Are Orcs in the Monster Manual? No and Yes.

The culture war surrounding orcs in Dungeons & Dragons continues with the release of the 2025 Monster Manual. Review copies of the Monster Manual are out in the wild, with many sites, EN World included, are giving their thoughts about the final core rulebook for the revised Fifth Edition ruleset. But while most commentators are discussing whether or not the monsters in the new Monster Manual hit harder than their 2014 equivalent, a growing number of commentators (mostly on Elon Musk's Twitter, but other places as well) are decrying the abolishment of orcs in the new rulebook.

Several months ago, would-be culture warriors complained about the depiction of orcs in the new Player's Handbook. Instead of depicting orcs as bloodthirsty marauders or creatures of evils, orcs (or more specifically, playable orcs) were depicted as a traveling species given endurance, determination, and the ability by their god Gruumsh to see in the darkness to help them "wander great plains, vast caverns, and churning seas." Keep in mind that one of the core facets of Dungeons & Dragons is that every game is defined by its players rather than an official canon, but some people were upset or annoyed about the shift in how a fictional species of humanoids were portrayed in two paragraphs of text and a piece of art in a 250+ page rulebook.

With the pending release of the Monster Manual, the orc is back in the spotlight once again. This time, it's because orcs no longer have statblocks in the Monster Manual. While the 2014 Monster Manual had a section detailing orc culture and three statblocks for various kinds of orcs, all specific mention of orcs have indeed been removed from the Monster Manual. The orcs are not the only creature to receive this treatment - drow are no longer in the Monster Manual, nor are duergar.

However, much of this is due to a deliberate design choice, meant not to sanitize Dungeons & Dragons from evil sentient species, but rather to add some versatility to a DM's toolbox. Orcs (and drow) are now covered under the expanded set of generic NPC statblocks in the Monster Manual. Instead of players being limited to only three Orc-specific statblocks (the Orc, the Orc War Chief and the Orc Eye of Gruumsh), DMs can use any of the 45 Humanoid statblocks in the book. Campaigns can now feature orc assassins, orc cultists, orc gladiators, or orc warriors instead of leaning on a handful of stats that lean into specific D&D lore.

Personally, I generally like that the D&D design ethos is leaning away from highly specific statblocks to more generalized ones. Why wouldn't an orc be an assassin or a pirate? Why should orcs (or any other species chosen to be adversaries in a D&D campaign) be limited to a handful of low CR statblocks? The design shift allows DMs more versatility, not less.

However, I do think that the D&D design team would do well to eventually provide some modularity to these generic statblocks, allowing DMs to "overlay" certain species-specific abilities over these NPC statblocks. Abilities like darkvision for orcs or the ability to cast darkness for drow or a fiendish rebuke for tieflings would be an easy way to separate the generic human assassin from the orc without impacting a statblock's CR.

As for the wider controversy surrounding orcs in D&D, the game and its lore is evolving over time, just as it has over the past 50 years. There's still a place for evil orcs, but they no longer need to be universally (or multiversally) evil within the context of the game. The idea that D&D's rulebooks must depict anything but the rules themselves a specific way is antithetical to the mutability of Dungeons & Dragons, which is supposed to be one of the game's biggest strengths.

 

[aco175]

I seem to recall when 5e first came out and they wanted to make monsters more simple and go back to an earlier edition. The goblins in LMoP were just goblin and if you wanted a leader, you just give one max HP. Seems people did not like this since 4e made monster so easy to use. They started to come out rather fast with dedicated types such as goblin archer or goblin soldier or whatever.

Looking at this thread, it seems that the new MM will have me going back to 3e days with the need for extra work to make something I want. I know eventually I'll have the orc bandit and the orc thug and the orc whatever I need, but why make things harder. I want an average orc to fight my 2nd level PCs. I now need the bandit statblock and modify it along with the thug statblock to modify. I guess I could just use the bandit and thug as written and say good enough, but what if I want to add some goblin bandits as well. Do I just use the same one and squint harder, or should the orc and goblin bandit be different?

Without having the book, it seems like a move backwards.

 

[Reynard]

It seems like this argument as usual calcified around page 2 or 3 but honestly I don't see why it's such a big deal. If I want a warrior that happens to be of a specific species that's in the PHB all l have to do is glance at my PHB. I don't need the 3-4 lines that actually matter copied over into a chart in the monster manual, my PHB isn't going to suddenly evaporate. I'm not going to suddenly forget that basically every non-human species has darkvision, that dwarves are resistant to poison, that dragonborn have a breath weapon.

The MM is a book for use at the table. You should not have to flip through 2 other books to use it. It really is that simple.

 

[Parmandur]

I guess I could just use the bandit and thug as written and say good enough

Yup.

but what if I want to add some goblin bandits as well. Do I just use the same one and squint harder

Sure.

or should the orc and goblin bandit be different?

The NPC stat blocks can all be Medium or Small, so there is that difference. However, what the Bandit brings to a combat for 2 rounds as opposed to the Performer matters more. Stat blocks are just game objects to describe a brief few rounds of combat.

 

[AlViking]

The MM is a book for use at the table. You should not have to flip through 2 other books to use it. It really is that simple.

I disagree. If I'm planning an encounter it's not hard to jot down a note on what the special species abilities are, the only time I'd have to flip back to the PHB if I didn't already remember the abilities would be if I were improvising an encounter. Meanwhile that same statblock for a warrior can be reused a dozen times over no matter what species they are.

 

[Bae'zel]

The MM is a book for use at the table. You should not have to flip through 2 other books to use it. It really is that simple.

I flip through the 3 core books all of the time when I DM (spells, feats, treasure, random encounters etc). That is, unless I planned my encounters ahead of time, as I take notes to reduce page and book flipping.

I know that I’ll be printing a summary sheet of humanoid traits to accompany the NPC section of the MM because I like that nuance. It is not a game changer for me, as I always make tweaks.

Clearly this revision to 5e is creating an awful lot of frustration or disappointment. Either hack the game to your liking or play something else. I heard Pathfinder 2e is welcoming ex-5e folks with open arms.

 

[Distracted DM]

A bunch of thugs become a lot more threatening when you give them tiefling's Hellish Rebuke!
Ok Thug might be a bad example since it was, relatively, one of the most OP statblocks in the 2014 MM, but you get the point.

 

[Reynard]

I disagree. If I'm planning an encounter it's not hard to jot down a note on what the special species abilities are, the only time I'd have to flip back to the PHB if I didn't already remember the abilities would be if I were improvising an encounter. Meanwhile that same statblock for a warrior can be reused a dozen times over no matter what species they are.

I flip through the 3 core books all of the time when I DM (spells, feats, treasure, random encounters etc). That is, unless I planned my encounters ahead of time, as I take notes to reduce page and book flipping.

I know that I’ll be printing a summary sheet of humanoid traits to accompany the NPC section of the MM because I like that nuance. It is not a game changer for me, as I always make tweaks.

Clearly this revision to 5e is creating an awful lot of frustration or disappointment. Either hack the game to your liking or play something else. I heard Pathfinder 2e is welcoming ex-5e folks with open arms.

What I find frustrating is people saying "Well, I don't need that, so obviouly it is a non-issue."

I don't need it either. i have been running D&D for 35 years. Most of us here at EN World have. But that does not change the fact that it was a simple organizational and utilitarian element that they did not just leave out, that they actively excised.

What is frustrating is people that just shrug and refuse to acknowledge that maybe WotC isn't perfect and will go to the mat every time, even when it is clear that they made an active decision to make GMing just that little bit harder.

Now, someone should come by soon and remind us all that once this book hits Beyond, they will probably have a button to apply the species to any of the NPCs. Hoorah. That's great -- if you use Beyond.

In other words: please stop apologizing for WotC by way of telling everyone else how wrong they are for appreciating quality of life features.

 

[AlViking]

What I find frustrating is people saying "Well, I don't need that, so obviouly it is a non-issue."

I don't need it either. i have been running D&D for 35 years. Most of us here at EN World have. But that does not change the fact that it was a simple organizational and utilitarian element that they did not just leave out, that they actively excised.

What is frustrating is people that just shrug and refuse to acknowledge that maybe WotC isn't perfect and will go to the mat every time, even when it is clear that they made an active decision to make GMing just that little bit harder.

Now, someone should come by soon and remind us all that once this book hits Beyond, they will probably have a button to apply the species to any of the NPCs. Hoorah. That's great -- if you use Beyond.

In other words: please stop apologizing for WotC by way of telling everyone else how wrong they are for appreciating quality of life features.

People do not need to be spoonfed every detail even if they are new GMs. If it matters to them that the warriors are orcs or any other species in the book they'll figure it out. Meanwhile it gets away from there being a default setting and culture for every single campaign.

It seems to me that the issue is that they are taking a different approach rather than the change itself.

 

[TiQuinn]

It seems like this argument as usual calcified around page 2 or 3 but honestly I don't see why it's such a big deal. If I want a warrior that happens to be of a specific species that's in the PHB all l have to do is glance at my PHB. I don't need the 3-4 lines that actually matter copied over into a chart in the monster manual, my PHB isn't going to suddenly evaporate. I'm not going to suddenly forget that basically every non-human species has darkvision, that dwarves are resistant to poison, that dragonborn have a breath weapon.

I would kind of like a book at some point that talks about special abilities given to followers of a specific cult or god. But a follower of Lollth doesn't have to be a drow, even if drow are the most common followers, same as a priest of Grummsh. That to me would be more flexible and useful. Give me some ideas of how to have different types of clerics that follow different tenets of wrath, subterfuge or trickery not dedicated to a specific god or cult and then I can plug them into my own homebrew campaign as I see fit.

I could see specific versions in campaign setting books with certain warriors from a particular faction having specific stat blocks as a starting point. I don't need them in a book that is supposed to be used for any and all campaign worlds in the multiverse. The detail lore and associated cultural influences should be campaign setting specific IMO.

Yeah I’m kind of two minds about it. Maybe it’s part of the way I prep adventures but I don’t really concern myself with having an exact entry from the Monster Manual for an orc warrior versus an orc war chief. Most of the time I’m creating a crib sheet of monsters I’m going to use anyways and most of the time I’m doing some re-specing in those notes because I’m going to track hit points, special abilities and so forth. I’m very rarely referencing the books directly at the table.

OTOH, I get that sometimes this can feel “lazy” on the part of the publisher. I remember when the Van Richten’s guide came out, and for key NPCs, it would simply say “See the MM entry for Ghost / Mummy Lord”, and thought that was kind of a cop out. I wanted some variations there for what should be unique NPCs.

 

[rozgarth]

What about species like duergar? They aren’t in the PHB, so you can’t just look at their traits and use them to modify the generic humanoid stat blocks even if you wanted to. That seems like a shame. They have very distinctive traits and abilities. It seems like for creatures like duergar, this change just eliminates them altogether from the MM — would a new DM even know what duergar are? Are they even referred to?