How do you spice up your orcs?

[S'mon]

How do you do "honorable but very very evil"? Perhaps it's the late hour, but I am having trouble conceptualizing it.

If somebody's honour code doesn't include *you* in its value set, it's going to appear evil to you!

Two specific examples I can think of - Mafia honour code, and Samurai code especially as applied by the WW2 Japanese military. In the second case the code was fine with beating underlings, mass rapes, sex slavery, massacres of civilians and prisoners, and actually compelled them to mistreat POWs, because according to the code it was incredibly dishnourable for a warrior to surrender and enemy warriors who did so should be treated badly; it would be dishonourable not to do so. The incompatibility of this code with Western honour codes led to extreme antagonism on both sides, I'd say more than if the Japanese military had not had a code at all.

 

[Rechan]

OP, you are looking for campaign-long antagonists. So, the question is, what are you in the mood for? Think long-term, since the campaign is going to focus on them. What are you looking for? What ever you do with them, it's going to last a while, so use something that won't get old fast.

Orcs typically mean a War campaign. Because they breed fast, they're physically strong and aggressive, and they typically rape and pillage.

Traditionally, Orcs have been ye olde irredeemable evil monster. They're the thing you slay without question because you know even if you took one, dressed it, bathed it, and sent it to school, it'd beat the classroom to death with its chair.

If you don't want them to be just irredeemable monsters that just destroy and slay (because a campaign focusing on them would get old, fast if they aren't Interesting), then there are some other options:

1) Accentuate the Chaotic over the Evil

Orcs are not evil, per se, but they are a race designed for one fuction: toppling things over before they get too dangerous, bloated, or otherwise advanced. If decadent society, Knowledge Man Was Not Meant to Know, or Technology Too Advanced For Their Own Good was a Disease, then orcs are the disinfectant. Every so many (insert time here), orcs sweep across the land, tearing cities apart and burning the libraries to the ground, and the world restarts again. Too much Order, and the cycle starts over.

Or, for a less epic relevance, orcs are the reverse of humans. Where humans seek to spread, to master, to conquer and control, orcs seek to take, indulge, revel and forget. An orc is passionate, short sighted and easily given to impulse. Their inevitable nature gets the best of things like loyalty, discipline or order. They are instinctive agents of chaos and anarchy; the only thing you can rely on an orc to do is not be reliable, unless you simply make him do it (hence, how orcs get anything done as a group). Add in a propensity for aggression, with no patience for diplomacy, and dealings with orcs falls into passifying their whims, forcing them to submit, or taking up arms. And the only thing an orc knows how to do better than revel is hold a grudge. (So Orcs: big, strong toddlers).

2) Go with Historical Precidence

Model them after an existing historical culture. Not ye olde tribal (Native American/African/Klingon) but something a little more destructive:

Norse Vikings (Think about it, Gruumsh and Odin have some really strong similarities). You have your "rape pillage and plunder" orcs, backed up by gods of Strength and Thunder, all seeking to sweep their reach long and hard, and die a grizzly, bloody death so their Gods can give them the eternal high five. Orcs that do not make it to Orc Valhalla are reincarnated as non-orcs. This is one reason why Orcs are so ok with slaughter; they are liberating the souls of former orcs, so they can be reborn and a have glorious death!

Mongols (horse riding, spear throwing and barbed net using raiders) or Hun-style large beast-riding (rhino, elephant, etc) warbands united under one banner. Part of why they dismantle civilization so it looks like Mongolia under Khan, rather than just a smoking crater (or what happened to Europe after the Huns).

Spartans or Persians. No, seriously. Spice them up a little 300 style as either group. Exotic fighting styles, raiders from the far off land seeking to plunder for their Godking. Or a race bred for war, bred to fight.

 

[Starfox]

First thing I would do is not call them orcs. Give them their ownname. [...]

Beyond that, give them unique customs and institutions. Make them good at something they aren't usually considered to be good at- perhaps the only source of worked metal suitable for strong magic weapons comes from them; perhaps all nature rituals are from orc ritual magic. Play against the stereotypes. [...]

So:

• Don't call them orcs
• Give them a culture and history
• Make the orc NPCs memorable with unique personality and motivations
• Play against stereo-type

And then they won't be your same-old orcs any more.

"And then they won't be your same-old orcs any more" is very true. But would they be orcs at all? In my experience, stereotypes is a good thing in RPGs. It helps the players to orient themselves. The orks suggested here break stereotype so heavily they might as well be dark dwarfs (or whatever) and are no longer recognizable as orcs.

One think I've always disliked about DnD is the Xwarts phenomena. Does a game really need a gazillion racially diverse evil humanoids? Could we not just settle for Orks and Goblins and have the rest be tribes and sub-species of these?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Orcs that do not make it to Orc Valhalla are reincarnated as non-orcs. This is one reason why Orcs are so ok with slaughter; they are liberating the souls of former orcs, so they can be reborn and a have glorious death!

This is awesome and has to be stolen. I will not even ask for permission.

I also like the previous thought, in the sense it is simply an Orc strategy. Orcs like their wars, and they like looting and pillaging.

In my Points of Lights campaign, the Orcs were an important ally for the Hobgoblins fighting the Nerathi Empire. Until they, at some point, turned and attacked all sides. Why? Simply because they didn't want a winner. They wanted the chaos and instability. They wanted an environment in which they could continue plundering settlements and villages without having to fear the retribution of an organizing goblinoid or humanoid army.

Despite the fact that at the end it were the Gnolls and their demon hordes that decimated the Nerathi Empire and its armies, the real winners at the end where the orcs - they got their "Points of Light.

Of course, my orcs are not really interested in building an empire. Maybe in your campaign, that is a major change. And maybe even not popular everywhere. "Orcz do no need no stinking empires! We take what we want when we want, and let the others do the thinky stuff! Only the bold and the strong survive our warz, in an Empire the bootlickers and weaklings thrive!"

To keep Orcs a valid threat over all levels, create different "breeds". You might actually redefine Goblinoids as an Orc type, or if not that, at least a "slave" race. And from there, you go up, possibly culminating in something like the Uruk-Hai or-what's-their-name as the "master" race.

 

[Hairfoot]

Bestiality.

Or rather, go retro-and use pig-faced orcs who have the sensibilities of animals.

My internet-savvy friends inform me that there is a branch of manga which deals in graphic depictions of such animals. Perhaps that could serve as inspiration.

 

[Mark]

Mark got the right idea, orcs are supposed to come in massed numbers. Eventually those stop having a chance to beat the party, but that is alright. The monsters should not be be staying as tough as the PCs. Orcs dying in droves is exactly what is supposed to happen.

BTW what game were those mass troops for>?

I use the Medieval Fantasy Combat Miniatures Game rules that I wrote and should be widely released by summertime. Very simple with the option to become more complex. We went simple for this game because after set up we had less then four hours and over 1,000 minis on the table. Plus, it scales in when heroes call one another out and the one-on-one fighting progresses for a bit before scaling back out to the mass combat. Quite epic!

 

[Celebrim]

We went simple for this game because after set up we had less then four hours and over 1,000 minis on the table.

Nice. I did several Battlesystem games with up to 8000 counters and after a while it got to be torturous.

Quite epic!

I'll keep an eye out for it, particularly if you've got good ways of translating feats and such into battlefield scale effects.

 

[Mark]

Nice. I did several Battlesystem games with up to 8000 counters and after a while it got to be torturous.

Morale breakages tend to trim the numbers down once battles commence and losses are realized. And when the fleeing begins . . .

I'll keep an eye out for it, particularly if you've got good ways of translating feats and such into battlefield scale effects.

I'd been experimenting with Mass Combat Feats (one of my early releases) since 2003, IIRC. There are certainly some things that translate more readily than others. There are also other feats that need adding in strictly for mass combat, as they involve troop movements and drilling. Truth be told, I went old school in this design process, starting with the Combat Miniatures System and then looking toward how that would then scale inward toward one-on-one combat that could be used with an RPG system, much in the same way that Chainmail led to D&D, rather than the other way around which I noticed was either failing again and again or coming up somewhat short. Naturally, I had the modern existing systems to use as a guide toward my ends in all areas of gaming, RPGs, miniatures rules, and any number of other games that had successfully captured player imagination, which always was the key to gaming for me. One problem a lot of designers probably face is being either a wargamer or an RPGer but not having been both for 35+ years like myself.

 

[Haltherrion]

How do you do "honorable but very very evil"? Perhaps it's the late hour, but I am having trouble conceptualizing it.

You could steal a page from the Ancient Romans to cover that. They were all about honor and duty but could be exceptionally ruthless, ruthless enough that most folks would call them evil.

Like most socieities the matter of honorable dealings was mostly confined to how you treated members of your class within your society and to a lesser extent your peer class of your foes. It was okay to slaughter and enslave everyone else.

It depends on your definition of evil but if it encludes use of evil means to accomplish a goal, then orcs who demand respect from their peer orcs, who might show mercy to a valiant foe, yet are perfectly fine killing or enslaving every peasant in a village could be considered as evil and honorable as a roman general who did the same thing.

Such folks could be quite fun to party with as well...

 

[Haltherrion]

"And then they won't be your same-old orcs any more" is very true. But would they be orcs at all? In my experience, stereotypes is a good thing in RPGs. It helps the players to orient themselves. The orks suggested here break stereotype so heavily they might as well be dark dwarfs (or whatever) and are no longer recognizable as orcs.

I suppose it depends what you mean by orcs. If you mean a humanoid foe not related to elves/dwarves/humans/etc. then I still suggest de-orcing them. You can take both the actual stats and the spirit of orcs and by giving them a culture have something far more interesting to work with without creating a new creature.

As for stereotypes, they are like cliches. Occasionally useful shorthand but often they sap any excitement from the game. With any seasoned players, you get a lot of baggage from a stereotype. Some of it probably doesn't even apply to your world and so is doing nothing useful.

When your players see these humanoid raiders for the first time, do you want them thinking "Oh, orcs. Great. Guess it's that phase of the campaign where we kill random humanoids. Woohoo." or do you want them thinking "Raiders and in better gear than we are in. Can we handle them? Can they be reasoned with? What do they want?" Use that orc label and it may be hard to get them off the first impression.

My suggestion is to use the existing "hard rules" material that defines the orcs (in order to save you effort) but work them into your world with a unique personality. Many of the alternative suggestions here seem to be the other way around, live with the stereotypes of the orc label but add hard rules stuff to distinguish them. You can make either work and if you enjoy extending creatures, the latter can be a lot of fun but I think the real problem with the orcs is the stereotype and that many campaigns would be better served investing in personality-distinction rather than mechanics-distinction.

Stereotypes are harmless enough for standalone encounters but if you are going to make the creature a major campaign focus, I don't see how they are really helping you.