delericho said:
Well, to be frank, I've always considered those changes to be a case of fixing something that just wasn't broken in the first place. And the change to Drow, in particular, is just mistaken, IMO.
I think that, for the most part, the alignment changes mesh up better with the descriptions that people use. Orcs are wild and barbaric! Drow are organized in Houses! But, like any alignment debate, it's kind of up to how one interprets it.
Neonchameleon said:
And this is where I have problems. You make orcs basically into something that can only ever be a non-productive monoculture.
Well, first, they're designed for their niche in fiction and in the game. They have the qualities that matter when you're putting them in your game world and writing an adventure featuring them and using them as minions for your BBEG and whatever. They have a purpose in psychology and mythic resonance and antagonistic role that reaches FAR beyond the need to figure out methods of resource production. They need to first and foremost and primarily be interesting antagonists in your D&D games, and those needs come before the need to figure out their resource acquisition structure or various subcultures.
Second, I don't think it's actually true that this vision of orcs is necessarily a non-productive monoculture. Their features are exaggerated and extreme (the better to make good fiction with, my dear!), but they aren't monolithic. It'd be relatively easy to figure out modes of production and reproduction for them, without invalidating the player-level view of them being creatures of unstoppable rage. It's inessential, but not necessarily uninteresting or impossible.
For instance:
[sblock=Orc Society & Ecology]
Orcs band together in loose tribes. They are self-interested creatures, and banding together, at least for a time, helps increase their possible swath of destruction. It is much easier to take a village or a town when working together than when working alone, and this increases the rewards for everyone.
Such alliances are rarely long-term affairs. An orc band will stay together as long as pickings are good, and when resources begin to dwindle, they will often split up and go their own directions, often acrimoniously, occasionally splitting into two smaller groups. Orc allegiances are fluid things, and loyalty is mostly a matter of where the orc can find food and shelter and opportunities for murder. An orc who is this week part of the Pale Hand band may next week be part of the Bloodfang band.
It is in these circumstances that occasional orc warlords arise. Occasionally, an orc will lead a large band and, as it continues to meet success (either due to luck or skill or both), it gathers more and more orcs under its banner, and yet does not break. These orcs often go through a boom-and-bust cycle, gaining massive numbers of orcs only to collapse under its own weight and the inability to keep things productive forever. Still, the risk for civilized folks is always that the nearest orc band becomes too big for the local militia to stop, and in that case, the town may be wiped off the map well before the orc band collapses.
Bands are often helped by anointing shamans and Eyes of Gruumsh. Rather than true specialists raised to master divine magic, these orcs are more properly normal orc warriors with some added divine dimension, likely due to their higher Wisdom. When without a band, these orcs rely on their normal physical prowess, but when a band gathers, their role as finders and guides (and, to a certain extent, mediators between some of the more aggressive orcs) becomes much more key to the long-term survival of the band.
The bands will craft crude weapons out of stone and wood, occasionally using tools looted from more organized societies (especially the dwarves). Orcs are fairly content with anything big and sharp, and so don't display a lot of expertise in their craftsmanship. Orc axes are disposable things, designed to be easily replaceable on the move, and thus breaking one isn't uncommon.
Within an orc band, there will be occasional mated pairs, occasionally with children. Orc courtship is a matter of pride and dominance, and pairs rarely stay together more than the few months necessary to wean the orcling to walking -- and fighting -- age before going their separate ways. Orclings usually follow one parent or the other for the first few years of their lives, living mostly as scavengers in the wake of their parents' destruction. The parents treat them about as well as wolves treat crows on their kill: snarling and resentful, but ultimately not worth the effort to kill. Orc parents aren't entirely without affection, but they subscribe to a "tough love" view of the world, that a child who cannot survive on their own is better off dead than weighing down the entire tribe. A parent may relate old tales of Gruumsh as reasoning for their actions, dictating that the youth gain toughness. Thus, a young orc quickly learns self-reliance, and also learns very quickly about the fundamental unfairness of their lives and the world. Much as human children may occasionally grow sullen when deprived of their desires, orc children do as well. Rather than learn to accept their lot, however, orc children are encouraged to fight against it, to use their anger at the injustice of their lives (the fact that bigger, stronger, smarter orcs get all the good things) and to TAKE from the bigger, stronger, and smarter orcs -- and everyone else. By the time the orc is 10 years old, they enter puberty, and often strike out on their own having learned the essential skills necessary to be self-sufficient in the wilds.
Orcs are omnivores, who hunt and gather as they move across their territory. In the absence of towns and villages, orcs often prefer boars to other prey, but like most omnivores, they aren't picky. Orcs, however, are intelligent, and are attracted to farms and towns and other areas where they may find vast stores of food and goods without having to do much work for it (generally speaking, a typical orc will very easily outclass an assortment of village militia, unless the militia greatly outnumber the orc -- again, a reason why orc bands form: to attack bigger settlements). They are nocturnal, and are more active in the long nights of winter than in the short evenings of summer. This is also the season in which they can gain the largest reward for taking a town: its entire remaining harvest.
Orcs are not systemic in their depredations, and often serve ecologically a role similar to an apex predator: they keep the population of the prey animals (in this case, other people) to low levels, allowing wild variety to flourish where the monoculture that forms from agriculture might otherwise take route. Druids tend to view orcs in this light, though even druids fear the rise of an orc warlord, as this may unbalance the ecosystem such that few civilizations can grow, ultimately decimating the orc population, too.
[/sblock]
The disadvantage of this information is that it is mostly DM world-building navel-gazing. It's mostly irrelevant for actual encounters with the creature, and it runs the risk of actually distracting the DM and the player from the core play experience that should be present in the Orc, it's actual utility in the play of the game, and that, to me, is the viciousness of the thing.
Neonchameleon said:
They do all these because there are too many of them so their life is one of struggle.
I'm not interested in duplicating the effects of other works in the genre, especially. I'm interested in drilling down on what
D&D Orcs are to me. And they're distinct from Tolkien and WHFRP and WoW (though they're not unrelated). Fecundity alone doesn't do enough for me to describe a worldview. I'm within a few generations of Baby Boomers, I know my life hasn't become one of "constant struggle" just because my grandparents pumped out 21 kids.
But a culture of anger and nurturing hatred, yeah, I can understand that, and use it in a game tonight. I know enough about what it means to be angry that I can paint a fantasy creature with that brush and be happy with using it in game.
Neonchameleon said:
They are still people with varied motivations, but these motivations all have a cause and most tend to lead to the behaviour of almost all the classic types of orc.
I think our design goals may be different. My goals don't include "varied motivations which ultimately only matter in the corner cases, and otherwise representative of Neonchameleon's three chosen orc archetypes." My goal was to take the D&D orc as it has been over 30 years, and present it in a way that cuts to the heart of why the orc is an interesting antagonist to use in my D&D games.
Again, the difference is fine. I don't expect you to welcome my vision of orcishness if your vision suits you just fine. I did want to try to explain why your version wouldn't work for me in a constructive way, but that's not to disbause you of the notion of using it, that's just to say it wouldn't work for me. I'm not well persuaded by it. I don't suppose I need to be.
