D&D 5E What Makes an Orc an Orc?

[Charlaquin]

Huh. Fair enough. That makes me even more than before want to make dwarves Small with Powerful Build.

You’d have to re-word Powerful Build, since as-written it wouldn’t do anything on a Small creature (it makes them count as one size larger for the purposes of determining carrying capacity, and one size larger than Small is Medium, which has the same carrying capacity). But yeah, I think that would be a rad change.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is only two ways this works: Explicitly marry D&D to a single setting and explore that setting in enough detail to go over multiple regional differences, or remove any sort of flavor text in the core rules and force the purchase of setting books to understand how anything it put together. I don't see either of those options being popular.

The first example would require D&D to adopt a Golarion-like approach a single world (and lets face it, it will probably be Forgotten Realms) where we no longer talk just about high elves and wood elves in the general, generic sense but of the elves of Silverymoon, Evereska, the High Forest, Evermeet, Yuirwood, the Forest of Amtar, Mezzobarrazan, etc. Lather-rinse-repeat this for orcs, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, goblins, dragonborn, tieflings, etc. Its certainly doable (many RPGs focus on a specific setting with distinct cultures per region, Pathfinder again a great example) but this focus will come at the expense of every other setting, since I don't think WotC could handle this kind of focus for every setting in the multiverse. Settings like Eberron, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dragonlance and Dark Sun (not to mention newcomers like Ravnica, Exandria and Theros) would be sacrificed to keep this sort of nuance possible.

Alternatively, I guess you could put a generic elf, dwarf, orc, etc in the PHB with a picture, a physical description, and maybe a few words on personality (elves are graceful, dwarves and tough, orcs are aggressive) and leave ALL the flavor text to setting supplements, but that seems to be unsatisfactory as well. Newer DMs won't necessarily know how to create these unique cultures, so you are raising the price of the starting package to PHB/DMG/MM/Setting, and that brings the cost to start in the game to $200 (assuming the current $50/book pricing).

Additionally, you are leaving out in the cold those who might want to run their own setting, which is probably the majority of us. Without a baseline to work from, how do you design your own orcs without massive amounts of heavy lifting in lore design?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The question isn't about whether "diverse" orcs will enable stories: it will enable stories that you could already tell for decades with humans. If orcs are to have a meaningful place in the game, a GM should be able to tell stories with orcs that he couldn't by replacing "orcs" with" "humans from a barbarian, nomadic culture and a long confrontational history with a settled culture".

I don't want to lessen the description I am quoting, because I like it, but there is nothing I see that makes orc "orcs" except two very insignificant points (skin color and lifespan):



I don't think it's distinctive enough from human to make them orcs. Human comes in a variety of skin color, why not green in a fantasy setting?




While flavourful, it's a depiction that could be made of an animistic, "nature spirit worshipping" human nomadic culture, with en emphasis on alcoholism and a reputation of being fierce warrior --something you often get from being at odds with neighboring cultures.



Same here...



People in the Balkans recently fought a war with roots going back centuries... even if t's uncommon, century-spanning feuds have existed in human history.



That could be a key-point in defining a culture that couldn't be human, if it was short enough to make a culture so focussed on a short time scale to make it unbelievable as a human culture. But the orcs would need to live a few years at most to make it very distinctive compared to a human culture.



I don't see a lot of thing distinctively "non human" in this description, not enough to justify having them as a non-human race.

So, while this description is cool, it is not enough to make orcs "orcs". In another thread, the idea of a nice mind flayer was toyed with, and as the adventure idea revolved around it's exclusive food habit, the adventure really couldn't be told with a human wearing a mask. For orcs to be narratively useful, they need to fill a niche that human can't.

If this doesn't work for you, what about existing write ups from elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc does work to depict a nonhuman culture? Is it just lifespan? Humans can certainly live in forests or underground. I thought Baconbitz' description covered the salient points at least as well as other races are described.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If this doesn't work for you, what about existing write ups from elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc does work to depict a nonhuman culture? Is it just lifespan? Humans can certainly live in forests or underground. I thought Baconbitz' description covered the salient points at least as well as other races are described.

Ninja'd!

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I understand being inclusive and kind as desirable. But when you suck the fun out of it, why not just go and do activism and forget D&D?

Thank God I have all the books I need through 5e. This stuff is getting ridiculous. What’s next? Making sure movies only have “appropriate” ideas and themes? Music?

I am not getting paid to play, it’s for fun. If the very core of the game is offensive are we really wanting to play this game?

some good points are raised. People often just play what they know from a psychological standpoint anyway. Sure. But we can try for different and pretend it’s different.

What a drab direction to go...video game skins = race/species or whatever.

 

[Charlaquin]

I understand being inclusive and kind as desirable. But when you suck the fun out of it, why not just go and do activism and forget D&D?

Believe it or not, for a lot of people it is more fun to have races with diverse cultures than races with homogenous cultures.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It’s hard for me to imagine a distinction less interesting than making a particular race always evil.

Ability score bonuses?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You’d have to re-word Powerful Build, since as-written it wouldn’t do anything on a Small creature (it makes them count as one size larger for the purposes of determining carrying capacity, and one size larger than Small is Medium, which has the same carrying capacity). But yeah, I think that would be a rad change.

Yeah, probably just call it something else and word it however it needs to be worded?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ability score bonuses?

Nah, those are vastly more interesting.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I understand being inclusive and kind as desirable. But when you suck the fun out of it, why not just go and do activism and forget D&D?

Maybe because somebody who thinks that inclusivity and kindness "suck the the fun out of it" probably wouldn't enjoy activism? For such a person, I would suggest killing ants with a magnifying glass. Or maybe becoming an Internet troll. Something like that.

Then again, maybe I'm imagining the wrong sort of activism.