D&D (2024) bring back the pig faced orcs for 6th edition, change up hobgoblins & is there a history of the design change

[Oofta]

OK, then: why are all orcs (or whichever Always Evil race you want to talk about) always evil in your setting?

Because if they weren't I wouldn't bother having them in my game. They would serve no role. Why have anything other than humans in the game if every creature is just a human that looks a little different?

 

[Faolyn]

Because if they weren't I wouldn't bother having them in my game. They would serve no role. Why have anything other than humans in the game if every creature is just a human that looks a little different?

But then why bother to have them in the game at all, when you can just have evil humans?

 

[AnotherGuy]

No, I can't even conceive how you possibly came to that conclusion.

With (a) we are saying that there has to be a logic to them existing, and that discussing that logic is fair game. People keep trying to say that "none of it is real, so it doesn't matter" but that is ridiculous. Not being real isn't an excuse to ignore logic and reasons for things to happen.

Can evil people exist? Yes. Of course they can.

Since they are fictional evil people can we simply dismiss their reasons for being evil as unimportant? No. We can't. Being fictional isn't a blanket protection to do whatever you want.

Perhaps I was unclear. I'm not disagreeing with discussing that logic within the fiction is fair game - hence my "Good Point" comment.

I was asking is if an evil culture/people could realistically survive (exist) or would it destroy itself or change as I imagine it would.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There are a bunch of Chinese in a city called Nanjing who would disagree with you.

While yes, when someone says a certain person is a self described nazi in post WWII time frames, we can assume they were a bad person with some high probability, saying everyone who belonged to the nazi party was evil is not an accurate statement. This is especially true for those members who were there before the war actually started.

Note: I want to be very clear I'm not defending nazis here. I tend to take the 1930s captain America approach with them. I just want to stay away from "all of X are evil", because that's how historically justification of genocide has been used. I could better explain with an analogy, but that would cross into political discussion and that's not allowed. I'll just say, "Is it possible, when talking about a group of millions of people, that some of them were not evil?"

On a related note, when I was deployed (and is true of every army all throughout history), when you are going to war, or preparing for war, it is drilled into you how the enemy aren't human. they aren't people. They are all evil. They are all monsters. Xenophobic terms are thrown about with abandon. This is done because when the fighting starts, you can't hesitate to shoot the enemy soldier because if you do, you or your buddies die first. Viewing the enemy soldier as a human being just like you causes hesitation. It was a particular point of inner turmoil within me in my 20s while I was serving, reconciling that training (which I understood why they did it) with my personal outlook on humanity.

Naturally the big drawback to that is that it creates a ton of racism after the war is over, as those feelings carry on. My grandpa hated the "japs" for his entire life, but otherwise you would never think he was racist at all, based on how he was repeated trained and his experience on the island hopping campaign in WWII. My dad hated Vietnamese (which made him racist towards a lot of non-whites (not just Vietnamese) after Vietnam, when by all accounts, he wasn't prior.)

This is all true, and I agree with it.

Where I differ though is that it is much much easier to say "Nazi's who believe in Nazi idealogy and follow it are evil, those that don't, aren't" than it is say the same thing about an entire species.

Because, Nazi's had a goal and an idealogy that you could believe in. But an entire race of people being genetically evil doesn't have an idealogy.That, for me, makes a big difference. Not because everyone wearing the uniform is evil, but because I as the DM can shorthand wearing the uniform and acting against the PCs as BELIEVING the idealogy.

 

[Faolyn]

I was asking is if an evil culture/people could realistically survive (exist) or would it destroy itself or change as I imagine it would.

I think most evil societies would eventually crumble, either as people inside left, died off, or successfully acted changed the society for the better, or people from outside warred against or refused to trade with it.

Mind you, it could take decades or centuries (or, due to D&D lifespans, millennia), but it would eventually happen.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

What if they want the language to be coherent? Not everybody is Tolkien.

Darth Vader is coherent. General Grevious is coherent. Sauron is coherent. The Joker, the Penguin, Ernst Blofeld... these are some of the greatest villains of all time, and have their own speech patterns and ticks that make their lines quotable. I would not say any of these voices exemplifies a specific culture. All are intelligent as well.

I mean, is it really so difficult for folks here to invent a race that is evil to its core and has no ties to a real ethnicity?

 

[Oofta]

But then why bother to have them in the game at all, when you can just have evil humans?

Multiple reasons. Tradition is one. If orcs are involved, it's probably bad. If I want a simple to understand enemy that I don't need a lot of justification or explanation orcs fit the bill. Because I don't want colonialism to be a justification why the indigenous humans are evil if the group is traveling through "wilderness" areas. Because sometimes I want irredeemably evil barbarians at the gate.

Why is it such a big deal that orcs in my world are not human? I'm not debating what role they should have in the game at large, this is about my personal home game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Perhaps I was unclear. I'm not disagreeing with discussing that logic within the fiction is fair game - hence my "Good Point" comment.

I was asking is if an evil culture/people could realistically survive (exist) or would it destroy itself or change as I imagine it would.

Ah, I misunderstood.

Depends on what you mean by "Evil"

Mindflayers work it by having a Hive Intelligence. They are evil, but since they are all working as one unit, that doesn't cause the collapse of the society. And that is kind of the magic ticket for all of them. Working together within the unit instead of tearing itself apart. Gnolls tend to never attack other gnolls, so they work. You could have it set up where a tribe will slaughter another tribe, but they won't treat members of their tribe the same way.

And, yes, you can still be evil and work together. Look at any massive crime organization, and you generally have a large number of evil people working towards a common goal. They might cull the weak in their own ranks, but only in specific, acceptable ways.

So, yeah, I think an evil culture could exist. It would be difficult without a unifying force, but it can happen.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Multiple reasons. Tradition is one. If orcs are involved, it's probably bad. If I want a simple to understand enemy that I don't need a lot of justification or explanation orcs fit the bill. Because I don't want colonialism to be a justification why the indigenous humans are evil if the group is traveling through "wilderness" areas. Because sometimes I want irredeemably evil barbarians at the gate.

Why is it such a big deal that orcs in my world are not human? I'm not debating what role they should have in the game at large, this is about my personal home game.

But a lot of us ARE talking about the game at large. About working to have WoTC change the way the game is published to remove some of these depictions that really do not work for a lot of us.

 

[Faolyn]

Multiple reasons. Tradition is one. If orcs are involved, it's probably bad. If I want a simple to understand enemy that I don't need a lot of justification or explanation orcs fit the bill. Because I don't want colonialism to be a justification why the indigenous humans are evil if the group is traveling through "wilderness" areas. Because sometimes I want irredeemably evil barbarians at the gate.

So, are all your orcs irredeemably evil? Even the babies?

Why does wanting to have irredeemably evil barbarians mean all orcs have to be evil?

If you think that colonialism is a bad thing to have in your game, why is an Always Evil race OK in your mind?

Why is it such a big deal that orcs in my world are not human? I'm not debating what role they should have in the game at large, this is about my personal home game.

At the moment, I'm just really weirded out by the fact that you seem to think that giving a nonhuman race a culture and giving individuals of that race individual motivations makes them human. That, to me, is an incredibly alien thought process, and I'm curious as to how your head works.