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

[Bohandas]

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

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.

Now this is indeed a valid concern. Realistically a species predisposed to certain kinds of evil would have issues that would either destroy the society or else often prevent it from being evil in practice. Violent evil turned inward would likely result in many individuals dying before they had time to actually accumulate any evil karma. Conversely, outward facing violent/genocidal/xenophobic evil would lie dormant in the absence of any other species (cf. the Krikkitmen from Life The Universe and Everything). Inward facing social evil could create a situation wherein many individuals of the species have no opportunity to accumulate evil karma. HOWEVER outward facing social evil, as in the case of one species subjugating another (as in mindflayer communities) could result in a situation where all individuals of one species are evil. The flayers' hunger for brains and central organization could even be removed and this would still remain true as long as they had an inborn need to control and subjugate (now that I think of it, perhaps neogi would have been a better example)

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.

By todays standards the great majority of societies throughout human history were evil. They generally were at least xenophobic, and were often homophobic, and that's just listing the evils that the vast majority of those societies' people could unify behind. There was also generally misogyny, often slavery, frequent classism and mistreatment of the poor, castrations and footbinding and other bodily mutilation, religious oppression, humam sacrifice, mistreatmemt of animals, etc.

 

[Azzy]

Fixed.

Those look so silly and comical.

 

[Faolyn]

There's a difference between irredemably evil and naturally predisposed to evil, one is an absolute and the other is an inclination

Oofta described their orcs as irredeemably evil.

Rejecting them outright requires some pretty big leaps. For such a thing to be impossible it would require that dark triad personality traits ano only are not but in fact cannot be inherited. Otherwise a genetic bottleneck could conceivably lead to an entire population having those traits.

I'm not sure where you're going here.

 

[Faolyn]

I assume you don't read every post. I know I don't. No one has ever encountered a female orc in my campaign, much less young orcs.

Yeah, but if you're the DM, then you would know the answer. I don't care what the players know; I want to know the worldlore.

Because what does that mean, no one has ever encountered a female orc? That could mean anything from "orcs are grown in pods" to "orcs are bamfed into existence by their gods" to "orcs keep their women locked up where nobody can see them" to "orc women look exactly like the men do, and even have a hyena-style pseudophallus" to "all orcs are male, but they reproduce parthenogenetically."

None of which answer the question of, are baby orcs--a phrase that can mean a true infant to one just popped out of the orcpod a moment ago, are evil?

 

[Bohandas]

I'm not sure where you're going here.

If the original orcs created by the orc god were all as individuals genetically predisposed to violence it would follows that all their descendents would be too, (outside of individual mutations) because they would all be descended from that original group of individuals

When it comes to AI, there are two basic types: the ones that can go against (or find loopholes in) their programming, and the ones who can't. If you have the first type of AI, you have an AI with free will, or at least something that passes for it, which means that, like with (D&D) orcs and humans, its a person and thus should be judged by its actions.

What if they're all copies of the same original evil AI. Like a bunch of different facilities are all independently running GLADOS on their local computers

 

[Faolyn]

If the original orcs created by the orc god were all as individuals genetically predisposed to violence it would follows that all their descendents would be too, (outside of individual mutations) because they would all be descended from that original group of individuals

If you use those gods.

If evil is genetic.

If genetics works the same way in D&Dland as it does in reality.

If orcs are incapable of thinking beyond instinct.

If you ignore that other D&D good-aligned races usually have evil subraces, thus indicating that D&D races don't have to stick with the alignment their gods gave them.

If you realize that violence doesn't have to be evil. Sport competitions, mock battles and dueling, wild dancing, friendly brawls, monster-hunting, and all sorts of things can be used to express an orcish love of violence that is both non-evil and helps to flesh out their culture.

What if they're all copies of the same original evil AI. Like a bunch of different facilities are all independently running GLADOS on their local computers

Then they aren't people, they're mindless drones. Or, in D&D terms, fiends or constructs, not humanoids.

 

[Bohandas]

Then they aren't people, they're mindless drones. Or, in D&D terms, fiends or constructs, not humanoids.

I don't see what being copies has to do with being mindless. They are still intelligent, they would still diverge over time but they would learn and diverge around that same core personality.

I really can't understand how you're imagining consciousness to work. The core of it seems to be that all species are the fundamentally the same but all individuals are irreconcilably incongruous, and that thought is simultaneously deterministic and non-deterministic. But that doesn't make any sense to me.


EDIT:
Like, if somebody built an atom for atom replica of you, including the brain, we should expect it to be as much of a sentient being as you are, but also share your memories and personality, shouldn't we?

And conversely one wouldn't expect a bird, a squid, and a pig to think and behave the same way, not even with training, so why should a human, an elf, and an orc all think and behave in the same manner?

 

[Faolyn]

I don't see what being copies has to do with being mindless. They are still intelligent, they would still diverge over time but they would learn and diverge around that same core personality.

Then drone, if not a mindless one.

I really can't understand how you're imagining consciousness to work. The core of it seems to be that all species are the fundamentally the same but all individuals are irreconcilably incongruous, and that thought is simultaneously deterministic and non-deterministic. But that doesn't make any sense to me.

Hey, you're the one that seems to want to say "what if orcs weren't orcs, what if they were really copies of an AI?"

EDIT:
Like, if somebody built an atom for atom replica of you, including the brain, we should expect it to be as much of a sentient being as you are, but also share your memories and personality, shouldn't we?

Presumably, but I'm not a neuroscientist so I don't know.

And conversely one wouldn't expect a bird, a squid, and a pig to think and behave the same way, not even with training, so why should a human, an elf, and an orc all think and behave in the same manner?

Judging by what I've read and seen, birds and pigs have as much a desire--even a physical need--for comfort, affection, and being treated kindly, as humans do, and many species of birds need companionship as much as humans and pigs do. I see no reason to assume that elves and orcs would be different in that regard. Especially since I'm running fantasy, not a hard SF xenofiction.

 

[Mecheon]

And conversely one wouldn't expect a bird, a squid, and a pig to think and behave the same way, not even with training, so why should a human, an elf, and an orc all think and behave in the same manner?

I mean, from a biological perspective: Humans, orcs and elves all have the same bodyplan, they can be assumed to have similar niches, even though we can assume through their stockier frame that orcs are less on the 'long distant pursuit hunters' that we owe our own bipedal-ness to, and more of the 'strong ambush hunters'. They're also very closely related enough they can interbreed so using what we know about ourselves and our extinct relatives gives us a window into what hypothetical things orcs may do

Birds and pigs nuture their young, as do humans. We know that orcs have singular babies so we can remove squids from it, as squids are of the 'release a massive amount of eggs into the ocean and then die immediately afterwards' type.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

No, what I meant by 'coherent' was that the words in the language would mean something instead of just being random syllables. Not everybody is like Tolkien and has the time and the skill to create an entire language from scratch, so reusing an existing language could be a substitute for that

If you absolutely feel the need to use an "existing language" for an entirely evil race, fine. But there are plenty of fictional ones to use, instead of ones used by real people. Klingon, the Black Speech, Valyrian... I'm sure you can use one of these and people won't find it immersion breaking. At least, not more than your hobgoblins speaking Japanese.