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WotC's Jeremy Crawford Talks D&D Alignment Changes
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<blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 8034547" data-attributes="member: 42856"><p>I agree with you on this point. No need to have long un-fun (in my opinion) episodes of subduing the lone orc, taking him prisonner to bring him back to a court to answer for his crimes. The orc in the dungeon room is exactly like stumbling upon a hungry predator: if you don't kill him, you'll be killed, and there is no hope to turn a tiger into a productive member of society. An orc was absolutely evil, a threat, not something remotely like a real people, just a monster with no agency, no free will, only being evil.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would argue this is a very useful stereotypes. It allows for "orcs" to be both rather intelligent (able to work in groups, lay traps, sound alarm, regroup after fleeing), therefore being a fun monster to fight, without all the problem linked to using violence, especially lethal force, against an opponent that could be considered human. If a human opponent surrender, in most country, it is a crime to finish him, even in the context of an open war; it would be evil for PCs to execute prisonners of war. It would also be boring to have them handle lines of POWs during the many fights they do in an adventuring day. Therefore, having non-human opponents (orcs, mind flayers, beholders...) is useful.</p><p></p><p>The problem you mention of "judging others based on their appearance" only applies when talking about judging other HUMANS based on their appearance. I don't think there is a lot of debate on judging a carrot is food based on its appearance, or a mosquito can be squashed based on its appearance. Most people <em>will</em> stop the propagation of locusts to protect their harvests, even if locusts are not really trying to harm them but just being locusts, judged on their appearance.</p><p></p><p>The contention is that WOTC has described orcs in terms used to describe Black or Asian people. It's unfortunate and hopefully they didn't know it was used as such, but it's something that can be corrected by giving orcs physical traits less reminiscent of real life people. "Two arms, two legs, with tusks and snout" are much better than "dark skinned humans": by making the depiction of non-human monsters less evocative of real life people, we can keep them without being offensive to anyone.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As pointed above. Losing the trope "everyone who looks like he's a member of this species of monster is evil" harms the playing experience because, unless you're playing an evil group who will not take prisonners, you will encounter problems with intelligent opponents: what to do with them in a fight and especially after a fight (I recommand the thread on how to deal with a prisoner young dragon in a good kingdom if you want to see how complicated any situation like that can be).</p><p></p><p>A human bandit, you subdue and arrest him and have him be judged (whether he will be hang or acquitted based on the fact that he was raised in a bandit clan and never taught the right way to behave is better suited to Lawyers & Litigations than Dungeon & Dragons, but the part where you stop the bandit raid is....). You just don't kill them, especially as they could be raiding to feed their families and have a different approach on personal property as more settled villagers. You have human opponents if you want to delve in the complexities of morality and war.</p><p></p><p>A monster bandit, you can reasonably kill him, since he's just a predator on humanity, with no free will, and therefore not worry about whether baby orcs will die. Losing this trope of evil monster will harm the game since you will have to limit opponents to non-intelligent ones if you are not in the mood of complex debates on morality (and those simpler games are a large part of my adventures because often my players deals with enough complexities in their real life jobs and just want to have fun on weekends).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jfdlsjfd, post: 8034547, member: 42856"] I agree with you on this point. No need to have long un-fun (in my opinion) episodes of subduing the lone orc, taking him prisonner to bring him back to a court to answer for his crimes. The orc in the dungeon room is exactly like stumbling upon a hungry predator: if you don't kill him, you'll be killed, and there is no hope to turn a tiger into a productive member of society. An orc was absolutely evil, a threat, not something remotely like a real people, just a monster with no agency, no free will, only being evil. I would argue this is a very useful stereotypes. It allows for "orcs" to be both rather intelligent (able to work in groups, lay traps, sound alarm, regroup after fleeing), therefore being a fun monster to fight, without all the problem linked to using violence, especially lethal force, against an opponent that could be considered human. If a human opponent surrender, in most country, it is a crime to finish him, even in the context of an open war; it would be evil for PCs to execute prisonners of war. It would also be boring to have them handle lines of POWs during the many fights they do in an adventuring day. Therefore, having non-human opponents (orcs, mind flayers, beholders...) is useful. The problem you mention of "judging others based on their appearance" only applies when talking about judging other HUMANS based on their appearance. I don't think there is a lot of debate on judging a carrot is food based on its appearance, or a mosquito can be squashed based on its appearance. Most people [I]will[/I] stop the propagation of locusts to protect their harvests, even if locusts are not really trying to harm them but just being locusts, judged on their appearance. The contention is that WOTC has described orcs in terms used to describe Black or Asian people. It's unfortunate and hopefully they didn't know it was used as such, but it's something that can be corrected by giving orcs physical traits less reminiscent of real life people. "Two arms, two legs, with tusks and snout" are much better than "dark skinned humans": by making the depiction of non-human monsters less evocative of real life people, we can keep them without being offensive to anyone. As pointed above. Losing the trope "everyone who looks like he's a member of this species of monster is evil" harms the playing experience because, unless you're playing an evil group who will not take prisonners, you will encounter problems with intelligent opponents: what to do with them in a fight and especially after a fight (I recommand the thread on how to deal with a prisoner young dragon in a good kingdom if you want to see how complicated any situation like that can be). A human bandit, you subdue and arrest him and have him be judged (whether he will be hang or acquitted based on the fact that he was raised in a bandit clan and never taught the right way to behave is better suited to Lawyers & Litigations than Dungeon & Dragons, but the part where you stop the bandit raid is....). You just don't kill them, especially as they could be raiding to feed their families and have a different approach on personal property as more settled villagers. You have human opponents if you want to delve in the complexities of morality and war. A monster bandit, you can reasonably kill him, since he's just a predator on humanity, with no free will, and therefore not worry about whether baby orcs will die. Losing this trope of evil monster will harm the game since you will have to limit opponents to non-intelligent ones if you are not in the mood of complex debates on morality (and those simpler games are a large part of my adventures because often my players deals with enough complexities in their real life jobs and just want to have fun on weekends). [/QUOTE]
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