D&D (2024) bring back the pig faced orcs for 6th edition, change up hobgoblins & is there a history of the design change

[Doctor Futurity]

I mean, you seem to miss the point. I won't deny that Greyhawk or Lord of the Rings were made with races of goblinoids or orcs that are meant to be evil through-and-through. They were made that way.

What I am saying, is that this as a concept reinforces some of the beliefs that real-world supremacists believe. They believe that some races are superior (genetically, culturally, whatever excuse they invent) than others. They'll even cite classic fantasy, and point out things like how Tolkien was partly inspired by Mongolians when devising the look of orcs.

So no, I don't think orcs as presented in either Greyhawk or LotR are meant to be "not that bad" or something. But I do think that this trope is overused in classic fiction and one that real-world racists love to see circulated.

That doesn't mean I don't think you can create an enemy that is meant to be "kill-on-sight." Warhammer orks (a fungus) or Tyranids (a hive-mind) or even 5E gnolls (a fiendish curse) are good examples. But a race that has tribes, gender, raises children? This is something that shouldn't be continued.

It is a fair argument that if the orcs are portrayed as having a society, culture, children, etc. then at minimum the game ought to include some clarity on just why they are predominantly evil....I sometimes think certain cultures are "CE or LE" mostly because they by definition cannot get along with or be accepted by a more traditional view of D&D's human cultures as mostly historically flawed and medieval....in other words, evil is in the eye of the beholder. But D&D has been moving away from strictly historical/medieval defaults for fantasy settings for at least 30 years now.

OTOH if the orcs are really just Fantasy Nazis then that could explain it, but the truth is.....adding more flavor and detail into the Why of it All is so much more interesting to me, and if an entire category is CE or LE I'd like to know why (gnolls in 5E as you point out being a fine example of this).

 

[Bitbrain]

Not sure exactly sure when orcs were changed but I argue they should be changed back

why?
1) orcs have been becoming more and more human like and its made them less interesting plus like drow they are a future problem for an everchanging society
hobgoblin
1) hobgoblins need something . Over the years kobolds, gnolls, bugbears and even goblins have become more interesting. Kobolds became inventors and the design has greatly improved. Same with gnolls. hobgoblins have been dulled down (they are the military/armored slightly stronger goblin) and often get sort of lumped in with orcs (theres nothing that really jumps out about a hobgoblin)

Orcs - I completely disagree. Orcs behaving/becoming more and more like humans is far more interesting in my opinion than having orcs just be some monstrous threat.

Hobgoblins - Um... 5e basically flavored these guys as the fantasy Roman Legion to the orcs’ Barbarian Horde. That makes them feel plenty distinct in my opinion.

 

[Wolf72]

I mean, you seem to miss the point. I won't deny that Greyhawk or Lord of the Rings were made with races of goblinoids or orcs that are meant to be evil through-and-through. They were made that way.

What I am saying, is that this as a concept reinforces some of the beliefs that real-world supremacists believe. They believe that some races are superior (genetically, culturally, whatever excuse they invent) than others. They'll even cite classic fantasy, and point out things like how Tolkien was partly inspired by Mongolians when devising the look of orcs.

So no, I don't think orcs as presented in either Greyhawk or LotR are meant to be "not that bad" or something. But I do think that this trope is overused in classic fiction and one that real-world racists love to see circulated.

That doesn't mean I don't think you can create an enemy that is meant to be "kill-on-sight." Warhammer orks (a fungus) or Tyranids (a hive-mind) or even 5E gnolls (a fiendish curse) are good examples. But a race that has tribes, gender, raises children? This is something that shouldn't be continued.

That's some muddied waters there. If someone is citing a fantasy world or a fantasy world seems to somehow reinforce some real world supremacist agenda I think we need to take a step back. If Fiction can't be separated from Non-fiction, we have some bigger issues. My fantasy world is just that, the real world is ... well, real. If what you say is that alarming, my entire fantasy and fiction collection needs to go. Buh-bye Wheel of Time, Malazan series, LotR, The Black Company, all the others I can't name off the top of my head.

Yes, you can use real world inspirations. Sure, you can look to a favorite fantasy for inspiration. And yes, some people will put them to dark ends no matter what you do. But to claim that an Evil race from a purely fantasy game is supporting or opening the ideas of real world racism is a heavy burden.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That's some muddied waters there. If someone is citing a fantasy world or a fantasy world seems to somehow reinforce some real world supremacist agenda I think we need to take a step back. If Fiction can't be separated from Non-fiction, we have some bigger issues. My fantasy world is just that, the real world is ... well, real. If what you say is that alarming, my entire fantasy and fiction collection needs to go. Buh-bye Wheel of Time, Malazan series, LotR, The Black Company, all the others I can't name off the top of my head.

Yes, you can use real world inspirations. Sure, you can look to a favorite fantasy for inspiration. And yes, some people will put them to dark ends no matter what you do. But to claim that an Evil race from a purely fantasy game is supporting or opening the ideas of real world racism is a heavy burden.

I won't quibble too much on other works of fiction, as each explains "evil races" in their own way (do orcs in LotR really have "baby orcs?"). But in a game like Dungeons & Dragons, which is inherently collaborative story-telling, having the default text out of the PHB/DMG/MM needs to avoid any association to supremacist language.

For example, look at this text for Half-Orcs and their alignment;

Half-Orcs inherit a tendency toward chaos from their orc parents and are not strongly inclined toward good. Half-Orcs raised among orcs and willing to live out their lives among them are usually evil.

I encourage you to listen to Three Black Halflings, a podcast that explains much of D&D's problematic history while also being funny and useful for running games generally. They point out how language like this sets an extremely bad precedent, as it's essentially saying "As a mixed-race person, you need to deal with being inherently half-EVIL." This is something real mixed race people sometimes feel, and reading text like that... well, it's kind of effed up. It's literally something that Apartheid South Africa used to categorize people. I get you don't feel that way, but people part of marginalized groups do want this kind of language changed.

Anyway, I'm clearly not convincing anyone so I think I'm done commenting, but I'll say that there really is no drawback to making such changes. The game doesn't become worse by making some races a little more complicated (instead of just even the babies are evil!), or making their lore more divorced from real ancestry (looking at you, 5E gnolls).

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, I agree. They exist in campaign specific books. Which is what I said.

Every single setting book that they exist in.

So why is the default that they must be evil, but every setting that includes them makes them able to be good or evil? Doesn't that seem like... the default is wrong?

It like saying that "by default I'm at work, except when I'm off work which is monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday, but only those specific days". That is half the week, so how is the default that you are working when 4/7 of the time you aren't?

 

[Charlaquin]

(do orcs in LotR really have "baby orcs?").

Yes

 

[wicked cool]

Orcs - I completely disagree. Orcs behaving/becoming more and more like humans is far more interesting in my opinion than having orcs just be some monstrous threat.

Hobgoblins - Um... 5e basically flavored these guys as the fantasy Roman Legion to the orcs’ Barbarian Horde. That makes them feel plenty distinct in my opinion.

And yet they were created as enemies. As you say the barbarian horde (like the tv show Vikings). The additional problem is 1/2 orcs have been become a more common race. I prefer my orcs to be like the Tolkien orcs and want to eat the humans

hobgoblins are legionnaires and fight better together but there’s very little creativity on wotc’s side for hobgoblin generals/etc. The last creative hobgoblin was toed from dragon lance. Much more effort has been put into kobolds, gnolls and bugbears

 

[Hussar]

That's some muddied waters there. If someone is citing a fantasy world or a fantasy world seems to somehow reinforce some real world supremacist agenda I think we need to take a step back. If Fiction can't be separated from Non-fiction, we have some bigger issues. My fantasy world is just that, the real world is ... well, real. If what you say is that alarming, my entire fantasy and fiction collection needs to go. Buh-bye Wheel of Time, Malazan series, LotR, The Black Company, all the others I can't name off the top of my head.

Yes, you can use real world inspirations. Sure, you can look to a favorite fantasy for inspiration. And yes, some people will put them to dark ends no matter what you do. But to claim that an Evil race from a purely fantasy game is supporting or opening the ideas of real world racism is a heavy burden.

What are you talking about? Erikson deconstructs so much of the inherent racism in fantasy in the Malazan series. He has entire books deconstructing the tropes and racism. He's talked about it publicly, many times.

The Black Company? Again, not sure what you are talking about at all. There's nothing I recall in the series that even tangentially relates to the topic.

Good grief, do we need to repeat it again? The problem with orcs (and a couple of other humanoids) is that the language used describing these races directly parallels the language used by racists to describe real world peoples.

For orcs this becomes especially problematic since, according the information we have, half-orcs are among the most popular played races in the game. One stat I saw pegged it at 5%. Which puts it in Gnome Effect territory, meaning that out of 4 groups of 5 players, one of those groups will have someone playing an orc, or, to put it another way, this affects 1/4 of the groups out there.

Now, some groups, like @Oofta's have decided that this isn't an issue. And that's perfectly, 100% groovy. No problems. But, at the end of the day, who cares? I'm sorry @Oofta, but, why should I care that your group doesn't care about this issue? If you can ignore the issue, you can ignore the fixed issue too. It makes no difference to you, so, why not let those who DO care actually have what they want? What does it cost you? What are you losing? As far as I can see, you lose absolutely nothing, and other people gain. Net win.

It utterly baffles me when people argue against changes that have zero impact upon themselves. Why do you care?

 

[Bitbrain]

And yet they were created as enemies. As you say the barbarian horde (like the tv show Vikings). The additional problem is 1/2 orcs have been become a more common race. I prefer my orcs to be like the Tolkien orcs and want to eat the humans

hobgoblins are legionnaires and fight better together but there’s very little creativity on wotc’s side for hobgoblin generals/etc. The last creative hobgoblin was toed from dragon lance. Much more effort has been put into kobolds, gnolls and bugbears

Barbarian Horde as a contrast/comparison to the vastly more regimented society of the hobgoblins. Not in the context of morality.

I don’t care if orcs were originally created to be villains and nothing else. I perceive orcs as a humanoid species, therefore I think it is more interesting to have some tribes of orcs be good guys that you can trade with and fight alongside, and others be villains that you can fight against.

By creative, you mean WOTC hasn’t created another fleshed out hobgoblin NPC in a position of command? Might want to check out Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. There are quite a few hobgoblin warlords in that adventure and they each have their own distinct personality and goals.

 

[Oofta]

Every single setting book that they exist in.

So why is the default that they must be evil, but every setting that includes them makes them able to be good or evil? Doesn't that seem like... the default is wrong?

It like saying that "by default I'm at work, except when I'm off work which is monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday, but only those specific days". That is half the week, so how is the default that you are working when 4/7 of the time you aren't?

Are they? I don't remember any in Greyhawk (there was an orc servant IIRC to Robilar, but Robilar was evil). Dragonlance didn't have orcs, I never used Mystara enough to know. Eberron does a whole bunch of weird stuff which leaves ... wait for it ... Forgotten Realms.

In any case it just goes to show that people can change the base assumption. I think if you want to vary from the base assumption for any monster in the book it should be part of world building. The MM is the generic plain version that should be used as a starting point giving the description that fits adversaries for the PCs. The MM does not and cannot represent every aspect of every creature ever used in every campaign setting. For that matter, the races represented in the PHB have pretty minimal mono-cultures as well. Because it's just a default.

Any variation from the base whether that's for monsters (of all types) or playable races IMHO should be left up to the campaign setting. There should also be a big section in the DMG and maybe even in the MM on doing this, stressing that what you get out of the box is just a starting point. I just don't see why orcs should be singled out over every other intelligent creature.