Dragonlance Dragonlance Creators Reveal Why There Are No Orcs On Krynn

Talking to the Dragonlance Nexus, Dragonlance creators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman revealed why the world of Krynn features no orcs -- in short, because they didn't want to copy Tolkien, and orcs were very much a 'Middle Earth' thing.

Weis told Trampas Whiteman that "Orcs were also viewed as very Middle Earth. We wanted something different." Hickman added that it was draconians which made Krynn stand out. Read more at the link below!

Why are there no Orcs in Krynn? Weis and Hickman give us the answer! - Dragonlance Nexus

Dragonhelm gets the scoop from Weis and Hickman on why there are no orcs in Krynn. Read More

dragonlancenexus.com

 

[GMforPowergamers]

so literally what?

so this is in responce to them not being in the game

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's objectively a hobbit trait.

since he made up hobbit he could have made that a bree;lander trait...

 

[Maxperson]

no we didn’t could have been a particularly stubborn dwarf too.

Not really. The lesser rings of power quickly corrupted the dwarf lords, making them greedy. Dwarves, despite their resistance to certain types of corruption, would fail the test of the One Ring very quickly.

There is nothing that says only hobbits can possibly ever be resistant to it, it simply was something the author decided

Humans are explicitly NOT resistant to it. Elves have flaws that would cause them to fail, as do the dwarves. These are known things. Only the unassuming hobbits had the chance. They had the resistance and the racial innocence required, and even then they couldn't win out at the end. Eru's providence through Gollum is how the ring was destroyed.

 

[Maxperson]

since he made up hobbit he could have made that a bree;lander trait...

And he could have made up that the hobbits lived in Mordor on top of Mount Doom and tossed the ring over their shoulder into the lava. So what. Nobody is arguing that he couldn't have changed the story and feel of the books.

You have yet to show how change =/= change which is the core of your argument.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think it's about orcs at all. It's pretty obvious they are not important.

Mod Note:
Moderator instructions are not a basis for you to continue in your argument.

You are done in this discussion.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And he could have made up that the hobbits lived in Mordor on top of Mount Doom and tossed the ring over their shoulder into the lava. So what. Nobody is arguing that he couldn't have changed the story and feel of the books.

You have yet to show how change =/= change which is the core of your argument.

if you remove hobbits, and just make 'humans that do not crave power, just stay home and don't go more then 5 miles from home' have those traits it is the same... it is the same becuse hobbits are a stand in for poor farm boys and suburbs peeps who never see the world and don't need or want power and have little ambition other then (maybe) have some good food some good drink and mary that girl. They don't need an empire they don't need millions of dollars they are happy as a Gardner

 

[AnotherGuy]

so literally what?

This is what @Paul Farquhar was talking about earlier, about this philosophy that has crept into the hobby where it is automatically assumed all playable options have to exist in every setting. It is very different to the 80's and 90's way of thinking were differences (including the removal of races/classes) were celebrated.
That is why some fight the sidebar because it is a belief that it disarms the players from their must-have options.

 

[Xamnam]

a subjective personal choice on the authors' part (something with zero normative force

I disagree, unless you're using that phrase in a way I'm not parsing.

A disclaiming of making a choice at all--because even if they'd wanted to make orcs (they didn't, but hypothetically if they had) it would be impossible to do so because you can't include something rooted in Tolkien without bringing in all that extra context and baggage that isn't part of Dragonlance.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of what they said. Just that, to them, that particular thing was so rooted in Middle Earth, that avoiding that specifically made creating their setting feel more unique, and (this is the implication that I hear) it was a simple choice that was quite effective. Cutting out one of the most Middle Earth things allows the other stuff to stand more on their own merits, rather than that context tarring the whole thing as more LotR-y than they wanted.

Hence, for me, it doesn't matter if they also made motions in the direction of "we had our reasons, this was an authorial choice." In saying what they said, they are trying to pass off the subjective as the objective, that something which was fully and completely "we just chose not to because it seemed better that way" is being re-framed as though it were actually "well we really had no choice at all, there wasn't any way we could have done it differently." I dislike sophistry of this kind intensely.

I also think it's unfair to call it sophistry. You're putting words in their mouth that are very far from what they actually said. When they created it, they had multiple reasons they didn't see Orcs fitting in. To change that to them claiming it's "impossible" and that they "couldn't" gives them very short shrift as creative people.

 

[mamba]

I believe what GMforPowergamers is getting at is that everyone here is making an argument which, whether overtly or covertly, extends beyond subjectivity. E.g., my frustration with the "oh we couldn't possibly, we didn't include all the stuff Tolkien wrote about them" excuse is

I for one did, I even quoted the ‘we wanted’ part, but I was not engaging with your post when I did so, because reasons

Like I've said, I would have no problem if their only argument had been, "We just thought elves sounded cool, and wanted to tell a story centered on dragons. Draconians came out of that dragon-centered story, and they filled up the niche orcs would fill, so we went with draconians." They were not making only that argument

it’s all there in the interview, you just refuse to take the sentences and piece them together (i .e. read them in the context they were made)

1) we did not want orcs
2) we wanted a different enemy
3) draconians turned out great and got woven into the world similar to what Tolkien did with orcs
4) we do not need orcs, we use goblins for the same role
5) now that orcs are out and unnecessary, we gave them no background story, like we did for all the other races
6) because of that orcs now do not fit

Not actually that hard…

 

[mamba]

It's objectively a hobbit trait.

no, it subjectively is, Tolkien decided that, he could have done literally anything else too