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This has been the argument from Millennial D&D players that joined for 5th edition.

The Orcs are supposedly "Black Coded" and this has been a baffling mystery to Gen X players. Orcs have never come across as Black Coded, where the hell are Millennials coming with this accusation?

Well I have the awnser.

It's WoW. World of Warcraft, it's always been Wow.

The Orcs in World of Warcraft have been presented as the oppressed misunderstood minorities against the Alliance, but it goes further than that.

In WoW players could do emotes, flirts, jokes and dances that were programmed in for each race.

Orcs basically got Black Urban American slang and verbiage for a lot of their voice lines.. Like "I feel ya dawg, but I'm not feelin ya" to their Dance being the fucking Electric Slide.

This is all par for the course for Blizzard. The Trolls are blatantly Caribbean and the Tauren are plains Indians. The Dwarves are all Scottish.

Wow was such a phenomenon for Millennials growing up, I truly believe they transposed the Warcraft depiction of Orcs over the D&D depiction and that's how we ended up with "Orcs are black coded."

You're mostly right. As far as I know, Warcraft was the first widely popular franchise to rehab orcs from just savages to noble savages, and WoW gave orcs a certain amount of African flavor (which wasn't so much there in Warcraft 1-3). It's certainly true that WoW is responsible for the current popular conception of most of the classic fantasy races. It's not just the African orcs, it's also the mad scientist gnomes, the big booty goblins, the elves with giant ears, and the general cartoonish, lighthearted and slightly horny tone. WoW didn't invent the "Dwarves are Scottish" trope, but it was a major reinforcer. The Jamaican trolls didn't stick, and neither did the more unique races like the Tauren or Pandaren, but I suspect the Draenei are heavily responsible for the Tiefling boom in the 5th edition era.

Here's the thing, though, and this is coming from a millennial who played WoW shortly after it launched, we thought that shit was HILARIOUS. WoW was extremely silly in the early days (I assume it still is), and it came out in the time where using fantasy races to parody real life ones was still an entirely accepted practice that no one thought twice about. I mean yeah, they made orcs dance like MC Hammer, but they also made Night Elves dance like Michael Jackson and Dwarves like Russian Cossacks. I played Horde and I remember the same people who mained orc characters and would tell you Thrall was their favorite character would also be in voice chat joking about how Orcs should be able to jump farther than other races and get a special ability for running away from city guards.

Because of how radically internet culture changed after the rise of twitter and reddit, people forget that it wasn't that long ago that the internet was the anti-PC wild west. Edgy humor was the "in" thing for millennial teenagers, and WoW reflected that. I suspect that secretly a lot of those now grown-up millennials still think that way behind closed doors, but they've been taught to suppress it by the Boomer/Gen X corporate establishment and the Gen-Z dominated twitter/instagram/tumblr culture.

This is generally the vibe I get. In the 1980's D&D massively shaped the idea of what fantasy was and then WoW was sort of a "round two" of shaping fantasy. I feel like it also locked in a lot of archetypes as well, like shapeshifting druids.

Quote from: Dracones on June 25, 2024, 09:44:18 AMThis is generally the vibe I get. In the 1980's D&D massively shaped the idea of what fantasy was and then WoW was sort of a "round two" of shaping fantasy. I feel like it also locked in a lot of archetypes as well, like shapeshifting druids.

  That would explain why shapeshifting went from more or less a 'ribbon' for AD&D/2E druids to the core of the class's identify during 3E.

I tend to think of Shadowrun where orcs are a mistreated minority.  "Orks are people too" as they say.

The tinker Gnomes came from Dragonlance of course.  World of Warcraft cast its net widely.

I did read an article in Dragon by Gary Gygax, it would have been August or September about a year after D & D 3e came out and WotC was trying to buy goodwill from the fans.  Anhow, in said article he talked about basing the humanoids on the native American tribes around the Chicago area and that they were always intended to be somewhat sympathetic.  As the DM he mostly played the bad guys after all.  But back to our core issue, D & D's orcs were not black people.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 25, 2024, 09:51:29 AM

Quote from: Dracones on June 25, 2024, 09:44:18 AMThis is generally the vibe I get. In the 1980's D&D massively shaped the idea of what fantasy was and then WoW was sort of a "round two" of shaping fantasy. I feel like it also locked in a lot of archetypes as well, like shapeshifting druids.

  That would explain why shapeshifting went from more or less a 'ribbon' for AD&D/2E druids to the core of the class's identify during 3E.

3E and the upgunned Wild Shape predates WoW by a few years.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 25, 2024, 09:51:29 AM

Quote from: Dracones on June 25, 2024, 09:44:18 AMThis is generally the vibe I get. In the 1980's D&D massively shaped the idea of what fantasy was and then WoW was sort of a "round two" of shaping fantasy. I feel like it also locked in a lot of archetypes as well, like shapeshifting druids.

  That would explain why shapeshifting went from more or less a 'ribbon' for AD&D/2E druids to the core of the class's identify during 3E.

Quote from: David Johansen on June 25, 2024, 10:00:24 AMThe tinker Gnomes came from Dragonlance of course.  World of Warcraft cast its net widely.

Yeah, Blizzard has never been a terribly original company. Their strength used to be in taking existing ideas, remixing them, and then mainstreaming them. But hey, you could say the same of Warhammmer, Star Wars and D&D as well, so whatcha gonna do?

Really a lot of this stuff is relatively obvious if you think about it. Somebody at Blizzard probably liked Dragonlance, but ultimately I'd guess Warcraft gnomes turned out the way they did because they needed a steampunk race to pilot the Alliance aircraft in Warcraft II, and gnomes fit the bill. Same thing with goblins for the Horde. Shapeshifting makes sense as a core feature for Druids, especially if you want to separate them from Clerics. There's precedent in folklore and literature for both ideas, too.

Likewise, the faceturn that Orcs did from evil canon-fodder to fantasy Klingons was probably inevitable. People like orcs, and anything people like is going to get expanded upon over time. There's a limit to how much you can expand on one-dimensional villains, and you can easily get demons or gnolls or whatever to fill that role once you move orcs out of it. WoW has a wholly separate race of pig-men to serve the purpose, which are ironically one of the main enemies in the low-level orc zones.

I sometimes wonder if the shoe is not on the other foot given Tolkien's own theological stances on the matter. In his setting only sentient talking beings come from God, souls are the preview of the divine, which made Orcs a bit of a problem since they are talking and crafting beings with "culture" so to speak. but were created by Morgoth not God.

Via Tolkien's letters and notes it seems this problem bothered him a bit, as the typical notion behind them and what seemingly was implied and ended up in the published works was that Orcs were the products of some horrible eugenics project. later Tolkien would perhaps suggest they were more akin to sophisticated animals or P-zombies, a type of hateful automaton but he was too late to codify that into the lore.

For all the Two-faced evils of Leftism it's undeniable that they still appeal to the same core Western Liberal values we share, and as a result they have touched on this weakness in the writing of Orcs. I think I can speak for any sane or moral person, that if you found out the monsters you were fighting had at one point been human, victims of some horrible forced eugenics process, and were more or less indoctrinated from birth, you might have some complex feelings about simply wiping them out given you could have been one of them but for the grace of God.

Thus much media involving Orcs after Tolkien either leaned into them being soulless monsters and automaton such as 40k, or more or less noble savages, such as Warcraft and later versions of D&D. thus the further Left you go, the more reasonable it seems they become coded as some real racial group due to
ambiguity.

As for other shoes on other foots, Millennials I don't believe are as woke or as stupid as some might claim, given certain trends and the privacy of the ballot box, I think they generally are more based the Gen X. most of the leftists I have the misfortune of being related to and deal with are 35+ it's Gen X, the kind of dumb shits that introduced much of the academic woes we have to deal with now, and still act like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are still in power... yeah Gen X can pound sand.

Just dropped on Twitter: a Vtuber, SquidorabL, talks about the stupidity of _-coded

https://x.com/squidorabl/status/1805606725929586952

You lose me at electric slide...that and all line dancing is the whitest thing on earth.

That's a really good insight.  I was wondering how I missed that then realized I always played Alliance.  It just goes to show the difference a language barrier can make

It's simple.  SJWs are obsessed with race so they make everything about race.  Their entire worldview revolves around race so they see everything through the lens of current year race politics whether that makes any sense or not.  It's the same reason why the sort of feminist who writes for The Mary Sue thinks anything and everything is sexist.

Quote from: yosemitemike on June 25, 2024, 02:40:38 PMIt's simple.  SJWs are obsessed with race so they make everything about race.  Their entire worldview revolves around race so they see everything through the lens of current year race politics whether that makes any sense or not.  It's the same reason why the sort of feminist who writes for The Mary Sue thinks anything and everything is sexist.

This.

Plus, noble savage orks were a thing long before WoW. Earthdawn's orcs were very much 1. A playable race, and 2. had social and racial reasons for their reputation that wasn't "They're the bad guys".

But I will agree that WoW popularized the concept.

Quote from: Orphan81 on June 25, 2024, 08:03:29 AMThe Orcs in World of Warcraft have been presented as the oppressed misunderstood minorities against the Alliance, but it goes further than that.

In WoW players could do emotes, flirts, jokes and dances that were programmed in for each race.

Orcs basically got Black Urban American slang and verbiage for a lot of their voice lines.. Like "I feel ya dawg, but I'm not feelin ya" to their Dance being the fucking Electric Slide.

Quote from: David Johansen on June 25, 2024, 10:00:24 AMI tend to think of Shadowrun where orcs are a mistreated minority.  "Orks are people too" as they say.

The tinker Gnomes came from Dragonlance of course.  World of Warcraft cast its net widely.

I did read an article in Dragon by Gary Gygax, it would have been August or September about a year after D & D 3e came out and WotC was trying to buy goodwill from the fans.  Anhow, in said article he talked about basing the humanoids on the native American tribes around the Chicago area and that they were always intended to be somewhat sympathetic.  As the DM he mostly played the bad guys after all.  But back to our core issue, D & D's orcs were not black people.

There are clearly different takes on orcs that progress in different directions. In Lord of the Rings (1954), orcs are a military-industrial complex sort of evil. They destroy forests to build vile factories; and they have great war machines and even a massive bomb. They speak in cockney accents, like urban factory workers in Tolkien's England.

In early D&D (1970s), orcs are no longer industrial, but instead are shown as primitive tribes squabbling with other humanoids. I haven't seen the article referred to, but it seems to track with the more American and specifically Wild West flavor of D&D. David Johansen, do you have a reference for that article?

In Shadowrun (1989), orcs are explicitly urban lower class - rough and tumble, but not evil. They are contrasted with Native Americans, and I didn't pick up on any specific ethnic overtones, but they're certainly a misunderstood minority. It's similar in Earthdawn (1993) as Ratman_tf notes, with a non-modern setting.

I haven't played World of Warcraft (2004), but what I've heard confirms Orphan81's take.

In any of these, there are variations in how people use them. I don't think orcs being associated with a human group is inherently classist or racist. It depends on how it is used. As I said, I don't know WoW so I wouldn't have any judgement on their usage. There are non-racist stories that have an African-themed monster or a European-themed monster or a Mexican-themed monster.

I always felt that if D&D orcs were coded as anything it was native Americans, not blacks.

I disagree, I'd say they're more in line with Mongols in that they're full-time pillagers.  I also mildly disagree with jhkim about Shadowrun in that all metahumans are still human, so they don't really fit into a racial setup as there are literally black orcs, Asian orcs, etc.  Metahumans are widely mistreated by humanity as a whole, most especially the orcs and trolls but even the dwarves and elves to a degree, and racism isn't gone but has been widely supplanted by metatype discrimination, as racists suddenly got less interested in skin color when there's an eight foot tall dude with tusks hanging out on the corner and a bunch of ghouls in the parking garage across the street.  In any event, all of that is to say that orcs are definitely a persecuted minority in Shadowrun, but the feel of it is different from our current standards of racism, especially because a human child can randomly turn into an orc when they hit puberty, while not many children suddenly turn black when they're teenagers.

Quote from: oggsmash on June 25, 2024, 01:53:45 PMYou lose me at electric slide...that and all line dancing is the whitest thing on earth.

FWIW they gave the female orc a booty dance. I don't think twerking had been invented in 2004, but it was the contemporary equivalent.

I didn't know this until just now, but apparently they gave the Tauren (minotaur) female the electric slide. Given that as Orphan81 said, the Tauren where mostly flavored like American Indians, I think that's pretty good evidence they didn't care much about what race got what dance. They just went with whatever cultural reference they thought the audience would laugh at.

Quote from: Valatar on June 25, 2024, 05:01:01 PMI disagree, I'd say they're more in line with Mongols in that they're full-time pillagers.

Yeah I always got a Turkomongol vibe from WoW's orcs, too, though I could never articulate why.

Quote from: jhkim on June 25, 2024, 04:29:04 PMIn any of these, there are variations in how people use them. I don't think orcs being associated with a human group is inherently classist or racist. It depends on how it is used.

This is the part I want to make sure doesn't get lost. As fun as it is to point and laugh at WOTC for failing in their own dumb logic, it's important to not to fall into accepting their premises while doing so.

Well, first off, Tolkien's "orcs" are the original orcs.  He borrowed a line from Beowulf, which was describing the monsters descending from Cain (ultimately resulting in Grendel) as "eotanas, ylfas, and orcneas."  That's giants (and the origin of the term "ettin"), elves, and ... something.  As far as scholars of Anglo-Saxon can surmise, "orcneas" most probably describes a kind of ravenous dead creature (so an undead, in D&D terms something like a zombie or ghoul).

So, Tolkien took that term and expanded on it, coming up with a creature to flesh out an unknown term (much like he turned the Middle English "wuduwasa" into Woodwoses, or wild men of the woods).  That is the origin of orcs.  Before Tolkien, no one really gave that term or its meaning any serious thought, other than as a generic monster or bogeyman.  So Tolkien really did invent the orc, even if he didn't invent the word.

As you can see from the etymology, the ideas of inhumanity and rapaciousness were inherent in the original term.  This is why Tolkien's orcs are generally portrayed as cruel, inhuman, brutal and rapacious.  Only later, when his original construction started to conflict with his religious ideologies, did Tolkien start to soften his idea of what an orc was, where they came from, and how "savable" they might have been.

When EGG decided to frame his orcs as a pig-faced creature, he was deliberately separating himself from the visual representation of the orc, but not the character of the orcs.  They were still inhuman, cruel, and rapacious.

Modern reframing of orcs as analogues or representations of historical cultures miss the point entirely.  Orcs were never intended to be human-adjacent.  They were "enemies," in a truly existential sense.  Humanizing orcs makes as much sense as humanizing ghouls or leeches...

People say that something is coded when they want to equate two things that are clearly not equivalent.  If they were actually equivalent, there wouldn't be any need to throw up a smoke screen by talking about codes. 

Most things are not secret squirrel coded stand-ins for something else.  I would say that the vast majority of things are pretty much just what they seem to be.  Orcs are an evil humanoid race for the PCs to fight.  That's what they seem to be and that's what they are.  There is no secret code.  They aren't coded.  They are just orcs.

Millennials are coded as useful idiots lacking critical thinking skills.

We also have the etymological connection between orc and ogre in medieval and early modern European literature - the 'uerco' of Giambattista Basile, the 'orco' of Oriosto's Orlando Furiosa and Samuel Holland's 'orke' from Don Zara. These works all cast the orc/ogre as flesh eating monsters. As Eirikrautha says, these creations are not the developed idea of the orc as found in Tolkien, but the notion of the orc/ogre as a monster is not coded to the African-American (or whatever) as they are indigenous to European romance literature, quite possibly deriving from the Etruscan underworld god Orcus. 

As I understand it the pig faced orc derives from the Brothers Hildebrandt picture in the 1976 Tolkien Calendar and was first put into D&D by Dave Sutherland III on the inside cover of the Holmes Basic rules of 1977. I read that Gygax thought they were a bit too porcine, but thought it good as they were not quite Tolkien's orcs and he was still smarting over the cease and desist letter from the Tolkien estate.

When you evaluate your virtue based on how outraged you are, it's little surprise that one goes looking for things to be outraged by... and if you can't find something; invent it.

The Left has always leaned towards the mentally ill tween Tumblr crowd and their Oppression Olympics, so it's little wonder that whatever teen boys find interesting or funny (i.e. keeps them from being perpetually miserable self-loathing loads like them) would be prime candidates for their ire and be labeled as "problematic."

As with the Prager-U video of a white guy in a stereotypical Mexican getup (poncho, sombrero, fake handlebar mustache); only the white college girls thought it was was offensive. When he went into a Mexican neighborhood everyone thought he was cool, showed appreciation or was funny.

In the same way, most of the young black men I knew during WoW's heyday thought the "ghetto orcs" were hilarious. They knew it was supposed to be funny and that all the other races were send ups and had fun with it just like every other teenage and twenty-something male was doing.

It was only the mentally ill perpertually unhappy Leftists who had a problem with it... not because of any "coding" but because normal guys were having fun with it instead of being miserable like them. "Coding" was just another excuse by the envious and miserable to try and destroy other peoples' fun so they'd be just as miserable as they are.

And then get ever more outraged when the normies and better adjusted just move on to the next thing instead of wallowing in the misery of what was lost (like they would do for virtue points among themselves whenever they yet again failed at life).

Star Wars fans just keep rewatching the originals and reading the novels from before the Disney Empire. RPGers just keep playing the older editions and laugh at the failure of the mentally ill tween girl direction the new stuff is going. It drives them nuts (well, more nuts).

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 05:07:58 PMAs you can see from the etymology, the ideas of inhumanity and rapaciousness were inherent in the original term.  This is why Tolkien's orcs are generally portrayed as cruel, inhuman, brutal and rapacious.  Only later, when his original construction started to conflict with his religious ideologies, did Tolkien start to soften his idea of what an orc was, where they came from, and how "savable" they might have been.

Tolkien explicitly stated that orcs were redeemable in a letter in 1954, the same year that Lord of the Rings was published, which fits with the theme of mercy for Gollum and others. Maybe that's a change from his early stories in the 1930s, but it was part of his thinking at the time LotR was published.

So even Tolkien evidently missed the point of Tolkien's orcs.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 05:07:58 PMModern reframing of orcs as analogues or representations of historical cultures miss the point entirely.  Orcs were never intended to be human-adjacent.  They were "enemies," in a truly existential sense.  Humanizing orcs makes as much sense as humanizing ghouls or leeches...

"Modern"? Tolkien described orcs as redeemable in 1954. Good-aligned half-orcs have been playable characters in D&D since 1978, and Roger Moore detailed half-orcs and orcish culture in Dragon magazine in the early 1980s. Non-evil orcs were popularized by Shadowrun in 1989. That's 35 years ago, followed soon after by Earthdawn, Warcraft, and plenty of other sources.

You can prefer unredeemable orcs for your games - nothing wrong with that - but it's not particularly modern and even Tolkien said they weren't unredeemable in his world.

Quote from: jhkim on June 25, 2024, 07:42:10 PMSo even Tolkien evidently missed the point of Tolkien's orcs.

Not really. The Wise only think the Orks were bred from captured Elves. However, in his Drúedain essay, it's said that the Orks and Drûghu's consider each other renegades. And then there is the case of The Tale of Adanel which is in his commentaries on Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, the former which is a legend passed down through the wise women of the House of Marach of the Edain about the Fall of Mankind and the shortening of their lifespans (which is commented on by Andreth in her talk with Finrod).

It's not clearly spelled out Orks were clearly Men originally. The true cosmology (Round World) and the fact Quendi awoke first, followed (probably a day later) by Atani (Dwarves and Hobbits probably at roughly the same time) and the fact they were all in scattered locations from one another which would have taken years to reliably 'migrate': Cuiviénen for the Quendi (in the East), Hildórien for the Atani (in the South) and The Misty Mountains, Blue Mountains, and likely the Red Mountains for the Dwarves means the real 'First Age' would have lasted longer than the 3441 years of 2nd Age or the 3021 years of the 3rd (Tolkien says each Age is shorter than the last). That's the only way to reliably explain the variation in Men and later Orks.

In the Tale of Adanel, Melkor finds them not long after they awaken and he basically 'helps' them (sort of like how a drug dealer gives someone 'a little taste for free'). Later he returns and demands worship and Men fall from Eru by doing so (and as such, Eru's last words they ever hear are they will now come to him much quicker than planned, reducing their lifespan). They build a temple and begin sacrificing those who abjure Melkor in this massive temple.

Boom, right there, you have the origin of the Orks.

What's ironic about this whole story is that Eru talks to the first Men in Hildórien, where he doesn't speak to the Elves at all. The Vala Oromë finds the Elves and protects them from the depredations of the Orks (aka corrupted Men in service to Melkor) and then later the Maiar Melian (future wife of Thingol Greycloak), Tarindor (Curumo/Saruman), Olorin (Mithrandir/Gandalf), Hrávandil (Aiwendil/Radagast), Palacendo (Pallando/Rómestámo) and Haimenar (Alatar/Morinehtar) arrive to shepherd the Quendi (and do so in their resplendent forms, unlike how they appeared later as The Istari). However, the Valar take no notice of Men having been born....except MAYBE Ulmo and Mandos. Ulmo because he is everywhere water is present and Mandos because all of a sudden Men start coming to him in The Halls WAY before they should have.

Irony of ironies, the House of Marach, which had The Tale of Adanel preserved among its folk, was the house Sauron ensared using the EXACT same methods Melkor did thousands of years before. That House, that of Hador Golden-hair, was the most numerous of the Dúnedain. They became The Kings Men in Númenór and later the Black Númenóreans in Middle Earth. Fun fact: Queen Berúthiel of Gondor was probably a Black Númenórean from Umbar or the like.

Quote from: jhkim on June 25, 2024, 07:42:10 PMTolkien explicitly stated that orcs were redeemable in a letter in 1954, the same year that Lord of the Rings was published, which fits with the theme of mercy for Gollum and others. Maybe that's a change from his early stories in the 1930s, but it was part of his thinking at the time LotR was published.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 05:07:58 PMOnly later, when his original construction started to conflict with his religious ideologies, did Tolkien start to soften his idea of what an orc was, where they came from, and how "savable" they might have been.

Tolkien developed the idea for his orcs in the late 1920s.  That's 25 years before the Lord of the Rings.  Only you could quote the part of my statement that explains what you are objecting to, and then ignore it.  Never change, you duplicitous buffoon...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 11:28:59 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 25, 2024, 07:42:10 PMTolkien explicitly stated that orcs were redeemable in a letter in 1954, the same year that Lord of the Rings was published, which fits with the theme of mercy for Gollum and others. Maybe that's a change from his early stories in the 1930s, but it was part of his thinking at the time LotR was published.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 05:07:58 PMOnly later, when his original construction started to conflict with his religious ideologies, did Tolkien start to soften his idea of what an orc was, where they came from, and how "savable" they might have been.

Tolkien developed the idea for his orcs in the late 1920s.  That's 25 years before the Lord of the Rings.  Only you could quote the part of my statement that explains what you are objecting to, and then ignore it.

I'm not ignoring it. I specifically pointed it out. Tolkien had the idea for orcs in the late 1920s, but by the time of the Lord of the Rings, his ideas had evolved to the point that he made it explicit that they were redeemable.

This is purism so extreme that even Tolkien writing about orcs in the 1950s is considered (a) modern; and (b) missing the point of orcs. This effectively says that The Lord of the Rings wasn't proper Tolkien, and only his earlier writings had the correct view.

For me, The Lord of the Rings is absolutely central to the Tolkien canon.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 25, 2024, 10:40:34 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 25, 2024, 07:42:10 PMSo even Tolkien evidently missed the point of Tolkien's orcs.

Not really. The Wise only think the Orks were bred from captured Elves. However, in his Drúedain essay, it's said that the Orks and Drûghu's consider each other renegades. (....)

Thanks for the details, but I'm not sure how or if we're disagreeing. Do you think that orcs are redeemable, as Tolkien expressed in his 1954 letter? That's the central point I was commenting on.

Quote from: Orphan81 on June 25, 2024, 08:03:29 AMThe Orcs are supposedly "Black Coded" and this has been a baffling mystery to Gen X players. Orcs have never come across as Black Coded, where the hell are Millennials coming with this accusation?

Its mostly hallucination.
These are the same people who claim Drow are represent black people, represent the oppression of women because they are depicted as evil and so on ad nausium.
Recent one was goblins.

As keep saying. There is NO limit to what they will hallucinate.

Just like there is no limit to what they will claim next is sexist or racist.

These are insane people. They do insane things.

Quote from: jhkim on June 25, 2024, 07:42:10 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 05:07:58 PMModern reframing of orcs as analogues or representations of historical cultures miss the point entirely. 

"Modern"? Tolkien described orcs as redeemable in 1954.

He was talking about a modern reframing of orcs as analogues or representations of real world ethnic. He was not talking about orcs being inherently evil or irredeemable though you responded to that anyway.  Once again, you are being disingenuous and not responding to what the person you are quoting actually said.

Quote from: jhkim on June 26, 2024, 01:53:26 AMThanks for the details, but I'm not sure how or if we're disagreeing. Do you think that orcs are redeemable, as Tolkien expressed in his 1954 letter? That's the central point I was commenting on.

What does it matter?  Generally any fantasy race is portrayed as sentient and intelligent to some degree; with sufficient perseverance and tolerance to pain one could find a goblin, gnoll, orc, drow, naga, whatever, that was not ravenously homicidal.  Spelljammer and Planescape back in the day both had scenarios where, due to various environmental pressures, races that would be at each others' throats were forced to coexist, so in theory one could go and have a chat with an illithid and walk away with their brain still in their skull.  But that didn't alter the general proclivities of those races; by and large they were still evil and still had an eye out for an opportunity to benefit from causing harm to others.  The fact that an orc can theoretically turn out to be a good person does nothing to change the situation when ten of them are running at you with axes.

Quote from: Valatar on June 26, 2024, 03:30:24 AMThe fact that an orc can theoretically turn out to be a good person does nothing to change the situation when ten of them are running at you with axes.

Exactly. I have yet to see a scenario outside of internet hypotheticals, where orcs aren't guilty of something to justify the character's actions or reactions. They'd get the same treatment if they were human miscreants.

Oh, and here's the "black coded orcs" argument in a nutshell.

(https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/106273789_2828920777230582_2820584150653244705_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p180x540&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=13d280&_nc_ohc=EsVMYyXF-8gQ7kNvgFST9ov&_nc_ht=scontent-sea1-1.xx&oh=00_AYAORsA-9oNSLgkV73WuYJNIkDjIy5RA5jtku76RYIbwDQ&oe=66A348B9)

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 25, 2024, 10:40:34 PMWhat's ironic about this whole story is that Eru talks to the first Men in Hildórien, where he doesn't speak to the Elves at all. The Vala Oromë finds the Elves and protects them from the depredations of the Orks (aka corrupted Men in service to Melkor) and then later the Maiar Melian (future wife of Thingol Greycloak), Tarindor (Curumo/Saruman), Olorin (Mithrandir/Gandalf), Hrávandil (Aiwendil/Radagast), Palacendo (Pallando/Rómestámo) and Haimenar (Alatar/Morinehtar) arrive to shepherd the Quendi (and do so in their resplendent forms, unlike how they appeared later as The Istari). However, the Valar take no notice of Men having been born....except MAYBE Ulmo and Mandos. Ulmo because he is everywhere water is present and Mandos because all of a sudden Men start coming to him in The Halls WAY before they should have.

   Tolkien has a recurring theme in his later work that the Elves are closer/more like the Valar, while Men have a more unique relationship directly with Eru. As a theologian, I'm inclined to see a subtext of Elves being closer to a state of 'pure nature', and thus falling more under the purview of the Valar, who deal with the natural order, while Men are elevated to the supernatural order and thus have a destiny 'beyond the Circles of the World.'

It still boggles my mind that a sign of someone being "progressive" and "not racist" is to immediately connect but ugly savage Orcs with black people.

I grew up and still live in a Red state and my friends and I played D&D during our most edgy and retarded years. If anyone was going to try and make Orcs into black people it would've been us...yet not a single fucking time did we ever imagine that a god damn Orc is "code" for blacks.

Holy fuck the cultural carpetbaggers that infiltrated the hobby have done irreparable damage and they're just going to get away with it. When their bellies are full from sucking the blood from the hobby scene, they're just going to move to the next unfortunate host, leaving another shriveled corpse in their wake.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 26, 2024, 06:30:43 AMOh, and here's the "black coded orcs" argument in a nutshell.

Bull's eye!  You have to be racist to start with in order to be offended by Orcs.

Quote from: jhkim on June 26, 2024, 01:53:26 AMThanks for the details, but I'm not sure how or if we're disagreeing. Do you think that orcs are redeemable, as Tolkien expressed in his 1954 letter? That's the central point I was commenting on.

Well, first of all, D&D Orks and Tolkien's Orks aren't remotely the same. The latter are Humans (Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits and Orks are, in fact, hominids) and fall within the purview of Tolkien's Catholicism. D&D Orks, on the other hand, aren't subject to Catholic thought, being the offspring of a God of Evil (Gruumsh) in a setting where Good & Evil are definable, measurable forces like Electromagnetism. The entire conceit of D&D is that Good/Evil are manifest and not simply something 'in the hearts of Men' and in 'the eye of the beholder'. Once you abandon that core conceit, you may as well give up.

Greetings!

Yeah, "Black Coded" Orcs is simply BS.

As for WOW and D&D--there are vast differences. In WOW, the Draenei, the Orcs, the Goblins, and so on, are all cool, funny, and interesting. The WOTC D&D Woke rationale for Orcs and such is just pathetic, stupid, and hateful.

In WOW, the various races are seasoned with different cultural maps, and are generally positive frameworks. Any kind of criticisms on a racial or social level are merely implied at best. The virtues are front and center, and are also fairly universalized. There is no particular negative stereotyping going on. At the end of the day, WOW's races are all fun.

Noone gets offended.

People--most normal, sane people--remember that WOW is a game. It's supposed to be a bit cartoonish and outlandish, and a bit silly. Extremes are embraced, and highlighted to be fun. Normal people get all of this.

For D&D, well, normal people know this is just a game, too, and have fun with everything. As I mentioned earlier, any "Offense" is really just Marxist crying and racist hatred and division, and drama shrieked about by delusional people.

The hateful Woke ideology is adapted and inspired by its roots in Marxism and Feminism. The "Personal IS Political." Everything is political for the Woke, and their revolutionary, screaming ideology demands that everyone around them must conform to their ideology, or be attacked and destroyed.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Incidentally, does anyone around here know much about the history of how Orcs are portrayed in The Elder Scrolls? After LOTR, D&D, Warhammer, and Warcraft, TES is probably the next most influential fantasy franchise of the last 30 years.

Quote from: SHARK on June 26, 2024, 03:36:42 PMAs for WOW and D&D--there are vast differences. In WOW, the Draenei, the Orcs, the Goblins, and so on, are all cool, funny, and interesting. The WOTC D&D Woke rationale for Orcs and such is just pathetic, stupid, and hateful.

There's a sad irony in the fact that you can draw a direct causal line from well-meaning fantasy writers in the 90s/00s who probably thought of themselves as liberal, wanting to give orcs and goblins more depth and narrative, to their ideological inheritors in the 2020s forcing D&D to remove any kind of depth or character from them. Warhammer/40k, which has never seriously entertained its Orks being anything other than marauding violent simpletons, doesn't really have this controversy. Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 26, 2024, 02:15:13 PMThe entire conceit of D&D is that Good/Evil are manifest and not simply something 'in the hearts of Men' and in 'the eye of the beholder'. Once you abandon that core conceit, you may as well give up.

I mean...why? Lots of fantasy settings get along just fine without that conceit.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 26, 2024, 06:47:36 PMI mean...why? Lots of fantasy settings get along just fine without that conceit.

Do you realize just how many fucking spells and abilities are built around the detection of Alignment? If you abandon that, congratulations, you're not playing D&D. You're playing some other fantasy game.

The woke like to sweep under the rug the fact that listed alignments are not set in stone even. AD&D explained that in one of the core books. Either the MM or DMG.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 26, 2024, 07:08:40 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 26, 2024, 06:47:36 PMI mean...why? Lots of fantasy settings get along just fine without that conceit.

Do you realize just how many fucking spells and abilities are built around the detection of Alignment? If you abandon that, congratulations, you're not playing D&D. You're playing some other fantasy game.

Arguing over how alignment works is about the most quintessentially D&D thing I can think of.

Quote from: Valatar on June 26, 2024, 03:30:24 AM

Quote from: jhkim on June 26, 2024, 01:53:26 AMThanks for the details, but I'm not sure how or if we're disagreeing. Do you think that orcs are redeemable, as Tolkien expressed in his 1954 letter? That's the central point I was commenting on.

What does it matter?  Generally any fantasy race is portrayed as sentient and intelligent to some degree; with sufficient perseverance and tolerance to pain one could find a goblin, gnoll, orc, drow, naga, whatever, that was not ravenously homicidal.  Spelljammer and Planescape back in the day both had scenarios where, due to various environmental pressures, races that would be at each others' throats were forced to coexist, so in theory one could go and have a chat with an illithid and walk away with their brain still in their skull.  But that didn't alter the general proclivities of those races; by and large they were still evil and still had an eye out for an opportunity to benefit from causing harm to others.  The fact that an orc can theoretically turn out to be a good person does nothing to change the situation when ten of them are running at you with axes.

You're jumping around settings here. That question was specific to Tolkien - and orcs in Tolkien aren't the same as orcs in Planescape, which aren't the same as orcs in Shadowrun, Eberron, or a dozen other settings.

In an RPG, there are a lot of other situations than pure combat. In my D&D campaign a few years ago, the PCs allied with some kobolds to defeat a tribe of goblins, but they recruited some surviving goblins to work for them instead of turning them over to the kobolds. Those goblins became long-term NPCs in the group. So the question of goblins' nature was important.

This isn't a new thing. G1 had some escaped orc slaves engaged in a fight against the hill giants. B2 had explicit notes on allying with some tribes of humanoids against others. And there's the even older question about what to do with non-combatant orcs, given that the 1977 Monster Manual specified non-combatant orc women and children in every lair.

Different games and settings do different things with orcs. I had a fire-and-brimstone half-orc cleric in a previous campaign, who was dead set against evil. I had a rich-but-shady arms dealer who was an orc as a PC in a GURPS Fantasy campaign. Shadowrun has lots of orcs as a normal part of society, as did my last D&D campaign because of the setting.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 26, 2024, 02:15:13 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 26, 2024, 01:53:26 AMThanks for the details, but I'm not sure how or if we're disagreeing. Do you think that orcs are redeemable, as Tolkien expressed in his 1954 letter? That's the central point I was commenting on.

Well, first of all, D&D Orks and Tolkien's Orks aren't remotely the same. The latter are Humans (Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits and Orks are, in fact, hominids) and fall within the purview of Tolkien's Catholicism. D&D Orks, on the other hand, aren't subject to Catholic thought, being the offspring of a God of Evil (Gruumsh) in a setting where Good & Evil are definable, measurable forces like Electromagnetism. The entire conceit of D&D is that Good/Evil are manifest and not simply something 'in the hearts of Men' and in 'the eye of the beholder'. Once you abandon that core conceit, you may as well give up.

I agree that Tolkien and D&D orcs are different, and it sounds like you agree that Tolkien's orcs are in some way human and redeemable. This is contrasted with Eirikrautha's point:

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 25, 2024, 05:07:58 PMModern reframing of orcs as analogues or representations of historical cultures miss the point entirely.  Orcs were never intended to be human-adjacent.  They were "enemies," in a truly existential sense.  Humanizing orcs makes as much sense as humanizing ghouls or leeches...

Point being, I agree that orcs were humanized even to a degree in Tolkien, and I don't see anything wrong with there being very different takes on orcs in different games and settings.

As for D&D requiring manifest Good/Evil alignment, that sounds like a definition question. In practice, D&D has been used for everything from exploring alien spaceships, to historical Vikings, to steampunk-like Eberron, to Gothic Earth, etc. By how you put it, some of these will be "not-D&D" instead of D&D. I don't personally care about that label.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 26, 2024, 06:47:36 PMIncidentally, does anyone around here know much about the history of how Orcs are portrayed in The Elder Scrolls? After LOTR, D&D, Warhammer, and Warcraft, TES is probably the next most influential fantasy franchise of the last 30 years.

I think of Tamrielian Orcs as stand-ins for stereotypical Germanic tribes on the frontier of Rome: they come across as aggressive and warlike, have good smithing, far less centralised organisation, somewhat different gods, practice weregild, and individually make really good recruits for your legions but maybe you don't want to let them become the majority of the unit... Some will assimilate just fine.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 26, 2024, 07:08:40 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 26, 2024, 06:47:36 PMI mean...why? Lots of fantasy settings get along just fine without that conceit.

Do you realize just how many fucking spells and abilities are built around the detection of Alignment? If you abandon that, congratulations, you're not playing D&D. You're playing some other fantasy game.

You seem to be stating that as if it were a bad thing; instead of just a thing. There is a vast world of fine fantasy games outside of D&D.

If anything, my biggest gripe would be how many of those alternatives still include far too many elements absorbed from D&D/Tolkein instead of going their own way.

There are way too many settings with savage orcs, magic human-sized elves in the woods and mining mountain dwarves as their defaults. Enough of them also make sure to have a halfling/hobbit expy and when you note the color-coded dragons you know you're dealing with a content creator whose only experience with fantasy is D&D.

Even TSR did better back in the day with its settings like Dragonlance (the whole reason for Draconians was wanting something other than orcs as the foot soldiers of the bad guys), Birthright (each monster was a unique creature, no orcs, only one type of dragon), or Dark Sun (orcs were extinct, no gods, psionics, only a single dragon, etc.) were NOT just repeating the same assumptions with minor variations again and again.

Every WotC supported setting is just a regurgitation of the same things again and again to the point you could mostly define the entire place with a map and what singular trivial element of each race is different (i.e. this time the Halflings live in small communities on the rivers instead of in The Shire or maybe they live on the plains and ride dinosaurs; and the Drow... because every setting must have drow now... are primitives on the Isle of Giants).

Corporate D&D is a tired self-referential property that basically needs outrage marketing to keep eyes on it and edition churn (and splats to sell you the DLC-equivalent character options they left out of the initial release so they could sell it to you later) rather than actually engage in anything genuinely creative.

The real source of "Orcs are coded black" is probably someone from WotC/Hasbro's own marketing department looking for a way to stir up some controversy/virtue signaling points for free advertising.

Sure, as the OP suggests, they probably reached that idea by drawing from WoW's version of orcs (which D&D has been steering their art towards ever since it exploded), but it was the need for more outrage/attention by someone IN WotC that got that connection made in the first place.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 27, 2024, 08:29:50 AM

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 26, 2024, 07:08:40 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 26, 2024, 06:47:36 PMI mean...why? Lots of fantasy settings get along just fine without that conceit.

Do you realize just how many fucking spells and abilities are built around the detection of Alignment? If you abandon that, congratulations, you're not playing D&D. You're playing some other fantasy game.

You seem to be stating that as if it were a bad thing; instead of just a thing. There is a vast world of fine fantasy games outside of D&D.

If anything, my biggest gripe would be how many of those alternatives still include far too many elements absorbed from D&D/Tolkein instead of going their own way.

There are way too many settings with savage orcs, magic human-sized elves in the woods and mining mountain dwarves as their defaults. Enough of them also make sure to have a halfling/hobbit expy and when you note the color-coded dragons you know you're dealing with a content creator whose only experience with fantasy is D&D.

Even TSR did better back in the day with its settings like Dragonlance (the whole reason for Draconians was wanting something other than orcs as the foot soldiers of the bad guys), Birthright (each monster was a unique creature, no orcs, only one type of dragon), or Dark Sun (orcs were extinct, no gods, psionics, only a single dragon, etc.) were NOT just repeating the same assumptions with minor variations again and again.

Every WotC supported setting is just a regurgitation of the same things again and again to the point you could mostly define the entire place with a map and what singular trivial element of each race is different (i.e. this time the Halflings live in small communities on the rivers instead of in The Shire or maybe they live on the plains and ride dinosaurs; and the Drow... because every setting must have drow now... are primitives on the Isle of Giants).

Corporate D&D is a tired self-referential property that basically needs outrage marketing to keep eyes on it and edition churn (and splats to sell you the DLC-equivalent character options they left out of the initial release so they could sell it to you later) rather than actually engage in anything genuinely creative.

The real source of "Orcs are coded black" is probably someone from WotC/Hasbro's own marketing department looking for a way to stir up some controversy/virtue signaling points for free advertising.

Sure, as the OP suggests, they probably reached that idea by drawing from WoW's version of orcs (which D&D has been steering their art towards ever since it exploded), but it was the need for more outrage/attention by someone IN WotC that got that connection made in the first place.

Greetings!

Chris, I get your frustration and critique of WOTC and D&D for lack of creativity, or any kind of originality.

However, as I have long observed, people in general, and the market as a whole, REJECT NON-STANDARD D&D as a foundation. TALISLANTA provided originality and vast creativity by the trainload...and yet, was a disappointing failure. Tenbones, ever a champion of Talislanta along with myself, also agrees with such an assessment.

All of the frustration and chewing about "I want original worlds and true creativity! Something that breaks away from the Tolkien bubble!" is actually the lament of a distinct minority. The fact is, Talislanta came out in the 1980's. Before that, there was another outstanding and creative game world--Arduin. Both were failures. That was some 40 years ago, and the dynamic has carried through every decade, including the present. The majority *want* Tolkien-Bubble recycles. That's the deep truth, my friend.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 27, 2024, 08:29:50 AMEvery WotC supported setting is just a regurgitation of the same things again and again to the point you could mostly define the entire place with a map and what singular trivial element of each race is different (i.e. this time the Halflings live in small communities on the rivers instead of in The Shire or maybe they live on the plains and ride dinosaurs; and the Drow... because every setting must have drow now... are primitives on the Isle of Giants).

WOTC has painted themselves into this creative corner, due to their desire for marketing purposes to have all of their race/class options be playable in all settings.

In fairness, this can be kind of a difficult trap to write your way out of. I often see fantasy settings with unique races and find myself thinking "OK, but you just re-skinned elves, dwarfs and halflings, so what was the point?". I've even seen the reskinning allegation leveled at the Legend of Zelda, with its Zoras, Gorons and Kokiri, though I wouldn't necessarily agree.

Quote from: SHARK on June 27, 2024, 10:02:52 AMAll of the frustration and chewing about "I want original worlds and true creativity! Something that breaks away from the Tolkien bubble!" is actually the lament of a distinct minority. The fact is, Talislanta came out in the 1980's. Before that, there was another outstanding and creative game world--Arduin. Both were failures. That was some 40 years ago, and the dynamic has carried through every decade, including the present. The majority *want* Tolkien-Bubble recycles. That's the deep truth, my friend.

The pattern I've seen in my time with the RPG world is that there is a demand for more out-there and creative concepts, but they have a hard time sticking. You see complaints like Chris' (with which I hugely sympathize) all the time. I believe there's even a TV Tropes entry for "my elves are different". Most DMs go through a phase of trying to make their homebrew settings as unlike classic D&D as possible, but inevitably they always go back to the Tolkien/Gygax standards after a while.

I tend to attribute this to the limitations of the medium. I'm sure I've said this before, but the big difficulty with RPG world-building is getting 4-6 people around the table to all imagine close enough to the same thing. If as a DM you try to describe things to your players that they aren't already familiar with, you up the chances of confusion at the table, and increase the amount of game time you have to spend on exposition. When non-standard fantasy settings are successful, it's usually by importing other extremely well known tropes from horror, scifi or history.

I suspect that if Talislanta had been introduced to the world via a visual medium like a videogame or comic book, it would have had an easier time getting traction. I browse the Roll20 listings from time to time, and there is almost always someone running a One Piece campaign. One Piece is one of the zaniest and most original fantasy settings out there today, but it has 20+ years of comics, movies, TV and videogames out there to explicate its world, and which anyone signing up for that game is going to be familiar with.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 12:03:43 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 27, 2024, 08:29:50 AMEvery WotC supported setting is just a regurgitation of the same things again and again to the point you could mostly define the entire place with a map and what singular trivial element of each race is different (i.e. this time the Halflings live in small communities on the rivers instead of in The Shire or maybe they live on the plains and ride dinosaurs; and the Drow... because every setting must have drow now... are primitives on the Isle of Giants).

WOTC has painted themselves into this creative corner, due to their desire for marketing purposes to have all of their race/class options be playable in all settings.

In fairness, this can be kind of a difficult trap to write your way out of. I often see fantasy settings with unique races and find myself thinking "OK, but you just re-skinned elves, dwarfs and halflings, so what was the point?". I've even seen the reskinning allegation leveled at the Legend of Zelda, with its Zoras, Gorons and Kokiri, though I wouldn't necessarily agree.

Quote from: SHARK on June 27, 2024, 10:02:52 AMAll of the frustration and chewing about "I want original worlds and true creativity! Something that breaks away from the Tolkien bubble!" is actually the lament of a distinct minority. The fact is, Talislanta came out in the 1980's. Before that, there was another outstanding and creative game world--Arduin. Both were failures. That was some 40 years ago, and the dynamic has carried through every decade, including the present. The majority *want* Tolkien-Bubble recycles. That's the deep truth, my friend.

The pattern I've seen in my time with the RPG world is that there is a demand for more out-there and creative concepts, but they have a hard time sticking. You see complaints like Chris' (with which I hugely sympathize) all the time. I believe there's even a TV Tropes entry for "my elves are different". Most DMs go through a phase of trying to make their homebrew settings as unlike classic D&D as possible, but inevitably they always go back to the Tolkien/Gygax standards after a while.

I tend to attribute this to the limitations of the medium. I'm sure I've said this before, but the big difficulty with RPG world-building is getting 4-6 people around the table to all imagine close enough to the same thing. If as a DM you try to describe things to your players that they aren't already familiar with, you up the chances of confusion at the table, and increase the amount of game time you have to spend on exposition. When non-standard fantasy settings are successful, it's usually by importing other extremely well known tropes from horror, scifi or history.

I suspect that if Talislanta had been introduced to the world via a visual medium like a videogame or comic book, it would have had an easier time getting traction. I browse the Roll20 listings from time to time, and there is almost always someone running a One Piece campaign. One Piece is one of the zaniest and most original fantasy settings out there today, but it has 20+ years of comics, movies, TV and videogames out there to explicate its world, and which anyone signing up for that game is going to be familiar with.

Greetings!

Yes, my friend, quite right! I remember Talislanta's famous marketing tagline--"NO ELVES!" *Laughing* Talislanta was absolutely creative, fresh, and very much *not* in the traditional, Tolkien bubble. But you know what? Exactly. My players were momentarily intrigued--but ultimately, they balked at Talislanta. Why? Not identifiable. Too many weirdly coloured races, strange animal races, offbeat, mystical religions. They simply could not get into it.

Hell, you don't even have to imagine a Fantasy world to get that kind of rejection. NYAMBE, an awesome D&D game setting for 3E, was entirely set in an African-like setting. You could, of course, make Nyambe part of any world you desired. You could run entire campaigns with Nyambe Characters, set in the Nyambe setting. Very innovative, creative, and different.

Nyambe also *failed* pretty hard. The Ars Magica company, the Nephew people, the owners, originally embraced publishing Nyambe with lots of fanfare and applause. Within a year or two, Nyambe was unplugged and died. Why? Lack of sales. No one wanted to buy Nyambe or play games in Nyambe. They did Nyambe up good, too. Hardcover book, full colour, maps, great layout, all the good stuff. Yes, I bought it cheerfully. Fantastic book, awesome options, creativity, and all the while being *different*--while also familiar, as it was D&D. Still, sadly, Nyambe failed. And Nyambe, being set in an African setting--everyone was BLACK, or perhaps a non-human animal race. All the Humans were BLACK though! *Laughing* Where were all the legions of Woke Liberals buying up NYAMBE? That's right. They all yawned at it, and said we want to be in White Supremacist Tolkien worlds! *Laughing*

I know. I know. It's frustrating, but yes, the vast majority of gamers want the traditional, Tolkien Bubble. As you said, only a few niche games can avoid doing that and keep the lights on. Science Fiction, Gummy Bears Walking With Mommy, whatever.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

There was also that Spears of the Dawn setting in a mythical Africa, which I believed tanked and is considered borderline Problematic by the current culture gestapo.

Is it the addition new stuff that caused these failures or just the lack of Tolkien elements?

Would a sword and sorcery setting  fail as well?

It's also possible that Nyambe just got lost in the massive glut of D20 product. 

Quote from: SHARK on June 27, 2024, 10:02:52 AMAll of the frustration and chewing about "I want original worlds and true creativity! Something that breaks away from the Tolkien bubble!" is actually the lament of a distinct minority. The fact is, Talislanta came out in the 1980's. Before that, there was another outstanding and creative game world--Arduin. Both were failures. That was some 40 years ago, and the dynamic has carried through every decade, including the present. The majority *want* Tolkien-Bubble recycles.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 12:03:43 PMI tend to attribute this to the limitations of the medium. I'm sure I've said this before, but the big difficulty with RPG world-building is getting 4-6 people around the table to all imagine close enough to the same thing. If as a DM you try to describe things to your players that they aren't already familiar with, you up the chances of confusion at the table, and increase the amount of game time you have to spend on exposition. When non-standard fantasy settings are successful, it's usually by importing other extremely well known tropes from horror, scifi or history.

I broadly agree that settings like Talislanta are blips compared to standard D&D. The most successful other games are mostly licensed properties like Call of Cthulhu and Star Wars, where the players can all imagine based on the familiar elements of those worlds that they already know.

It seems like RPGs have a very strong network effect, which is what has kept D&D on top. The more that people can drop into a different D&D game easily, the stronger the network becomes. The whole network becomes more popular and grows if they can take supplements, adventures, and other material from one game and drop them into another. Players like it if they can join without learning new rules, and play their favorite race and class.

I think WotC has been very successful in feeding into the network effect in marketing:

• Only having one ruleset instead of TSR's two lines (B/X and advanced).
• Encouraging other developers to feed into their network via D20 and the OGL.
• Having settings with the same rules and the same core elements (races, classes, monsters) as much as possible.

Just because the network is popular, though, isn't an endorsement of either D&D or WotC. Personally, I played D&D as a youth, and occasionally dabbled in it over the decades, but most of my gaming has been unrelated to D&D. I've played 5E the most of any edition, but it was always just one of several options.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 12:03:43 PMWOTC has painted themselves into this creative corner, due to their desire for marketing purposes to have all of their race/class options be playable in all settings.

In fairness, this can be kind of a difficult trap to write your way out of. I often see fantasy settings with unique races and find myself thinking "OK, but you just re-skinned elves, dwarfs and halflings, so what was the point?".

This is true.

In my opinion; D&D would be a stronger game if it picked a single setting, and developed it's in-game lore around that rather than than the current model; Where they pretend that they are a "universal" fantasy RPG.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 27, 2024, 08:29:50 AMThe real source of "Orcs are coded black" is probably someone from WotC/Hasbro's own marketing department looking for a way to stir up some controversy/virtue signaling points for free advertising.

At this point, I really don't think that they are consciously doing 'outrage marketing' of any kind. If they ever truly were.

In my opinion; everyone at Wotc are true believers, and they think what they are putting out for public consumption is actually good...

Quote from: SHARK on June 27, 2024, 10:02:52 AMAll of the frustration and chewing about "I want original worlds and true creativity! Something that breaks away from the Tolkien bubble!" is actually the lament of a distinct minority. The fact is, Talislanta came out in the 1980's. Before that, there was another outstanding and creative game world--Arduin. Both were failures. That was some 40 years ago, and the dynamic has carried through every decade, including the present. The majority *want* Tolkien-Bubble recycles. That's the deep truth, my friend.

It is possible to have creativity even within that bubble.

The mainstream popularity of The Witcher (video games and books), and Game of Thrones (books and tv Shows) IP are proofs of concept that if you come up with a good enough hook; people will want to "play" in your sandbox.

The inability of the RPG industry to translate either of them to playable games is more of a comment on the people behind those games that the IP's themselves.

Also worth noting that both of those IP are far less "kitchen sink' than core D&D.

Quote from: Ruprecht on June 27, 2024, 03:52:09 PMWould a sword and sorcery setting  fail as well?

With the usual caveat that no one can agree on what "sword and sorcery" actually means, no. Howard's Hyborean Age is a perennial favorite RPG setting, I think largely because it is also full of very recognizable tropes. The same is true for the Lovecraft Mythos. Unimaginable horrors they might be, but at this point pretty much every gamer knows what Mi-Go, Deep Ones, Cthulhu, Elder Things, Nightgaunts and Nyarlathotep are.

However, I don't think human-only fantasy settings will ever be as successful as ones with player races. It might not run to my preferences, but it's a fact that getting to play some kind of fantastical creature is a huge appeal for a lot of players.

Quote from: SHARK on June 27, 2024, 02:35:30 PMMy players were momentarily intrigued--but ultimately, they balked at Talislanta. Why? Not identifiable. Too many weirdly coloured races, strange animal races, offbeat, mystical religions. They simply could not get into it.

Yeah, most players are pretty lazy when it comes to setting lore. They don't want to do a bunch of reading to get their head around a unique setting. They'd much rather be told "oh in this setting the elves breath water", and then make the same character they've been making for years.   

Quote from: Jaeger on June 27, 2024, 04:46:53 PMIn my opinion; D&D would be a stronger game if it picked a single setting, and developed it's in-game lore around that rather than than the current model; Where they pretend that they are a "universal" fantasy RPG.

Artistically, yes. Commercially? I'm not sure. The illusion of being a universal fantasy game where you can run any setting your imagination can cook up is a big part of D&D's appeal. Admitting that it isn't might invite someone else to take up that mantle and cut into their marketshare.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 27, 2024, 04:46:53 PMThe mainstream popularity of The Witcher (video games and books), and Game of Thrones (books and tv Shows) IP are proofs of concept that if you come up with a good enough hook; people will want to "play" in your sandbox.

I'm not sure that in either of those cases the setting is core to the appeal. Certainly not with GoT. What the fans talk about with that is more the characters and the melodrama. Shear those away and I don't think there'd be much left that people cared about. The Witcher is a bit more complicated, in that you do hear fans talk about the setting a bit,  but I still think the real attachment is to the characters. CD Projekt originally intended to let the players make a custom character in the first Witcher game before deciding to resurrect Geralt, and the success of the games arguably bears out that decision.

Conversely, I think Blizzard missed a trick by not putting out an official Warcraft tabletop game sometime around 2007 when WoW was riding high. Obviously they make enough money from videogames to not give a shit, but if the rules were good, they might have been the big winners of the 4th edition debacle rather than Paizo.

Quote from: jhkim on June 27, 2024, 04:46:16 PMIt seems like RPGs have a very strong network effect, which is what has kept D&D on top. The more that people can drop into a different D&D game easily, the stronger the network becomes. The whole network becomes more popular and grows if they can take supplements, adventures, and other material from one game and drop them into another.

That's certainly true. Relative to something like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, D&D has the additional advantage that the license has rarely changed hands, giving it a continuous publication run and rules continuity those other big settings don't have. Call of Cthulhu has it, but Lovecraftian detective gaming was always going to be more niche than fantasy adventure.

D&D has also benefited hugely from the fact that most of its core elements are not copywriteable. It means that D&D has frequently been ripped off over the years, but the copycats actually benefit D&D's long term lifespan. Some kid whose only experience of fantasy comes from Warcraft or Skyrim can still join a 5e Forgotten Realms campaign and not need any of the major concepts explained to them.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 08:49:15 PMConversely, I think Blizzard missed a trick by not putting out an official Warcraft tabletop game sometime around 2007 when WoW was riding high.

I have a WoW RPG copyright 2003. I've not played it, could be crap, but they did try.

Quote from: Ruprecht on June 27, 2024, 10:45:18 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 08:49:15 PMConversely, I think Blizzard missed a trick by not putting out an official Warcraft tabletop game sometime around 2007 when WoW was riding high.

I have a WoW RPG copyright 2003. I've not played it, could be crap, but they did try.

I never played it but i heard the lore in it was actually really cool but got decanonized as more WoW expansions came out.

Quote from: Ruprecht on June 27, 2024, 10:45:18 PMI have a WoW RPG copyright 2003. I've not played it, could be crap, but they did try.

It was not terrible as its own thing but it didn't have much to do with WoW mechanically.

The only good orc is a dead orc.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 08:49:15 PMI'm not sure that in either of those cases the setting is core to the appeal. Certainly not with GoT. What the fans talk about with that is more the characters and the melodrama. Shear those away and I don't think there'd be much left that people cared about. The Witcher is a bit more complicated, in that you do hear fans talk about the setting a bit,  but I still think the real attachment is to the characters. CD Projekt originally intended to let the players make a custom character in the first Witcher game before deciding to resurrect Geralt, and the success of the games arguably bears out that decision.

As a counterpoint; The virtual evergreen popularity of the Star Wars RPG's. Which has very popular and beloved characters in it. (Original Trilogy...) And very thread bare setting info for GM's in the core books.

I would argue that if you are only pulling setting info from the original trilogy, that you can still run a fun and long campaign. (I've done it.)

Star Wars as an RPG setting is entirely based on the hook of being a group of adventurers getting into trouble in the star wars universe as rebels or ne'er do wells; Because it sounds cool...

If your "setting" has a cool setup and hook, people will want to play in your sandbox.

In my opinion; The Witcher is better RPG material than GoT, and R.Tal really missed a chance to have something meaningful in their stable other than Cyberpunk.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 08:49:15 PMHowever, I don't think human-only fantasy settings will ever be as successful as ones with player races. It might not run to my preferences, but it's a fact that getting to play some kind of fantastical creature is a huge appeal for a lot of players.

While I agree, I also don't think that the fantasy settings need to be overrun with fantastical races either.

Data released by the Baulders gate 3  people, and D&D beyond show that The human fighter is the reigning and defending champion of all times. For races it's Humans, then Elves/Half-Elves, then Dragonborne, then Tieflings, then dwarves, and everything beyond that as a kinda grab-bag.

While only two samples, I think it is not controversial to state that for a fantasy setting, you only really need 2-3 "non-human" races in your setting. And the overwhelming majority of the player base will be satisfied with the options.

While there are always those that push for essentially unlimited choices for PC races, it's now pretty obvious that they have always just been a loud but tiny minority.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 27, 2024, 08:49:15 PMConversely, I think Blizzard missed a trick by not putting out an official Warcraft tabletop game sometime around 2007 when WoW was riding high. Obviously they make enough money from videogames to not give a shit, but if the rules were good, they might have been the big winners of the 4th edition debacle rather than Paizo.

The problem Blizzard had was that there is proportionally very little crossover of video game players to RPG players. It is almost always RPG players crossing over to video games. And RPG players already have D&D...

Blizzard also did not invest in the amount of support it would take for them to establish a market presence like Baizuo had which put them in place to benefit off of 4e's failures. From Blizzards POV; the ROI just wasn't there for them when they were already making billions...

Quote from: DocJones on June 28, 2024, 05:38:58 PMThe only good orc is a dead orc.

This is great wisdom.

Quote from: yosemitemike on June 27, 2024, 04:25:06 PMIt's also possible that Nyambe just got lost in the massive glut of D20 product. 

I seem to remember it being pretty heavily pushed and well reviewed at the time, I saw quite a bit of interest in it and it was heavily featured at my FLGS. I didn't buy it either, but it wasn't invisible. That said, you're right that there was so much product with only so many dollars to go around.

Quote from: shoplifter on June 28, 2024, 06:23:54 PMI seem to remember it being pretty heavily pushed and well reviewed at the time, I saw quite a bit of interest in it and it was heavily featured at my FLGS. I didn't buy it either, but it wasn't invisible. That said, you're right that there was so much product with only so many dollars to go around.

It seemed to be one of those products that was well known and discussed on rpg forums but relatively obscure outside of the minority of people who actively participate in such forums. 

Quote from: yosemitemike on June 25, 2024, 02:40:38 PMIt's simple.  SJWs are obsessed with race so they make everything about race.  Their entire worldview revolves around race so they see everything through the lens of current year race politics whether that makes any sense or not.  It's the same reason why the sort of feminist who writes for The Mary Sue thinks anything and everything is sexist.

Pretty much this. If you're always looking for an 'enemy' you'll find one.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 28, 2024, 05:53:31 PMs a counterpoint; The virtual evergreen popularity of the Star Wars RPG's. Which has very popular and beloved characters in it. (Original Trilogy...) And very thread bare setting info for GM's in the core books.

I would argue that if you are only pulling setting info from the original trilogy, that you can still run a fun and long campaign. (I've done it.)

Star Wars would be near the top of my list of settings that despite not being designed for roleplaying games, are pretty much perfect for it. At least until Disney got a hold of it, Star Wars was always framed as a universe in which any kind of adventure could be happening just off screen. Not only that, but it's a setting in which a DM can make up almost anything they want and have it fit plausibly in the universe.

That said, Star Wars is definitely a franchise in which the fans are as attached to the setting as they are the characters, if not moreso. The success of not only the RPG, but also the MMO, much of the EU, and the KOTOR games bears that out. Affinity for the setting was frequently cited by people as their reason for staying engaged with the franchise after being put off by the prequels. Anyway, barebones setting information in the RPG books doesn't matter much when there has always been tons of setting information for Star Wars available elsewhere. Didn't West End themselves publish literally dozens of sourcebooks for their Star Wars game?

Quote from: Jaeger on June 28, 2024, 05:53:31 PMI also don't think that the fantasy settings need to be overrun with fantastical races either.

Data released by the Baulders gate 3  people, and D&D beyond show that The human fighter is the reigning and defending champion of all times. For races it's Humans, then Elves/Half-Elves, then Dragonborne, then Tieflings, then dwarves, and everything beyond that as a kinda grab-bag.

While only two samples, I think it is not controversial to state that for a fantasy setting, you only really need 2-3 "non-human" races in your setting. And the overwhelming majority of the player base will be satisfied with the options.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that. I think it's just the case that the players who don't care about player races will complain less about their inclusion than the the other group will complain if they are excluded. And of course more races to play makes for easy marketing copy.

I agree that you don't need buckets of player races to be a success, but for me at least, if you want to set yourself aside from D&D, it behooves you to not make the 2-3 you put in elves, dwarfs and halflings.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 28, 2024, 05:53:31 PMThe problem Blizzard had was that there is proportionally very little crossover of video game players to RPG players. It is almost always RPG players crossing over to video games. And RPG players already have D&D...

Blizzard also did not invest in the amount of support it would take for them to establish a market presence like Baizuo had which put them in place to benefit off of 4e's failures. From Blizzards POV; the ROI just wasn't there for them when they were already making billions...

Yeah, I didn't even know the WoW RPG existed. I went and found the pdf, and it's only slightly more high-effort than I would have guessed. There probably was never a world in which Blizzard cared enough to step into the tabletop market and seriously take on D&D. Even if they took all of D&D's marketshare in the late 00s, it would still have been small potatoes compared to what they were bringing in through videogames.

But I do think they could have. The younger generation of roleplayers in that time period did have a lot of crossover with Warcraft players (and videogamers generally), and the older generation was about to desert D&D in droves. WoW and Star Wars are probably the only other fantasy universes which have the potential breadth, and at one point had the economic and cultural clout that would make it possible to unseat D&D's primacy in the RPG market. In both cases, it would have taken a concerted effort from the owners of the IP and a significant cash investment, not just farming the license out to a small company for a few years. Clearly neither Blizzard nor Lucasfilm ever thought it worth the effort. Given what shit-brains the current iterations of Blizzard and Lucasfilm are, probably better they didn't.

Quote from: Orphan81 on June 25, 2024, 08:03:29 AMThis has been the argument from Millennial D&D players that joined for 5th edition.

The Orcs are supposedly "Black Coded" and this has been a baffling mystery to Gen X players. Orcs have never come across as Black Coded, where the hell are Millennials coming with this accusation?

Showing my age (I played AD&D 1st edition when the DMG first came out), but I have never heard the term Black Coded.  Probably because this is as close as I come to social media.

Quote from: Iconoclastic Tim on July 01, 2024, 03:28:07 PMShowing my age (I played AD&D 1st edition when the DMG first came out), but I have never heard the term Black Coded.  Probably because this is as close as I come to social media.

You are blessed and I envy you. But even as an Elder Millennial (Sometime called Xennial) I am already caught in the morass of social media and can never escape, even if I limit how much of it I take in.

That being said the whole 'coded' thing *CAN* be a useful device. There's arguments for things being "Queer" coded as well as "Black Coded" and other things.

It's like... Piccolo from Dragonball. He's a Green guy from another planet. But he's been adopted by black anime fans as he seems "Black" in demeanor... Hell I even thought that as a teenager watching Dragonball back in the 90s.

An example of "Queer Coding" is all the girls with the half shaved side of their head haircut.

The most popular race for Black Players in World of Warcraft *WAS* Orcs funny enough. If that's because Blizzard black coded them first with all the voice lines, dances, emotes and the like, or it came later is a chicken and egg situation..

But a couple years ago Millennial D&D 'players' started to try and argue Orcs have always been "Black Coded" and so having them be mean and brutish and violent is totally racist you guys, we swear!

Now I've been playing D&D since 2nd edition as a kid back in the 90s... I knew D&D orcs were VERY different from World of Warcaft Orcs..

So that's one of my theories on how Orcs ended up getting conflated as being 'coded black'. A lot of Millennial nerds played World of Warcraft *BEFORE* they ever got near Dungeons and Dragons. They brought all that baggage with them.

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/21/71/252171fd44ca1a63eab05c77645a81fb.jpg)

I hope that the reason why D&D is trying to make Orcs Latino now in their art is not in a desperate attempt to copy Dragon Ball Z's success in Latin America...
Most of you already know about the series' enduring popularity with African Americans.