D&D General Why are "ugly evil orcs" so unpopular?

[BookTenTiger]

That doesn't really answer anything though. I accept that things change. The question is, why orcs? Fiends are still evil as are gnolls. Why the segregation of "it's okay for these imaginary creatures to be evil, but not these"?

I've got to imagine it has something to do with the popularity or orcs through the Warcraft Games. The more people play them, the more they get humanized.

I think there's a general trend with more popular races becoming more human-like: Drow, orcs, tieflings...

The evil, ugly orcs still exist. But because they are popular to play, many other kinds of orcs also exist. Just like how many kinds of humans or elves exist.

 

[embee]

Have orcs ever truly been irredeemably evil? Because Tolkien said no.

Shagrat and Gorbag weren't angels but they served Sauron out of fear, not malevolence. Deep down, even they just wanted to be free to live their lives somewhere "free of big bosses."

Who is the most irredeemably evil trope in modern times? Hint: It's the Nazis.

The traditional way to show Nazis is the good ole "Raiders of the Lost Ark" Nazi. They're cannon fodder. Action movie orcs, if you will. They have ranks so you can have the stormtrooper, the big bald bruiser, the truck driver, the commandant, the SS officer, etc. And that's fun, especially if you need a baddie for an action story.

But what if you want a different story?

Imagine a Nazi spy/war profiteer. He's still a Nazi. He makes arms for the Nazis and spies for the Nazis. He helps the Nazis and is a member of the Nazi Party. On the surface, that's pretty evil. Can you tell his story without him being completely and eternally evil?

That's the dilemma with allegedly inherently and eternally and irredeemably evil races. You can't tell that story. And those stories do exist and are often fascinating and enjoyable.

It's the Darth Vader principle: that even within the most evil character there is a spark of good that leaves open the option of a redemption arc.

For story purposes, even Nazis and orcs can begin to be redeemed. See Oskar Schindler.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"Why the segregation of "it's okay for these imaginary creatures to be evil, but not these"?"

That's actually the most interesting question of the lot.

 

[Lyxen]

Two things. First, drow are getting a makeover. There are now 3 variations of drow, with the Lollth version being just one. There's been other discussion, if you want to read an article about it: D&D: WotC Adds Three New Types Of Drow, Retcons Drow Lore - Bell of Lost Souls

And as demonstrated above, this article has a political agenda and is full of mistakes. D&D has not waited until today to say that there are non-evil drows, even beyond Driz'zt. 3e has them "Usually neutral evil" as a societal alignement, and even Vault of the Drow (1978, years and years before Driz'zt) has groups of non-evil drows considering that their society is not good.

However, it's clearly because of that mostly uninformed attitude that WotC is adding new things, but if I may, that "makeover" is suspiciously close to the release of Dark Alliance, so for me, it's just WotC being forced to play in the political arena and (cleverly) lighting counterfires.

As for me, apart from these side notes, I remark that D&D is a basis for creating private games with friends where you can say and play whatever you want as long as everyone is fine with it. It's just that, at our tables, the biggest fan of the drows are a coloured person father and his mixed heritage daughter (and I hope that you will pardon me if I don't use the current politically correct terms here, as a European, I'm truly lost about what is acceptable or not), friends of my daughters and I for decades.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'll agree with the "because it's boring" analysis. If I need a group of humanoids doing bad things, I'll just use humans. I find it leads to more interesting interactions. There's too much baggage with orcs. Even players new to TTRPGs will have preconceived notions thanks to Peter Jackson. (May he rot in hell.)

 

[Willie the Duck]

That doesn't really answer anything though. I accept that things change. The question is, why orcs? Fiends are still evil as are gnolls. Why the segregation of "it's okay for these imaginary creatures to be evil, but not these"?

I'm not sure that, for the majority of people driving the change in orcs, it is a question of whether it is okay for these creatures to be evil and not these, so much as they simply want these creatures to be not evil in their games. Orcs got popular (along with Drow and Tieflings) and so now there is an appetite for not-evil orcs (/drow/tielflings) in a way that isn't true for gnolls (mostly, I know a handful of people that are a little upset with gnolls being this editions 'designated extra-bad-guys' status).

 

[Scribe]

That doesn't really answer anything though. I accept that things change. The question is, why orcs? Fiends are still evil as are gnolls. Why the segregation of "it's okay for these imaginary creatures to be evil, but not these"?

For the sake of bringing forward the last 3 threads on this.

1. People justify fiends by saying they are elemental, evil made manifest.
2. People want gnolls humanized next.
3. People think Mindflayers are just too alien.

The same lines remain in the sand, the same fights will happen, the same insinuations will be made.

I lean away from pig Orcs, to more WoW looking Orcs. My main Orc culture is not 'good' but there is more than one culture of Orc.

Ultimately, there are people who desire to humanize all the races, and as such don't want a negative default, for anyone.

 

[Bolares]

There are some examples of humanized gnolls. The Znir Pact in Eberron is a great example of that.

 

[Umbran]

So, right at the start, and despite what alignement-haters and people with a political agenda claim...

Mod note:
This is only on page 2, but someone has already violated the inclusivity rules (emphasis mine) - "You MAY NOT use the terms "agenda", "ideology", "politics", or "propaganda" in relation to the inclusion of people...".

So how about we not do this... again. It gets old.

The next time a moderator needs to correct this thread, expect someone to get booted from the thread. After that, you can probably expect someone to get a tempban from the site. Do not expect patience from moderators in this thread.

 

[Bill Zebub]

"Why the segregation of "it's okay for these imaginary creatures to be evil, but not these"?"

That's actually the most interesting question of the lot.

Seems to me this question gets answered over and over again.

Because it's not ok to define an entire population as intrinsically/genetically/culturally evil when the only differences between them and the "good guys" are the ones that have been used historically to justify enslavement/genocide. That is, ugly, stupid, irrational, angry, filthy, promiscuous, etc.

So, really, I think the interesting question is: why does the first question keep getting asked?