Wandering Monsters: Orcs and Gnolls

[Scribble]

I think it's a great idea.

I DO wonder though... Why did the Gnoll one spend so much time talking about Orcs? It seems like with a document like this they'd want to make it so no matter what document you picked up you could read it and get a sense of the monster, without having to read any of the other documents.

 

[Pickles JG]

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.

Yeah you are right I should have said they were Inspired & Kept in Line by their boss.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I was severely disappointed in the lack of flinds and flindbars in the gnoll description. If D&D Next doesn't have flindbars, WotC has lost me as a customer.

 

[Zaukrie]

First, great approach to differentiate the races and make them unique.

Second, I am not a fan of cowardly gnolls.

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[Chris_Nightwing]

The more I think about it, the more these different evil humanoid races come across as 80s cartoon villains, rather than functioning tribes or communities. That's ok for some of them, I mean, I can see gnolls as the snivelling cowardly types doing what their demonic master says unless it might get them killed, but I feel that others ought to have functional societies - maybe those are the goblinoids though.

 

[am181d]

Have to agree with the earlier poster that for my personal campaign, I would likely disregard all of this, but I understand WotC's need to (a) start somewhere and (b) present a consistent take on all of their IP.

Hasbro is making movies out of G.I. Joe, Transformer, even Battleship. At one point they had movies in development for Ouija and Candyland. It makes sense that WotC wants to establish a consistent universe to leverage beyond tabletop.

But none of that is why I play D&D (or RPGs in general) so hopefully they'll structure all of this so the fluff isn't too hard to swap out.

 

[KidSnide]

The orcs description is reasonably good, but it is a mistake to omit the orc horde. I'm not sure why orc hordes are so much more common than hobgoblin hordes (although I'm tempted to blame Tolkein). But when you have tens of thousands of humanoid monsters, they are usually orcs. I think any one page description of the orc "story" needs to address the fact that - on rare occasions - orcs gather in extremely large numbers and pose a threat to society as a whole.

I agree that the gnoll description needs to stand a more on its own (and have less of a weird digression into hyenas), but I think it's alright to reference a more common humanoid (like orcs) to show how they are different. The major piece missing in the gnoll description is that they prefer pack tactics. The cowardly part struck me as a little off, but I think that fits into my conception of gnolls when you think that they prefer to attack with numerical advantage, but will flee if they don't think they can win. At least to me, gnolls are the type of humanoid that would pursue a retreating foe for some time, but -- if someone drops -- they would rather torture (and then eat) a single fallen enemy than bother pursuing the healthy ones.

Speaking more generally, I think it's a good idea that they address how both sets of humanoids treat prisoners. (PCs are likely to meet prisoners, even if they don't become them.) But I thought it was strange that neither blurb said very much about the non-combatants in orc or gnoll society. For example, how do they raise children (pups?)? Are orc or gnoll females (I hesitate to call them "women") combat warriors or non-combatants? I don't need a treatise on orc sociology, but a couple sentences would be nice.

-KS

 

[Klaus]

I prefer the description of Orcs from Monster Vault. And I was never much of a fan of orogs, ogrillons and a multitude of crossbreeds.

My personal image of gnolls has been taken over by the wolves from Kung Fu Panda 2.

 

[Zaukrie]

It is not cowardly to retreat if you do not think you can win.......and I agree, more on flinds and demon/gnoll hybrids would be good.

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[Mengu]

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...

Yeah, I agree, I'm just not too concerned about it I guess, since I tweak monsters to fit my needs, or make new ones any way. And I was making an effort to say something nice about a new article.