D&D 4E 1/2 Orcs in 4E (Rich Baker scoop)

[IanB]

Games with female players will tell you why.

Every woman I have ever gamed with hated rape being introduced into the game, especially when wankers did it "for realism".

It's just not a suitable topic for a game imo, and it has been more or less implicit in the half-orc from the beginning.

And as others have said, if orcs can be nice then other things would need to change that people would be crying about, like orcs as cannon fodder its ok to kill by the dozens.

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make.

D&D is a game that historically has had a hard time attracting, and keeping, female gamers. *One* of the reasons for that is that for a long time, it has been an unfriendly environment for them, whether that's via the art, stuff like the half-orc's origin story, the matriarchy == evil connotations of the drow, etc. (What a surprise that some of the worst art from this standpoint to appear in 3.5 comes in the drow-specific book...)

Now, WotC has made a lot of great strides in that respect (with occasional missteps of course). Gender pronouns are used interchangeably in the 3rd edition rulebooks. In the core rulebooks, there is very little of the old unrealistic chainmail bikini nonsense. Shelley Mazzanoble's book is by all reports likely to help as well.

This is just one more step in that process, and it is a positive one IMO.

I'm not saying it is the only reason and removing it will magically create hordes of female gamers. And yes, I am aware that there are plenty of female gamers who anecdotally will say it doesn't bother them, or they ignore it, or whatever else, and that's great for them and I'm not arguing that they don't exist. My current gaming crowd has several women in it, and they are not at all shy about sharing their opinions about this sort of thing. WotC's goal, of course, is to create more gamers. More gamers means more sales. And having the largest stable of gamers possible means making a game that leaves out pointlessly exclusionary things like rape from the game text.

 

[billd91]

In my experience, people chose the half-orc race because they wanted a +2 Str mod. Not because they wanted to explore the roleplaying implications of being a product of rape, or of being an outsider.

And it runs directly contrary to my experience in which most people took the half-orc mainly because of the outsider flavor.
Looks like I'll be missing the half-orc... again.

It's probably not just me, technically, but I still have to ask: Is it just me, or are most of the announcements out of WotC about 4e disappointing these days?
(and no, I don't really expect an answer, it's mostly a rhetorical question based on my declining expectations for 4e)

 

[Rechan]

Games with female players will tell you why.

Every woman I have ever gamed with hated rape being introduced into the game, especially when wankers did it "for realism"

Rape ain't the only thing, friend.

I once had a female player get upset with me because the cause of a female villain's insanity was her having a miscarriage.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

<snip>

[sblock=Rich Baker]...snip...
Half-orcs are a bit tricky, because they imply a very ugly backstory that we frankly don't want to dwell on very much. <snip>

[/sblock]

Seriously? One more reason to avoid 4th Ed. I don't mean to come off as snarky, but really? Are we now to cut out things because of ugly implications? Isn't this a game for adults as well? Is this how 4th ed going to be? Remove anything that hints of the ugliness that can come from various and different groups of people living in the same world? Are demons/devils going to be misunderstood instead of evil now?
Heaven forbid there be creatures that are not so nice that they committ murder, rape, pillaging, torture to other sentient beings.
*shakes head*

Does anyone else feel this way?

 

[Rechan]

Well, personally I find both could be distasteful to different groups of men and women depending on various factors.

No offense, but I have the feeling that those who find "consorting with demons distasteful" aren't going to be the sorts to play D&D, yes?

 

[Kesh]

Seriously? One more reason to avoid 4th Ed. I don't mean to come off as snarky, but really? Are we now to cut out things because of ugly implications? Isn't this a game for adults as well? Is this how 4th ed going to be? Remove anything that hints of the ugliness that can come from various and different groups of people living in the same world? Are demons/devils going to be misunderstood instead of evil now?
Heaven forbid there be creatures that are not so nice that they committ murder, rape, pillaging, torture to other sentient beings.
*shakes head*

Does anyone else feel this way?

Can you possibly use any more quotation marks?

 

[frankthedm]

D&D is a game that historically has had a hard time attracting, and keeping, female gamers. *One* of the reasons for that is that for a long time, it has been an unfriendly environment for them, whether that's via the art, stuff like the half-orc's origin story, the matriarchy == evil connotations of the drow, etc. (What a surprise that some of the worst art from this standpoint to appear in 3.5 comes in the drow-specific book...)

If someone want to read in that matriarchy is why the drow are evil then I think they are beyond hope and should not be appeased.

 

[Pale Jackal]

No offense, but I have the feeling that those who find "consorting with demons distasteful" aren't going to be the sorts to play D&D, yes?

Indeed, D&D has far more things than simply tieflings that can be found unpalatable by the group you reference.

Stuff.

I think you're over-reacting, Kheti. Rape is a very sensitive subject, and D&D, as a rule, tends to focus on the heroic, so I don't think the addition of grim story elements is particularly necessary.

 

[Imaro]

Given that selling one's soul to an otherworldly being is a totally fictional concept, and rape is a horrific act of violence experienced by real people all over the world on a daily basis, I don't see how one could equate them even remotely.

No, one is fictional, the other is real. There is a whole world of difference between the two and how they need to be handled to be appropriate.

Let me put it this way, explaining either of these concepts to my ten year old who wants to start playing D&D is distasteful and thus will be glossed over or changed when and if I do (as will parts of the Warlock class). As far as one being fictional and the other not...it's a game, they're both fictional within the game and real to different people outside the game. It just seems like a really weak cop-out on the half-orc when you're totally cool with having a race magically or naturally descended from demons and a class that makes pacts with them.

As others have said, the half-orc allows a different play experience than the full blooded orc. It also allows an outsider who faces savage vs. civilization or even chaos vs. law, which I find more interesting than the standard good vs. evil (tieflings, drow, etc.). What other race in 4e will fill this niche?

 

[IanB]

If someone want to read in that matriarchy is why the drow are evil then I think they are beyond hope and should not be appeased.

There's a reason I used "connotations" there instead of an absolute statement.