Orcs used to be Lawful Evil

[dead]

Your sentence has a slightly different cast when read in context of the paragraph in which it appears. Please don't confuse "I disagree with you" with "I misread you".

The overwhelming answer here, by the informal survey you've spawned, seems to be "We were using them as chaotic evil already, so the rule change made sense to us." Since my big campaign world was orcless, it's not a ruling that really affects me, but I like the Chaotic Orc more than the Lawful Orc. Obviously, if it doesn't work for you, change it. Heck, you can change them to Neutral Good if it works in your campaign. There's little importance tying them to that alignment.

The fact that my orcs are, indeed, Chaotic Evil should be evidence enough that I wasn't trying to push the Lawful Evil vision. I'll be more careful in the future to word my postings better so that no misinterpretations can be made (or very few, at least). I took no "position" in my posting and if people thought my example/descriptions of orcs was incorrect and it offended them, I apologise. But who knows? Maybe the orcs were incorrect to begin with, "fixed" in 1E and 2E, then made incorrect again? It depends on how one looks at it. But, for your information, I like them just fine in 3E because, well, they work well (. . . there, I've said a good thing about 3E!). I was just posting a question of "tradition" vs. "new rules/look".

As of my posting this, you have about 34 posts. All the ones I've read have been complaints about changes to the rules, reasons you think that the d20 system doesn't work, and so forth. Now, that's not exactly conclusive, since I'm not really hunting through the entirety of the boards to find your posts, but it's the impression you've given me. You won't get lynched for making the slightest criticism of 3E, but if every post that I read from you involves "Things I don't like about 3E", what kind of conclusion should I reach?

True, I am new and I am getting used to the "protocal", so to speak. But I'll never look kindly on sarcasm and spite. Actually, I catch myself now using the same sarcasm and spite in replies! I'll keep a watch on myself -- I don't want to upset any newcomers (anyone with less than 34 posts) with a spiteful reply that risks them deciding not to join this Community.

Thank you for detecting the errors in the post I have "spawned". In the future I shall proof-read it more thoroughly. [I'm not be sarcastic.]

 

[Wycen]

Interestingly, the Manual of Planes lists Acheron, the Lawful Neutral (Evil) battlefield as Gruumsh's home plane.

Then you look in Deities and Demigods and see his alignment is Chaotic Evil, but still hanging out in Acheron.

From a Planescape perspective, this is an abnormal situation.

 

[takyris]

Yo Dead,

All good -- sarcasm is cultural in many areas. I'm pretty inured to it, since I grew up in an Irish (-American) Catholic family, but I've accidentally offended several people with what I thought of as harmless sarcasm because they came from a different culture than I did. Sorry if I tweaked you. It was unintentional.

Spite is a different matter. Spite is reserved for one's enemies, and has no place on a messageboard (whereas sarcasm is perfectly acceptible until somebody gets genuinely angry, coughcough). Sorry if I got spiteful.

And, to answer your general question... I think that tradition is good only as long as it continues to be popular. There are elements of 3E that I don't like, stylistically, certain monsters and class abilities and such, so I flavored them differently or changed a few things. If everyone else changes the same things, then darn right I'd like 'em to be official in the next version. If not, I can change 'em in 4E, too. (Example: Sickles should be Kamas. "Kama" is Japanese for "Sickle". There's no reason to separate them -- none. It's silly. So in my world, sickles and kamas are interchangeable, and there's one very small but respectable organization of druid/monks that take advantage of this.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Interestingly, the Manual of Planes lists Acheron, the Lawful Neutral (Evil) battlefield as Gruumsh's home plane.

Then you look in Deities and Demigods and see his alignment is Chaotic Evil, but still hanging out in Acheron.

From a Planescape perspective, this is an abnormal situation.

IMC, Orcs have had a bit of an ideology shift in recent years. The can't compete with the hobgoblins -- they've lost the war in Acheron.

Acheron may still be Gruumsh's home plane, but that's just because he hasn't popped up anywhere new yet....or his leiutenant hasn't quite finished the usurping yet.......

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I'm just wondering if any old-school players have gotten a little irritated by small changes like this? Where is the line that you draw between respecting "tradition" and making changes that are "convienient" to the new rules/new "look".

The one that annoyed me was bard's alignment. It was "any neutral alignment" in 2e. So, I'm playing a bard in an online game. Lawful Neutral fit him perfectly. Then the game converted to 3e and the DM said I could not be Lawful anymore. He just wasn't the same when he was True Neutral. :\

 

[Alzrius]

Interestingly, the Manual of Planes lists Acheron, the Lawful Neutral (Evil) battlefield as Gruumsh's home plane.

Then you look in Deities and Demigods and see his alignment is Chaotic Evil, but still hanging out in Acheron.

From a Planescape perspective, this is an abnormal situation.

This is one of the big reasons why this and other racial alignment changes make little sense anymore - because their gods still tend to retain their original alignments and home planes.

 

[Remathilis]

I seem to recall that Gruumsh and Malabyut (the goblin god) were fighting a loosing war, and the orcs turned chaotic to gain the edge. I think it was in MotP, but I might be mistaken.

Either way, its still a plane of war, and better than the other options open to them (Abyss, Pandemonium, Carceri)

 

[Hida Bukkorosu]

sickles are different from kamas. a sickle has a "C" shape to it (like the thing on the old USSR flag) and a kama is a short stick with a curved blade that moves perpendicular and then slightly back from the end...