D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[npick03]

There isn't any, the game doesn't go into that kind of moral navel gazing.

Why is having good/non-evil/nuanced orcs moral navel gazing? To me, its just the default.

There is no deep thought behind it. My navel remains ungazed.

I guess I just find it very effortless to see "monsters" as people. Maybe I got too into X-Men as kid or something, idk.

 

[Scribe]

Why is having good/non-evil/nuanced orcs moral navel gazing? To me, its just the default.

Couldn't say, to me it's statblock, a game object, thousands of pages and dozens of locked threads have made it seem like there is something deeper there.

Clearly, I don't agree.

 

[Bae'zel]

"Humanizing" other species leads to fascinating dungeon crawls where there are warring factions that the PCs can play off of.

Befriend the Kobolds or Goblins and gain allies against the Ettins. I like that sort of thing. Harder to do if they're all mindless evil automatons (yeah I know that's an extreme but you get what I mean).

 

[Umbran]

Only one group is told to compromise, implied to be racist, blamed for the corruption of society, and when that group points out "it hasn't been like you say for decades" the answer is what?

Mod Note:
References to moderation mean I have to put this in red text, to be clear that this isn't actually a discussion point...

The answer is... That saying others have their heads up their butts is, in fact, what tends to take discussions to red text and thread-locks.

The site has a definite stance and policy on inclusivity. If you are unhappy with that policy, or its implications, maybe that's not a topic you should be approaching here.

 

[delericho]

Befriend the Kobolds or Goblins and gain allies against the Ettins. I like that sort of thing. Harder to do if they're all mindless evil automatons

That's true, but it does also work if they're intelligent evil creatures - the enemy of my enemy, and all that. There seems sometimes to be an assumption that the PCs could never come to an understanding with any of these forces simply because they're eeeevil, but it's never really been the case.

 

[Scribe]

Acknowledged and understood.

 

[ezo]

"Humanizing" other species leads to fascinating dungeon crawls where there are warring factions that the PCs can play off of.

Befriend the Kobolds or Goblins and gain allies against the Ettins. I like that sort of thing. Harder to do if they're all mindless evil automatons (yeah I know that's an extreme but you get what I mean).

You can do this without "humanizing" species, though.

You don't have to have things be mindless evil automatons, just evil apparently.

That's true, but it does also work if they're intelligent evil creatures - the enemy of my enemy, and all that. There seems sometimes to be an assumption that the PCs could never come to an understanding with any of these forces simply because they're eeeevil, but it's never really been the case.

Yeah, this.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Personally, I'd rather the MM include stat blocks for all the humanoids (including humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, etc., ala the 1e MM), but that's just me. I view it as an opportunity to explore the unique cultures for each species - for example, the differences between wood elves, high-elves, and drow. That's probably a slippery slope for WotC though.

I'm with you on this. The point of the MM is to provide the DM with tools, not restrictions. Even if they wanted us to use the generic humanoid statblocks, rules on customizing by species would have been welcome. As it is, this is just a bridge too far for me. Took six editions, but I am finally broken on it.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

"Humanizing" other species leads to fascinating dungeon crawls where there are warring factions that the PCs can play off of.

Befriend the Kobolds or Goblins and gain allies against the Ettins. I like that sort of thing. Harder to do if they're all mindless evil automatons (yeah I know that's an extreme but you get what I mean).

No that's great actually, but it works best if you have stat blocks for all the relevant creatures. And right now, it looks like the DM has some work cut out for them if you want to make orcs, drow or duergar one of those warring underground factions.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

The 2024 books aren't perfect in how they portray orcs (and other fantasy beings) as people, rather than as monsters.

But they have made significant improvements over the past D&D rules, including the 2014 rules. They are no longer portrayed as inherently savage, bestial, and evil. In the Monster Manual, there actually isn't much lore at all.

It's not perfect, but it's progress.

Honestly, if they aren't going to lean in to providing some lore and insight into the newer interpretation of noble nomadic orcs that a DM can use to explore the concept, then maybe removing them entirely would be fine. Orcs are in fact no more problematic than any other species in the Monster Manual, once you break the game's core conceit of being from a mythical world in which objective alignment by divine and infernal influence is a core conceit. Once D&D is no longer about fantasy but exclusively required that it be interpreted as an allegory for the real world, then the whole game is no longer sustainable.