D&D 5E General rules, Specific worlds

[Li Shenron]

Another issue, mentioned above, is the page-count required to provide a wide range of possibilities.

I don't think the page count would be different, because they are not going to provide multiple "version" of the orcs, each with its own stats and backstory, otherwise there will still be some of those versions with the same problems. Someone who is offended by PHB orcs will still be offended by the Greyhawk version of orcs which is used to represent the previous PHB default.

Instead the generalization will be accomplished by removing specific bits of stats and lore from the orcs description. Eventually the player or DM can bring those bits back, or add their own, without WotC being culpable of offering a potentially offensive default.

That said, I still don't understand why orcs are being targetted. Drow is certainly understandable, but why orcs and not goblins, hobgoblins, giants, hags...?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think WotC are likely to do away with a default world, nor change away from the core three-book structure as the primary method of delivering D&D. So there's that.

I think the underlying issue here is actually that, from somewhere basically 3E onwards, WotC have taken an approach (to an admittedly varying degree) that basically all material can be used in all settings, as long as the DM agrees. That's fine, but what it's also lead to is a lot of stuff being designed in rather generic, not specific, ways. Which is good and bad. The problem is, for me, world book should be allowed to be as different as they need to be, rather than all being so compatible you can always take bits from one for another. I do feel like Theros was a move in the right direction at least.

That said, I still don't understand why orcs are being targetted. Drow is certainly understandable, but why orcs and not goblins, hobgoblins, giants, hags...?

Why are people still asking this question? Did you read any of the threads on this? It's because the language used to describe orcs, and the language used by 1910s racist textbooks, and 2020s racist Facebook posts, to describe black people, are virtually identical. It's also particularly weird that Orcs were given an INT penalty when no other playable race is (and indeed, IIRC only one other race has a penalty at all).

The same is not true of the other creatures you list. Goblins in some fiction are potentially anti-Semitic stereotypes (Harry Potter, for example), but not in D&D, because D&D doesn't invoke any of those stereotypes.

 

[Mercurius]

I don't think the page count would be different, because they are not going to provide multiple "version" of the orcs, each with its own stats and backstory, otherwise there will still be some of those versions with the same problems. Someone who is offended by PHB orcs will still be offended by the Greyhawk version of orcs which is used to represent the previous PHB default.

Instead the generalization will be accomplished by removing specific bits of stats and lore from the orcs description. Eventually the player or DM can bring those bits back, or add their own, without WotC being culpable of offering a potentially offensive default.

Some of those who have a problem with orcs have agreed that this solution is enough: diversify orcs so that more versions (including non-evil ones) are presented, along with tweaking of the language.

That said, I still don't understand why orcs are being targetted. Drow is certainly understandable, but why orcs and not goblins, hobgoblins, giants, hags...?

Where have you been?

Short version: 1) People claim that depictions of orcs are similar to racist characterizations of non-white people from the early 20th/19th centuries; 2) Orcs are too simplistic in their all/mostly evil depiction; 3) Orcs are stand-ins for indigenous people in the colonialist narrative of D&D.