Human Fighters Most Common Race/Class Combo In D&D

*Deleted by user*

 

[Lanefan]

It seems quite likely that some neutral orcs could escape their community, that some young orcs might end up in an orphanage instead of getting murdered by paladins.

Er...your world might be different, I suppose, but I'm not sure Orcs in most worlds really do orphanages...

That said, a Paladin who kills Orcs just because they're Orcs without bothering to use her 'Detect Evil' ability* first is not what I'd call Goodly.

* - please tell me Paladins still get this in 5e...if they don't, they should.

From the external perspective, the problem is defining those things that are trying to eat humans in the setting as being ugly and inhuman. D&D 5 is a lot better in this, in that the available races aren't all demihumans. There's also the difference in expectations; if a Good culture tolerates some diversity, then they should glare at kobolds trying to trade gems, or a trade caravan having a couple of orcish staffers.

Did you mean to say "shouldn't" in that last sentence? Otherwise you're undermining your own stance.

Depends on the culture. A culture can be very insular yet still be societally Good - look at the Elves, for example, who almost never let anyone of another race into their home forests.

And one can (and in my current campaign I have) hang a huge long storyline on this, where a whole society in effect changes its alignment and nobody notices until it's almost too late. In my case it's the Elves - while many individuals are still quite decent the underlying society has been corrupted** kind of from the top down on an almost-worldwide basis, to the point where Elves are slowly and (in most cases) quietly trying to more or less take over the world. This process has been underway for centuries and is only just now coming to a head.

** - to tell this story would require far longer than it's probably worth...and half of it would be redacted anyway just in case any of my players were to wander by...

Lanefan

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

You're sitting here arguing with me. If you're so concerned about solving things, go solve them. I'm discussing why 5E's racial selection is better than humans, elves, halflings and dwarves versus "monsters", why that old-school selection is known to be problematic.

I just don't get why it matters. Seems rather irrelevant to real world problems. If we're just comparing setting preferences, world created from humans, real world animals, and crazy unique monsters (not a medusa, the Medusa) are mine. Other humans always make the best monsters.

As for solving actually world problems, that's my day job; these are my off hours.

 

[prosfilaes]

Er...your world might be different, I suppose, but I'm not sure Orcs in most worlds really do orphanages...

I meant a paladin delivering orcish infants to an orphanage. Yeah, an orcish orphanage would be pretty unusual in most worlds.

That said, a Paladin who kills Orcs just because they're Orcs without bothering to use her 'Detect Evil' ability* first is not what I'd call Goodly.

* - please tell me Paladins still get this in 5e...if they don't, they should.

I'd say that's one of the arguments, about whether orcs can be killed on sight. I recall playing a paladin in B1 in D&D 3.5, and it was clear the adventure was not expecting us to try and deal peacefully with the humanoids in the caves.

And no, paladins don't get detect evil in 5e, not in the sense we're discussing. They can detect celestials, fiends and undead.

Did you mean to say "shouldn't" in that last sentence? Otherwise you're undermining your own stance.

I didn't write it well, but the intent was that the worst thing they would do is to glare.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

From the external perspective, the problem is defining those things that are trying to eat humans in the setting as being ugly and inhuman.

Orcs are inhuman, ugly, and eat people.

Real-world non-white humans are not inhuman, not ugly, and don't eat people.

I'm afraid I don't see the resemblance you find "problematic".

I do see the resemblance between orcs and past and present racist caricatures of non-white humans. But the problem with those caricatures is precisely that they're distorting the images of these humans to make them look like horrifying fantasy monsters. To interpret portrayals of actual horrifying fantasy monsters as reflecting on these humans seems to be running the logic bass-ackwards.

If I don't like Bob, maybe I draw a caricature of him with horns and a goatee to make him look like the Devil.
But it wouldn't make any sense to interpret other pictures of the Devil as portrayals of Bob.
And if you think Bob is a good guy, you're probably not going to say, "Hey, maybe the Devil is a good guy, and therefore Bob is a good guy!" You're going to say, "Hey, don't draw Bob looking like the Devil!"

 

[prosfilaes]

Orcs are inhuman, ugly, and eat people.

Real-world non-white humans are not inhuman, not ugly, and don't eat people.

I'm afraid I don't see the resemblance you find "problematic".

Orcs are non-white. Looking at the Lord of the Ring movies as mentioned above, the good races are consistently portrayed as white; looking at the 2ed Monstrous Manual (the first color Monster Manual), with the exception of a couple gnomes who look sort of Asian, and a one light brown human of several humans, all the PC races are white. For better or worse, most of the giants and most of the other human-like or part human creatures are also white (at least in their human parts). But orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins and goblins are all darker.

Ugly versus beautiful may be complex racially, but it's not any less problematic to say that ugly people are evil and good people are pretty.

Your last point is like saying you didn't draw Bob, because Bob doesn't have horns.

I do see the resemblance between orcs and past and present racist caricatures of non-white humans. But the problem with those caricatures is precisely that they're distorting the images of these humans to make them look like horrifying fantasy monsters. To interpret portrayals of actual horrifying fantasy monsters as reflecting on these humans seems to be running the logic bass-ackwards.

If I don't like Bob, maybe I draw a caricature of him with horns and a goatee to make him look like the Devil.
But it wouldn't make any sense to interpret other pictures of the Devil as portrayals of Bob.
And if you think Bob is a good guy, you're probably not going to say, "Hey, maybe the Devil is a good guy, and therefore Bob is a good guy!" You're going to say, "Hey, don't draw Bob looking like the Devil!"

Some depictions of the Devil have drawn accusations of anti-Semitism because of facial features similar to that of Eastern European Jews. It certainly doesn't always go one way, especially as the modern images of horrifying fantasy monsters are built on a previous images of "savages"; in fact, I don't know of any fantasy monsters pre-Tolkien that orcs resemble so much as certain depictions of Africans. You can't separate things from their associations simply; if people feel like orcs look like stereotypes of Africans, it will make some people uncomfortable and lead others to make racist jokes.

 

[Mephista]

I just don't get why it matters. Seems rather irrelevant to real world problems. If we're just comparing setting preferences, world created from humans, real world animals, and crazy unique monsters (not a medusa, the Medusa) are mine. Other humans always make the best monsters.

As for solving actually world problems, that's my day job; these are my off hours.

It's very relevant if you want to be inclusive and expand your player base. So, it' is, to be blunt, within WotC`s interest to realize this, which directly breathes more life into the game for everyone

 

[Mephista]

Orcs are inhuman, ugly, and eat people.

Real-world non-white humans are not inhuman, not ugly, and don't eat people.

I'm afraid I don't see the resemblance you find "problematic".

the difference is that racists, even modern ones, call their targets inhuman, ugly and accuse them cannibalism and worse. We have physical documents to prove it.

The way D&D treats and describes non-PC races strongly mirrors real world racism. That alone is uncomfortable for many people. "You're ugly, no better than an animal." And a designated race that's allowed tobe killed, no, a moral impetative to be killed, if you don't match someone else's exacting standards.

That's something people in modern life still have to deal with. Weither or not you agree with it is immaterial. If someone else feels that its similar to their situation, its a loss for everyone.

 

[cbwjm]

If someone else feels that they identify with an orc then they must have major mental issues.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

It's very relevant if you want to be inclusive and expand your player base. So, it' is, to be blunt, within WotC`s interest to realize this, which directly breathes more life into the game for everyone

Or we could try the only slightly more generous perspective that Tolkien knew his Dante and - as opposed to Milton's representation of a sly, romanticized version of the devil - decided to depict evil as ugly because to him there was nothing in the more unappealing in the world than evil. To Dante, evil wasn't temping, it wasn't seductive, it was vile, repulsive, abhorent, ignorant, and over-confident. Because darkness is one of the traditional symbols of evil, Tolkien decided to paint Mordor and its denizens with heavy brush strokes of grey and dusty brown. You can pull the race card on darkness somehow related to the dark-skinned people of Africa, but I would like to see sources; everything I've ever read links to the natural human fear of the dark (night) and the known without regard to race.

 

[Mecheon]

If someone else feels that they identify with an orc then they must have major mental issues.

People identify with animals

A person identifying with a human-like being clearly capable of speech and reasoning that has had a bad upbringing bringing it into a life of savage war is something people could easily identify with, and let's be honest, that's what orcs are given even Volo's practically says "Yeah, all of the issues with orcs is really their unending culture of war, war, war, and when brought up outside it they're not nearly as bad"

Orcs aren't monsters. Their culture is a monster, but orcs proper aren't monsters. Its not even debatable at this point when even the books are saying its a thing

(Now, let's all be honest, the real monsters are elves, those child-snatchers)