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

[Charlaquin]

@Charlaquin
Why the sadness at my post?

Because it made me sad?

This is pretty much where all races are as cultured as humans will lead to. This will remove any prestance of racism in the game. Homogenized races all over with no flavors. From all the other threads this is exactly what some people are claiming without saying it.

What we want is quite the opposite of homogenized races. We want diverse races. The idea that a race must be homogeneous to be meaningfully different than humans is, to be blunt, complete nonsense.

 

[VelvetViolet]

We want diverse races.

And how are you going to get that without falling into the trap of them being funny-looking humans?

The same logic applies as writing aliens in hard scifi. How are you going to 1) communicate their fundamental physiological/psychological differences from humans and 2) in a way that is fairly easy to roleplay?

 

[DND_Reborn]

If they become as varied as any human then why not remove races altogether? They are just humans with fuzzy looking masks.

Good way of putting it. Isn't that what a lot of people seem to be doing? It seems that way to me.

I know it goes against popular views, but I'm pretty much in favor of ability score modifiers and penalties, any alignments or personalities typically associated with a particular group, etc. regardless of the factors that contribute to it. I don't identify between any cultures or people IRL and those in a fantasy game. I get that a fair number of people do, so if such things get removed it won't bug me really, but for myself I just don't have an issue with it and to me it helps define why these other groups are not humans.

Ok, I'd done... back to my rhyming orcs... dum-de-dum-da-da-de-dum-la-la-la-la-la!

 

[Charlaquin]

And how are you going to get that without falling into the trap of them being funny-looking humans?

I don’t subscribe to the notion that culturally diverse = funny-looking human. If anything, it is culturally monolithic peoples that tend to fall under the “planet of hats” trope.

The same logic applies as writing aliens in hard scifi. How are you going to 1) communicate their fundamental physiological/psychological differences from humans and 2) in a way that is fairly easy to roleplay?

If you can write one culture that clears this bar, you can write more than one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why would it be homogeneous?

Lets posit two different societies that could exist in a fantasy world.

• A classic forest kingdom with a history of Good Queens who are blessed by the fey Lady of Silver Mist and who is supported by her Knight Herald (also nearly always a woman) who is given a magic sword that makes her near invisible in combat. The common folk are treated "fairly", but are still very much the common folk. Leaving a saucer of milk out for the brownies here has a tangible benefit, much like the relationship of Rashemeni with the domovoi there, and nobles must take care to not become too arrogant or abuse their power, lest the fey play less than merciful "pranks" on them as a result.
• A nation-state nestled in a frozen fjord, where a council of guild elders governs by turns over a loosely organised commune. Magic is taught to every citizen of the city and it's protected environs, as is math, reading, and the philosophy of governance. Personal property is limited to household and personal goods, while the means of production is owned by all those who operate and/or benefit from them. Trade is handled by the guilds, and no one person is allowed to dominate any given position in trade, lest they gain power they can hold over others.

I would posit that, even if we assume literally the same exact demographics in terms of the races of dnd, these two societies simply could not possibly feel homogeneous. The only thing they really have in common is that both have a mostly Good government that works, but has things that a Good character could easily disagree with, and be uncomfortable enough with to leave their home without having edgelord bitterness about it.
Give them an expansionist despotic neighbor that they both have to deal with, and who is a common enemy for them, and you not only get further away from homogeneity, but you also get some convenient nazis to punch and foil the plans of.

Those are both awesome. I was referring to the races feeling homogeneous compared to each other if all races are living together in a culture. Of course the cultures would be different from each other. I was just concerned that a dwarf from culture A would be much like a human from culture A.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The tortures of Morgoth, black foe of the world.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And how are you going to get that without falling into the trap of them being funny-looking humans?

The same logic applies as writing aliens in hard scifi. How are you going to 1) communicate their fundamental physiological/psychological differences from humans and 2) in a way that is fairly easy to roleplay?

See; Eberron's Elves. Their long lives impact the sort of cultures they build.

Likewise, in the world I'm building Goblinoids are even more social than humans, to the point where they tend not to think of themselves truly as individuals, and this impacts how they build cultures.

I used the same trope with my Alfar, but that is for a non-DnD project where the alfar are literally descended from land spirits like vaetr and dryads, and thus have a spiritual nature that is directly and unavoidably anti-individualistic.

If orcs are strong, emotive, and impulsive, you get cultures that take that into account.

While humans have individuals who are impulsive, or obsess over the loss of elders, or are anti-individualist, we aren't a race who all have to grapple with one of those traits.

I do think that part of the problem we have in storytelling is that we always treat humans as the default, for the benefit of the audience, all the way down to physical traits, rather than giving humans greater recovery from injury, and better endurance, or other things related to how we differ from other primates on a physical level. Pretty much nothing can outrun us over a very long distance, for instance.

We can pretty much walk anything else on earth to death without suffering any serious injury to ourselves. In my own games, that isn't true of any other humanoids. Dwarves and Alfar simply cannot do that. An alfar running a marathon is a much greater accomplishment than a human doing so. At the same time, an alfar can naturally speak to spirits and animals, and a dwarf can sustain themselves on literally anything organic, even lichen, and can't be poisoned via ingestion.

Sure, but I don’t think we need to be tying it to race.

I get that, but I don't see anything wrong with something like being impulsive being something that is more prevalent in a given people.

Because it made me sad?


What we want is quite the opposite of homogenized races. We want diverse races. The idea that a race must be homogeneous to be meaningfully different than humans is, to be blunt, complete nonsense.

This.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Those are both awesome. I was referring to the races feeling homogeneous compared to each other if all races are living together in a culture. Of course the cultures would be different from each other. I was just concerned that a dwarf from culture A would be much like a human from culture A.

Well, few people are positing taking all mechanical distinction away from DnD's peoples, and even non-mechanical distinctions can exist without requiring them to always have monolithic "dwarf culture" that is the same everywhere.

edit: Also thank you!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't identify between any cultures or people IRL and those in a fantasy game.

Neither do I.

What I and others identify is that the rhetoric of dnd books with regards to orcs and others is the exact same rhetoric used in the real world to describe real groups of people, and having to read that crap about a playable race in a game they're looking to play hurts people, and turns them off the game and oftentimes the hobby as a whole.

I'd hope that the difference is pretty plain.

 

[Helldritch]

1) Because it made me sad?


2) What we want is quite the opposite of homogenized races. We want diverse races.
3) The idea that a race must be homogeneous to be meaningfully different than humans is, to be blunt, complete nonsense.

1 Sorry to have sadden you but...
2 By making races as diverse culturally as humans you are doing exactly the opposite of diversity. If all races can be as humans are. Then they are simply humans with masks. No point in playing Halloween in RPG. You just eliminated the need for races. You claim to want diverse races? I say that you claim homogenization of all races into one:" humans".

3) And I respectfully disagree. I do not claim total homogenized races. I did say in various posts that exceptions are possible. The homogenous culture of humanoid races is a tool to help role play. Where you see restriction, I see role play opportunity. Does Dritzz rings a bell? We had something like him, a lawful good half ogre years before Dritzz and the player was facing racism on a daily basis. And yet, his team mates helped him endure and to stay on the path of goodness. Yet the rules were that half ogres were evil to the core.

When your exception is the norm, it is no longer something special. It is simply a human with a funny face.

Again, it is because humans have varied cultures and are adaptable that they are the main race in D&D. All other races are on the decline, thre must be a reason. That reason might well be this lack of varied culture and adaptability.

Again I have nothing against a setting where humanoids are different from the assumed norm. I love Eberron. The druidic society of orcs and their dragon mark is really fun to play. Major change like these, druidic orcs, elven necromancer, dinausaur ridding halflings (or the cannibalistic ones of Darksun) etc... are best left for specific settings.