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

[Aldarc]

I get accused of putting words into people's mouths and strawman about orcish culture being problematic because I compare them indigenous people and then we get a long post about the roots of orcs being coloniolism. Another saying (again) that for some reason it's okay for demons to be evil but saying orcs are evil is racism because ... reasons.

Perhaps because you are misconstruing or misunderstanding the arguments here. It's difficult to tell which is your particular hang-up. So here is your strawman position re-quoted if you have forgotten:

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.

The emboldened is the strawman position that you invented for your opposition. This hasn't been argued. It is NOT that orcs don't have colonialist roots or indigenous parallels, because that seems to be agreed upon by all sides of this debate.

The point of the essay that discusses orcs is how orcs are dehumanized in a manner that is reminiscent of colonialist racism. It's to note that dehumanization of orcs does not get a pass as dehumanization on the technicality that "orcs aren't humans."

 

[Eric V]

Within various D&D settings, orcs do indeed seem to have moved from "always evil" to having some leeway with their alignment. The FR and Eberron examples show this.

The MM isn't really a good reference point on this, since it's written from a "rulings, not rules" perspective. There are exceptions built into even seemingly iron-clad understandings of alignments; e.g. Angels are always good (read the fluff text)...except when they're not. Ok. If angels can deviate from alignment, one one think humanoids could too. It's there to help a DM justify whatever story he or she wants.

It can be problematic to say orcs are evil because of their culture and religion, but maybe this is because "religion" isn't the right word to use here. 'Religion' is a description of the set of rituals, beliefs, etc. that define how a group interacts with the higher power. If I am understanding the argument correctly, it's not this set of rituals etc. that make orcs evil it's the higher power himself (Gruumsh and his ilk). So it's not the religion per se, but rather the pervasive, powerful influence of the terrifying god that makes them evil. When there is an orc hero that can resist, it's a more compelling story.

(I guess it could come out of apathy as well; Ivid the Undying makes mention of a group of orcs that got tired of getting their butts kicked and adopted a more fishing/trapping lifestyle in a village within the Great Kingdom).

One of the things mentioned above is that killing a group on sight simply based on their race is evil. Can we more-or-less agree to this?

If so, then...do orc tribes in your world attack and kill elves on sight? Dwarves? If they do, what does this mean about orcs in your world? Do you, in your individual games, have orcs who try to have non-violent associations with elves and other "classic" orc enemies?

 

[DammitVictor]

Let's stop pretending that it's not just because "orcs aren't human." We're living in 2020 and not 1970 or even 1920. Let's act like it and do something about it instead of sticking our heads in the sand about the problem.

I don't think it's a problem that we need to solve. It's merely a... problematic element of our shared fiction that we need to be consciously aware of so that we don't allow it to influence how we think about real people in the real world. None of this material was intended to be colonialist propaganda... it wasn't even based on propaganda. Again... it's a xerox of a xerox of a xerox of something the author thought was cool.

The only malice here, on anyone's part, is trying to fight over this instead of taking a few minutes to have an honest reflection on where it came from.

EDIT: Also, this is my second brush with this issue in under 24 hours. Did something happen?

 

[Aldarc]

Imagine if someone argued that succubi stopped being rooted in misogyny or any less problematic in D&D because they were switched from being CE demons to LE devils in 4e or were switched to NE yugoloths in 5e.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Even most of the other orcs who dealt with Olbould and followed him didn't understand his decision to sign a treaty with the dwarves. Many still followed him because he was the strongest, not necessaily because they agreed with him. Others even tried to overthrow him because his choice did not follow the will of their god. If I still had the books, I would cite references.

At that point you could that that Olbould could be a representative of someone rebelling against something unjust.

Say for example a genre of fiction being inspired by something problematic, but then people fight back against the problematic things and start using them in non-problematic ways.

(not the best example, but I couldn't pass up the joke/reference. if you want a better one, just go for an abolitionist movement or something)

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

Some of you seem to be showing signs of not handling this discussion well - you seem to be getting snippy, and kind of self-righteous. Please remember that you need to show respect for people.

Some of you seem to be using the laughing reaction emoji in mockery - we can tell when your chosen reactions don't match the positions you take in your posts. Mockery is not respectful, and you may not like the result if you continue this habit.

 

[Charlaquin]

GROAN. Two arms thingys. Two leg thingys. a head or two = human NOID. Aka when we make the movie we slap green make up on the extra and call it an Orion um I mean we slap green makeup, two tusks, and a wonder woman bra and call it a female orc. Or game language to help id spell effects. ETC.
I think this orc is people too started with World of Warcraft.

Then why isn’t a succubus a humanoid?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I get accused of putting words into people's mouths and strawman about orcish culture being problematic because I compare them indigenous people and then we get a long post about the roots of orcs being coloniolism. Another saying (again) that for some reason it's okay for demons to be evil but saying orcs are evil is racism because ... reasons.

“Reasons”? And you’re surprised folks accuse you of dishonest rhetoric?

Well, 90% of recent things have taken orcs new ways (The Many-Arrows tribe in Forgotten Realms, the basically only line of defense against cosmic horrors in Eberron, there's probably some others that I don't know of in addition to those) so the problem is slowly being solved. There are still problems, but I don't believe it's necessary to bring the unfortunate history of Orcs up anytime Orcs are.

Maybe that's not's what happening here, I dunno, I'm not good at that sort of thing.

What happened here was the trope of evil races was mentioned, and some people got defensive about it. It wasn’t a discussion about orcs that got derailed by y’all of their origins, it started as a discussion about their origin.
And IME, what is more common is there to be a discussion about orcs, and someone complains about newer interpretations and how orcs should just go back to always evil.

Within various D&D settings, orcs do indeed seem to have moved from "always evil" to having some leeway with their alignment. The FR and Eberron examples show this.

The MM isn't really a good reference point on this, since it's written from a "rulings, not rules" perspective. There are exceptions built into even seemingly iron-clad understandings of alignments; e.g. Angels are always good (read the fluff text)...except when they're not. Ok. If angels can deviate from alignment, one one think humanoids could too. It's there to help a DM justify whatever story he or she wants.

It can be problematic to say orcs are evil because of their culture and religion, but maybe this is because "religion" isn't the right word to use here. 'Religion' is a description of the set of rituals, beliefs, etc. that define how a group interacts with the higher power. If I am understanding the argument correctly, it's not this set of rituals etc. that make orcs evil it's the higher power himself (Gruumsh and his ilk). So it's not the religion per se, but rather the pervasive, powerful influence of the terrifying god that makes them evil. When there is an orc hero that can resist, it's a more compelling story.

(I guess it could come out of apathy as well; Ivid the Undying makes mention of a group of orcs that got tired of getting their butts kicked and adopted a more fishing/trapping lifestyle in a village within the Great Kingdom).

One of the things mentioned above is that killing a group on sight simply based on their race is evil. Can we more-or-less agree to this?

If so, then...do orc tribes in your world attack and kill elves on sight? Dwarves? If they do, what does this mean about orcs in your world? Do you, in your individual games, have orcs who try to have non-violent associations with elves and other "classic" orc enemies?

Can’t speak for others, but orcs don’t kill any race on site, though they do go full fury on aberrations and fiends and undead.
In my world Gruumsh is basically a 4e Primordial, and he created orcs with the help of a primal spirit. They don’t like outsiders, but tolerate outsiders that aren’t inherently destructive to the material world.

 

[Oofta]

“Reasons”? And you’re surprised folks accuse you of dishonest rhetoric?

I don't see justifying one sentient, intelligent race being always evil while another is only sometimes evil because of a tag that gets thrown on when no other tag fits. Feel free to hold a different opinion.

How, exactly is that "dishonest?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't see justifying one sentient, intelligent race being always evil while another is only sometimes evil because of a tag that gets thrown on when no other tag fits. Feel free to hold a different opinion.

How, exactly is that "dishonest?

You’re moving the goalposts, and still presenting a blatantly false version of what people are arguing.

The distinction is that orcs are not supernatural creatures, but rather a natural race.

The “tag” is there because of that, not the other way around.

Demons, meanwhile, are not a race, much less a natural one.