the Kits available for a half-Drow is Dambraii Runaway, although the description does say that even Half-Drow are hated on sight in most places and mistreated, and that most cope by becoming adventurers.
I'd say, though, that even for a Drow or half-Drow, as your reputation and level increases, it's not that people are less likely to discriminate against them, but less likely to do it openly. A merchant, faced with a successful adventurer wearing items dripping magical power and obviously well able to use them, is not going to be so foolish as to openly piss off such a person by sneering at them or trying to hurt them. Common sense (not so common any more, I know) would tell you this. "This person can crush me like a bug with a swat from one hand- let me treat him like he's the animal feces I scrape off my shoes at the end of the day. That'll show him!"
Now serious, if we where on Icewind Dale, i would see no problem, as there the plot is put more aside for a game flow itself, but in baldur's gate...
BG1, is the most receptive for a drow, only a few problematic points but BG2 would surely lead to an astronomic group of inbalances, and above all i quote one that unseless someone has a good explanation for that, think in a drow main char is not an option:
Chapter 6, after leave underdark how a Drow main char would deal with the surface elfs?
It was work with Viconia :-)