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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8935237" data-attributes="member: 18">Some other good posts on this here but I'd really say with Orcs, for me, it comes down to:1) They tend to end up either filling the role of &quot;other humans&quot; or literally being identified with human cultures - typically ones that were heavily &quot;othered&quot; by the West, and conquered by colonizers/imperial forces. Even if you're not intending Orcs to be, say, Native Americans, if you've managed to set up a situation where they're directly analogous to that, and you're saying the PCs need to kill them, that's uhhhh awkward.2) Race-war/genocide/ethnic-cleansing, even if you're saying &quot;But they were all bad people!&quot; is gross. It's creepy. It's not fun to sign up to be in a death squad for beings based on their race/species - well, I'm sure it is for some people, but that's even creepier!3) The way biological humanoid &quot;evil monsters&quot; get described almost always ends up aligning with how real-world, recent (like, like 100 years, often more recent than that) ways that genocidal groups or ultra-oppressive racist groups have described humans that they don't like. Volo's for 5E had a good example, where, I'm sure accidentally, the description of Orcs was more or less exactly the description you'd get from an educated KKK member who was expressing their honest (and utterly horrifying) opinion on Black people. To the point where there have been racist textbooks and the like with nigh-identical language. This is very hard to work around, because it's very easy to fall into it.And the key thing is - this is rarely intentional - not never - c.f. The Orcs of Thar which is very much intentional on point 1 and de facto point 3 - but it's just incredibly hard to avoid if you make entire biological, free-willed groups of being &quot;evil&quot;. Even if they say it's &quot;just cultural&quot; you start walking at speed towards a whole bunch of creepy late 1800s and early 1900s &quot;White Man's Burden&quot;-type stuff, where these beings need to be &quot;civilized&quot;.Personally I don't have the same problem re: Demons so long as we're taking an approach where they aren't biological beings with free will, but something more like robots or immortal spirits that have a limited range of potential decision-making. I think there are genuinely far fewer issues with &quot;Robot hunter&quot; or &quot;Demon slayer&quot; than &quot;Orc killer&quot;. Though you can then recreate the same problems by &quot;doing a Blade Runner&quot; and making it clear the robots/demons DO have free will, of course, if you like that sort of thing!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8935237, member: 18"] Some other good posts on this here but I'd really say with Orcs, for me, it comes down to: 1) They tend to end up either filling the role of "other humans" or literally being identified with human cultures - typically ones that were heavily "othered" by the West, and conquered by colonizers/imperial forces. Even if you're not intending Orcs to be, say, Native Americans, if you've managed to set up a situation where they're [I]directly analogous to that[/I], and you're saying the PCs need to kill them, that's uhhhh awkward. 2) Race-war/genocide/ethnic-cleansing, even if you're saying "But they were all bad people!" is gross. It's creepy. It's not fun to sign up to be in a death squad for beings based on their race/species - well, I'm sure it is for some people, but that's even creepier! 3) The way biological humanoid "evil monsters" get described almost always ends up aligning with how real-world, recent (like, like 100 years, often more recent than that) ways that genocidal groups or ultra-oppressive racist groups have described humans that they don't like. Volo's for 5E had a good example, where, I'm sure accidentally, the description of Orcs was more or less exactly the description you'd get from an educated KKK member who was expressing their honest (and utterly horrifying) opinion on Black people. To the point where there have been racist textbooks and the like with nigh-identical language. This is very hard to work around, because it's very easy to fall into it. And the key thing is - this is rarely intentional - not never - c.f. The Orcs of Thar which is very much intentional on point 1 and de facto point 3 - but it's just incredibly hard to avoid if you make entire biological, free-willed groups of being "evil". Even if they say it's "just cultural" you start walking at speed towards a whole bunch of creepy late 1800s and early 1900s "White Man's Burden"-type stuff, where these beings need to be "civilized". Personally I don't have the same problem re: Demons so long as we're taking an approach where they aren't biological beings with free will, but something more like robots or immortal spirits that have a limited range of potential decision-making. I think there are genuinely far fewer issues with "Robot hunter" or "Demon slayer" than "Orc killer". Though you can then recreate the same problems by "doing a Blade Runner" and making it clear the robots/demons DO have free will, of course, if you like that sort of thing! [/QUOTE]

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