D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Ruin Explorer]

I just think of it more that a lot of Nerdspace is now in popular culture. It's still nerd stuff, it's just that social mores don't make that a negative to anywhere to the same degree.

What is "nerdspace" then if it has no exclusion/occlusion from pop culture?

 

[Umbran]

You know it’s amazing. Having fought death dogs, hell hounds, and other 4 legged canine monsters, I have not chosen to abuse dogs. In fact I still donate to animal charities.

That's very nice.

Now, do you treat your fellow humans like dogs? Is the social standing between you and dogs the same as that between you and human minorities? Can a Rottweiler or Pit Bull read those depictions of Hell Hounds, look you in the eye and say, "Hey, that's how they used to (and in some places still do) talk about me...."

If not, maybe the analogy isn't all that strong. If yes, well, that's another situation entirely, and not only because you have a talking dog.

It’s almost like I can tell these are fantasy creatures and don’t over generalize to real world creatures and actions.

If only there was some way to apply this to drow and orcs…

If you want to test if you really can do this, reskin your orcs to carry resemblance to, say, poor, rural Caucasians from Appalachia. Publish it, and see what you get. After all, orcs are fictional, so nobody should get their nether garments in a twist over how they are depicted, right?

 

[Mistwell]

I just think NPCs arent necessarily a sum of all their parts. It’s acceptable for an orc (thug) to have pack tactics for instance and not an orcs relentless endurance. NPCs don’t follow the same rules as PCs.

Again, I am not claiming they must follow the same rules. But what if I want them to have a standard Orc trait? What does that do to CR? The guidelines in the DMG are not useful to answer that question and it's a pretty basic question about one of the most basic monsters in D&D.

 

[ezo]

The stories you can tell with them. Now, in addition to boring footsoldiers of evil, you can tell stories about cattle being tipped upside down, stolen babies, goblin markets and cursed maidens. Things that might require negotiating with the goblins rather than just hitting them.

You could do all that before they got labelled "fey". No difference, really.

 

[AlViking]

Buddy, those names were right there in the quote of the post you were quoting so you didn't need to remember off the top of your head.



That's great for your game if you think Orc traits don't need to be on Orc NPCs. But for those of us who want Orc traits on Orc NPCs, like the game has done for a very very long time now, it would be appropriate if WOTC told us what to do with the CR of that NPC when we add those traits back in to the Orc NPC. CRs are measured to the 1/4 for low levels. Use of those traits can kill a PC if not handled well. And Orcs are extremely common for the game, particularly when using past adventures.



Because you saying, "What, darkvision?" to a post that doesn't even mention that but that we've been discussing specifics for pages now was pretty aggressive in that context.

I'll state it again if you missed it. In my opinion the other features add enough to modify the CR. Not sure what else to say or why you're so upset about someone having a different opinion.

After giving it some thought the 2014 monster manual orcs had a dash as a bonus action so I'd probably keep it if I ever actually use orcs in my game. I'd still hesitate to use relentless endurance because it's just kind of annoying to track for a monster.

 

[Scribe]

The difference between and orc and a drow is the orc has grey skin and tusks, whilst the drow has purple skin and pointy ears.

Reaching the predicted end stage of Post-Tashas species design here.

 

[TiQuinn]

I've seen that a lot, too, but I think that is due to how they see the military/paramilitary groups in real life and a desire to emulate that, not from playing games where they pretended to be members of those groups.

I think it's bazillions of times more likely that someone who acts that way(or wants to) will then go on to play one of those things in D&D, than to go the other direction and play it in D&D first before going on to act that way in real life.

I'm also not sure how someone act while playing COD is the same as acting that way in real life. That seems to me to be more akin to roleplaying while playing that type of game than bringing that kind of game into real life.

But that's what I'm saying. There's no connection between the two. Some sort of indirect correlation could stand some discussion, but really shouldn't be acted on the way WotC did by removing orcs and drow from the MM.

I think there's a big difference between how people in the military act in real life, and how they act in movies and games. As for COD, they're blending fantasy and real life in real time - take someone making sexist or racist comments in an online game, for instance. I certainly see that as starting to blend the two. And again, saying there's no "Direct Link" is not the same thing as saying "No Connection" to me. Indirect connection matters too.

I think removing Orcs from the MM was fine. As I said earlier, if you want to create a playable species and present them as having diverse cultures and thoughts, you need to be able to separate that out from just being a monster to kill. I don't have to worry about the morality of fighting Gargoyles or a Gelatinous Cube unless I really want to go down that road for my campaign as a DM. As for the Drow, I guess it remains to be seen? Did they make the Drow a playable species? I think it's weirder that they apparently left the Duergar out for what I suppose is similar reasons?

 

[Umbran]

A fantasy has no bearing on real world morals. Stopping it from being a fantasy and acting the fantasy(or parts of it) out in the real world does, but then it's no longer a fantasy.

Circular argument: see argument, circular.

So, let us ask you - Do you think that nobody gets ideas from books they read? Do books have no lasting impact on culture? No work of fiction has ever inspired real-world choices or actions?

 

[TwoSix]

What is "nerdspace" then if it has no exclusion/occlusion from pop culture?

D&D is pop culture AND nerdspace, with a slight lean towards nerdspace. Pathfinder is nerdspace.

Just imagine the most average guy imaginable at the pub, and evaluate what are the odds he's heard of a specific topic. If you're like "There's almost no way he's heard of this", and it's a nerd topic, it's in nerdspace.

Like, I expect the average 25 year old athlete to have probably heard of or watched DBZ, or Attack on Titan, or a Jojo's, or something like that. That's some crossover nerd material. If they have a Crunchyroll account so they can watch isekais, then they're probably just an athletic nerd (like a Tim Duncan).

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is kind of unrelated, but there's a fun fact about the first film that flies under a lot of people's radar: in the scene where the titular character confronts his friend who's working as a translator for the occupying Japanese army, calling him a traitor for working with them while his friend protests about needing to feed and protect his family, the scene ends with his friend yelling at Ip Man (who is walking away in disgust), "I'm a Chinese man!"

What the subtitles don't catch is that he yells that sentence (and only that sentence) in Japanese, the language of their occupiers. It subtly changes the context of the scene, but since the subtitles don't indicate it, there's no way to know that unless you happen to speak either Cantonese or Japanese.

Language can be interesting like that in movies. I used to really like the movie Ong Bak and the George/Humlai character is speaking a city dialect most of the movie because he is trying to pretend he is not rural, and then he switches to another dialect (I think an eastern dialect) when that facade drops later in the film. I wouldn't have picked up on this at all but my wife pointed it out to me and it adds an extra element to the story