D&D: WotC’s New Lore Changes Raise Questions Among Players

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection.  I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

It's not completely germane to the discussion here about WotC's direction, but it's useful for understanding the game's history. (Fun fact: while it's kinda obvious that biological determinism or essentialism or what have you is pretty core to old-school D&D's design, I was unaware that Gygax straight up espoused it by name, until this thread.)

Quote from kenclary >>

That's not an honest or fair description of what WotC is doing, or what's happening to society.

If you want to keep playing "cowboys and indians" with your D&D (reskinned as "adventurers and orcs" or whatever), go ahead. That's not an issue. Much like how "I played actual 'cowboys and indians' as a kid" doesn't make you racist.

D&D, historically, has been that game. And in order to make that work, it has/had a bunch of "lore" carefully constructed to justify it. The problem is most modern players (and I'm pretty confident in saying "most") don't want to play something so on-the-nose. So WotC has been evolving D&D's lore so it's not just an elaborate house of cards meant to justify a genocidal wargame.

This has actually been happening over the course of decades. But anyway, WotC is making it easier for other players to play the game other ways, and the market has been rewarding them.

 I think it is.  I don't believe they would be making such changes if the socio-political climate of the last few years wasn't what it is.  I think they would've been comfortable to leave in potentially useful charts for generating illithids and beholders and at best editing some "Always Evil"'s down to "Usually Evils" or some lesser category like "Often Evil" rahter then just desiding not to speak on alignment anymore.

I can see the wisdom in a parent teaching their children what is wrong with "Cowboys and Indians" becuase 'Indians'- indiginous people are real and really had bad things happen to them.  I can even see a talk about "cops and robbers" so a kid doesn't grow up thinking it's necessarily alright shoot and kill a robber if they become a cop before taking their immidiate circumstances and other options into account first - robbers also being real human beings. 

It's different in fantasy where none of your opponents are actually real.  Fantasy is where you can have simple dualism with fights between heroes a definitively evil and monsrous foe. That's the point of it: it's just a fantasy - to have things be simple instead of complex.  

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

A lot of D&D's lore, particularly the oldest of its lore, comes from the very problematic early days of D&D.  Gary Gygax was not a good person--he helped make a wonderful game, but many of his personal beliefs were already antiquated by the 70s and crept into the game itself.  He was, philosophically, a self-proclaimed "biological determinist" whose ideas on how race permeated his conceptualization of the game's races and cultures.  Not that Gary was the only problem--read some of the early books written by Arnson and others and you'll see a rather heavy-handed reliance on stereotypes.  Ernest, Gary's son and the namesake of Tenser (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest), continues to be a problematic game developer to this day, trying to make games that rely on the very same stereotypes that Wizards is trying to excise. 

 For much of Wizards' history with D&D, they have not taken any action to change the problematic origins of racial tropes in the game.  Neither 3e (3.5) or 4e addressed these matters head-on, instead allowing the old stereotypes to remain as fundamental to the game itself.  I do not think Wizards did this because Wizards was a racist company--they simply perpetuated the racism created by the game's founders, not considering it was a problem.  That is, however, the definition of systemic racism--when a system born in racism is continues not out of racism, but because it has become self-perpetuating and no one thinks to change the underlying problems.

I, for one, am glad that Wizards is taking such a focus with 5e on addressing the systemic problems born of the game's origins.  D&D is a wonderful game and everyone should feel welcome playing it.  Outdated stereotypes and "biological determinism" hold no place in a game that welcomes members of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. 

 I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection.  I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong. I don't know what Gary did in 1e, but I'm not arguing that Orcs should be evil because they evolved in the badlands where one naturally developes a harsher outlook on life than creatures who evolved in a forest or grassland.  I'm arguing Orcs should be evil because they were created to be evil by an evil god.  That's as good an excuse as any to justify common elements in a creature type. In real life I argue everyone was created by the same G'd who does not create anyone evil; but in the fantasy there are multiple gods, many of whom create their own races to serve their interests in the material plane. 

I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.  It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties.  What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?

Biological determinism is the belief that behavior itself is encoded into our genes and serves as the basis for the fields of eugenics and other (scientifically unsupported) views that certain races and genders are inferior to others.  For example, Gary Gygax once said that females were biologically incapable of "achieving the same level of satisfaction from playing" D&D as males--he believed that women were "evolved" enough to be able to understand the game, but their DNA was hardwired to keep them from fully enjoying it.  This is, of course, a disgusting statement and completely unsupported by any science--but it accurately reflects the mistaken ideals of biological determinists.  Or, to put it simply, biological determinism is trying to use pseudoscience to justify intolerance--it is surprising how often their "science" always seems to support the bigotry of the person espousing the "facts."

Let's use Orcs as an example of why this is a problem, since Orcs are both the subject of recent errata and one of the more problematic elements of Gygax's worldviews. 

Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs.  In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity.  Gygax and the early D&D crew tried to flesh them out more--he wanted his orcs to be a base and violent race that could be rather antagonistic to the world.  So, where did he turn?  Stereotyping of Africa.

The early orcs--and the orcs throughout much of D&D's history--are heavily rooted in Western stereotypes of tribal African society.  They were described as savages, as being animalistic, destructive, antagonistic to "civilized" society, and lesser in intelligence, charisma, and pretty much every conceivable trait other than physical prowess.  The flagrant grounding in stereotype, combined with the very same savage and animalistic imagery used to support real-world hate, and the ingrained "evil" nature of the race is harmful--D&D was essentially writing off something originating in real world culture as an enemy to civilized society.  

Simply put, Orcs were born of Gary Gygax and company's racism against tribality societies and heavily based on their racist imagery and their beliefs that "inferior" races could never emotionally rise above their station and genetics.  Surely you can see why Wizards might want to change something so abjectly born of the racism. 

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >> 

I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection. 

They're actually incompatible. Practically opposites. Biological determinism says there are aspects to creatures that are inherent and immutable, that environmental influence can't change or overcome. Darwinian evolution is all about environmental influences changing species over time. 

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

...

I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.  It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties.  What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?

This has been explained over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER, to the point where many people have given up explaining it, and others assume malice behind anyone else asking it.  It has been explained to you, specifically, in this thread.  In short, and as a summary:

Some people see the presence of an entire species of people considered 'Lesser', unable to rise above their animalistic instincts and able to do nothing but prey upon the more civilized, intelligent, and pretty peoples of the Realm, and they do not like the f@#$ing connotations.  It makes them deeply uncomfortable because that is the EXACT SAME WAY, the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE< and the EXACT SAME JUSTIFICATION that has historically been used to justify racism, up to and including slavery.  It does not matter that a bad-guy dickish god made this species that way - the existence of an entire species of less-than-people, disposable and unworthy of care or concern, is exclusionist to the core.

You do not agree.  You do not think so.  You think that an evil bad-guy dickish god making evil bad-guy dickish people is perfectly valid in a make-believe fantasy world that isn't real anyways.  Allow me to clarify something for you.  D&D is real.  The world of Faerun is fiction; your experiences playing stories with your friends in the world of Faerun are not.  Korgoth Bonegnawer the barbarian berserker is fiction; Dave the technician's memories of and experiences with playing Korgoth at the table with his friends are absolutely not fiction.  D&D is as real as any other hobby one might take up, and to a great many of us it's quite a bit more dear and real than that.  Having that reality fail us, watching the same exclusionism we have to put up with every god damned day in our waking lives, be held up as Cherished Tradition in our gaming is painful.  

It hurts, Shepherd.  It causes us pain, and for a great many silent, nameless players you'll never hear from here on DDB, it caused them enough pain that they decided this game wasn't meant for them.  That it was meant for the Pretties, the Normies, the WASPs, and all the other folk who stoll blissfully through life never having to feel the pain that comes from exclusionism.  You are extremely unlikely to understand the pain I feel whenever someone calls me 'sir', and I cannot ever feel the pain of my black friends when they get pulled over by the cops just because they have a nice car and the police keep suspecting it of being stolen.  True story - that is a thing that happens regularly to a friend of mine, purely because of his color.  We don't need MORE pain in our gaming.  That is, in fact, the last thing we need.

Now, in all fairness, I know that it causes you pain to see The Lore Of D&D change.  I can't understand that pain, either.  I'm new to the game, I have no attachment to the old ways, the old lore, and the old stories.  I have to remember that, and I try to keep it in mind whenever I speak to people about this.  But quite frankly Shepherd, I am done answering this question.  I am done telling people why treating orcs, or drow, or whatever else, exactly the same way racists, bigots, and literal slavers treated people of color in yesteryear - and the way many racists and bigots treat people of color today - is not, in fact, okay.  Either you can understand the reasoning or you cannot.  You do not have to like it.  You do not even have to agree with it.  But I will no longer engage with you when you claim not to understand it.

Are we in accord?

Quote from Kotath >>

 

Why only medieval perceptions and specifically those of medieval Europe? Do you insist then that only Christianity should be allowed as a religion? Forgotten Realms is not even Earth and vast sections of the Monster Manual consist of creatures from Greek lore. If one rules out depictions from before the medieval period, then it would be excluding a LOT of the game.

And this goes both ways. Why can't Surface Elves be evil?  Why not evil halflings? If you go back to 1e, you can find bits in Dragon Magazine involving the Halfling Thieves' Guild (in Wormy, I think). 

I do not remember Has Christian Anderson writing about any giants... Tolkien, Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burrows wrote in the 20th century... And I do not remember any giants in the writings of either of the last two. Ents are essentially wood giants and Tolkien had both good and neutral/evil versions. 

That very "They are (just) monsters' thing is the heart of this, though. Labelling any group evil because 'they are not us' is problematic. Even in fiction. It can be ok on an in character thing as a societal racism as an adversarial theme to overcome but there is WAY too much labelling and vilifying in real life.  

 Because otherwise you're right and I'm wrong ;-P.  One of the things that happened in those times was basically the reskinning of formerly good creatures of myth and legeand as evil i.e using the imige of Pan as the image of Satan.  Let's not bring religion into it.  It's enough we've politics already.  That's a good question though, I do always seem to tend to imagine the setting as a fantasized version of medieval Europe.  I've included things from other sourcebooks in my time such as Oriental Advantures; but I've never thought to do a campaign in a straight up other setting than a medieval European type setting.

Surface elves can be Evil.  An evil surface Elf, works the same way in my campaigns as a good Drow.  A surface elf is usually, but not always chaotic good; but every-so-often a wizard will experiment with sommoning demons or what not, acquire some power of a corrupting nature, and turn out to be the main boss villain of an adventure or the campaign.  Halflings can be evil too.  They can head up Assassins guilds, thieves guilds, etc.  but they too shouldn't to my mind be in equal proportion within their society as neutral or good halflings.  Halflings 'tend' to be / are typically LG and ones who aren't are an exception to the rule rather than a generic example of Halfling society.  There are also cannabalistic halfling in one of my old adventure modules.  There's nothing wrong with characters who break the mold; but it's another thing to remove the mold entirely.

I don't know if Hanse wrote anything specifically about giants, but he wrote down some the circulating fairy tales of his time and place in a similar manner as the Brothers Grimm did.  We (modern society) like to credit Tolkien with being the father of modern fantasy genre, which perhaps is true, but he and some of contemporaries such as C.S. Lewis did use older lore to inform some of their writing.  They didn't completely make up the character types they were working with.  Previous 19th century writers like Hans were responsible for aggregating some of that lore into single refrencable sources in the form of their own stories.

I agree it is the heart of the problem.  

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.  It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties.  What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?

You should know that it's not just orcs, but that they are definitely a sore spot.

Here is an account form another poster on this forum about the portrayal of orcs and half orcs caused him to shy away from playing D&D at all upon his first encounter.

Here is an author speaking about how the portrayal of orcs hits upon a lot of racist tropes and imagery that are painful to people.

In a similar, but not specifically orc or D&D related post, here is me talking about how the portrayal of the fictional people in Star Wars affected me.

Here are me and another member talking about how it's not us being "offended on behalf of fictional people" but that there are actual harms caused by harmful language.

Quote from kenclary >>

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection.  I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

It's not completely germane to the discussion here about WotC's direction, but it's useful for understanding the game's history. (Fun fact: while it's kinda obvious that biological determinism or essentialism or what have you is pretty core to old-school D&D's design, I was unaware that Gygax straight up espoused it by name, until this thread.)

 Thank you.  It says that the idea that genetics is soley or not at all responsible for human behavior has been replaced by one where both contribute to human behavior through something called epigenetics.  <reads more>  okay.  I can see how biological determinism is incorrect as regards being a source of differing behavior amongst humans.  Do generalizations of behavior between different species fall into this concept?    

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

 

Biological determinism is the belief that behavior itself is encoded into our genes and serves as the basis for the fields of eugenics and other (scientifically unsupported) views that certain races and genders are inferior to others.  For example, Gary Gygax once said that females were biologically incapable of "achieving the same level of satisfaction from playing" D&D as males--he believed that women were "evolved" enough to be able to understand the game, but their DNA was hardwired to keep them from fully enjoying it.  This is, of course, a disgusting statement and completely unsupported by any science--but it accurately reflects the mistaken ideals of biological determinists.  Or, to put it simply, biological determinism is trying to use pseudoscience to justify intolerance--it is surprising how often their "science" always seems to support the bigotry of the person espousing the "facts."

Let's use Orcs as an example of why this is a problem, since Orcs are both the subject of recent errata and one of the more problematic elements of Gygax's worldviews. 

Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs.  In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity.  Gygax and the early D&D crew tried to flesh them out more--he wanted his orcs to be a base and violent race that could be rather antagonistic to the world.  So, where did he turn?  Stereotyping of Africa.

The early orcs--and the orcs throughout much of D&D's history--are heavily rooted in Western stereotypes of tribal African society.  They were described as savages, as being animalistic, destructive, antagonistic to "civilized" society, and lesser in intelligence, charisma, and pretty much every conceivable trait other than physical prowess.  The flagrant grounding in stereotype, combined with the very same savage and animalistic imagery used to support real-world hate, and the ingrained "evil" nature of the race is harmful--D&D was essentially writing off something originating in real world culture as an enemy to civilized society.  

Simply put, Orcs were born of Gary Gygax and company's racism against tribality societies and heavily based on their racist imagery and their beliefs that "inferior" races could never emotionally rise above their station and genetics.  Surely you can see why Wizards might want to change something so abjectly born of the racism. 

 Yeah, that's wrong of him.  I have women in the party now who seem to be enjoying the game.  It sounds as no surprise if women didn't enjoy his version of the game at the time.

 Alright.  So how do I reconcile this part: Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs.  In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity.  with all of the rest of that? 

I presume tolkiens Orcs were not based on stereotypes, but on those older fairy-tales.  I don't want my orcs to be a reflection on African Stereotypes; so removing Gary's fleshing is a good thing; but I do want them to be the product of an evil entity, in this case Gruumsh rather than Sauron, and basically behave like Tolkiens Orcs; which did seem to have some of those traits; even before Gary's fleshing them out.  

How much of the Fairy-tale sources that informed tolkiens origonal iteration of Orcs are a product of, shall we call it, a victorian view on other human races, versus what the fairy-creature was actually supposed to have been like that just also happened to have things in common with the stereotypes, like cannibalism and territoriality and similar such traits?  

Quote from Kotath >>

In Forgotten Realms, maybe Orcs were made by an evil god. However does that mean that humans are good if made by a good god, and cannot be otherwise? In Tolkien's writings, Orcs were supposedly made from captured Elves rather than created from scratch. We do not really see Orc society without Sauron or Melkor around and both were literally there in Middle Earth directly meddling. Are Ukuk-Hai evil by nature? They are literally half orcs and made by Saruman, who was, at the time, still at least nominally on the good side. 

But what if you are not playing Forgotten Realms at all? You almost certainly are not playing Middle Earth. 

Meanwhile... and let me repeat this again, which people have been pointing out this entire thread.... you can still have evil Orcs! Nothing in the new wording says you cannot have evil Orcs! Nothing in the new wording says that you cannot have entire societies of evil Orcs. Nothing says you cannot have evil Orc civilizations, entire evil Orc empires.... 

These are things you can still do! 

What the new wording is saying is, essentially, that it is not some sort of blasphemy (against Gruumsh or against Gygax or against anyone or anything else) if there are non-evil Orcs in your world too. And there are no campaign police going to check on how you portray Orcs.

 I don't have a lot of other sources to work with right now.  I don't have the money to unlock a bunch of other stuff in one go.  I'm unlocking things piece by piece.  When I bring a book down 2.99 then I buy the rest of it and can read it.  I don't really know who made humans in D&D.  Humans usually had the alignment tag (any) as part of the whole versatility theme, and can be the most monstrously behaved of all.  Weren't the Red Wizards of Thay human?  We never do see Orc society after Sauron.  Tolkien was supposedly writing a sequal but then changed his mind and gave it up.  

No, but someone also said another true thing which is that if Evil Orcs is so terrible a concept, then it does become a problem my having evil Orcs.  I don't want people I present with a randomly rolled encounter of Evil Orcs, to be seeing a refelction of african stereotypes and feeling uncomfortable.  I want them to be seeing a big green monster and shouting their battlecries and charging at their foe with a smile.  

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >> 

How much of the Fairy-tale sources that informed tolkiens origonal iteration of Orcs are a product of, shall we call it, a victorian view on other human races, versus what the fairy-creature was actually supposed to have been like that just also happened to have things in common with the stereotypes, like cannibalism and territoriality and similar such traits?

That's a fruitless question. If you were to write an original piece of fiction today, how much of it is informed by the culture you were raised in and how much of it is "original?" Impossible to say and a misdirection from the point. You cannot possibly do any sort of percentage delineation of what is derivative or not and besides the point is not about how much of it is derived from what source, but rather the effects it has on the audience and as such the responsibility creators have to their fanbase.

Quote from pangurjan >>

They're actually incompatible. Practically opposites. Biological determinism says there are aspects to creatures that are inherent and immutable, that environmental influence can't change or overcome. Darwinian evolution is all about environmental influences changing species over time. 

 -nods.  That does seem to be the way of it.  There is no such thing as immutable biology.  Biology is in a constant state of change and it is environment that determines what changes stick and which ones fail to take root.

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

I can see how biological determinism is incorrect as regards being a source of differing behavior amongst humans.  Do generalizations of behavior between different species fall into this concept?

Kind of (we're playing fast-and-loose with terminology here): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/#DeatEsse

That link references classical thinking about god(s) creating things to be certain ways, which could be relevant to D&D, or at least will, no doubt, get commented on. We don't need to fall, once again, into that rat hole. Remember that what's being discussed here is what WotC is actually doing, which isn't really a philosophical choice so much as a business decision --- they're making the game more amenable to different styles of game.

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

 

Biological determinism is the belief that behavior itself is encoded into our genes and serves as the basis for the fields of eugenics and other (scientifically unsupported) views that certain races and genders are inferior to others.  For example, Gary Gygax once said that females were biologically incapable of "achieving the same level of satisfaction from playing" D&D as males--he believed that women were "evolved" enough to be able to understand the game, but their DNA was hardwired to keep them from fully enjoying it.  This is, of course, a disgusting statement and completely unsupported by any science--but it accurately reflects the mistaken ideals of biological determinists.  Or, to put it simply, biological determinism is trying to use pseudoscience to justify intolerance--it is surprising how often their "science" always seems to support the bigotry of the person espousing the "facts."

Let's use Orcs as an example of why this is a problem, since Orcs are both the subject of recent errata and one of the more problematic elements of Gygax's worldviews. 

Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs.  In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity.  Gygax and the early D&D crew tried to flesh them out more--he wanted his orcs to be a base and violent race that could be rather antagonistic to the world.  So, where did he turn?  Stereotyping of Africa.

The early orcs--and the orcs throughout much of D&D's history--are heavily rooted in Western stereotypes of tribal African society.  They were described as savages, as being animalistic, destructive, antagonistic to "civilized" society, and lesser in intelligence, charisma, and pretty much every conceivable trait other than physical prowess.  The flagrant grounding in stereotype, combined with the very same savage and animalistic imagery used to support real-world hate, and the ingrained "evil" nature of the race is harmful--D&D was essentially writing off something originating in real world culture as an enemy to civilized society.  

Simply put, Orcs were born of Gary Gygax and company's racism against tribality societies and heavily based on their racist imagery and their beliefs that "inferior" races could never emotionally rise above their station and genetics.  Surely you can see why Wizards might want to change something so abjectly born of the racism. 

 Yeah, that's wrong of him.  I have women in the party now who seem to be enjoying the game.  It sounds as no surprise if women didn't enjoy his version of the game at the time.

 

 Alright.  So how do I reconcile this part: Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs.  In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity.  with all of the rest of that? 

I presume tolkiens Orcs were not based on stereotypes, but on those older fairy-tales.  I don't want my orcs to be a reflection on African Stereotypes; so removing Gary's fleshing is a good thing; but I do want them to be the product of an evil entity, in this case Gruumsh rather than Sauron, and basically behave like Tolkiens Orcs; which did seem to have some of those traits; even before Gary's fleshing them out.  

How much of the Fairy-tale sources that informed tolkiens origonal iteration of Orcs are a product of, shall we call it, a victorian view on other human races, versus what the fairy-creature was actually supposed to have been like that just also happened to have things in common with the stereotypes, like cannibalism and territoriality and similar such traits?  

Reconciliation is fairly simple--you just have to look at the intent behind both works.

Tolkien's stories are grounded in both English legend (he was a scholar of English language and literature after all) and his own experiences, and the orc is a perfect encapsulation of how those two factors came together to make an element of his work.

Orcs are not really a creature from legend and are mostly created by Tolkien himself based on fragments of etymology and a desire to flesh out an old literary phrase that was ambiguous in definition.  The term "orc" etymologically, comes from an Old English term that is commonly translated to "foul spirit", though that is a rough translation and many other translations exist.  It appears only once in Beowulf (I lent my Tolkien translation of Beowulf to a friend, otherwise I could give you Tolkien's direct translation of "orcneas"), where it is used to describe one of several groups cursed by God.  You also see the name "Orcus" show up in Early Modern English, such as Spencer's Faerie Queen and a few other sources, but it still was a relatively uncommon term with indeterminant and inconsistent usage.   

That gives us the etymology and legendary origins of orcs as a vaguely-defined creature who once walked in the light but was cast out.  But where do we get the mindless nature of the beasts from?

For that, we turn to Tolkien's own experiences.  An officer in WWI who fought in the notoriously grim Battle of the Somme, Tolkien saw the true horrors of industrialization--turning men from country peasants and scholars (like himself) into the hoards of war, designed solely for the mission of slaughtering and being slaughtered on the Western Front.  The orcs of Tolkien represent not racist stereotypes, but a critique of the military mindset of his youth--taking something that was innocent and beautiful and twisting it so it could only serve the foul purpose of war.  

Tolkien's orcs thus can be said to have been born of English lore and his own messaging about the corrupting nature of war.  They are one-dimensional because his thesis required them to be--the very point was to show multifaceted beings can be corrupted into something unrecognizable and single-minded in the midst of war.

Gygax's intent was very different--he just wanted to have a fantasy creature to serve as his antagonists and was not trying to make a complex commentary on the nature of total war.  He thus mixed his own stereotypes and bigotry about tribal society with an unhealthy dose of biological determinism and a rough approximation of Tolkien's orcs, thusly creating the rather problematic race that persists to this day.

Intentions matter and intentions color the way the artist depicts certain entities.  Reading both Tolkien and Gygax, one can clearly see the intent and clearly see the purpose of each interpretation of orcs.  Wizards is not trying to make a complex commentary on War and thus really have no place for Tolkien's strictest definition--they want a complex, playable race that can befit all manner of potential players with any possible alignment.  Hence their trying to keep elements of Gygax's vision, while removing the harmful stereotypes and biological determinism that permeated his interpretation. 

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Intentions matter and intentions color the way the artist depicts certain entities.

Respectfully, I would like to add a point that while intentions do matter, they do not in any way mitigate their possible harmful effects and thus do not in any way absolve people of their responsibility to go about their business in a conscientious way so as not to cause harm. Harm can be caused unintentionally, and that lack of intention does not excuse a responsibility to listen and learn to do better.

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.  It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties.  What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?

You should know that it's not just orcs, but that they are definitely a sore spot.

Here is an account form another poster on this forum about the portrayal of orcs and half orcs caused him to shy away from playing D&D at all upon his first encounter.

Here is an author speaking about how the portrayal of orcs hits upon a lot of racist tropes and imagery that are painful to people.

In a similar, but not specifically orc or D&D related post, here is me talking about how the portrayal of the fictional people in Star Wars affected me.

Here are me and another member talking about how it's not us being "offended on behalf of fictional people" but that there are actual harms caused by harmful language.

 Thank you.  Reading them now.

Quote from kenclary >>

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

I can see how biological determinism is incorrect as regards being a source of differing behavior amongst humans.  Do generalizations of behavior between different species fall into this concept?

Kind of (we're playing fast-and-loose with terminology here): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/#DeatEsse

That link references classical thinking about god(s) creating things to be certain ways, which could be relevant to D&D, or at least will, no doubt, get commented on. We don't need to fall, once again, into that rat hole. Remember that what's being discussed here is what WotC is actually doing, which isn't really a philosophical choice so much as a business decision --- they're making the game more amenable to different styles of game.

 Thank you!

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

So how do I reconcile this part: Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs.  In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity.  with all of the rest of that? 

It's your game. Do what you want, as long as it doesn't bother your players specifically. If something does bother your players significantly you probably shouldn't do it regardless of what the rulebooks say, but the issue isn't with depictions of absolute alignments per se. The issue is with absolute alignments being presented as the standard for the game regardless of context.  

If you want to have a couple of races be always-evil, I don't think that has to be a problem  especially if you provide an overriding reason that explains why it'd be next to impossible to overcome that disposition. It'll help if you stick to one or two such races and avoid applying this to player races too. It might still feel wrong to one or more of your players -- in which case, see above - but the fundamental issue was the normalization that occurred due to the official rules espousing the notion of absolute alignments as the default (ironically enough contradicted by the game's canon lore, but whatever). What you do at your own table and how you present settings, campaigns and general ideas has always been up to you.

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr>>

A lot of D&D's lore, particularly the oldest of its lore, comes from the very problematic early days of D&D.  Gary Gygax was not a good person--he helped make a wonderful game, but many of his personal beliefs were already antiquated by the 70s and crept into the game itself.  He was, philosophically, a self-proclaimed "biological determinist" whose ideas on how race permeated his conceptualization of the game's races and cultures.  Not that Gary was the only problem--read some of the early books written by Arnson and others and you'll see a rather heavy-handed reliance on stereotypes.  Ernest, Gary's son and the namesake of Tenser (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest), continues to be a problematic game developer to this day, trying to make games that rely on the very same stereotypes that Wizards is trying to excise. 

Isn't calling Ernest Gary Gygax Junior a "game developer" a bit generous? As far as I'm aware, he has not actually developed any games or TTRPG products ever. Instead, he's a bigoted figurehead that grifters like Justin LeNasa and Stephen Dinehart use to pander to anti-"woke" reactionaries to say "look! We have a Gygax! Buy our Dollar Store Dice and support our crowdfunding lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast!". Their new company (which they call "TSR", which people online call "TSR3"/"3SR"/"NuTSR") hasn't produced any real gaming products, and are currently trying to sue Wizards of the Coast based on a bunch of nonsense. They're just a racist, sexist, transphobic and ableist company of grifters, not actually game developers. Not an actual gaming company.

 For much of Wizards' history with D&D, they have not taken any action to change the problematic origins of racial tropes in the game.  Neither 3e (3.5) or 4e addressed these matters head-on, instead allowing the old stereotypes to remain as fundamental to the game itself.  I do not think Wizards did this because Wizards was a racist company--they simply perpetuated the racism created by the game's founders, not considering it was a problem.  That is, however, the definition of systemic racism--when a system born in racism is continues not out of racism, but because it has become self-perpetuating and no one thinks to change the underlying problems.

I, for one, am glad that Wizards is taking such a focus with 5e on addressing the systemic problems born of the game's origins.  D&D is a wonderful game and everyone should feel welcome playing it.  Outdated stereotypes and "biological determinism" hold no place in a game that welcomes members of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. 

I agree with all of this. 

Edit: A word. 

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

For that, we turn to Tolkien's own experiences.  An officer in WWI who fought in the notoriously grim Battle of the Somme, Tolkien saw the true horrors of industrialization--turning men from country peasants and scholars (like himself) into the hoards of war, designed solely for the mission of slaughtering and being slaughtered on the Western Front.  The orcs of Tolkien represent not racist stereotypes, but a critique of the military mindset of his youth--taking something that was innocent and beautiful and twisting it so it could only serve the foul purpose of war.  

 Excellent.  Thank you very much.  This was exactly the association I was looking for.