Half-Orcs?

[Terraism]

Just reading another thread, a handful of people expressed some dissatisfaction (?) with the half-orc race and background, specifically, it often being from rape. Happened to get me curious (in a p/c fashion, of course) - aside from rape, how else do people normally come up with for a half-orc's birth? I mean, considering how orcs are normally portrayed as vicious, vile, bloodthirsty (etc,) do you expect that a good number have 'normal' relations with human women? Am I just missing something?
I apologize if this sounds sarcastic - it's not meant to be. I'm genuinely curious about other ideas, though I admit that the more I think of it, the more I come up with...

 

[Mouseferatu]

Only half-orc character I've played in 3rd edition was the product of an honest, loving relationship between a crazy woman who lived on the edge of town and an orc who lived with a tribe in the wilderness. He'd sneak in whenever he had a free moment, and they'd spend time together.

When the character was young, the village people found out and lynched the orc. The character and his mother had to escape and live in the woods.

Twisted childhood, yeah, but it was an evil campaign, so...

 

[Mark]

I suspect that lots of alcohol is somehow involved...

 

[Crothian]

I suspect that lots of alcohol is somehow involved...

Ya, you'd have to get an orc pretty darn drunk to sleep with a human

 

[Phowett]

Ya, you'd have to get an orc pretty darn drunk to sleep with a human

And twice as much for a human to sleep with an orc.

 

[Mark]

And twice as much for a human to sleep with an orc.

And three times as much for me to somehow escape the dreams I will now have...

 

[Buttercup]

It's an interesting question. I suppose that it's possible for a human to be attracted to an orc, but likely it would be considered deviant behavior. So if a man were interested in orc women, he would keep it a secret, the same way a man would keep his foot fetish a secret IRL. And if you consider how many women are attracted to 'bad boys', I suppose that if you take that quirk to the extreme, you have a woman who is attracted to an evil orc.

 

[Maerdwyn]

In my campaign, humans are to orcs as elves are to humans, more or less.

Thus, humans are more attractive than orcs from both races' perspectives, live longer than orcs, and are more intelligent, etc. A human has about as much chance of mating with an orc voluntarily as elf would have of mating with a human voluntarily. (no alignments for mortal races in the campaign, so alignment concerns which might otherwise pop up in this situation don't. Culture differences between elves and humans are actually greater than those between humans and orcs in the campaign.)

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Perhaps they "breed true." That is, perhaps they can intermarry amongst themselves and produce half-orc offspring. This presupposes, of course, that enough half-orcs have been produced as a result of human/orc interactions to set up a viable population.

 

[Seule]

The only half-orc I have had in my game was from a tribe of half-orcs. The tribe was founded by orcs and humans together, and over time the half-orcs have bred true.

--Seule