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D&D General Why are "ugly evil orcs" so unpopular?
- Thread starter Bird Of Play
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1. The origin of orcs both in LOTR and DND set the bar for me. In the former, the word 'orc' is sometimes used interchangeably with 'goblin', and they are simply bogeymen: creatures of night and darkness who live underground, eat people, and serve as the armies of the world's dark lords alongside other 'bogeymen' monsters like trolls, ogres, etc. Originally, DND just picked up that trope and ran with it, and that's fine- they were 'fodder' enemies, like the stormtroopers from SW, and unredeemably evil. It was 'in their nature,' sort of along the lines of the parable of the scorpion and the frog, and I don't see a problem with that.
2. The only reasons I see people wanting to play 'evil' humanoid types or monsters as good is a) because they have some social statement to make, b) they are bored with the 'regular' choices. I don't even really like Tieflings and Dragonborn, but I'll admit that my love of cats has made me a little partial to Tabaxi, although that doesn't mean I would necessarily allow them as a player choice in a Tolkienesque setting. Orcs, goblins, other humanoids are definitely OUT in my campaigns as PC choices, because I'm not going to try and warp the entire milieu of something like, say, Greyhawk, in order to incorporate them as anything other than implacable enemies of the free peoples of good alignment. Orcs walking into a free city populated by humans and demi-humans are going to be slain on sight by someone, and I don't feel obligated as a DM to try and invent clever workarounds for the benefit of one contrary player. Now if EVERYONE in the group wants to play an orc, that's something that can be worked with, but it's going to be a different campaign and setting altogether. Although I probably won't be running it, because I don't run 'PC's are evil' themed games.
3. In my games, players who try to make deals with humanoid tribes in dungeons usually come to regret their choice. When the alignment in the MM reads 'evil', that means evil. Sure, an intelligent creature can be reasoned with for its own benefit, but that doesn't mean there won't be a flat double cross at the earliest opportunity. The very definition of evil includes a lack of trustworthiness and integrity. Those orcs might make a deal with the players now and let them pass, but tomorrow, when the players are beat down from whipping the gnolls and carrying all that loot on their backs, those orcs are going to be back, hungry for shiny coin and man-flesh. You reap the benefit of your choices.
4. Since humans run the gamut of alignments, motivations, and such, I see little reason to repurpose monsters as player choices. If the player wants to be the noble savage, there are ways of accommodating that without letting her play a two-headed troll who's emo because the one-headed trolls picked on her as a kid. So on and so forth. Of course, different strokes for different folks. You do you in your games.
2. The only reasons I see people wanting to play 'evil' humanoid types or monsters as good is a) because they have some social statement to make, b) they are bored with the 'regular' choices. I don't even really like Tieflings and Dragonborn, but I'll admit that my love of cats has made me a little partial to Tabaxi, although that doesn't mean I would necessarily allow them as a player choice in a Tolkienesque setting. Orcs, goblins, other humanoids are definitely OUT in my campaigns as PC choices, because I'm not going to try and warp the entire milieu of something like, say, Greyhawk, in order to incorporate them as anything other than implacable enemies of the free peoples of good alignment. Orcs walking into a free city populated by humans and demi-humans are going to be slain on sight by someone, and I don't feel obligated as a DM to try and invent clever workarounds for the benefit of one contrary player. Now if EVERYONE in the group wants to play an orc, that's something that can be worked with, but it's going to be a different campaign and setting altogether. Although I probably won't be running it, because I don't run 'PC's are evil' themed games.
3. In my games, players who try to make deals with humanoid tribes in dungeons usually come to regret their choice. When the alignment in the MM reads 'evil', that means evil. Sure, an intelligent creature can be reasoned with for its own benefit, but that doesn't mean there won't be a flat double cross at the earliest opportunity. The very definition of evil includes a lack of trustworthiness and integrity. Those orcs might make a deal with the players now and let them pass, but tomorrow, when the players are beat down from whipping the gnolls and carrying all that loot on their backs, those orcs are going to be back, hungry for shiny coin and man-flesh. You reap the benefit of your choices.
4. Since humans run the gamut of alignments, motivations, and such, I see little reason to repurpose monsters as player choices. If the player wants to be the noble savage, there are ways of accommodating that without letting her play a two-headed troll who's emo because the one-headed trolls picked on her as a kid. So on and so forth. Of course, different strokes for different folks. You do you in your games.
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The actors portraying them did such a fantastic job that you kind of had to love them for their deliciously OTT, teeth gnashing evil-ness.
turnip_farmer
Adventurer
While this is not really what I think was going on in old DnD since, as you say, there was no evil alignment then, there is a fictional tradition in which orcs are seen as chaotic and destructive, but not really evil.
This is what you ended up with in Warhammer. Humans and elves and dwarves can all be evil, because they can choose to do evil things. They choose to make people suffer, because they enjoy it or because it serves their selfish ends. Orcs, on the other hand, don't choose. Orcs destroy because that's what orcs do, it's not a decision. An orcish invasion, in this view, is less a war crime and more a natural disaster.
This kind of conception gets a bit odd to maintain in settings with half-orcs or orc PCs, though
ART!
Deluxe Unhuman
Weird - I think killing something for amusement would be one of the definitions of "evil".
I don't use orcs unless I'm running a game set in Middle-earth, because I feel like they belong to Tolkien. And there's so many options in D&D to fill that orc role, I don't even feel their absence. Come to think of it, I don't think any of the other DMs in our group use orcs either.
Myrdin Potter
Hero
I think it is very lazy to write off the Orcs being evil as a default as limiting. I don’t see any limit there at all. Exploring why they are the way they are is interesting and the exploration as a topic of the nature of evil has been the fodder for literature (and religion) for thousands of years.
They represent a threat and a foe easily identifiable and there has been enough flesh on the bones of them since 0e (where they were neutral or chaotic and some serve great wizards and dislike others).
They recently got conflated by some people with being a representation of racial stereotypes. That is a super easy connection to make as the belief of inherent differences and inferiorities because of race is at the heart of racism so any wording describing the monster is going to be a parallel to racist writings.
However, this “don’t just default them as xxx” discussion is not new at all. That is standard writing advice for fiction and has been a role playing game discussion since D&D first started and can be seen in the very first published modules.
it is a good discussion. As a DM I have to be prepared for the what-if the players want to talk to the monsters. Orcs are not mindless evil, they can be just as nuanced about it as any human could be. However, even as middle aged adults (I started playing when I was 12 and still play with some of the same people over 40 years later), for the most part my players do not want to talk and pick apart everything.
So, yes, I prefer the ugly and terrible version of Orcs and the OP posted, but I have to be prepared for more than the default to keep my players engaged.
They represent a threat and a foe easily identifiable and there has been enough flesh on the bones of them since 0e (where they were neutral or chaotic and some serve great wizards and dislike others).
They recently got conflated by some people with being a representation of racial stereotypes. That is a super easy connection to make as the belief of inherent differences and inferiorities because of race is at the heart of racism so any wording describing the monster is going to be a parallel to racist writings.
However, this “don’t just default them as xxx” discussion is not new at all. That is standard writing advice for fiction and has been a role playing game discussion since D&D first started and can be seen in the very first published modules.
it is a good discussion. As a DM I have to be prepared for the what-if the players want to talk to the monsters. Orcs are not mindless evil, they can be just as nuanced about it as any human could be. However, even as middle aged adults (I started playing when I was 12 and still play with some of the same people over 40 years later), for the most part my players do not want to talk and pick apart everything.
So, yes, I prefer the ugly and terrible version of Orcs and the OP posted, but I have to be prepared for more than the default to keep my players engaged.
Stormonu
Legend
The orcs of my home brew are still “kill on sight” evil heavily inspired by the LotR orcs.
Don’t forget that Warcraft 3 (and thus WoW) was influenced by GW’s Warhammer/40K, where the green skins there were much liked for their cockney, football hooligan culture.
Oddly enough, in the Saltmarsh game I am running, last week the party helped a handful of orcs and hobgoblins escape from being slaves in the local enemy mine (Sahaugin fortress) and were able to persuade them to return to their tribe to try and coerce them into joining the war effort against the sahaugin (though its came across as an “enemy of my enemy is a friend” sort of arrangement).
Don’t forget that Warcraft 3 (and thus WoW) was influenced by GW’s Warhammer/40K, where the green skins there were much liked for their cockney, football hooligan culture.
Oddly enough, in the Saltmarsh game I am running, last week the party helped a handful of orcs and hobgoblins escape from being slaves in the local enemy mine (Sahaugin fortress) and were able to persuade them to return to their tribe to try and coerce them into joining the war effort against the sahaugin (though its came across as an “enemy of my enemy is a friend” sort of arrangement).
Would anyone expect otherwise? Pop culture got its first ideas of orcs in 1974. That's 47 years ago. The world today isn't the same as it was a lifetime ago, the people are not the same people - the original players remaining have grown up, and are not the same people they were, and new players with still different thoughts, have entered play.
The world hasn't remained static. The players have not remained static. Cultural artifacts will similarly not remain static. This should not be a surprise.
To me there's an interesting parallel that's going on and that's the Drow. Drizzt in a lot of ways falls under the same umbrella as Worf son of Mogh. A member of an "evil" race that fights for good. And while we're moving towards 3 dimensions with the orcs, we don't seem to be doing the same thing with the drow. They're still evil, they still take slaves, and they're still worshiping Lloth.
I think the core problem with orcs that makes it so that we're giving them more depth is that fantasy races were traditionally very white and orcs weren't. There was a lot of discussion around whether orcs were a stand in for people of color and having orcs in that situation while also having them be blanket "evil and dumb" is a BIG issue.
I think the core problem with orcs that makes it so that we're giving them more depth is that fantasy races were traditionally very white and orcs weren't. There was a lot of discussion around whether orcs were a stand in for people of color and having orcs in that situation while also having them be blanket "evil and dumb" is a BIG issue.
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