You don't get to decide what is appealing about playing a given setting.
Sure I do. We all do.
If the lack of orcs is a key feature, I’d love to hear why.
I mean, I get the decision to replace them with Draconians as like the enemy hordes. That certainly was a wise decision, and gave the setting a specific enemy.
But it’s not like the presence of goblins and other creatures messed things up.
and I struggle to see how choosing a different race would make any difference at all, esp for something as generic and replaceable as an orc
it isn’t, it is a side-effect
If you have no interest in the world / adventure you are playing in, why did you even show up? Play something else instead that you actually are interested in
Or is your only interest to play an orc, come what may?
I’m not saying I’d need or want to play an orc or a half orc.
What I’m saying is that if I was running a Dragonlance game, there’s a host of things I’m going to focus on as the important setting elements way before I get to the lack of orcs.
To you. To me it's part of it. It was very refreshing to have a setting without orcs. It made the setting feel different.
For you. For a lot of us canon is important. At least important enough to not discard it so easily as you guys are making out.
Sure, for me. Of course. Canon should, in my opinion, serve the game. So it really depends.
My point is not so much about the orcs as it is about the setting and what it does and what makes it interesting. Honestly, orcs, or their absence, have nothing to do with that.
If they’re added with the new DL material, I just don’t see an issue. If a player played a half-orc or an orc, or just about any other race, I don’t see how it impacts the setting in any way.
Dragonborn I can see because of how they kind of clash with draconians and all that. I think a place could be found for them, but I at least can see why folks might find it more of an issue.
Again, my point was about how people sometimes latch onto very minor things when it comes to settings.