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

[Oofta]

Let's be real. This is not about individual game tables. Everyone can play in and DM the type of game they want to run, and there's nothing anyone on any social media can do about it. I, personally, think good and evil races are boring af so it's a trope I avoid. And yet I still play a game based on traipsing around dangerous locales for the sake of profit. There's tools in these games to avoid the type of play I don't want (e.g., morale rolls, reaction rolls, combat being very dangerous and swingy), so I'm able to make it work just as people who DO want those tropes are able to make them work.

This is about the actual game's text and play culture changing, and people acting like that's infringing or irreversibly changing the hobby or their ability to run the games they want... And that's not true. I mean, people who don't want evil orcs or biological essentialism in their game have been catering their games towards that style for years, and letting other people know that that's how their game is being run. So... that's going to be true of people on the opposite side of the argument now. You can do it, though, it's not that big a deal. Just let people know what you're doing, and let them decide if that's the game for them.

While orcs are always evil in my campaign*, I do think the direction WOTC has been taking of being clear that the alignment entry is just the default is a good idea. The alignment listed for any creature in the MM is just a default, and always has been in 5E it's just that the explanation was buried in the intro to the MM that very few people actually read.

I think it's a good idea that they're going back to 3.x's "[qualifier] [alignment]" style so the orcs you encounter as enemies could be "typically evil" then the DM decides what that means for the orcs that the players interact with. As far as cultural changes, I think the game needs bad guys. Sometimes I just want a simple game where black and white, good and evil, are easily identifiable because I want to escape from the messiness of real world morality.

I understand the problems with "every member of a species wears the same hat" trope for serious fiction. Sometimes I want a game that is not serious.

*It's kind of an exception to my general rule for humanoids, only orcs and gnolls are always evil. For different reasons.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Disagreeing or calling people out is not cyberbullying.

I normally agree with you but the line between 'calling someone out' and 'bullying' is very blurry and can look very different depending on what side you are on

 

[Vaalingrade]

It might be that the motivation of the Dark Lord is to destroy everything-- because "Dark Lord" -- and therefore the motivation of his carefully crafted minions is to destroy everything for the Dark Lord. In the very same game, you might have humans aligned with the Dark.Lord whose motivations are much more complex and nuanced -- use the chaos and destruction caused by the rampages of the Dark Lord's minions to secure land and power, for example.

As usual people are forced to construct strawman in order to establish their position as valid.

I stated the exact thing you said. How, and in what universe is that a strawman?

 

[DEFCON 1]

As usual people are forced to construct strawman in order to establish their position as valid.

If you think people are constructing strawmen against you (and thus presumbly are arguing in bad faith)... then why do you care what they say then?

Are you looking for them to change their minds and agree with you?

 

[Vaalingrade]

get this thread shut real quick

It would be great mercy.

 

[Morrus]

Oh, good god. There's a 150+ post thread about evil orcs... again? That's what I get for glancing away from the boards. I thought we'd all agreed that topic ain't happening here because obvious why. Closed. Please don't make the evil orcs thread again.