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

[Micah Sweet]

How do people actually use orcs and drow, goblins and ogres, and other such races in their game? I'm personally not so keen on making orcs a standard player race in my games, in the campaign I ran a while back I specified none of these typically evil races because they were the baddies. I'm generally fine with changing the lore anyway so even if I was moving to 2024, that requirement wouldn't change.

Things did progress, an orc chieftain who wanted to break away from the Destroyer (god who created the beastmen which is goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, trolls, and ogres) and the self-destructive warfare with the human settlement and now their is a treaty between the two settlements so I might allow orcs to be player characters if continuing with that specific storyline.

I never got around to using drow but their faith, the Tyranny, worships a small pantheon headed by the Tyrant a lawful god of tyranny and control (probably similar to Bane from FR perhaps combined with Asmodeus and stealing Megatron's quote "Peace through Tyranny") so they are unlikely to be good guys either.

It depends on the setting and how important orcs are to it and my players. In my fantasy homebrew orcs were enslaved by a necromancer as his Sauron-like army but were freed centuries ago. They migrated out of his former territory to more hospitable lands. Most of them ended up in loose tribal cultures who subsist on hunting and raiding, but a portion ended up encountering humans and elves fighting a similar rebellion to their own and decided to assist. After the war was won the different cultures formed a new "state" and have been growing closer ever since, with the usual difficulties.

On the other hand, my sci-fi homebrew uses orks modeled after the ones in 40k (utterly terrifying and violent but also strangely humorous). They are decidedly not playable.

 

[Charlaquin]

As long as we have "humanoid" opponents to fight such as veterans, toughs (aka thugs), evokers, or whatever, there is absolutely no reason IMO to not have drow and orcs as examples of special creatures instead of just "this is a drow guard*" who is absolutely no different from the human guard, orc guard, or whever.

Well, I wouldn’t make them no different from the human guard. I wouldn’t give the human guard four skill proficiencies, and I would give the drow guard 120 ft. of Darkvision, Perception proficiency, Dancing Lights, and maybe Darkness and/or Faerie Fire once a day each depending on the guard’s CR (which I don’t remember off the top of my head).

 

[SlyFlourish]

It seems like minotaurs may also be getting the monstrosity/humanoid treatment in a future supplement, as the only one provided in the 2025 MM is the "Minotaur of Baphomet," and the text states that "While most minotaurs live free of the demon lord's bonds, those that serve him become minotaurs of Baphomet." Sort of like how they treated lizardfolk, although the minotaur entry doesn't expressly stipulate that common minotaurs are Humanoid.

So where are the drow of Lolth, duergar of Asmodeus, and the orcs of Gruumsh?

 

[Reynard]

So where are the drow of Lolth, duergar of Asmodeus, and the orcs of Gruumsh?

I get their intent, and actually appreciate the general idea that "drow" can have lots of "jobs" but I wish they had done it in a way that made them interesting.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I always thought this stat block description from 13th Age was funny. And it sort of gets to the point of how to treat sentient creatures, though I don't think 13th Age did a fantastic job of this back then but this was just a good example.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Not at all, it just means that there is a way out, either severing the link to Fiends, or that link never took place on the other world.

I mean, I get it, we would all love for the default D&D to validate our preferences, but the Developers walking a tightrope trying to be all things to all people is the one way street to bland, tepid, safe, boring.

Are the lizardfolk, aarakokra, and minotaurs bland, tepid, safe, and boring in the 2025 MM? Somehow they managed to do justice to these species. Why not orcs, duergar, and drow? The whole "they're humanoids and we don't use humanoids" is absolutely a dodge.

 

[Scribe]

Are the lizardfolk, aarakokra, and minotaurs bland, tepid, safe, and boring in the 2025 MM? Somehow they managed to do justice to these species. Why not orcs, duergar, and drow? The whole "they're humanoids and we don't use humanoids" is absolutely a dodge.

Because those other options don't look close enough to Human if you squint.

Wizards doesn't want the smoke.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Hopefully a future book gives them some details. For now I am ok with using Humanoid Statblocks.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Agree or disagree, it's internally inconsistent.

No in this case it's quite consistent.

 

[SlyFlourish]

How do people actually use orcs and drow, goblins and ogres, and other such races in their game? I'm personally not so keen on making orcs a standard player race in my games, in the campaign I ran a while back I specified none of these typically evil races because they were the baddies. I'm generally fine with changing the lore anyway so even if I was moving to 2024, that requirement wouldn't change.

Things did progress, an orc chieftain who wanted to break away from the Destroyer (god who created the beastmen which is goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, trolls, and ogres) and the self-destructive warfare with the human settlement and now their is a treaty between the two settlements so I might allow orcs to be player characters if continuing with that specific storyline.

I never got around to using drow but their faith, the Tyranny, worships a small pantheon headed by the Tyrant a lawful god of tyranny and control (probably similar to Bane from FR perhaps combined with Asmodeus and stealing Megatron's quote "Peace through Tyranny") so they are unlikely to be good guys either.

In my Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands game (which turned into an old-school Descent into the Depths of the Earth campaign), I had a tribe of goblins and bugbears who worshipped one of the two heads of Demogorgon which they called the Eater of Worlds (they didn't realize it was one of two heads). But I also introduced a goblin paladin of Kord whose own tribe got wiped out by the followers of the Eater of Worlds. It's not perfect but I thought it did a good job of enriching the goblins so it wasn't just "goblins".

In my Shadowdark game, I had two underground villages, one for goblins called Aklaklik, and another for a variety of species who typically wanted to stay out of the sun. A nearby keep to the second village were filled with orc worshippers of Ramlaat the Pillager. They were real bastards.