Quote from: Tristan on February 01, 2025, 02:24:53 PM

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:41:33 AM

*Insert Godfather "Look how they massacred my boy!" meme here*

A rainbow cat with danger hair. Ok. I feel you, Godfather.

I'm not saying products with this art style and color palette should be banned or anything, but it does absolutely nothing for me personally. Art can be both vibrant and have some hair on its chest, so to speak. The most recent D&D Player's Handbook is a big, bright, garish warning sign to continue avoiding the product line.

Playable orcs are something where I genuinely don't understand the outrage.  There have been orc and other demi-human protagonists in popular fantasy media for at least 30 years. If anything D&D is late to the party. I don't see how it's an inherently woke idea either. It's just that WOTC's execution of it is, as with most things they do, laughable.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 05:31:02 PMPlayable orcs are something where I genuinely don't understand the outrage.  There have been orc and other demi-human protagonists in popular fantasy media for at least 30 years. If anything D&D is late to the party. I don't see how it's an inherently woke idea either. It's just that WOTC's execution of it is, as with most things they do, laughable.

I think the issue seems to be more that they're just being homongenized into 90% the same mould as other playable character races as the rule rather than the exception.   Think Drizzt being the single good drow for every thousand evil ones whereas now it's more like 100:1 in the opposite direction for player characters.   I don't really have any issue with it but I'm not a fan either.  Also, the addition of half-orcs back in 3/3.5 laid the obvious groundwork for this decades in advance so I'm not surprised.   The exclusion of them (or any playable race) from the MM though is a mistake in my opinion.   Being a playable race doesn't preclude you from being a monster in your life choices (see real life humanity over recorded history for proof) and their removal feels like yet another hamfisted attempt at enforcing THE MESSAGE.

Am I making it up or did orcs also change from being pig-faced to being a more green human +tusks look? I believe it was when Warcraft I came out that orcs got primate faces?
Anyway, I think its a bit silly and pedantic too, but as folks point out D&D is more than Wizards and lots of 5e players are moving to OSR style games as they get older (like me!)

Quote from: bardiclife on February 01, 2025, 05:51:03 PMAm I making it up or did orcs also change from being pig-faced to being a more green human +tusks look? I believe it was when Warcraft I came out that orcs got primate faces?
Anyway, I think its a bit silly and pedantic too, but as folks point out D&D is more than Wizards and lots of 5e players are moving to OSR style games as they get older (like me!)

They've never had a consistent look from artist to artist/decade to decade/setting to setting.  For a while in 3/3.5, they accounted for that with different subraces of orc (mountain, grey, etc)   But, yeah, they're basically now just buff humans with oversized canines and pointy ears.

Doesn't surprise me. It is said that Tolkien embedded everything from racial stereotypes to critiques of organized religion in his works, which obviously D&D is based on. It is curious however, that by removing well-known fantasy races it only makes people focus on the issue even more, assigning fantasy races to actual cultures, which is an undesirable end result since it is meant to be fantasy.

Edit: To be clear, he was said to be anti-racist but pulled from Victorian myths which themselves may have contained stereotypes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_race

Quote from: jhkim on February 01, 2025, 12:39:08 AMRight. And there has never been a generic stat block for "human". And as of 5E (2014), we also didn't have separate stat blocks for "elf", "dwarf", "halfling" and so on. Instead, we had stat blocks for different types of NPCs based on profession like "bandit", "cultist", "guard" - and it was noted that the GM could add racial traits to them.

Which is weird because BX, A and 2e had stat blocks for humans, dwarves, etc.

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:41:33 AMThat might be the best case scenario given what happened with the Sphinx with the 2025 MM.



*Insert Godfather "Look how they massacred my boy!" meme here*

That is supposedly a sphinx?

wow. And here I thought they could not botch art assignments any worse than 4e D&D GW.

They look like normal sized cats, with wings. The Tressym? Think originated in maybe Planescape? Keeps popping up in 4 and 5e? wotc keeps adding them at odd intervals.

Quote from: jhkim on February 01, 2025, 12:02:06 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 01, 2025, 02:39:46 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 01, 2025, 12:39:08 AMRight. And there has never been a generic stat block for "human". And as of 5E (2014), we also didn't have separate stat blocks for "elf", "dwarf", "halfling" and so on. Instead, we had stat blocks for different types of NPCs based on profession like "bandit", "cultist", "guard" - and it was noted that the GM could add racial traits to them.

https://archive.org/details/tsr02102mc1monstrouscompendium/page/n91/mode/2up

Ratman_tf, that's exactly what I'm saying. You linked to a Monstrous Compendium section that has six separate stat blocks for "Aborigines/Cavemen", "Adventurers"*, "Bandits/Brigands"*, "Barbarians/Nomads", "Berserkers/Dervishes", and "Farmers/Herders". (And the two starred ones have a lot of stats that are "variable" based on description.)

There's never been a stat block for plain "human". It depends on the type, because humans are too variable.

But they weren't lumped in with "Humanoids". Because humans are distinct from Orcs and Elves and Dwarves. Or at least they weren't.

Quote from: Omega on February 01, 2025, 08:37:29 PMThat is supposedly a sphinx?

wow. And here I thought they could not botch art assignments any worse than 4e D&D GW.

They look like normal sized cats, with wings. The Tressym? Think originated in maybe Planescape? Keeps popping up in 4 and 5e? wotc keeps adding them at odd intervals.

According to the source, it's a "sphinx of wonder".   I have no idea what that means in 5.5

https://www.enworld.org/threads/more-new-monsters-from-2025-monster-manual-revealed.709584/

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 05:40:11 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 05:31:02 PMPlayable orcs are something where I genuinely don't understand the outrage.  There have been orc and other demi-human protagonists in popular fantasy media for at least 30 years. If anything D&D is late to the party. I don't see how it's an inherently woke idea either. It's just that WOTC's execution of it is, as with most things they do, laughable.

I think the issue seems to be more that they're just being homongenized into 90% the same mould as other playable character races as the rule rather than the exception.  Think Drizzt being the single good drow for every thousand evil ones whereas now it's more like 100:1 in the opposite direction for player characters.  I don't really have any issue with it but I'm not a fan either.  Also, the addition of half-orcs back in 3/3.5 laid the obvious groundwork for this decades in advance so I'm not surprised.  The exclusion of them (or any playable race) from the MM though is a mistake in my opinion.  Being a playable race doesn't preclude you from being a monster in your life choices (see real life humanity over recorded history for proof) and their removal feels like yet another hamfisted attempt at enforcing THE MESSAGE.

Half-Orcs were a player race in 1st edition AD&D. Hearsay, but I've heard that the reason why is that they were a compromise because even back then players were asking for orcs as a player option.

Quote from: bardiclife on February 01, 2025, 05:51:03 PMAm I making it up or did orcs also change from being pig-faced to being a more green human +tusks look? I believe it was when Warcraft I came out that orcs got primate faces?

The pig faces have been gone since 2nd edition, and the look has been semi-consistent since then. Here are the orc illustrations from the Monster Manual across the 5 editions of AD&D:



Up through 2014 5th Edition, I couldn't call that much of a change. They get more or less hairy, the tusks get longer or shorter, colors change, but the basic face is pretty similar. Still, it's probably fair to say that the look gradually came more in line with Warcraft and/or Elder Scrolls orcs. Not surprising, since those were the two biggest fantasy franchises during that time period.

The art I've seen from the 2024 version looks like the biggest departure since the change between first and second edition, but I don't have that book.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 09:03:53 PMHalf-Orcs were a player race in 1st edition AD&D. Hearsay, but I've heard that the reason why is that they were a compromise because even back then players were asking for orcs as a player option.
 

Thanks.  I wasn't aware of that.   Third edition was my real gateway into playing D&D but I did buy books for 2e just for the art/lore (and two ultrashort clueless demo games one on one with my buddy as an equally clueless first time GM).

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:10:07 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 09:03:53 PMHalf-Orcs were a player race in 1st edition AD&D. Hearsay, but I've heard that the reason why is that they were a compromise because even back then players were asking for orcs as a player option.
 

Thanks.  I wasn't aware of that.   Third edition was my real gateway into playing D&D but I did buy books for 2e just for the art/lore (and two ultrashort clueless demo games one on one with my buddy as an equally clueless first time GM).

Same, actually. I suspect that's part of why playable orcs don't move the needle for me. The great Orc heel-face turn was really kicking into gear around the time third edition was out.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 09:37:40 PM

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:10:07 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 09:03:53 PMHalf-Orcs were a player race in 1st edition AD&D. Hearsay, but I've heard that the reason why is that they were a compromise because even back then players were asking for orcs as a player option.
 

Thanks.  I wasn't aware of that.   Third edition was my real gateway into playing D&D but I did buy books for 2e just for the art/lore (and two ultrashort clueless demo games one on one with my buddy as an equally clueless first time GM).

Same, actually. I suspect that's part of why playable orcs don't move the needle for me. The great Orc heel-face turn was really kicking into gear around the time third edition was out.

Also worth noting is that orcs, goblins, ogres, and trolls (non-regenerating) had been playable from the start in Palladium Fantasy along with humans, dwarves, elves, wolfen, and troglodytes).

The Tolkein-esque only human/dwarf/elf/halfling (plus gnome, half-elf, and half-orc in AD&D) was really just a D&D thing.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 02, 2025, 07:49:05 AMAlso worth noting is that orcs, goblins, ogres, and trolls (non-regenerating) had been playable from the start in Palladium Fantasy along with humans, dwarves, elves, wolfen, and troglodytes).

The Tolkein-esque only human/dwarf/elf/halfling (plus gnome, half-elf, and half-orc in AD&D) was really just a D&D thing.

And whales in Rifts.  Don't ever forget the whales!