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

[Paul Farquhar]

Then orc are antagonists in my games.

Indeed. Your antagonists can be whoever you like: orcs, elves, angels, whatever.

The point is you are fighting them because of what they do, not because of who they are.

 

[Hussar]

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.

Since this is about your personal home game, and everyone, absolutely everyone, here has said that in your personal home game, do whatever you want, why are you still debating? Question asked and answered. It's not a big deal. No one cares what you do at home.

So, why are you still asking?

 

[Bohandas]

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.

IIRC the other factor with the guy who originally started this aside was that it was also a language that he already knew

 

[reelo]

Those look so silly and comical.

Orcs are to pigs what Neanderthals are to apes. Only, they didn't evolve naturally but where bred and infused with a semblance of sentience by an evil god. They were created as a foil, to spite and mock the creation of good deities.

 

[Azzy]

Orcs are to pigs what Neanderthals are to apes. Only, they didn't evolve naturally but where bred and infused with a semblance of sentience by an evil god. They were created as a foil, to spite and mock the creation of good deities.

In your homebrew setting, perhaps.

 

[Hussar]

In your homebrew setting, perhaps.

In one of my favorite settings, Scarred Lands, orcs are titansborn. Meaning they were created by the Titans and not the Gods. Only problem is, so were pretty much everyone else. Humans were created by Titans, for example. Now, since the Titanswar where the gods destroyed/imprisoned the titans, there has been strife between those that followed the gods and those that followed the titans.

However, it's entirely plausible for orcs to follow the gods and humans to be titan cultists. So, it's not really an inherent thing at all. Granted, more orcs worship titans than gods, but, considering the war only ended a century ago, that's probably to be expected - pretty much EVERYONE worshipped/followed the titans before the war.

IOW, even twenty years ago when Sword and Sorcery Press published Scarred Lands, they managed to avoid all this crap by actually embedding the races into the setting instead of relying on half thought out stereotypes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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?

It is in effect a question of free-will, time, and world-building.

IF we assume that the original orcs were created by the gods to be evil, but that the orc's children could have drifted to be good or evil, then we have to look at how long that could have been.

Using FR as a base, just because they provide years, Orcs seemed to have come onto the scene 4,400 years ago (maybe later) and they were transplants, meaning they would have been even older. Orc biology seems to be twice as fast as human, so we are going to say a single generation would be 10 years.

That gives us 440 generations. To put into human context, that puts orcs as having since the time of Akkad and Sumer to change. Or, basically the entire length of human civilization. That is just too massive a time span for Orc culture to have never changed. Even elf and dwarf culture has changed in that time span.

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?

And this argument falls apart when we look at how Orcs , Elves, Humans and Dwarves are presented. You'd be more accurate to compare Gorillas, Bonobos. Chimpanzees and Orangutans. To list just some of the similarities between the four DnD races.

All four live in large, social communities.
All four give live birth to children that they raise.
All four use tools, weapons, and armor.
All four domesticate animals for their use.
All four use language.
All four are bipedal with side-ears, front-facing eyes a nose and a mouth.
All four can use magic and have religion.

They have differences, sure, but the sheer number of similarities is very striking when you want to compare them to the animal kingdom.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In one of my favorite settings, Scarred Lands, orcs are titansborn. Meaning they were created by the Titans and not the Gods. Only problem is, so were pretty much everyone else. Humans were created by Titans, for example. Now, since the Titanswar where the gods destroyed/imprisoned the titans, there has been strife between those that followed the gods and those that followed the titans.

However, it's entirely plausible for orcs to follow the gods and humans to be titan cultists. So, it's not really an inherent thing at all. Granted, more orcs worship titans than gods, but, considering the war only ended a century ago, that's probably to be expected - pretty much EVERYONE worshipped/followed the titans before the war.

IOW, even twenty years ago when Sword and Sorcery Press published Scarred Lands, they managed to avoid all this crap by actually embedding the races into the setting instead of relying on half thought out stereotypes.

That sounds kind of interesting.

 

[Voadam]

Then drone, if not a mindless one.

People copies of the same exact genetic base are not drones.

Think identical twins.

 

[Oofta]

If you aren't going to be having the same conversation as everyone else, why bother?

I mean, seriously, you want to defend your home game, but we are talking about changing the production of DnD. Fixing the language is a great step, everyone agrees with that one. I'm not sure it is worth clinging to alignment, but that is a different issue.

But, coming in to say "I don't care about the larger game, but I'm going to run my game how I want" and then arguing with us because we are trying to change your game, when we are trying to change the game at large... I mean, don't you see how that is a pointless endeavor? You can't convince us to stop pushing for universal change by saying that you don't like it and you won't change. Fine. Keep your game the way you want. Why argue with us over stuff you don't care about?

I've never told anyone else how to run their game or that it's wrong somehow to run anything differently than I run it.

In addition, we've been down this road. It's the same cycle.

1. I don't see a problem with monsters, including orcs always being evil. They serve a purpose in the game. Change alignments to what makes sense for your campaign.​

2. But why not have only some orcs be evil?​

3. That's fine. Do what makes sense for your campaign.​

4. Okay, but why not have only some orcs be evil?​

5. Go to step 1 until the thread gets shut down.​

Why bother typing up the same in depth on my reasoning and logic behind my decisions when you're just going to have the same responses anyway?