D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Gradine]

I'm guessing you probably won't like it, then, when I tell you that full-blooded Orcs in my game have this as a built-in biological feature: adult Orcs semi-spontaneously changing gender (a process that takes a few hours) is a relatively frequent - as in a few times a year for any given one - occurrence.

Sure made me put in a lot of thought as to how they'd reproduce, but I think I've got it sorted.

I mean... it doesn't seem like you play it as a source of amusement, and you've otherwise put some thought into it, so I don't know why I would dislike the idea.

This and the "one of my players commissioned it" thing aren't gotchas... I'm trans. I obviously have no issue with the idea of being able to change your gender (or thoughtfully playing with sex and gender in general).

The problem is when the game turns it into a joke. Which it almost absolutely was intended to do (and how it was used in the Baldur's Gate series).

To quote somebody else on the subject: "I'm pretty sure the true purpose was to make 14 year old boys snicker when one of their friends was turned into a girl."

That's the thing I object to.

That's also, I'm sure, the reason why the girdle doesn't really appear in print anymore.

 

[the Jester]

The problem is when the game turns it into a joke. Which it almost absolutely was intended to do (and how it was used in the Baldur's Gate series).

To quote somebody else on the subject: "I'm pretty sure the true purpose was to make 14 year old boys snicker when one of their friends was turned into a girl."

That's the thing I object to.

That's fair, and I can see why that would be offensive. But... although I did experience that moment of snickering, my friends and I always played pcs of both sexes, even when we were just starting out (c. 11 years old), so it was more about laughing at the character's misfortune than the idea that getting turned into a girl was bad per se. I mean, roughly half my characters who suffered from it got turned from women into men.

I wonder how much Morgan Ironwolf influenced my willingness to accept female pcs as valid. She was an example pc in the first Basic Set I owned and was totally bad-ass.

 

[Mercurius]

D&D is flexible.

That flexibility means that if someone chooses to do so, they can use the ruleset to create a game where you have a race war and cleanse an "offending race", in a thinly veiled fantasy about what it would be "like" to do it in the real world.

Or, you can rewrite the rules that you have in your hands now for use in your game to remove the associations between culture and race from the game, eliminate alignment, etc... to do your best to make your game as non-offensive as possible.

Those are not what we're dealing with now. We're dealing with what template you put out there that people adapt off of to create their own games, and the expectations people can have for games run at conventions, etc....

To that end, I say strip out the guts that could offend. If people want the sacred cows for their games, they know them and can pull out the Tolkien inspired build. If not, they can draw inspiration from parts of Exandria, from WOW, or other alternative or more modern stories that take a wider (or just different) approach.

On face value, I like this and very much agree with the gist of it. But the potential problem is in the phrase "that could offend." There are levels of this. The obvious examples, or at least the ones that have been most discussed, are orcs, hobgoblins, drow, and Vistani. But once those are "gutted," what next? And how to gut them?

Almost anything could offend. Those who want to strip parts out, whether it is warranted or not, are generally not being clear about how far they're willing to go, or where the line should be drawn.

I think the alternate to what you are talking about, which may lead to the same goal (less people being offended) is, in future products, 1) clarifying language to de-emphasize negative connotations, and 2) adding variations to the core game that diversity the expressions of problematic tropes (e.g. orcs as player characters, with a more open-ended and diverse range of what "orcishness" implies).

 

[Mercurius]

I just want to say, in case this thread devolves and/or is closed for some reason, as the writer of the OP, while I was disappointed at first with the initial tone of the thread mirroring the other two threads, I am quite pleased that it evolved from there and has now been--for a few pages, at least--more in the spirit of the intention of the OP. It is nice to see that we, as a community, are capable of discussing such matters in a constructive and respectful manners. Kudos to us .

 

[Maxperson]

No they couldn't. The whole current debate was sparked by the fact that up until recently you couldn't play an orc who wasn't evil and stupid, and now you can. I'm not sure how you missed that - it was the crux of the issue. I might recommend reading the other two ginormous threads, as I don't think people want to repeat themselves yet again in a third.

Starting with 3e you could play a non-evil, smart orc. The Monster PC rules said even if the race was evil, you could justify and play a neutral or even good PCs of that race. Orcs had a -2 int penalty, so you could start with as high as a 16 intelligence and raise it as high as 21 by 20th level. Higher with magic.

I don't know about 4e, but I suspect good, smart orcs were possible.

In 5e Volo's gives rules for playing orcs. -2 int and usually CE, which means that you can start an orc PC as high as 16 int and any alignment you wish. You could be at 20 int by your second stat increase.

 

[S'mon]

I tend to like having stereotypes be something that exist in-world, but the reality be a lot more complex. Eg I have drow, but they are thinking feeling sentient creatures, they don't exist purely to represent male fears of female power.

I noticed that Forgotten Realms orcs seem to often draw on tropes of Native American tribes attacking white settlers, but currently I'm more into old school pig-faced minions of evil orcs, like the 1e MM or the 80s DnD cartoon. I've been working on a caste based society ruled by half orcs, with orcs below and goblins at the bottom. The old half orc chief Vigguz promotes trade and avoids direct conflict with humans, but his offspring are less cautious.

 

[Mark Hope]

Starting with 3e you could play a non-evil, smart orc. The Monster PC rules said even if the race was evil, you could justify and play a neutral or even good PCs of that race. Orcs had a -2 int penalty, so you could start with as high as a 16 intelligence and raise it as high as 21 by 20th level. Higher with magic.

I don't know about 4e, but I suspect good, smart orcs were possible.

In 5e Volo's gives rules for playing orcs. -2 int and usually CE, which means that you can start an orc PC as high as 16 int and any alignment you wish. You could be at 20 int by your second stat increase.

Indeed. And, as was noted earlier in this thread, orc PCs who weren't stupid or evil were the default in AD&D as well (orcs and half orcs in AD&D don't get an Int penalty and orc and half-orc PCs can be any alignment). Evil stupid orcs is a relatively recent thing and I'm glad to see it gone from the game.

 

[Maxperson]

Indeed. And, as was noted earlier in this thread, orc PCs who weren't stupid or evil were the default in AD&D as well (orcs and half orcs in AD&D don't get an Int penalty and orc and half-orc PCs can be any alignment).

I looked up the monster PC rules for 1e, 2e, 3e and 5e before posting. 1e was silent on alignment for PCs. 2e specifically said that a monster PC was the alignment of the monster unless it said the monster had X tendencies. Orcs were evil through and though, so in 2e at least, a PC orc would have had to be evil.

Evil stupid orcs is a relatively recent thing and I'm glad to see it gone from the game.

It 2e was the last edition where you had to be evil, what recent evil, stupid orc are you referring to?

 

[Maxperson]

I tend to like having stereotypes be something that exist in-world, but the reality be a lot more complex. Eg I have drow, but they are thinking feeling sentient creatures, they don't exist purely to represent male fears of female power.

Why do drow have to represent male fears of female power, though? Why couldn't Gygax have just made them because he already had male led societies in 1e, female led societies in 1e, male dominated societies in 1e, and just wanted to balance things out? Just because you can draw a connection to something some men have in the real world, doesn't mean that the reason for them in the game is that connection.

but currently I'm more into old school pig-faced minions of evil orcs, like the 1e MM or the 80s DnD cartoon.

If you go by the 5e description orcs and ignore the mismatched artwork, 5e orcs have piggish faces as well, so you don't even have to go old school to get there.

 

[Alzrius]

2e specifically said that a monster PC was the alignment of the monster unless it said the monster had X tendencies. Orcs were evil through and though, so in 2e at least, a PC orc would have had to be evil.

Can you cite your source for this? Because page 49 of The Complete Book of Humanoids, under the listing for "Orc, Half-Orc" (which is for both full orcs and half-orcs), says the following in the Alignment section:

"Orcs tend toward lawful evil, half-orcs tend toward true neutral. PC orcs and half-orcs may be of any alignment."