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

[JiffyPopTart]

Yeah, but if you're the DM, then you would know the answer. I don't care what the players know; I want to know the worldlore.

Because what does that mean, no one has ever encountered a female orc? That could mean anything from "orcs are grown in pods" to "orcs are bamfed into existence by their gods" to "orcs keep their women locked up where nobody can see them" to "orc women look exactly like the men do, and even have a hyena-style pseudophallus" to "all orcs are male, but they reproduce parthenogenetically."

None of which answer the question of, are baby orcs--a phrase that can mean a true infant to one just popped out of the orcpod a moment ago, are evil?

I think @Oofta is saying in his game orcs are the equivalent of the fake facades that make up western towns in a movie lot. They exist solely to be "bad guy raider types" and do t have more nuance than that one facet.

So the women, children, intellectual, peaceful, and friendly orcs exist in the world but never on camera.

I think it's an odd campaign style but if it works for their group it works for their group.

 

[Charlaquin]

ALL thought and behavior is a product of biology. They originate as processes in the brain. Change the brain and you change the thoughts. That's why chickens don't act like humans and why stroke victims often have changes in personality and cognitive ability.

You’re oversimplifying, at least in the case of sapient beings. Sapient beings’ thoughts and behaviors are a product of a combination of biology and environment. A person’s experiences shape their thought processes and their behaviors. “Evil,” as the term is generally used, refers to a phenomenon that is unique to sapient beings. So, we must ask, does evil come from biology, or from environment? You’re really comfortable saying it comes from biology? That evil people are just born that way, and would end up that way regardless of their upbringing? If so, all I can say is I strongly disagree and I find that view Abhorrent.

And how is it more troubling than your earlier example about sharks being bloodthirsty?

Because sharks act as they do out of instinctual drive and dietary necessity. Again, “evil,” as the term is typically used, implies a willful disregard for morality, which sharks lack.

If sharks can be bloodthirsty than why can't orcs?

Because orcs are sapient. And they can be bloodthirsty, but if they are we must ask whether that bloodthirst is a product of nature or nurture. And saying it’s a product of nature carries some pretty gross implications.

I think you may be implying a link to racism, but that argument doesn't hold because, despite Gary Gygax's abuse of English language, orcs are not a race.

They are an entirely different species in EVERY setting I've ever seen that includes orcs. In fact, in the default D&D setting they don't even share a phylogenetic tree with humans; the shark in the earlier example is more closely related to us than the orcs are.

I don’t have the energy to pick this argument apart right now. Suffice it to say, this is a thermian argument and also entirely misses the point.

 

[Vaalingrade]

ALL thought and behavior is a product of biology. They originate as processes in the brain. Change the brain and you change the thoughts. That's why chickens don't act like humans and why stroke victims often have changes in personality and cognitive ability.

And how is it more troubling than your earlier example about sharks being bloodthirsty? If sharks can be bloodthirsty than why can't orcs? I think you may be implying a link to racism, but that argument doesn't hold because, despite Gary Gygax's abuse of English language, orcs are not a race. They are an entirely different species in EVERY setting I've ever seen that includes orcs. In fact, in the default D&D setting they don't even share a phylogenetic tree with humans; the shark in the earlier example is more closely related to us than the orcs are.

The link to racism is that a lot of people use this argument to suggest certain personality traits and behaviors are inherent to certain groups of humans. Which is obvious pseudoscientific hogwash because psychology is a lot more complex than this because sapient minds grow and develop differently from non-sapient ones. And that's what a lot of use are trying to avoid following in our fiction.

Trying to handwave it by saying 'well, they're not human and not technically a race but a species' doesn't work because it's still excusing and encouraging treating other sapients this way. And really, that goes into a dangerous place of asking how far removed from 'human' a sapient can get before we get to treat them terribly. Neandertal? H. habilis? Alpha Centurian? Betelgeuse? AI?

I prefer to side with a certain wise robot and paraphrase that dignity is the right of all sapient life.

 

[Mecheon]

And how is it more troubling than your earlier example about sharks being bloodthirsty? If sharks can be bloodthirsty than why can't orcs?

As the resident zoology nerd, I'd be remise if I didn't point out that sharks.... Aren't bloodthirsty. If a shark isn't hungry you can pat 'em on the snount even. Pat 'em like a dog. They're not smart like barracudas (Who think humans are just big ol' apex predators and will follow people around in the hopes we just tear a shark in half so they can eat the remains), they're just, things.

Its just they're apex predators who work on a system of "My mouth is the only thing I have to test things with so that's what I'm gonna use to test everything" and "That looks like what I normally eat, its probably the same"

 

[Charlaquin]

As the resident zoology nerd, I'd be remise if I didn't point out that sharks.... Aren't bloodthirsty. If a shark isn't hungry you can pat 'em on the snount even. Pat 'em like a dog. They're not smart like barracudas (Who think humans are just big ol' apex predators and will follow people around in the hopes we just tear a shark in half so they can eat the remains), they're just, things.

Its just they're apex predators who work on a system of "My mouth is the only thing I have to test things with so that's what I'm gonna use to test everything" and "That looks like what I normally eat, its probably the same"

I was referring to the part where the smell of blood attracts them. But, yeah, generally sharks are pretty chill.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't see why a different species would necessarily share our morality, especially not when they were created for a purpose in a fantasy world.

If you think it's okay to kill someone because they do not share your morality, then you do not share my morality.

 

[S'mon]

sapient minds grow and develop differently from non-sapient ones.

Eh? That doesn't sound like a scientific statement at all.

 

[Bohandas]

Eh? That doesn't sound like a scientific statement at all.

That's a nice way of putting it. I was about to describe it in a much more dismissive way, but for the sake of avoiding an infraction I'm just going to second your assessment of it as unscientific.

 

[Oofta]

I think @Oofta is saying in his game orcs are the equivalent of the fake facades that make up western towns in a movie lot. They exist solely to be "bad guy raider types" and do t have more nuance than that one facet.

So the women, children, intellectual, peaceful, and friendly orcs exist in the world but never on camera.

I think it's an odd campaign style but if it works for their group it works for their group.

It's pretty typical in video games as well. I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn right now and, yes, a big part of the game is running around shooting "bandits" in the head with arrows. One thing I notice about the settlements is that the "good" settlements have women and children running around, the bandits never do. Same with say, the Far Cry games.

Are there wives and children of these bandits running around somewhere? Presumably. But they never make an appearance. Maybe they do in some games, I just don't remember playing any. So I run my home game the same way video games handle children of the designated bad guy: I ignore it.

 

[Oofta]

Are you not paying attention to what you yourself have been writing?

Because as soon as people started talking about why evil empire, bandits, etc., are better for villains, you immediately started in with this "oh no, they're not all evil." So you're either assuming that DMs are going to run a evil empire where every single member is evil, or you just felt some bizarre need to tell us that the Nazi Youth was a thing.

And you do this while constantly touting your own always and irredeemably evil orcs. The ones who can never have another culture because they can't be cut off from Gruumsh. Because apparently Gruumsh is more powerful than the DM, despite the fact that you have said several times that you shouldn't be required to figure out every aspect of your world, meaning you could just sever their connection to Gruumsh if you felt like it and not worry about the reasons for it.

For some reason, you think that having an entire race of people who are evil is OK--from everything you've said, it sounds like if there were an Orcish Empire of Gruumsh in your world, every orc in it would be evil--but the DM coming up with a culture for orcs is some sort of horrible colonization thing that turns orcs into humans with bad teeth and having an Evil Human Empire where every human in it is evil is too unrealistic for you.

And you keep claiming that orcs with culture must be some sort of colonialization "finishing school" in-setting thing despite several of us telling you that no, it means that you, the DM, coming up with a culture for them.

Then you actively lie and claim that people have "implied" you are a racist or Nazi apologist. The word is inferred. As in, you came to that conclusion on your own, despite nobody actually saying anything to imply that.

And then you keep trying to claim that we're being mean about your game, and when it's pointed out that we're talking about the base-level, out-of-the-books game, you say stuff like "what is canon?" or "what is official?" and claim that you can't talk about games you don't play.

Do you see why I, and presumably some of the others, are quite frustrated by you?

Is there an answer in there somewhere about how do we go from my statement "not all storm troopers were evil, some are conscripts who have no choice" to your exact words "Except when people started talking about having evil regimes you started to argue against it."?

What am I arguing against? I have never argued against having evil regimes. I have a preference that, unlike the real world, you can have good guys fighting bad guys. That in some cases you can resort to violence to achieve your goals without having the moral dilemma of fireballing some guy just because they were a poor schmuck that was conscripted.

As far as the accusation of lying, when I see a post that says "It doesn't look good when your argument is #NotAllNazis." it sure does sound like you're calling me a nazi sympathizer. Maybe the post that said "Anyone can be evil. It's just that you can no longer tell who is evil by looking at their skin colour." wasn't implying I was a racist. If I misunderstood what you were saying, [edit: or how the skin color comment wasn't implying racism] please explain. I explained, and apologized, for a post that had been misunderstood back on page 5 or 6. Until then stop accusing me of lying.