D&D 5E What Makes an Orc an Orc?

[Guest 6801328]

It's okay to have races that work better for some classes than others. It gives more meaning to the choice.

I would say it does the exact opposite. It simplifies the choice by making some choices more distinctly better than others. Those closer those choices are to being mechanically equal, the more meaning there is to the choice.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Got another 200 posts? It's going to take that many to answer that.

A while ago, I would have said it was a safe way to explore themes about humanity with things that are clearly not human. For example, exploring the theme of slavery and exploitation is touchy if not impossible in an RPG, unless you make it about two entities that are no longer human (say, mind-flayers and gith). However, the argument presented is even if you change the analogy, the fact that the theme still exists is problematic, and so it doesn't matter if its Plantation owners and slaves, Drow elves and quaggoths, mind-flayers and gith, or Hutts and Twi-leks; the fact that one group has such power over another group reflects the real world power-imbalance that still echo through modern society and affect people today.

The answer is to not have those themes exist as defining traits of anything; orcs, drow, mind-flayers, Hutts. However, when that's done the analogy these races represent are no longer valid, and they become humans in rubber suits; they can be everything and anything a human can while standing for nothing on its own. It stops mattering if the creature in the dungeon is an orc, human, drow, mind-flayer or whatever because they are equally capable of being good, bad, aggressive, pacifistic, or simply putting in a 9-to-5 as a human is.

What you make of that next is up to you.

Are you unable to conceive differences other than moral ones? Cannot you conceive narrative other than 'good race' vs. 'evil race'?


I want fantasy races to be distinct species. I want them to have different capabilities (and this is why I like ability bonuses) their own ways of thinking, their own values and instincts. But I don't want them to be some simplistic 'bad guys.' That is not interesting to me and linking moral value to biology is highly distasteful.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Bugs are comparable to sentient thinking peoples, capable of redemption, love and charity now are they?

Nothing about redemption, love, or charity should matter to that sort of view. And in Starship Troopers...

Spoiler

The brain bugs CAN thinks so are definitely sentient!

But then again, they are only bugs, aren't they...?

(FWIW, I don't kill bugs or spiders or anything if I can possibly help it. My philosophy is catch-and-release. Which, oddly enough, is very often our game philosophy when it has come to orc, drow, and giants so far--plus others, I am sure.)

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes. Exactly correct. You nailed it.

In the real world, the propaganda is false, but lots and lots and lots of people have been persuaded by it, and believe it, and it has caused untold harm for centuries. Some of which is still being being suffered acutely today, in America and elsewhere, by the descendants of the people against whom it was directed.

And now our make-believe game is using those same tropes in an imaginary world in which those awful lies are now true.

How can you possibly not see how harmful this is? And how "but they are make-believe people!" doesn't make it all ok?

You ask an awful lot of people to view things from your worldview. How about viewing things from theirs for a bit?

 

[DND_Reborn]

who just wanted to be left alone.

Hardly. They were, quite literally, hurling meteors with spores at our planet...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In some games the orcs are always trying to kill every every human, dwarf, especially elves and every other "core" playable race because that's what Gruumsh created them to do.

And if humans, elves and dwarves try to kill every orc in sight, how does this makes them any better? I really have no problem with you playing an orc-murdering game, but let's not pretend that there are 'good' and 'bad' sides in a such a situation, they're just two teams trying to eliminate each other.

 

[Remathilis]

Yes. Exactly correct. You nailed it.

In the real world, the propaganda is false, but lots and lots and lots of people have been persuaded by it, and believe it, and it has caused untold harm for centuries. Some of which is still being being suffered acutely today, in America and elsewhere, by the descendants of the people against whom it was directed.

And now our make-believe game is using those same tropes in an imaginary world in which those awful lies are now true.

How can you possibly not see how harmful this is? And how "but they are make-believe people!" doesn't make it all ok?

Yes, the make-believe game is a place where we can explore things that aren't true in the real world: God(s) that are interventionalist. Magic is real (and/or isn't inherently evil/tool of the devil), Heaven and Hell are visitable. The dead can rise and seek out the living with ravenous desire. And yes, the species living up in the mountains ARE evil and are going to kill you and drink soup from your skull.

 

[Flamestrike]

In some games the orcs are always trying to kill every every human, dwarf, especially elves and every other "core" playable race because that's what Gruumsh created them to do.

If you want your Orcs to have no free will, lack any say in the matter, and be effectively mindless murder Zombies totally incapable of change, go for it.

But that's not how Orcs have been portrayed in DnD, ever. Certainly not in 5e in any event.

In Doom you go to the hell dimension to take them on directly, just like sometimes PCs raid dungeons.

And if the PCs want to go into a dungeon, and slaughter the inhabitants for no reason other than to take their stuff, those PCs are evilly aligned.

If the PCs enter a dungeon, and the inhabitants attack them, giving the PCs no other option that lethal force, then they're all good.

5e DnD is not about 'team evil v team good' with each side ruthlessly murdering the other. Evil is more than just a label, as is Good.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes. Exactly correct. You nailed it.

In the real world, the propaganda is false, but lots and lots and lots of people have been persuaded by it, and believe it, and it has caused untold harm for centuries. Some of which is still being being suffered acutely today, in America and elsewhere, by the descendants of the people against whom it was directed.

And now our make-believe game is using those same tropes in an imaginary world in which those awful lies are now true.

How can you possibly not see how harmful this is? And how "but they are make-believe people!" doesn't make it all ok?

Making the connection between to things that are superficially similar is where you go wrong. What you are doing is the same as going after a modern religion for child sacrifice, because the Philistine religion sacrificed infants on alters and both are religions. There's more of a connection between the religion of the Philistines and a modern religion than there is between orcs and Native Americans.

 

[Guest 6801328]

No. It's not OK to kill them because they're evil. Unless the killer themselves is evilly aligned of course, in which case that evil killer would likely agree with you.

It's only OK to kill demons and devils because they're actively trying to murder or harm someone else (or yourself) and there is no other option reasonably open to you to prevent that harm, other than lethal force. Being Demons and Devils this will likely be as close to 100 percent of the time as possible (with the odd notable exception).

What Demons, Devils or whatever have written on the alignment section of their character sheet or MM entry is irrelevant.

We dont kill things just because they're evil, because that makes us evil as well.



Im sorry, but I'm pretty sure in Doom the demons or antagonists are always trying to kill you. That being the case, my point above still stands.

To expand on this, demons and devils are clearly derived from mythological creatures...which exist in many cultures...of supernatural non-human enemies, that often are the contrast and counterpart to the "good" supernatural (and still non-human) beings that populate belief systems.

Orcs are clearly derived from an archetype, again that exists in many cultures, of a non-imagined "other people" who want our land and our women, and have all these terrible traits ascribed to them that make it ok for us to kill them.