I wouldn’t have thought in-game gatekeeping was still an issue in D&D, but a recent episode on Twitter made me realize that it was still around indeed.
Someone said that their DM wouldn’t allow one specific character to enter a big city, because of the character’s race. “One of my friends now plays an outcast Mind Flayer,” I replied, “and nobody bothers the party because of it.”
I got some angry comments.
One guy said that the townspeople were secretly preparing a bonfire for the entire party.
Another guy essentially said that my parents should have beaten me when I was a kid. For real.
I did not reply to such an offensive thing, of course.
Next would have been something along the lines of “The Catholic priests at the private school you attended when you were 12 should have raped you.” I mean, what’s the difference between being way out of line and being way, way out of line? It’s just one more “way.”
Yeah, those bois are intense. Don’t mess with their game.
Are there haters like that in the Monopoly fandom?
I once played Monopoly with the Arkham Horror monsters and gates active on the board, and no one took offense to that. I once played Munchkin without the curse cards, because my nephew was bummed by those, having drawn five or six in a row. Again, no reprimands from the community, and no threats.
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Back in ’85 or ’86 my friend Thierry insisted on playing a Drow magic-user. They all told him he was crazy — although nobody said his parents didn’t beat him enough.
Three years later, the first Drizzt novel hit the shelves; suddenly, Thierry wasn’t that crazy after all.
Same goes for Illithids.
Nowadays, Drows can pretty much go wherever they want. And what about Tieflings? They literally look like little devils — no bonfire for them? Kill the squid man, but the devils are okay? It’s absurd. Try to be coherent in your bigotry, at the very least.
In Gloomhaven, nobody bothers you at the city gates. Inox have three colossal horns on their heads, like demons. Valraths look terrifying. And what about those Harrowers? They’re just like Mind Flayers! What are the city guards doing?
I’ll tell you what they’re doing — they’re not discriminating based on physical appearance. Horns? Tentacles? Green skin? Welcome to Gloomhaven, as long as you’re not EVIL.
Burning strangers at the stake just because they don’t look like everybody else: are we still there? And who is “everybody else” exactly?
Maybe in Warhammer Fantasy, with the mistrust and paranoia and zealous Witch Hunters everywhere, I get it — the militia won’t let you through Nuln’s gates if you have tentacles on your face. But D&D? This is a game that has Aasimars and Loxodons and Dragonborn and Autognomes, for crying out loud!
Anyway, if a fantasy city is ever attacked from within, OF COURSE the culprits are gonna be people who look perfectly innocuous. So.
Since you have no way of telling who’s dangerous and who isn’t, why not let everyone in? What’s the use of stopping some races and not the others?
Who even makes that call? The city guards? They’re not experts—
What about all the spells like polymorph or alter self? Perhaps this person is just a Grey Elf who missed their save and were polymorphed into something vaguely resembling an Illithid. Do the guards manning the city gates have any idea what an Illithid actually is? A level 14 wizard, sure — but a city guard?
What if a Duodrone shows up with three Monodrones in tow? I’m sure they have their reasons, since the One and the Prime works in mysterious ways… but what will the city guards decide? They have probably never even heard of Modrons. Allow these baffling beings into the city, or not?
And while we’re at it, why do people role-play the actual “entering the city” part? Just say, “You get to Waterdeep, you settle in the usual tavern / inn, and the next morning, right on time, your contact shows up with the map and the advance payment agreed upon.”
You just saved three hours there.
Seriously, how much time do you have on your hands? Cut to the chase.
My friends and I only play about 8 hours of D&D per year.
The Tomb of Horrors begins with the lines, “The party has arrived at the site of the demi-lich’s last haunt. Before them is a low, flat topped hill, about 200 yards wide and 300 yards long. Only ugly weeds, thorns, and briars grow upon the steep sides and bald top of the 60' high mound.” Have you any idea how much longer that adventure would have been if it actually began in a big city like Irongate or Greyhawk? The ranger needs new arrows, but the arrowmaker is a Montague, and the ranger is a Capulet… It’ll never end. You’ll never get to that Tomb.
The Illithid homeworld is the size of the rings of Saturn. How many North Americas and South Americas and Africas and Europes and Asias and Australias can you fit on the rings of Saturn? Hundreds of them. So there must be trillions of Illithids living there. D&D adventurers only ever encounter the ruling class — privileged, high-psionics Illithids — the ones who get to sail out into space aboard Nautiloid ships, and the ones who get to probability travel.
But there ought to be so many, many, many others.
You’ve got your Illithid Leonardos da Vinci, your Illithid Oprahs, your Illithid Confuciuses, your Illithid Kanye Wests, your Illithid Angela Merkels… And any one of those might leave their homeworld unbeknownst to their Elder Brain or Illithid Putin, because random rifts happen and freak wormholes happen. If your Tabaxi rogue went from Faerûn to Khorvaire just by stepping through a weird light, it can happen to Illithids, too. And perhaps some of them are quite glad to leave their hive world. Statistically, not all of them like it there.
I said it before in my August 2019 post: if a race is monolithic, if each and every member of a race is exactly the same, then it’s not a race but a caricature.
Gith led a slave revolt a long time ago. Why wouldn’t it happen again? Those low-psionics Illithids can — and will — be pissed at some point, won’t they?
The Illithid in my game is such an outcast; he led an all-too-brief thrall uprising, but the whole thing was quashed in a matter of days.
You have Jarlaxle and Drizzt, a Drow rebel and a Drow heretic; they exist, and nobody denies that, not even the guy who wants parents to spank their kids. So why not an Illithid Spartacus?
Bottom line is, I don’t care what Venger Baphomet thinks. It’s the fun that matters, not the rules and not even the lore.
If one of my players wants to play friggin’ Asmodeus, I’ll find a way to make it happen. Maybe there was a coup — a hostile takeover of Asmodeus’ physical form. The real Asmodeus is now trapped in a puny Human body — someone named Junko — while Mephistopheles himself now occupies Asmodeus’ body. “Junko” needs the help of the PCs to expose the usurper and reclaim his throne. Something like that.
Forty years ago, they wouldn’t allow a Drow to enter any city or town.
Now you’ve got K’thriss working for one of the Masked Lords of Waterdeep.
Stay ahead of the curve. Let the people in.
(Further reading: Flintlocks and Witchery has a great article titled “Evil or Something Like It,” published August 28, 2019.)
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