D&D General Why are "ugly evil orcs" so unpopular?

[the Jester]

There are dozens of "big dumb ugly and evil" creatures and orcs had virtually nothing to distinguish them from the herd. No gimmicks, no special powers, not even being actual pig-people.

They sure were in 1e! (Pig-people, that is.)

 

[Umbran]

The question is, why orcs?

There have been several threads on this over the past year and more. Maybe it is time to refer you to those., rather than re-litigate the issue.

 

[Scribe]

Because it's not ok to define an entire population as intrinsically/genetically/culturally evil when the only differences between them and the "good guys" are the ones that have been used historically to justify enslavement/genocide. That is, ugly, stupid, irrational, angry, filthy, promiscuous, etc.

Is Expansionist, and Empire Building, part of your do not accept list?

My Orcs are of the WoW Appearance, so not ugly.

They are not stupid, angry (one group is, not all), they are not 'primitive' or filthy.

They ARE successful, powerful, and developed.

They are the power player in the world.

They are NOT good guys, but a PC can be created for them.

Acceptable, or not?

 

[aco175]

They got Enemy Mine'd.

Great reference, the movie does show a lot.

Go- Lou Gossett Jr- 85 years old.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Is Expansionist, and Empire Building, part of your do not accept list?

My Orcs are of the WoW Appearance, so not ugly.

They are not stupid, angry (one group is, not all), they are not 'primitive' or filthy.

They ARE successful, powerful, and developed.

They are the power player in the world.

They are NOT good guys, but a PC can be created for them.

Acceptable, or not?

Short answer is: if you are using characteristics as a shorthand signal to your players that "these people are evil and you can kill them without feeling bad about it", and those characteristics are the ones historically used to identify other people as sub-human, thus justifying subjugation of those people, then it's not ok in my book, and I don't think WotC's, either.

The other stuff is not relevant.

But it's up to you to decide. I'm not here to police what you do at your table.

 

[Vaalingrade]

In addition to what others have said, it's probably because a lot of the most popular play styles no longer need of them.

Games that are story-focused have motivations for the villains, obviating the need for 'because evil'. Most games also don't rely so much on 'kill things for XP', so you also don't need half an excuse to murder just swathes of people to to gain powers from their deaths while calling yourself good.

So that's the evil part no longer really needed for most folks. For the ugly, unfortunately, that's a mix of human nature and Hayes code remnants making the two go hand in hand. IF you no longer need them to be evil, you also don't need them to be ugly to show how evil they are (because ugly=evil you see) and the default in popular culture isn't even average, it's attractive, so now that they don't need to be ugly, they're pretty now.

As for why orcs and drow? It's not. People are still mad about how gnolls were walked back to basically hyena zombies, kobolds and goblins are cute mascots instead of pretty because small, Ogres are Shrek. Demons kind of get a pass because tieflings are good enough and also they're literally made of evil and trolls because in D&D they're a puzzle monster whose entire point is figuring out how to kill them. Every other sapient near-human is going to either become more fleshed out and lose 'always evil' or stop existing like all those gith-alikes from 3e because they can't hold on and stick in the consciousness just on being violence boxes.

Also, remember when Diablo was to blame for everything people didn't like? Has there really not been another major Fantasy gamechanger in the past 20 years?

 

[Scribe]

Short answer is: if you are using characteristics as a shorthand signal to your players that "these people are evil and you can kill them without feeling bad about it", and those characteristics are the ones historically used to identify other people as sub-human, thus justifying subjugation of those people, then it's not ok in my book, and I don't think WotC's, either.

The other stuff is not relevant.

But it's up to you to decide. I'm not here to police what you do at your table.

There's no need for the characteristics you are referring to (let's call them the Volos) to be used at all.

That doesn't mean a nation cannot be set up as adversarial (sp?) and so the armed people encountered, seen as enemies, or ones to be avoided.

The question of "if Orcs why not X" has been answered.

The question I think that gets skipped over is if all the 'volos' is negated, removed, replace, is it still unacceptable to have 'not good' Orcs, or is the only accepted enemy.

Unthinking (important) Undead.
Fiends.
Aberrations.

 

[the Jester]

Seems to me this question gets answered over and over again.

Because it's not ok to define an entire population as intrinsically/genetically/culturally evil when the only differences between them and the "good guys" are the ones that have been used historically to justify enslavement/genocide.

But this totally overlooks "a different species" as a difference. And that comes with significant weight in terms of how a creature behaves, or at least it should (in my judgment, anyway). And the gulf between that behavior and how we humans behave can go a long way toward justifying putting a species in the "enemy" box.

Which isn't to say that I think all orcs should be evil; I've had non-evil humanoids pop up in my games from time to time since the 80's. But I think the 'different species' angle is one that is almost never even acknowledged by those who are, if you will, pro-more-human-orcs.

 

[Weiley31]

Because thread gets locked.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But this totally overlooks "a different species" as a difference.

No, it doesn't, if the main reasons they are identifiable as "a different species" are those historical stereotypes. "They are a different species" is exactly what that rationalization tries to achieve. "They are less than human, so it's ok to kill/subjugate them."

If they are basically human except that they are stupid, angry, ugly, promiscuous, etc., then, really, they are human...with historical markers to identify them as killable.

Again, though, if something else works for you at your table, go for it. I'm only trying to explain the reasoning that others (including, apparently, WotC) are using.