There was some discussion of orcs in the recent thread, If you have fun killing orcs in your game, you're a racist murderer - but that is mostly about the politics.

I was interested in a thread about alternate visions of orcs in play. For example, in Shadowrun, orcs are mostly regular members of society - though they have many of the same stereotypes. In the Sovereign Stone system, orcs are reimagined as a proud seafaring race - along with some other reversals, like elves being mainly urban. It seemed a little forced to me, but I never played it. I did play a GURPS Fantasy campaign a few years ago in a homebrew world where orcs were integrated into society along with dwarves and humans - with elves and halflings being particularly strange. My PC was an orc - a scion of a rich orcish family of arms dealer, who had some magical talent in enhancing his arms that helped them sell better. There are also a few game offshoots where all PCs are orcs - but those are usually about playing straight to the stereotypes rather than changing what orcs are like. There are some variations, such as the insect-like lifecycle of Harnish orcs.

What other variations of orcs have people seen?  Did they work well?

I liked playing my rich arms merchant and his orcish family. His orc family played well as the sort of crass, partly criminal arms merchants of the city. It was playing against type to have an orc who is a rich merchant - but still connected to the original vision of orcs as a warlike proletariat. I haven't played that much Shadowrun, but I've seen some orc characters there who similarly went partly against type but were still interesting. To my mind, they still seem like orcs - but that is a matter of opinion, of course. Thoughts?

Quote from: jhkim;1036718There was some discussion of orcs in the recent thread, If you have fun killing orcs in your game, you're a racist murderer - but that is mostly about the politics.

I was interested in a thread about alternate visions of orcs in play. For example, in Shadowrun, orcs are mostly regular members of society - though they have many of the same stereotypes. In the Sovereign Stone system, orcs are reimagined as a proud seafaring race - along with some other reversals, like elves being mainly urban.

In sovereign stone, I don't think it was a reversal so much as a play on the name, orc and orca. The other stuff was a bit odd, with the Elves being Japanese basically and IIRC, the dwarves were like mongols.

But as I've probably mentioned here a few times, in my game orcs are basically neanderthals, or to neanderthals what modern humans are to cro magnon. They fit most things that orcs are: mostly meat eaters (not farmers), stronger than humans, a bit dumber, probably more aggressive/violent, can cross-breed with humans.

Years and years ago I read a sci-fi novel about a neanderthal where they were re-created Jurassic Park style and I think colonized a planet. The story followed a young one who fell in with a human girl (I think her vehicle crashed) and they had to travel together. I think he returned her home. I don't remember the details, but I remember him being a bit slow, overly emotionally, and stronger than he realized. Sort of like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, but able to think for himself more, just a more deliberate thought process.

edit: After some googling, it turns out it was Serpents Catch and Path of the Hero by Dave Wolverton, not as old as I thought, only 1991

There are the Orcs of the Elder Scrolls game. Fully integrated as part of the larger society, but maintaining older tribal roots.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Orsimer

My baseline concept for orcs is from TFT, where orcs have exactly the same stats as humans, and are just more pugnacious and nasty and greedy than humans, have sharp teeth, many colors, and actually don't hate any particular race but are hated by dwarves and elves. Their differences are just cosmetic and behavioral / cultural. They're not intrinsically "evil" and can be "good" though TFT doesn't have alignments or mechanical morality.

Goblins are a different race and are smaller and weaker than most races, but they're actually the most intelligent race and can't break their word, which I find pretty interesting.

Hobgoblins are bigger dumb goblins who are generally pretty incompetent.

Rarely, a goblin-hobgoblin half-breed ends up being both strong and smart, which is an exception to other TFT half-breeds, which are rare, usually infertile, and generally just half-way between the parents.

I'm still pretty fond of the TFT versions of the fantasy races. Most (orcs, elves, dwarves) are not very different from humans, the differences are pretty down-to-earth (no "infravision" or super-powers), and I like the lack of excessive numbers of weird races and no races that seem designed to give players a way to be a super-hero (well, maybe reptile men, but at least they aren't "draconians" or whatever).

(I almost posted about TFT races in that thread, but I'm trying not to fuel the fires in those annoying threads that seem to be sucking the game content out of discussions here.)

I rather like the Red Tide setting's Shou, which are basically human-like savages that are separated into different tribes based on size (orcs, goblins/hobgoblins, and bugbears). They'd look pretty similar to humans if it weren't for all the scarification, piercing, teeth-sharpening, etc. that they perform, and while they are definitely cast in the role of antagonists and not nice people in the slightest I really like how the setting ties them in to the Red Tide itself so they aren't necessarily just another group of enemies for adventuring groups to cut down on their way to glory and riches.

I always used to get a kick out of 40k orks, especially how their belief in the color red made their vehicles go faster. They make all the other fungi races out there look sad in comparison.

Orcs are the reincarnated spirits of wicked humans. The souls of evil men and women stay in Hell but their spirits are harvested by the Abominator and made flesh so that they may walk the earth and wreak havoc upon the humans that they once were. They are genderless as they are not born of other orcs but rather emerge from the slag and slime of the Dark Pits under the deep earth. They hate light because it reveals them as wickedness incarnate and this brings them shame as they are as literally as ugly as sin. They consume human flesh not because they have to eat, but as an act of fury and lust.

I wrote an article for Knockspell magazine with quick & dirty charts to make your orc warband more interesting.

In my OD&D campaign, orcs are broken. Their god is dead, slain by the elves and dwarves. They age 1 year per month, so die off in the 5th or 6th year. They seek out strong personalities (ogres, demons, insane enchantresses, PCs) to follow and obey. In the human Empire, they are used for hard labor or mercenaries. In my OD&D, dungeons are supernatural and radiate fear for 0 level beings. Orcs have 1 HD, so they are fine in dungeons (but easily corrupted).  Thus, as PCs, who do you hire? Cheap dangerous labor or menfolk who aren't cannibals.

My orcs are usually Klingons.

However, my goblinoids are socialist-collectivists with the volume turned up to 11. Goblins are proles, Bugbears are enforcers, and the hobgoblins are the planers and central party members. They used to be the masters of the world but over he centuries became decadent and lost their civilization and its grandeur even though the ruins and legends remain.

13th Age depicts orcs as being Gaia's vengeance. Literally: Gaia hates civilization and births orcs as adults holding weapons, Greek mythology-style, and sends them to destroy civilization. So by default the "heroes" of 13th Age are Captain Planet villains. I though that was pretty cool since it opens a host of narrative opportunities that would not be available to traditional depictions of orcs, while avoiding problems like the annoying orc genocide debate that comes up every once in a while, and invokes traditional mythology in a way that is often lacking in modern fantasy gaming's obsession with pseudo-scientific ecology.

The d20 book Children of the Planes by Tangent Games depicts "leonorks" (leonine orcs) as the good counterparts of orcs, comparable to how drow are the evil counterparts of elves. Their backstory explains them as essentially orc aasimar created by the orc goddess of mercy shortly after she was born in the recent past from the cries of dying orcs.

The blog article "God Hates Orcs" depicts orcs as practicing a religion that mixes elements of Gnosticism and Ancient Maya religion. Rather than being evil, they believe that their atrocities are saving the world from destruction at the hands of thirsting gods.

Wicked Fantasy depicts traditional orcs who killed their evil gods and are now free to choose their own morality.

Warcraft-style noble savage orcs are probably in a few different settings, but the only one I really remember is Scarred Lands, World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game (obviously!), and the cancelled World of Aruneus.

Warhammer 40,000 depicts orcs as intelligent fungi who reproduce by asexual spores. They are completely obsessed with fighting. Goblinoids are the same species under a biological caste system.

Tvtropes has a much larger list.

Since orcs and goblinoids are so similar, for my setting I am considering either merging them or giving orcs a huge revamp.

EDIT: Animal Races: Clan of the Pig takes the idea of pig-faced orcs and expands on it. New orc clans are introduced such as the clans of the hippopotamus, orca whale, warthog and hell pig.

My current campaign has orcs as very lightly reskinned as cat people.  They are tribal, aggressive, territorial, and have status within their tribes on their ability to raid.  They are more chaotic than evil, though.  In fact, they are being pushed into more civilized territory by some more typical evil groups.  

I reskinned them so that I could do the "mostly uncivilized savages with their own culture" thing, but without the baggage that "orcs" would bring to the subject.  In this world, an inescapable evil taint is a product of planar origin, usually, but the replacement orcs are native to the natural world, and fully capable of having any alignment.  Their culture tends to mostly skip the whole "law" thing.

Tunnels & Trolls orcs, or Uruks in later editions, are brutal, strong, but not neccesarilly evil.  They come into frequent conflict with other kindreds because they want the same resources and naturally believe themselves to be superior.

My world:

A high ambient magic field.  Not as high as Discoworld, but noticeably high.

Orcs, goblins, etc, are the results of this high ambient magic field contacting humans' fear of the dark.

Quote from: Certified;1036733There are the Orcs of the Elder Scrolls game. Fully integrated as part of the larger society, but maintaining older tribal roots.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Orsimer

I BELIEVE that they're also a type of Elf species, like the Dark, Wood and High.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1036916My world:

A high ambient magic field.  Not as high as Discoworld, but noticeably high.

Orcs, goblins, etc, are the results of this high ambient magic field contacting humans' fear of the dark.

I did this as well, as well as other 'faery creatures' in an Urban Fantasy game a few years back. Not for D&D, however, hmm, food for thought.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1036921I BELIEVE that they're also a type of Elf species, like the Dark, Wood and High.

Last I read they were, though many high elves would probably dispute that. Disregarding the beast species, in Elder Scrolls the primary races are Men and Mer: Altmer (high elves), Dunmer (dark elves), Bosmer (wood elves), and Orsimer (orcs).

I have my issues with the last few games, but as a whole I have to give TES a lot of credit. It's a setting ripe for adventure. I don't think I've seen anything that can quite match it for having an incredibly rich, intricate history and yet still having tons of details barely sketched out that are just begging for a good writer/GM to use.

Quote from: Brand55;1036936Last I read they were, though many high elves would probably dispute that. Disregarding the beast species, in Elder Scrolls the primary races are Men and Mer: Altmer (high elves), Dunmer (dark elves), Bosmer (wood elves), and Orsimer (orcs).

I have my issues with the last few games, but as a whole I have to give TES a lot of credit. It's a setting ripe for adventure. I don't think I've seen anything that can quite match it for having an incredibly rich, intricate history and yet still having tons of details barely sketched out that are just begging for a good writer/GM to use.

Off topic:  The biggest issue with The Elder Scrolls games have always been Bethesda's lack of ability to code, including designing their own game engine.  However, they do have a lot of 'promise' in their games and are quite fun, as long as you mod the ever loving hell out of them.