A random table for villains that are acceptable to destroy and crush, either allowing for kid-friendly violence (eugh, what an awful association of words) or general adventure gaming excised from the worst colonialist or genodical impulses of the hobby.
(There is something to be said about facilitating the suppression of moral quandaries by providing enemies that you can kill without a thought, something involving Milgram and personal responsibility perhaps, but that's a conversation for another post — and at least, they're not Gygax's orc children. And I do recognize that beating bad guys feels good, else I wouldn't write this post nor engage in this hobby as much.)
Without further ado, roll d6 :
1-3 mindless murder machines
4-6 evil made flesh.
Yeah, that's it. I thought about a bigger table, with more options. But anytime there is the slightest bit of sentience, there is the possibility of communication, negotiation, avoidance, perhaps redemption — and thus, destruction becomes murder.
And honestly, even the entries in my table above are not immune to creative non-violent solutions — fortunately, of course ! But the entries themselves can be destroyed without any remorse, and that was the table's goal.
Now, to delve a tad more into the entries.
Murder machines ?!
- Fantasy flavor : artificial fantasy monsters. Gargoyles, golems, animated armors, magical constructs, astral summons, assemblages of raw magical energy, illusions made of semi-solid sculpted light, reanimated undead : whatever they are called, whatever their shape, they are inanimate things made active through a flow of magic energy. When defeated, might disappear in a poof ! of purple magic smoke, like monsters in a Zelda game. Might originate from ancient curses, workings of wicked wizards, or "natural" consequences of the circulation of magic in the world.
- Sci-fi flavor : murder robots running on standard algorithms, there's no mistaking them for genuinely sentient AIs. They're just machines you can destroy. Also applicable to fully automated facilities, semi-solid holograms and projections, automated surveillance and security systems, etc.
- Modern-day flavor : drones, missiles, bombs, mines, any kind of killing device, autonomous or not.
Evil made flesh ?!
- Example 1, summoned demons, literal echoes and embodiments of the evil collectively done by mankind since its beginning ; stewing and growing in Hell since time immemorial.
- Example 2, nightmares made flesh, your own brain's danger simulations actually going after you.
Of course, it is possible to humanize or ascribe sentience to any of the above if that's what you want to do with your lore. The robots have human-level artificial intelligence, the constructs are "awoken" by magic, the reanimated corpses retain their original soul, demons have actually started to connect and form their own sentience and societies, etc. And all of that is valid. But the basic forms I presented can be used safely as cannon fodder if need be and if the lore accepts it. Just make sure your players know it and are okay with it.
That's why there isn't any living being of any kind in my table. Life is already something you shouldn't destroy unless absolutely inevitable or necessary, and of course the arbitrary and subjective definition of these italicized terms makes the matter irredeemably messy. And thus, it has no place in a "no moral dilemma incoming" table.
That's why I ultimately decided against the inclusion of two important groups of bad guys who are decidedly really evil :
- Insectoid Invasion : extra-terrestrial insect army mainly composed of giant ticks, mosquitoes and cockroaches displaying their usual level of sentience. It's likely that their original ecosystem needs them somewhere in the galaxy, but really not on Earth devouring and massacring our planet. Also works with other non-sapient, non-or-barely sentient invasive species (animal, vegetal, bacterial, etc).
- Bastard Baddies — violent invaders, slavers, assassins, Nazis and other genociders, colonizers, finance speculators, corrupt governments and so on.
Those two entries definitely deserve their place in the pantheon of interesting and justified enemies to fight, but even they probably deserve to be treated with a tad more subtlety than the first table.
I feel like Cthulhu-like cosmic eldritch horror entities probably register in the same category as well. But I don't like them, so I won't waste time (now, anyway) developing my thoughts about them.
Addendum : since this place fashions itself as an OSR-adjacent blog and it is a common topic, "what about orcs", you say ?
It's simple, really. What are your orcs ?
- Are your orcs literal, physical incarnations of magic / cosmic evil forces ? Call them "demons" or something else and don't look back, then.
- Are your orcs Tolkien-like ; tormented and mutilated images of former fair folk, victims of an evil system as much as criminals working for it ? Then be more subtle, as with my Bastard Baddies entry above. They can be evil, but they're sentient.
- Are your orcs just another type of living beings as is the traditional D&D canon, possibly unsavory stand-ins for colonized and othered people ? Can they be reasoned with, allied with ? Then they're people and treat them as such. Don't give them ugly tags like "savage", "barbarian", "wild", "tribal" or "uncivilized". These words have no right being used uncritically, especially to justify undiscriminated murder. And it certainly does not make them not people.
P.-S. : I feel like I have an easier time than most dealing with orcs. That's because the D&D implied setting is not part of my fantasy upbringing, and since I don't have much history with them, I have no heavy feelings about the matter. I've never much liked or hated them, they're just... a thing that exists in fantasy, I guess. I feel the same about fantasy dwarves and hobbits, to be honest : polite apathy. Like they're only relevant and interesting in their original Tolkien incarnation, and putting them anywhere else feels silly and tacked on ; a soulless grab.
(I have read Tolkien, quite early even, but at the time I didn't knew what orcs stood for in his work. I did percieve their link to industrialization and dehumanization, but at ten years old I mostly didn't know how to parse the whole "our good heroes are killing people left and right" thing. And most people still mostly don't, or else we wouldn't explore the topic so much.)
The only representation of orcs I somewhat like outside of Tolkien is probably the Elder Scrolls one, where they go through several stages : "random killable monsters" (Arena) -> "same but they're people and you can learn their language and help their king" (Daggerfall) -> "people integrated in society, even if as a minority and not without their particularisms" (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim), and even -> "full-fledged independent societies you can visit and even be integrated to, or live in" (Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Online). There's no lack of distasteful or dubious lore and imagery about them, for sure, but at least the creators really managed to improve over a 20-year course.
Okay, I have rambled enough ! This orc digression really should have deserved its own post, and the treatment of "non-playable people" in Elder Scrolls does too, but oh well. That's it for today.