Ok, so almost as big as the "everyone meets in a tavern" cliché, at least in my campaigns, is the "evil cult". No matter where you go in some game worlds, there is some cult dedicated to an evil god that wants little more than to conquer/destroy the world. They are generally just dungeon fodder; some humans you can fight and loot for the greater good. They are at most fringe groups most the time, since 'destroying the world' isn't the most powerful political platform.
Anyway, I don't like this sort of cult. Sure, doomsday cults have existed / do exist in human history, but no one is 'just a cult member'. People don't go and start talking in a wheedley or demonic voice, hunched over in some dark robe, and staying inside some hole dug out of a mountainside, just because they are waiting for adventurers to come and slaughter their cult. However, it does work as a minor scuffle for PCs, sure.
In light of wanting a different sort of crazy cult to combat, I'd like to take a real-world example. The problem is, defining any real world religion as a 'crazy cult' will likely offend all kinds of people. We don't discuss religion or politics in polite company. However, I don't care if I offend certain groups, so I will go with Scientology as a group that we can base a new type of cult encounter with. Scientology, if you haven't heard of it, is an incredibly wealthy crazy cult founded by a science-fiction writer in the fifties. The wikipedia article is fairly informative. Part of their belief system involves space aliens and panspermia. It's not a 'destroy the world' sort of group, but it could easily be tweaked into a cult that could at least cause the PCs problems.
One thing that makes Scientology particularly interesting for RPG usage is it's wealth, influence, and tendency to use that wealth and influence to protect itself. Religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, etc, are big and powerful enough that they don't fear eradication. The idea of forcefully or legally removing Judaism, for example, from Earth is so impossible as to be laughable. However, Scientology is primarily a group of wealthy people who have purchased a high ranking for themselves, and a long list of rubes who have gotten swept up in the group and have been forced to sever ties with their erstwhile loved ones. There aren't enough people and there isn't enough tradition to call it invulnerable to legal hiccups. If Scientology was legally banned from, say, America, the group would effectively cease to exist in a generation or two. Thus, they use their money and influence to slap anyone around who dares to criticize them. This is directly applicable to an RPG set in an urban area.
In your fantasy city, perhaps some group like this exists. They aren't the rulers of the place, probably, but they have the ear of the ruler. They have money, which can buy friends. Thus, becoming an enemy of the group is no trivial matter. Far from just annihilating a cult of six guys that hang out in a cave complex, assaulting this group would be beyond the abilities of most adventuring groups. Even aside from the sheer number of people, there's legal troubles. They are based in a city, and thus are protected by it's laws. Their money and influence also means that they aren't hampered by those same laws, at least not to the extent that average commoners are. If your group goes outside of town and slaughters a dozen followers in a cave complex, you get back to a very unfriendly place. Some commoners, unbelievers, might be happy about what you did, but wouldn't express it in public. You might not be immediately arrested, but you'd be followed everywhere. The church might start a slander campaign, digging up dirt to use against you.
For the purposes of a RPG, the church probably worships a legitimate power. This could be space aliens, if you are running that sort of game, but it could just as easily be Vecna, Nerull, or some other evil god or goddess. Of course, the neonates don't know the true object of worship. Scientologists don't start out knowing about the alien thing, though they aren't exactly an object of worship anyway. It's too hokey to use as a conversion tool. Perhaps in this city, the lower level followers believe the church to worship something innocuous. Most people wouldn't mind following a new church of wealth, for instance. The people worship the idols, they obey the tenets of the church, and all the power goes to the real leader of the group. After the worshipers have given a lot of money to the church and severed most of their connections outside of the religion, they find out who the real leaders are. At this point, they are in deep and have decided that it doesn't matter who runs the group; they like the power they've gained, and the group isn't hurting anything.
How does something like this spread? Easily, if you know how to do it. Scientology was started effectively to make money for the founder. He made a few bets that he could start a religion by himself, and it worked out. There are idiots to be taken advantage of everywhere. For instance, the church leaders arrive in a new town, and manage to convert a few poorer people with tales of great wealth if they give money to the church as a sacrifice. The people, long held down by poverty and society's unfairness, agree to anything that seems likely to improve their station. The group has money already, and uses it to slightly improve the means of the new converts. Rumors of this new god of wealth spreads, and new converts come in. The church uses the monetary influx to build a nice communal home, in a poor area of town. The building is nice, with marble walls and sunlight. The converts now live there, and it feels much improved over what they knew before. More importantly, the people living in the shanties nearby see this opulent place, and want to throw in as well.
Over time, the monetary and lifestyle improvements gained by joining dwindle. However, it's now an established religion. The combined money of the city's poor is more than enough to establish political pull. People tend to join up as a matter of course now, similar to joining a church of Pelor. Concerned citizens around the city speak out against this new religion, but for some reason, all of them have bad things in their past that are always brought up, or they simply disappear. After a time, no one questions the group any more.
This is an interesting place to bring in the party. If they see this established group, and have some way of knowing that it's crooked, they will probably want to either bring it down or join it to swipe loot and then run off. Either way, they put themselves into a situation where more than just a few nut jobs in a dungeon are angry with them. A group this size has real power, and power that a strong sword arm and spellbook can't easily stop. Perhaps the party is conscripted against the religion by someone who knows at least part of the truth. Perhaps the founders of the group are now realizing that the church is out of control, and offer money to the party to expose the secrets. It's possible that the church converts one of the PCs, and he or she just happens to be smart enough to see through their lies after giving their money to the group. Either way, it's a nice setup.
Do be aware, however, that bringing heavy use of religion as a negative force into a campaign can cause problems for sensitive players. Be aware of your players' limits. If you are playing with several confused fundamentalists who see no problem with playing D&D, but would be offended by this action, you may want to be careful about it. Religion is one of those topics that tends to cause a lot of conflict very quickly.
I've used groups like this in campaigns before, and it throws players off a bit. A large-scale group that, although marginally or severely evil, has a lot of popular support is a dangerous opponent. The group I used, "The Order of the Cloth", helped the common people constantly. They healed the injured (Cure Light Wounds is free, after all), fed the hungry (Heroes Feast,Create Food and Water and the like), rebuilt damaged buildings (Mending,Wall of Stone), and generally helped out. Most of these effects can be created by clerics of levels below five or six, and people may be impressed by even a level one or two magic user in general. Helping the masses made the group well-loved, and hard to oppose. The party also had no hard evidence that the group was evil, but they just acted somewhat suspiciously and were a little overzealous in appealing to the party to convert. It was fun times.
Anyway, consider a popular and influential evil cult. It's a nice way to spice up a region a bit, and it allows for a group that the PCs are too small to immediately oppose. Plus, the long-running villains are the ones that are the most fun to oppose.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Handling Dwarven Encounters
Ok, so, Dwarves. A favorite of many, many players. What's not to like? They are stout defenders of their race, heavily akin to the stone they live in. Sturdy, strong, gruff, and drunk half the time, dwarves are all around fun for player characters. However, as NPCs, they often end up being passed off as drunkards and half-lawful humans. They seem to rarely have their own feeling in diplomatic and friendly relations. I think different races of people are different races because they are different.
Dwarves are generally portrayed as Gimli from The Lord of the Rings. A mountaineer sort of people, short of stature, but broad and powerful nonetheless. A society based heavily on law and tradition, which is slow to change but quick to anger in times of need. They are normally stalwart allies of humanity, and despite a slight antipathy, tolerant of elves. Dwarves are also commonly portrayed as holding an extreme hatred to the savage races, since they share their mountains with orcs and goblins. Giants in particular are hated. Dwarves seem to favor the drink a bit, which suits a people with such hardy constitutions. They are also usually shown with a flaw of greed. Dwarves value alliances and friendship, but things like that tend to crumble when glittering gold and shining gems are involved. See Thorin and the Arkenstone. See the reclaimants for Moria, who basically marched into certain death for the possibility of leftover mithril.
I think that these qualities should show through in more than just roleplaying an NPC as gruff, or mentioning that he has a beer tankard in hand. I think that one should consider dwarven culture when dealing with dwarves. Let's place an example scenario here. The PCs are all non-dwarven. Let's say that they are humans for simplicity's sake. They are headed to a dwarven city in order to establish trade relations. Perhaps this is a fairly newly founded city, a few deep tunnels dug, and some basic amenities. This means that the dwarves are more than hopeful that their human neighbors will find them worthy of a proper trading partner status. There are many goods that humans make with more proficiency than dwarves, and if nothing else, the humans will provide decent allies against the inevitable goblinoid raids.
Of course the humans would be treated with preference. Greeted warmly, not gruffly, and escorted through the nicest parts of the halls. The dwarf assigned to helping them around would likely be the most congenial, and more importantly, most tolerant of the dwarves' number. Because the humans are probably like modern day Americans in foreign lands. The average human, and probably even the party, doesn't bother to learn the culture of the place they are visiting. They don't bother to research the rules that society as a whole there just understands intrinsically.
For instance, our party here is invited to the Steelfist Alehall. Now, the humans probably think "Eh, a tavern" and don't think any more of it. With a culture that values alcohol, particularly ales and lagers, however, this may be a great honor. How many non-dwarves are even afforded such an opportunity? This is a grandiose display of respect, and the humans brush it off as nothing but an idle waste of time. The diplomat escorting the humans grits his teeth but leads the way for the uncaring humans.
Everyone arrives at the Alehall. There are a few dozen dwarves there, sitting at stone tables and drinking heartily, while laughing and talking as friends. It's a lively place, full of companionship and cheer. The mood dampens slightly as the humans walk in, and perhaps a joke or two gets interrupted. "So a human and an elf walk into an alehall, and.. uh... I'll tell you later." Anyway, the people recognize the diplomat and know that the visit is for the purpose of impressing visitors, and so return to carrying on, in a perhaps somewhat subdued sense, with a focus on looking like good people and wealthy enough to justify trade. The diplomat leads the party to the bar, and the owner of the hall comes over. Not just a barkeep; these visitors are too important. The owner warmly greets everyone, and reaches for five mugs, each easily able to contain a full quart. "Aye, welcome, 'umans! Fer sech honored guests, I'm wellin' to give you a q'ert on the house!" Apparently he's got a touch of an accent, and a more home-ish and rambunctious personality than the diplomat. Not all dwarves are the same person, after all.
Then, the party monk, somehow slipping in from the days before 4e, waves his hand dismissively. "Thank you, kind dwarf, but I do not drink alcohol."
An innocuous comment, to be certain. Polite as well, even overly so for most human taverns. In such places, the barkeep would likely laugh amusedly and fetch a water or milk for the man of temperance. The player of the monk is roleplaying his character, which is a good thing, and the other players probably see no issue with him refusing a drink. It's never been a problem before.
However, this time, the noise in the room quiets noticeably, with many of the closer dwarves looking at the monk in half shock and half annoyance. The gregarious smile immediately drops from the alehouse owner's face, as he pauses mid-turn. The diplomat coughs pointedly in the sudden quiet, and speaks with a certain emphasis, hoping to allay this faux pas.
"Honored visitor, you are in a dwarven alehouse, and the owner has offered you a quart. Perhaps you should accept his generosity."
This is how I think such a visit should be. Just being gruff and beer-fond humans isn't enough. Dwarven culture is a different culture. Just like eating a pork chop with your left hand would be offensive in Tehran, refusing a gift, particularly a gift of the hall's finest ale, would be a grave error in judgment in the dwarven halls. If you hitch hike by sticking your thumb up and out in some countries, you are likely to get attacked for giving an obscene gesture. If you angrily throw your fist into the crook of your elbow and show your middle finger in Tokyo, you will get little but confused looks. In a dwarven city, offering your host a gift of wine and bread might be considered strange. However, if you arrived and presented your host with a finely carved granite coffer, inlaid with a sparkling ruby and etched with gold, he would be overjoyed and consider you the very pinnacle of what humanity had to offer. It doesn't matter how fine the wine was, or how fresh and warm the bread was. It just wasn't the right gift.
So spend some time thinking about your dwarves. Think about what they are genetically and culturally predisposed to thinking is proper. Think about what they like, what they dislike, and what they could frankly care less about. Think about the differences in human and dwarven etiquette. Drinking on the job in human lands is generally enough to get you fired. In dwarven culture, it's absolutely the norm. An axe in human culture is just a tool, either for hewing logs or raiders. To a dwarf, and fine axe is worth more than all the elven wine and human paintings in the world. Nothing quite matches the beauty of that shining adamantine weapon, with the line of glittering emeralds down the haft, and the goblin-leather wrapping on the hold. It's an astonishingly valuable treasure. A human adventurer would look at it, shrug, and say something like "I use swords, not axes."
So yes, when you voice a dwarven NPC, feel free to play Gimli. Enjoy your beer, but also make a point to say and do things that are slightly outside the norm, because you aren't just a short human, you are a dwarf, proud and true.
Give it some thought.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Nightlands: Adventuring
Adventuring in a world like the Nightlands should be suitably different from other campaigns. Notably, the party would like be seen as crazy to even think of walking out of the gates in such a small group. In normal settings, the wilderness is dangerous, sure, but common. Farmers live on the edge of civilization themselves. They aren't happy with it, but they are used to fighting wild animals and the occasional bandits. Adventurers are unusual for their desire to throw themselves into danger for the promise of some coins or for the good of their brothers, but not crazy.
The Nightlands aren't normal wilderness. They are cursed and evil. They change people over time. This is common knowledge, bloated and exaggerated through years of rumors and hearsay. Everyone has a friend's girlfriend's cousin's grandfather who once went with a military group into the Nightlands, only to come back crazy. Everyone knows that it's only safe inside the walls of Lumina. People who decide that they want to make a living by heading outside the gates to fight cursed monsters and demons are probably considered unstable by some and dangerously insane by most.
Herein actually lies a problem I've seen with this world so far. If the Nightlands are dangerous and basically impossible to penetrate for the normal person, how are any features of the Nightlands known well enough to even send the adventurers after? Typically in D&D, someone with money will ask the party to do something, with a promise of reward. It's a fairly basic quest structure, and money is commonly a decent motivator. Wouldn't it be considered an insult to even ask someone to go out there? It's akin to saying "Err, there's a quarter at the bottom of that meat grinder. I'll give you fifty bucks if you jump into it and get that quarter for me."
Then again, if the party is known as one of those crazy groups that is willing to risk all the dangers of the Nightlands for coin, it makes sense that they would get requests to explore/loot/retrieve things nearby the town. That's something to work out later.
Anyway, so adventuring in the Nightlands is different. One way I think I'll make it different from other worlds I've played in is that it's basically unexplored. It's a rare thing that concrete human knowledge lasts much more than a few hundred years. What we know about cultures more than three thousand years ago can basically be summed up in a small pamphlet. The Nightlands, according to the first post, have been this way for 'millenia'. This is effectively since time immemorial. What is known about the Nightlands is what can be observed from the town walls, combined with information from the trading caravans and military excursions done decades ago.
So the party makes their name running errands for some mooks in town, or they are well known bar brawlers, or whatever else. They are now level one, and feeling buff and brawny enough to head out into the breach. They can possibly procure a 'map' of the Nightlands, but nothing more than a few miles from Lumina would be accurate in the slightest. Sure, the landmasses might not have changed all that much, but towns that existed thousands of years ago will probably not exist anymore, except as barely recognizable ruins. Actually, even the coasts have moved and changed. Volcanoes erupt and expand the coastline here, a sea cave has collapsed and removed a few miles of coastline. Nothing produced thousands of years ago is accurate at all.
So as opposed to your normal party heading southwards towards that castle ruin on their map, the Nightlands group can head southwards and hope that something remains of the castle that they read about in the engravings in another ruin. Of course, from the walls of Lumina, one can see a few features scattered about. All that anyone in town knows for certain is what they can see from the walls, or from scaling the wizard's tower in the center of town as high as they dare.
Come to think of it, I don't believe I've placed Lumina in any particular type of terrain, other than one that can support a river and presumably has some area that can be mined through without flooding. It does have to be basically free of major natural disasters, so that it's still standing and in reasonable shape despite having no outside assistance for centuries. Ok, we'll put Lumina on a temperate plains sort of area. Mostly flat land around, with some rolling hills in the distance. Since the outside lands have been free of human(oid) deforesting for so long, it's slightly wooded now, limiting vision to major features. The river flows somewhat lazily over such terrain, but the occasional flooding can be controlled via floodgates built by the golems that protect the city. This means the dwarves likely had to dig through quite a depth of soft, spongy soil before getting to proper stone. Still, one presumes that dwarves don't mind mining a bit.
A terrain set like this gives the citizens of Lumina some tantalizing proximity to a few ancient structures. They can see them, but they know they can't explore them. Attempts to explore usually end in death for everyone involved, because it's dangerous and stupid to go outside the walls, as we've covered. So this provides a starting point for groups that announce a desire to head into the Nightlands. That ruined tower that the populace sees to the north, when the menacing dark seems to lighten a bit, is a suitable dare for this bigshots to go to. How's that for an opening tavern quest?
Instead of the dark stranger offering information, or the random noble who seems to hang out in bars hoping to find someone to get his lost family amulet, you can have the local neighborhood street toughs irritated by the party in there acting like big shots. The PCs think they are so tough? Fine, go to Northtower then. Stay there overnight, and bring something back that proves you were there, big shot. This has the effect of showing the party as capable of going into the Nightlands without dying, as well as establishing some low level jerks in town that can act as mild antagonists while the party is there.
Well I've been going on long enough here. The point is that adventuring in the Nightlands should have a feeling of going into the unknown. No one knows what dangers await out there, and they generally think you are crazy for even wondering.
More on the Nightlands later.
The Nightlands aren't normal wilderness. They are cursed and evil. They change people over time. This is common knowledge, bloated and exaggerated through years of rumors and hearsay. Everyone has a friend's girlfriend's cousin's grandfather who once went with a military group into the Nightlands, only to come back crazy. Everyone knows that it's only safe inside the walls of Lumina. People who decide that they want to make a living by heading outside the gates to fight cursed monsters and demons are probably considered unstable by some and dangerously insane by most.
Herein actually lies a problem I've seen with this world so far. If the Nightlands are dangerous and basically impossible to penetrate for the normal person, how are any features of the Nightlands known well enough to even send the adventurers after? Typically in D&D, someone with money will ask the party to do something, with a promise of reward. It's a fairly basic quest structure, and money is commonly a decent motivator. Wouldn't it be considered an insult to even ask someone to go out there? It's akin to saying "Err, there's a quarter at the bottom of that meat grinder. I'll give you fifty bucks if you jump into it and get that quarter for me."
Then again, if the party is known as one of those crazy groups that is willing to risk all the dangers of the Nightlands for coin, it makes sense that they would get requests to explore/loot/retrieve things nearby the town. That's something to work out later.
Anyway, so adventuring in the Nightlands is different. One way I think I'll make it different from other worlds I've played in is that it's basically unexplored. It's a rare thing that concrete human knowledge lasts much more than a few hundred years. What we know about cultures more than three thousand years ago can basically be summed up in a small pamphlet. The Nightlands, according to the first post, have been this way for 'millenia'. This is effectively since time immemorial. What is known about the Nightlands is what can be observed from the town walls, combined with information from the trading caravans and military excursions done decades ago.
So the party makes their name running errands for some mooks in town, or they are well known bar brawlers, or whatever else. They are now level one, and feeling buff and brawny enough to head out into the breach. They can possibly procure a 'map' of the Nightlands, but nothing more than a few miles from Lumina would be accurate in the slightest. Sure, the landmasses might not have changed all that much, but towns that existed thousands of years ago will probably not exist anymore, except as barely recognizable ruins. Actually, even the coasts have moved and changed. Volcanoes erupt and expand the coastline here, a sea cave has collapsed and removed a few miles of coastline. Nothing produced thousands of years ago is accurate at all.
So as opposed to your normal party heading southwards towards that castle ruin on their map, the Nightlands group can head southwards and hope that something remains of the castle that they read about in the engravings in another ruin. Of course, from the walls of Lumina, one can see a few features scattered about. All that anyone in town knows for certain is what they can see from the walls, or from scaling the wizard's tower in the center of town as high as they dare.
Come to think of it, I don't believe I've placed Lumina in any particular type of terrain, other than one that can support a river and presumably has some area that can be mined through without flooding. It does have to be basically free of major natural disasters, so that it's still standing and in reasonable shape despite having no outside assistance for centuries. Ok, we'll put Lumina on a temperate plains sort of area. Mostly flat land around, with some rolling hills in the distance. Since the outside lands have been free of human(oid) deforesting for so long, it's slightly wooded now, limiting vision to major features. The river flows somewhat lazily over such terrain, but the occasional flooding can be controlled via floodgates built by the golems that protect the city. This means the dwarves likely had to dig through quite a depth of soft, spongy soil before getting to proper stone. Still, one presumes that dwarves don't mind mining a bit.
A terrain set like this gives the citizens of Lumina some tantalizing proximity to a few ancient structures. They can see them, but they know they can't explore them. Attempts to explore usually end in death for everyone involved, because it's dangerous and stupid to go outside the walls, as we've covered. So this provides a starting point for groups that announce a desire to head into the Nightlands. That ruined tower that the populace sees to the north, when the menacing dark seems to lighten a bit, is a suitable dare for this bigshots to go to. How's that for an opening tavern quest?
Instead of the dark stranger offering information, or the random noble who seems to hang out in bars hoping to find someone to get his lost family amulet, you can have the local neighborhood street toughs irritated by the party in there acting like big shots. The PCs think they are so tough? Fine, go to Northtower then. Stay there overnight, and bring something back that proves you were there, big shot. This has the effect of showing the party as capable of going into the Nightlands without dying, as well as establishing some low level jerks in town that can act as mild antagonists while the party is there.
Well I've been going on long enough here. The point is that adventuring in the Nightlands should have a feeling of going into the unknown. No one knows what dangers await out there, and they generally think you are crazy for even wondering.
More on the Nightlands later.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Taverns and Clichés
There's been a bit of talk recently about the good old fashioned "Tavern" cliché of D&D. I figured I would share some thoughts on this one.
My first game of D&D was in my sophomore year of college. I enjoyed the idea of D&D and so had proposed it to a few friends. Consequently, it was my first game, two or three others at the table as well, and then a couple vets, with a DM who I assume had played but not DMed before. All told, a pretty normal group I suppose. Anyway, We all rolled people up, which of course took hours since it was 3.0 and half the table had never played. Before we got started, one of the vets said something that interested me and still sort of defines D&D in my mind.
"Ok now forget the D&D videogames you've played, because now you can do anything."
Honestly I forget if it was Buddha or Shawn. Doesn't matter.
Anyway, that was sorta exemplified in the first scene we all played out. Speaking of "played out", it was a scene where everyone met in a tavern. Starting a D&D campaign in a tavern is by far the most horrendously cliché beginning possible. I can't say the result of the tavern meeting was exactly atypical either. Everyone was playing somewhat chaotic stupid, and we ended up with a barfight during which the level one gnomish sorcerer cast Burning Hands an ended up leveling the building with a fire. I don't recall how much trouble, if any, we had with the town guard after that. I do recall that the DM hadn't planned on all that happening. That's what cemented my interest in tabletop gaming as a whole. We broke the plot.
If you aren't a videogamer by default, that probably doesn't mean much to you. D&D plots get cracked all the time. Nothing ever really goes the way the DM wants it unless it's forced that direction. Forget all that freedom and put yourself in the shoes of someone who has only played videogame D&D, like Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale. In NN, you can't choose not to save the Waterdhavian creatures. You can't choose to kill Aribeth in the beginning of the game. You can't ingratiate yourself to The Chimera in Icewind Dale 2, and sack Targos. It's the same as trying to ally with the ghosts in Pac-man. It just isn't in the code.
That's all sort of off topic, but leads to my point in this shortish sort of article. Many of my favorite experiences in D&D occurred in taverns. Barfights, fires, Horrid Wiltings, Dark meetings with strangers, plot givers, goblins, whatever. The tavern is overplayed, sure. Every adventuring party has been in one and picked up quests. I mean, my blog is named "The Verbing Noun" because I ran out of tavern names at one point and used it.
Of course your games need variety. I'm not saying the party should always spend their money on ale and whores. They shouldn't always be smashed off their arses with beer, mead, wine, or any other drink. The tavern doesn't have to have anything to do with everything the party does. My point is this: taverns are fun. They offer fun things to do. Don't close your mind to them entirely. The freedom of D&D means that nothing is ever played out.
Make them fun again!
My first game of D&D was in my sophomore year of college. I enjoyed the idea of D&D and so had proposed it to a few friends. Consequently, it was my first game, two or three others at the table as well, and then a couple vets, with a DM who I assume had played but not DMed before. All told, a pretty normal group I suppose. Anyway, We all rolled people up, which of course took hours since it was 3.0 and half the table had never played. Before we got started, one of the vets said something that interested me and still sort of defines D&D in my mind.
"Ok now forget the D&D videogames you've played, because now you can do anything."
Honestly I forget if it was Buddha or Shawn. Doesn't matter.
Anyway, that was sorta exemplified in the first scene we all played out. Speaking of "played out", it was a scene where everyone met in a tavern. Starting a D&D campaign in a tavern is by far the most horrendously cliché beginning possible. I can't say the result of the tavern meeting was exactly atypical either. Everyone was playing somewhat chaotic stupid, and we ended up with a barfight during which the level one gnomish sorcerer cast Burning Hands an ended up leveling the building with a fire. I don't recall how much trouble, if any, we had with the town guard after that. I do recall that the DM hadn't planned on all that happening. That's what cemented my interest in tabletop gaming as a whole. We broke the plot.
If you aren't a videogamer by default, that probably doesn't mean much to you. D&D plots get cracked all the time. Nothing ever really goes the way the DM wants it unless it's forced that direction. Forget all that freedom and put yourself in the shoes of someone who has only played videogame D&D, like Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale. In NN, you can't choose not to save the Waterdhavian creatures. You can't choose to kill Aribeth in the beginning of the game. You can't ingratiate yourself to The Chimera in Icewind Dale 2, and sack Targos. It's the same as trying to ally with the ghosts in Pac-man. It just isn't in the code.
That's all sort of off topic, but leads to my point in this shortish sort of article. Many of my favorite experiences in D&D occurred in taverns. Barfights, fires, Horrid Wiltings, Dark meetings with strangers, plot givers, goblins, whatever. The tavern is overplayed, sure. Every adventuring party has been in one and picked up quests. I mean, my blog is named "The Verbing Noun" because I ran out of tavern names at one point and used it.
Of course your games need variety. I'm not saying the party should always spend their money on ale and whores. They shouldn't always be smashed off their arses with beer, mead, wine, or any other drink. The tavern doesn't have to have anything to do with everything the party does. My point is this: taverns are fun. They offer fun things to do. Don't close your mind to them entirely. The freedom of D&D means that nothing is ever played out.
Make them fun again!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Handling Angelic Encounters
Angels here meaning 3.5 and previous edition angels. The 4e angels look like confused fire elementals.
Angels, and their diabolic/demonic counterparts on the other side, have been around since the beginning, or darn close to it. If you are beginning to recognize that statement from post to post, then you can attribute it to the fact that I want to put out statements that can (possibly) help grognards as well as those newer to the hobby.
Anyway, Angels are always there. Usually they only show up at higher levels, but nonetheless, they exist in the game world. They are, of course, paragons of good. Even aside from that, they are, in most campaign settings, lawful as well. See my previous admittedly rambling post for my thoughts on extremism in alignment, but let's think about angels. If anyone had a reason to be strictly good and lawful, angels would be the ones. As much as demons are always chaotic evil, angels are always lawful good. Holding the line, as it were.
This means that in many campaigns, angels will do what they can to help the party, if the party is at least neutral and not currently doing an evil act. Drop his one use of Resurrection today to rez that fallen rogue? Sure! Hand over some heavenly raiment to help the PCs combat the demons? Why not? Act as a glorified paladin/cleric multiclass tanker/healer? Of course!
I don't see this as reasonable. Think about 'good' and 'law' from an angel's perspective. I would reason that most angels don't have much experience with paladinal humans. The humans they typically see, if they typically see them at all, are probably the ones they are trying to stop from summoning demons.
So lets say you are an angel. In your society, in your homeland, everyone typically does the right thing. Charity is an unknown word because it's the default. If your neighbor is hurting, you help him. You know that he would do the same. If there is an invasion, everyone does what they are best able to do. You don't cheat on your spouse, and she won't cheat on you. You don't think about demonic or evil magic. There is no crime; it's unthinkable. No thieving, no murder, no arson; nothing evil happens.
Now, take that angel, who has lived in such a society, and place him in a human town. For some reason, he can't go back to Celestia right off. Imagine the culture shock. At first, he would be strikingly naive. On request, he helps every beggar he can. He gives them money, or food, or whatever else they need that he can provide. He believes sob stories from people, and helps if they say their mother is sick and they just need money for medicine. He heals the injured and refuses reward, thinking that when he is injured, they will do the same out of inherent goodness.
Now what happens when he sees the consequences that humans take for granted in the above scenarios? The beggars he gives his gold to spend the money on drink and worse, dying from their excess. His offer of Remove Disease makes the person speaking of their sick mother nervous; their mother has been dead for ten years. An accident injures him, and people demand money to heal him. He turns to get it, and finds his coinpurse missing. He's been robbed. The cleric demanding payment says he's sorry, and that he'd heal him for free if it weren't for those church regulations. The angel knows from his powers that the priest is lying. The cleric doesn't care about altruism, he just wants the divine being's money.
Even these relatively petty wrongs would seem repulsive to him. Lies? Gluttony? Indulgence in drink? Self-destruction? Greed? Theft? These things are anathema to everything he's ever known. Humans suddenly change from a meek race that needs protection from demons, to nearly demons themselves. Unsavable. Corruptible without effort. Untrustable. The small good acts and few random acts of kindness don't even start to make up for the moral failings of mortals as a whole.
Is this angel likely to trust your chaotic neutral party? Is he even likely to bother speaking with you? He certainly wouldn't provide you with assistance, since he would half expect you to stab him in the back as soon as he turned to leave. Even a paladin isn't neutral compared to what the angel sees as default behavior.
This isn't to say he wouldn't help the party if they were combatting demons and one of them fell. Of course he's willing to raise someone who fell in such a noble battle. But he won't give you money. He won't give you information on how to get to the heavens. He won't help you in any way that leaves him less able to retreat or hold his own against you. He knows how your kind works. You are all sinners and murderers. He can probably look at you and know that you've slain innocents and that you rarely help anyone who can't pay you. You aren't as good a person as he is. You never can be, and he knows it.
So don't make angels some glowing beacon of light that trusts the party implicitly. Make them terse, stern, and unforgiving of sins. They are still good; they still help where they can. But they won't be suckered into giving you the chance to use their gifts for evil, or for your own hedonistic pleasures. They won't attack anyone that isn't inherently evil, but they won't trust anyone that isn't inherently good.
As a closing note, for players: If you play a half-celestial, consider making part of your backstory having been raised on the celestial plane. You wouldn't be accepted there: your capacity for deceit and underhandedness is appalling compared to others there. But you arrive on this plane, and see that other mortals are far worse. Creates some interesting roleplay hooks.
Angels, and their diabolic/demonic counterparts on the other side, have been around since the beginning, or darn close to it. If you are beginning to recognize that statement from post to post, then you can attribute it to the fact that I want to put out statements that can (possibly) help grognards as well as those newer to the hobby.
Anyway, Angels are always there. Usually they only show up at higher levels, but nonetheless, they exist in the game world. They are, of course, paragons of good. Even aside from that, they are, in most campaign settings, lawful as well. See my previous admittedly rambling post for my thoughts on extremism in alignment, but let's think about angels. If anyone had a reason to be strictly good and lawful, angels would be the ones. As much as demons are always chaotic evil, angels are always lawful good. Holding the line, as it were.
This means that in many campaigns, angels will do what they can to help the party, if the party is at least neutral and not currently doing an evil act. Drop his one use of Resurrection today to rez that fallen rogue? Sure! Hand over some heavenly raiment to help the PCs combat the demons? Why not? Act as a glorified paladin/cleric multiclass tanker/healer? Of course!
I don't see this as reasonable. Think about 'good' and 'law' from an angel's perspective. I would reason that most angels don't have much experience with paladinal humans. The humans they typically see, if they typically see them at all, are probably the ones they are trying to stop from summoning demons.
So lets say you are an angel. In your society, in your homeland, everyone typically does the right thing. Charity is an unknown word because it's the default. If your neighbor is hurting, you help him. You know that he would do the same. If there is an invasion, everyone does what they are best able to do. You don't cheat on your spouse, and she won't cheat on you. You don't think about demonic or evil magic. There is no crime; it's unthinkable. No thieving, no murder, no arson; nothing evil happens.
Now, take that angel, who has lived in such a society, and place him in a human town. For some reason, he can't go back to Celestia right off. Imagine the culture shock. At first, he would be strikingly naive. On request, he helps every beggar he can. He gives them money, or food, or whatever else they need that he can provide. He believes sob stories from people, and helps if they say their mother is sick and they just need money for medicine. He heals the injured and refuses reward, thinking that when he is injured, they will do the same out of inherent goodness.
Now what happens when he sees the consequences that humans take for granted in the above scenarios? The beggars he gives his gold to spend the money on drink and worse, dying from their excess. His offer of Remove Disease makes the person speaking of their sick mother nervous; their mother has been dead for ten years. An accident injures him, and people demand money to heal him. He turns to get it, and finds his coinpurse missing. He's been robbed. The cleric demanding payment says he's sorry, and that he'd heal him for free if it weren't for those church regulations. The angel knows from his powers that the priest is lying. The cleric doesn't care about altruism, he just wants the divine being's money.
Even these relatively petty wrongs would seem repulsive to him. Lies? Gluttony? Indulgence in drink? Self-destruction? Greed? Theft? These things are anathema to everything he's ever known. Humans suddenly change from a meek race that needs protection from demons, to nearly demons themselves. Unsavable. Corruptible without effort. Untrustable. The small good acts and few random acts of kindness don't even start to make up for the moral failings of mortals as a whole.
Is this angel likely to trust your chaotic neutral party? Is he even likely to bother speaking with you? He certainly wouldn't provide you with assistance, since he would half expect you to stab him in the back as soon as he turned to leave. Even a paladin isn't neutral compared to what the angel sees as default behavior.
This isn't to say he wouldn't help the party if they were combatting demons and one of them fell. Of course he's willing to raise someone who fell in such a noble battle. But he won't give you money. He won't give you information on how to get to the heavens. He won't help you in any way that leaves him less able to retreat or hold his own against you. He knows how your kind works. You are all sinners and murderers. He can probably look at you and know that you've slain innocents and that you rarely help anyone who can't pay you. You aren't as good a person as he is. You never can be, and he knows it.
So don't make angels some glowing beacon of light that trusts the party implicitly. Make them terse, stern, and unforgiving of sins. They are still good; they still help where they can. But they won't be suckered into giving you the chance to use their gifts for evil, or for your own hedonistic pleasures. They won't attack anyone that isn't inherently evil, but they won't trust anyone that isn't inherently good.
As a closing note, for players: If you play a half-celestial, consider making part of your backstory having been raised on the celestial plane. You wouldn't be accepted there: your capacity for deceit and underhandedness is appalling compared to others there. But you arrive on this plane, and see that other mortals are far worse. Creates some interesting roleplay hooks.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Obligatory Alignment Post
Alignment has always existed in D&D, in some form. In the original brown books, there were only three. Been a while since I've read them, but the options were Good/Neutral/Evil, I believe. Later on you saw the silly current model, with basically five alignments in a line. Lawful Good being the top, Good, Neutral, Evil, and then Chaotic Evil being the bottom. 3E had the nice grid system, with law-chaos being one axis, and good-evil being the other. Most of the players in my group basically said "Neat!" and then picked Chaotic Neutral. With 4e, we are back to the five option variant.
Alignment is something that bothers a great many DMs. It's not the system itself that causes issues, it's how seriously many players (and DMs) take it. They act like that "LG" scrawled on the character sheet means that your character is Jesus reborn. He saves the world every day. He pats children on the head and hands them 500 Platinum just for smiling happily. He gives all his money to charity. He never asks for quest rewards. As soon as anyone mentions any action that might construed as less than holy, he flips out angrily and qutie possibly draws a weapon.
Chaotic Evil is the same way. I'm mentioning the extreme examples of alignment here because they are the ones more commonly overplayed. I'm not even sure how you overplay neutral without just quoting that Futurama episode. Anyway, Chaotic Evil does not make you a psychopath. You are not the Joker. You don't just slaughter everyone you see out of some unending berserker rage. Being chaotic evil does not mean that you have to do your best to be evil and belligerent to everyone you meet. Chaotic Evil races often form tribes, and the tribes have to work together to do things. This is because, primarily, they know that they have to in order to survive, and secondly, they know that the first guy to turn will be slaughtered by the others. Chaotic Evil doesn't mean stupid. Your character should be aware that there is always someone stronger than he, and act accordingly.
We've all played with players like that. Sure, if you are a paladin, maybe you can justify some of it, but not to the extremes that most people play. Lawful Good does not mean you have a constant stick up your arse. You can justify charity and even hatred for evil humanoids, assuming you don't just hate for the sake of hating. Vengeance isn't much better. "Lawful Good" doesn't justify slaughter. The only real place where it might justify constant combat is against inherently evil foes, such as demons/devils.
Slaughtering orcs is not really a good act. Forming a peace agreement is closer, but not always possible. If you know the orcs are low on food and likely to raid the nearby village, you go out to talk to them. They are, perhaps, belligerent and crazy because the DM just wants you to fight. OK then, killing them is fine. I wouldn't call it a good act per se. You are probably getting paid, either in cash or in reputation, so at best it is mercenary work. Chaotic Evil characters can justify slaughtering orcs better than Lawful Good can. Hell, your chaotic Evil barbarian has been itching to taste blood for days of being in town, and when he sees the orc camp in the distance, he doesn't' want to talk to them. He understands that he can't express his inner violence in town, but these are orcs! The peasants will praise him, and he might even be able to take some of their daughters' honor before his true nature is revealed and he's chased out of town.
This is a bit rambling, but I'm just trying to convey my idea of alignment. Any time you can state that your character "Always" does this, or "never" does that, and justify it only from your alignment, you aren't doing it right. Your paladin hates orcs? Ok, why? Being a paladin isn't enough. Even if you keep the behavior of at least drawing steel on sight, you need to justify it. As a child, you saw your parents and village slaughtered by a nearby orc tribe. You were saved from the ashes of the village by the nearby fortress-temple of Hieronious, after crawling through the ashes for three days, delirious with thirst. Ok, there you go. You have a reason to hate orcs, but it's not just 'because I am good'. Hating orcs is a flaw. Hating anything is a flaw in a lawful good character. Taking joy in slaughter is a flaw. It's not good behavior to be that guy.
In short, as the tl;dr version, you are not your alignment. You are a human/whatever. Act like one. You are intelligent enough to know that there are gray areas in goodness, and that your rampaging evil can't conquer the world at level three.
So, paladins of the world, take the stick out. CE barbarians, put the axe down. Embrace sanity.
Alignment is something that bothers a great many DMs. It's not the system itself that causes issues, it's how seriously many players (and DMs) take it. They act like that "LG" scrawled on the character sheet means that your character is Jesus reborn. He saves the world every day. He pats children on the head and hands them 500 Platinum just for smiling happily. He gives all his money to charity. He never asks for quest rewards. As soon as anyone mentions any action that might construed as less than holy, he flips out angrily and qutie possibly draws a weapon.
Chaotic Evil is the same way. I'm mentioning the extreme examples of alignment here because they are the ones more commonly overplayed. I'm not even sure how you overplay neutral without just quoting that Futurama episode. Anyway, Chaotic Evil does not make you a psychopath. You are not the Joker. You don't just slaughter everyone you see out of some unending berserker rage. Being chaotic evil does not mean that you have to do your best to be evil and belligerent to everyone you meet. Chaotic Evil races often form tribes, and the tribes have to work together to do things. This is because, primarily, they know that they have to in order to survive, and secondly, they know that the first guy to turn will be slaughtered by the others. Chaotic Evil doesn't mean stupid. Your character should be aware that there is always someone stronger than he, and act accordingly.
We've all played with players like that. Sure, if you are a paladin, maybe you can justify some of it, but not to the extremes that most people play. Lawful Good does not mean you have a constant stick up your arse. You can justify charity and even hatred for evil humanoids, assuming you don't just hate for the sake of hating. Vengeance isn't much better. "Lawful Good" doesn't justify slaughter. The only real place where it might justify constant combat is against inherently evil foes, such as demons/devils.
Slaughtering orcs is not really a good act. Forming a peace agreement is closer, but not always possible. If you know the orcs are low on food and likely to raid the nearby village, you go out to talk to them. They are, perhaps, belligerent and crazy because the DM just wants you to fight. OK then, killing them is fine. I wouldn't call it a good act per se. You are probably getting paid, either in cash or in reputation, so at best it is mercenary work. Chaotic Evil characters can justify slaughtering orcs better than Lawful Good can. Hell, your chaotic Evil barbarian has been itching to taste blood for days of being in town, and when he sees the orc camp in the distance, he doesn't' want to talk to them. He understands that he can't express his inner violence in town, but these are orcs! The peasants will praise him, and he might even be able to take some of their daughters' honor before his true nature is revealed and he's chased out of town.
This is a bit rambling, but I'm just trying to convey my idea of alignment. Any time you can state that your character "Always" does this, or "never" does that, and justify it only from your alignment, you aren't doing it right. Your paladin hates orcs? Ok, why? Being a paladin isn't enough. Even if you keep the behavior of at least drawing steel on sight, you need to justify it. As a child, you saw your parents and village slaughtered by a nearby orc tribe. You were saved from the ashes of the village by the nearby fortress-temple of Hieronious, after crawling through the ashes for three days, delirious with thirst. Ok, there you go. You have a reason to hate orcs, but it's not just 'because I am good'. Hating orcs is a flaw. Hating anything is a flaw in a lawful good character. Taking joy in slaughter is a flaw. It's not good behavior to be that guy.
In short, as the tl;dr version, you are not your alignment. You are a human/whatever. Act like one. You are intelligent enough to know that there are gray areas in goodness, and that your rampaging evil can't conquer the world at level three.
So, paladins of the world, take the stick out. CE barbarians, put the axe down. Embrace sanity.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Orcs are not just Orcs
You've been asked by the local nobility to go and slay the local tribe of savage humanoids. So of course your group of good-aligned adventurers tromps off through the wilderness to put a stop to the possible onslaught of monsters. You get there, find a group of level-appropriate orcs, armed with some level-appropriate equipment they found somewhere. They blindly charge and you slaughter the whole group, loot their dungeon, and tromp happily back to town.
Everyone is happy right?
Savage humanoids are a staple of the tabletop RPG genre. They have many shapes: Orcs, Goblins, Bugbears, Kobolds, Troglodytes, Lizardmen, whatever. The problem is that a lot of DMs treat them as above. You don't need a reason to slaughter them: They are GOBLINS. They exist, as an all-male, all-adult, all-evil collection of monsters to slaughter. Either that, or they do something blatantly evil to give motivation to a set of adventurers. They slaughter a village and leave a burning ruin. They raid caravans. Eat babies. Kick puppies. Don't rewind their rental tapes.
That's fine, I guess, but the villains and the world feel more real if the events that happen have some real motivation behind them. "Being Evil" doesn't count.
Why do they do this? Are savage humanoids just to lazy to make their own stuff? Being evil doesn't mean you have to pick on people that you know will kill you. Orcish and Goblinoid oral histories have to be FULL of tribes that got stupid and picked on human settlements, only to be obliterated by a group of three to six humanoids. Dead down to the last man, woman, and child. Tents burned, stones scattered, dungeon plundered, history destroyed. Why would any tribe be so stupid again?
Every setting that includes savages tends to say that they exist in great numbers across large areas, usually mountain ranges. Now, mountains aren't really arable, but that's not the point. When did you last see a goblin farmer? But the point I'm aiming for here is that they obviously have some way of feeding themselves, or there wouldn't be so many. They have some way of working stone, or wood, or some other material, because all those people need shelter. They have alliances, enemies, and political intrigue of some sort, even inside their own civilization. Why would such a people randomly ask for destruction by assaulting human cities? Though life might be hard, they aren't dying off.
Well, there are reasons of course. I can't just pose questions and not answer them.
1. Jealousy. This is, in a lot of ways, the underlying cause of most human conflict as well. "Yeah, we are doing OK over here, but those guys have gold streets that flow with milk and honey. I want their stuff without having to work for it!" The orc tribe living in the Darktimbre Forest look across the farms to the human city that glitters with prosperity, and they look down at their half-rotten deer meet, and they bristle. They want gold-plated buildings. They want high walls and roofs over their heads. They want farmer slaves, since to a slaving culture, it seems that's what they are. They want to lay about in the city like noblemen while others do all their work.
2. Resources. Effectively the other primary cause of human conflict. Whereas in the above, they have basically what they need, here they don't. Sure there are millions of orcs in the mountains, but that's exactly the problem. They've over reproduced. There are no more cougars to hunt, no more bones to gnaw, no more booze to funnel down their throats. Then, they see those human trade caravans roll by, guards bristling with weapons, but the carts loaded with a few tons of food and drink. The orc patrol hasn't eaten for three days, and their canteens are empty. Desperation sinks in, and they assault the humans. They eat the people, eat the stored food, guzzle the wine, and laugh as they wear new human chainmail over their full bellies. Then they realize something. They have a tribe of two hundred strong orcs, and caravans come through every week. What's to stop them doing this forever?
3. Religion. Arguably the cause of the remainder of human conflict. Orcs worship Gruumsh, Goblins traditionally Maglubiyet. Kobolds and whatever else generally have their patron deities as well. Gruumsh does not care for Corellan Larethian. How dare that elvish tree city worship such a heretical god? They must burn, and their tainted food and resources must burn as well. It's all tainted, and consequences be damned.
Those are all fairly basic, yes. But you are dealing with a pretty basic people. Orcs and goblins do not traditionally have a lot of INT or WIS. They see things plainly. "I'm hungry, and that human farmer has food." The goblin knows the farmer won't willingly share. So he kills him and takes it. "We're cold, but that human inn looks warm, and their people have clothing." The orc tribe of 20 knows they could live off of the reserves in that minor village for weeks. They are cold and starving in the northern winter, and so they attack. Ok, enough of motivation.
Savage humanoids are still humanoids. Despite 4e's monster manual barely mentioning noncombatants at all, orcs have families. They might be evil, but they are still capable of love. They marry, they have children. They care for the children because they have the same racial preservation instinct as every other animal. Attacking a group of raiders should be a hugely different experience than attacking the tribe's home. Raiders will fight until it looks like they will lose. Then they will flee, because the rewards from the raid are unlikely to come, and death is never preferable to life. Fathers protecting their wives and children will fight to their dying breath, and with a ferocity that you will never see the equal of. Attacking a group of barbarians that know you will slaughter their children should throw them all into a rage that will only end when the threat is over. They will not break, they will not surrender, and they will not back down.
For that matter, consider your good aligned party. Most parties are at least non-evil anyway. You attack a tribe. You slaughter their fighters. Let's say you stop short of killing noncombatants. Most parties will loot the bodies in front of their terrified loved ones, and then head back to town to sell the stuff they picked up. This is not good aligned behavior. Besides, many of the children will take up arms if they watch their fathers get killed. Now you have an implacable foe that is equivalent to a ten year old boy holding a sword. He can kill you if you ignore him; a sword is a weapon in any hands. But it is an inherently evil act to kill children. What do you do?
So give the next group of orcs some thought. They need a reason to do what they are doing. They need to seem more human in their dwellings. They need family. Your enemy isn't just "Orc #23", he's "Muzgob Goretooth, Orc Fighter, worshipper of Gruumsh, husband of Melgri Goretooth, and father of three".
It will make the game more interesting, I promise you.
Everyone is happy right?
Savage humanoids are a staple of the tabletop RPG genre. They have many shapes: Orcs, Goblins, Bugbears, Kobolds, Troglodytes, Lizardmen, whatever. The problem is that a lot of DMs treat them as above. You don't need a reason to slaughter them: They are GOBLINS. They exist, as an all-male, all-adult, all-evil collection of monsters to slaughter. Either that, or they do something blatantly evil to give motivation to a set of adventurers. They slaughter a village and leave a burning ruin. They raid caravans. Eat babies. Kick puppies. Don't rewind their rental tapes.
That's fine, I guess, but the villains and the world feel more real if the events that happen have some real motivation behind them. "Being Evil" doesn't count.
Why do they do this? Are savage humanoids just to lazy to make their own stuff? Being evil doesn't mean you have to pick on people that you know will kill you. Orcish and Goblinoid oral histories have to be FULL of tribes that got stupid and picked on human settlements, only to be obliterated by a group of three to six humanoids. Dead down to the last man, woman, and child. Tents burned, stones scattered, dungeon plundered, history destroyed. Why would any tribe be so stupid again?
Every setting that includes savages tends to say that they exist in great numbers across large areas, usually mountain ranges. Now, mountains aren't really arable, but that's not the point. When did you last see a goblin farmer? But the point I'm aiming for here is that they obviously have some way of feeding themselves, or there wouldn't be so many. They have some way of working stone, or wood, or some other material, because all those people need shelter. They have alliances, enemies, and political intrigue of some sort, even inside their own civilization. Why would such a people randomly ask for destruction by assaulting human cities? Though life might be hard, they aren't dying off.
Well, there are reasons of course. I can't just pose questions and not answer them.
1. Jealousy. This is, in a lot of ways, the underlying cause of most human conflict as well. "Yeah, we are doing OK over here, but those guys have gold streets that flow with milk and honey. I want their stuff without having to work for it!" The orc tribe living in the Darktimbre Forest look across the farms to the human city that glitters with prosperity, and they look down at their half-rotten deer meet, and they bristle. They want gold-plated buildings. They want high walls and roofs over their heads. They want farmer slaves, since to a slaving culture, it seems that's what they are. They want to lay about in the city like noblemen while others do all their work.
2. Resources. Effectively the other primary cause of human conflict. Whereas in the above, they have basically what they need, here they don't. Sure there are millions of orcs in the mountains, but that's exactly the problem. They've over reproduced. There are no more cougars to hunt, no more bones to gnaw, no more booze to funnel down their throats. Then, they see those human trade caravans roll by, guards bristling with weapons, but the carts loaded with a few tons of food and drink. The orc patrol hasn't eaten for three days, and their canteens are empty. Desperation sinks in, and they assault the humans. They eat the people, eat the stored food, guzzle the wine, and laugh as they wear new human chainmail over their full bellies. Then they realize something. They have a tribe of two hundred strong orcs, and caravans come through every week. What's to stop them doing this forever?
3. Religion. Arguably the cause of the remainder of human conflict. Orcs worship Gruumsh, Goblins traditionally Maglubiyet. Kobolds and whatever else generally have their patron deities as well. Gruumsh does not care for Corellan Larethian. How dare that elvish tree city worship such a heretical god? They must burn, and their tainted food and resources must burn as well. It's all tainted, and consequences be damned.
Those are all fairly basic, yes. But you are dealing with a pretty basic people. Orcs and goblins do not traditionally have a lot of INT or WIS. They see things plainly. "I'm hungry, and that human farmer has food." The goblin knows the farmer won't willingly share. So he kills him and takes it. "We're cold, but that human inn looks warm, and their people have clothing." The orc tribe of 20 knows they could live off of the reserves in that minor village for weeks. They are cold and starving in the northern winter, and so they attack. Ok, enough of motivation.
Savage humanoids are still humanoids. Despite 4e's monster manual barely mentioning noncombatants at all, orcs have families. They might be evil, but they are still capable of love. They marry, they have children. They care for the children because they have the same racial preservation instinct as every other animal. Attacking a group of raiders should be a hugely different experience than attacking the tribe's home. Raiders will fight until it looks like they will lose. Then they will flee, because the rewards from the raid are unlikely to come, and death is never preferable to life. Fathers protecting their wives and children will fight to their dying breath, and with a ferocity that you will never see the equal of. Attacking a group of barbarians that know you will slaughter their children should throw them all into a rage that will only end when the threat is over. They will not break, they will not surrender, and they will not back down.
For that matter, consider your good aligned party. Most parties are at least non-evil anyway. You attack a tribe. You slaughter their fighters. Let's say you stop short of killing noncombatants. Most parties will loot the bodies in front of their terrified loved ones, and then head back to town to sell the stuff they picked up. This is not good aligned behavior. Besides, many of the children will take up arms if they watch their fathers get killed. Now you have an implacable foe that is equivalent to a ten year old boy holding a sword. He can kill you if you ignore him; a sword is a weapon in any hands. But it is an inherently evil act to kill children. What do you do?
So give the next group of orcs some thought. They need a reason to do what they are doing. They need to seem more human in their dwellings. They need family. Your enemy isn't just "Orc #23", he's "Muzgob Goretooth, Orc Fighter, worshipper of Gruumsh, husband of Melgri Goretooth, and father of three".
It will make the game more interesting, I promise you.
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