D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Maxperson]

I mean, games affect attitudes. That's pretty indisputable.

Playing games can shift attitudes, study shows

A research laboratory is working to quantify the effects of playing games. In a study, researchers found that attitudes toward public health issues shift to be more accepting and understanding after playing a game they developed called RePlay Health.

www.sciencedaily.com

And that can include racism.

Racism isn't an attitude.

Do Stereotypic Images in Video Games Affect Attitudes and Behavior? Adolescents’ Perspectives - PMC

This study examined adolescents’ attitudes about video games along with their self-reported play frequency. Ninth and eleventh grade students (N = 361), approximately evenly divided by grade and gender, were surveyed about whether video games have ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263697104_Effects_of_Avatar_Race_in_Violent_Video_Games_on_Racial_Attitudes_and_Aggression

I'm reading the first link now, but the second only only shows decreased concern with stereotypes in games from people who play them. That makes sense since it's the ones playing the games that would be best able to tell the difference between the game and reality.

I question the results of the first link.

"The researchers asked a group of young adults to complete an online questionnaire two weeks prior to playing RePlay Health and again within a week after playing the game. Flanagan says that the results indicate that the game has the potential to have a lasting impact on the players."

One week isn't what I would call lasting. If they found a change a year later I would give that a LOT more credence. In any case, there's a big difference between helping someone understand a good thing(better healthcare) and turning someone into a bigot.

I mean, really, we associate D&D and other games as helping increase cooperation and such, why would we assume the reverse couldn't be true, that we can pick up negative attitudes and such from games?

I'm not saying that it can't be true, but rather there's nothing that shows it to be true. No studies that I know of and not one single time in my rather extensive personal play experience.

What I have seen are people that are more disposed towards playing their already present inner feelings in the game. You can tell the difference between someone who is roleplaying something distasteful and someone who is getting off on it now that they have an outlet. I quickly stop playing with the latter.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Orcs don't have a reason; they're villains because they're orcs, and yes, that makes them boring.

I'd argue that a lot of creatures are villains just because they're that creature. Fiends are villains because they're fiends. Zombies are villains because they're zombies.

The designers wanted scary monster which eats people and raids villages, so they made a generic bad guy to fit it. That generic bad guy was designed as scary thing called orcs.

The attention got drawn onto orcs in a way which made people question them being generic always evil bad guys for two reasons. One being other media such as WoW started to use orcs in a non antagonistic way. And the other being half orcs. If they can breed with humans, they must be pretty close to humans themselves. Which makes calling them always evil dumb brutes distasteful as it draws comparisons to irl treatment of human cultures and races.

But meanwhile no one questions it with things like bullywugs, despite being basically a reskin of early dnd orcs. Because they haven't had other media exploring them from a non evil perspective, and there has never been a 'half-bullywug' playable.

 

[Chaosmancer]

well if ownership of land does not apply, guess they will go to the old and faithful method of; Might makes right. That is so much civilized...

Why don't the orcs own the land? They have their parents, grandparent and great-grandparents buried in that land. A mere 80 years ago, England owned India. Do you expect India to simply go "oh, you do own this land" if England demanded it?

Or are you saying that longer lived races have more rights than shorter lived races?

I've seen that lots of people like having few simplistic default evil "somewhat humanoid" races.
If you do not want to built too much of a story, that kind of tool helps.

why not leave that job to the orcs? To be The Enemy. That evil force of destruction that is just evil because.
maybe Gruumsh just cursed them with bloodlust, few may escape it, but not enough to make any real change in orc society.

Then, if you want more complex (evil) enemies, there can be kingdoms of humans, elves, dwarves that are more on bad than on the good side.

Why not leave the job to undead? They can be the enemy of all life. A force of destruction as natural as death and decay. Intelligence? Many undead can be very intelligent.

True, that is irritating.
Orcs from all settings should not be the same, nor elves or humans or dwarves or whatever.

That should be a reason for different settings. To make them different.

And we might start getting different settings if the baseline is different.

 

[Faolyn]

So, Dwarves are justified in killing the Orcs who have done nothing wrong, because the orcs great-great-great-great grandfather wronged that Dwarf? The sins of your ancestors mark you for death, regardless of what you have done personally?

See, now this would make for some really interesting world-building. Dwarfs have long lifespans and are often assumed to hold grudges for just as long. Perhaps they have customs or even laws that allow them to seek their revenge, even on the descendant of the wrong-doer. Of course, it's unlikely that other species would be OK with those laws, leading to occasional tensions between those species. This may lead to tensions between dwarfs and other species, where the shorter-lived species view dwarfs as being irrational murderers or warmongers.

Or, if the dwarfs were more honorable and understanding of others, they may require a symbolic revenge. There was an old issue of the comic Usagi Yojimbo wherein Usagi encountered a samurai who was seeking katakiuchi, legal revenge, on the ronin bandits who killed his father. The last bandit had since repented of his crimes, become a monk, and spent his time as an invaluable healer to the local villages, keeping his (shorn) topknot as a reminder of his evil past. The samurai wanted to kill the monk but ended up taking the topknot instead, saying that showed that ronin was dead.

It would definitely be more interesting than having your dwarfs go kill a bunch of orcs because of what those orcs' great grandpas did.

 

[Maxperson]

But the orcs are still tribal and "primitive". They just aren't killed for it. Which, you know good step, but it isn't like it is a major change.

The Realms has civilized orcs, as does Eberron. This is from the 5e Wayfinder's Guide

"The Clans blend the traditions of human and orc, building towns and working with steel."

That's civilized orcdom.

From Wildemount.

"The orcish settlement of Bladegarden was incorporated into the Dwendalian Empire after the fall of the Julous Dominion, nearly three hundred years ago. Ores are now renowned as some of the empire's most accomplished soldiers, though many folk still fear the ancient legends of the curse of ruin."

Those are civilized orcs.

Why do we keep acting like 6 is animals when Ogres are 5?

Some animals are that smart. Most are not. 2 int is typical of most animals.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Why do we keep acting like 6 is animals when Ogres are 5?

An ape is int 6. So according to DnD, ogres are less intelligent than things such as chimps, gorillas, and orangutans.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

(Technically players can roll a 3 on Int with 4d6 drop lowest).

I'm not sure how I'd RP that though.

 

[Horwath]

Why don't the orcs own the land? They have their parents, grandparent and great-grandparents buried in that land. A mere 80 years ago, England owned India. Do you expect India to simply go "oh, you do own this land" if England demanded it?

I would not go with all that England/India thing, but I do know of cases where grandchildren or even greatgrandchildren got property in court that their greatgrandparents were illegally kicked out(one way or the other). So yes, the dwarves have a claim on it.

Or are you saying that longer lived races have more rights than shorter lived races?

not more rights, but in civilization they could have more influence and have better claim for some things.

Why not leave the job to undead? They can be the enemy of all life. A force of destruction as natural as death and decay. Intelligence? Many undead can be very intelligent.

that is great idea, but I would like to keep some living also as adversaries by default.

And we might start getting different settings if the baseline is different.

or we might get all settings again the same if the baseline is different.

 

[Horwath]

(Technically players can roll a 3 on Int with 4d6 drop lowest).

I'm not sure how I'd RP that though.

drink a gallon of moonshine.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I think that one reason people like orcs or even human bandits as 'default' over undead or fiends, is that both undead and fiends require magic to function. They're inherently magical beings, and for a DM trying to keep magic feeling mysteries beyond the players, having every basic enemy mook animated by magic kinda prevents that.

Though that does leave human bandits as a perfectly good alternative to orc bandits.