D&D General The Case for Evil Orcs (Minor Rings of Power Spoilers)

[Reynard]

"Inherently evil" races--races that have the capacity to make moral choices, but inherently always make evil ones--are a problem for both the racism reasons (isn't it just dandy that they're coded with stereotypical Asian, African, or Middle Eastern characteristics? Good gosh golly, so unfortunate that!) and for the simple fact that they crush any actual moral understanding that could be learned from the text.

I'm not sure why you decided that the best way to engage this discussion was to immediately come in with this stuff, but it would be great if you took it elsewhere. I am not the least bit interested in 500 posts of you intimating that me and anyone else who thinks evil orcs are okay are closet racists.

 

[Reynard]

There is nothing wrong with intelligent Monsters as the campaign enemy opposing the good guys - the Draconians of Dragonlance or the Orcs of Tolkien or Klingons in Star Trek are great and make sense within that world.

the problem with DnD is that over the years more and more monsters have been added to the list of good guys - when Dragonborn and Tieflings and Goblins and Half-Orcs are playable races then the idea of Orc as evil monster becomes increasingly flawed.

Sure. I am using "orc" as shorthand here, knowing full well that for many orc is just another tiefling or dwarf (thanks WoW...).

My point is even with that being the case, a fundamentally evil, servant of darkness, meant to die in droves stock enemy is a worthwhile element of the game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Well, that does tend to exclude indirect methods of large-scale attack, such as via cutting off a food source (unless those undead are vampires) or economically outmaneuvering them. While I know those don't really sound like they lend themselves to adventuring, it's not beyond the pale to imagine a scenario where you're leading a force to secure a profitable new silver mine before it falls into orcish hands (and who'll use it to buy, say, slave fighters from the neogi).

EDIT: On further thought, I think I should revise my answer: the argument for having always-evil servitors not be undead or constructs is that it disallows for the understanding that "what works on us, works on them," that you get with orcs, hobgoblins, etc., and in so doing makes it harder to think outside of the metaphorical box when it comes to creative ways to fight them.

• At the individual level, you can knee an orc in the groin, potentially trying for a "dirty trick" effect under the game rules (or just having the GM wing it, if you're going with a "ruling over rules" style of play). You can't do that to a skeleton or a construct.
• At the strategic level, you can reroute a river to flood a dungeon, killing the inhabitants without putting yourself at risk and then going in to salvage the treasure. You can't do that with a dungeon populated by skeletons or constructs.
• At the macro level, you can introduce an invasive species that eats the orcs' crops, crippling their ability to field an army while they try to deal with food shortages and buying your people time to build their own military back up. You can't do that with skeletons or constructs.

Having low-level, ubiquitous enemies that are mortal humanoids retains a lot more options than changing them into creatures with a different mode of existence.

What I don't get is why they have to specifically be a biologically distinct species instead of just bad people. Why does it have to be a whole species born specifically to be gutted by heroes?

 

[Reynard]

What I don't get is why they have to specifically be a biologically distinct species instead of just bad people. Why does it have to be a whole species born specifically to be gutted by heroes?

You don't actually solve any of the problematic issues that way, since why someone joins a cult, serves a fascist or becomes a criminal is just as fraught with nuance and uncertainty as anything else. But the point of the created species is to sidestep all of that. They were made for this, both by the Dark Lord and the GM, to service the need for scores of enemies for the heroes to bash, slash, burn and blast to smithereens.

As to the "why not skeletons/robots/demons" question: I think, world building wise, they are scarier as "alive" but I can appreciate that some folks prefer not to draw some arbitrary line between "people" and "servitor species."

 

[MechaTarrasque]

If you are going to stick races into monster manuals, then I want more things like Orc Eye of Gruumsh, Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu, and especially the Drow Arachnomancer--extra-special evil, extra-special good, extra-special lawful, or extra-special chaotic. I would rather have more things like marauders, cultists, pirates, etc than cannon fodder orcs or goblins. Now if you want to make a pirate entry and want to use an orc pirate as an example of a medium pirate and a goblin pirate as an example of a small pirate, that would be fine as long as every bad guy role isn't orcs and/or goblins.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You don't actually solve any of the problematic issues that way, since why someone joins a cult, serves a fascist or becomes a criminal is just as fraught with nuance and uncertainty as anything else. But the point of the created species is to sidestep all of that. They were made for this, both by the Dark Lord and the GM, to service the need for scores of enemies for the heroes to bash, slash, burn and blast to smithereens.

Wait.

I know you said you wanted to not get into the racism deal, but you're the one who brought up 'problematic', so... you also don't solve people existing in a way you don't like by exterminating them either.

By playing the game originally defined by home invasion and robbery, we've already brought into murder being the solution to most problems.

 

[Reynard]

Wait.

I know you said you wanted to not get into the racism deal, but you're the one who brought up 'problematic', so... you also don't solve people existing in a way you don't like by exterminating them either.

By playing the game originally defined by home invasion and robbery, we've already brought into murder being the solution to most problems.

Sure. You're right. Let's not discuss that thing.

Killing as a primary method of problem solving can apply to a number of action adventure subgenres, from tomb robbing to war to crime drama, so that doesn't necessarily define the moral tone of the game. All the moral tone requires is an agreement among the folks at the table.

"Nathan Drake is a thief with a heart of gold. Oh, by the way, he's going to shoot and kills a couple thousand guys in the next couple of days."

 

[Micah Sweet]

They're the same thing. One is self-serving as an attack on others. The other is self-serving as an invincible excuse against any criticism.

"Inherently evil" races--races that have the capacity to make moral choices, but inherently always make evil ones--are a problem for both the racism reasons (isn't it just dandy that they're coded with stereotypical Asian, African, or Middle Eastern characteristics? Good gosh golly, so unfortunate that!) and for the simple fact that they crush any actual moral understanding that could be learned from the text.

If you do something like Oofta's "essentially bio-androids that are physically animated by the Dark Lord's will and cease functioning the instant that will is removed for any reason," that's substantially better, because (a) that isn't actually a race anymore, it's an organic machine incapable of making choices of any kind, moral or otherwise, and (b) being machines, they were intentionally designed by someone, and thus we can actually use this as a useful commentary against racism by noting that making your bio-androids racist caricatures is pretty evil in its own right, separate from what evil you happen to work with those bio-androids.

I guess in that sense, "inherently good race" is actually worse than "inherently evil race." Because the former invites the extreme temptation to have these "inherently good" beings be seen as Just Better versions of mortals. There's a twisted aspirational element to that. And, of course, it's extremely convenient for use in justifying all sorts of atrocities and horrors: "Well it can't be evil. The always-good angels told us to do it. It has to serve good, no matter how hard it is for us to understand."


Really? There's at least two distinct places where you exactly contradict that:


How can they be PCs if they aren't thinking, feeling people with individual personalities, desires, and motives? Isn't that a fundamental part of being a PC, in all but the most extreme pawn-stance game?


Here you just straight-up say nonsense. It's not possible to have "sapient....individuals with personalities" that don't have free will. Further, if it's literally not possible for them to not choose to do horrible, disgusting, dangerous, corruptive things, then they cannot be evil. You have to be able to choose to do evil or good. Otherwise you just...aren't either. You aren't even on the alignment grid at all, which is why we have Unaligned. How is it even remotely possible to be "sapient" and be "individuals with personalities" and "make choices" and yet not have free will?

This is why all relevant celestials in my home game (mostly angels, demons, and devils, though couatls have also been shown to fall into this category) have a reason why they're "Always <Alignment.>" They fought in the War in Heaven. They waged an infinitely-long war for one of the three ultimate factions: the loyal Servants who upheld the will and the divine plan of the One, the loyal-but-disobedient devils who wanted to uphold the divine plan but disobeyed the One's command to never use coercion on mortals, and the twice-fallen demons who came to revel in the destruction/death/pain/emotionality and thus sowed chaos for its own sake. Devils believe they "won" the right to play out their philosophy, while the Servants believe the devils were punished to be bound by the very rules they hoped to apply to mortals. Demons believe they "won" the right to rapaciously sate their eternal, unquenchable desires on the world, so long as they can draw mortals into similar debauchery, while the Servants and devils see them as punished to be enslaved to those desires for all of eternity.

The question is, are you ok with other people not following your line of reasoning, and just making traditional worlds with races like Tolkien's orcs? Would you play in a game like that, and if you wouldn't, would you just leave or encourage others to follow your example? This game is played at a table, physical or virtual, with other people, and making that experience fun for that particular table is the only goal that really matters. Imo.

 

[Alzrius]

What I don't get is why they have to specifically be a biologically distinct species instead of just bad people. Why does it have to be a whole species born specifically to be gutted by heroes?

Well, I'd venture that it's because having them be an entire race nicely obviates issues of motivation/characterization that "just bad people" has.

That is to say, "just bad people" tends to work (in my experience) on the small scale, but if you scale things up it tends to unintentionally alter, or at the very least invite an interrogation of, the premise behind what's happening. Most PCs don't tend to think much of seven or eight bandits popping out of the wilderness to rob the occasional caravan, but when you have seven or eight hundred bandits who're organized, they have the potential to be a serious threat to the local region. But that then brings up questions of why several hundred people whom you'd otherwise assume would be productive members of society are so intent on tearing that society down. Most PCs (again, in my experience) are going to have at least mild curiosity about what's led to that...are they dissidents? Foreign agitators? Cultists who're claiming religious persecution?

In other words, if you have too many "just bad people" it invites questions of why there are so many, in a way that an evil race doesn't. Their being evil means that you don't have to question it any deeper if you're not inclined (which is a perfectly legitimate way to play).

Of course, you can have all of those questions/concerns apply to orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, etc. if you want. That's the nice thing about the "evil race" trope; it works at whatever level of complexity you want it to, giving it narrative/worldbuilding flexibility that "just bad people" doesn't afford. Your orcs can be deep and complex individuals who might have some real grievances with the human kingdoms...or they might be a society of brutish savages who only want to pillage and destroy. Some people want the latter, and in a game that wants to have broad applicability, that option should be there, ideally in a way that doesn't necessarily require distinct monsters to fulfill.

I suppose that's the real draw, in that you can choose to humanize evil races or not as per the needs of your campaign. Skeletons and constructs can't really be humanized, and bad guys who're already human need (at least a little) effort put in to dehumanize them. But evil races are good for all options.

Or at least that's my rambling, off-the-cuff take on that particular question.

 

[Fifinjir]

It’s worth remembering that Radiant Citadel, the most unabashedly progressive product 5e has released. Still has disease spreading owl demons, masses of twitching limbs, and faceless aberration dudes, all with “typically (something) evil” clearly displayed.

The servitors of evil entities haven’t gone away, it seems to be switching to a “Good creates, Evil corrupts” paradigm. Which actually makes it more Tolkien-ish.