Dragonlance Dragonlance Creators Reveal Why There Are No Orcs On Krynn

Talking to the Dragonlance Nexus, Dragonlance creators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman revealed why the world of Krynn features no orcs -- in short, because they didn't want to copy Tolkien, and orcs were very much a 'Middle Earth' thing.

Weis told Trampas Whiteman that "Orcs were also viewed as very Middle Earth. We wanted something different." Hickman added that it was draconians which made Krynn stand out. Read more at the link below!

Why are there no Orcs in Krynn? Weis and Hickman give us the answer! - Dragonlance Nexus

Dragonhelm gets the scoop from Weis and Hickman on why there are no orcs in Krynn. Read More

dragonlancenexus.com

 

[Sacrosanct]

If there is only one person willing to DM in town, maybe you should ask why that is

I can’t say I support an idea that a player of DnD is entitled to a game from someone else. That’s not true of anything,unless you’re paying. If you want to play (any game, not just DnD), you can either find one that meets your needs, create one yourself, make accommodations for the person running it, or don’t play. I can’t think of a single scenario in any context where it’s ok to force the person hosting to give up what they want for what you want. Not for free anyway.

 

[Maxperson]

A flimsy answer at best.

Yep. I acknowledged that it wasn't very strong in one of my first responses in this thread. At least I think it was this thread. There are quite a few going on right now.

Flimsy or not, though, it's a valid in fiction reason for why no orcs are present.

There are elves in Dragonlance. But these are--openly!--also Tolkien elves.

I never got that sense. I got D&D elves from them, but admittedly D&D elves have a lot in common with Tolkien elves.

Yet they are NOT given the same rigorous requirements. They weren't the first children of Iluvatar. For goodness' sake, they even have their own kinslayer wars, even though that's nowhere near as mythologically deeply-rooted as it is with the Ñoldor due to the silmarils (literally the single most important story in the entire legendarium) and Fëanor's (and his sons') idiotic blood oath.

Elf wars are traditional D&D stuff as well. It's part and parcel of the D&D elven race. Long ago the elves warred and killed each other and some fled or were forced to go live underground.

So they're perfectly fine "borrowing" from Tolkien wholesale when it suits them for one race. But they can't do so for another? That's downright capricious.

Borrowing from D&D.................................which has borrowed from Tolkien. It's indirect, so a direct desire to exclude orcs is fine.

 

[billd91]

Which was, IMO, a pretty dumb reason. They didn't want to include orcs because then they'd have to include all of Middle-Earth's orc history... and yet they had no problem not including all of Middle-Earth's dwarf and elf history, despite the fact that D&D dwarfs and elves more closely resemble Tolkien's than they do mythological dwarfs or elves.

Wrong. It's not a dumb reason at all. It's a reason that comes from someone with a different perspective of the role of orcs in a setting than yours. And as the creators of the setting in question, it's a perfectly good reason and always will be one.

So they're perfectly fine "borrowing" from Tolkien wholesale when it suits them for one race. But they can't do so for another? That's downright capricious.

It is not capricious any more than deciding to do anything even slightly creative is capricious compared to doing something else. They have a different perspective on orcs than you do. That is all. It's pretty arrogant imposing your perspective over the creators of the setting.

Plus, they have a replacement antagonist humanoid running around in the draconians. That alone would be a perfectly good reason to ditch orcs as well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I also don’t agree with the idea that if you include things from Tolkien, then you have to include other stuff from Tolkien. I don’t want Tom Bombadill in my games, thank you.

People pick and choose what they like, and what they don’t. Justification isn’t necessary.

 

[AnotherGuy]

"I don't like meat, so I'm just serving tomato and lettuce on hamburger buns."
"Uh...couldn't you...at least have a veggie burger or something?"
"Why?

So in this example, you've compared 1 meat with ALL the playable options.
If that is how my question comes across to you - its because your analogy is very much incorrect.

"That's how your question comes across to me. Simply deleting something which serves a key, foundational part of an expected experience--removing without replacing--is likely to lead to an impoverished experience. Of course, what qualifies as "foundational" is subjective. For some, if there aren't always-evil orcs, it's not D&D. For some, if there are always-evil orcs, it's not D&D. But there is, at least loosely, a general understanding of what must thematically be present in something called "D&D." Axing elves, and doing nothing whatsoever to fill their "magical, aloof humanoid" niche is likely to leave players dissatisfied unless you get their enthusiastic buy-in for such a premise.

I'm not buying that and here is why
Because unless one ONLY plays orcs EVERY time one plays D&D OR one plays ALL the races simultaneously there is no way one is likely to experience an impoverished experience as you say.

One would have to order the meat burger EVERY time one ate.

 

[jasper]

Yes and no. The game actually doesn't assume a strong race will be there for the players. That's why the PHB admonishes the players to consult the DM for house rules. The admonishment comes on page 6 before even getting to the rules on how to use the book or play the game. It's that important.

"....

Read page 6 the average game "typically" doesn't read page 6 or page 7 for that matter. And it always causes an eye twitch when I get total I have to INCLUDE something because if comes from an official source.

 

[Minigiant]

I guess you have a special number of how many very strong PC options are needed in the game

Yup. At least 1.

Style of PC? What does that even mean?

Character of certain sets of ability score or class types

Yes and no. The game actually doesn't assume a strong race will be there for the players. That's why the PHB admonishes the players to consult the DM for house rules. The admonishment comes on page 6 before even getting to the rules on how to use the book or play the game. It's that important.

"Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon
Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world."

It makes sense to replace orcs with goliaths or something, but it's valid by the rules for there not to be a strong race in the DM's setting.

The DM gets to set up the setting, including what races, classes and such are available for players to play. The player can opt into those limitations or opt not to play. The DM can't force the player to play a specific style of PC, but can exclude specific styles from the game that he is running.

I'm just saying that there is a limit to how much a DM can restrct before they are considered to build building the player's PC.

But again, my comment is based on role of the world designer or setting writer. Not the DM.

A person can build a good setting that is also a meh, redundant, or poor D&D setting. There are many great fantasy settings that would be bad D&D settings or have poor appeal as you could only play them once ever.

 

[Faolyn]

Only because the setting was written that way, not because of the system.

BING BING BING! This is what I've been talking about. The setting was written for the system, and therefore included what was in that system.

Sure, but you used it as an example of something the system has and it doesn't have it.

No, Morrus used it as an example for something unrelated.

Yes it is. It's a perfectly good answer. Nobody has to answer to you for how they build their setting. When creating a setting, "I feel like it doing it this way." is as valid a reason as any other.

They do if they want me to spend $50+ on the setting. If I were to buy Dragonlance and discovered that out of all the standard D&D races, they failed to include one of them, and they didn't replace it with something as or more interesting, I'd want to know why.

Or did you forget we were talking about a product published by a major company and not your homebrew world? (generic your)

It's probably a good thing that wasn't their only reason then, isn't it. I will repeat it again.

"Tracy: “What people sometimes forget is that Orcs in Middle earth have a deep and specific history and origin as do their cousins the Uruk-Hai. That foundation simply didn’t exist in Krynn … ergo no orcs.”

I literally talked about that. Weiss and Hickman didn't care that they left out Middle-Earth's history on elves and dwarfs. They made their own history for Krynn's elves and dwarfs. And at no point in D&D history were orcs ever officially the result of Morgoth torturing elves and turning them into orcs. They were just another race, with minimal or no backstory at all until James Ward invented Gruumsh for Deities and Demigods in 1980, years before Dragonlance came out. And Dragonlance was published long after Greyhawk, which also used orcs without the Middle-Earth connection. So why was it all of a sudden important to care about Middle-Earth's history?

And orcs are actually an established mythical creature, originally a "devil-corpse," although I fully realize that this may not have been known to Weiss and Hickman at the time.

Clearly. A lot of people think their unreasonable expectations are reasonable. You need to write Hollywood and have the movie Elf banned for not including all of the other Tolkien races. Oh, and Harry Potter. That needs to be remade with all the D&D/Tolkien races, because they left out orcs and other races. Can't have settings like those two excluding things. Including goblins, but not orcs was an unconscionable thing for Rowling to do!

Why? Neither movie contains every other Tolkienesque trope like how Dragonlance does, or is written to be a D&D setting like Dragonlance is. So why would I care that they don't include orcs or use elves differently? Do you really not understand the difference between a D&D setting and a non-D&D setting?

 

[Faolyn]

Wrong. It's not a dumb reason at all. It's a reason that comes from someone with a different perspective of the role of orcs in a setting than yours. And as the creators of the setting in question, it's a perfectly good reason and always will be one.


It is not capricious any more than deciding to do anything even slightly creative is capricious compared to doing something else. They have a different perspective on orcs than you do. That is all. It's pretty arrogant imposing your perspective over the creators of the setting.

Plus, they have a replacement antagonist humanoid running around in the draconians. That alone would be a perfectly good reason to ditch orcs as well.

"We will use Tolkienesque elves but we won't use Tolkienesque orcs because Tolkienesque orcs require a history that involves Tolkienesque elves" is a dumb reason. Especially when they don't need to be Tolkienesque at all anyway.

 

[AnotherGuy]

They do if they want me to spend $50+ on the setting. If I were to buy Dragonlance and discovered that out of all the standard D&D races, they failed to include one of them, and they didn't replace it with something as or more interesting, I'd want to know why.

You playing or DMing?
And if it was $45 would that be ok?