D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[Oofta]

Do you really need hundreds of more words, or do you just need to change what's already on the page?

Change to what? You can't make them Eberron orcs AFAIK because they rely on knowledge of a specific campaign and don't make a lot of sense outside of that campaign.

Right now they fill a niche. I see no reason why every race or monster needs to fit multiple niches.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Change to what? You can't make them Eberron orcs AFAIK because they rely on knowledge of a specific campaign and don't make a lot of sense outside of that campaign.

Right now they fill a niche. I see no reason why every race or monster needs to fit multiple niches.

xp speed bump is not a niche it is the function of literally ever monster, by your logic bear and orc are the same thing.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Change to what? You can't make them Eberron orcs AFAIK because they rely on knowledge of a specific campaign and don't make a lot of sense outside of that campaign.

Right now they fill a niche. I see no reason why every race or monster needs to fit multiple niches.

You could strip off the numbers of Eberron Orcs without problem. It's not all that hard.

 

[jasper]

bandits and raiders

bandits, raiders, and metermaids. Oh my the evil!

 

[Oofta]

xp speed bump is not a niche it is the function of literally ever monster, by your logic bear and orc are the same thing.

No. They're the ravaging horde, the existential threat, thinking zombies. Sometimes they're just the bully down the street or the thug in the back alley.

Since I don't do murder hobo campaigns, dungeon crawls, or even use XP you have no idea what I do.

People keep saying we should change them. Okay. To what? What would the lore be? How would it be "better"?

 

[Oofta]

You could strip off the numbers of Eberron Orcs without problem. It's not all that hard.

I don't have an Eberron book. So what do you think orcs should look like. How are they better? How are they not just humans with masks?

 

[HJFudge]

No. They're the ravaging horde, the existential threat, thinking zombies.

That is a question:

Is it still problematic to portray a race as All Evil if the REASON they are all evil is not their fault? Think reavers from firefly/serenity. They cannot be reasoned with, there are no good reavers. But it is also entirely not their fault, they are 100% victims in a way.

So how about it? Are always bad orcs still problematic if they're the victims of a curse that turns them into violent, raging homicidal maniacs that just barely maintain an order, but for the sole purpose of more efficient mayhem causing?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Are always bad orcs still problematic if they're the victims of a curse that turns them into violent, raging homicidal maniacs that just barely maintain an order, but for the sole purpose of more efficient mayhem causing?

If that race has a history of being coded as human ethnicities who have been thought of that way in racist propaganda? Yes.

If it was an entirely new race with no history, or a race that hadn't been coded that way? No.

Unfortunately orcs are the former. Could work great for elves or halflings or something though.

No. They're the ravaging horde, the existential threat, thinking zombies.

Which would be fine if those didn't line up with racist propaganda about black and asian people, and orcs hadn't also been aligned with racial stereotyping of that nature of other kinds.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I don't have an Eberron book. So what do you think orcs should look like. How are they better? How are they not just humans with masks?

Orc

Orcs are large and powerful humanoids who can be found across Khorvaire, but particularly in the Demon Wastes, the Mror Holds, and the Shadow Marches.[5] While the people of the Five Nations sometimes depict them as savage brutes and ravaging barbarians, most orcs are in fact a deeply spiritual...

eberron.fandom.com

I mean, I think they're distinct enough, though I don't find "mindless barbarians" to be particularly distinct from humans since you can totally have humans as those, too.

That is a question:

Is it still problematic to portray a race as All Evil if the REASON they are all evil is not their fault? Think reavers from firefly/serenity. They cannot be reasoned with, there are no good reavers. But it is also entirely not their fault, they are 100% victims in a way.

So how about it? Are always bad orcs still problematic if they're the victims of a curse that turns them into violent, raging homicidal maniacs that just barely maintain an order, but for the sole purpose of more efficient mayhem causing?

Depends on how it is structured? I mean, Reavers are a cool example, but I have no clue how they have managed to last as long as they have while being completely insane. Warcraft Orcs made pacts with demons, but I don't know how deeply that extended, and obviously they broke out of that.

 

[Zardnaar]

No, because they form a natural equilibrium with their prey, and more importantly, because neither the predator nor the prey in those examples is sapient. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure if humans had any natural predators, we would be pretty morally justified in defending ourselves against them.

I don’t know if malevolence is even the best way to describe it in the case of mind flayers. Like I said before, I actually prefer to classify Aberrations as unaligned because they exist outside our traditional ethical framework.

Also, side note, let’s not pretend ceromorphasis is just a “breeding ritual.” It’s a violent invasion of a sapient victim’s body that destroys the victim’s bodily autonomy, and the existence of Neothelids proves it isn’t even an essential step in the Illithid lifecycle.

If you really want to get into it, I view Illithid
as essentially amoral beasts native to the Far Realm, whom the Elder Brains (which are absolutely evil) enslaved and turned to their own purpose. Which I’ve hinted at a couple times now with my comments about a campaign where you free the Illithid from the influence of the Elder Brains and then try to peacefully coexist with them.

Illithuds probably smart enough to figure out how to reproduce in other way. Cloning perhaps.

It's harder for sentient races that require feeding or others for reproduction.

Humans eat and have wiped out plenty of species. If another race had the same requirements and that was humans we would see then as evil they see us as a self aware hamburger maybe or livestock.