D&D General The Human Side of D&D History - From Gary Gygax to Temple of Elemental Evil

The trouble with presenting "problematic" elements of early d&d without actually being specific while gloating about Streisand effect & such is that you miss out on historical elements is that you miss out on context like

Still, as the trope page you quoted rightly pointed out, that something has a historical context "doesn't automatically make the work immune to criticism. "
 

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At least since 2e, orcs in D&D have been grey, though often a greenish grey. Bright green orcs, á la Warhammer or Warcraft, are generally not a thing in D&D.
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(Also, it's really hard to find pre-3e color illustrations of orcs. The only good one I could find was from the cover of Demihuman Deities, showcasing Gruumsh losing an eye, and he's not really in focus in the picture.)
3e orcs in the MM were described as gray skinned but depicted as green while 3e PC half-orcs were depicted as gray.

A little bit of Green and Gray Hulk going on.

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By MM IV orcs were depicted as matching the descriptions.

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I like the green orc depiction better.
 

3e orcs in the MM were described as gray skinned but depicted as green while 3e PC half-orcs were depicted as gray.

A little bit of Green and Gray Hulk going on.

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By MM IV orcs were depicted as matching the descriptions.

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I like the green orc depiction better.
I was under the impression that all orcs were green like the first one you posted, and that they were changed to grey in 4e, lol
 

I was under the impression that all orcs were green like the first one you posted, and that they were changed to grey in 4e, lol
That 3e MM picture looms large in the consciousness. :)

When I read the description in my 3.5 MM today I was surprised it said gray skinned. So I looked up 3.0 and the same.

My house rule for 3e/Pathfinder was no half races but PC half orc stats were available as full blooded "Gray Orcs" subspecies while MM ones were "Green Orcs" based off that art split. I thought I was going with the official split.
 

This is an unfair way to deal with people who disagree with you over this stuff. It is just a rhetorical trick to dismiss people’s arguments and perspectives

Mod note:
You are correct. It is unfair.

The fair way for them to deal with such posting patterns seen here would be use of the ignore/block feature, and thus simply stop responding to the repeated questions, thread after thread.

So, folks, that is the moderator recommendation at this time. Liberal use of the ignore/block function is a reasonable response to the situation. Do not feed those you feel are sealions.


Hopefully, that will generate a better experience for all of you in the discussion.
 

@mamba calling Gygax a negligent father because he war gamed a lot and was a cobbler for a while
That sounds like an opinion rather than an invented flaw. It might be an exaggeration, but I'd have to re-listen to Mary Jo's comments in When We Were Wizards again to venture a stronger opinion. Maybe take another look over Empire of Imagination as well.

That seems like a pretty tenuous tangent based on confusion, though. If I followed correctly, that was part of a sub-discussion where Tetrasodium brought up a 1975 article in Europa in which a gamer described himself and other wargamers as "elites", and Mamba mistakenly thought that piece was by Gygax, and opined that it seemed strange for a guy in Gary's educational and socioeconomic position at that time to consider himself an elite. That whole discussion was a tangent based on a misunderstanding, if I understand correctly.
 


@Sacrosanct the individuals on the cover of Drums of Fire Mountain are not supposed to be orcs though (at least that is what I took from the wiki). So I'm not sure why you included that cover.
They're a bespoke orc offshoot species called Kara-Kara. They're functionally orcs; green skinned, tusked, explicitly stated to be related, and characters who speak orcish are able to understand their language.

Drums on Fire Mountain is fairly obscure, but well known in discussions about the legacy content disclaimer on older TSR DMs Guild products, as one of the go-to examples for why it exists. X8 is somewhat offensive for the way it uses Polynesian themes, including representing Polynesian islanders as inhuman primitive pirates. I don't think it's nearly as bad as, say, GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar, which is chock-full of insulting stereotypes about and cringeworthy jokes at the expense of indigenous peoples, but it's not great.
 

They're a bespoke orc offshoot species called Kara-Kara. They're functionally orcs; green skinned, tusked, explicitly stated to be related, and characters who speak orcish are able to understand their language.

Drums on Fire Mountain is fairly obscure, but well known in discussions about the legacy content disclaimer on older TSR DMs Guild products, as one of the go-to examples for why it exists. X8 is somewhat offensive for the way it uses Polynesian themes, including representing Polynesian islanders as inhuman primitive pirates.
Thanks for this!
The wiki did mention the Polynesian influence and that they are green-skinned humanoids worshipping a pig god but that was it.
 

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