D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Micah Sweet]

We can't ignore their popularity in pop-culture. D&D, Warcraft, Warhammer, as well as other sources, each have done work to help Orcs shine under a new light outside of Tolkein's work. Some people like brutes with different perspectives on honor and spirituality. And they are an easily available species to represent wilderness clans that value strength and survival more than human/elf standards of beauty.

But absolutely none of that is even a little outside the human experience. Orcs as a playable species are easily replaceable with another human culture in  every sense except physical appearance.

 

[Faolyn]

It's like the drow. Everyone knows the logistics and extreme CE culture of drow isn't sustainable. There has been thread on forums about it since the 90s.

But if you dare change it...

What I like to imagine is that the drow leadership is is filled with "insane Roman emperor" type people who get their warlock-y powers from (or swear paladin oaths to) demons, and the average drow is as neutral as any human, but utterly powerless because they aren't allowed to learn high-level magicks.

(Actually, that's a lie; I prefer drow as being elves who like the beauty of natural caverns in the same way that other elves like the beauty of the forests or other non-subterranean biomes. I also want swamp elves to be a thing.)

 

[Incenjucar]

What makes them seem not human to you?

Now that they have actual abilities, they have significantly different physiology which leads to having very different life experiences than humans, which humans cannot experience without magic. They are not as profound as the differences between humans and elves, but they are still significant. Oddly enough, I have a small taste of orcish contrast in my own life, in that I'm a strong, tough country folk type person living in a city full of lots of comparatively frail people, and even within very common human limits that makes my life very different than that of my friends. My ability to step between my wonderful but fragile friends and dangerous people has had a big impact on my life and relationships. Orcs take that kind of contrast to the next level.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Are you asking us to do a whole write-up for you? Because, well, that would take a lot of time and space.

But anyway, the answer is "whatever we like." Let's assume D&D doesn't do the species/culture divide, so we need to put everything in one section. We won't use terms like violent or savage. We can use words like forceful and bold. Those aren't "inoffensive" terms; they're dynamic and descriptive and they don't limit orcs to either being monsters or "happy gumdrops" either. We can give them a tribal society but bring up trade networks, like @Chaosmancer mentioned, and clever innovations. The Scythians were nomadic but skilled bronze-smiths, which means that even if orcs never set down permanent roots they could still have metallurgy, and if they do have villages and towns, they could become even better smiths. Maybe they'll never be as good as dwarfs, maybe the things they make would be considered crude by modern humans (us), but that's OK. It's still better than leaving them as non-creative savages who do nothing but steal and break what other races make. Or we could do this: I've always felt the one way to salvage the gully dwarfs would be to have them work with clay: make them expert potters and sculptors. Other dwarfs would consider that dirty and stupid, because objects made of clay aren't as sturdy as objects made of stone or metal--but clay is actually very important. Without gully dwarfs, you could let orcs become the potters, a niche which is sorely lacking in D&D.

We could bring in, as I mentioned before, herding and ranching, another empty niche in D&D. Or we could have orcs be mighty hunters who prefer to go after bigger and more powerful prey--a human may bring down a deer but an orc will go after a hippo. (Or fantasy versions thereof).

And maybe orcs are prone to war, on a cultural level. That's fine, as long as there are reasons for those wars beyond "orcs are savages". Maybe they actually have a lot of customs and rules and war amongst themselves when they're broken; they could also believe that non-orcs can't possibly understand those rules and don't hold it against them when they're accidentally broken. And if orcs are forceful and bold, then perhaps they have no problem being mercenaries or signing up to other people's armies. In which case, orcs can still be "the bad guy" by simply being in the other person's army--because hey, it's a job.

And take a look at the traditional orc gods without the traditional Always Evil glasses on: We have Baghtru, god of strength; Ilneval, god of clever strategies; and Luthic, goddess of home, hearth, fertility, and medicine; all led by Gruumsh, a god who made sure his people could survive in any environment. We could even make Yurtrus, god of disease, more neutral; Babalú Ayé is a Yorube god of both diseases and their cures and Yurtrus could be similar. Shargaas, god of darkness, could remain a bogeyman deity (and IMO a good reason to not give orcs darkvision), or perhaps be he could be turned into a trickster god.

All great ideas. Thank you for answering me. The only issue I see with that is it is  far too much detail to put into anything less than a setting book that spends a lot of time with a culture of orcs. The PH needs something much more brief than that, on par with the descriptions of other species. Since we're using entirely different shorthand now, that section (and anything written for them in the MM, if they appear there at all) would need to be completely re-written, and getting the gist of what you're describing into the species description will not be an easy task.

But again, thank you. What you provided is exactly what I asked for, and it really is great stuff.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

What makes them seem not human to you?

Well, technically, we humans are only humans. We're just not happy using only humans. That is boring. We want options. We are the ones inventing other non-human races in order to create fantastical societies that are more alien, even though we have an incredible amount of diversity in our own world.

Some say Elves are beauty and grace.
Some say Dwarves are industrious and reliable.
Some say Halflings are just kinder, better, smaller humans.
Some say Orcs are strong survivors of the less-civilized regions that can properly test them.

Anything that makes fantasy races less human is just invented by us to justify them not being boring humans. It doesn't mean that humans can't represent those themes. Heck, ignoring lifespans, one could argue that any fantasy species can be reskinned as humans that are different from each other because of their different exposures to magic and other fantastical elements. But people want to play elves and orcs, so we invent species and cultural identities for them. But we need to make sure we are not attributing negative "racial" stereotypes that people will conflate with real world negative racial stereotypes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Now that they have actual abilities, they have significantly different physiology which leads to having very different life experiences than humans, which humans cannot experience without magic. They are not as profound as the differences between humans and elves, but they are still significant. Oddly enough, I have a small taste of orcish contrast in my own life, in that I'm a strong, tough country folk type person living in a city full of lots of comparatively frail people, and even within very common human limits that makes my life very different than that of my friends. My ability to step between my wonderful but fragile friends and dangerous people has had a big impact on my life and relationships. Orcs take that kind of contrast to the next level.

I see, and I agree. You really have to lean into that "more than human strength and toughness" angle to that has been added in the last 20-odd years to make that work, but it absolutely does. Great stuff! This is what I was looking for.

Any chance WotC is going to actually make anything like what you and @Faolyn are suggesting? I'd like to think so, but obviously I don't have a lot of faith in them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, technically, we humans are only humans. We're just not happy using only humans. That is boring. We want options. We are the ones inventing other non-human races in order to create fantastical societies that are more alien, even though we have an incredible amount of diversity in our own world.

Some say Elves are beauty and grace.
Some say Dwarves are industrious and reliable.
Some say Halflings are just kinder, better, smaller humans.
Some say Orcs are strong survivors of the less-civilized regions that can properly test them.

Anything that makes fantasy races less human is just invented by us to justify them not being boring humans. It doesn't mean that humans can't represent those themes. Heck, ignoring lifespans, one could argue that any fantasy species can be reskinned as humans that are different from each other because of their different exposures to magic and other fantastical elements. But people want to play elves and orcs, so we invent species and cultural identities for them. But we need to make sure we are not attributing negative "racial" stereotypes that people will conflate with real world negative racial stereotypes.

I get what you're saying, but that's not a reason. They want them because they want them. It's pure aesthetics. Probably true, but not very satisfying. Fortunately I've gotten some great ideas here, so I can see a path forward.

 

[Justice and Rule]

What I like to imagine is that the drow leadership is is filled with "insane Roman emperor" type people who get their warlock-y powers from (or swear paladin oaths to) demons, and the average drow is as neutral as any human, but utterly powerless because they aren't allowed to learn high-level magicks.

That sounds like a great way to do the Derro without getting into the squicky mental illness stuff.

(Actually, that's a lie; I prefer drow as being elves who like the beauty of natural caverns in the same way that other elves like the beauty of the forests or other non-subterranean biomes. I also want swamp elves to be a thing.)

I like my Drow as a secret ideology in a continuing civil war that only the Elves are privvy to; "Drow" is the old Elvish word for "Imperium", which eventually changed to the word for "Dark" after their civil war. It's a bunch of "Law above all" people trying to restore the "natural order" of things... but the look like regular elves. The different shades of dark associated with "drow" are from a spell meant to provide camouflage in the night darkness, which both sides of the conflict use.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"While the people of the Five Nations sometimes depict them as savage brutes and ravaging barbarians, most orcs are in fact a deeply spiritual people with a variety of different cultures across the continent."

That sounds a lot like the Native American Nations. It's terribly hard to come up with a description that can't be applied to some real world people somewhere if you want to find one to apply it to.

It’s basically an analogue of the factual description of how Europeans often depicted First Nations tribes as a largely interchangeable hostile force, as opposed to the reality that there were a myriad of societies, religious beliefs, laws, languages and even their own intertribal conflicts. It’s a nod to the way bigotry shaped colonial America.

IOW, it‘s not a negative stereotype claiming they actually ARE savage brutes. The most problematic part of that paragraph is the “deeply spiritual“ tag which cozies up to the Noble Savage trope.

 

[Maxperson]

They are literally quoted.

View attachment 282799

Trying to act like they are not meant to be in-universe quotes seems to stretch credulity.

You can make excuses for the bigotry in those write-ups if you want to, but those are and have been generalized racial tropes since the game started. At BEST you are excusing a bigoted write-up because it is one example of a member the race. The ONE example they most focused on. At worst it's as I said and is implied. The general attitude of that race.

You mentioned the Semitic reference to dwarves, which is actually something Tolkien did. Feels weird to try and bring it up out otherwi

So if something comes up, it has to go back to the earliest possible reference as the cause and what needs to be discussed? I reject that. I brought it up because the D&D dwarf write-up referred to dwarves in that manner. What Tolkien did doesn't matter unless we are discussing Tolkien. The entire discussion can be about D&D dwarves.