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

[Oofta]

"Some orcs are peaceful, existing as hunters, farmers, and trappers. Others are vicious raiders, performing vile acts for evil gods and spirits. Still others are just boisterous bruisers, enjoying a good fight without any need for it to end in death. In general, orcs tend to have strong emotions and are often reactionary, taking strong umbrage to perceived or actual slights which sometimes has lead to battle when they couldn't be pacified."

That's rather generic and hardly a complete "culture" or indicative of much of anything. I think you'd have to have a few hundred words to actually establish a "feel". I also think it leans into "hot tempered [insert race here]". That's fine of course, I wouldn't expect much more. Now do the same for drow, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, etc.. Make them all distinct and unique.

Or ... do like I said in #3 of my post of what I would change in 6E, have a section in the DMG (and a more prominent section in the MM) about alternatives to the default adversarial monsters listed in the Monster Manual.

 

[Oofta]

Just with the drow as an example, are you just unaware that good drow are numerous enough to have a goddess and everything, or just purposefully ignoring them for effect?

Also the idea that probably the single most recognizable D&D character is 'an afterthought'? I don't even like him and... really?

I just want to point out that the good drow you are discussing are campaign specific to the Forgotten Realms. FR is not D&D.

 

[Oofta]

You deride people for pointing out that we aren’t talking about your campaign...and then explicitly say that the game in general should be a certain way, which is unavoidably a comment on the game as a whole, not your campaign.

Orcs should be diverse. They are a player race, and that isn’t going to go away.

So your response to my queue the "we're not just talking about your campaign complaint" is to complain that we aren't talking about my campaign. Thanks for the consistency, I guess.

You wanted me to state what I thought 6E should do, I did that over here. How orcs are handled and whether they should be a playable race in any specific campaign should be left up to the DM and table.

 

[steeldragons]

Here's the point that you seem to completely miss. This is not, "for change's sake".

This is for sake of taking one small step away from systemic problems.

Get on board with that, or not, as you prefer.

There's a systemic problem with how D&D presents monstrous humanoids? Really?

Systemic problems in the default game, I mean, of course, not individual tables. Gotta make sure we make that distinction. It seems very important to some folks for some reason.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

View attachment 135282

This is how I picture Orcs and it will always be how I will picture Orcs. It's a mook staple of... erm .... Jabba the Hutt.

Edited in order to defeat my arch-nemesis English Grammar.

I think the future direction of the Orcs will be less Gamorreans and more Gamora. I'm fine with that.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I think the future direction of the Orcs will be less Gamorreans and more Gamora. I'm fine with that.

It's funny because it's true.

 

[steeldragons]

I think the future direction of the Orcs will be less Gamorreans and more Gamora. I'm fine with that.

Though I can't actually roll my eyes any louder (because as soon as I saw this post I agreed!), I am fairly certain you are correct.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I think the future direction of the Orcs will be less Gamorreans and more Gamora. I'm fine with that.

No doubt you're right.

Captain Kirk will definitely hook up with her.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Hey everybody, my Half-Kirk barbarian is so bada$$.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Those monsters and their "enslave the world demon cultist necromancer masters," they're really just misunderstood.

This is wildly disingenuous. The cult that wants to enslave the world is evil because it’s members have chosen to do evil work upon the world.

If a group of guys walks into a mall with assault rifles and bombs, and you shoot them to stop them, you haven’t committed murder.

Likewise, when my gnome rogue ganked the necromancer who was defiling a temple to break one of the seals that keep demons out of the world, raising the local dead in the process to kill the living, he performed a Good act. The fact that the necromancer could theoretically be redeemed doesn’t matter, she had to be stopped.

We call adventurers who kill with no motive other than looting “murder-hobos” for a reason. We don’t call adventures who stop the cult of elemental evil that, even though they are killing humans and genasi and aarakokra, all of whom are certainly possessed of free will.