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

[Charlaquin]

A mythology wherein gods and heroes fight chaotic beings because they have to in order to establish their own power or to protect home and family isn’t necessarily a mythology in which Chaos is a fundamental force of the universe that one might mystically align oneself with. It’s just the cosmic version of establishing cities and fighting bears in order to take their territory and make a farm there. Fantasy works like D&D are doing a fundementally different thing from most real world mythology.

No, it isn’t. Good and Order are not archery and games and war. The Gods of Good are gods whose nature is Good, not gods who govern Good in the way a lot of people imagine Thor to govern storms. Notice how in D&D Bahamuts alignment is Lawful Good, but there is no Domain for either concept. Good and war are in two wholly different categories of ideas.

Ok, we’re talking past each other on the Greek thing, and it’s not especially relevant anyway. Forget it.

Okay? The discussion is about the published D&D cosmology, not either of our homebrews.

I said I thought it was a positive that the 5e default lore on Gruumsh and Corellon doesn’t have a clear right or wrong side, as it brought in some welcome nuance. You said that the gods’ morality being ambiguous is a negative in a setting where good and evil are cosmic forces. I said that didn’t bother me because I’m not a big fan of cosmic good and evil. You asked if I understood why that would be undesirable in a setting that did have cosmic good and evil, to which I answered yes, unless in that setting the gods were not necessarily aligned with those cosmic forces. You said that would defeat the point of having cosmic good and evil, which I disagreed with. We’re like 4 layers removed from talking about published D&D cosmology at this point. If you follow the conversation, we’re talking about a purely hypothetical setting, which has cosmic good and evil, but does not have its gods closely aligned with those forces, and whether or not that defeats the point of cosmic good and evil. I still maintain that it doesn’t.

But whatever. We’re so far removed from pig-faced orcs at this point, I think we should probably drop it.

 

[Azzy]

Indeed. It is interesting as well that Gruumsh as head of the pantheon is Chaotic Evil, and although the other orc gods are listed as evil (which I think is dumb, but whatever), they're not all Chaotic. Luthic is Lawful!

Here's where I gronard out and complain about things in newer (post-1e) editions....

In 1e AD&D, orcs were Lawful Evil and Grummsh was also LE. In fact, almost all of the orc deities were LE (other than Shargaas and Yurtrus who were NE—the latter with lawful tendencies). In Greyhawk, orcs were frequently used as mercenaries by the Great Kingdom of Aerdy. The whole Chaotic Evil thing is a product of 3e and something that I've never got in line with. grumble grumble grumble

Don't get me started on the new gnolls and how it conflicts with previous lore.

 

[BRayne]

Yeah, I was being hyperbolic. I don’t much care for Mercer’s takes on orcs, goblins, or gnolls, but there is more nuance to it than “orcs are bloodthirsty because of a curse.”

I’m not a fan of “cosmic good and evil,” so this doesn’t really bother me.

I mean the Wildemount version of orcs straight up says that while the curse is believed to exist in world, it's not actually real

 

[Oofta]

Right, that’s weird why is the first place your mind goes to in response to orcs having diverse cultures “guess they need to be civilized”?


I do think that idea is bad. I just don’t think it’s a logical extension of not all orcs being evil.

It's the justification for them not being evil. That orcs can be okay if they are not raised by orcs and reject their heritage and religious beliefs is objectionable. At least that's what I get when I read "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?"

So if they aren't raised by other orcs (at least for the first generation), get rid of all that silly heritage and accept "proper" religion and superstitions that they can be good.

Which is not to say you can't have a whole mix of orcs. You can. The MM talks about Obould turning his back on Gruumsh. I just think that part of the appeal of the game for a lot of people is fighting evil monsters and it doesn't matter what label (i.e. aberration, fiend, humanoid) we slap on them and what form they take.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's the justification for them not being evil. That orcs can be okay if they are not raised by orcs and reject their heritage and religious beliefs is objectionable. At least that's what I get when I read "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?"

So if they aren't raised by other orcs (at least for the first generation), get rid of all that silly heritage and accept "proper" religion and superstitions that they can be good.

Which is not to say you can't have a whole mix of orcs. You can. The MM talks about Obould turning his back on Gruumsh. I just think that part of the appeal of the game for a lot of people is fighting evil monsters and it doesn't matter what label (i.e. aberration, fiend, humanoid) we slap on them and what form they take.

Again, that wasn't what I meant by that line.

And, while we do use the example of an orc raised by non-orcs as an example, by advocating for good orcs... we are advocating for good orcs who raise good orcs. An orc culture with some being evil and some being good doesn't require us to have the good orcs abandon orcish culture. The only possible reason for that currently is because there is no good orcish culture... because Orcs are considered innately evil, seemingly from birth.


However, Drow are still elves. Duergar are still Dwarves. Githyanki are still With. We have plenty of examples of splits in a culture between two people of the same "species", there is no reason that this should be an impossible writing challenge for DnD.

 

[Oofta]

Again, that wasn't what I meant by that line.

And, while we do use the example of an orc raised by non-orcs as an example, by advocating for good orcs... we are advocating for good orcs who raise good orcs. An orc culture with some being evil and some being good doesn't require us to have the good orcs abandon orcish culture. The only possible reason for that currently is because there is no good orcish culture... because Orcs are considered innately evil, seemingly from birth.


However, Drow are still elves. Duergar are still Dwarves. Githyanki are still With. We have plenty of examples of splits in a culture between two people of the same "species", there is no reason that this should be an impossible writing challenge for DnD.

Do what makes sense for your campaign.

Does repeating this for the thousandth time help?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So if they aren't raised by other orcs

This is where you go astray from what other people are actually saying.

It’s not “raised by non-Orcs”, it’s “raised by orcs that aren’t evil”. That’s it.

Well, that and you’re still treating it like a change that occurs in-world, as if orcs will go from evil to non evil from one generation to the next within the canon lore. That is not what is being proposed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

it doesn't matter what label (i.e. aberration, fiend, humanoid) we slap on them and what form they take.

It does matter. Not to you, and that’s fine, but to rather a lot of other people. Aberrations and fiends aren’t presented as people that you can play as, they are creatures. Most of them don’t even reproduce biologically, and the only one that does (mindflayers) does so as a parasite that kills its host in order to make a new Illithid.

Orcs are people, within the game world.

It doesn’t matter if you agree with that, that is why people care about orcs being default evil and not about fiends.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Do what makes sense for your campaign.

Does repeating this for the thousandth time help?

That si not the discussion at hand. We are talking about the default game.

Does repeating that for the billionth time help?

 

[Charlaquin]

Do what makes sense for your campaign.

Does repeating this for the thousandth time help?

I don’t know, does it help to repeat for the thousandth time that we’re not talking about anyone’s individual campaign but about the direction we think WotC should move in published material?