D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[MGibster]

I got a hold of my long deceased uncle's AD&D stuff a few years back after the death of my other uncle. There were several books, including the white box, a few miniatures, dice, graph paper, and the remnants of an adventure he was writing. He died in 1982 so this is pretty old school material. One feature of his adventure was a group of Lawful Good orcs the players would encounter. They were LG because a cleric persuaded them to change their ways and adopt a different god. Just a little something I thought I'd share.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Clearly, orcs have been on the wrong side of the line in the past, but that doesn't mean they have to be there in the future. I believe that if kobolds can mutate from goblins to dog people to dragons, orcs can mutate to a form that acceptably non-racist. Unless orcs are a permanently tainted symbol (like, for example, how the swastika is still tainted by Nazis), but I don't really see that being the case.

The issue is actually slightly different.

Orcs are an integral part of quite a few settings. Good or neutral or just atypical orcs are present in significant numbers in the FR and Eberron, and someone told me they were also in Greyhawk in small numbers. Even where they're usually evil, in those settings, they "evil people", not "inhuman monsters".

So it can't happen because it would require massive retcons to all those settings. You could create something like Warcraft did, though, a sort of super-Orc infused with demonic power: Fel orc

Make them even less capable of moral decision, and there's your super-evil destroyer orcs, and you get to keep the other orcs too!

 

[Oofta]

I got a hold of my long deceased uncle's AD&D stuff a few years back after the death of my other uncle. There were several books, including the white box, a few miniatures, dice, graph paper, and the remnants of an adventure he was writing. He died in 1982 so this is pretty old school material. One feature of his adventure was a group of Lawful Good orcs the players would encounter. They were LG because a cleric persuaded them to change their ways and adopt a different god. Just a little something I thought I'd share.

Just to be clear, I have absolutely no problem with individual campaigns or campaign settings changing how orcs work. As the MM intro says: the alignment entry is just a default.

But if someone chooses to keep them evil I don't have a problem with that either. There is no one true way.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah and the reason we can't do that for D&D Orcs is it's already been established to not be the case for them.

Can be for some world's. But yeah orcs definitely nature so no Gruumsh no problem eg Eberron.

If WotC released a world tomorrow where the orcs were darkspawn or a DM made a campaign like that I wouldn't object.

Giaks were the fodder baddies on Magnamund born in vats.

Drakkar were evil humans but they had been infused with darkness and pacts so they don't really have a choice either.

Xaggash vat born along with Kraan, Zlanbeasts etc.

Darkspawn people's fixed a lot of things.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Or...orcs are not humans. They are a race created by a vengeful god. They can be anything we want them to be and in different campaigns they can be nearly human.

Not quite.

They can be anything you want IN YOUR GAME. Totally agree.

In the official text? They need to be compatible with how they appear in most major game settings (this actually harks back to comments you yourself made a while back). In most major game settings, they are people. Often bad people, but people - who are sometimes neutral or good people, who are not mindless destroyers. I'm talking FR/Eberron/allegedly Greyhawk/probably Mystara (guessing, but I bet so) where Orcs are people, most fixated monsters.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Can be for some world's. But yeah orcs definitely nature so no Gruumsh no problem eg Eberron.

If WotC released a world tomorrow where the orcs were darkspawn or a DM made a campaign like that I wouldn't object.

Giaks were the fodder baddies on Magnamund born in vats.

Drakkar were evil humans but they had been infused with darkness and pacts so they don't really have a choice either.

Xaggash vat born along with Kraan, Zlanbeasts etc.

Darkspawn people's fixed a lot of things.

Yeah I'm talking MM Orcs can't be like that. Individual worlds could be. I mean, in a specific D&D setting, humans could be mindless destroyers, every single one - it might be kind of a cool setting actually.

 

[Oofta]

Not quite.

They can be anything you want IN YOUR GAME. Totally agree.

In the official text? They need to be compatible with how they appear in most major game settings (this actually harks back to comments you yourself made a while back). In most major game settings, they are people. Often bad people, but people - who are sometimes neutral or good people, who are not mindless destroyers. I'm talking FR/Eberron/allegedly Greyhawk/probably Mystara (guessing, but I bet so) where Orcs are people, most fixated monsters.

According to the MM they're evil. The intro to the MM also encourages you to change them to fit your campaign.

Individual campaigns have no impact on the default.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

According to the MM they're evil.

Sure, but that's going to change, and it's not fixed according to the MM, IIRC re: the language used.

 

[Oofta]

Sure, but that's going to change, and it's not fixed according to the MM, IIRC re: the language used.

I also disagree with some of the verbiage (especially Volo's).

But I'm talking about the orcs we have in the MM not what may or may not happen in the future.

 

[Zardnaar]

I got a hold of my long deceased uncle's AD&D stuff a few years back after the death of my other uncle. There were several books, including the white box, a few miniatures, dice, graph paper, and the remnants of an adventure he was writing. He died in 1982 so this is pretty old school material. One feature of his adventure was a group of Lawful Good orcs the players would encounter. They were LG because a cleric persuaded them to change their ways and adopt a different god. Just a little something I thought I'd share.

I don't think anyone's objecting to LG orcs existing or can't be done.

They existed 30+ years ago.

They're just there to be butchered and killed filling the fodder role.

Whatever they replace them with will have same problem. It's systematic to D&D really. They can dress it up a bit and write nice fluff but at the end if the day something has to fill that role.


Magnamund 80's game world designed by AD&D player.

Magnamund

Magnamund (pseudo-Latin for 'Great World') is the most important planet in the setting of Lone Wolf. Magnamund is the fulcrum of the struggle between the Lords of Good and Evil—the last world in Aon that has not fallen to the Darkness (under the god Naar) or been rescued by the Light (under the...

lonewolf.fandom.com

Giak
Orc/Goblin replacement.

Giak

Giaks are humanoid servants of the Darklords. They are not very intelligent, but they are fierce and strong. The Darklords first appeared in Magnamund and began to breed Giaks in MS 3072 . In MS 3262, the Darklords began construction of the city of Helgedad, which eventually claimed the lives of...

lonewolf.fandom.com