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

[GMforPowergamers]

I find the argument both for and against to be odd...

if I have evil orcs attack a town, and my party fights them does it matter if ALL orcs are evil or are just THESE orcs are evil?

 

[toucanbuzz]

You don't have to "make a case."

500 people could consecutively post that "they think" drow-orcs-ogres-tieflings-demons-devils-mind flayers-chromatic dragons-yada-yada shouldn't be run as evil. At my table, in my campaigns, I'll run them as evil because my players, at my table, are playing fantasy because they want to get away from moral ambiguity philosophy 101 "What Makes One Evil" and just game.

I don't have to convince those other 500 because they aren't playing at my table and I simply don't think about what they're doing. I may weigh in time-to-time on the forums in the hopes that "you do you" wins out.

If I were being paid to design an RPG, I'd put some more thought into it because I'd want a format that allows "you do you."

 

[GMforPowergamers]

now TBF let me weigh in on where I fall (and have for a long time)

my first campaign I had good kobolds and orcs. Not that PCs teamed up with them, but avoided them.

by 10 years later when my brother in law (10 years my elder) joined (or well tried to join) us in 3.5 he thought we spent WAY too much time deciding who was the bad ones and who was the good ones. He couldn't believe anyone played D&D worrying about if orcs are good or bad... when he found out in the campaign right before he joined we had the party working with 2 (married/mated) dragons, she was red he was black.... his eyes almost poped out of his socket.

 

[Reynard]

I find the argument both for and against to be odd...

if I have evil orcs attack a town, and my party fights them does it matter if ALL orcs are evil or are just THESE orcs are evil?

I would argue it does because it both informs the fiction and suggests solutions.

For example, if orcs aren't inherently evil servants of the Dark Lord, then immediately the question of why are these orcs attacking this town comes up. That implies some things about the world and invites questions, and it will likely suggest solutions beyond "exterminate!" to the players.

If, however, the orcs are in fact the inherently evil minions of Darkus'lordus, then that implies a different story -- why does DL hate this town? -- and puts the PCs in a different frame of mind.

Note that I am not saying one is better than the other for any given game, even if in the context of this thread I would advocate the latter.

 

[MGibster]

Other than tradition, what's the argument for always-evil servitors not being undead or constructs?

I tend to find most undead and constructs to be fairly boring. But, hell, if the Skull from The Last Unicorn could have a personality then why not give D&D undead personalities too?

 

[Professor Murder]

So this is of course a proper hornet's nest but I am curious about one factor.
In Tolkien's cosmology, do Orcs have souls?
As in, are they complete, living beings, or are they just flesh machines?
In DnD, to the best of my knowledge, Orcs have souls. Orcs have Gods. Orcs are judged upon death for their actions.
I have never quite understood why Orcs need to be intrinsically evil in order to make fighting and even killing them OK. Killing enemy soldiers in war is generally seen as morally justifiable. If Orcs culturally view violence and aggression towards others as not only acceptable but morally correct, then resisting them would be just as just as standing against any number of conquering societies in human history. Were the Romans evil? How about Genghis Khan? How about Leopold II of Belgium?
What is at issue is that Orcs are coded with traditionally racist tropes. There are dozens of easily found articles and papers that lay this out. Big. Dark. Primitive. Uneducated. Driven to r*pe. Hell, it took until like 4th ed to remove that trope from 1/2 Orcs.

Short answer: I think you can make any people an enemy if you stress that what is at issue is that cultural norms that drive them put them into conflict with others. America was founded as a slave-owning nation. Most did not own slaves, and there were many who opposed the practice. But enough were either in favor or were at least neutral to the practice so that it remained with us until the Civil War. Were all those Americans evil? No. Did they live in a society that normalized a barbaric and objectively evil practice? Yes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So this is of course a proper hornet's nest but I am curious about one factor.
In Tolkien's cosmology, do Orcs have souls?
As in, are they complete, living beings, or are they just flesh machines?
In DnD, to the best of my knowledge, Orcs have souls. Orcs have Gods. Orcs are judged upon death for their actions.
I have never quite understood why Orcs need to be intrinsically evil in order to make fighting and even killing them OK. Killing enemy soldiers in war is generally seen as morally justifiable. If Orcs culturally view violence and aggression towards others as not only acceptable but morally correct, then resisting them would be just as just as standing against any number of conquering societies in human history. Were the Romans evil? How about Genghis Khan? How about Leopold II of Belgium?
What is at issue is that Orcs are coded with traditionally racist tropes. There are dozens of easily found articles and papers that lay this out. Big. Dark. Primitive. Uneducated. Driven to r*pe. Hell, it took until like 4th ed to remove that trope from 1/2 Orcs.

Short answer: I think you can make any people an enemy if you stress that what is at issue is that cultural norms that drive them put them into conflict with others. America was founded as a slave-owning nation. Most did not own slaves, and there were many who opposed the practice. But enough were either in favor or were at least neutral to the practice so that it remained with us until the Civil War. Were all those Americans evil? No. Did they live in a society that normalized a barbaric and objectively evil practice? Yes.

Tolkien went back and forth in his writings about the origin of orcs, but in nearly all of them (including his published works) orcs have souls, or at least spirits. Usually they are the result of Morgoth and Sauron's experiments on tricked and/or captured Elves (and in some writings Men). As both have a life after physical death, it follows that orcs do as well.

 

[Reynard]

In Tolkien's cosmology, do Orcs have souls?
As in, are they complete, living beings, or are they just flesh machines?

In Tolkien orcs do not have souls and are not free willed, even if they are sentient. I know this feels like a dichotomy to some folks but there is plenty of religious and philosophical backing for it to make sense in its context.

In DnD, to the best of my knowledge, Orcs have souls. Orcs have Gods. Orcs are judged upon death for their actions.

I mean, yes, but that's the very problem. Don't do that and ta-da, stock enemy.

 

[Reynard]

Tolkien went back and forth in his writings about the origin of orcs, but in nearly all of them (including his published works) orcs have souls, or at least spirits. Usually they are the result of Morgoth and Sauron's experiments on tricked and/or captured Elves (and in some writings Men). As both have a life after physical death, it follows that orcs do as well.

Elves do NOT have souls in the way Men do. That is explicitly the gift to Men. They get to go to heaven or whatever but Elves do not (though some are resurrected). Since orcs are corrupted elves, they do not either (though there's an interesting question of whether a killed orc could be resurrected as an elf).

 

[Fifinjir]

Elves do NOT have souls in the way Men do. That is explicitly the gift to Men. They get to go to heaven or whatever but Elves do not (though some are resurrected). Since orcs are corrupted elves, they do not either (though there's an interesting question of whether a killed orc could be resurrected as an elf).

IIRC, the spirits of dead elves go to the Hall of Mandos or are reborn on Middle-earth. I’d assume Morgoth made some mechanism that enforced the later for orcs.