Do ogres look more like shrek..orcs like LotR?

[Prince of Happiness]

My college had ToD for a while. But all four sets of controls were broken.

My friend and I like SoM because it had a magic-user and a thief classes. (Our favorites in PnP).

Dang, Now I'm jonsing to play that...

The spell animations in SoM were hella cool, I'll grant it that! I loved the summoning spells and I thought that Reverse Gravity was fun (powerslam a pack of gnolls & owlbears? HELL YEAH!).

 

[sniffles]

I like the LOTR look for orcs, although I think they got a bit carried away with trying to give them variety - some of them look so different that they seem like another species.

I prefer ogres to be the type with horns. Most D&D representations of ogres look too much like trolls or giants for my taste.

Much as I enjoy Shrek, ogres should not be green or have antennae-like ears, IMHO.

 

[delericho]

There was a time when my Orcs were stylistically taken from the Planet of the Apes remake, including the manner of their gait. Mostly, though, I haven't given such things much thought, and just defaulted to the MM vision.

That said, I really like the Pathfinder take on Goblins and Kobolds, and that has got me to thinking about redesigning monster appearances. I'm rather partial to a shark-like visage to Orcs, but not sure how that would work out. Unfortunately, I have no artistic ability to speak of, so the notion will probably remain just that.

 

[Someone]

The spell animations in SoM were hella cool, I'll grant it that! I loved the summoning spells and I thought that Reverse Gravity was fun (powerslam a pack of gnolls & owlbears? HELL YEAH!).

And you could sweep with the lightning bolt, frying every monster. I prefer SoM to Tower of doom: control were easier, and bosses were not really that hard to beat. Specially if you knew the tricks: I've beaten the chimera in three seconds...

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I probably wouldn't use orcs in a setting I developed myself. When I use a published setting which includes them, like Eberron, I stick to how they're presented in the books:

I know these orcs look "too human" for some people, but in Eberron it's appropriate; very few tribes are anything like the traditional ravening-bandit orcs.

Likewise, I doubt I would use ogres. I don't find them interesting. I will say that I don't really like the ogres in the Third Edition Monster Manual - the elongated skull just looks very silly to me. It didn't look any better in the Temple of Elemental Evil PC game, either, which was closely based on the Third Edition look.

I don't think there are any cool ogre "designs" out there, actually. I play a lot of World of Warcraft, but Warcraft ogres just remind me too much of Krang's android body from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series:

 

[ivocaliban]

First of all, this is a great thread! It's interesting that it began as a whether creatures are inspired by books or film, but video games seem to have played a major role for most folks. A few comments...

Funny enough, they resemble the ogres from either the very first Final Fantasy game (purple skinned brutes with flat-topped heads) or the ogres from the Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom arcade game.

That might be "heretical" to some, but dude...I played this game a lot. Got to the point where I could beat it in one quarter going through the red dragon.

I poured so much money into Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom that I sort of feel like they should have let me have the thing. I'd been DMing for a couple of years when this appeared in the arcade and it was my first opportunity to actually "play" D&D. Favorite character: Cleric.

Are your ogres hot pink, as well?

Much as I enjoy Shrek, ogres should not be green or have antennae-like ears, IMHO.

I think Shrek is half-TiVo.


As for myself...most of the time my monsters look like those in the MM 3.5e. While there are images in there I don't quite identify with I find it easier to use those images and descriptions than to bring in my own perceptions. Most of the time, however, I leave it up to the player to make the final call one what they see. One of my players is a Final Fantasy addict, for instance, so he may see something different than I would when I use the word ogre.

The one exception to all of this may be trolls. There are so many interpretations of what trolls look like that it's mind-boggling. There's the swampy Man-Thing approach to trolls from the MM...Tolkien had a wide variety of (everything, including) trolls and they're depicted quite differently depending on the artist...Discworld trolls being made of living stone. I've never been happy with the MM depiction of trolls. I've always pictured them a bit more like this:

Sort of like a beefy Gremlin (movie) with an underbite and tusks. Not sure where I got this mental image, though. It's not quite like any of those mentioned above.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

And you could sweep with the lightning bolt, frying every monster. I prefer SoM to Tower of doom: control were easier, and bosses were not really that hard to beat. Specially if you knew the tricks: I've beaten the chimera in three seconds...

Maybe that's what my problem was: I didn't commit to readjusting my skilllllllllllllllz to the 2nd game as much or get the right item combos together. For example: Fighter with Warhammer. I know there's a way to lay out some sick damage with that, but no one I saw got it right (fight with red dragon, friend playing the fighter with warhammer does the down up attack attack and suddenly half the dragon's health is GONE. I tell him "do that again!" except he didn't know what the hell he did.)

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Are your ogres hot pink, as well?

IMC, the ogres favorite war cry is "We're OGRES! We're proud! Get used to it!" Great parties.

 

[Someone]

Maybe that's what my problem was: I didn't commit to readjusting my skilllllllllllllllz to the 2nd game as much or get the right item combos together. For example: Fighter with Warhammer. I know there's a way to lay out some sick damage with that, but no one I saw got it right (fight with red dragon, friend playing the fighter with warhammer does the down up attack attack and suddenly half the dragon's health is GONE. I tell him "do that again!" except he didn't know what the hell he did.)

Ah, the dragon. The firebreathing that filled the whole screen was a really cool animation. I didn't know the warhammer was even half good, anyway; I've seen half the dragon's health go away in one combo, but that was the dwarf doing the down-up-fire move armed with the Legendary sword or the dragon slayer sword.

Now that we're talking about videogames in our D&D recently I realized how much from various Golden Axe games creeped in my campaings.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Ah, the dragon. The firebreathing that filled the whole screen was a really cool animation. I didn't know the warhammer was even half good, anyway; I've seen half the dragon's health go away in one combo, but that was the dwarf doing the down-up-fire move armed with the Legendary sword or the dragon slayer sword.

Now that we're talking about videogames in our D&D recently I realized how much from various Golden Axe games creeped in my campaings.

I tried like hell to get that damned sword.

Ooo! First one's still my favorite, but I had a friend who beefed up his skeletons to fit the Golden Axe ideal...fast as hell, and so sick damage output. You did NOT want to run up against some skeletons in his game unless you knew what the hell you were doing. And roll high.