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

 

[Maxperson]

For those of you who are arguing that the inclusion or exclusion of a Tolkien race requires the inclusion or exclusion of all of them, think about this. You are literally arguing that I can't take inspiration from part of any book or setting.

You're saying that I can't take the magic system from The River of the Dancing gods and use that for how magic works in my game without also using all of the races from that book, as well as the books of rules.

You're saying that I can't decide that orcs in my setting were created by Tharizdun corrupting elves, without also including a monotheism, elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.

That's a very hokey position to take. People can take inspiration or rejection from a small part of a setting, book, movie or whatever, without including or excluding anything else. That's not capricious. That's good, valid world building and it's grossly unreasonable on your part to expect other parts of those settings, books, etc. be present or excluded.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

That's their fault. If someone gets upset over world building decisions that I feel can't be compromised for whatever reason, I'm going to point them to that page. If I can come up with a solution that allows what they want without compromising important aspects of the campaign, I will.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not saying you should be forced to include orcs in your world.

I'm saying a good designer building a setting for D&D for commercial mass appeal sale would replace orcs with goliaths, minotaurs, leonin, gorillamen, hulks, aesir, some other new custom strong race, or allow players of other races to boost Strength

But there are no strong races, at least not in the ability modifier sense.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Between this and the other threads, the canon side has actually acquiesced quite a bit while the other side attacks the sidebar acknowledgement of native Krynn races, our tables, our DMs, the setting creators calling them capricious, demanding replacement of playable options, forcing Spelljammer, even to the point where everything from Tolkien needs to be included.

I mean I was even about to offer a vegan Knight of the Rose as a gesture of goodwill, but I'm taking that back now.
No more I say, You shall not Pass!

EDITED: Changed for possible misunderstanding

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whereas I'm honestly baffled that you get this impression, especially in the present day where the viking hat is implicitly encouraged everywhere. For the first several years after 5e was published, you literally couldn't have a thread asking questions about 5e rules without someone oh-so-"helpfully" reminding the OP that, because DMs have completely plenary, arbitrary authority, you'd better check on how they run literally everything, sometimes all the way down to doing attack rolls differently.

I have literally never, not one single time, seen a game text, even in the allegedly ultra-permissive 4e, that says something even remotely like what you're describing. I have only extremely rarely seen any living DMs who take such a permissive stance.

I have seen several posters, on this very forum, who explicitly claim literally absolute authority, with which they can do literally anything they please, and if players don't like that, they are invited to express their dissent via the door.

By the same token, it seems that there are folks who feel that what they choose to play is 100% their choice from everything available in the game, regardless of what that particular campaign or setting is, and the DM and other players should just let it happen.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

I think that like a lot of things in D&D, there's no clear line for where that point is and where you feel it is might not be where the majority of people feel that the line is.

A DM I sometimes play with and used to play with a lot had us roll percentile dice for race. Human was most of the chart, but if you rolled high enough you got elf, dwarf or another non-human race. If you rolled super duper high on percentile dice, you got onto the special chart where he had kzinti, melniboneans and other custom races he drew from other pieces of fiction. Is that too much control over a PC? We didn't think so, but you might.

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

I see no difference. Two of my roles as DM are world designer and setting writer.

 

[Faolyn]

For those of you who are arguing that the inclusion or exclusion of a Tolkien race requires the inclusion or exclusion of all of them, think about this. You are literally arguing that I can't take inspiration from part of any book or setting.

You're saying that I can't take the magic system from The River of the Dancing gods and use that for how magic works in my game without also using all of the races from that book, as well as the books of rules.

You're saying that I can't decide that orcs in my setting were created by Tharizdun corrupting elves, without also including a monotheism, elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.

That's a very hokey position to take. People can take inspiration or rejection from a small part of a setting, book, movie or whatever, without including or excluding anything else. That's not capricious. That's good, valid world building and it's grossly unreasonable on your part to expect other parts of those settings, books, etc. be present or excluded.

You are not producing a setting that is for sale. Your homebrew setting can have what you want in it. We are not talking about homebrew settings; we are talking about an official campaign setting published by the company that owns that setting's IP, and its disingenuous to compare the two.

Your setting may actually be better than the official Dragonlance setting. I have no idea. It's still not the same thing, though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

demanding replacement theory

I 100% hope you don't know what that is if you're accusing people of wanting it.

 

[Minigiant]

But there are no strong races, at least not in the ability modifier sense.

There were when Weiss and Hickman designed Dragonlance.

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything fixes some of the the poor game design caused by the thematic choices of Dragonlance's race and class tweaks.

 

[Faolyn]

But there are no strong races, at least not in the ability modifier sense.

There are strong races who have abilities that allow them to carry heavy loads or make charging attacks, though. The fact that they don't automatically do one extra point of damage doesn't make them not-strong.