Quote from: Corolinth on January 02, 2025, 05:14:41 PMAs for orcs, don't underestimate how much the male of the species values the female. In a mating economy that's as lopsided as 3 men for every woman, the women are calling the shots. That's just how it works. If it's 3:1 in favor of men, the men are similarly empowered to make demands. Beating up a woman who made fun of your speech when there's 3 men for every woman is how you get your nuts stomped by every other man in town.

No, that's how you likely end up with a society where females are kept as slaves. At the very least, you're looking at civil war or a fracturing of society. You can't cut a large portion of a population off from mates and have them treated as lesser beings without repercussions. You especially can't do that when the species in question is specifically known for having short tempers and acting impulsively.

But as I said, the GM can adjust things to fit their preferences without too much trouble.

Quote from: Brand55 on January 02, 2025, 06:32:13 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on January 02, 2025, 05:14:41 PMAs for orcs, don't underestimate how much the male of the species values the female. In a mating economy that's as lopsided as 3 men for every woman, the women are calling the shots. That's just how it works. If it's 3:1 in favor of men, the men are similarly empowered to make demands. Beating up a woman who made fun of your speech when there's 3 men for every woman is how you get your nuts stomped by every other man in town.

No, that's how you likely end up with a society where females are kept as slaves. At the very least, you're looking at civil war or a fracturing of society. You can't cut a large portion of a population off from mates and have them treated as lesser beings without repercussions. You especially can't do that when the species in question is specifically known for having short tempers and acting impulsively.

But as I said, the GM can adjust things to fit their preferences without too much trouble.

You're forgetting that the males who are getting mates are also short-tempered and act impulsively. When Jealous Grok gets out of line and starts smacking around Mean Mongo's woman, Mongo stomps the shit out of Grok. You're also going to have other male orcs who aren't getting any mates enforcing that sort of law in the hopes that women see him acting that way and pick him. Basically, there's no shortage of short-tempered impulsive male orcs ready and willing to be violent towards Grok in order to look good in front of the women.

You most certainly do not get a situation where the women are kept as slaves. That's going to end up with a much larger group of male orcs who are cut off from mates and treated as lesser beings. The scenario where women end up kept as slaves is the one where there are 3 females for every male. There are few males to protect them from predation, so they're going to do whatever the males want in order to get that protection. That's why over a billion people on Earth trace their lineage back to Genghis Khan. Men were relatively uncommon back in those times, because we killed each other in large numbers.

Quote from: Corolinth on January 02, 2025, 05:14:41 PMYou're forgetting that the males who are getting mates are also short-tempered and act impulsively. When Jealous Grok gets out of line and starts smacking around Mean Mongo's woman, Mongo stomps the shit out of Grok. You're also going to have other male orcs who aren't getting any mates enforcing that sort of law in the hopes that women see him acting that way and pick him. Basically, there's no shortage of short-tempered impulsive male orcs ready and willing to be violent towards Grok in order to look good in front of the women.

You most certainly do not get a situation where the women are kept as slaves. That's going to end up with a much larger group of male orcs who are cut off from mates and treated as lesser beings. The scenario where women end up kept as slaves is the one where there are 3 females for every male. There are few males to protect them from predation, so they're going to do whatever the males want in order to get that protection. That's why over a billion people on Earth trace their lineage back to Genghis Khan. Men were relatively uncommon back in those times, because we killed each other in large numbers.

Female orcs aren't any weaker than males (in fact, the statted female NPCs have overall better scores than any of the men) so the comparison to human women needing men falls short. What the situation in FL does is turn female orcs into a very important resource, and history is full of the terrible things people will do to acquire vital, scarce resources. Mean Mongo can beat the crap out of Jealous Grok, but he'll be SOL when Grok and some other orcs jump him one night to remove a rival and get a chance at improving their position.

Off the top of my head, I can't recall any situation in history where there were ever 3 females to 1 male, or even 2 to 1. That's a recipe for disaster. Even in modern instances of demographic crisis like Russia, it's nowhere near that extreme. If you flip that around so that it's women in the minority, you have a population that is going to start shrinking rapidly unless the females focus solely on breeding--and thus the incentive to keep them as chattel, not a ruling class.

Anyway, I don't want to derail the thread by getting into real world stuff. And as I said earlier, it's easy to alter for GMs who want something more believable. Just changing the demographics to be a bit more balanced between men and women goes a long way to making orc society sustainable.

Quote from: Brand55 on January 03, 2025, 01:41:50 PMOff the top of my head, I can't recall any situation in history where there were ever 3 females to 1 male, or even 2 to 1. That's a recipe for disaster. Even in modern instances of demographic crisis like Russia, it's nowhere near that extreme. If you flip that around so that it's women in the minority, you have a population that is going to start shrinking rapidly unless the females focus solely on breeding--and thus the incentive to keep them as chattel, not a ruling class.

Orcs aren't humans, though, and this is fantasy so the standards of human history aren't applicable. Orc women might have large litters of babies, making it easy to maintain population.

The orcs of Hârn are humanoid in form, but they have an insect-like social structure, with a single gigantic queen who births huge numbers of eggs. Other females are born who are larger and more dangerous than the males (but smaller than a queen). They generally form a "Queen's Guard" who are kept segregated and in reserve. Only when the tribe has the resources to form a new colony does one of the females mate and turns into a new queen.

In my experience, some political advocates of either side aren't comfortable with gender roles different than humans. Some conservatives want only traditional human gender roles, while some liberals want only progressive human egalitarianism.

But in fantasy, there's room for a much wider range of possibilities.

Quote from: jhkim on January 03, 2025, 02:21:58 PMOrcs aren't humans, though, and this is fantasy so the standards of human history aren't applicable. Orc women might have large litters of babies, making it easy to maintain population.

I'm not arguing that they are. I was responding to Corolinth's assertions regarding real world scenarios, so my paragraph is mainly talking about that. I'm not questioning the setting of Forbidden Lands with regards to the viability of orcs producing enough offspring; female orcs do give birth to numerous offspring and there's a lot we don't know with regards to things like rates of sterility, so any such argument would be pure conjecture.

We do have numbers for other things, though. Seven out of eight births are male, and half those won't survive to maturity. So even if not a single female infant or child dies (unlikely), you're still looking at 3.5 males reaching maturity for every single female. Yet they exist in a society where over half the males live as slaves or otherwise have no access to a partner and just decide to placidly go along with it instead of rebelling, escaping, or otherwise fighting back against the people in charge who treat them like dirt. That would be hard to accept with humans. For orcs as they're described, it's ludicrous.

Anyway, I don't really want to turn this thread into a debate about Forbidden Lands' setting, especially since it isn't likely to go anywhere. People will either be content with things as laid out or change them to fit what they think is better.

lol

Dude, I HATE being that guy, but those videos are WAY off-topic.