The Hobgoblin and Bugbear thing is like the Eladrin statblocks- the races are all native to the Feywild, with some non PC examples being close enough to qualify as Fey rather than Humanoid and the stronger ones typically presenting additional special powers to reflect their more thoroughly supernatural identities/immediate heritage. Or at least that's how I reconcile it, given that our most current iterations of the PC options are Humanoid with a Fey Ancestry ability much like for Eladrin. Granted, they have started handing out non-Humanoid types more readily with some of the upcoming PC options, so we'll see if goblinoids get retouched at some point down the line.
. . .Pretty sure he knows that things can happen outside of dungeons, but dungeons are the stereotypical term, and includes basically any place, where an encounter happens. Hence the name Dungeon Crawling. Yes, there are also players, who enjoy excessive roleplay of their characters, but as you said, each to their own. But when Gary Gygax created D&D he had Dungeon Crawling, (as it is being called, although it can also happen outdoors, or whereever) primarily in mind.
However, the book is called 'Monster Manual', not 'NPC Manual', so one would expect to find Monsters in that book, especially those, which have made a regular appearance...such as orcs. Way more often than hostile performers would cross your paths. . .
But that's kind of the point. Orcs are NPCs (the ones who are not PCs), just like elves are. Are you upset that they left out things like Elven Assassin, Elven Mage, Elven Warrior?
I just don't think there's a real point to singling out the absence of orcs over an absence of elves, halflings, gnomes, etc.
By that analogy a dragon ia also an NPC…or a Lich…or an Ogre, or (insert any creature type with communication skills here). But they are not. And neither are orcs. You might now point to the 2024 PHB, and I can tell you WotC made a grave mistake. If I was DMing a campaign with 2024 rules, I’d strictly rule, that those are half-orcs,…as it originally was in 2014, in 4ed and 3rd. Imagine Orcs and Elves in one party. Two species, who waged war on every occasion, mostly initiated by orcs, and still hate each other to death. For those folks, who have been into DnD for as long as I am, there is a real point in that regard,
And if I was WotC, I’d start rectifying more than just that. The Absence of Half-Elves in the PHB is actually even more of a concern than this.
The problem I see, and what kills the entire idea is relativism. Whether it's regarding creatures, or alignments. Some players don't want alignments, because they argue that there is no good, and evil. It's just all different standpoints, different upbringings, whatever. Relativism does neither help in the real world, nor does it in games.
I think you’re trying to see moral relativism a little too much into the issue.
Players wanted to play Orcs. Lots of players. This is almost certainly due to the effect of…
World of Warcraft.
Not the ACLA. Straight up World of Warcraft. Orcs were noble and a core playable race in World of Warcraft, and that’s the fantasy setting a lot of new players grew up with. So now orcs are a playable race, and as a playable race, they get playable race status. That’s it. That’s pretty much all of it. Blame Blizzard.
. . .Pretty sure he knows that things can happen outside of dungeons, but dungeons are the stereotypical term, and includes basically any place, where an encounter happens. Hence the name Dungeon Crawling. Yes, there are also players, who enjoy excessive roleplay of their characters, but as you said, each to their own. But when Gary Gygax created D&D he had Dungeon Crawling, (as it is being called, although it can also happen outdoors, or whereever) primarily in mind.
However, the book is called 'Monster Manual', not 'NPC Manual', so one would expect to find Monsters in that book, especially those, which have made a regular appearance...such as orcs. Way more often than hostile performers would cross your paths. . .
But that's kind of the point. Orcs are NPCs (the ones who are not PCs), just like elves are. Are you upset that they left out things like Elven Assassin, Elven Mage, Elven Warrior?
I just don't think there's a real point to singling out the absence of orcs over an absence of elves, halflings, gnomes, etc.
By that analogy a dragon ia also an NPC…or a Lich…or an Ogre, or (insert any creature type with communication skills here). But they are not. And neither are orcs. You might now point to the 2024 PHB, and I can tell you WotC made a grave mistake. If I was DMing a campaign with 2024 rules, I’d strictly rule, that those are half-orcs,…as it originally was in 2014, in 4ed and 3rd. Imagine Orcs and Elves in one party. Two species, who waged war on every occasion, mostly initiated by orcs, and still hate each other to death. For those folks, who have been into DnD for as long as I am, there is a real point in that regard,
And if I was WotC, I’d start rectifying more than just that. The Absence of Half-Elves in the PHB is actually even more of a concern than this.
The problem I see, and what kills the entire idea is relativism. Whether it's regarding creatures, or alignments. Some players don't want alignments, because they argue that there is no good, and evil. It's just all different standpoints, different upbringings, whatever. Relativism does neither help in the real world, nor does it in games.
I think you’re trying to see moral relativism a little too much into the issue.
Players wanted to play Orcs. Lots of players. This is almost certainly due to the effect of…
World of Warcraft.
Not the ACLA. Straight up World of Warcraft. Orcs were noble and a core playable race in World of Warcraft, and that’s the fantasy setting a lot of new players grew up with. So now orcs are a playable race, and as a playable race, they get playable race status. That’s it. That’s pretty much all of it. Blame Blizzard.
Not only that, but Elder Scrolls (Skyrim & ESO) is also another influence. Orcs there are also a nomadic warrior culture, but also considered social outcasts. Their kingdom has also been destroyed and rebuilt many times--another parallel or inspiration for the Kingdom of Many-Arrows in FR.
Orcs are my second favorite species to play in D&D, after tieflings, and I was once a WoW player. There might be some truth to the comment that we should blame Blizzard.
Orcs are my second favorite species to play in D&D, after tieflings, and I was once a WoW player. There might be some truth to the comment that we should blame Blizzard.
Well, arguably Games Workshop; Warcraft factions are almost certainly derived from Warhammer. But yes, 3e and later orcs have a lot more resemblance to WH/WC orcs than to AD&D orcs.
I think you’re trying to see moral relativism a little too much into the issue.
Players wanted to play Orcs. Lots of players. This is almost certainly due to the effect of…World of Warcraft.
I am more of the impression that it is vice versa. What Blizzard, Games Workshop, etc. do is their own. This is D&D, not the other IPs. There is a reason, why orcs are NOT supposed to be PCs in a D&D games, at least not when dealing with any of the regular campaign settings. This is the orc pantheon: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_pantheon
Each and every one of those gods is either chaotic evil, or neutral evil at best. Unlike the drow, orcs do not even have an 'orc' version of an Eillistrae, which the drow dissidents can turn to. Thus, to find a good aligned orc is like finding a needle in the haystack. Actually the latter might even be easier. Plus, orcs, whatever alignment they are will face the resentment of the dwellers of any human, elf,halfling, dwarf, or whatever settlement he gets into. Why? Read the history of the Planes, then you'll know. Apparently, not even the devs did that, or they now wanna retcon everything.
In Warhammer there is no good as such. Every faction can actually be seen as evil-aligned. Ain't matter if it is the empire, the orcs, or whoever. They all lust for power and/or territory. The lore is like that for a reason. It is so war between all faction, and even within factions is warranted, even between Space Marine orders for example, so each play can play against another without barriers.
The lore of Orcs in World of Warcraft is an entirely different one, where the orcs where 'made' evil and furious by drinking demon blood.
In D&D however, Orcs are evil by default, as their highest deity, Gruumsh, is their very role model. (“No! You lie! You have rigged the drawing of lots, hoping to cheat me and my followers. But One-Eye never sleeps; One-Eye sees all. There is a place for orcs to dwell... here! And here! And here again! There! There is where the orcs shall dwell! And they shall survive, and multiply, and grow stronger. And a day will come when they cover the world, and they shall slay all of your collected peoples! Orcs shall inherit the world you sought to cheat me of.” — A telling of Gruumsh's mythical declaration of war against the other gods.) 'Out of a sorry butt does not come a happy fart'. Simple as that!
Again, there has always been the half-orc option, game mechanic-wise they were almost identical in 2014 to the now orcs in the PHB 2024 handbook, so people could have just stick with that. But I do not see any urge to horseshoe WoW into D&D, while there was a good enough option for that clientele of players already.
Lastly, as for myself, I played Orcs as well in WoW about 20 years ago (among other races), but that does not mean I need to do the same in D&D. No need to change an entire game/setting/lore, because some people 'feel unheard'. WoW is WoW, and D&D is D&D. Period.
Orcs being defaulted to evil because of pre-existing lore, to me, reminds me of IRL conflicts that were started because both sides declared each other evil, sinful & heretical.
"I want designated bad guys who embrace & embody sin & heresy, have very little free will from their betters & a monoculture w/very little rising above it" should ring some alarm bells with anyone who reads discussions like this.
What exactly makes Half-Orcs free from Orcish Original Sin in the FR novels? Being half human, & thus more blessed, pure & righteous?
Mind you, Orcs were, lore-wise, predetermined to be screwed over because Correllion was a dick to Grumuush.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Ok, This is D&D, not the other IPs. There is a reason, why orcs are NOT supposed to be PCs in a D&D games, at least not when dealing with any of the regular campaign settings. This is the orc pantheon: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_pantheon
Each and every one of those gods is either chaotic evil, or neutral evil at best. Unlike the drow, orcs do not even have an 'orc' version of an Eillistrae, which the drow dissidents can turn to. Thus, to find a good aligned orc is like finding a needle in the haystack. Actually the latter might even be easier. Plus, orcs, whatever alignment they are will face the resentment of the dwellers of any human, elf,halfling, dwarf, or whatever settlement he gets into. Why? Read the history of the Planes, then you'll know. Apparently, not even the devs did that, or they now wanna retcon everything.
You mean there is a reason why orcs are evil by default in your campaign. There have been good PC orcs possible at least since the 2e humanoid handbook, actually those of us who started with original D&D remember being told to play whatever we want and already played monster races before that. But this is specifically about the orcs. The Forgotten Realms novels do have examples of orcs that are good or at least not evil. In the Forgotten realms they are treated a lot more like "just people, some are good, some are bad". So the current treatment fits the lore of many more campaigns or settings then you assume, I beleive. The planes are a place where alignment becomes geography and no celestial can become evil without turning into something else, just as no devil can become good without doing the same. But with mortal beings the pure alignments get all mixed up and muddled, so deviations from the norm are easy to explain, especially but not only when outerplanar entieties are involved. The decision in this edition was to move away from some problematic baggage half orcs were carrying and just make orcs a playable species. The way it is written doesnt keep any DM from sticking to a "they are all evil monsters" line for their game. It doesnt force that line on DMs that dont want it and are glad to be rid of that baggage. It keeps players that would like to play an orcish type character happy.
I am more of the impression that it is vice versa. What Blizzard, Games Workshop, etc. do is their own. This is D&D, not the other IPs.
But it's entirely possible for D&D to be influenced by others.
And, more importantly, what D&D players want is influenced by others, and D&D can respond to players' desires.
There is a reason, why orcs are NOT supposed to be PCs in a D&D games, at least not when dealing with any of the regular campaign settings. This is the orc pantheon: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_pantheon
That's not the orc pantheon. That's an orc pantheon. Specifically, the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It's not the pantheon of the orcs of Eberron, much less the pantheon of the orcs of my game, or some other person's game.
Also, it's really pretty weird to have an intelligent species, close enough to humans that they can cross-breed, and yet somehow they, unlike all the intelligent player species, including half-orcs, have no moral choice of their own. Or even cultural variation.
This is objectively untrue. Segments of the community have been very vocal about the harmful tropes that D&D has propped up over the years and how they're propped up. These changes have been in response to that and a mechanism to dismantle these tropes at the base level of the game as much as possible.
[cont] but which has major ramifications towards lore and world building [cont]
Again, objectively untrue. While there have been some lore adjustments, such as the newer distinction between drow as a whole and drow who specifically worship Lolth (the Udadrow), there have been zero major ramifications on lore. And as for worldbuilding, it's added more verisimilitude, plausibility, and depth. Moving away from the cartoonish (at best) depictions of certain peoples being inherently X or Y and towards a portrayal that depicts people as varied in culture, ideology, and philosophy gives the worlds of D&D more texture, more nuance, and DMs more room to build their settings.
[cont] and it distorts the works of others like Gary Gygax, and Ed Greenwood. [cont]
Their works are not sacrosanct, even if these changes did "distort" anything. Also they are not the final arbiters in D&D and its lore—that is a baton that has been handed down through the years and will continue to do so. This idol worshipping mentality is a detriment to the hobby.
[cont] The question is, what is gained from that change? [cont]
People who once were turned off by D&D due the way it handled certain things in a manner that paralleled unpleasant and harmful personal experiences now feel comfortable approaching the game.
[cont] My answer would be nothing, but confusion, and irritation....
Maybe I could contextualize this in a way you might be able to understand. Let's imagine there's a TV series that you've always been interested—your friends watch it, people on the internet talk about it, content creators make compelling content about—so you decide to give it a go. You start watching it, but then realize that there's a collection of characters who are analogous to you. Now this is a science fiction series, these characters are aliens so not identical, or even very similar to you in a realistic sense, but you can see the parallels between you and them in terms of their experiences and nature. They play a proxy of tabletop roleplaying games and participate in an analogue of internet culture, like you do. However, these characters are exclusively portrayed as undesirable in some manner. Maybe they're all depicted as having terrible personal hygiene, or appalling social skills, or being completely unattractive to the opposite sex. Maybe it's all three or some other unpleasant caricature. The point is you can see, clear as day, these characters 1) parallel you in some key ways and 2) those parallels connect to fundamentally negative traits. Whenever you watch this show, you're beaten over the head with "this is how other people see people like me".
That would likely be a show you wouldn't want to watch, right? At least not until they perhaps changed the characters, even if through as ham-fisted retcon?
Same thing has happened and, it an extent, still happens with D&D. Except it's not about people being unwashed, socially awkward, loner nerds, but infinitely more important signifiers and tropes.
These changes are to make the game more welcoming to people, and even if we entertain the notion that there is a downside to this, the math is in favor of the changes. We have "People who felt excluded from the game based on who they are now feel they can participate and feel comfortable playing" vs "Some DMs might have to do a tiny bit more work to make their setting just the way they like it".
Mind you, Orcs were, lore-wise, predetermined to be screwed over because Correllion was a dick to Grumuush.
Eh, it’s a little open to interpretation in 5e. The basic lore from the 2014 MM is that when the gods were laying claim to lands for the races, all the places Grumuush wanted were already claimed by others and no one was willing to concede part of their slice to him, which he responded to by laying waste to the lands. It’s not specified whether this happened because of some conspiracy to beat him to the good picks or if it was just a case of luck of the draw being fair insofar as everyone has an equal chance at good picks but not equitable in results. Understandably the others objected to his flipping the table, and he ended up losing an eye when they fought back.
Personally, I find this to be a decent backstory for an Evil head deity of a PC race- he’s selfish, belligerent, vindictive, and if you don’t take the position he was conspired against quick to discard agreements if they don’t profit him. Okay, fine; our own mythologies are littered with figures like that. It’s a plausible and to a certain degree relatable characterization, and with a little legwork you can take the initial “loot and plunder” characterization of orcs and make it one facet of a cultural philosophy that ranges from “we got screwed over so we might as well take our own back” to “we have to look out for each other because no outsider will help us” as the general trends and plenty of room for individuals or groups to draw their own conclusions.
TLDR: Grumuush is Evil, but the characterization is in a way that works as the embittered authority figure people can choose to listen to or move past, rather than some of the more gratuitously tropey Evil deities like Llolth.
I would note that there is a problem with "just use generic NPC types", in that adding certain species (notably dragonborn, goliath, orc, and (depending on choices) human) to something like a bandit or warrior infantry will add enough power to change CR (other species are generally a rounding error), but that doesn't have a lot to do with whether orcs are evil.
Orcs being defaulted to evil because of pre-existing lore, to me, reminds me of IRL conflicts that were started because both sides declared each other evil, sinful & heretical.
"I want designated bad guys who embrace & embody sin & heresy, have very little free will from their betters & a monoculture w/very little rising above it" should ring some alarm bells with anyone who reads discussions like this.
What exactly makes Half-Orcs free from Orcish Original Sin in the FR novels? Being half human, & thus more blessed, pure & righteous?
Mind you, Orcs were, lore-wise, predetermined to be screwed over because Correllion was a dick to Grumuush.
D&D is not the real world, mate! Two major distinctions. In D&D the gods are for real. And so are there intentions, there influence over the followers, etc. Secondly, if it was comparable, you would not give your character an alignment. In real life this is rather flexible, not to say volatile.
Regarding Half-Orcs, and the Original Sin. Well, those who are raised among humans are usually the ones, who end up as adventurer/PCs, because they are socialised accordingly. That does not count for those Half-Orcs, who were brought up by Orcs.
But it's entirely possible for D&D to be influenced by others.
And, more importantly, what D&D players want is influenced by others, and D&D can respond to players' desires.
That's not the orc pantheon. That's an orc pantheon. Specifically, the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It's not the pantheon of the orcs of Eberron, much less the pantheon of the orcs of my game, or some other person's game. Also, it's really pretty weird to have an intelligent species, close enough to humans that they can cross-breed, and yet somehow they, unlike all the intelligent player species, including half-orcs, have no moral choice of their own. Or even cultural variation.
'Too many cooks spoil the broth' . And if D&D players want to start the game as demi-gods, then this has to be put into the handbook as well, right?
Well, afaik the Orcs of Eberron were not of the merry folk, either. And what you do privately is your choice. People's private preferences however should not affect the design, otherwise we'd need taylor-made material for everyone.
And sadly, intelligence, or whatever you define it, is no guarantor for resistance against manipulation, resp. indoctrination. That even counts for the real world , and history has tons of examples for that.
I am more of the impression that it is vice versa. What Blizzard, Games Workshop, etc. do is their own. This is D&D, not the other IPs.
But it's entirely possible for D&D to be influenced by others.
And, more importantly, what D&D players want is influenced by others, and D&D can respond to players' desires.
There is a reason, why orcs are NOT supposed to be PCs in a D&D games, at least not when dealing with any of the regular campaign settings. This is the orc pantheon: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_pantheon
That's not the orc pantheon. That's an orc pantheon. Specifically, the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It's not the pantheon of the orcs of Eberron, much less the pantheon of the orcs of my game, or some other person's game.
Also, it's really pretty weird to have an intelligent species, close enough to humans that they can cross-breed, and yet somehow they, unlike all the intelligent player species, including half-orcs, have no moral choice of their own. Or even cultural variation.
This is objectively untrue. Segments of the community ..
Oh, this is objectively very true. You basically gave the very explanation. Segments of the community, meaning the minority, which was yelling the loudest. Pretty much like the Twitter phenomenon.
I am more of the impression that it is vice versa. What Blizzard, Games Workshop, etc. do is their own. This is D&D, not the other IPs.
But it's entirely possible for D&D to be influenced by others.
And, more importantly, what D&D players want is influenced by others, and D&D can respond to players' desires.
There is a reason, why orcs are NOT supposed to be PCs in a D&D games, at least not when dealing with any of the regular campaign settings. This is the orc pantheon: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_pantheon
That's not the orc pantheon. That's an orc pantheon. Specifically, the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It's not the pantheon of the orcs of Eberron, much less the pantheon of the orcs of my game, or some other person's game.
Also, it's really pretty weird to have an intelligent species, close enough to humans that they can cross-breed, and yet somehow they, unlike all the intelligent player species, including half-orcs, have no moral choice of their own. Or even cultural variation.
Again, objectively untrue. While there have been some lore adjustments, such as the newer distinction between drow as a whole and drow who specifically worship Lolth (the Udadrow),..
Again, objectively very true. You can not transfer this 1 to 1 with the drow situation. The distinction between the drows of the Underdark, and those on the surface is nothing new. They already existed for decades, when AD&D was still around. Plus it will have a major effect, on how future adventures will be written, as orcs used to be a very common foe throughout many adventures, not to mention ones like Sons of Gruumsh, which basically with the trivialisation of orcs (looking at the picture in the PHB) makes basically no more sense.
As for non-sacrosanct, weil, I guess that's what Patrick McKay, and J.D. Payne thought as well, when they created the Amazon LotR show. Plus they sacked Tom Shippey, who was originally around to give advice. The end result is a major flop.
Last I heard, the current edition of D&D does not so well at all. At least not compared to 5e, and D20. 4E had other issues, mainly that WotC had turned it into a totally imbalanced purely tabletop game. But this time many people are not happy, that other people want to have things fixed, which are not broken.
And there will always be people, who are turned off by something. And there will always be. Newsflash: You can't please everybody. And if you try you might end up worse than before.
And there were no harmful tropes. What is harmful, is that currently in our world there are people, who have not read, or understood a book by Morton Rhues, called "The Wave". Otherwise, we would not have this very discussion at all.
[cont] My answer would be nothing, but confusion, and irritation....
Maybe I could contextualize this in a way you might be able to understand. Let's imagine there's a TV series that you've always been interested—your friends watch it, people on the internet talk about it, content creators make compelling content about—so you decide to give it a go. You start watching it, but then realize that there's a collection of characters who are analogous to you. Now this is a science fiction series, these characters are aliens so not identical, or even very similar to you in a realistic sense, but you can see the parallels between you and them in terms of their experiences and nature. They play a proxy of tabletop roleplaying games and participate in an analogue of internet culture, like you do. However, these characters are exclusively portrayed as undesirable in some manner. Maybe they're all depicted as having terrible personal hygiene, or appalling social skills, or being completely unattractive to the opposite sex. Maybe it's all three or some other unpleasant caricature. The point is you can see, clear as day, these characters 1) parallel you in some key ways and 2) those parallels connect to fundamentally negative traits. Whenever you watch this show, you're beaten over the head with "this is how other people see people like me".
That would likely be a show you wouldn't want to watch, right? At least not until they perhaps changed the characters, even if through as ham-fisted retcon?
Big Bang Theory seems to suggest that people can want to watch a show which makes fun of characters meant to be portraying people like them. (Big Bang Theory largely makes fun of nerds/geeks/whatever term you want to use, and yet those same people loved it).
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D+D needs enemies that can just be killed because they're evil (or otherwise 'bad' in some deterministic way). Most campaigns don't want to grapple with complicated moral questions every single combat. (Some do, and that's fine for them. But the MM needs to support the average campaign). Which begs the question: why were orcs and drow (and etc..) specifically problematic and other races, like Mind Flayers and Kua-Toa, were not? It's not like D+D now lacks 'inherently evil' groups defined by "genetics".
(Also, this push to make all near-PC races into just visual skins for characters to wear cheapens the idea that these are completely different species with entirely different biologies.)
I mean, we've just kicked the can a little bit here. Drow aren't evil, but worshipping Lloth (and probably most of the other Drow deities) is an evil act, so most Drow are still evil. Orcs aren't evil, but worshipping any of the Orc pantheon is still an evil act, so most Orcs are still evil. (Talking about published settings, obviously DMs can do whatever they want). Nothing stopped players from coming to an agreement with their DM to play a Drow or an Orc which wasn't evil before. (Indeed, someone wrote a massive novel series detailing adventures of his D+D character about just that!)
For whatever its worth, prior editions had elves and halflings and humans (and etc...) in the MM, too. (In fact, many of the PC elf races came from MMs in 3e). Because 'monsters' don't need to be 'evil' to be adversaries, and the DM should still have tools to run them as adversaries even if they aren't evil. (And indeed, not all of the monster manual is evil). The 'grapple with morality of killing anything' campaigns still need adversaries, and evil wizards/clerics/warlords still need minions; duped, hired, mind controlled, or otherwise.
And there are playable races in the MM still. (I noticed Kenku and Kobold Warrior are still there). Why is a kobold sufficiently different from 'thug' or whatever, but an Orc is not? (Edit: also goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, Lizardfolk (although no warriors or other generic, just some spellcasters...?))
D+D needs enemies that can just be killed because they're evil (or otherwise 'bad' in some deterministic way). Most campaigns don't want to grapple with complicated moral questions every single combat. (Some do, and that's fine for them. But the MM needs to support the average campaign). Which begs the question: why were orcs and drow (and etc..) specifically problematic and other races, like Mind Flayers and Kua-Toa, were not?
Honestly, the way D&D 2024 tried to solve its problems is not the best, it's kind of problematic to tag any sentient natural creature as intrinsically evil outside of very specialized cases (typically things that innately predate on other sentient creatures, such as mind flayers or vampires), but on your more specific points:
There are standard ways of marking humanoid enemies as "can be killed without deep introspection". Just use the same methods you use for human enemies:
Most random encounters are going to be the functional equivalent of bandits anyway, and require the same amount of thought.
Minions of the BBEG typically have something like a uniform or insignia marking them as Team Evil.
and the reasons why orcs and drow are more problematic than, say, kuo-toa, is because they're seen as analogues to real-world ethnic groups.
You claimed nobody wanted these changes. I pointed out that a non-zero number of people wanted these changes, which is very much not nobody. That makes your statement objectively untrue. Just because nobody you'd bother to listen to or pay any attention to wanted these changes doesn't mean that those peoples opinions don't count. This seems like an intellectually dishonest position to take on the matter
2. People's private preferences however should not affect the design, otherwise we'd need taylor-made material for everyone.
3. Secondly, if it was comparable, you would not give your character an alignment.
4. Again, objectively very true. You can not transfer this 1 to 1 with the drow situation. The distinction between the drows of the Underdark, and those on the surface is nothing new. They already existed for decades, when AD&D was still around. Plus it will have a major effect, on how future adventures will be written, as orcs used to be a very common foe throughout many adventures, not to mention ones like Sons of Gruumsh, which basically with the trivialisation of orcs (looking at the picture in the PHB) makes basically no more sense.
5. Last I heard, the current edition of D&D does not so well at all. At least not compared to 5e, and D20. 4E had other issues, mainly that WotC had turned it into a totally imbalanced purely tabletop game. But this time many people are not happy, that other people want to have things fixed, which are not broken.
6. And there will always be people, who are turned off by something. And there will always be. Newsflash: You can't please everybody. And if you try you might end up worse than before.
7. And there were no harmful tropes.
Because quoting is a serious pain in the ass on these forums, allow me to answer these as numbers:
1. This is not a revelation. But are you saying that it's OK to take a blatant caricature of a culture, call it Gorks, make them "evil" by default, and call the world they live in Nearth? Does simply changing the name to something made up take away any of problems with doing so?
2. Excellent point! So your private preference to have orcs be "naturally evil" shouldn't affect other tables. It's a good thing the PHB is more setting agnostic now, then. Isn't it? What, exactly, is stopping you or any other DM that wants to from making orcs "naturally evil" in their campaign using the current rules? To be clear, I think what happened was this: a) half-races in 2014 were seen as somewhat problematic for several reasons b) they couldn't come up with a way to implement half-races that they were comfortable with c) they decided that because half-orcs weren't possible orcs should just be the playable species d) they then had to deal with the problems associated with PCs now able to be a species that had historically been default "evil" when said PC should be able to actually make their own choices. To make it as setting agnostic as possible, they simply took away the previous, restricting, default. To that point...
3. Alignment has been a thorn in most players' sides for a long time. I think it goes all the way back to how people approach the role-playing aspect of the game and, specifically, character creation. To be brief, it's improv (generating a character and having fun trying to fit within the confines of the generated character) vs. concept-driven (creating the character you want to play, and having fun seeing how this character's role in the story evolves). Alignment was mostly fine for people playing the former. It was completely anti-thematic to the latter playstyle. My hypothesis is that more people play the game the latter way these days. Indeed, the core books make a point that alignment in 5.24e is not something that is set in stone from the beginning, but (if you want to use it at all) changes with your choices.
4. The distinction between Orcs and Drow is one that doesn't make any sense for a sentient species. What makes Orcs different from Drow in this regard? It sounds like you are in agreement that the "evil" Drow are such because they worship Lolth. Those that don't aren't necessarily evil. Why not? Perhaps because biology shouldn't dictate someone's alignment? So again I ask, what makes Orcs different other than "they've been that way longer than Drow have." "It's always been that way" has never been—in truth or fiction—a good reason to maintain anything.
5. You're going to have to back that up. This comment is slung around from time to time and as far as we know, the only comment made by WotC about sales that they were legally bound to be truthful about was that it was "selling faster than any other edition". That's it. Unless you have some inside information, your comments about sales/performance are just as likely to be echo-chamber rhetoric than fact.
6. Two things here. Absolutely you can't please everyone. But you can make choices that please more people than before. If actively trying to include a group of 100 people turns off 10 people that were originally fine with the way things were, then you've gained 90 people (assuming the people who are turned off actually stop playing/buying as a result). Second, there is always a risk. You said it yourself, "might end up worse". We shall see, I guess, but I'm not particularly worried about the future of the game.
7. This, plus the first response are both used a lot in debates like this. The thinking goes: "orcs clearly aren't real, therefore anything and everything about them is entirely fiction and people who see/read the caricatured portrayals are the ones who are racist." If you can even entertain the possibility that an author or game designer or filmmaker with nefarious intent can portray different cultures in insulting ways while trying to cover it up with a fresh coat of paint fictional naming, then you must also cede that it's at least understandable that people would be wary of such things and non-nefarious authors, etc. would try their best to show that they haven't done that.
D+D needs enemies that can just be killed because they're evil (or otherwise 'bad' in some deterministic way). Most campaigns don't want to grapple with complicated moral questions every single combat. (Some do, and that's fine for them. But the MM needs to support the average campaign). Which begs the question: why were orcs and drow (and etc..) specifically problematic and other races, like Mind Flayers and Kua-Toa, were not?
Honestly, the way D&D 2024 tried to solve its problems is not the best, it's kind of problematic to tag any sentient natural creature as intrinsically evil outside of very specialized cases (typically things that innately predate on other sentient creatures, such as mind flayers or vampires), but on your more specific points:
There are standard ways of marking humanoid enemies as "can be killed without deep introspection". Just use the same methods you use for human enemies:
Most random encounters are going to be the functional equivalent of bandits anyway, and require the same amount of thought.
Minions of the BBEG typically have something like a uniform or insignia marking them as Team Evil.
and the reasons why orcs and drow are more problematic than, say, kuo-toa, is because they're seen as analogues to real-world ethnic groups.
Isn't this just a Red Queen problem? Because the reason Orcs and Drow were seen as analogs to real-world ethnic groups is because they were portrayed as intrinsically monstrous. So now that they aren't, they aren't analogues anymore, and whatever the next group which is portrayed as instrinsically monstrous is. (So goblins? kobolds? hobgoblins?)
I mean, it can't be that they were 'oppressed' - that didn't really apply to Drow (who to a large extent are portrayed as 'successfully self-governing and powerful', or at least how they defined it). And 'oppressed' certainly seems to apply to kobolds and goblinoids, even more so than Orcs.
This all just seems arbitrary, with goalposts that appear inclined to move whenever the current goalpost is satisfied.
If 'Orcs eat other humanoids' was the default, it would've been okay to leave them as intrinsically adversaries? (Let's leave alignment out of it, racial alignments were always a rough guideline of tendencies, not a specific descriptor of every individual).
But it's entirely possible for D&D to be influenced by others.
And, more importantly, what D&D players want is influenced by others, and D&D can respond to players' desires.
That's not the orc pantheon. That's an orc pantheon. Specifically, the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It's not the pantheon of the orcs of Eberron, much less the pantheon of the orcs of my game, or some other person's game. Also, it's really pretty weird to have an intelligent species, close enough to humans that they can cross-breed, and yet somehow they, unlike all the intelligent player species, including half-orcs, have no moral choice of their own. Or even cultural variation.
'Too many cooks spoil the broth' . And if D&D players want to start the game as demi-gods, then this has to be put into the handbook as well, right?
If too many cooks spoil the broth, that broth has been rank for decades. The number of fantasy sources smushed together into the original D&D is quite large, and it has only got larger over time. (It hasn't ever really managed to overcome the tonal disjunction between Tolkien and Conan.) If it doesn't change to better fit the tastes of the modern audience, it will probably die, or at least have its player base stagnate.
But conflating changes to setting details to changes to the basic game paradigm is pretty disingenuous.
(Also, D&D Immortals set, 1986.)
More importantly, one of the things they've done in the latest revision is to deliberately better separate the basic game paradigm from the setting details. There is no default setting, so the idea that orcs must be irredeemably evil by default has no need to be there.
Well, afaik the Orcs of Eberron were not of the merry folk, either.
They ain't the orcs of the forgotten realms, though. Their cosmology is, AFAIK, completely different.
And what you do privately is your choice. People's private preferences however should not affect the design, otherwise we'd need taylor-made material for everyone.
According to their market surveys, homebrewing worlds is by far the most common usage pattern, and always has been. Given that, making it easier to homebrew worlds makes perfect sense.
With one exception, I have not played in a published D&D setting since Keep on the Borderlands. (Which really wasn't in an actual setting as such at the time) It's always been homebrew. I spawn new settings every time I start a new game. Other GMs I've played with have their own worlds they've been running for years, or even decades. (And even that exception is kind of stapled in to an extant homebrew setting, and has been heavily tinkered with.)
Last I heard, the current edition of D&D does not so well at all. At least not compared to 5e, and D20. 4E had other issues, mainly that WotC had turned it into a totally imbalanced purely tabletop game. But this time many people are not happy, that other people want to have things fixed, which are not broken.
All the available evidence says it's doing quite well, actually, but that's not a topic for this thread. (And, of course, it's too early to judge its staying power.)
D+D needs enemies that can just be killed because they're evil (or otherwise 'bad' in some deterministic way).
Does it?
And if it does, do those enemies need to be entire intelligent species?
Undead exist. Wild animals exist. Bandits and enemy soldiers exist. Enemies can have reasons beyond "they're evil", and it's not even particularly difficult to do. "Killed" doesn't have to be the goal. "Fled" and "surrendered" are also available.
(Not having inherently evil races also make it easier to avoid the sort of group-breaking situations like the infamous "It is not only appropriate, but mandatory for a paladin to kill off orc children.")
Which begs the question: why were orcs and drow (and etc..) specifically problematic and other races, like Mind Flayers and Kua-Toa, were not? It's not like D+D now lacks 'inherently evil' groups defined by "genetics".
Mind flayers have an inherently predatory relationship with the other humanoid races. Kuo-Toa are, in fact, potentially problematic in the same way orcs used to be, but they're also significantly different enough that it's not so easy to just say "this humanoid stat block is a fish man" and have it work.
And, were I using either mind flayers or kuo-toa in my games, they'd get the same level of cultural complexity and individuality that the orcs get.
Moral complexity leads to richer storytelling. "They're evil" is dull. "This particular kingdom of orcs are hemmed in on all sides by other kingdoms, which inevitably leads to conflict" has more potential for resolutions.
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The Hobgoblin and Bugbear thing is like the Eladrin statblocks- the races are all native to the Feywild, with some non PC examples being close enough to qualify as Fey rather than Humanoid and the stronger ones typically presenting additional special powers to reflect their more thoroughly supernatural identities/immediate heritage. Or at least that's how I reconcile it, given that our most current iterations of the PC options are Humanoid with a Fey Ancestry ability much like for Eladrin. Granted, they have started handing out non-Humanoid types more readily with some of the upcoming PC options, so we'll see if goblinoids get retouched at some point down the line.
I think you’re trying to see moral relativism a little too much into the issue.
Players wanted to play Orcs. Lots of players. This is almost certainly due to the effect of…
World of Warcraft.
Not the ACLA. Straight up World of Warcraft. Orcs were noble and a core playable race in World of Warcraft, and that’s the fantasy setting a lot of new players grew up with. So now orcs are a playable race, and as a playable race, they get playable race status. That’s it. That’s pretty much all of it. Blame Blizzard.
Not only that, but Elder Scrolls (Skyrim & ESO) is also another influence. Orcs there are also a nomadic warrior culture, but also considered social outcasts. Their kingdom has also been destroyed and rebuilt many times--another parallel or inspiration for the Kingdom of Many-Arrows in FR.
Minor nit: also playable in Morrowind and Oblivion.
Orcs are my second favorite species to play in D&D, after tieflings, and I was once a WoW player. There might be some truth to the comment that we should blame Blizzard.
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Well, arguably Games Workshop; Warcraft factions are almost certainly derived from Warhammer. But yes, 3e and later orcs have a lot more resemblance to WH/WC orcs than to AD&D orcs.
Ok,
I am more of the impression that it is vice versa. What Blizzard, Games Workshop, etc. do is their own. This is D&D, not the other IPs. There is a reason, why orcs are NOT supposed to be PCs in a D&D games, at least not when dealing with any of the regular campaign settings. This is the orc pantheon: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_pantheon
Each and every one of those gods is either chaotic evil, or neutral evil at best. Unlike the drow, orcs do not even have an 'orc' version of an Eillistrae, which the drow dissidents can turn to. Thus, to find a good aligned orc is like finding a needle in the haystack. Actually the latter might even be easier. Plus, orcs, whatever alignment they are will face the resentment of the dwellers of any human, elf,halfling, dwarf, or whatever settlement he gets into. Why? Read the history of the Planes, then you'll know. Apparently, not even the devs did that, or they now wanna retcon everything.
In Warhammer there is no good as such. Every faction can actually be seen as evil-aligned. Ain't matter if it is the empire, the orcs, or whoever. They all lust for power and/or territory. The lore is like that for a reason. It is so war between all faction, and even within factions is warranted, even between Space Marine orders for example, so each play can play against another without barriers.
The lore of Orcs in World of Warcraft is an entirely different one, where the orcs where 'made' evil and furious by drinking demon blood.
In D&D however, Orcs are evil by default, as their highest deity, Gruumsh, is their very role model. (“No! You lie! You have rigged the drawing of lots, hoping to cheat me and my followers. But One-Eye never sleeps; One-Eye sees all. There is a place for orcs to dwell... here! And here! And here again! There! There is where the orcs shall dwell! And they shall survive, and multiply, and grow stronger. And a day will come when they cover the world, and they shall slay all of your collected peoples! Orcs shall inherit the world you sought to cheat me of.” — A telling of Gruumsh's mythical declaration of war against the other gods.) 'Out of a sorry butt does not come a happy fart'. Simple as that!
Again, there has always been the half-orc option, game mechanic-wise they were almost identical in 2014 to the now orcs in the PHB 2024 handbook, so people could have just stick with that. But I do not see any urge to horseshoe WoW into D&D, while there was a good enough option for that clientele of players already.
Lastly, as for myself, I played Orcs as well in WoW about 20 years ago (among other races), but that does not mean I need to do the same in D&D. No need to change an entire game/setting/lore, because some people 'feel unheard'. WoW is WoW, and D&D is D&D. Period.
Orcs being defaulted to evil because of pre-existing lore, to me, reminds me of IRL conflicts that were started because both sides declared each other evil, sinful & heretical.
"I want designated bad guys who embrace & embody sin & heresy, have very little free will from their betters & a monoculture w/very little rising above it" should ring some alarm bells with anyone who reads discussions like this.
What exactly makes Half-Orcs free from Orcish Original Sin in the FR novels? Being half human, & thus more blessed, pure & righteous?
Mind you, Orcs were, lore-wise, predetermined to be screwed over because Correllion was a dick to Grumuush.
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You mean there is a reason why orcs are evil by default in your campaign. There have been good PC orcs possible at least since the 2e humanoid handbook, actually those of us who started with original D&D remember being told to play whatever we want and already played monster races before that. But this is specifically about the orcs. The Forgotten Realms novels do have examples of orcs that are good or at least not evil. In the Forgotten realms they are treated a lot more like "just people, some are good, some are bad". So the current treatment fits the lore of many more campaigns or settings then you assume, I beleive. The planes are a place where alignment becomes geography and no celestial can become evil without turning into something else, just as no devil can become good without doing the same. But with mortal beings the pure alignments get all mixed up and muddled, so deviations from the norm are easy to explain, especially but not only when outerplanar entieties are involved. The decision in this edition was to move away from some problematic baggage half orcs were carrying and just make orcs a playable species. The way it is written doesnt keep any DM from sticking to a "they are all evil monsters" line for their game. It doesnt force that line on DMs that dont want it and are glad to be rid of that baggage. It keeps players that would like to play an orcish type character happy.
But it's entirely possible for D&D to be influenced by others.
And, more importantly, what D&D players want is influenced by others, and D&D can respond to players' desires.
That's not the orc pantheon. That's an orc pantheon. Specifically, the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It's not the pantheon of the orcs of Eberron, much less the pantheon of the orcs of my game, or some other person's game.
Also, it's really pretty weird to have an intelligent species, close enough to humans that they can cross-breed, and yet somehow they, unlike all the intelligent player species, including half-orcs, have no moral choice of their own. Or even cultural variation.
This is objectively untrue. Segments of the community have been very vocal about the harmful tropes that D&D has propped up over the years and how they're propped up. These changes have been in response to that and a mechanism to dismantle these tropes at the base level of the game as much as possible.
Again, objectively untrue. While there have been some lore adjustments, such as the newer distinction between drow as a whole and drow who specifically worship Lolth (the Udadrow), there have been zero major ramifications on lore. And as for worldbuilding, it's added more verisimilitude, plausibility, and depth. Moving away from the cartoonish (at best) depictions of certain peoples being inherently X or Y and towards a portrayal that depicts people as varied in culture, ideology, and philosophy gives the worlds of D&D more texture, more nuance, and DMs more room to build their settings.
Their works are not sacrosanct, even if these changes did "distort" anything. Also they are not the final arbiters in D&D and its lore—that is a baton that has been handed down through the years and will continue to do so. This idol worshipping mentality is a detriment to the hobby.
People who once were turned off by D&D due the way it handled certain things in a manner that paralleled unpleasant and harmful personal experiences now feel comfortable approaching the game.
Maybe I could contextualize this in a way you might be able to understand. Let's imagine there's a TV series that you've always been interested—your friends watch it, people on the internet talk about it, content creators make compelling content about—so you decide to give it a go. You start watching it, but then realize that there's a collection of characters who are analogous to you. Now this is a science fiction series, these characters are aliens so not identical, or even very similar to you in a realistic sense, but you can see the parallels between you and them in terms of their experiences and nature. They play a proxy of tabletop roleplaying games and participate in an analogue of internet culture, like you do. However, these characters are exclusively portrayed as undesirable in some manner. Maybe they're all depicted as having terrible personal hygiene, or appalling social skills, or being completely unattractive to the opposite sex. Maybe it's all three or some other unpleasant caricature. The point is you can see, clear as day, these characters 1) parallel you in some key ways and 2) those parallels connect to fundamentally negative traits. Whenever you watch this show, you're beaten over the head with "this is how other people see people like me".
That would likely be a show you wouldn't want to watch, right? At least not until they perhaps changed the characters, even if through as ham-fisted retcon?
Same thing has happened and, it an extent, still happens with D&D. Except it's not about people being unwashed, socially awkward, loner nerds, but infinitely more important signifiers and tropes.
These changes are to make the game more welcoming to people, and even if we entertain the notion that there is a downside to this, the math is in favor of the changes. We have "People who felt excluded from the game based on who they are now feel they can participate and feel comfortable playing" vs "Some DMs might have to do a tiny bit more work to make their setting just the way they like it".
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Eh, it’s a little open to interpretation in 5e. The basic lore from the 2014 MM is that when the gods were laying claim to lands for the races, all the places Grumuush wanted were already claimed by others and no one was willing to concede part of their slice to him, which he responded to by laying waste to the lands. It’s not specified whether this happened because of some conspiracy to beat him to the good picks or if it was just a case of luck of the draw being fair insofar as everyone has an equal chance at good picks but not equitable in results. Understandably the others objected to his flipping the table, and he ended up losing an eye when they fought back.
Personally, I find this to be a decent backstory for an Evil head deity of a PC race- he’s selfish, belligerent, vindictive, and if you don’t take the position he was conspired against quick to discard agreements if they don’t profit him. Okay, fine; our own mythologies are littered with figures like that. It’s a plausible and to a certain degree relatable characterization, and with a little legwork you can take the initial “loot and plunder” characterization of orcs and make it one facet of a cultural philosophy that ranges from “we got screwed over so we might as well take our own back” to “we have to look out for each other because no outsider will help us” as the general trends and plenty of room for individuals or groups to draw their own conclusions.
TLDR: Grumuush is Evil, but the characterization is in a way that works as the embittered authority figure people can choose to listen to or move past, rather than some of the more gratuitously tropey Evil deities like Llolth.
I would note that there is a problem with "just use generic NPC types", in that adding certain species (notably dragonborn, goliath, orc, and (depending on choices) human) to something like a bandit or warrior infantry will add enough power to change CR (other species are generally a rounding error), but that doesn't have a lot to do with whether orcs are evil.
Not in mine, as I have not created the various D&D settings.
D&D is not the real world, mate! Two major distinctions. In D&D the gods are for real. And so are there intentions, there influence over the followers, etc. Secondly, if it was comparable, you would not give your character an alignment. In real life this is rather flexible, not to say volatile.
Regarding Half-Orcs, and the Original Sin. Well, those who are raised among humans are usually the ones, who end up as adventurer/PCs, because they are socialised accordingly. That does not count for those Half-Orcs, who were brought up by Orcs.
'Too many cooks spoil the broth' . And if D&D players want to start the game as demi-gods, then this has to be put into the handbook as well, right?
Well, afaik the Orcs of Eberron were not of the merry folk, either. And what you do privately is your choice. People's private preferences however should not affect the design, otherwise we'd need taylor-made material for everyone.
And sadly, intelligence, or whatever you define it, is no guarantor for resistance against manipulation, resp. indoctrination. That even counts for the real world , and history has tons of examples for that.
Oh, this is objectively very true. You basically gave the very explanation. Segments of the community, meaning the minority, which was yelling the loudest. Pretty much like the Twitter phenomenon.
Again, objectively very true. You can not transfer this 1 to 1 with the drow situation. The distinction between the drows of the Underdark, and those on the surface is nothing new. They already existed for decades, when AD&D was still around. Plus it will have a major effect, on how future adventures will be written, as orcs used to be a very common foe throughout many adventures, not to mention ones like Sons of Gruumsh, which basically with the trivialisation of orcs (looking at the picture in the PHB) makes basically no more sense.
As for non-sacrosanct, weil, I guess that's what Patrick McKay, and J.D. Payne thought as well, when they created the Amazon LotR show. Plus they sacked Tom Shippey, who was originally around to give advice. The end result is a major flop.
Last I heard, the current edition of D&D does not so well at all. At least not compared to 5e, and D20. 4E had other issues, mainly that WotC had turned it into a totally imbalanced purely tabletop game. But this time many people are not happy, that other people want to have things fixed, which are not broken.
And there will always be people, who are turned off by something. And there will always be. Newsflash: You can't please everybody. And if you try you might end up worse than before.
And there were no harmful tropes. What is harmful, is that currently in our world there are people, who have not read, or understood a book by Morton Rhues, called "The Wave". Otherwise, we would not have this very discussion at all.
Big Bang Theory seems to suggest that people can want to watch a show which makes fun of characters meant to be portraying people like them. (Big Bang Theory largely makes fun of nerds/geeks/whatever term you want to use, and yet those same people loved it).
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D+D needs enemies that can just be killed because they're evil (or otherwise 'bad' in some deterministic way). Most campaigns don't want to grapple with complicated moral questions every single combat. (Some do, and that's fine for them. But the MM needs to support the average campaign). Which begs the question: why were orcs and drow (and etc..) specifically problematic and other races, like Mind Flayers and Kua-Toa, were not? It's not like D+D now lacks 'inherently evil' groups defined by "genetics".
(Also, this push to make all near-PC races into just visual skins for characters to wear cheapens the idea that these are completely different species with entirely different biologies.)
I mean, we've just kicked the can a little bit here. Drow aren't evil, but worshipping Lloth (and probably most of the other Drow deities) is an evil act, so most Drow are still evil. Orcs aren't evil, but worshipping any of the Orc pantheon is still an evil act, so most Orcs are still evil. (Talking about published settings, obviously DMs can do whatever they want). Nothing stopped players from coming to an agreement with their DM to play a Drow or an Orc which wasn't evil before. (Indeed, someone wrote a massive novel series detailing adventures of his D+D character about just that!)
For whatever its worth, prior editions had elves and halflings and humans (and etc...) in the MM, too. (In fact, many of the PC elf races came from MMs in 3e). Because 'monsters' don't need to be 'evil' to be adversaries, and the DM should still have tools to run them as adversaries even if they aren't evil. (And indeed, not all of the monster manual is evil). The 'grapple with morality of killing anything' campaigns still need adversaries, and evil wizards/clerics/warlords still need minions; duped, hired, mind controlled, or otherwise.
And there are playable races in the MM still. (I noticed Kenku and Kobold Warrior are still there). Why is a kobold sufficiently different from 'thug' or whatever, but an Orc is not? (Edit: also goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, Lizardfolk (although no warriors or other generic, just some spellcasters...?))
Honestly, the way D&D 2024 tried to solve its problems is not the best, it's kind of problematic to tag any sentient natural creature as intrinsically evil outside of very specialized cases (typically things that innately predate on other sentient creatures, such as mind flayers or vampires), but on your more specific points:
There are standard ways of marking humanoid enemies as "can be killed without deep introspection". Just use the same methods you use for human enemies:
and the reasons why orcs and drow are more problematic than, say, kuo-toa, is because they're seen as analogues to real-world ethnic groups.
You claimed nobody wanted these changes. I pointed out that a non-zero number of people wanted these changes, which is very much not nobody. That makes your statement objectively untrue. Just because nobody you'd bother to listen to or pay any attention to wanted these changes doesn't mean that those peoples opinions don't count. This seems like an intellectually dishonest position to take on the matter
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Because quoting is a serious pain in the ass on these forums, allow me to answer these as numbers:
1. This is not a revelation. But are you saying that it's OK to take a blatant caricature of a culture, call it Gorks, make them "evil" by default, and call the world they live in Nearth? Does simply changing the name to something made up take away any of problems with doing so?
2. Excellent point! So your private preference to have orcs be "naturally evil" shouldn't affect other tables. It's a good thing the PHB is more setting agnostic now, then. Isn't it? What, exactly, is stopping you or any other DM that wants to from making orcs "naturally evil" in their campaign using the current rules? To be clear, I think what happened was this: a) half-races in 2014 were seen as somewhat problematic for several reasons b) they couldn't come up with a way to implement half-races that they were comfortable with c) they decided that because half-orcs weren't possible orcs should just be the playable species d) they then had to deal with the problems associated with PCs now able to be a species that had historically been default "evil" when said PC should be able to actually make their own choices. To make it as setting agnostic as possible, they simply took away the previous, restricting, default. To that point...
3. Alignment has been a thorn in most players' sides for a long time. I think it goes all the way back to how people approach the role-playing aspect of the game and, specifically, character creation. To be brief, it's improv (generating a character and having fun trying to fit within the confines of the generated character) vs. concept-driven (creating the character you want to play, and having fun seeing how this character's role in the story evolves). Alignment was mostly fine for people playing the former. It was completely anti-thematic to the latter playstyle. My hypothesis is that more people play the game the latter way these days. Indeed, the core books make a point that alignment in 5.24e is not something that is set in stone from the beginning, but (if you want to use it at all) changes with your choices.
4. The distinction between Orcs and Drow is one that doesn't make any sense for a sentient species. What makes Orcs different from Drow in this regard? It sounds like you are in agreement that the "evil" Drow are such because they worship Lolth. Those that don't aren't necessarily evil. Why not? Perhaps because biology shouldn't dictate someone's alignment? So again I ask, what makes Orcs different other than "they've been that way longer than Drow have." "It's always been that way" has never been—in truth or fiction—a good reason to maintain anything.
5. You're going to have to back that up. This comment is slung around from time to time and as far as we know, the only comment made by WotC about sales that they were legally bound to be truthful about was that it was "selling faster than any other edition". That's it. Unless you have some inside information, your comments about sales/performance are just as likely to be echo-chamber rhetoric than fact.
6. Two things here. Absolutely you can't please everyone. But you can make choices that please more people than before. If actively trying to include a group of 100 people turns off 10 people that were originally fine with the way things were, then you've gained 90 people (assuming the people who are turned off actually stop playing/buying as a result). Second, there is always a risk. You said it yourself, "might end up worse". We shall see, I guess, but I'm not particularly worried about the future of the game.
7. This, plus the first response are both used a lot in debates like this. The thinking goes: "orcs clearly aren't real, therefore anything and everything about them is entirely fiction and people who see/read the caricatured portrayals are the ones who are racist." If you can even entertain the possibility that an author or game designer or filmmaker with nefarious intent can portray different cultures in insulting ways while trying to cover it up with a fresh coat of
paintfictional naming, then you must also cede that it's at least understandable that people would be wary of such things and non-nefarious authors, etc. would try their best to show that they haven't done that.Isn't this just a Red Queen problem? Because the reason Orcs and Drow were seen as analogs to real-world ethnic groups is because they were portrayed as intrinsically monstrous. So now that they aren't, they aren't analogues anymore, and whatever the next group which is portrayed as instrinsically monstrous is. (So goblins? kobolds? hobgoblins?)
I mean, it can't be that they were 'oppressed' - that didn't really apply to Drow (who to a large extent are portrayed as 'successfully self-governing and powerful', or at least how they defined it). And 'oppressed' certainly seems to apply to kobolds and goblinoids, even more so than Orcs.
This all just seems arbitrary, with goalposts that appear inclined to move whenever the current goalpost is satisfied.
If 'Orcs eat other humanoids' was the default, it would've been okay to leave them as intrinsically adversaries? (Let's leave alignment out of it, racial alignments were always a rough guideline of tendencies, not a specific descriptor of every individual).
If too many cooks spoil the broth, that broth has been rank for decades. The number of fantasy sources smushed together into the original D&D is quite large, and it has only got larger over time. (It hasn't ever really managed to overcome the tonal disjunction between Tolkien and Conan.) If it doesn't change to better fit the tastes of the modern audience, it will probably die, or at least have its player base stagnate.
But conflating changes to setting details to changes to the basic game paradigm is pretty disingenuous.
(Also, D&D Immortals set, 1986.)
More importantly, one of the things they've done in the latest revision is to deliberately better separate the basic game paradigm from the setting details. There is no default setting, so the idea that orcs must be irredeemably evil by default has no need to be there.
They ain't the orcs of the forgotten realms, though. Their cosmology is, AFAIK, completely different.
According to their market surveys, homebrewing worlds is by far the most common usage pattern, and always has been. Given that, making it easier to homebrew worlds makes perfect sense.
With one exception, I have not played in a published D&D setting since Keep on the Borderlands. (Which really wasn't in an actual setting as such at the time) It's always been homebrew. I spawn new settings every time I start a new game. Other GMs I've played with have their own worlds they've been running for years, or even decades. (And even that exception is kind of stapled in to an extant homebrew setting, and has been heavily tinkered with.)
All the available evidence says it's doing quite well, actually, but that's not a topic for this thread. (And, of course, it's too early to judge its staying power.)
Does it?
And if it does, do those enemies need to be entire intelligent species?
Undead exist. Wild animals exist. Bandits and enemy soldiers exist. Enemies can have reasons beyond "they're evil", and it's not even particularly difficult to do. "Killed" doesn't have to be the goal. "Fled" and "surrendered" are also available.
(Not having inherently evil races also make it easier to avoid the sort of group-breaking situations like the infamous "It is not only appropriate, but mandatory for a paladin to kill off orc children.")
Mind flayers have an inherently predatory relationship with the other humanoid races. Kuo-Toa are, in fact, potentially problematic in the same way orcs used to be, but they're also significantly different enough that it's not so easy to just say "this humanoid stat block is a fish man" and have it work.
And, were I using either mind flayers or kuo-toa in my games, they'd get the same level of cultural complexity and individuality that the orcs get.
Moral complexity leads to richer storytelling. "They're evil" is dull. "This particular kingdom of orcs are hemmed in on all sides by other kingdoms, which inevitably leads to conflict" has more potential for resolutions.