Wandering Monsters: Orcs and Gnolls

[GX.Sigma]

The new weekly column, Wandering Monsters, has begun on the WotC site (though it's currently labeled incorrectly as a feature article), talking about Orcs and Gnolls.

We’re going to be producing one-page documents for each of [D&D's most important] monsters, and each page will describe what they are, what they’re good and not-so-good at, how they live, how they fight, what their special abilities are, and what they look like. The idea is that we can hand these documents over to the design team, and the designers can provide statistics that express all that information in the context of the D&D Next rules. At the same time, we can also give these documents to a team or a licensing partner working on a D&D board game, digital game, or T-shirt design, so they can take that information and find the right expression of those monsters for their own particular media.
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Find the article here.

(you can just copy+paste that, WotC Golem)

I think it's a great idea, as I'm always a fan of the idea that the mechanics exist only to represent what's happening in the imaginary world. The Orc entry looks good to me, but I feel it should say something about them hating elves, and maybe something about Gruumsh since that's a big part of their identity. I don't know anything about gnolls, so idk about that one.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Very pleased with this article - especially as this goes before the stats. (However, I now want to see stats that do give each their own unique identity).

I liked the descriptions, especially the 'specialist types' that can be found amongst both. Hopefully, that means each of these will get their own stat block (or a small 'sub-in' section to modify the based stat block).

Sounds like a solid approach to me.

 

[Mengu]

It's a good read, but it won't affect our games. DM's change cultures to fit their world. In one world, maybe orcs were created from elves who have betrayed their brethren. Maybe they can call upon powerful primal forces, call upon the spirits of the dead, and their culture is as much around willpower as it is around strength. Maybe in another world, gnolls have been assimilated into an army of darkness as slave warriors, and branded, and they fight with chains and the ferocity of a cornered beast. Maybe in yet another world, there is no such thing as "chaotic evil", everything is shades of grey.

I don't know about everyone else who plays D&D, but with most of the groups of people I have played with throughout the years, world creation has been a pivotal part of the game. And the DM will make whatever fluff adjustments they deem suitable for their campaign.

For humanoid races, the tools a DM needs are more "archetypes" rather than specific monsters cultures, so that we can skin them as needed. You could have the brute primal humanoid archetype, that could be skinned as Orcs, or it could be skinned as Cavemen or Urgals. You could have fish people stats, and skin them as Sahuagin, or Atlantians, or Gungans. As long as they give us one sample of each archetype, in whatever their vision of the D&D world is, we're set.

What they have is fine. Fluff is one thing that will never affect our game play in a negative way. We might use it, we might ignore it, it's all good.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

[MENTION=65726]Mengu[/MENTION]:

So if you create your own kind of orcs, it is actually better if crunch is not representing the fluff too much. Otherwise it is a lot more difficult to make orcs fit your campaign.

Actually when I played night below with 4e, i really thought about using hobgoblin stats for the orcs, because the crunch did not really fit the orcs in that campaign...

In the end, I just created my own...

I actually like the approach, that the normal orcs don´t have too many hard coded abilities but special orcs resemble 4e more. This way, you will usually have simple fights, but whenever you have an important encounter with a special leader, it gets more complex and tactical. And killing the leader first will have a big impact and could be a reason for the others to surrender!

 

[Minigiant]

Minigiants give this article

1 thumb up and 1 thumb sideways

Although it they are informative, the article missing the most important parts: Battle tactics. The article is a little too light on this.

I don't like gnolls as cowardly. If they are going to make gnolls into humanoid spotted hyenas, then they have to cut that cowardly bit out and make them as ferocious and aggressive as the leapard-chasing hyena of the wild. Gnolls should be seen as oppurtunists like many predatory pack animals. They should be known for ambushes, attacking the weak and tired, and standing the ground when not outnumbered. I suggest a quick read on hyenas for the developers.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I thought the Orc writeup was very good, I would especially like more detail on the ritual combat that determines their hierarchy - is it to the death, or more like a pack of animals, just until surrender?

I thought Gnolls were a bit off-target. They are, in my mind, exactly like those from Baldur's Gate - they are more militaristic, love polearms, and kidnap witches for you to rescue

 

[Raith5]

I agree with wanting more information about tactics.

I really liked the Gnoll writeup but I think the Orc one was wanting a touch because it traded on the simplistic account of Orc's being CE so therefore bad at organisation. I like the possibility of more organised Orcs - possibly an Orc empire or such. I imagined such from this Dragon Magazine cover (for some reason):

 

[Connorsrpg]

Whether people agree or disagree with the fluff (man I hate that word), I simply believe this is a good approach to their monster design.

And yes, of course we can all reskin, reflavour and rewrite humanoid culture for our own campaigns, but DnD still needs to present the baseline from which to do that. (Not to mention something for people that simp-ly do not want to do that and so beginners have some idea what a standard orc is and we have some idea of the standards for published modules - so each adventure is not also an ecology of each race presented).

This baseline should also be based somewhat on what has come before and I think these articles captured most of what a typical DnD orc and DnD gnoll represent.

 

[Pickles JG]

I agree with wanting more information about tactics.

I really liked the Gnoll writeup but I think the Orc one was wanting a touch because it traded on the simplistic account of Orc's being CE so therefore bad at organisation. I like the possibility of more organised Orcs - possibly an Orc empire or such. I imagined such from this Dragon Magazine cover (for some reason):

They are more temporarily united by fear of an especially effective warlord than organised IMO.
With so many humanoids in the game I think it's best if they are somewhat stereotypical (Archetypical?).

The Gnolls missed emphasising that they are good hunters (lots of rangers etc) but I liked both summaries. D&D is not particularly defined by the setting but I do like to see it referenced.

 

[Raith5]

They are more temporarily united by fear of an especially effective warlord than organised IMO.
With so many humanoids in the game I think it's best if they are somewhat stereotypical (Archetypical?).

I agree 100% about the necessity of sterotypes. But for me the humanoid organised by fear type goes to sneaky goblin and dumb ogres rather than orcs. For me Orcs need to have some other shtick that dumb poorly organised brutes.

That said I may not know what I am talking about, Connorsrpg may be right with me confusing goblinoids with orcs!