D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Aldarc]

In one game I played, half-orcs were just another variety of orc that humans assumed were “half-human” because the explanation conformed to their racist views of inferior and superior orcs.

 

[Lem23]

You say “watered-down.” I say “enriched and multifaceted.”

That's what I don;t get about the whole "but we can't tell proper stories!" crowd who don't want change. At the moment, orcs are one dimensional evil beings, used to be something to fight. That's it. Change them and you have a whole load of new stories you can do with orcs. They're wanting to limit themselves to a narrow course of action, when we're wanting to open up myriad possibilities.

 

[Voadam]

Wait, I'm honestly curious: is there a source for this in the D&D books stating that "good orcs are impossible?"

The descriptions of monster alignment in the MM and Volo's do not say impossible. The language used is default and usually.

The alignment specified in a monster's stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster's alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there's nothing stopping you.

Orc stat blocks are all chaotic evil in the 5e MM and they are not an option presented in the PH. Volo's makes them an optional PC race and says under alignment in that section: "They are usually chaotic evil."

Compare that to the Drow, a race that is in the PH as a default character option and that has also been a traditional bad guy race. The Drow stat blocks are all neutral evil in the 5e MM, the PH says "Drow are more often evil than not."

 

[reelo]

That's what I don;t get about the whole "but we can't tell proper stories!" crowd who don't want change. At the moment, orcs are one dimensional evil beings, used to be something to fight. That's it. Change them and you have a whole load of new stories you can do with orcs. They're wanting to limit themselves to a narrow course of action, when we're wanting to open up myriad possibilities.

Well that's the thing with tropes: they're not supposed to be complex. The real world is complex enough, with only shades of grey. A little black and white simplicity goes a long way when it comes to monster-bashing.

 

[Oofta]

That's what I don;t get about the whole "but we can't tell proper stories!" crowd who don't want change. At the moment, orcs are one dimensional evil beings, used to be something to fight. That's it. Change them and you have a whole load of new stories you can do with orcs. They're wanting to limit themselves to a narrow course of action, when we're wanting to open up myriad possibilities.

I read "myriad possibilities" and it becomes "you never know what is right and wrong, too often any choice is a mixed bag and you can never really do good." Which may be true in the real world. If we arrest a bank robber, who takes care of their kid?

I don't want that in a game, or at least not all the time. If you do, more power to you. It's already the default assumption as spelled out in the MM introduction.

Obligatory note - some of the wording on orcs could and should be changed.

 

[Umbran]

We are now at the point of The PMRC and Elizabeth Dole being right, that D&D promotes abusive behavior (Satanism). This is an example of how far along The Left is in being the The New Right.

Mod Note:

And, with the political screed, you are done in this thread.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Iin some interview, Orcs were mentioned as being loosely derived from LotR. Plus, the similarities are all too obvious. Tolkien found his inspiration also, from prior works, no doubt.

Orcs are NOT SAPIENT. They don't even exist except in writing and one's imagination. People in the real world are sapient. DM's are acting when portraying orcs as adversaries.

That's like saying, "The Government is after me". Government is a fiction written on paper that people subscribe to. "Government" is not a real person. People acting in the fiction of government, make government real. People - REAL people - acting as an agent of the agency (government) are the ones who come after you.

People tend to personify fiction. Whether orcs or government. They don't exist except on paper and in our imagination and willingness - in the case of government - to accept the authority of people acting in the fiction of government. We give people the agency of government.

Much like we accept a DM's "authority" when the DM plays the part of the fictional Orc(s) in attempting to kill off PC's.

Are orcs real? No. Do they exist on paper? Yes. Have you assigned them real world agency? Yes. As an example of real world problems? Yes. Do orcs cause real world problems? No. The fiction of orcs is now substituted for a real world problem. True. Now, see below.



Agreed. Orcs are handled poorly. Have the DM write up the rules for High Orcs. Even the 1st Edition AD&D DMG had rules for playing Monsters as PCs. Yes, the rules for doing so have been around for THAT LONG. If 5e fails? Consult 1st Edition. Use imagination. It is what it is there for.

It can be done. I should copyright that and publish my own supplement. But I won't. Someone else do it. However...

High Orcs vs. Orcs... Someone will object: Orc on Orc violence!!! GASP! Remind you of a REAL world situation? That's right. Reinforcing stereotypes in the real world. Class warfare, also. "High Orcs" would be the civilized race bringing colonialism to the Orc savages**. Violence as a means to solving disputes. I could go on and on and on with every objection under known to mankind to show why even portraying High Orcs is stereotyping, violent, etc.

**As a side note, Duck Tales does that. Scrooge McDuck and his nephews represent the Western Civilized nations. In just about every cartoon, they bring Enlightenment by teaching others not of their culture, how to do things. Duck Tales is actually a very offensive cartoon in its portrayal of other cultures. I'm being quite serious. Duck Tales is a thorougly Imperial colonial cartoon. Do children actually realize that when they watch Duck Tales? Is Duck Tales a vehicle of hatred?



Some people will associate races in D&D with real world races - MUCH LIKE YOU ASSOCIATED ORCS AS SAPIENT (you have assigned REAL WORLD AGENCY to a word on paper or screen) to the point of giving them Scottish (or other) accents. See it in movies, IIRC. I've never run across a DM giving a Dwarf a Scottish accent. There was one player who gave his character a Scottish accent and terribly so. That player's ancestors actually came from Scotland. Still a terrible accent and yes, a Dwarf PC. Is anyone going to tell him he was being culturally insensitive? They'd be LAUGHED out of the room.

As for accents, we use what we have. It helps differentiate characters and races and cultures and even sub-cultures. Or we can all speak in a dull monotone. Personally - regarding another game - the Troll accent in WoW elevates the Trolls. They are cool as written and portrayed. Maybe they should have given that accent to the Alliance humans though I don't think that would have gone over very well, in believability. Imagine the Orcs in WoW speaking like a corporate executive. Or maybe a Russian accent. Or better yet, a Birmingham accent from England. It can be done. Will people believe it or will such detract from the work? Mostly the latter.

Exercise: Give a correct accent for a native of the Adromedan Galaxy, who is speaking English as a non-native.

YOU HAVE ALREADY FAILED EVEN BEFORE I GAVE THE EXERCISE FOR YOU TO TRY.

You never will be able to do so. It is outside of human experience. Therefor, human experience is used to give Fantasy "People", their accents that we know of - human accents.

It is thus useless to object to giving Dwarves, Scottish accents. No one has ever heard a non-human Dwarf speak, at least it has never been recorded. EVER. And if we were to give Dwarves another human accent - say, Swahili? There would be someone who objects, GUARANTEED.

Circular firing squad, in the end. Though it was cute (and somewhat irritating on the ears) that the Elf in Netflix's "The Dragon Prince" has Scottish accent. However, the accent did its job. That is, until someone is offended.

Propaganda has been used for decades to direct the public. From Looney Tunes, to comics, to war posters WWII propaganda excused and encouraged many heinous acts, usually by featuring characters.

Those characters weren't real, they in your world view, did not seem to exist. They can be explicitly and factually connected to real world events and violence.

If your position is that fiction cannot affect how people view the world, and that it cannot ever be used in a way to affect the world... then frankly I don't know why you care what is done to the orcs. It cannot affect you, in any way. They are not sapient, they are not real, so any changes to them cannot affect you in any way.

Yes.

Why? Because Dwarves, Elves and Gnomes each have more than just one deity; and some of those deities ain't so nice; and because some members of those cultures follow those not-so-nice deities.

Orcs, however, only have one deity because - in divine-level reflection of the might-makes-right ethos of general Orcish society - Gruumsh killed and ate all the others. Seems simple enough from here...

Um, wrong. Completely wrong actually on a staggering degree.

Orc Dieties of Faerun and Greyhwawk who are still alive and well include: Luthic, Ilneval, Bahgtru, Shargaas, and Yurtrus

Eberron would include... well every diety of Ebberron because of how it is set up. Same with Wildemount and Tal'Dorie. Not familiar with other settings.

Even the Drow have a rather large Pantheon across the multiverse, including: Keptolo, Kiaransalee, Zinzerena, Eilistraee, Ghaunadaur, Selvetarm, Vhaeraun, Malyk, and Vulkoor


So, saying that the Drow or Orcs must all be evil because the gods make them that way, then defending the fact that the other races can be good or evil because they have multiple gods while the evil races only have one... is wrong, because in fact the evil races also have multiple gods.

Going through character creation.

Backgrounds are choices. People choose them. There are many to choose from. Maybe making a few that deal with specific ancestry would be a way to help out the problem. For example, the orcs three ancestry backgrounds might be a blacksmith (raised by working class crafters), another military strategist (mother was a general in the military, dad kept track of military supplies), or bohemian (grew up in an artist community with painters and free love). Add three per ancestry.

I mean the reality is it is already there, so to say half-orcs grow up in slums and then the rules dictate they choose shows they don't all grow up in slums. But maybe if you do this, it'll hit people over the head with the explicit fact that they can break the trope.

It could very well help, but honestly, I'd just get rid of the slum part in the racial description. They are no more likely to be in the slums than any other human character right? And there is no need to say in the human section that "over half of all humans live in incredible poverty, barely scraping by in the slums of greater cities" or that "many humans grow up in farming communities, working the land to provide food for the armies of their lords and ladies."

If socio-economic status isn't mentioned for any other race, why do it for the half-orcs and tielfings?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The thousands of players who've been punished playing the many Drizzt Do'Urden clones think this is a nonsense overreaction. Sure, changing it to something that is more malleable for newer players or rules-lawyers that cannot/will not modify things, is a good decision. But asinine reasons like being punished is ridiculous.

A player wants to play a good orc, they can play a good orc. Playing a smart orc? DM removed racial modifiers. The generic setting says orcs usually behave a certain way, but the books literally state to change whatever you need to suit your whims in a game.
It's literally that simple. A wave of uproar over it? The refusal/laziness/inability to modify one's own games to suit a a character or campaign without iron rules-following seems the culprit.

One of my players plays a noble hobgoblin monk, with a shaolin touch. He started an order of the same type. He somehow played it without a Twitter uproar, rules-rewriting or being punished.
How was that even possible?! The arguments here state it is not possible without being punished.
Asinine.

We're not talking about Drizzt clones. We're talking about how the game punishes you for playing certain characters. The game as a whole, which means that certain downsides should be removed from the core game. Why should orcs have a -2 Intelligence and mostly be evil?
It would be better to have the main races be as open and easy to play as possible, and the DM/Setting adds benefits and negatives to certain races.

I can change orcs in my own game. I can take away Sunlight Sensitivity from Drow, but why should I have to do the work to do that?

 

[ZeshinX]

I can change orcs in my own game. I can take away Sunlight Sensitivity from Drow, but why should I have to do the work to do that?

Because it's your game. Your game, your work. If you dislike a certain thing, and have no desire to utilize that certain thing based on whichever criteria matters to you...then it's up to you to make whatever changes suit your criteria if the overall product is otherwise more or less acceptable to your criteria, and otherwise offers an enjoyable environment for you to game in. There will almost always be elements that do not appeal (for whatever personal criteria). Some level of acceptance and/or willingness to change those elements yourself has pretty much been part of the game of D&D since Day 1.

In the larger context of the game as a whole (which I'm guessing is your meaning)....yeah, most certainly there are aspects that need some updating and changing. The language of "-ists" and "-isms" are things to jettison, unquestionably. That responsibility lies with WotC, naturally, if they wish to foster and support their stated goals.

There will always be a responsibility from the consumer, however, to accept certain elements, or reject them and change them themselves to better suit their criteria and preferences. Effort is required from WotC and we as consumers both.

 

[Curmudjinn]

I can change orcs in my own game. I can take away Sunlight Sensitivity from Drow, but why should I have to do the work to do that?

You don't realize the hypocrisy of that. You're basically telling someone else, who wants those things in their game, to now have to do the work to add it back to their games.
I don't want to walk 20 feet to my mailbox. I remove it, so now the mailman walks the 20ft for me. People who know what's better for everyone else never truly do. Only themselves.

That is the fundamental issue with it. Because A is right for you, it's right for everyone. Once it's how you want it, people who want B have to do it themselves. Except there's a vastly huge percentage who like B already, far exceeding those who like A.


Which returns to my statement of don't remove anything, just add more variations.