D&D 5E Orcs and Drow in YOUR game (poll */comments +)

[Azzy]

What year did that happen?

Sometime after Mentzer was tasked to rewrite the Basic line. So 82, I assume (the Mentzer Basic set was released sometime in 83, IIRC)

 

[Maxperson]

Sometime after Mentzer was tasked to rewrite the Basic line. So 82, I assume (the Mentzer Basic set was released sometime in 83, IIRC)

The Wrath of the Immortals set from 1992 gives immortals clerics and the ability to punish their clerics by denying the cleric spells. They may have removed the word "god" from BECMI, but the immortals still serve that exact function within BECMI. It's a distinction without a difference from what I can tell.

 

[Azzy]

The Wrath of the Immortals set from 1992 gives immortals clerics and the ability to punish their clerics by denying the cleric spells. They may have removed the word "god" from BECMI, but the immortals still serve that exact function within BECMI. It's a distinction without a difference from what I can tell.

Okay. It's seems like it went down the same way demons and devils did in 2e (while BECMI still had demons, lol).... Remove them, wait several years, bring them back with a different name (to maintain plausible deniability and remove some theological baggage), and profit!

If that source that that Lyxen quoted is correct and that Menzter himself was the main driver of removing gods from BECMI, that would explain the soft backpedal that happened under later custodians. It's a shame, having immortals as just "not-gods" kinda cheapens them IMO. At least post-BECMI D&D (RC/WotI and later) retained clerics not needing to be aligned with Immortals.

 

[Helldritch]

Okay. It's seems like it went down the same way demons and devils did in 2e (while BECMI still had demons, lol).... Remove them, wait several years, bring them back with a different name (to maintain plausible deniability and remove some theological baggage), and profit!

If that source that that Lyxen quoted is correct and that Menzter himself was the main driver of removing gods from BECMI, that would explain the soft backpedal that happened under later custodians. It's a shame, having immortals as just "not-gods" kinda cheapens them IMO. At least post-BECMI D&D (RC/WotI and later) retained clerics not needing to be aligned with Immortals.

On that I fully agree. It was cheap. The options should've been clearer and a lot more detailed. The curate in the B2 is in a chapel. This alone implies gods. Which one? We always assumed it was to the DM to determinate (as it should be) according to his own current campaign. A lot of D&D was trying to be as generic as possible but as things turn out, people want to have a lot more explanations and setting than just: "Make up your own!". Somehow, I feel betrayed... A clearer stance would have been better. I started with the "white" box and when I bought the red one, I always assumed that everything had carried over as nothing had changed (in appearance).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Orcs to me are the mirrors of humans, far more similar than different. The reason they have the reputation they do is that the most famous of orcs are almost invariably people suited to violence, with limited respect for property rights, and who solve problems frequently through violence. In other words adventurers. Orcs in their own settlements are a lot more peaceful - but react to human (and most other) adventurers the way most human settlements do to orc adventurers.

 

[Helldritch]

Orcs to me are the mirrors of humans, far more similar than different. The reason they have the reputation they do is that the most famous of orcs are almost invariably people suited to violence, with limited respect for property rights, and who solve problems frequently through violence. In other words adventurers. Orcs in their own settlements are a lot more peaceful - but react to human (and most other) adventurers the way most human settlements do to orc adventurers.

This is highly dependant on the game world. As per many and from the MM, orc leadership is taken by strongest, usually by killing the previous chief of the tribe. They kill each other (as by Gruumsh's teaching) as readily as they kill other races. In Ebberon you're right. On Greyhawk you're wrong. In FR, it depends. In Mystara, definitely wrong. Again, this is highly variable from one game world to an other.

 

[teitan]

I don't over arch the whole thing. Lolthites are evil but not as a race thing but Lolthites are predominant in the same way religions in the real world can dominate a region.