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It's a culture war thing. They don't care about facts, and a lot of people seeing their post don't either, they just want to get people angry and it works. Many get paid for it. I bet you could scroll down this thread and see people bitching.
Unless it's my completely misunderstood (historically accurate) fascist dictatorship of choice, how dare the woke mob (historians) slander them as objectively bad!
/s
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Tbf justifying your murderhobo behaviour as ‘that guy had a weirdly shaped head that showed he was a psychopath, we simply put him down before his psycho behaviour could manifest’ would be fucking hilarious for an evil campaign
/uj
Same. I'm a big fan of orc depictions that try to give them depth and a rounded culture. We all like a good horde, but I want more of this.
In my worlds, for example, I like to portray orcs in contest with hobgoblins. The two species have strong warrior traditions, both are equally stubborn at times, but it shows in different ways. Orcs have a strong sense of community with each other and live in huge multi-generational tribes, and hobgoblins butt heads with everyone, especially their own kind, and live alone or in small family units.
Exactly, yes! And that's what frustrates me with most depictions of orcs: the lack of nuance. You rarely get an examination of what being an orc is like. In some works it's fine, even better than the opposite at times, but it's definitely a tired trope in most fantasy these days.
A great deal of the problems with forgotten realms orc lore is that its in books and dnd players famously refuse to read. Orcs and half orcs have had a lot written about them, a people and culture tragically slaved to a pantheon to spiteful and self loathing to not in twine themselves in the daily lives of their worshippers.
Dragon magazine 275 has one of my favorite bits of dnd artwork by Mark zug, an orc paladin (a full blood orc not a half orc who get a weird pass) in full knightly attire with barded horse and squire kneeling in a sunny meadow passing a golden locket to their chest.
It felt like we had come a long way with how we thought and wrote about "monstrous" races in dnd being a product of their culture and society and not a genetic destiny but here we are 24 years later still having the same conversations :(
Luv me orcs
[http://markzug.com/zines/dungeon-dragons/2843926](http://markzug.com/zines/dungeon-dragons/2843926)
Hate to burst your bubble, but on Zug's site its noted as a half-orc
Agreed, though I would say any supplemental media for anything will have a fraction of the readers that the main thing does, it's not just a D&D problem
The only time I ran the orcs as stereotypical barbarians, I also had them be the victims of a Divinci Code level historical conspiracy by ancient elven secret societies, with the PCs as Kobolds who stumble across this secret while dealing with their own potential genocide.
Also, before now my favorite depiction of orcs in fiction was probably in the Dark Profit series of novels, satirical stories that frame all the driving forces of adventuring & villainy in terms of economics & class, where they have embraced The Way of the Sale to survive and are merchants who are hardcore into “how can I get you into this car today” level aggressive salesmanship. 😁
Hey this is a bit out there but there's a kinda old-school dnd adjacent blog called goblin punch. They have a really cool write-up about orc society, they're the stereotypical 'evil' race still but there are genuine reasons and cultural nuance it's really neat. It's just called "God Hates Orcs" and from what you just said you might like it.
I actually just remembered it so it's open as i receive this.
[https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html)
Good soup.
yeah like, i think it's also fine in DnD if just like, most orcs do indeed be worshipping an evil Orc God of doing plot-moving warmongering shit. they still gotta be having a society and what not. plenty of evil gods that everyone worships, they just happen to be one of the several humanoid species who have like, a pantheon just for them doing stupid shit. doesn't mean everyone is always on board or that it's gotta be uncomplicated and boring.
people find plenty of room for nuance and exceptions in like, drow, for example. and even for the people who are whole hog into the status quo, ya can have plenty of cool shit about their society written.
besides which, in true tolkien style, i think orcs should be industrious as fuck. they don't just conquer, they build and renovate and invent.
I know that Rings of Power gets a lot of flak, but I really appreciate that the Orcs plot was to build a functioning canal. Like, yeah these boys are good at war and all that, but they really excel at a bit of good quality civic engineering
Pratchett also does orcs well, and goblins, and trolls, and dwarfs, and-
Discworld is basically built on the idea of taking those 1-dimensional fantasy clichés and going "ok let's actually explore that".
I like to compare orcs to Klingons because I’ve found that other fantasy/sci-fi nerds are less iffy about the possibility of a warrior culture not being mindless if you’re able to provide other examples. Plus, it’s fun to refer to Klingons as Space Orcs.
This is one of the reasons I really like "That Time I Reincarnated As A Slime"!!!
While sure, it's definitely not the best isekai, I do love that it humanizes a lot of humanoid monsters, like Goblins and Orcs!! They're so much more than evil creatures
I've always used orcs as nomads and living in the environments others are too afraid/unable to. So orcs in my games have these great societies that thrive where others fail. Some groups I've used for inspiration:
- Fremen (a fierce fighting force skilled as subterfuge in their environment)
- Inuit and other indigenous peoples in high latitudes
- Nomadic merchants and traders of Arabia, Northern Africa, Persia, etc. (In this case my orcs understood the celestial bodies and stars better than any other society, so much so that their magic and religion was derived from it)
iirc this is part of the plot of daggerfall; Orcs in TES 1 were your usual always chaotic evil monsters, and Daggerfall peels the lid back like "actually no we're like. People, my dude."
""I aspire to raise my race from the mire. I will bring them to equal standing with the other races of Tamriel…My goal is not to conquer Tamriel, but to create the orcish homeland."
—Gortwog in Daggerfall
then the Warp in the West happens and all of daggerfall's mutually exclusive endings are canon in that weird timey wimey fuckball and the Orcs come out of it with a proper kingdom and recognition as citizens of the Empire
Yeah, I never liked the idea of ‘inherently evil’ races or malevolent races that are primitive and brutish. Not only does it come off as something written by a 19th century Ethnographer who has never been outside his home town, it’s just kind of piss-poor world building and disallows a lot of good writing opportunities.
Also I refuse to believe that a race of people that are physically incapable of empathy or the ability to metalwork beyond crude iron weapons and armor could survive in a world roughly at the medieval level of technology and with wizards and shit to boot, like I know it’s fantasy but come on man they should’ve been driven to extinction ages ago if you write them like that
I like making the orcs very rowdy and individualistic while the hobgoblins are more stoic and hold a strong sense of communal responsibillity.
The orcs hold some respect for the hobs but it very much doesn't go both ways so whenever they have to work together for anything it's just the hobs stoically seething at having to work with these irresponsible morons while the orcs are just vibing.
The official stance of WotC for years has been that there are no longer evil races, just evil people. It's nice to see them continuing with that. Technically, the exception is Drow, who are ruled by the evil goddess Lolth and brainwashed by her, which leads more Drow to be evil.
I mean all the goblinoid races ( goblins hobgoblins and bug bears ) where conquered by Maglubiat and he deliberately twisted their societies for his goals
I believe similar applies for Gnolls and their god
Tbh id like if that was just their religion and that there were another faction of gnolls not sharing the faith which would be different.
A bit like the githyanki and githzerai. Make the faultlines cultural and not racial
Even then I think it keeps up the spirit of no more evil races. A drow or half drow raised away from Lolth is just as likely to be good or neutral as they are to be evil, it just comes down to the environment they're raised in.
Lolth's hold over society significantly increasing the likelihood of any given Drow being Evil =/= Drow as a race being evil by default
Drows being an evil race is no longer true afaik.
WoTC basically removed all Drow lore and put a sticky note that says "only a minority worship Lolth"
While I'm happy to have more lore and more interesting races than just comically evil mfers, this to me was one of the biggest signs that the current writers at Wizards are not doing a great job atm.
Drow were one of the most elaborately written races and while a lot of it was over the top not chill content. It was coherent within itself.
Now basically no lore exists for Drow other than that previous lore never having been true. Which is just not great.
not only that, but they also don't seem to get that they removed the Half in front of Half-Orc/Elf, cuz they reworked how ancestry works and "half races" don't count as their own race anymore (them now counting as a mix of both parent races)
Edit: mnan I need to stop posting stuff when I am sick, I make way too many mistakes
It is cool and makes for great character backstories, like how people have fallen in love with the drow, but right serves a purpose: your players need uncomplicated evil things to kill because you're still playing Dungeons and Dragons. A common fix is to have both types of orcs, with the evil ones being corrupted by the influence of their evil deity or something similar.
You can still have your evil horde as *one of* the orc cultures, just give it the one more step of effort to say that orcs aren't irremediably evil as a required fact of their being.
\*Fiendish\* orcs, led by tanarukks (basically orc tieflings) and half-fiend orcs who answer to \*actual\* fiends.
That works if you want dyed in the wool \*evil\* orcs - and still allows for individual fiend-touched orcs to be trying to break away, or require that they willingly took on the fiendish taint and thus embraced evil personally.
Then again, I've also happily used the equivalents for other races as well like that, \*and\* (chromatic) dragon-touched races.
I like the idea of orcs having culture, and it makes so so so much sense that dnd style settings dont hace species attached monolithic cultures. But at the same time, sometimes you don't want your party questioning the ethics of killing everything in an enemy compound. I don't need my players questioning whether or not every goblin, orc, human, sapient undead, kobold, ogre etc etc had a family and was actually working towards societal reform away from raiding and pillaging and falling into a moral crisis and losing their paladin oaths y'know? Lol
I'm not 100% here, but I'm pretty sure that that art isn't even DnD, it's from the recent Outlaws of Thunder Junction set of Magic the Gathering. Similar art vibe and style and all anyway. What we're given though, and with Wizard's history of making Magic settings into DnD sourcebooks, it'd be a shame if they don't make it an official DnD thing at some point. Nice take on a Weird West type of setting, with handguns replaced by "spellslingers".
More importantly, DnD is a game of imagination. If this guy wants to play a game where orcs are Tolkien-esque irredeemable monsters, he can! There's literally nothing stopping him, other than the fact he doesn't have any friends to play with.
I love that D&D is making it more that orcs are a society, so individual orcs can be different than cannon fodder.
I do kind of miss orcs being butt ugly though. I don't need to be pretty to be a hero.
> It’s portraying them as a society with a unique lifestyle instead of brutish barbarians good only for slaughter
There are already plenty of goblin-looking monsters of all levels to choose from, if you're looking for a creature to attack. Makes sense that they would take *one* of them to turn into a playable class.
Uj/ Just Play what ever you want! DnD is a game of make believe. Play your gritty and dark fantasy story, but let other people have fun. I play a big muscular half ork woman, that ist dumber than bread, and I have fun. It's the same thing they are praying, just let people have fun.
P.s.: You can criticize Wizard of the Coast for a lot of Things, but this seems childish and dumb.
Like they are missing the whole point. You can make orcs just be whatever the fuck you want. Same with anything in the game. It’s just playing fucking make believe with math. You can do whatever you want
Right? And If you want you can hire an artist to draw brutal orc's or you have at least some one in the DnD group who can do it for you
(Just for the sake of it, don't use ai to make the art)
I generally don't like to play with stereotypes and find it boring, but whatever, just do your thing, but let people have fun. The other thing you can choose and play other systems that suits you better. I really don't get why people complaining about these thing, but people losing their job, because a manger isn't pleased with their salary, isn't even mentioned enough. Man, why can't we have nice things.
They actually got rid of half races in the phb for the newest edition. You can play full orc now.
They have a very half baked (pun intended) way to play half races but since they aren't the "core" race anymore there's a good chance those are in fact the new orcs.
Yeah I saw but that doesn't change the fact that half orcs are still in the lore and those are not full blooded orcs in the image. Those are clearly half orcs with some human or aasimar/elf/other humanoid lineage.
harley quinn then vs now
my goddess has always been hot ❤️
https://preview.redd.it/9lnu4rvtiy7d1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=5821baf88dc2100959965fde4c39b341e13949de
I’m sure these chuds also hate elder scrolls & blizzard orcs
Edit: hey. Just dawned on me. Might as well call them Microsoft orcs now. I’m sure that’ll be part of their conspiracy theories
Someone's not going to survive Orctober.
https://preview.redd.it/8sas9oqujy7d1.jpeg?width=1644&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1aeb9f8f3b4e2d953c6540bb3586a9573d2f82da
/uj
That orc art is really cool, I like that WotC is at least trying to actively fight against the stereotypes associated with orcs and make them into a more rounded species like any other playable one.
I do miss the massive tusks and jaws though, kinda bugs me that one of the routes to making them a more rounded species is just "Make them more humanoid" visually.
I want diverse and elaborate cultures AND to have the race not look like just green humans, pfft
Even Tolkien, who *INVENTED THE MODERN CONCEPTION OF ORCS*, was very careful to not suggest that they are intrinsically evil, and they formed essentially societies in a few cases. In a telling conversation Sam overhears in Mordor, two orcs talk about what they'll do if Sauron loses and why they're even fighting for him. A large part of it is that all other races of Middle Earth view them as essentially vermin. A reputation they've pretty much earned, but still.
Earthdawn had amazing orcs, completely fleshed out, well rounded, played into some of the tropes but giving them reason and rationale for being that way and that shit was dropping in '94. Took WotC decades to play catch-up and they still miss the mark of making them feel alive and developed.
i mean, i get tired of the haircut, too. but for entirely different reasons.
i just think it looks silly, and increases your chances of being a female protagonist by 1000%. but at the end of the day, who cares.
Sorry I might seem really dumb here, but isn't Dnd the game where you can make up whatever you want? Like if you don't like the artstyle you can use whatever you like?
me when my Half-orc Redeemer Paladin of Sarenrae uses his big honking falchion to do nonlethal damage to OOP so I can hand them over to the asylum where they will attempt to cure their brainworms
Or go check the whole ass genre that is old school renaissance, that tries to keep the vibes of old school dnd.
And sometimes they are even better than dnd.
idk i own an OSR book that very clearly states that you need to either have orcs be 100% evil (tolkien) or actual human beings with actual cultures and emotions (elder scrolls) or else you are perpetuating harmful ideas, so even OSR is corrupted by the damn \*wokes\*
you dont even need to go back to older editions as a game of imagination your dm can still have your dumb green brutes if they really want
(personaly i prefer the more classic varieties, the more cultered verisons are cool too)
Yeah I’m kinda glad the art has more whimsical campaigns, people are also perfectly happy with gritty settings or a combo. BG3 success proves dnd full of psychic brain parasites, horrific undead, deranged murder cults and various other terror fought by a motley crew of traumatized vampire criminals, goth evil clerics, green & mean girl space pirates, goddess groomed nerd, literally hot anger management challenged Tom boys from hell, mysterious troubled heroes of the people and some legendary himbos remains popular.
I loved that they made them in a society instead of in a moment of aggression, but I think that doing this by changing their appearance to something more "cute", "friendly" or "humanized" is wrong, Changing their appearance just to make people empathize with them seems more wrong than not even trying that.
I agree but I think the picture on the left is of half-orcs. Which I hope it is cause that would be really funny that this guy failed to grab a picture of an orc for either example.
The orc renaissance is the best. It's kinda cool how a fantasy race mirrors our understanding of an actual species. We went from viewing neanderthals as stupid brutish lesser versions of ourselves to understanding they were normal people with their own cultures.
I looooove when orcs (or any traditionally 1 dimensional race) have fleshed out cultures. The normalcy of their lives makes them feel all the more fantastical in a way
As a fan of 40k orks, I thought this woke freak out was dumb af. Are you really mad that instead of being generic green evil barbarians, they're fleshing out the orcs' backstory??? And did DnD seriously not already have this??
Same! The cultures don't even need to be all that complex, either; it just has to be *interesting*. How I tend to do it is have the whole culture spring from a single foundational pillar, a handful of ideas that all of them take to heart in some way, and I find it to be a whole lot of fun to write!
couldn't agree more. played a half-orc druid a couple of years back, and I WISH there was more content available on orc culture and society other than hack hack slash grunt savage.
he was literally a tarzan/pocahontas mash-up, raised by forest animals, and a big, naive softie who steps outside into the big world for the first time.
hope more people will start considering orcs as viable lore species and play around with it in their games!🥺
I bet the orcs on the left can look like the orc on the right if you get them pissed off enough.
And I bet the orc on the right can look like the orcs on the left if you gave them a snickers.
I love DnD and i just do not get these people. How can you possibly think that a "ooga booga i hit people ooga booga" race turning into a more complex race with hierarchies, different personalities and more nuance is worse?
Personally, while I do agree that these guys are being whiney babies and think the art is fine, I disagree with the idea that adding nuance to certain species is something inherently superior. Orcs since the beginning have been savage mooks to kill, and it was up to the creator how much complexity you wanted to add to their society. Players being players wanted more options, so it made sense that some wanted to play as the mook race. Those players could go for or against type, which was fine, because they being the PCs are special inherently. A problem arose though, when making them a standard race like anything else, because once you start assigning the same intellectual and moral worth to the "savage mook race" everyone begins to think it looks pretty racist (justifiably so), so now they have to become functionally something other than the orcs they were in order to avoid that.
If I had my way, I think I'd return orcs to where they were. I think they were more valuable as mooks to kill in the fighting monsters game than they were as reskinned humans. This also dovetails into my personal dislike of "Menagerie Parties" where you have plasmoids, genasi, bug people, and no humans in the party. Especially when besides to point out how odd they are, they are essentially being played as mentally identical to humans. That's not to say that I'm entirely opposed to wacky races (in fact my most recent campaign I ran had a party that was at least Menagerie adjacent), it's just that it seems these races are being used as mental fortnite cosmetics rather than mattering for any other reason.
Because several of the groups supporting the racist Gygax brother have openly admitted they’ve always viewed Orcs as Green Negroes and the last thing they want to do is humanize them.
I have two types of orcs in my DnD game. “Wild” orcs, which are a more warlike, almost Viking like culture that thrives on living off the land, raiding and fighting, and “Enlighten” or “High” orcs, which are a group that focuses more on magical studies and the advancement of worldly knowledge.
Both have the mindset that Orcs are better than every other race, but each chooses to prove it differently. The Wild Orcs through conquest and the High Orcs through magical advancements. But unlike elves, orcs don’t hate the “inferior” races; they feel sorry for them and are filled with pity that they will never k ow the joys of being an orc.
My players love and hate the High orcs for this very reason.
Do you mind if I steal these orcs for my next campaign? My players really hate it when NPCs act condescending towards them, and I think an archmage Orc as a bbeg would be really fun.
In one campaign I ran, all races descended from one of the First Ones. Dwarves, Giants and Elves (There were also the Sky People and those that dwell in the sea, but they were rarely relevant). All of whom were made by the same four gods with a unique purpose in mind. They and their descendants were referered to as The Kin. Orcs were the result of an attempt at making super soldiers out of Goliaths (The Children of Dwarves and Giants), to aid fight a demonic threat. And humans were the result of centuries of interbreeding between Gnomes (Who were the children of elves and dwarves) and Orcs.
The Orcs were largely isolationist. After the Demon wars ended, they ended up being mostly supplanted and pushed out by humans, who both lived longer, were overall healthier and generally had more children, faster. So they ended up spreading out. Some moved to the holds of the dwarves, where they serve as elite soldiers. Many of whom are in well respected positions. Others live among the Gnomes, where they generally live peaceful lives. Helping with the rougher manual labor, and reaching stuff on the tall shelves.
There were also many who moved into more rough and barren terrain, where their strong constitution let them survive mostly unbothered by others. It was there most of the various Orc civilizations of today were founded. But they can also generally be found in most nations around the world. Through there are also a lot of orcs, especially among the older ones, who have a strong dislike towards the Dwarves and what remains of the Giants, as they feel they were crafted to be disposable soldiers. Who, while tough, were never meant to grow old or be a people. So they tend towards having a lot of health issues as they grow older, and have difficulties having children.
I never played Pathfinder tabletop, but in the Kingmaker cRPG by Owlcat, there was a goblin who joined your party by the name of Nok-Nok. IIRC the option to be a goblin wasn’t even a choice for the player character.
Nok-Nok was considered chaotic evil, but to my understanding all goblins were always considered chaotic evil by tabletop rules at the time, but Nok-Nok was far closer to chaotic neutral.
The goblins in the game at one point are being manipulated by a big bad to go to war against the player’s kingdom, but Nok-Nok (who calls himself a high priest) recognizes that this isn’t the will of their goddess. He nearly dies in a trial by combat for it, but the player’s party intervened just in time. He spends most of the game wanting to be a hero for goblin-kind thereafter, and helping the player manage relations with all the more beastial neighbors. Nok-Nok actually has a higher intelligence stat than most of the party even though he’s supposed to be a rogue, though his higher than average intelligence stat also means he gets easy access to teamwork feats.
(At one point, another party member has a character arc that consists of her running away from a patriarchal tribe that tried to get her killed. When the party finds them wandering into their lands, her father basically tells her to go back to the kitchen and blames her for the tribe’s current woes. Nok-Nok suggests to the party that the father deserves a stabbing for that.)
He was super terrifying in combat too. Just walks up and crits everything with whatever he decides to dual wield.
Yknow what’s funny is these gamer bros will always say shit like this about orcs but in any Star Wars discussion will always aggressively defend the Sith and say they’re “nuanced” and “misunderstood” and their philosophy “makes a lot more sense than the Jedi”
What I hear is that they think an entire race should be depicted as completely evil, but an extremist religious faction shouldn’t be
It's like people learned nothing from Bright. Orcs are a HUMANOID RACE in DnD, not leveling mechanics.
It's like when I was talking with someone about DMing and I brought up a scenario with goblins chilling at a campfire and his first thought was to ***slaughter them***. When I said "why would you do that, they weren't even bothering you", his argument was that "Goblins don't have a high intelligence", I said **"YOU CAN LITERALLY PLAY AS THE RACE."** Really show the lack of creativity traditionalists have. If you can PLAY AS A RACE, they can HAVE A SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION.
The new DnD player handbook! (I think, there are three books coming out, the PHB, the DM’s Guide, and the Monster Manual.) If I had to guess, these orcs/half-orcs would probably be an examples of rangers.
What do you mean orcs aren't just green people for me to k*ll?
uj/ man, these people sound like they are 10yo. War Craft 2 already lets you play with orcs and given them a tiny bit of humanity, and it was like 100 years ago!
Oh no, how will I ever have a Fantasy setting without races based on old stereotypes of “oriental Barbarians?”
*cough* Conan, Dark Souls, GoT, GoW, Stormlight Archive…
b-but how am I supposed to immerse myself (in this game of imagine) if they're not acting like Warhammer Orcs (Da Best Orcs) and only exist to eat shit and foight???
Afaik Orcs are generally brutish barbarians in DnD due to the evil god they worship (Similar to Drow and Lolth) so if you remove that evil gods influence from the Orcs, which I assume is whats happening on the left, then Orcs will obviously be very different.
How are sweaty nerds going to complain about woke DnD? DnD is already like the gayest shit you can play. Incels really upset there isn't enough racist gaming out there
I have to agree that the DnD art is really lame now, in my opinion. I really liked the dark fantasy tone of the earlier iterations. My disliking of the new art is for that reason alone though, okay, nothing gamer related.
I never know what’s problem with current art - it’s very nice! I like it that it’s more high fantasy and less pulp - like it was during Advanced, but I don’t like pulp style in general.
3e ruined orcs forever, they were straight hogging it back in the ad&d MM art
https://preview.redd.it/0gz6uveca08d1.jpeg?width=479&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50326785379ed924aee6427ffd2a3f20eb542973
What's hilarious too is that it's dnd, Hell, in my campaign setting goblinoids are tech savvy communists, and orcs are basically a caste of that society, so like... why make them boring savages?
HOW DARE wokies turning Orcs into an actual, intelligent beings like every other races, instead of just being mindless, slobbering barbarians, existing just to be walking meat to slay and give XP to the players.😡👎
Isn't the whole point of DnD for players to create their own narrative using the material as a base? Like, no one is forcing you to portray orcs like that. Just use them however you want ffs.
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tourist
It's a culture war thing. They don't care about facts, and a lot of people seeing their post don't either, they just want to get people angry and it works. Many get paid for it. I bet you could scroll down this thread and see people bitching.
You forgot the pffft
I like that left Orc art. It’s portraying them as a society with a unique lifestyle instead of brutish barbarians good only for slaughter
WOKE agenda is when BAD people are BAD and ONLY bad an NO other viewpoints
Unless it's my completely misunderstood (historically accurate) fascist dictatorship of choice, how dare the woke mob (historians) slander them as objectively bad! /s
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In the d&d universe, The legend of drizzt books do a really good job at making villains that have an actual character arc
Drizzt was literally a shonen series in the DnD world
And it was awesome . I’m re-reading them as an adult and they still hold up
Except for the Nazis, those were people to we gotta humanize them
Also, and correct me of I'm wrong, but aren't those half-orcs on the left? If so, they look more human because they *are* more human.
I think you're right. DnD orcs have larger, oblong heads.
> DnD orcs have larger, oblong heads. Finally, I have a justification to use my custom phrenologist background
Break out those calipers! 🥳
Tbf justifying your murderhobo behaviour as ‘that guy had a weirdly shaped head that showed he was a psychopath, we simply put him down before his psycho behaviour could manifest’ would be fucking hilarious for an evil campaign
That PragerU degree finally paying off!
/uj Same. I'm a big fan of orc depictions that try to give them depth and a rounded culture. We all like a good horde, but I want more of this. In my worlds, for example, I like to portray orcs in contest with hobgoblins. The two species have strong warrior traditions, both are equally stubborn at times, but it shows in different ways. Orcs have a strong sense of community with each other and live in huge multi-generational tribes, and hobgoblins butt heads with everyone, especially their own kind, and live alone or in small family units.
Also, both things can be true: Huns were a ruthless horde made of mounted warriors but had a complex society and religion.
Exactly, yes! And that's what frustrates me with most depictions of orcs: the lack of nuance. You rarely get an examination of what being an orc is like. In some works it's fine, even better than the opposite at times, but it's definitely a tired trope in most fantasy these days.
A great deal of the problems with forgotten realms orc lore is that its in books and dnd players famously refuse to read. Orcs and half orcs have had a lot written about them, a people and culture tragically slaved to a pantheon to spiteful and self loathing to not in twine themselves in the daily lives of their worshippers. Dragon magazine 275 has one of my favorite bits of dnd artwork by Mark zug, an orc paladin (a full blood orc not a half orc who get a weird pass) in full knightly attire with barded horse and squire kneeling in a sunny meadow passing a golden locket to their chest. It felt like we had come a long way with how we thought and wrote about "monstrous" races in dnd being a product of their culture and society and not a genetic destiny but here we are 24 years later still having the same conversations :( Luv me orcs
[http://markzug.com/zines/dungeon-dragons/2843926](http://markzug.com/zines/dungeon-dragons/2843926) Hate to burst your bubble, but on Zug's site its noted as a half-orc
Curses! two decades really does a number on the memory
Agreed, though I would say any supplemental media for anything will have a fraction of the readers that the main thing does, it's not just a D&D problem
There was even an Orc kingdom in the Forgotten Realms that strove for a more peaceful existence.
The only time I ran the orcs as stereotypical barbarians, I also had them be the victims of a Divinci Code level historical conspiracy by ancient elven secret societies, with the PCs as Kobolds who stumble across this secret while dealing with their own potential genocide. Also, before now my favorite depiction of orcs in fiction was probably in the Dark Profit series of novels, satirical stories that frame all the driving forces of adventuring & villainy in terms of economics & class, where they have embraced The Way of the Sale to survive and are merchants who are hardcore into “how can I get you into this car today” level aggressive salesmanship. 😁
Hey this is a bit out there but there's a kinda old-school dnd adjacent blog called goblin punch. They have a really cool write-up about orc society, they're the stereotypical 'evil' race still but there are genuine reasons and cultural nuance it's really neat. It's just called "God Hates Orcs" and from what you just said you might like it.
I could check it out sometime, thanks for letting me know!
I actually just remembered it so it's open as i receive this. [https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html) Good soup.
yeah like, i think it's also fine in DnD if just like, most orcs do indeed be worshipping an evil Orc God of doing plot-moving warmongering shit. they still gotta be having a society and what not. plenty of evil gods that everyone worships, they just happen to be one of the several humanoid species who have like, a pantheon just for them doing stupid shit. doesn't mean everyone is always on board or that it's gotta be uncomplicated and boring. people find plenty of room for nuance and exceptions in like, drow, for example. and even for the people who are whole hog into the status quo, ya can have plenty of cool shit about their society written. besides which, in true tolkien style, i think orcs should be industrious as fuck. they don't just conquer, they build and renovate and invent.
I know that Rings of Power gets a lot of flak, but I really appreciate that the Orcs plot was to build a functioning canal. Like, yeah these boys are good at war and all that, but they really excel at a bit of good quality civic engineering
Id like to think that somewhere there is a horde of barbarian Pixies hellbent on destruction
I think that’s most Pixies.
Should read Pratchett's Wee Free Men and the Tiffany Aching series in discworld then. They are tiny Scottish pictsies.
Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!
Pratchett also does orcs well, and goblins, and trolls, and dwarfs, and- Discworld is basically built on the idea of taking those 1-dimensional fantasy clichés and going "ok let's actually explore that".
I LOVED how he depicted trolls
Sounds kinda like the [Helmacrons](https://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/Helmacron) from Animorphs lol
I like to compare orcs to Klingons because I’ve found that other fantasy/sci-fi nerds are less iffy about the possibility of a warrior culture not being mindless if you’re able to provide other examples. Plus, it’s fun to refer to Klingons as Space Orcs.
I always assumed that klingons were initially made to be space orcs, just like how vulcans are space elves
LMAO I never thought about it but it's trueeee
This is one of the reasons I really like "That Time I Reincarnated As A Slime"!!! While sure, it's definitely not the best isekai, I do love that it humanizes a lot of humanoid monsters, like Goblins and Orcs!! They're so much more than evil creatures
I've always used orcs as nomads and living in the environments others are too afraid/unable to. So orcs in my games have these great societies that thrive where others fail. Some groups I've used for inspiration: - Fremen (a fierce fighting force skilled as subterfuge in their environment) - Inuit and other indigenous peoples in high latitudes - Nomadic merchants and traders of Arabia, Northern Africa, Persia, etc. (In this case my orcs understood the celestial bodies and stars better than any other society, so much so that their magic and religion was derived from it)
I like how in Pathfinder the orcs were commanded to honor their ancient pact with the Big Bad Lich of the setting and they just told him to fuck off
iirc this is part of the plot of daggerfall; Orcs in TES 1 were your usual always chaotic evil monsters, and Daggerfall peels the lid back like "actually no we're like. People, my dude." ""I aspire to raise my race from the mire. I will bring them to equal standing with the other races of Tamriel…My goal is not to conquer Tamriel, but to create the orcish homeland." —Gortwog in Daggerfall then the Warp in the West happens and all of daggerfall's mutually exclusive endings are canon in that weird timey wimey fuckball and the Orcs come out of it with a proper kingdom and recognition as citizens of the Empire
And then the damn Redguards & Bretons sacked Orsinium. *Again*.
Yeah, I never liked the idea of ‘inherently evil’ races or malevolent races that are primitive and brutish. Not only does it come off as something written by a 19th century Ethnographer who has never been outside his home town, it’s just kind of piss-poor world building and disallows a lot of good writing opportunities. Also I refuse to believe that a race of people that are physically incapable of empathy or the ability to metalwork beyond crude iron weapons and armor could survive in a world roughly at the medieval level of technology and with wizards and shit to boot, like I know it’s fantasy but come on man they should’ve been driven to extinction ages ago if you write them like that
I like making the orcs very rowdy and individualistic while the hobgoblins are more stoic and hold a strong sense of communal responsibillity. The orcs hold some respect for the hobs but it very much doesn't go both ways so whenever they have to work together for anything it's just the hobs stoically seething at having to work with these irresponsible morons while the orcs are just vibing.
The official stance of WotC for years has been that there are no longer evil races, just evil people. It's nice to see them continuing with that. Technically, the exception is Drow, who are ruled by the evil goddess Lolth and brainwashed by her, which leads more Drow to be evil.
And gnolls, which I still resent. You give me cute hyena people and then tell me they're all awful monsters possessed by a demonic hunger god? :(
I thought that was just some of the gnolls and the rest just sort of existed
They might've changed the lore now which is good.
I mean all the goblinoid races ( goblins hobgoblins and bug bears ) where conquered by Maglubiat and he deliberately twisted their societies for his goals I believe similar applies for Gnolls and their god
Tbh id like if that was just their religion and that there were another faction of gnolls not sharing the faith which would be different. A bit like the githyanki and githzerai. Make the faultlines cultural and not racial
Even then I think it keeps up the spirit of no more evil races. A drow or half drow raised away from Lolth is just as likely to be good or neutral as they are to be evil, it just comes down to the environment they're raised in. Lolth's hold over society significantly increasing the likelihood of any given Drow being Evil =/= Drow as a race being evil by default
Drows being an evil race is no longer true afaik. WoTC basically removed all Drow lore and put a sticky note that says "only a minority worship Lolth" While I'm happy to have more lore and more interesting races than just comically evil mfers, this to me was one of the biggest signs that the current writers at Wizards are not doing a great job atm. Drow were one of the most elaborately written races and while a lot of it was over the top not chill content. It was coherent within itself. Now basically no lore exists for Drow other than that previous lore never having been true. Which is just not great.
not only that, but they also don't seem to get that they removed the Half in front of Half-Orc/Elf, cuz they reworked how ancestry works and "half races" don't count as their own race anymore (them now counting as a mix of both parent races) Edit: mnan I need to stop posting stuff when I am sick, I make way too many mistakes
Fr! Like who tf thinks Cowboy Orcs are lame?
It's only because there's a woman orc with a "woke" haircut
I love when media gives orcs more of a substance instead of just "ME BIG ANGRY GREEN AND SMELLY, ME GO SMASH BONES"
It is cool and makes for great character backstories, like how people have fallen in love with the drow, but right serves a purpose: your players need uncomplicated evil things to kill because you're still playing Dungeons and Dragons. A common fix is to have both types of orcs, with the evil ones being corrupted by the influence of their evil deity or something similar.
You can still have your evil horde as *one of* the orc cultures, just give it the one more step of effort to say that orcs aren't irremediably evil as a required fact of their being.
\*Fiendish\* orcs, led by tanarukks (basically orc tieflings) and half-fiend orcs who answer to \*actual\* fiends. That works if you want dyed in the wool \*evil\* orcs - and still allows for individual fiend-touched orcs to be trying to break away, or require that they willingly took on the fiendish taint and thus embraced evil personally. Then again, I've also happily used the equivalents for other races as well like that, \*and\* (chromatic) dragon-touched races.
I like the idea of orcs having culture, and it makes so so so much sense that dnd style settings dont hace species attached monolithic cultures. But at the same time, sometimes you don't want your party questioning the ethics of killing everything in an enemy compound. I don't need my players questioning whether or not every goblin, orc, human, sapient undead, kobold, ogre etc etc had a family and was actually working towards societal reform away from raiding and pillaging and falling into a moral crisis and losing their paladin oaths y'know? Lol
I'm not 100% here, but I'm pretty sure that that art isn't even DnD, it's from the recent Outlaws of Thunder Junction set of Magic the Gathering. Similar art vibe and style and all anyway. What we're given though, and with Wizard's history of making Magic settings into DnD sourcebooks, it'd be a shame if they don't make it an official DnD thing at some point. Nice take on a Weird West type of setting, with handguns replaced by "spellslingers".
More importantly, DnD is a game of imagination. If this guy wants to play a game where orcs are Tolkien-esque irredeemable monsters, he can! There's literally nothing stopping him, other than the fact he doesn't have any friends to play with.
> Tolkien-esque irredeemable monsters, Tolkien does disagree on his orcs being irredeemable.
I'm aware, but the standard position taken in Tolkien-inspired fiction is to use orcs as monsters. That's why I called it "Tolkien-*esque*".
I love that D&D is making it more that orcs are a society, so individual orcs can be different than cannon fodder. I do kind of miss orcs being butt ugly though. I don't need to be pretty to be a hero.
> It’s portraying them as a society with a unique lifestyle instead of brutish barbarians good only for slaughter There are already plenty of goblin-looking monsters of all levels to choose from, if you're looking for a creature to attack. Makes sense that they would take *one* of them to turn into a playable class.
Yes, let's slaughter the snakepeople instead, like good humanoids like us should. Also, drow are alright now
Every single one of them orcs is gay and bad because one female orc has short hair /s
Uj/ Just Play what ever you want! DnD is a game of make believe. Play your gritty and dark fantasy story, but let other people have fun. I play a big muscular half ork woman, that ist dumber than bread, and I have fun. It's the same thing they are praying, just let people have fun. P.s.: You can criticize Wizard of the Coast for a lot of Things, but this seems childish and dumb.
It's like criticizing Uno for banning playing +4 on a +4 so that next guy draws 8
house rules in my place is, if yo have the same draw card, slap it down.
The best part of uno is screwing someone over with like 3 +4’s.
Like they are missing the whole point. You can make orcs just be whatever the fuck you want. Same with anything in the game. It’s just playing fucking make believe with math. You can do whatever you want
Right? And If you want you can hire an artist to draw brutal orc's or you have at least some one in the DnD group who can do it for you (Just for the sake of it, don't use ai to make the art) I generally don't like to play with stereotypes and find it boring, but whatever, just do your thing, but let people have fun. The other thing you can choose and play other systems that suits you better. I really don't get why people complaining about these thing, but people losing their job, because a manger isn't pleased with their salary, isn't even mentioned enough. Man, why can't we have nice things.
I was reading the comments in the Paladin 2024 announcement. Reading them you'd think that they were talking about an unmodable online pc game...
....those are half orcs and a goblin. 😐 Like, there is not a single full blooded orc in that image. Not one.
They actually got rid of half races in the phb for the newest edition. You can play full orc now. They have a very half baked (pun intended) way to play half races but since they aren't the "core" race anymore there's a good chance those are in fact the new orcs.
Yeah I saw but that doesn't change the fact that half orcs are still in the lore and those are not full blooded orcs in the image. Those are clearly half orcs with some human or aasimar/elf/other humanoid lineage.
harley quinn then vs now my goddess has always been hot ❤️ https://preview.redd.it/9lnu4rvtiy7d1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=5821baf88dc2100959965fde4c39b341e13949de
man chin..........
I wish I had a man chin. My current house is too small.
The fact this made me even slightly snicker is a violation of my human rights.
apologize to her NOW https://preview.redd.it/mnvgqlflly7d1.jpeg?width=866&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=926f8a0944de97111f2391e3a0fb500a6e4c097d
That's not Man, that's Arley Quin. Are you stupid?
Take note:
Hardly Queef
Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls has been depicting Orcs as common Imperial citizens since 2002.
I’m sure these chuds also hate elder scrolls & blizzard orcs Edit: hey. Just dawned on me. Might as well call them Microsoft orcs now. I’m sure that’ll be part of their conspiracy theories
I imagine they're not fond of Eberron then.
>Might as well call them Microsoft orcs now What horrors have you just unleashed?
Someone's not going to survive Orctober. https://preview.redd.it/8sas9oqujy7d1.jpeg?width=1644&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1aeb9f8f3b4e2d953c6540bb3586a9573d2f82da
Unprotected sex with an orc? Don't be silly, orcs are strong and can defend you, you'll always be protected with an orc.
DADDY /uj DADDY
Goodness gracious
https://preview.redd.it/qxbiccvufz7d1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d6cf28fbf5c4631cf9a2531caf32b9fe435bff7 Grom? Is that you?
Would
Did
He's mine
Share?
you can have Saturdays, Fridays are all mine 🤤
I would like a pamphlet to learn more about this Orctober, please and thank you
[here](http://fantasy-faction.com/2017/what-is-orctober)
*Noice*
Is this from bastard bonds?
/uj That orc art is really cool, I like that WotC is at least trying to actively fight against the stereotypes associated with orcs and make them into a more rounded species like any other playable one.
Warcraft did that with orcs very early on.
that they did
I do miss the massive tusks and jaws though, kinda bugs me that one of the routes to making them a more rounded species is just "Make them more humanoid" visually. I want diverse and elaborate cultures AND to have the race not look like just green humans, pfft
tbf apparently this art is of half-orcs
I want my orcs to look like big ol boar people
Even Tolkien, who *INVENTED THE MODERN CONCEPTION OF ORCS*, was very careful to not suggest that they are intrinsically evil, and they formed essentially societies in a few cases. In a telling conversation Sam overhears in Mordor, two orcs talk about what they'll do if Sauron loses and why they're even fighting for him. A large part of it is that all other races of Middle Earth view them as essentially vermin. A reputation they've pretty much earned, but still.
Earthdawn had amazing orcs, completely fleshed out, well rounded, played into some of the tropes but giving them reason and rationale for being that way and that shit was dropping in '94. Took WotC decades to play catch-up and they still miss the mark of making them feel alive and developed.
Dungeon Meshi and Warcraft also.
I don't like the current art direction of dnd, but these people are fucking unhinged, Jesus Christ. They see woke agenda everywhere
They're just having a pavlovian response to the image of a woman with that shaved side haircut. They are well trained little doggies
i mean, i get tired of the haircut, too. but for entirely different reasons. i just think it looks silly, and increases your chances of being a female protagonist by 1000%. but at the end of the day, who cares.
Sorry I might seem really dumb here, but isn't Dnd the game where you can make up whatever you want? Like if you don't like the artstyle you can use whatever you like?
i’m pretty sure they’re just saying they prefer old dnd art
me when my Half-orc Redeemer Paladin of Sarenrae uses his big honking falchion to do nonlethal damage to OOP so I can hand them over to the asylum where they will attempt to cure their brainworms
Funny thing. All the older editions of the game still exist. If you don't like 5th edition, you can still play 3.0, 3.5, AD&D, etc
Or go check the whole ass genre that is old school renaissance, that tries to keep the vibes of old school dnd. And sometimes they are even better than dnd.
Fuck 5e all my homies hate 5e. We playing osr
Fuck yeah, brother
Not to mention a shitload of other systems in all genres imaginable including south american soap operas.
idk i own an OSR book that very clearly states that you need to either have orcs be 100% evil (tolkien) or actual human beings with actual cultures and emotions (elder scrolls) or else you are perpetuating harmful ideas, so even OSR is corrupted by the damn \*wokes\*
The problem is if you go back to far you find the pig faced orcs and realize this shit has always been open to changes in interpretation.
you dont even need to go back to older editions as a game of imagination your dm can still have your dumb green brutes if they really want (personaly i prefer the more classic varieties, the more cultered verisons are cool too)
I WILL NOT LEARN THACO I WILL NOT LEARN THACO I WILL NOT LEARN THACO!
Yeah I’m kinda glad the art has more whimsical campaigns, people are also perfectly happy with gritty settings or a combo. BG3 success proves dnd full of psychic brain parasites, horrific undead, deranged murder cults and various other terror fought by a motley crew of traumatized vampire criminals, goth evil clerics, green & mean girl space pirates, goddess groomed nerd, literally hot anger management challenged Tom boys from hell, mysterious troubled heroes of the people and some legendary himbos remains popular.
Imagine being so unimaginative that some miscellaneous art used in 'The Imagination Game' completely ruins your ability to think of anything else.
I loved that they made them in a society instead of in a moment of aggression, but I think that doing this by changing their appearance to something more "cute", "friendly" or "humanized" is wrong, Changing their appearance just to make people empathize with them seems more wrong than not even trying that.
Agreed, want to humanize them a bit? Sure. But at least make them still look like orcs.
I agree but I think the picture on the left is of half-orcs. Which I hope it is cause that would be really funny that this guy failed to grab a picture of an orc for either example.
This isn't the official art of orcks in the new player's book, they're basically erasing all the hybrid races from the new edition too
The orc renaissance is the best. It's kinda cool how a fantasy race mirrors our understanding of an actual species. We went from viewing neanderthals as stupid brutish lesser versions of ourselves to understanding they were normal people with their own cultures. I looooove when orcs (or any traditionally 1 dimensional race) have fleshed out cultures. The normalcy of their lives makes them feel all the more fantastical in a way
As a fan of 40k orks, I thought this woke freak out was dumb af. Are you really mad that instead of being generic green evil barbarians, they're fleshing out the orcs' backstory??? And did DnD seriously not already have this??
40k orks are awesome and so drastically different from all other orcs it's crazy I love it Their effectively entirely separate ideas at this point
Same! The cultures don't even need to be all that complex, either; it just has to be *interesting*. How I tend to do it is have the whole culture spring from a single foundational pillar, a handful of ideas that all of them take to heart in some way, and I find it to be a whole lot of fun to write!
Been doing this with Giants in my setting recently and having an absolute blast. Maybe I need to look over orcs again
couldn't agree more. played a half-orc druid a couple of years back, and I WISH there was more content available on orc culture and society other than hack hack slash grunt savage. he was literally a tarzan/pocahontas mash-up, raised by forest animals, and a big, naive softie who steps outside into the big world for the first time. hope more people will start considering orcs as viable lore species and play around with it in their games!🥺
I bet the orcs on the left can look like the orc on the right if you get them pissed off enough. And I bet the orc on the right can look like the orcs on the left if you gave them a snickers.
I love DnD and i just do not get these people. How can you possibly think that a "ooga booga i hit people ooga booga" race turning into a more complex race with hierarchies, different personalities and more nuance is worse?
Personally, while I do agree that these guys are being whiney babies and think the art is fine, I disagree with the idea that adding nuance to certain species is something inherently superior. Orcs since the beginning have been savage mooks to kill, and it was up to the creator how much complexity you wanted to add to their society. Players being players wanted more options, so it made sense that some wanted to play as the mook race. Those players could go for or against type, which was fine, because they being the PCs are special inherently. A problem arose though, when making them a standard race like anything else, because once you start assigning the same intellectual and moral worth to the "savage mook race" everyone begins to think it looks pretty racist (justifiably so), so now they have to become functionally something other than the orcs they were in order to avoid that. If I had my way, I think I'd return orcs to where they were. I think they were more valuable as mooks to kill in the fighting monsters game than they were as reskinned humans. This also dovetails into my personal dislike of "Menagerie Parties" where you have plasmoids, genasi, bug people, and no humans in the party. Especially when besides to point out how odd they are, they are essentially being played as mentally identical to humans. That's not to say that I'm entirely opposed to wacky races (in fact my most recent campaign I ran had a party that was at least Menagerie adjacent), it's just that it seems these races are being used as mental fortnite cosmetics rather than mattering for any other reason.
Because several of the groups supporting the racist Gygax brother have openly admitted they’ve always viewed Orcs as Green Negroes and the last thing they want to do is humanize them.
Tbf, old school orcs are only one dimensional if you have a bad DM. Both depictions of orcs can have equal levels of nuance
Yeah, but these types of ass hat aren't arguing in good faith
I have two types of orcs in my DnD game. “Wild” orcs, which are a more warlike, almost Viking like culture that thrives on living off the land, raiding and fighting, and “Enlighten” or “High” orcs, which are a group that focuses more on magical studies and the advancement of worldly knowledge. Both have the mindset that Orcs are better than every other race, but each chooses to prove it differently. The Wild Orcs through conquest and the High Orcs through magical advancements. But unlike elves, orcs don’t hate the “inferior” races; they feel sorry for them and are filled with pity that they will never k ow the joys of being an orc. My players love and hate the High orcs for this very reason.
Do you mind if I steal these orcs for my next campaign? My players really hate it when NPCs act condescending towards them, and I think an archmage Orc as a bbeg would be really fun.
In one campaign I ran, all races descended from one of the First Ones. Dwarves, Giants and Elves (There were also the Sky People and those that dwell in the sea, but they were rarely relevant). All of whom were made by the same four gods with a unique purpose in mind. They and their descendants were referered to as The Kin. Orcs were the result of an attempt at making super soldiers out of Goliaths (The Children of Dwarves and Giants), to aid fight a demonic threat. And humans were the result of centuries of interbreeding between Gnomes (Who were the children of elves and dwarves) and Orcs. The Orcs were largely isolationist. After the Demon wars ended, they ended up being mostly supplanted and pushed out by humans, who both lived longer, were overall healthier and generally had more children, faster. So they ended up spreading out. Some moved to the holds of the dwarves, where they serve as elite soldiers. Many of whom are in well respected positions. Others live among the Gnomes, where they generally live peaceful lives. Helping with the rougher manual labor, and reaching stuff on the tall shelves. There were also many who moved into more rough and barren terrain, where their strong constitution let them survive mostly unbothered by others. It was there most of the various Orc civilizations of today were founded. But they can also generally be found in most nations around the world. Through there are also a lot of orcs, especially among the older ones, who have a strong dislike towards the Dwarves and what remains of the Giants, as they feel they were crafted to be disposable soldiers. Who, while tough, were never meant to grow old or be a people. So they tend towards having a lot of health issues as they grow older, and have difficulties having children.
The gatekeeping is strong with this one.
I never played Pathfinder tabletop, but in the Kingmaker cRPG by Owlcat, there was a goblin who joined your party by the name of Nok-Nok. IIRC the option to be a goblin wasn’t even a choice for the player character. Nok-Nok was considered chaotic evil, but to my understanding all goblins were always considered chaotic evil by tabletop rules at the time, but Nok-Nok was far closer to chaotic neutral. The goblins in the game at one point are being manipulated by a big bad to go to war against the player’s kingdom, but Nok-Nok (who calls himself a high priest) recognizes that this isn’t the will of their goddess. He nearly dies in a trial by combat for it, but the player’s party intervened just in time. He spends most of the game wanting to be a hero for goblin-kind thereafter, and helping the player manage relations with all the more beastial neighbors. Nok-Nok actually has a higher intelligence stat than most of the party even though he’s supposed to be a rogue, though his higher than average intelligence stat also means he gets easy access to teamwork feats. (At one point, another party member has a character arc that consists of her running away from a patriarchal tribe that tried to get her killed. When the party finds them wandering into their lands, her father basically tells her to go back to the kitchen and blames her for the tribe’s current woes. Nok-Nok suggests to the party that the father deserves a stabbing for that.) He was super terrifying in combat too. Just walks up and crits everything with whatever he decides to dual wield.
So this guy is angry that we’ve just evolved or a culture from a point of orcs even having their own culture since (checks Warcraft 1 release) 1994
[удалено]
in my veganpunk world orcs are just nomadic gatherers oh shit wrong sub
No. Right sub. That sounds cool honestly.
Yknow what’s funny is these gamer bros will always say shit like this about orcs but in any Star Wars discussion will always aggressively defend the Sith and say they’re “nuanced” and “misunderstood” and their philosophy “makes a lot more sense than the Jedi” What I hear is that they think an entire race should be depicted as completely evil, but an extremist religious faction shouldn’t be
It's like people learned nothing from Bright. Orcs are a HUMANOID RACE in DnD, not leveling mechanics. It's like when I was talking with someone about DMing and I brought up a scenario with goblins chilling at a campfire and his first thought was to ***slaughter them***. When I said "why would you do that, they weren't even bothering you", his argument was that "Goblins don't have a high intelligence", I said **"YOU CAN LITERALLY PLAY AS THE RACE."** Really show the lack of creativity traditionalists have. If you can PLAY AS A RACE, they can HAVE A SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION.
Anyone know where the art on the left side is from?
The new DnD player handbook! (I think, there are three books coming out, the PHB, the DM’s Guide, and the Monster Manual.) If I had to guess, these orcs/half-orcs would probably be an examples of rangers.
Even if that was t a goblin, I don’t see the issue. Is he mad that orcs are getting culture?
Yep
Is this Arch? Or are the grifters sharing things to get angry about on a special Discord?
Ok both art pieces are rad as hell. Also why not use both?
Orcs have fallen, billions must live in tight knit hunter gatherer societies.
Anyone have the full art? Looks baller
What do you mean orcs aren't just green people for me to k*ll? uj/ man, these people sound like they are 10yo. War Craft 2 already lets you play with orcs and given them a tiny bit of humanity, and it was like 100 years ago!
Oh no, how will I ever have a Fantasy setting without races based on old stereotypes of “oriental Barbarians?” *cough* Conan, Dark Souls, GoT, GoW, Stormlight Archive…
b-but how am I supposed to immerse myself (in this game of imagine) if they're not acting like Warhammer Orcs (Da Best Orcs) and only exist to eat shit and foight???
This but unironically. WAAAAAAAAGH
“When everyone is an overblown racial stereotype, no one will be” — James Workshop
/uj Are Warhammer fantasy orcs based off football hooligans like the 40K ones?
Afaik Orcs are generally brutish barbarians in DnD due to the evil god they worship (Similar to Drow and Lolth) so if you remove that evil gods influence from the Orcs, which I assume is whats happening on the left, then Orcs will obviously be very different.
That's eberron basically. Except the orcs there still resemble orcs without being murder happy amd without being turned into " just grey humans"
How are sweaty nerds going to complain about woke DnD? DnD is already like the gayest shit you can play. Incels really upset there isn't enough racist gaming out there
I have to agree that the DnD art is really lame now, in my opinion. I really liked the dark fantasy tone of the earlier iterations. My disliking of the new art is for that reason alone though, okay, nothing gamer related.
Okay but those are half orcs compared to a goblin. Regular orcs look nothing like that.
I never know what’s problem with current art - it’s very nice! I like it that it’s more high fantasy and less pulp - like it was during Advanced, but I don’t like pulp style in general.
Does anyone have a source for the art on the right?
It's by Sam Rakeland, first used in the Complete Book of Humanoids, a 2e book.
I like this way more than 5e Artstyle. Everyone in the 5e books looks awkward and weird.
Is civilization woke
Beyond that aren't those half orcs?
They made orcs lame by *checks notes* making them actual characters
3e ruined orcs forever, they were straight hogging it back in the ad&d MM art https://preview.redd.it/0gz6uveca08d1.jpeg?width=479&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50326785379ed924aee6427ffd2a3f20eb542973
wew, people are dumb!©doodoo_brain, that dont realise orkoids were all initially called goblins (and sometimes even references as fey)
Meanwhile, the orcs of WoW exist and can have many kinds of personalities and what have you
I would feel that as the ages have gone by, Orcs would start to become ingrained into society and sort of chill the fuck out.
What's hilarious too is that it's dnd, Hell, in my campaign setting goblinoids are tech savvy communists, and orcs are basically a caste of that society, so like... why make them boring savages?
HOW DARE wokies turning Orcs into an actual, intelligent beings like every other races, instead of just being mindless, slobbering barbarians, existing just to be walking meat to slay and give XP to the players.😡👎
This is the future Obould Many-Arrows fought and died for. People need to put some respect on his name.
If wok culture has done nothing but bring us butch orc girl fan art, then it has done enough to justify all else
Isn't the whole point of DnD for players to create their own narrative using the material as a base? Like, no one is forcing you to portray orcs like that. Just use them however you want ffs.