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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9545017">I think it is generally a mistake to draw conclusions about peoples real world beliefs based on what they think makes for a good game of D&D. I am sure there are all kinds of positions one will find, but this doesn't seem an accurate representation of what people are saying by and large on the 'pro evil orc' front. The point isn't to kill orcs simply because of how they look. The point is they want a world where the forces of good and evil are colliding or where you simply have evil races of beings and they like the aesthetics and feel of having evil looking monsters. Like I have said a bunch of times, I generally prefer more naturalistic explanations in my settings. I don't mind a 2E style default where orcs are generally described as evil (so you have this cool looking baked in conflict and threat, but also plenty of room to make them free willed and open to other ways of life), but I also like settings where orcs are just like any other group and most issues around stuff like morality are cultural, and I am also okay with the cosmic clash. I also don't see demihumans and monsters in fantasy RPGs as stand ins for real world people. You have to borrow cultural features to world build and give things flavor, but having an evil and savage orc tribe (even having that be the default orc) doesn't strike me as being commentary on real world native people or nomadic people. When I made orcs for my own setting I did try to retain them being more warlike as a general cultural trait (because I think warlike orcs are cool), but they spanned the gamut in terms of moral systems, social structure and civilization level (and the chief thing that distinguished them physically was a much stronger sense of smell than the other races. In terms of bonuses, the way I did it in my system was gave the player a choice between a +1 rank in Wits, Command or Specialist Skill (system was skill based: specialist is a broad category of skills that include things like Trade, Survival, Talent, Medicine, Divination and Ritual). For smell they effectively got a +1d10 dice pool bonus to detection when smell was a factor. And they got a bonus called Resilient Mind that allowed them to cast magic spells without suffering some of the negative consequences.</blockquote>

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