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.

 

[Christian Hoffer]

With respect, Christian, what you wrote was:

That's not "repudiating" anything.

On the contrary that's absolutely accepting the idea that it's some sort of legitimate or semi-legitimate "culture war".

Furthermore, it's literally the first thing you said in the article. That is, frankly, and imho, deeply unhelpful. It's also very common today in journalism, I couldn't count the articles where some journo regardless of political alignment opens by saying something is a "culture war" issue, and in the majority of cases, and I'd say this one, it's not really a culture war issue primarily, but secondarily.

Here, this is a changing approach. It's not even a wild approach - RPGs were doing this in the 1980s, for god's sake! It's just new to D&D.

This is my opinion and I didn't write the article, and I'm not a journalist, so feel free to dismiss it, but I think you shouldn't open by saying something is a "culture war" issue, because you're essentially ceding that mostly what it is, even when that's not the intent. By all means later on mention it's likely to be picked up and used in a culture war way, by people like the Telegraph, who wouldn't know a d20 if it hit them forcefully between the eyes, but please don't just start by ceding ground like that.

I devoted the majority of the article explaining the design choices in question to directly refute the idea that D&D "scrubbed" the Monster Manual of orcs.

I appreciate the feedback and probably could have worded the first sentence a bit better. It was a Friday evening post after a long week and I probably wouldn't have even written the article if not for Twitter's BS algorithm pushing a bunch of alt-right nuts whining about orcs onto my feed that afternoon. It stuck in my craw, so to speak.

 

[TiQuinn]

I devoted the majority of the article explaining the design choices in question to directly refute the idea that D&D "scrubbed" the Monster Manual of orcs.

I appreciate the feedback and probably could have worded the first sentence a bit better. It was a Friday evening post after a long week and I probably wouldn't have even written the article if not for Twitter's BS algorithm pushing a bunch of alt-right nuts whining about orcs onto my feed that afternoon. It stuck in my craw, so to speak.

I think that's fair and it's certainly seemed like an outlier from most of the articles that you've written.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I devoted the majority of the article explaining the design choices in question to directly refute the idea that D&D "scrubbed" the Monster Manual of orcs.

I appreciate the feedback and probably could have worded the first sentence a bit better. It was a Friday evening post after a long week and I probably wouldn't have even written the article if not for Twitter's BS algorithm pushing a bunch of alt-right nuts whining about orcs onto my feed that afternoon. It stuck in my craw, so to speak.

I get it. I probably wouldn't have really noticed if it wasn't like the sixth article I've read this week which opened with declaring that something I cared about was a "culture war" issue, even though I'd cared about it for decades and it never had been before! Just like argh no not here too!

So glad I don't really use Twitter anymore. Less of an option for journos but I feel like it will be irrelevant entirely unless reporting on a few more specialist issues fairly soon.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

If there's one thing I'm getting out of all this is that it's like 1989 all over again.

 

[Quickleaf]

There is a section for statblocks of any Humanoid species. This is where Orc, Elf, and many other playable species belong. The DM can find the appropriate cultural occupation, whether Hunter or Librarian (or whatever the NPC statblock are) and decide which Humanoid species it is.

Working great!

Are there species trait templates offered in the new MM?

For example, “drow uses the scout stats”…and then you have list of drow traits (faerie Fire, 120’ dark vision, etc)?

Or is it just the scout stats and nothing to differentiate drow scout from svirfneblin scout?

 

[Yaarel]

Are there species trait templates offered in the new MM?

For example, “drow uses the scout stats”…and then you have list of drow traits (faerie Fire, 120’ dark vision, etc)?

Or is it just the scout stats and nothing to differentiate drow scout from svirfneblin scout?

I dont have the MM yet, but this part yes: "Drow uses [such-and-such] stats".

Here is a page from the MM appendix. So, where one has a "Drow Priestess of Lolth" use the "Fiend Cultist". Note, "Orc Eye of Gruumsh" is a "Cultist Fanatic".

I strongly prefer this approach. Any Human idiot can be a Fiend Cultist or Cultist Fanatic. There is something very human about this kind of idiocy. So clearly listing Drow and Orc in this way, emphasizes their humanity.

I know players are concerned about statblocks being "bland" if one-size-fits-all. But it is the setting that is responsible for depth of flavor. The Orc culture(s!) in Eberron, differ from the Orc culture(s!) in Forgotten Realms. Ultimately, the DM needs to tweak any Humanoid statblock in ways that make sense for a particular local setting.

Meanwhile, the MM presenting the statsblocks in this way makes it crystal clear that Orcs are Humanoid thus unambiguously humanlike.

 

[Scribe]

I get it. I probably wouldn't have really noticed if it wasn't like the sixth article I've read this week which opened with declaring that something I cared about was a "culture war" issue, even though I'd cared about it for decades and it never had been before! Just like argh no not here too!

It certainly does suck, watching all the things we grew up with, get twisted by both sides into something unrecognizable to score meaningless points and obfuscate all the actual issues which are just looks at the news going on.

This article doesnt help, its just more fuel for the fire.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It certainly does suck, watching all the things we grew up with, get twisted by both sides into something unrecognizable to score meaningless points and obfuscate all the actual issues which are just looks at the news going on.

This article doesnt help, its just more fuel for the fire.

What's wrong with the article apart from the intro?

Calling it a "culture war" issue as an opener is very unhelpful imo, but the rest of the article is more sensible and as fair as I can tell, substantively accurate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But it is the setting that is responsible for depth of flavor.

No.

The mechanics are also responsible. Pretending they're not is shenanigans. These statblock equivalencies need an adjustment that accounts for the culture/species involved. A Drow warrior is not the same as an Orc Warrior, even if they might use the same base statblock.

And demanding that individual DMs do this? Insulting and perverse. The entire point of books like the MM is so we don't have to do that kind of thing. I get that WotC says they're going to add this, but that it's not in the MM at release is absolute madness, even though the basic concept is sound.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Are there species trait templates offered in the new MM?

For example, “drow uses the scout stats”…and then you have list of drow traits (faerie Fire, 120’ dark vision, etc)?

Or is it just the scout stats and nothing to differentiate drow scout from svirfneblin scout?

As far as I can tell it's entirely the bolded bit right now, and @Yaarel seems to be either misunderstanding your question or slightly avoiding answering it clearly.

They seem to be claiming that the species traits will come later, but that's a ridiculous thing for WotC to say. This is supposed to be the MM, not like, 90% of the MM.