Playing Evil Races II

Wait, why is that rather disheveled woman holding my severed head? Is there a Sleepy Hollow-themed paragon path I don't know about? Oh, I see. (This picture also created something called "Barbarian Basketball" among my crew, but the less said about that the better.)
While I do poke fun at the sheer number of horrible deaths illustrated of a player character race, just being a member of that race isn't enough for it to be "good." That's why I proposed the Monster Manual item. Minotaurs are totally kosher if you take in their new fluff, while gnolls…well, even the article that debuted them as a PC race included feats so that you can eat corpses and included a terrible story about killing people by pretending to be their dead loved one. The point is, I think Wizards went the right way with this; just because a race is a player character option doesn't mean that it stops being a monster. That doesn't make my character any less sad when they murder gnolls in every article and book that applies to him, but I need to move on.

A 5-Step Program

If you're really going to go the monstrous race route, here are a few things to try out:
A. Look as unlike your racial stereotype as possible.
Example: Have your kobold dress in the fanciest garb he or she can find. Maybe dungeon delving is a black tie event for you. Or wear stilts and say you're a dragonborn on a diet. If you must play a shadar-kai, maybe you shouldn't wear 15 pounds of facial piercings when you meet the party for the first time. A smile couldn't hurt either.
B. Be useful. Say it with me: They won't kill you if you're useful.
Example: If the party is starting to wonder why they should spare your new goblin character, simply say your class is "butler" or "packmule." You'll live a lot longer, I assure you.
C. Make a friend. If you know you're going to play a bullywug cleric of Kermit or hobgoblin assassin, it's a good idea to find another player in your group and make an intersecting backstory. Folks love other folks who are interested in their character's mostly unspoken history, so ask a few questions, nod appropriately, pretend to pay attention, and just sneak in, "…and you had an orc roommate in college, right?" before they finish. Chances are the characters in your party have had adventures before this one and "blackboxing" one where Fighter Stephanie nursed a bugbear with a broken foot back to health and taught him the value of an honest day's work can't hurt. Think of it as getting a sponsor -- someone else to keep you honest (and to keep others from stabbing you for XP and loot).
D. Don't get on the wrong side of any Drizzts that might already be in the party. There's nothing more belittling of someone's character concept than a copy of it showing up. You can have this problem with any sort of character ("You want another wizard in the party? Am I not good enough for you?"), but it's nice to know if someone else's identity is already tied to the "evil race turned good" concept before showing up in your "Now I'm a Good Guy" pants. This is pretty much a judgment call. The rest of the party might be open-minded, but a little in- and out-of-character tension is never good for someone already in a dangerous position.
E. Turn the tables on them. While it feels like dirty pool to pull the equivalent of "White Man's Guilt" in the D&D universe, have a backstory that illustrates just how evil humankind/elvenkind/adventurers can be. Ultimately, it's subjective and hard to crush that wayward orc who "just wants to find out why all those dwarves killed his mother and father" because he just doesn't understand. Puppy-dog eyes and a tiny violin wouldn't hurt either.
Let's explore this last point some more. Why don't we consider dwarves to be an evil race? They're known for drinking heavily, being violent, and living under the ground with drow and other subterranean horrors. Just for the sake of argument, let me throw in one more Salvatore reference. It's an excerpt from The Legacy, the seventh Drizzt book. This is a cheery song that a bunch of dwarves sing as they pilot a giant death machine known as "The Juicer" against a goblin horde.

"Every bump's a goblin's head,
Pools of blood from the goblin dead.
Run, good dwarves, push that toy,
Squish the little goblin boys!"

Yes, it's a goblin genocide song. I don't know too many heroic ballads that include the crushing of enemy children…but it's a good thing to point out that racial perspectives are all relative. An RPGA adventure out there has a duergar show up, and you have to play chess with him. Murdering him simply because he's got the "devil" keyword isn't an option unless you want to fail the skill challenge.
D&D has (obviously) come a long way. We're at this weird post-modern point where simply murdering a whole race of people because they're the enemy is kind of…looked down on. On the topic of subjectivity, here's an excerpt from Bruce Cordell/John D. Rateliff's Reverse Dungeon, a great book that came out in 2000, where the player played evil goblins (among other things) who had to defend their home from the rampaging adventurers. Fun with role reversal aside, check out this quote:

"There's plenty of precedent for relativistic philosophy within the game -- after all, the good guys often commit acts that would be looked at askance in any court of law. Indeed, in a typical adventure, the "heroes" are more likely to kill helpless foes than the "villains" are; it's become one of the clichés of fantasy fiction that the villains are more likely to take prisoners than the heroes… The bad guys may staunch a hero's wounds and hold him or her for ransom…whereas the average adventurer group simply kills its foes, occasionally conveniently failing to hear offers of surrender."

As I bring my ramblings to a thankful end, let me just point out one big difference in this current edition of the game: Good and evil aren't keywords in Dungeons & Dragons -- not anymore. We no longer have to worry about the exact moral stance of our enemies before unleashing blasts of divine energy against them. Evil cultists don't have to save a drowning kitten once a week to keep them "just good enough" to not be vulnerable to smite evil. Your outlook on government (a solid chunk of the past alignment system) is no longer buried at the (almost) genetic level.
What I'm trying to say is that, like real life, we are products of our environment. We have to choose what we accept and decry, and who's to say we shouldn't give Opeem the kobold the opportunity to rise above the corruption around him? Why can't that same kobold raise his crude spear in rebellion against his twisted fellow kobolds and lead a life of high adventure?
Well, if he wasn't a minion his career might have lasted longer, but it's the principle of the thing here. Evil is cool and Drizzt card or no Drizzt card, evil/monstrous races are here to stay. Just put down that guide to intolerance commonly known as the Monster Manual. You're making my gnoll cry.
-- Jared
D&D Outsider
"Who apologizes to Jon Schindehette for bringing up his terrible gnoll-filled childhood traumas and who only hopes the murder-by-art therapy is working."

About the Author

Jared von Hindman is an artist and sometime comedian who "dug too deep" while researching Stupid Monsters of Dungeons & Dragons. He awoke something Dire and horrible (perhaps Fiendish, even) and now he spends his days playing with plastic elves and illustrating new and creative ways to kill goblins. Currently he resides in Berlin with an older woman and a snake named Slinky. He’s not sure why his pet needs to be included in his bio, but all the cool kids seem to be doing it and Jared's a sucker for peer pressure.