WotC Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace

[Remathilis]

I originally read this as an attempt to obscure the sexual violence implicit in the older half-orc lore, rather than to emphasize it more strongly. Mainly due to "crossbreed," which doesn't necessarily imply force. Not discounting your take; just an alternate perspective.

That said, I'm of the opinion that half-orcs should just be retired as a character option, in favor of featuring orcs as a core option, as I'm not sure that older-edition baggage can ever fully be shed otherwise. (Or at least, have both orcs and half-orcs, and treat them akin to elves and half-elves.)

I'm leaning towards wizards retiring all "half-" races. 4e did that for a number of them (which is why we have dragonborn and not half-dragons, and tieflings having a mono-look and origin). The only issue I see it is it would royally screw up the dragonmarked houses of Eberron...

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I'm leaning towards wizards retiring all "half-" races. 4e did that for a number of them (which is why we have dragonborn and not half-dragons, and tieflings having a mono-look and origin). The only issue I see it is it would royally screw up the dragonmarked houses of Eberron...

What is wrong with 1/2 elves? There really are only 1/2 orcs and elves ...

 

[Myrdin Potter]

That said, I'm of the opinion that half-orcs should just be retired as a character option, in favor of featuring orcs as a core option, as I'm not sure that older-edition baggage can ever fully be shed otherwise. (Or at least, have both orcs and half-orcs, and treat them akin to elves and half-elves.)

Orcs were specifically an option in the very first D&D book published and are in Volo's Guide now.

 

[Mecheon]

What is wrong with 1/2 elves? There really are only 1/2 orcs and elves ...

And Muls, and Half-Ogres (When they show up)

Could probably just sort them as a sub-race of either humans, elves or orcs though

 

[Chaosmancer]

That said, I'm of the opinion that half-orcs should just be retired as a character option, in favor of featuring orcs as a core option, as I'm not sure that older-edition baggage can ever fully be shed otherwise. (Or at least, have both orcs and half-orcs, and treat them akin to elves and half-elves.)

I am also for just making Orcs a PC option. That is what I did when I had players come to me with concerns about playing half-orcs with the implied lore (in 4e)

You could then have a system for messing with various combos of racial mixing, but that could be a step too far

 

[Lanefan]

I am also for just making Orcs a PC option.

And then Bugbears or some other creature becomes the go-to low-level mundane bad-guy creature?

You could then have a system for messing with various combos of racial mixing, but that could be a step too far

I've had that for ages.

A long time ago (1985?) I made up a big chart of what creature types from the various MMs could in theory breed with each other. It ended up looking like someone's drawing of a plate of spaghetti only with about 60 or 80 nodes added in; with 35 years of added monsters and creature types since then I absolutely shudder to think what that chart would look like were I to redo it with all the later additions.

Then I introduced an optional roll at char-gen to randomly determine if there's anything interesting in your genetics - are you descended from a Dryad, for example, or a Demon, or even a deity; and if yes how far back is that ancestor; and if it's not far back then what if any mechanical and-or stat implications might this have on your PC.

The craziest one I've yet seen was a character who ended up with 5 different creature types in its relatively-recent ancestry: it ended up a bit more than half-Human, about 1/4 Dryad I think, about 1/8 Orc, with the remainder vaguely split between Elf and [I seem to recall Hobbit?].

 

[Aldarc]

I'm leaning towards wizards retiring all "half-" races. 4e did that for a number of them (which is why we have dragonborn and not half-dragons, and tieflings having a mono-look and origin). The only issue I see it is it would royally screw up the dragonmarked houses of Eberron...

I don't mind half-elves as they were meant to evoke the likes of both Elrond as well as the elf-blooded Numenoreans and long-lifed Dunedain. Half-orcs on the other hand were largely created for the purposes of creating playable orcs. However, Pathfinder 2 puts half-orcs and half-elves under human ancestry, which may be a way forward worth considering, such that half-elves and half-orcs are not sub-race options for humans (because that sounds icky), but, rather, heritage options.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Maybe D&D should just retire the concept of races and have everyone be human. I don't see any other alternative to end the racial stereotyping debate.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think homogenization is the answer there. It is possible to celebrate difference, rather than use to divide, so why not go that route?

 

[Remathilis]

Maybe D&D should just retire the concept of races and have everyone be human. I don't see any other alternative to end the racial stereotyping debate.

What I foresee is the further watering down of race beyond what Pathfinders ancestry has done: a couple of physical traits like size, speed, vision and a unique ability like fey ancestry or poison resist. Everything else handled by some background/subrace -like mechanic that is interswappable and grants proficiencies, cantrips, and languages. It will be set up so that you can take other races as well to represent an orc raised in Cormyr or a human who lives among the shield dwarves. As a side-effect, the half-races and planetouched could live here rather than as base races.

The downside, of course, is some races would need major reworking as they are either all biological abilities (dragonborn) or mostly cultural (halflings). You are also marrying race far deeper to setting as generic versions of elves and orcs are replaced by region-specific options, but this is all something for the 6e team to figure out.