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

[Faolyn]

Put this another way. Let's assume some alien civilization out there was at war. They create "the perfect soldier" by messing with their DNA and creating clones. They've altered the brain structure and chemistry so that they have no empathy, will not hesitate to follow orders and kill. But something goes wrong, their commanders die before they can shut down their soldiers and so they are following their last orders to the best of their abilities - kill everyone who is not part of their command structure or a fellow soldier. In order to continue the never-ending war, they figure out how to make more soldiers. There's no biological basis for them to have any moral qualms about killing someone outside of their order, in fact they are instinctually driven to kill every "other" that could pose a possible threat.

So orcs are targeted viruses now. To me, they would function as kind of a violent MacGuffin--they exist solely to slow down the PCs while they go after the actual cause, the root of the disease. Which in your case, is Gruumsh.

Seems like a waste of an orc to me, though.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That is kind of where I was coming from. But to me the physical body is just the container for the brain. So if xenomorphs are okay I see no real difference based on implementation of form.

Eh, I think there is a pretty big difference in Xenomorphs compared to D&D orcs, largely that orcs are capable of forming societies, cultures, and even nations... while xenomorphs are just killer monsters.

There are of course Warhammer Orcs (or Orks if you like 40k) that are really a fungus and don't have gender, or really ancestry. They do have rudimentary culture but its all for "War war all-the-time!" I don't really find 40k orks a very problematic concept (they're really more like germs than any real culture), though I very much find the Eldar vs. Dark Eldar very stupid and lazy.

 

[Charlaquin]

So orcs are targeted viruses now. To me, they would function as kind of a violent MacGuffin--they exist solely to slow down the PCs while they go after the actual cause, the root of the disease. Which in your case, is Gruumsh.

Seems like a waste of an orc to me, though.

Right, like I said: the god is evil, the creatures it controls are mindless.

 

[Charlaquin]

There are of course Warhammer Orcs (or Orks if you like 40k)

Orkz. Wiv a Z.

 

[Oofta]

Xenomorphs aren’t “evil.” They’re alien, predatory, destructive, take your pick. But evil? They don’t even seem sapient.

That's somewhat debatable (in Aliens Ripley seemed to communicate a threat). But it also doesn't really matter, Alien was just one example. Star Wars clones could be another. Their behavior was controlled by a chip, but chip/voice of god are effectively the same McGuffin.

I also suspect you have a different definition of evil than a lot of people.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's pretty typical in video games as well. I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn right now and, yes, a big part of the game is running around shooting "bandits" in the head with arrows. One thing I notice about the settlements is that the "good" settlements have women and children running around, the bandits never do. Same with say, the Far Cry games.

Are there wives and children of these bandits running around somewhere? Presumably. But they never make an appearance. Maybe they do in some games, I just don't remember playing any. So I run my home game the same way video games handle children of the designated bad guy: I ignore it.

Sure, which is great. Now, I've never played that game, but I'm going to make a guess.

The bandits are "human" and so are the people of the good settlements right? So, you have a species that is being presented with good sides and bad sides.

What's wrong with ackowledging, in the default level of the game of Dungeons and Dragons, where we have written how orcs are raised, who raises them, their beliefs, their superstitions, their symbology, their tools, their myths and ect ect, that some orcs are good and some are not?

Not in your game. I know you don't want it in your game, I understand that and I'm not interested in talking about your game at all. What is wrong with giving the same treatment of seeing two sides to orcs, when we already have so much written about them?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That's somewhat debatable (in Aliens Ripley seemed to communicate a threat). But it also doesn't really matter, Alien was just one example. Star Wars clones could be another. Their behavior was controlled by a chip, but chip/voice of god are effectively the same McGuffin.

I also suspect you have a different definition of evil than a lot of people.

I would not use clones as an example, they have a ton of free will. Having a chip that forces them to do one evil thing doesn't make all clones evil (when most would likely disobey such order if the chip didn't exist).

 

[Oofta]

So orcs are targeted viruses now. To me, they would function as kind of a violent MacGuffin--they exist solely to slow down the PCs while they go after the actual cause, the root of the disease. Which in your case, is Gruumsh.

Seems like a waste of an orc to me, though.

I'm just quoting the MM. They are a race created to wage endless war.

P.S. Or are you going to call me a liar again? Because you never did respond to my questions in this post.

 

[Oofta]

I would not use clones as an example, they have a ton of free will. Having a chip that forces them to do one evil thing doesn't make all clones evil (when most would likely disobey such order if the chip didn't exist).

You were the one who brought up xenomorphs. I'm not saying orcs are just like clones or xenomorphs, just that in some ways they are similar.

Get rid of Gruumsh (or sever his ties somehow) and things might work differently even in my home campaign.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'm just quoting the MM. They are a race created to wage endless war.

P.S. Or are you going to call me a liar again? Because you never did respond to my questions in this post.

A blunt interpretation of their description in the MM. I would not say this is exactly true, as Gruumsh commanding his children to do something is very different than explicitly creating them only for war.

I'll add, orcs have plenty of other gods in their pantheon that can affect their behavior, so I don't think having an evil god at the top of their pantheon makes all orcs evil. If that were true, all Drow would be evil, and they are not.