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

[Brown Jenkin]

Why do half-orcs have to be from rape. Why couldn't it be a product of love between to species. Humans might be as brutal and ugly to Elves as Orcs are to humans, but no-one claims that half-elves are the product of rape.

 

[mhensley]

Gnomes + Halflings? No one even THOUGHT of that.

Sorry, but someone has. They are in HackMaster as Gnomelings.

 

[Cadfan]

Why do half-orcs have to be from rape. Why couldn't it be a product of love between to species. Humans might be as brutal and ugly to Elves as Orcs are to humans, but no-one claims that half-elves are the product of rape.

Because,

1) Historically, that's how half-orc PCs were written in official materials.
2) Orcs are typically used as ravening hordes of savages, essentially evil in nature and culture, and fit targets for the player characters to guiltlessly slaughter by the thousands. They are NOT typically used in contexts where they might invite Farmer Bob's daughter Sally to the county hoe-down.

Half-orcs could be rewritten so that Sally's half-orc children could show up at Farmer Bob's family reunion and play tag around Farmer Bob's ankles. But first Sally's husband, Gronk Skullcleaver, would have to be rewritten so that he could attend as well.

And if you DID rewrite Gronk, why not skip the half-orcs, and just let players play as Gronk?

 

[Firevalkyrie]

I liked the look of the half-orc. I thought they came miles in terms of the artwork, and I appreciated the inclusion of a semi-savage humanoid.

Unfortunately, half-orcs as a race have a lot of baggage.

I think things would have gone a lot better if they'd skipped the "half" part, and just made them orcs. This would fit my desire for a semi-savage humanoid race, without the "child of rape" implications that have been hanging around for decades, and without triggering my hatred of half-races and the bizarre rules about how they can or cannot interbreed.

Humans + Elves? Yes!
Humans + Dwarves? No!
Humans + Orcs? Yes!
Elves + Dwarves? Absolutely not!
Dwarves + Orcs? Never!
Elves + Orcs? Oh lord no!
Gnomes + Halflings? No one even THOUGHT of that.

So the apparent lesson here is that humans have an extremely plastic genome, as long as they're breeding with someone hawt, or getting raped.

Lame.

Don't forget:

Humans + Dwarves? Yes, with the offspring being mules (thank you, Dark Sun)
Humans + Dragons? Oh yes.
Humans + Thri-Kreen? Um... what?

 

[Clavis]

The only Half Orc in any of my campaigns was specifically not the product of rape. The player's backstory was that his mom was a human "orc groupie", who loved the enormous size of Orcish, um... equipment.

In that particular campaign there where not only quite a few Half Orcs born from human women "experimenting", but there was a large, multi-generational population of Half Orcs in one of the nations.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Some humans will mate with anything. Just turn off safesearch in Google Images if you don't believe me. Why should orcs be very different in that regard? I expect that if two humanoid species with compatible genitalia, compatible genetics, and flexible mating behaviour were present in an area for any length of time, there would be hybrids rather quickly. This goes especially if they're on relatively good terms with one another, and liquor is involved.

I don't see why you need to have a "zOMG RAEP!!!1" backstory if you want to include half-orcs in your setting. It actually speaks more to the prurience of those who think that such a backstory is necessary, than anything else.

 

[Imaro]

Yeah, I don't get this whole "has to be from rape" thing. Even in the real world, different cultures value different attributes as far as attractiveness goes. Is it really so impropable that a tribe, culture or even nation of humans could find the strength of orcs an attractive trait and thus choose to interbreed with them? I just don't buy the whole...half-orc origins are too touchy...but hey we added a class that makes pacts with demons and a race that spawned from humans and demons in the past (not exactly sure what this implies.).

 

[Pale Jackal]

Because,

1) Historically, that's how half-orc PCs were written in official materials.
2) Orcs are typically used as ravening hordes of savages, essentially evil in nature and culture, and fit targets for the player characters to guiltlessly slaughter by the thousands. They are NOT typically used in contexts where they might invite Farmer Bob's daughter Sally to the county hoe-down.

Half-orcs could be rewritten so that Sally's half-orc children could show up at Farmer Bob's family reunion and play tag around Farmer Bob's ankles. But first Sally's husband, Gronk Skullcleaver, would have to be rewritten so that he could attend as well.

And if you DID rewrite Gronk, why not skip the half-orcs, and just let players play as Gronk?

That's a good point, if [some] orcs are civilized enough for a human to form a loving relationship with one... why can't the PCs just be one of those civilized orcs?

I also hate "mixed" offspring.

Edit: The Tiefling race nowadays is NOT from demon sex (which I hate conceptually... c'mon, sex with a demon? How'd THAT happen? That just makes demons too "human" for my liking), but rather the result of an ancient empire's curse/pact/whatever (which I like, though I think I'd prefer Tieflings be more human than 4E art shows, but whatever.)

 

[Cadfan]

Yeah, I don't get this whole "has to be from rape" thing. Even in the real world, different cultures value different attributes as far as attractiveness goes. Is it really so impropable that a tribe, culture or even nation of humans could find the strength of orcs an attractive trait and thus choose to interbreed with them? I just don't buy the whole...half-orc origins are too touchy...but hey we added a class that makes pacts with demons and a race that spawned from humans and demons in the past (not exactly sure what this implies.).

But if orcs have traits conducive to courting and interbreeding with humans, and if orc culture is such that this is plausible, why not skip the whole thing? Just declare that orcs and humans can interbreed, but don't reproduce, and make orcs a playable race.

You've basically got two options on orcs.

1: Ravening savages. You can exterminate whole tribes with no guilt. See Lord of the Rings for details.
2: Your hairy, green neighbor Thog. His daughter Thoggarina has been seeing your boy Joe on the sly, and consarnit'all, you couldn't be more pleased. She'll bear him good, strong farm boys, Thoggarina will!

If you have the first context, the "Why can't this be love?" argument doesn't make much sense.

if you have the second context, why aren't orcs playable? And doesn't making orcs playable kind of undermine the need for half-orcs?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Because,

1) Historically, that's how half-orc PCs were written in official materials.
2) Orcs are typically used as ravening hordes of savages, essentially evil in nature and culture, and fit targets for the player characters to guiltlessly slaughter by the thousands. They are NOT typically used in contexts where they might invite Farmer Bob's daughter Sally to the county hoe-down.

Half-orcs could be rewritten so that Sally's half-orc children could show up at Farmer Bob's family reunion and play tag around Farmer Bob's ankles. But first Sally's husband, Gronk Skullcleaver, would have to be rewritten so that he could attend as well.

And if you DID rewrite Gronk, why not skip the half-orcs, and just let players play as Gronk?

I envision some humans trading with some orcs, who maintain good relations with those humans in order to ensure that they'll have access to trade goods that they can't get in their locality by raiding. Those humans are treated well, and have a decent amount of social status among the orcs by virtue of their value to the tribe. Some are even made into honourary tribe members. Some "go native." All this close contact with the orcs means that some of these humans with indiscriminating standards end up pairing up with orcs on a temporary or permanent basis. Half-breeds are produced that are capable of breeding true, and eventually you have small bands of half-orcs joining together and living on the edges of both human and orc society.

This was not a difficult arrangement to conceive. I expect that I will be credited in the half-orc article for solving this problem for WotC, and contacted so that I can tell them to where the cheque should be delivered.