D&D 5E (+)What Ubiquitous DnD Tropes Get It Totally Wrong?

[Oofta]

We could certainly talk about problematic elements in the historical tradition and depiction of these various monsters, but (1) that doesn't erase the problematic elements of orcs in D&D, and (2) I don't see what trying to deflect the conversation to other monsters is meant to accomplish.

This is a truism that doesn't actually refute anything.

Sorry, Oofta, but I'm not sure why you think that explaining your reasoning somehow makes your strawman less of a strawman. A strawman isn't dependent on how much text you write or whether you explained yourself, but, rather, on how faithfully you present the argument of the opposition, and this is certainly not a position that I have espoused, nor can I recall @Hussar arguing as much either, so it does come across as a strawman. So your outrage about how this position represents the poor treatment of Native Americans comes across as feigned for the purpose of deflecting from how depicting orcs as immutable chaotic evil subhumans is problematically rooted in historically racist tropes.

Would you like to know why orcs are far less problematic in Eberron when CE orcs also exist in their setting? Because there are multiple cultures of orcs with a variety of indigenous religious practices and beliefs and not inherently predisposed to evil. There is not just a singular orc indigenous culture that is contrasted to a "civilized" culture. There are multiple orc cultures in the Shadow Marches and the Eldeen Reaches. The orcs that reside in the Mror Holds have a different culture than those that reside in Droaam who have a different culture than the orcs that reside in the Demon Wastes.

Okay, short version. Eberron is not D&D. Orcs are listed as CE in the MM. Therefore unless you change it for your campaign the majority of, if not all, orcs are CE.

I think saying that the majority of orcs or any intelligent creatures in the MM are evil because of culture and religion is pretty awful. I think it's better to just state that they are not human and are simply wired to be evil just like demons.

I don't see how any of that can be considered a strawman except as just a way of saying "I'm right you're wrong".

Whether Eberron has a better take on this or not is not relevant to D&D as a whole.

 

[Aldarc]

Okay, short version. Eberron is not D&D. Orcs are listed as CE in the MM. Therefore unless you change it for your campaign the majority of, if not all, orcs are CE.

Way to miss the point.

I think saying that the majority of orcs or any intelligent creatures in the MM are evil because of culture and religion is pretty awful. I think it's better to just state that they are not human and are simply wired to be evil just like demons.

I believe we call that dehumanization, which is again a problem.

I don't see how any of that can be considered a strawman except as just a way of saying "I'm right you're wrong".

You can't see how presenting a false argument as your opposition is not a straw man? Is that so you can further deny error?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I explained my reasoning, no straw man here. To me the horrifying thing about this is that people thinking that "other" can be "fixed" by cultural acclimation. We did that with Native Americans, tried to eliminate their cultural identity. It's a blight on my country's history.

I'd rather have no orcs (or bugbears, drow, goblins, gnolls, grimlocks, hags, harpies, goblins, troglodytes, were creatures, trolls or evil giants and so on) than have orcs just be human with makeup where the majority are evil because they haven't been assimilated.

You are inventing the idea that we are arguing what you posit above in order to defeat that position.

The argument is not that orcs would be good if raised by non-orcs, it’s that orcs can be good. Full stop. They can live in their tribes and find their own path and just, not be evil. That’s it.
If the majority are evil, and in my world it’s simply more than humans but less than the majority, it is because of the influence of an actual real god pushing them toward behaviors that make a person evil.

And again, you made this about your campaign, but the actual thread is about D&D in General, so what the 5e MM says about orcs is only relevant as an example to examine in relation to the trope.

The actual argument is that the default position of the rules shouldn’t present orcs, or any other natural humanoid, as always-evil. Racial essentialism is bad.

Trying to twist that into claiming the argument is “orcs are evil but only because of their culture” is flatly dishonest.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Again, the argument is that the MM shouldn’t say that orcs are all chaotic evil.

Also, Volos guide gives playable stats for orcs and doesn’t say that, so the MM cannot even be taken to mean that orcs are always evil, just that the orcs stats presented there are for a normally evil Orc.

 

[Oofta]

So orcs are evil because of their culture and religion. If they had a different "better" culture or religion they would not be evil.

Saying that an entire culture or religion is EVIL is what I object to. On the other hand I agree that I am dehumanizing orcs. Because they are not human.

I'm also not discussing what the rules should be. I'm discussing what they are.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So orcs are evil because of their culture and religion. If they had a different "better" culture or religion they would not be evil.

Saying that an entire culture or religion is EVIL is what I object to. On the other hand I agree that I am dehumanizing orcs. Because they are not human.

I'm also not discussing what the rules should be. I'm discussing what they are.

Then you’re off topic.

And no. Their culture isn’t the source of their evil. You’re just trying to dishonestly force that position onto us so that you can dismiss a challenge to your position.

 

[Oofta]

Then you’re off topic.

And no. Their culture isn’t the source of their evil. You’re just trying to dishonestly force that position onto us so that you can dismiss a challenge to your position.

Or ... I'm just explaining my point of view. You don't have to agree with it.

I don't have a problem with non-human creatures not being human.

 

[Bohandas]

D&D contains a lot of incongruous things that are taken from specific fantasy series and don;t really fit anywhere other than those specific fantasy series. Their presence could sort of be seen as getting fantasy wrong. Two things stand out.

1.) The magic system. D&D's spell preparation/memorization system is ripped straight from Dying Earth and actively interferes with trying to do any kind of fantasy story that isn;t Dying Earth

2.) Halflings started out as a direct clone of Tolkien's halflings, who didn;t even fit into their own setting (seriously, they just kind of show up out of nowhere at the end of the Silmarillion). After a lawsuit from the Tolkien estate there were some redesigns and they fell into a sort of limbo where they're still unoriginal but are no longer a specific other IP's concept. A bit like a knockoff toy that's meant to look like the brand name toy but that's been changed just enough that it doesn't actually look like whatever character its supposed to look like. This unsettling, uncanny valley type ambiguity is generally their only contribution to most published settings. And its frustrating, because 1.) this one is done wrong on purpose and 2.) Because the settings that use this intransigently stick to their crappy knockoffs when they could easily just replace them with kender or something and eliminate the ambiguity

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Okay, short version. Eberron is not D&D. Orcs are listed as CE in the MM. Therefore unless you change it for your campaign the majority of, if not all, orcs are CE.

This is where your argument collapses. Right at the start. You assert that because the MM has an alignment for NPC version of a race, all members of that race are that alignment. Your wording is very firm - "if not all", means that you're strongly suggesting all members of a race have a specific alignment, because a statblock (or a number of statblocks) in the MM (and similar books) have that alignment.

That's a terrible argument. If you extend it, it becomes ludicrous immediately. And the fact that PC Orcs, which pre-date Eberron, are allowed to choose their alignment, means its obviously not a good take. I mean, I suspect ever Drow statblock we have is CE or NE, but does that mean all Drow are CE or NE? It does not. End of.

As an aside, your "wired to be evil" thing is absolutely homebrew and not remotely canon, nor a valid interpretation of canon. The Forgotten Realms is a canon setting in D&D, indeed, other settings in D&D in many cases exist in the context of the FR - Odyssey of Theros, for example, will include stuff from Volo - an FR denizen. And in the FR, are orcs "wired to be evil"? No. They aren't. So if nothing else, your take there is more outre, and more "out-of-whack", more "unusual" or whatever than that of Eberron, which is potentially compatible with the FR take.

1.) The magic system. D&D's spell preparation/memorization system is ripped straight from Dying Earth and actively interferes with trying to do any kind of fantasy story that isn;t Dying Earth

Well-said. This has been the biggest issue with D&D, and part of why it kept falling out of favour with my group over the years. It is simply a bad system for replicating most fantasy settings, or even doing knock-offs of them, or settings inspired by them. D&D's default magic is just antithetical to how magic works in like, literally every other fantasy setting.

4E effectively fixed it, and 5E has made it so it really only is an actual issue if you're a Wizard, but still, the whole magic paradigm D&D has is a bit... off...

 

[Oofta]

This is where your argument collapses. Right at the start. You assert that because the MM has an alignment for NPC version of a race, all members of that race are that alignment. Your wording is very firm - "if not all", means that you're strongly suggesting all members of a race have a specific alignment, because a statblock (or a number of statblocks) in the MM (and similar books) have that alignment.

That's a terrible argument. If you extend it, it becomes ludicrous immediately. And the fact that PC Orcs, which pre-date Eberron, are allowed to choose their alignment, means its obviously not a good take. I mean, I suspect ever Drow statblock we have is CE or NE, but does that mean all Drow are CE or NE? It does not. End of.

As an aside, your "wired to be evil" thing is absolutely homebrew and not remotely canon, nor a valid interpretation of canon. The Forgotten Realms is a canon setting in D&D, indeed, other settings in D&D in many cases exist in the context of the FR - Odyssey of Theros, for example, will include stuff from Volo - an FR denizen. And in the FR, are orcs "wired to be evil"? No. They aren't. So if nothing else, your take there is more outre, and more "out-of-whack", more "unusual" or whatever than that of Eberron, which is potentially compatible with the FR take.

Are demons and devils evil?