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

[doctorbadwolf]

Of course there is a default game, that what a listed alignment is. It's the default alignment of that entire monster population.

Also, the existence of a default game doesn’t imply that everyone has to play everything the same way.

 

[Charlaquin]

You're either twisting, not reading or just plain ignoring what I've said repeatedly now. If they are just humans with funny colored skin and bad dental work they serve no purpose for me.

You keep using this defense, but you still haven’t been able to explain how “orcs aren’t all evil” equates to “orcs are humans with funny colored skin and bad dental work.”

But this is going same as every other thread.

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? [EDIT: add implied racism]​

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 thread is shut down.​

Have a good one.

I don’t think this is an accurate summary of the way the discussion goes. Especially since, again, literally everyone is fine with you doing whatever you want in your own campaign.

 

[Oofta]

No, it isn’t. You always misrepresent the point to get here.

It’s not that orcs are “only evil because of culture”, it’s that if orcs are defined by Gruumsh, then a supernatural being exerts power to override their will and any culture they would have on their own doesn’t actually exist. Cutting them off from Gruumsh allows them to develop their own culture.

In my campaign, orcs were created and their moral alignment is controlled by Gruumsh. There is no way to cut them off from their creator, since there is no "other" culture other than the one imposed on them, it's not particularly relevant.

Edit: Indeed, you even entered the discussion by making it about the game at large, and suggesting that having orcs not be always-evil is somehow bad for the game in general. Then as soon as your reasoning is challenged, you make it about your game and act affronted that people are attacking how you play.

I never made a judgement on "good" or "bad". What makes sense for my game may or may not make sense for yours.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In my campaign, orcs were created and their moral alignment is controlled by Gruumsh. There is no way to cut them off from their creator, since there is no "other" culture other than the one imposed on them, it's not particularly relevant.


I never made a judgement on "good" or "bad". What makes sense for my game may or may not make sense for yours.

I don’t care about your campaign. No one but you is talking about anyone’s specific campaign.

Please stop jumping into a discussion about the game at large as if we are talking about your game.

 

[Oofta]

No, you've been misunderstanding what I've said: orcs + culture =/= human.


Maybe that means you're not understanding what everyone else is talking about.


Why not? Some humans are evil. The second-most recent big bad in my campaign was a halfling. The players hated him. I'm gonna have him come back as undead soon.

If all members of a race are "irredeemably evil" simply because you want them to be, and you spend a lot of time fighting against any possibility of them being not evil--such as by comparing the DM making cultures for orcs to real-life people forcibly stripping others of their cultural identity--then maybe there is a problem. And not with the "not Always Evil" crowd.

And quite frankly, you're the one who brought up racism. Paul Farquhar said "Anyone can be evil. It's just that you can no longer tell who is evil by looking at their skin colour." To me, that clearly means "you can't just look at someone and decide they're evil because of their race, which since this is D&D, that actually means things like your fighter can't just look at an orc and decide they're evil because they're an orc." But you seemed to take that as a personal attack, as if Paul was saying you were a real-life racist.


From what I could tell, your first post in this thread was:


You literally started this by saying that it was somehow bad that people would want to play an evil race because then "people would start identifying them" and you'd have to come up with a new evil race.

And hey, sure, maybe you're the type of player who hates having to deal with moral quandaries in-game. That's fine. We can all appreciate a little black and white morality at times. But then you started fighting against the idea of having evil non-racial groups by saying things like "For some people, some games, it's okay for Nazis to be evil because the Nazi regime was evil. It ignores that soldiers in the Nazi army were there for a whole host of reasons. Same with storm troopers for that matter."

It doesn't look good when your argument is #NotAllNazis. And it looks worse when your argument is "its better to kill people for the way they were born than for the conscious choices they make," because you're ignoring that most DMs aren't going to have the Evil Empire conscripting innocents as soldiers without also at least strongly hinting that is the case to the PCs.


You've been claiming that would happen four fifteen pages now.

Who's fighting against other options? Let me repeat. I do not care what you do in your campaign. For that matter, I think the MM and DMG should stress that the alignment listed in the book is just the default. It's stated as such, but it's just a couple of lines in the intro to the MM.

Again, noticing a trend is not a judgement call. As far as the Nazi thing, let it go. I don't think everyone wearing a Nazi uniform was evil, many soldiers were conscripts. Unless of course you think the 8-12 year old kids that were filling in auxiliary roles were evil of course.

If you're going to say "it's not realistic that all orcs are evil" then I'll just reply with "it's not realistic that the evil empire only recruits like minded soldiers".

 

[Oofta]

I don’t care about your campaign. No one but you is talking about anyone’s specific campaign.

Please stop jumping into a discussion about the game at large as if we are talking about your game.

How can you have a discussion about a game if it's not about a game that you play?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are there any evil creator gods in D&D that aren't incompetent idiots who set their people up to be chaff before the reaping scythe of adventurers?

Lloth might well be the dumbest being in existence.
Gruumish is drunk angry dad that is likely the god of bringing knives to gun fights.
Kurk... Kerk... Kurt Wagner, the Amazing Nightcrawler is too busy being angry at a gnome to notice his kobolds worship dragons now.
Asmodeus didn't make the devils and the Blood war proves they're universally idiots too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How can you have a discussion about a game if it's not about a game that you play?

Literally everyone else is doing it.

It’s easy.

There is a pattern in these discussions where you derail the thread while complaining that the discussion is going the same way as previous ones, because you reply to someone talking about the game in general as if they’ve challenged how you run your campaign.

 

[Oofta]

You keep using this defense, but you still haven’t been able to explain how “orcs aren’t all evil” equates to “orcs are humans with funny colored skin and bad dental work.”

At a high level the various races in the PHB represent different tropes. Elves are back-to-nature free love types, dwarves are nose-to-the-grindstone rigid rule types, halflings are happy-go-lucky idealized country folk and so on. What do orcs represent if they don't represent the barbarian at the gate? The evil forces that want to destroy civilization, use their ferocity, might and numbers to cause fear and chaos by destroying everyone else? What trope, what role do they represent if that's not their niche?

If the majority do represent that trope of evil barbaric hordes, then I think logically people should be biased against and fear any orc that walks into town. I don't want prejudice to be a big part of my game.

I don’t think this is an accurate summary of the way the discussion goes. Especially since, again, literally everyone is fine with you doing whatever you want in your own campaign.

Funny. Over just the past few pages it's been implied that I'm a racist and a Nazi apologist.

 

[reelo]

Well .... in fairness, if the goal was to get baby orcs and re-educate them so they don’t grow up to be ignorant savages, you’ll probably have a whole ‘nother kettle of problems to deal with, and you won’t be avoiding the colonialist BS issues either.

I was gonna say just that.