If It Was a Non-Combat Encounter, Why Did You Use Orcs?
"That's funny, we don't feel evil."
Orcs. Are they doomed to forever serve as D&D middle-management? They lack the majesty of dragons, the manipulations of drow and the raw creepiness of illithids, yet they’re a cut above goblins and kobolds. Whenever they try to carve out a small slice of the world to survive in, they end up getting slaughtered by “adventurers.” How can we elevate the common orc above mere sword-fodder?
This rumination on the nature of orcs stems from an encounter at my last game session (apologies to my players for using them as examples – trust me, if I’d been playing instead of DMing, things would have gone down largely the same way). I built a large hall that was serving as the domestic center for a colony of orcs that had moved into part of the dungeon. I included many cues in my description of the room that would suggest this was something other than a den of bloodthirsty creatures lying in wait. There were beds, a kitchen area, plus female and juvenile orcs moving about. Evil creatures don’t have moms, right?
At the same time, I did set the room up for an interesting tactical fight (although it ultimately bogged down because the orcs didn’t have the ranged attacks they needed). I didn’t want to force my players into just one choice. Combat was obviously an option, but so was diplomacy.
Except they were orcs, so of course, diplomacy was never really considered. This comic over at Bad Gods pretty much sums it up. The party leapt into battle, and it was a good fight. The orcs fought hard to defend their home. A couple of orc berserkers can really present a challenge, one that belies their actual level. Throw an Eye of Gruumsh into the mix and you’ve got a formidable melee force.
But why did the encounter go down this way? Why was diplomacy not even considered? (Actually, one player had serious reservations about attacking the orcs, but didn’t resist once the other players starting making attack rolls. And, to be fair, another character had good justification for attacking when he found a cleric of Gruumsh living in the ruins of an ancestral temple devoted to Bahamut). The problem, really, is that most people don’t share my particular views on orcs.
Something that has always bugged about RPGs is the mono-cultures. All elves like pretty things and trees. All dwarves are hard drinkin’ miners. All orcs are slavering savages. This is like the fantasy version of science fiction’s “desert planet, jungle planet, ice planet.” For as long as I’ve been DMing, I’ve always tried to give the fantasy races their own particular motivations, beyond, “They’re evil.” Why are the orcs attacking the village? Maybe they were driven out of their homeland by a dragon. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fight them, but now at least it makes sense, and it creates a window of opportunity to at least consider a non-combat solution.
On the other hand, part of the problem is that I have a soft spot for orcs. If I create a room full of mind-flayers, my players damn well better run in there and slaughter every last one of those squid-faced freaks. But orcs…they’re just misunderstood. As I was telling one of my players, I see them as sort of a Dickensian underclass. Yeah, they’re loud, smelly, rude, uneducated, prone to violence, easily manipulated and will do pretty much anything for a few silver coins, but they really just want a better life for themselves. Can you really blame them for that?
That’s all just wishful thinking, though. They’re orcs. The adventurers are going to fight them. So how can we make that more interesting?
1). Tactics. Build your orc encounters with a variety of monster roles. The classic method is to have some berserkers run in and engage the melee PCs and possibly try to break through to the spellcasters. Meanwhile, orcs with ranged attacks stay within cover and unleash their firepower. Unfortunately, at lower levels orcs don’t have much ranged punch. Orc Raiders’ hand-axe attacks are pretty weak. That’s easily remedied, though. Replace the axes with a Gnoll Huntmaster’s bow attack, and maybe bump the raiders’ XP value up 50 points. Now you’ve got a serious threat. Always give the orcs a leader or controller, too. They benefit immensely from the buffs.
2). Templates. As humanoids of moderate level, orcs are perfect for adding templates to, and templates are really easy in 4E. Draconic orcs? Demonic orcs? Vampiric orcs? Not only do they make the orcs tougher, they freak your players out. “Oh, watch out, the berserker is going to use his warrior’s surge to heal, ok….oh god, why is he BITING ME!??!”
3). Show some class. The templating rules in the DMG also make it easy to add a character class to a monster. I think a group of orc berserker fighters would be interesting, especially if one was a warlord or a warden. Throw in an orcish bard, and now you’ve got something truly unique.
4). Give the leader some personality. For practical reasons, every last orc drudge isn’t going to be a special snowflake. But you can make their leader something more than a brutish thug who won his position of authority by strength and power. Maybe he’s a wild-eyed orcish prophet foretelling the rise of the orcish empire. You could have a female orc rogue who maintains control in the manner of the drow – by pulling strings and manipulating her friends. The leader could be utterly inept, but he’s just so charismatic that the other orcs overlook his shortcomings.
I know I shouldn’t let the Great Orc Massacre affect me so much, but I keep thinking about those orc children. The ones who escaped are definitely going to grow up to be evil.
[Update: If you're reading this article for the first time, don't skip the comments below. They are by far the most interesting part.]
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May 6th, 2009 11:06 AM
Look at the bright side. If your adventure goes epic the party may run into a young orc looking for revenge!
May 6th, 2009 11:36 AM
I can’t believe I missed out on slaughtering innocent women and children.
May 6th, 2009 11:37 AM
It is a long standing discussion in my group– orcs are basically a dialogue on colonialism, at the end of the day. “Savage” people whose land you invade, whose homes you break into, whose families you slaughter. The casual ease with which players take out whole tribes, the glee with which they set to “ridding” an area of them is…well, genocide. Yeah– orcs are American Indians, are Moors in the Middle East, are Khosian in South Africa.
It doesn’t help that all the “PC races” are white (there is a black halfling in the PHB & a black human in the DMG) & the “Monster races” are swarthy & dark. Nice.
May 6th, 2009 11:43 AM
In my homebrew campaign world, I made drow North Africans with an Arab culture. I always wondered – are drow “evil” because they’re the elves with black skin? So now they aren’t evil at all, and the mix of exotic elves with exotic Arabia is pretty cool. Not that the campaign is anywhere near there right now, but I still like the idea.
May 6th, 2009 11:51 AM
Awesome article.
One thing I have done as a DM, is have the Orcs work tactically.
Nothing freaks a player more than an Orc behind him and then stabbing him sneak attack damage while the other attacks with 1d12 Great Axe from another side, flanking.
May 6th, 2009 11:55 AM
Actually Ed, I was thinking along those same lines when we ran into the room, but as I was expecting my Bar results the next day, my bloodthirst won out (the specific instant was when you said “no they aren’t wearing any pins saying ‘orcs are people too!’” . . . of course they wouldn’t be since they were at home, not at a Orcish-rights rally). Of course if there had been a chance of getting the orcs to somehow ally with us against the hogoblins it’s pretty much gone for good now . . .
you’re right though, those beserkers were a real tough fight.
May 6th, 2009 11:58 AM
This has been a pet peeve of mine ever since I read the 2E book, “Creative Campaigning.” There was a bit in there about slaughtering the women and children of an orc or bugbear tribe, and since then I’ve held that even the “evil” cultures are still cultures. Sure, they raid and slaughter and worship gods that demand bloody sacrifices, but haven’t most real-life human cultures done the same? As a GM, I’d have set things up similarly to how you did. As a player, I’d probably have wanted to try diplomacy first, but what I’d do in context really does depend on my character. On the other hand, this question’s almost getting beaten to death in popular fiction, from “Orc King,” to “Orcs,” to “Order of the Stick,” so there is something to be said for good old hack-n-slashing.
May 6th, 2009 12:42 PM
Yes, to be clear, I don’t blame the players for doing what they did.
There were two options, neither was wrong, but each option will have different rewards and consequences.
May 6th, 2009 12:55 PM
To be fair, just a few weeks ago, we solved another situation diplomatically that had nearly escalated to violence. We might have even rolled initiative. Sure, there were no children involved…
May 6th, 2009 1:01 PM
I think there are a lot of ways to make the various monster races…well, people, instead of monsters. Like, getting rid of evil…but that is neither here nor there. Getting rid of stat penalties is a nice one.
Some of my players complain that I’ve made them too “post-DnD.” I suppose I might have? I just like the bad guys to have motives too!
May 6th, 2009 1:04 PM
Eberron goes a ways toward making different “monster races” more well rounded. A lot of the cities have these races among their citizens. Of course they are often looked down on, but you can’t just slay someone because he’s a goblin. And half-orcs make up a big part of one of the dragonmarked houses. Other monsters have their own nations – a recent Eberron novel involves a diplomatic mission to a nation of hags, ogres, medusas and other monsters. As for the more standard races, many of them have more than one culture. They designed it carefully so that somebody that wants to play a typical elf or halfling can do it, or they can play one of the unique cultural variants.
May 6th, 2009 1:38 PM
I think its important to keep in mind that D&D, (in pretty much any incarnation) is a fantasy overlay of a medieval, pre-industial society, generally european in flavor. Certainly one can posit that orcs revere more brutal, sacrifice-demanding gods beacause of the power or percieved power of those gods over the orcs themselves. They create a situation where physical power is rewarded by material spoils as the stropng take from the weak.
That is not unlike many massive migrations and various raiding cultures that proliferated in the dark ages of Europe (and pretty much any other continent as well). Basically orcs are like vikings. They live in generally inhospitable lands and raid into the more habitable (and more productive) regions as their culture and deities demand.
Orcs (or goblins or vikings or visigoths etc.) would not waste a second thought on slaughtering a village of societal enemies if they had the physical power to carry through such an attack with minimal losses. It is therefore the rough parity of strength that would give a raiding party pause to consider whether the potential casualties would be too costly for the potential plunder that might be found.
That makes giving players pause to consider the same cost/benefit analysis (assuming the same kill for pluder model-which may or may not be applicable) difficult because players (consciously or not) will metagame a situation. If the encounter is designed to be winnable by a party of their level (and players will likely assume they are) then barring some ill-luck particularly with death saving throws, the whole party will be as good as new in a few minuteds to six hours. That suggests that the party needs to be threatened with what appears to be overwhelming odds to threaten them into parlaying.
Other trigegrs for parlaying might be more effective, but even then, bloodthirst might well win out. . . and I should really get back to work.
May 6th, 2009 1:50 PM
Way back in my college days, I played in a D&D campaign with a half-orc monk named Thak Spleen Eater. I developed a whole backstory about the orc language–how “Spleen Eater” was actually a really glib translation of “Th’hahk,” (his actual name), and it should be more accurately translated as “Who Devours the Source of His Rage,” which is why the monks called him Thak the Placid. He was the friendliest member of the party, and would try and have conversations with any random encounter, no matter how evil they seemed. He also tried to convert a tribe of orcs to Tibetan Buddhism, but they weren’t having it.
I always maintained that orcs weren’t really evil, they were just diligent. If you had a bunch of orcs working for Sauron, then they’d be diligently evil. If you had them working for Gautama Siddhartha, then they’d just be diligently non-materialistic.
May 6th, 2009 2:00 PM
One of the things I truly love about gaming: that these conversations can even happen.
And, yes, I totally thought of the orc/viking connection, too. If you assume a model where their population inevitably expands beyond their available resources, they are going to expand violently (which will in turn create a violent culture). So these merciless orc raiding parties made up of all males actually have a real-world analog. Conversely, Vikings did have rich artistic traditions and a unique political system.
This leads to the question: what would orcs be like if they happened to live in rich farmlands, or a verdant forest where hunting/gathering was easy and plentiful?
May 6th, 2009 2:05 PM
I think what’s extra interesting is where all the Vikings are now. The Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians are now some of the most mellow people on the planet. If you fast-forwarded the D&D world a thousand years, would the orcs have built a culture with robust civil service and an industry based on simplistic furniture?
It’s actually kind of a serious question, when you look at the way a lot of the invading horsemen tribes in…well, all over Europe and Central Asia, for instance, began to settle down and adjust their religious and social structures to reflect their prosperity. Is the big problem with the orcs just the fact that no one ever lets them win?
May 6th, 2009 2:15 PM
Undoubtedly, in 1,000 years some orcs will be captains of boats on TV shows about crab fishing.
May 6th, 2009 2:19 PM
God, I hope so.
May 6th, 2009 4:01 PM
I too must confess to a soft spot for orcs, but that domes mostly from Warcraft. I may not play WOW, but the strategy games have given me reason to hate the Humans of that world and throw in with the orcs. The poor green boyz were duped by demons into leaving their homeworld, fought the humans out of self defense and the bidding of these false gods, then get used as slaves by the victorious Alliance of Beautiful People. How am I supposed to believe they’re evil?
May 6th, 2009 4:16 PM
Also, now that I think about it, What else would you use for a morally ambiguous encounter? Most of the non player races are so clearly defined there little leeway. Heck, even the player races. Tieflings in a cave are gonna die, dwarves aren’t, and this is coming from a player who always tries to play good or neutral characters of the ‘evil’ races. My first D&D character was a Drow, the DM wrote the world to have an amazing amount of racial tolerance, and a lot of Jewish clerics. Well, they still got to pick their deity, but all their rituals were Jewish ceremonies. It was a good campaign.
May 6th, 2009 8:47 PM
If you fast-forwarded the D&D world a thousand years, would the orcs have built a culture with robust civil service and an industry based on simplistic furniture?
ORKEA! Hehehe…
May 7th, 2009 10:47 AM
Actually, Ed, Dragon #374 has a creature incarnations article about orcs. They have several new orc types including grenadiers and skirmishers, beastmasters and warlords, but not much in the way of artillery (except the grenadiers who do look pretty mean).
Feel free to not read this until after the game tonight.
May 7th, 2009 11:33 AM
Haha!
May 7th, 2009 1:32 PM
I read all this after Ed’s update. A perfect example of why I frequent RV: Good posts and intelligent discussion. (Much like ggodo mentions on the feedback to our feedback page.)
May 7th, 2009 1:53 PM
“ORKEA”? HA HA HA…oh crap.
Is this the real reason the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show went “bork bork”?
May 7th, 2009 3:10 PM
“Basically orcs are like vikings. They live in generally inhospitable lands and raid into the more habitable (and more productive) regions as their culture and deities demand.”
But the Vikings were also inveterate travelers and traders who had fairly robust links with the rest of the known world (for example, archaeological evidence indicates that Bronze Age trade links existed between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean via the “amber road”). Norsemen who migrated eastwards during the early Middle Ages became wealthy merchants and productive farmers; when they seized Kiev they turned it into a kind of medieval Hong Kong or Dubai, a trade city that connected Byzantine, steppe, and Baltic merchants. The Russian-domiciled Vikings also composed the Byzantine Empire’s storied Varangian Guard, a mercenary unit that also drew its members from Scandinavia and other Norse settlements.
Similar dynamics can be seen elsewhere in history: the “Sea People” who figured into the destruction of Mediterranean society ca. 1200 BCE went on to form sophisticated city-states in the Near East, such as the Philistine Five Cities; the Mongols went from nomadic raiders to empire-builders to being integrated into the social structures of existing empires.
In fact, using the Mongols (or other pastoral-raiding cultures, such as the Kipchaks, the ethnic group of Sultan Baibars) could make for an interesting template: image a bunch of orcs taking over a human empire (or becoming a Varangian- or Mamluk-style fighting force that ends up taking power within the palace), then converting to the social and religious structures of the humans.
May 7th, 2009 3:40 PM
Fair points about the vikings also being traders etc, except (and I don’t have a cite for this) vikings were only raiders. to go a-viking meant to go plundering and raiding. otherwise they were Danes and Norsemen and Rus (whence comes Russia) etc. I think the important distinction is that the culture (or at least a subset) was one of raiding and marauding. Once the marauders settled down they became targets for the next set of less civilized raiders.
Take the Briton-Saxon-Dane evolution in Britain. The Saxons were displaced by barbarian invasions at the fall of the Roman Empire. They in turn invaded Britain, driving the britons into Wales, Cornwall, France (Brittany) etc. Then the Saxons settled into their new lands and were targeted by the Danes and Norsemen a few centuries later. (Enter Alfred the Great . . . Hooray England! . . . then conquered by William the Conqueror . . . a Nor[se]man . . . the British Isles are a mess)
I guess you could look at is as the hungry (orcs, vikings etc.) against the well-fed (fat, dumb and happy agrarian cultures everywhere) . . . anyhow gotta get ready to kill more orcs . . .
May 7th, 2009 4:03 PM
“[T]o go a-viking meant to go plundering and raiding. otherwise they were Danes and Norsemen and Rus (whence comes Russia) etc.”
I should point out that the Norse are out of my area of knowledge, but it definitely seems to be true that there’s an etymological distinction made in the sources between raiding and trade/exploration missions; I’m certainly using the term “Viking” with great imprecision.
Your example of Britain is well-taken, demonstrating that even the raiders had ambition beyond plunder: the violence the Vikings visited on Carolingian France was (at least according to some sources) so complete that the Vikings were actually given, in lieu of the normal bribes, a chunk of France to rule, which became known as Normandy. The Vikings used it as a base for more raids into Frankish lands, but eventually became assimilated into Frankish society, then invaded Britain to fight the Anglo-Saxons, many of whom ended up fighting alongside the ‘Rus Norse in Byzantium … Actually, the whole world was pretty much a mess during those centuries, eh?
May 7th, 2009 4:28 PM
Gotta love those Dark Ages!
May 8th, 2009 8:38 AM
I think braak is on to something. Mapping them to existing cultures…why? I mean, humans are already a race? This is something I don’t like in general…”elves” as orientalists included. A better way is to think of it how they are DIFFERENT than humans– diligence is one way. Like, assume a fundamental biological & psychological difference in approach. Elves live for centuries– that colours their interaction with the world, with other peoples. Do orcs have litters of young? That could explain their expansionist tendencies, & allow them to be campaign villains while not being “generic evil.”
May 8th, 2009 9:13 AM
Unless specific DM’s are going to do a bit of rewriting of the basic orc background, lets’s not forget orcs EAT other sentients . . . That makes them pretty evil, particularly in the eyes of anyone who is on the menu.
If you do away with that trait, then yeah you can look more at the social and cultural factors that make them aggressive etc. But they are designed to be PC fodder. Literally. 4e redesigned angels so that they are not automatically good, expressly so that PCs (generally good) could fight them. Orcs are still in the monster manual to be foes for PC’s. If you intend to use orcs differently, then you need to educate your players (and characters) about your different viewpoint, or otherwise indicate that a specific orc tribe is different, etc.
By the way, we killed a few more minions but captured the orc leader and rid him of a demonic (maybe?) spirit that posessed him . . . maybe he’ll tell us where the kids can be found . . . Bwahahahahah
May 8th, 2009 10:48 AM
Our first inclination was to come to terms with the orc leader, but when his eyes turned white and his head spun all the way around, we naturally decided such actions would be too much of a distraction during diplomatic proceedings. That thought process can be best summed up by khovaros’ exclamation after the orc leader’s display of demonic flexibility: “Oh f**k that, he’s gotta die.”
May 8th, 2009 12:30 PM
@khovaros: Orcs will eat just about anything, and you know what? I’m surprisingly fine with that. They’ve never really been presented as the most advanced of species, so I can see them turning to some rather gruesome methods of getting more food. It all depends on how the DM wants to play them.
May 8th, 2009 1:14 PM
That was pretty much my thought ggodo. Vanilla orcs as a rule are downright mean, and players (and characters) will assume so. So if you’re actually dealing with Neapolitan orcs, there has to some sort of telegraphing of the different flavor to suggest that a different ineraction is possible/appropriate.
May 8th, 2009 2:46 PM
Now if only I could get a game going. . .
May 9th, 2009 2:26 AM
I read somewhere that Tokien ramped up the Evil on his Orcs because he coulden’t justify killing them any other way. Apprently, he hated sterotypes, despite creating most fantasy sterotypes that excist today.
I’ve always run Orks as somewhere between Evil and Scottish(not making fun of the Scottish, honest!). Larger then life, leery of outsiders, loyal to their own, and with a mysterious culture. Great craftsmen. That said, unlike a Scottsman, who’s culture tends towards Chaotic and Good, an Orc was as likely to kill you as look at you, or maybe just rob you.
Their Evil was how they viewed the world. To an Orc, you weren’t really a person unless you were another Orc. And every Orc was less of a person then his boss, all the way to the Cheif. And the only way to prove you were tougher was to prove it, usually in blood combat. Even the Orc Gods were subject to being defeated.
Evil? In a lot of ways, yeah. Functional? Looks like, from far enough away.
(I have a terrible feeling I’m going to have cabers chucked at me over this…)
May 9th, 2009 2:13 PM
After reading the article, and most of the comments, I feel even WORSE about killing the orcs. Like khovaros said, and I thought, the chances of them siding with us are pretty low now. However, I’m hoping that we can use the recently exorcised leader as good karma leverage. And maybe keeping a certain Dragonborn and Tiefling out of any future discussions with the orcs (if they take place) would be helpful. I’d say the humans should lay low to, but if you’ve seen one human you’ve seen them all right?
In any event, this whole discussion has made me feel like such a dirty racist. From now on I vow not to flat out attack anything that has the capacity for reason without some form of provocation.
May 9th, 2009 3:36 PM
I don’t
May 9th, 2009 3:47 PM
Sorry, Blaise got ahold of the keyboard.
In our campaign, it is obvious that Ed intends for orcs to be capable of /willing to conduct negotiations and maybe even form alliances with the PC’s. That will obviously color further actions with them (this group or others) however I generally am not a fan of applying a 20th/21st century enlightened mentality to my 10th century character. I have a hard time suspending my disbelief in such situations (like lots of historical movies these days-where the main character always seems to have developed post civil rights movement philosophies on his own without the benefits of an education based on millenia of philosophical evolution).
Any how, I really love this discussion but I think I’ll try to shut up now.
May 9th, 2009 10:22 PM
Good ol’ Blaise… he will be missed. *hat off*
I never really thought about it that way. Main characters in movies feeling randomly compassionate for people typically viewed as, “beneath”, them is a tad odd when you think about it. But there are always at least a few people who feel that way, no matter how they’re brought up. It’s just how people are. As for our campaign, I know very little about the world in general that’s been set up. Otherwise, I’d argue that perhaps, in this alternate world, orcs aren’t QUITE as bad as they’re usually depicted in other stories. So while they’re not liked, maybe they can be tolerated.
May 11th, 2009 12:55 PM
If the orc starts spitting pea soup & spinning his head around, feel free to lop it off! I really enjoyed the bit of the “Return of the King” movie where the Mouth of Sauron comes out & is all “OHHH I am SOOOO CREEEEEPY & your widdle friends are dead & we are sooooo mean &…” & Aragorn just lops his head off. Yeah, any gamer will tell you– screw that guy. Yeah, forget that, DIE.
Wars with orcs are much better than adventures versus orcs, too– when you are an adventurer, you are just one big home invasion jerk.
May 11th, 2009 1:28 PM
Well, the nice thing about going to war with orcs, is that you are not going to just be fighting orcs, but also other goblinoids and maybe giants, or what have you. Really, after reading the Hunters Blades trilogy, all I want is a war campaign so I can basically relive those books around the table.
May 11th, 2009 4:45 PM
@mordicai: Trust me, we had no qualms about taking down the exORCist (and we royally beat his ass too). When somebody’s head turns all the way around you don’t try to negotiate. You run away, or you lay the smack down.
And I’m glad I watched the uncut version of the movie. Otherwise I’d have no idea what The Mouth of Sauron is. Yeah, that bastard was creepy.
@silentstriderm: Good books. It would be cool to have battles like that, but I’m thinking you’d need to be at least close to epic levels to survive something along those lines. At least survive it in an interesting way like the main characters. I guess low levels could just be lucky canon fodder, and survive, heh heh.
May 12th, 2009 9:26 AM
Really, the one of the best things about this edition is removing penalties; Intellegence & Charisma penalties entered very weird territory, when you consider how much “race” in DnD (a biological construct) maps to “race” in real life (a social construct). At least now you can have a discussion without someone bringing up “hey, orcs are naturally mentally deficient– aka savages– because of their int/cha penalties!” Ugh, just SO “legacy of institutionalized racism” you know?
May 12th, 2009 4:31 PM
Is the charisma stat still physical beauty? If so, I’m surprised the ‘ugly’ races (tieflings, dragonborn, halflings?) had the charisma bonuses and not the elves that everyon repeatedly calls beautiful in the books.
May 14th, 2009 12:09 AM
Did they used to consider charisma to be physical attractiveness? ‘Cause the DICTIONARY would even say otherwise. I figure looks factors into it on some level, but really charisma is general attractiveness (not purely physical) or charm. Ones force of personality.
May 14th, 2009 8:18 AM
Yea, Charisma was physical attractiveness at one point. My D&D has gaps in it having only played 2nd and 4th, but in second it was physical appearance too. The running immature joke was penis length and cup size, but we’re not playing FATAL so those aren’t actual statistics here. Don’t google FATAL, it is the worst RPG ever.
May 14th, 2009 9:04 AM
It’s been a while, but I seem to remember that you rolled separately for a comeliness score in AD&D. Charisma could effect comeliness. but it was a separate stat.
http://rotd.rpgclassics.com/dmsection/comeliness.shtml
May 14th, 2009 11:05 AM
Charisma has always been partly comprised of physical attractiveness. In 1st edition Unearthed Arcana added the comliness score which was another 3-18 range (generally) score that was modified by the character’s charisma and race. Evidently it wasn’t popular enough to get carried into 2nd edition so appearance got rolled back into charisma for every edition since.
I don’t see how racial ability score penalties equated to real world racism. The D&D races ARE different species (though, granted some can interbreed). Orcs concievably have smaller brains on average than humans do. Brain size directly correlates to intelligence. Elves are on average quicker and Dwarves are on average sturdier than humans. Many races (frequently monster races are on average smarter than humans) it stands to reason that humans are smarter/sturdier/quicker than other races, otherwise they would be at the bottom of the D&D evolutionary scale. I think it is unrealistic to equate a fantasy race literally designed to be ‘bad guys’ to real-world societal inequities between humans.
May 14th, 2009 12:49 PM
Theoretically they are different species? But in reality, they are stand-ins for race. Sure, you might run a real hard “science” game where biological differences in race are attributable to cranial capacity & such (then again, neanderthal looking guys like orcs would likely be smarter, considering neanderthal skull ccs…) but that isn’t how they are portrayed. They are Othered in a way that, on many levels, generates comparison to real world race relations. Much like Klingons in the original Star Trek were the Soviets– it is unavoidable that anthropomorphism will trickle in. & not bad! Just worthy of discussion.
See also: how “non-humans” (aliens, dwarves) generally have “accents” compared to the rest of the cast of a film, & how those accents generally map onto lower-income ethnicities. SURE, accents are a good short-hand for Othering, but then, doesn’t that say something about real world biases? Yes!
May 20th, 2009 3:13 AM
That’s the problem with gaming in the postmodern world. Everyone’s a goddamn cultural anthropologist.
May 20th, 2009 9:47 AM
I know…isn’t it great?
March 5th, 2010 12:10 AM
Man, this was a classic comment discussion.
March 6th, 2010 7:51 PM
This post was my introduction to Robot Viking. What a way to start, huh? With a moral dilemma.
June 7th, 2011 8:46 PM
Be Very Very Quiet. I’m Hunting Orcsies!
I just though t I’d kick this bucket to see if anything happened.
July 12th, 2011 1:54 AM
Been playing Shadowrun recently, There the Orks really are the dickensian underclass. Even in Pathfinder, my parties have never really been GO KILL on the goblinoid races unless they were a direct threat. Heck, I once had a party avoid a dungeon because they didn’t want to invade the goblins’ home. The funny thing is those goblins were treasure hunters after the same artifact the party was, and it happened to be in that cave.
July 12th, 2011 11:34 AM
To toot my own horn a bit, my knight managed to turn a goblin ambush into a non-combat encounter. Unlike orcs, who may have some redeeming qualities, goblins should probably be killed simply out of spite, which makes the fact that he managed to make it non-combat even more commendable.
July 12th, 2011 1:50 PM
I have been pining recently for a bit of Shadowrun myself. Of course the orcs there are metamorphosed humans who are carnivores but don’t eat other ‘people.’ Thus they are not really the same as orcs in D&D, and they are designed that way. I kinda like the ‘orc are people too!’ campaign buttons from 1st edition SR (its been a long time since I’ve played).
That goblin encounter was a lot of fun Gavin. Of course they were essentially 1st level goblins so any combat would have quickly become a massacre. thought Wizards did recently reprint ‘Tucker’s Kobolds’ certainly my favorite dragon editorial ever.
July 12th, 2011 2:30 PM
Level 1? Tell that Mike whose Volodymyr took a “glancing shot” for a buttload of damage.
July 12th, 2011 2:48 PM
Yeah, I am experimenting with a concept where low level monsters create traps or hazards, rather than being a real threat themselves. Like a bunch of low level goblins who create an ambush that is relatively high level itself (ie. threatening to high level characters who are unaware that arrow-slits are a few feet to their right) but operate as potentially one shot deals. A good ranged burst would have cleaned them out, but until then they’ll just keep cranking on their crossbows and burst fire them at the party, unless they are intimidated into fleeing of course.
July 12th, 2011 3:02 PM
Long ago when Joe and I played D&D 1-on-1, I crafted the following encounter:
The hero is walking along a road and sees a corpse. It appears to be a priest, clearly dead and somewhat chopped up. Not far ahead, in the brush along the roadside are two orcs doing a terrible job of hiding. They keep arguing with each other, moving around and generally failing to hide.
The corpse was a form of undead, the name of which I forget, that basically keeps getting back up no matter how many times you kill it. The orcs left it there “dead,” then pretended to hide while intentionally drawing the attention of whoever wandered along. Once spotted, they’d jump out and distract their victim by faking a sort of half-assed fight, really delaying until the undead thing got up and got in a good surprise attack from behind. Then they could mop up whatever was left and steal stuff.
It almost worked, but their fake hiding was a little too suspicious.
July 12th, 2011 11:55 PM
Ed, I don’t think your anecdote really improves the community’s perception of orcs.
July 13th, 2011 1:07 AM
Well, Ryk, Infected orks in Shadowrun eat people. Dzoo-no-qua are nasty, nasty, buggers. Oh, and Gavin? I think that Ed’s example is pretty awesome at showing orcs are at least smarter than the average bear.
July 13th, 2011 8:12 AM
That’s true, Billy. I never really think of orcs as smart.
July 14th, 2011 11:00 PM
When I thought of a smart Orc, I imagined one wearing a monocle, and being terribly offended at the very idea of eating someone. He was offended in a British accent, of course.
July 15th, 2011 10:03 PM
That’s the main reason to set Shadowrun in London.
July 16th, 2011 2:01 AM
The most Shadowrun I’ve ever played was a demo of the game on Xbox 360. I have heard good things about the actual tabletop game though.
July 16th, 2011 3:26 AM
So, you’ve never played Shadowrun, then? That game butchered the setting to bits, and, I haven’t played it, but I’ve not heard good things about gameplay. Also, more on topic, Orcs are likely the best race in Shadowrun for generalists, and definitely the best combat race, barring some hyper-niche troll/elf builds. I like orks, and if I ever am not GMing a game I’m playing an Ork Adept martial artist.
July 16th, 2011 6:42 PM
A disciplined orc is a scary orc.
July 17th, 2011 12:53 AM
An ork so disciplined he took pacifist is not as scary, but imagine the intimidate bonus he’ll get after dodging bullets whilst charging his foes. I may have put a few too many points in Combat Sense. . .
July 19th, 2011 12:38 AM
If it allows you to dodge bullets, then I wouldn’t refer to it as, “too many.” More like, “just enough to be able to DODGE BULLETS!”
July 19th, 2011 1:50 AM
Yeah, but he’s got so much defense I worry he needs to be able to hit things harder.
July 19th, 2011 9:18 PM
Teach him how to stop the bullets, like Neo, and then it’s only one small step to flinging them back.
July 19th, 2011 11:36 PM
Well, it’s a few more ranks of Throwing Weapons before I can throw them hard enough to hurt anyone. As for stopping them, the Slow spell is from WAR! The book that is not allowed at any sane table.
July 20th, 2011 10:45 PM
Who needs sanity? It’s rather overrated.
July 21st, 2011 9:02 PM
This thing is The Epic Level Handbook of Shadowrun. Except that most stuff in it is available at start, and not balanced for the rest of the game. It’s so bad that the day it was released CGL had a meeting to ask “How do we not do that again?”
July 22nd, 2011 10:33 PM
I guess you could save that sorta stuff for a campaign where everybody just wanted to go nuts, and be godlike for kicks.
However, I think we’re letting ourselves drift a bit off topic.
July 22nd, 2011 11:10 PM
You guys are talking about games, right? Sounds on-topic to me.
Eric, duuuuuuuude! You have to come game with us. You’re good on weekends now right?
July 23rd, 2011 1:00 AM
The Mod says go!
Anyway, the main problem with WAR! rules wise is gear that is Strictly Better than comparable gear in past books, without proportionate price or availability. The fluff is another mess, and Bogota is apparently a seaside with easy submarine access.
Oh, and they gave stats for satellite mounted rail guns. For when you need to have crunch to justify “Thor shots fall, everyone dies.”
Back to Orks, they are The Best Race for any physical character, barring some extremely optimized one trick ponies. Unless you’re the guy who wants to play a troll.
July 24th, 2011 2:07 PM
Ed, I am, indeed, generally free on the weekends now. I have to work four hours on the first Saturday of every month, and sometimes I opt to work other Saturdays, but aside from that I have weekends off. I would definitely be open to some weekend gaming.
Billy, you’ve definitely got me wanting to, at the very least, look into Shadowrun. If for no other reason than to see what all the hype around orcs is. I mean, I’m not in the least be surprised that they’re the best physical combatants, but now I wanna learn the details. That, and now I really want to play Shadowrun.
July 25th, 2011 2:59 AM
Just wander around here a bit:
http://www.dumpshock.com
The forum’s the best source for info about the game I’ve found, and the authors hang out there too. That aside, all my potential characters for if I’m ever not GM are Orks. A seriously badass marital artist, and a sniper who’s not as badass, but I’m tweaking up bit.
July 26th, 2011 11:17 AM
Thanks for the link, kind sir. I shall make use of it.