Quote from: Novastar;612382I've always enjoyed the Spider-man-esque mask on the box... :cool:

I shocked the hell out of my players in my last Pathfinder campaign, by daring to have Drow turn out to be just Elves with dark skin. No special abilities, like magic resistance or the like. Just elves, with a wicked sense of vengeance.

In one campaign I made Drow exactly like surface elves in appearence. Players seemed slow to grasp that the beautiful, polite, and helpful Drow were dangerous

They learned.

Quote from: Novastar;612382I shocked the hell out of my players in my last Pathfinder campaign, by daring to have Drow turn out to be just Elves with dark skin. No special abilities, like magic resistance or the like. Just elves, with a wicked sense of vengeance.

Quote from: Bill;612384In one campaign I made Drow exactly like surface elves in appearence. Players seemed slow to grasp that the beautiful, polite, and helpful Drow were dangerous

They learned.

That's how I roll with my "dark elves" too. The kicker is that my D&D games' elves are the remnants of mighty and warlike sorcerous empire (think Atlantis or Moorcock's Melniboné). The "dark elves" are those who refused to go gentle into the good night and want a return to the days of enslaving the "ephemerals" (short-lived races like, you know, humans) and ruling the world.

Melnibonean's (spelling?) are probably my favorite take on Elves.

Quote from: The Butcher;612328No, I don't think crap game-fic ever "ruins" anything. Years of bad FR novels haven't made gray box 1e FR any less of a good setting for the enterprising DM. Hell, even the Dragonlance setting can make for some decent gaming, if you excise the worst fiction tie-ins.

It's a hit and it's out of the park!

Drow could be still cool, even though one fiction protagonist is way overdone. Elminster is a wanker, but it doesn't spoil Humans or Magic-Users. All halflings don't have to be Frodo (or whichever other Hobbit).

I figure all NPC races should be tweaked in a campaign, as at least some of the players have read the rulebooks. Have Lolth be a cave scorpion or a crab or something and see what changes. Have them develop hand-to-hand martial arts with poisoned claws instead of scimitars to fight better in tight passageways. Whatever throws the PCs for a loop.

But I like that these are the elves that don't flee across the ocean at the slightest danger, and they're pissed off about it. I like the evil sexy dominatrix matriarchy torture thing. I like that an evil civilized society can function indefinitely.

Quote from: Bill;612392Melnibonean's (spelling?) are probably my favorite take on Elves.

In lieu of Drow I prefer the Ur-Viles from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, they seem much more exotic and terrifying, and really something that should be living in deep underground caverns.

Quote from: Bill;612347I actually like Drow being fond of mental and physical torture.

Yeah but Drow are fond of real mental and physical torture, not something out of a Gor or Anita Blake novel.

Have to agree with the second post in the whole thread, they've never really been cool to begin with.

You want an evil, scheming subterranean race? Sure thing, why not - but why do they have to be elves? Why does it have to be evil, scheming subterranear elves? Or evil, scheming subterranean dwarves (we have those, too)? Or halflings (don't have those AFAIK, must be an oversight)? Why couldn't they have been a race of evil subterranean schemers that aren't yet one more taste of the Ye Olde Standarde demihumans? What's wrong with Mind Flayers, why couldn't they have replaced the drow entirely?

It's the whole damn "stock demihuman taxonomy" issue, really. Want to fill a new niche? Who in their right mind would want to create a brand new race, when you can just get lazy, take one of the tired old default races and give it a paintjob? Elves underground. Dwarves at sea. Halflings in the jungle. Jews in Space.

I prefer Warhammer's Dark Elves (and Dark Eldar) to how Drow have been presented since the beginning, mostly because TSR always went for the PG whereas early GW was firmly R rated evil elves.

Plus, Malus Darkblade kicks Drizzt's ass.

If you can manage to make them mysterious, enigmatic and above all creepy as hell Drow could still be cool as villains. (Play up the spider-worship and torture-for-fun angles.) But this is hard with the Mary-Suing they've received via FR.

It's best to think of Greyhawk Drow and Forgettable Realms Drow as two totally different races with only superficial similarities, kind of like standard D&D halflings versus Dark Sun halflings. Greyhawk Drow have their uses, but Realms Drow can go fuck themselves sideways.

They need serious help.  The Realms crap ruined them, and they have not recovered.

First, Drow should be considered a Mastermind class of villain.  Echoing their demonic matron, they should be a race of schemers and plotters; they sit at the center of a web of contacts, henchmen, thralls and less-than-loyal allies.  They should be doing as they did in the Against The Giants series: operating through cutouts and frontmen that they control.  Ideally, PCs should combat a Drow without ever knowing it was there because your PCs fought it's plan, not just it; you can, and should, accomplish this by the expedient of playing them as if they were stereotypically (cunning) PCs themselves.

Second, Drow should operate in a manner where outsiders would not know them as such.  A combination of magical and mundane disguise and concealment abilities should be sufficient, especially when layered down at least three layers thick; a surface layer is that of a high-status individual of the subject or minion race used by a Drow (not necessarily a ruler, but someone readily believable as being in regular contact with one), followed by a layer that has the Drow appearing as a known threat race/group to the PC, and finally as a rumored/legendary--but still known--threat heretofore out of living memory.  Only after those three layers would the Drow be revealed as such.

Third, Drow--like real spies--should not fuck around.  They are neither fools nor fuckwits.  They should know what a viable threat is, and be willing and able to deal with it accordingly.  Most PCs, early on, will not be such threats but instead obstacles that can be handled by misdirection.  They will do that and avoid risking exposure; if they come in their own right for you, that's the sign that (a) you've hurt them seriously and (b) they take you seriously as a threat- which is (c) sometimes called "the morbid seal of approval".  Instead, they will point PCs at other threats to their plans, use cutouts/henchmen to do the wetwork and otherwise burn through deniable means before resorting to getting their hands bloody by doing their dirty work themselves.

At no point should they ever become nameless mooks.  That's setting sail for Fail.

Quote from: Looter Guy;612109Im so glad I never read the Drzzt books... alot of friends urged me to do so in highschool but I was so adamant to DL books that I wouldnt switch over.

You and me both.  I was never a member of the Cult of Drizzt, and I was fine with that.

The DM of our long running 3.0 campaign has a different take on the Drow:  the Drow are the "evil twin" of the surface Elves.  Literally.  There is one Drow who is exactly in the image of a surface Elf, and the Drow have been secretly infiltrating the surface Elves over the past decade by murdering off their surface twin and taking their place.

Quote from: CRKrueger;612468Yeah but Drow are fond of real mental and physical torture, not something out of a Gor or Anita Blake novel.

I have read both of those, and I agree.

Quote from: The Traveller;612429In lieu of Drow I prefer the Ur-Viles from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, they seem much more exotic and terrifying, and really something that should be living in deep underground caverns.

I forgot about them.




"Nom"

Just say it.

What I don't like about Drow is that elves have a splendid history of being evil villains w/o the whole nine inch nails fan baggage, and can do the job just fine fairy tale style.