D&D General Orcs are misplaced

[Marandahir]

They've been closer to the ogre/troll/giant category, if anything, for a long time. Ogrillans (orc/ogre hybrids) are from 1E.

Sure, but Ogrillions are also Half-Ogres in 2014-5E lore.

Half-Ogres are also half-[Orc, Human, Hobgoblin, Bugbear] suggesting that Goblinoids and Semi-Giant are not that far apart.

And that makes sense, because Orcs come originally from Tolkien, and Tolkien's Orcs and Tolkien's Goblins were the same species of various tribes and sizes.

 

[Tonguez]

Did someone take them out of the kobold -> goblin -> orc -> hobgoblin -> bugbear hierarchy?

That hierarchy hasnt existed since 2e, especially once they made kobolds into runt dragons and even moreso now that goblins are fey.

Orcs are in the strange place of having become increasingly more 'human' over the years, so we get the weird place of 2024 making them in to Vaqueros.

I would have preferred they stayed Pig-head Gamorreans and been subsumed into the "Beastman" archetype with Gnolls and Goatfolk, but the majority said otherwise ...

 

[Parmandur]

That hierarchy hasnt existed since 2e, especially once they made kobolds into runt dragons and even moreso now thay goblins are fey.

Orcs are in the strange place of having become increasingly more 'human' over the years, so we get the weird place of 2024 making them in to Vaqueros.

I would have preferred they stayed Pig-head Gamorreans and been subsumed into the "Beastman" archetype with Gnolls and Goatfolk, but the majority said otherwise ...

The Orc cowboy thing did not seem all that weird, if they are frequently pastoralist cultures in the "Badlands" as historically depicted in D&D worlds, it fits. The Axe beak riding Orc tribes of the Fallen Lands to the Southeast of the Silver Marches and tot he West of the Anauroch...could easily fit the Orcs in the PHB photo. And thst goes back to FR5 in the 80s.

 

[Yaarel]

Did someone take them out of the kobold -> goblin -> orc -> hobgoblin -> bugbear hierarchy?

Yeah, Orc and Kobold split off from the Goblinoids.

Kobold merged with Dragon affinity.

The Orc seems to still be individuating a salient identity. Explorations range from nonmagical Neanderthal-like hominids, to magical elemental Giant affinity (orcus = ogre), and personally I associate them necromancy (orcus = Latin name for underworld realm of the dead) (eventually orcus was understood as infernal contra skyey heaven, whence the D&D demon Orcus). At the moment, 5e 2024 seems to be going for a nonmagical Ogre-Human "half breed", but at some point it will probably become clearer why the Orc is neither an Ogre nor a Human.