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

[Stormonu]

Does it have to be a whole race that's inherently okay to murder though?

I repeat - DON'T CARE. Orcs are orcs. Kill 'em all. I don't need to delve into why they do what they do that justifies killing them. They have the pie, you want it. Off 'em.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I got out in 1998, so I have no idea what's changed since then. But back then, there was not transition out of the military to civilian life. You spent your last week (2 weeks if you played the system) just going around with a checklist having every area sign off on it as you turned things in (TA gear, outprocessing dept, pay, etc).

Based on my own experiences, and those of many of my friends, the military absolutely needs to have a deprogramming period when you get out. And not just for the big stuff. When I got out, I had a hard time dealing with civilians at work who were lazy and refused to do anything. In the military, you were direct and forceful to those people. Can you imagine yelling and insulting someone at work who wasn't doing their job at a call center? Thankfully I was smart enough to never do that because I knew the difference, but it was hard to transition from the one area to the next. I mean, one of the guys in my squad was notoriously filthy. His idea of ironing his BDUs (uniform) was to lay them in between his mattresses. His barracks room was a complete filth pile every time it was inspected, and it stunk to high heaven. After counseling statements never had a result and he refused to change, we took him out on the flight line and forcibly washed him down. He wasn't ever dirty after that.

But think about that for a minute, in hindsight. How horrific was that? Talk about consent issues. But back then, it wasn't unusual to do that to someone who was always getting out of line. And it's trained that way (or it was) from day 1 in Basic training. Just look up blanket parties. While officially frowned upon, the cadre absolutely encouraged them. If someone in the squad screws up, the whole squad gets punished. So let the squad dish out the punishment, and that way the person will learn. Full Metal Jacket was the most accurate portrayal of boot camp that I've ever seen.

so yeah, back to the point. The military breaks you down into nothing, then rebuilds you back up as they need you. then they send you on your way with no retraining once you ETS (leave). That is fundamentally flawed. And a big reason why so many vets are having so many issues after they get out.

nothing has changed that I have heard off hence why I had the idea of the reverse boot camp.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Let's take human bandits as an example. Are some evil? Absolutely. But some may have been forced into at a very young age (similar to child soldiers), some may be desperate and see it as their only chance of survival. Some may be Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and give most of their money to the poor. Or do you think every thief in existence is evil with a capital "E"?

So you say that "okay, in my campaign all bandits are evil". Cool. I have no problem with that. I also have no problem with effectively all creatures of a certain species being evil. I don't even have an issue with certain monsters being effectively biological robots*. Which doesn't mean I will ever have a hunting season on any intelligent creature. If the PCs go to take out a group of orcs it's because the orcs are raiders or soldiers in an invading army and so on.

*In my campaign orcs are not a natural creature in the traditional sense.

Forget about "evil". It's unhelpful. It's possible to be evil and still never have broken a law. You can't kill someone because they are evil. You cannot kill a baby because it might grow up to do bad things. It is not a flag that tells you "it is okay to kill this thing" and it never has been.

"It it an antagonist?" is what matters. If it is an antagonist it is okay to use force against them, and using force will often mean killing them. Antagonists are usually easy to identify. Here is a helpful checklist:

1) Is it trying to rip your face off?
2) Is it trying to rip someone else's face off?
3) Is it planning on doing something that will result in people's faces being ripped off?
4) Is it causing someone or something else to rip people's faces off?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I got out in 1998, so I have no idea what's changed since then. But back then, there was not transition out of the military to civilian life. You spent your last week (2 weeks if you played the system) just going around with a checklist having every area sign off on it as you turned things in (TA gear, outprocessing dept, pay, etc).

Based on my own experiences, and those of many of my friends, the military absolutely needs to have a deprogramming period when you get out. And not just for the big stuff. When I got out, I had a hard time dealing with civilians at work who were lazy and refused to do anything. In the military, you were direct and forceful to those people. Can you imagine yelling and insulting someone at work who wasn't doing their job at a call center? Thankfully I was smart enough to never do that because I knew the difference, but it was hard to transition from the one area to the next. I mean, one of the guys in my squad was notoriously filthy. His idea of ironing his BDUs (uniform) was to lay them in between his mattresses. His barracks room was a complete filth pile every time it was inspected, and it stunk to high heaven. After counseling statements never had a result and he refused to change, we took him out on the flight line and forcibly washed him down. He wasn't ever dirty after that.

But think about that for a minute, in hindsight. How horrific was that? Talk about consent issues. But back then, it wasn't unusual to do that to someone who was always getting out of line. And it's trained that way (or it was) from day 1 in Basic training. Just look up blanket parties. While officially frowned upon, the cadre absolutely encouraged them. If someone in the squad screws up, the whole squad gets punished. So let the squad dish out the punishment, and that way the person will learn. Full Metal Jacket was the most accurate portrayal of boot camp that I've ever seen.

so yeah, back to the point. The military breaks you down into nothing, then rebuilds you back up as they need you. then they send you on your way with no retraining once you ETS (leave). That is fundamentally flawed. And a big reason why so many vets are having so many issues after they get out.

I was never in the military, but a lot of this sounds like my experience of a British boarding school.

It might explain why there is so much bullying in the corridors of power, since an awful lot of those people went to British boarding school and where never deprogrammed.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I repeat - DON'T CARE. Orcs are orcs. Kill 'em all. I don't need to delve into why they do what they do that justifies killing them. They have the pie, you want it. Off 'em.

Honestly?

I can respect that.

We talk down to murder hobos, but sometimes just being comedic sociopaths is a ton of fun. You know, as long as we're being honest about what we're doing. We're killing them because we want their stuff, or because we're spoiling for a fight and the PCs are bad people.

I have a much larger issue with trying to justify it.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I repeat - DON'T CARE. Orcs are orcs. Kill 'em all. I don't need to delve into why they do what they do that justifies killing them. They have the pie, you want it. Off 'em.

As long as you're not giving the orcs a Cockney accent or making them inspired by Indiginous/African tribal cultures... seems fine. If you're including a bunch of stereotypes to orcs that exist to real people, maybe don't make them evil to the core.

 

[Oofta]

That's why I said raiders instead of bandits.

Fallout raiders are in no way ambiguous. They torture people, they decorate with human corpses, they are literal monsters because of what they do, not because they all dress like punk rock sadness or look different. They weren't 'born that way', they made choices that led to them being irredeemable.

The point being killability should be context, not literal hatred of the race.

So is it "okay" if every orc in my campaign that has ever been (or ever will be) encountered has been a raider? Who gets to decide?

My campaign world is over-simplified and there are often clear delineations of good and evil because it's a game and escapism. I don't think the real world is all that clean, many people don't "choose" a life of crime or at least don't see any options. Many gangs recruit teens or even children by threatening their lives and the lives of their families. If you're 12 years old and the gang tells you that if you don't join they'll do unspeakable things to your mother and sister before killing them? That when they're done they're going to kill you as well? Does that 12 year old really have a choice?

There have been story arcs in my campaign where I deal with some of that. Other times I don't want to. That's where monsters come in.

 

[Oofta]

Forget about "evil". It's unhelpful. It's possible to be evil and still never have broken a law. You can't kill someone because they are evil. You cannot kill a baby because it might grow up to do bad things. It is not a flag that tells you "it is okay to kill this thing" and it never has been.

"It it an antagonist?" is what matters. If it is an antagonist it is okay to use force against them, and using force will often mean killing them. Antagonists are usually easy to identify. Here is a helpful checklist:

1) Is it trying to rip your face off?
2) Is it trying to rip someone else's face off?
3) Is it planning on doing something that will result in people's faces being ripped off?
4) Is it causing someone or something else to rip people's faces off?

So if Joe is guarding the doomsday device, it's never okay to kill them? After all, defending the device is their job but they aren't personally going out of their way to harm anyone.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So is it "okay" if every orc in my campaign that has ever been (or ever will be) encountered has been a raider? Who gets to decide?

Anyone replying to this public discussion on a public board?

 

[Charlaquin]

So is it "okay" if every orc in my campaign that has ever been (or ever will be) encountered has been a raider? Who gets to decide?

The only people who get to decide what is or isn’t ok in your campaign is you and your play group. But what’s ok for WotC to publish is a different story. If you want always-evil orcs in your home game and your players are cool with it, knock yourselves out. But WotC should really try to move away from essentializing races in official material.