D&D 5E Survivor Cannon Fodder: Gruumsh smiles, Orcs win.

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Kobold Stew]

Personally, I was hoping for a run off between goblins and gnolls - which for me are the two archetypal fodder.

I would have said kobolds and gnolls, but yes.

 

[Celebrim]

I think that you might be missing the boundaries between serious, and not so serious.

Happens to me a lot. I freely confess to having no sense of humor. But as I said, I actually was seriously asking, because aside from being a little salty about it, it actually blows me away that a race that is so little a part of D&D in actual play beat out kobolds, goblins, lizardmen and gnolls. Other than B2, I don't know that I own a module with an orc in it.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Celebrim]

1. No worries about the humor thing; doesn't always translate on the internet. That said, it's usually a safe assumption that I'm making a joke, unless I'm not.

You misunderstand. I know you are joking; I'm not.

2. Survivor threads are supposed to be fun; it's certainly not worth getting salty about. Seriously, Birthright won the campaign thread. BIRTHRIGHT???!!

But that's actually awesome. That's the sort of thing I would expect to see happen on someplace like EnWorld. Birthright is not an obvious choice, but it's a lavish, lovely setting that I think deserved a lot more attention than it got. It's the sort of choice that I'd expect people actually very familiar with the game to make.

Orc isn't. It's a very different sort of choice. It's the sort of choice I'd expect people who aren't familiar with the game to make.

3. FWIW, I don't really care too much about who wins, but I do think that orcs are the iconic D&D cannon fodder. When I started playing, back in pre-history, way before WoW, orcs were the default monster choice. At least in my area. Blame it on Tolkien fallout or what have you. But yeah, fireball, orcs, D&D.

I suppose I don't care either, since it doesn't impact me which wins, but Birthright winning to me makes sense. Orcs don't.

Consider the major 'uglies' families:

The Gnolls - Gnolls, Flinds
Lizardfolk - Lizardmen, Lizardman King
Ogres - Ogres, Trolls, Ice Trolls, Scrags, various half-ogres (orogs, neo-orogs, ogrillons, two-headed trolls, etc.)
Orcs - Orcs, scro, various half-orcs (half-orcs, orogs, neo-orogs, ogrillons, etc.)
Goblin-kind - Goblins, Hobgoblins, Norkers, Koalinth, Bugbears, Thouls, Nilbogs, Bakemono, Amitoks, Barghests, various half-goblins (half-goblins, varags, etc.)

Just from the sheer diversity, it's easy to see, goblins got much more love. Moreover, less obvious that they got that love much earlier on than orcs. Trolls don't fit well as fodder, but they similarly diversified fairly early. Most of the orc extensions date to 1989 or later, nearly a decade after the goblins diversified. Nobody was paying much attention to orcs until fairly late in the TSR era, and in fact if you look at the diversity that was introduced especially post 1989 it's very obvious that the scro, the neo-orog, and so forth are being imported into D&D from Warhammer.

I can think of two solid pieces of evidence for 'Orcs = D&D'

1) Their pantheon was included in Unearthed Arcana, the only ugly that got that treatment.
2) They were one of Venger's go to fodder on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

#2 is somewhat mitigated by the fact Lizardmen and Bullywugs played an equal or nearly equal role in the cartoon.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[tglassy]

In the forgotten realms books, Orcs wage a campaign on the surface leading to the creation of the Kingdom of Many Arrows, a kingdom of orcs that existed in relative peace for about a hundred years, before it fell apart.

Just saying.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

 

[Celebrim]

You're missing a big, third, piece.

Playable race? Half-orc. Which may indicate some level of "orc affiliation" in the early player base.

No, that just is more indication of the Tolkien roots of OD&D. In original D&D, all the uglies were the same race - just as they were in Tolkien. And half-orcs were explicitly mentioned in the text of The Lord of the Rings, so half-orcs were perforce a playable race. The origin of the D&D hobgoblin is a single line in the Hobbit, mentioning hobgoblins a larger, meaner form of goblin common in the Grey Mountains of the north. At the time the term was introduced in OD&D, 'half-orc' would have referred equally to a half-orc or a half-hobgoblin, and the term was simply preferential from the Tolkien text.

Orcs and Goblins at some point shortly after the two-axis alignment system was introduced and D&D began to be its own thing with its own lore became rivals (much like the split between demons and devils) led by Gruumsh and Maglubiyet, and then orcs split off from the rest of goblin-kind into their own group.

Orcs themselves didn't become a playable race until an early article in Dragon, which made goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds and xzarts playable races at exactly the same time.

The name of the article was not, "Do you want to be an orc?" It was "Do you want to be a kobold?"

I don't have time to google it, but IIRC, pop culture references dating back to the late 70s associate "orcs" with "D&D" (aka nerd-ery) for good reason.

I think that you are proving my point for me though by citing 'pop culture' references rather than the text of D&D as it was actually played.

I'm also thinking that this could very much be something you perceive based on the era you are arrived in - OD&D, early AD&D and the classic modules, Forgotten Realms and 'Baldur's Gate' era, 3e, etc.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*