Quote from: Omega;1139265off topic. But... I dont recall Jews laying waste to civilizations and carrying off the populace to eat.

Me neither, but in the mind of antisemites they did such things. Especially the former.
(I was mostly moved to draw this comparison due to the use of the 'rat' analogy, which was a common antisemitic one. If I replaced 'orc' with 'jew' in that posting and changed the section about intelligence into enabling them to manipulate and infiltrate rather than build war machines, I guarantee you I'd have no problem convincing even scholars it was a translated quote from Der Stürmer.)

Point is, why do you want to write your fantasy creatures like that? Orcs aren't real. When they 'lay waste to civilizations and carry off the populace to eat' they do so because the writer decides that's what they do. And I don't see what the narrative function of that is. To be precise, I don't see what the narrative function of also giving them the appearance of a 'race' or a 'culture' is.

I have to admit I don't get Orcs in D&D.  I haven't used them in a long time and I don't really see any function they fill that couldn't be better be filled by human bandits or raiders.

The last time I used them was a while after the Firefly movie where I basically ripped off reavers and made them a failed magical attempt to turn goblins (which I made peaceful farmers) into supersoldiers.

I've always thought they were just confused.  They either need to be less evil and just another race (which is redundant and boring - but then so are elves, dwarves halfings etc), or they need to be more evil and have some kind of origin that both explains their evil and makes them scary (but that seems campaign specific).

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139270Me neither, but in the mind of antisemites they did such things. Especially the former.
(I was mostly moved to draw this comparison due to the use of the 'rat' analogy, which was a common antisemitic one. If I replaced 'orc' with 'jew' in that posting and changed the section about intelligence into enabling them to manipulate and infiltrate rather than build war machines, I guarantee you I'd have no problem convincing even scholars it was a translated quote from Der Stürmer.)

So, because antisemites made certain inaccurate comparisons about Jews at one point that means that we can never make similar comparisons about something else when they actually do apply? This whole thing eventually becomes silly. Yes, the comparisons might be superficially similar but the contexts are completely different. Comparing Jews to rats is harmful because such comparisons are inaccurate and used to foment hate against them for wrongful reasons. But the comparison is actually accurate when applied to orcs (at least most common depictions of them), and it's not being used to wrongfully foment hate against them, but as an accurate description of their behavior.

Are supposed to never accurately describe things when they apply because antisemites once inaccurately used similar descriptions for Jews? Should we stop describing rats as vermin as well because antisemites described Jews as vermin? Or are we allowed to accept the fact that context is a thing?

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139270Point is, why do you want to write your fantasy creatures like that? Orcs aren't real. When they 'lay waste to civilizations and carry off the populace to eat' they do so because the writer decides that's what they do. And I don't see what the narrative function of that is. To be precise, I don't see what the narrative function of also giving them the appearance of a 'race' or a 'culture' is.

Why shouldn't we write fantasy creatures like that? If they aren't real what does it even matter one way or another? Obviously the "narrative" function of depicting orcs or similar fantasy creatures that way is to create tension and conflict, and the threat of danger. And depicting them as a race with culture (however brutal that culture might be) helps add dimension to them, and make them plausible and believable within the context of a fictional world.

We could could write them another way, sure, and countless people already have (making the whole pointless incessant whining about orcs moot). But that doesn't mean that therefore we should or have to.

Quote from: TJS;1139273I have to admit I don't get Orcs in D&D.  I haven't used them in a long time and I don't really see any function they fill that couldn't be better be filled by human bandits or raiders.

As inhuman monsters.  A Bandit can be bribed, a pirate seduced and sent after a different target.

QuoteThe last time I used them was a while after the Firefly movie where I basically ripped off reavers and made them a failed magical attempt to turn goblins (which I made peaceful farmers) into supersoldiers.

So in your campaign, halflings are orange (or green)?  Why would a cave dwelling, light hating sharp-toothed race be created like that if they are farmers?

It's like later era Star Trek, where the Orions now have big ears and we call them Ferengi, the Klingons have weird necks and we call them Cardassians, and the 'actual' klingons are moron VikingSamurai with stealth technology - you already had something for that (again, stretching the word) ecological niche.

 If you like it, that's fine, but if something that looks like this: pathfinder goblin came to my door in the middle of the night, every instinct would have me killing it.

QuoteI've always thought they were just confused.  They either need to be less evil and just another race (which is redundant and boring - but then so are elves, dwarves halfings etc), or they need to be more evil and have some kind of origin that both explains their evil and makes them scary (but that seems campaign specific).

It didn't used to be campaign specific - Gruumsh and his extended family have been sending their plague across the planes since the beginning of time.

If non-humans are boring, play an all human game, or is that boring too?  

I've had this argument with one of my players re: 'classic' settings.  Same asshole who always begs me to shoe-horn a race into the campaign I didn't plan for.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139270Point is, why do you want to write your fantasy creatures like that? Orcs aren't real. When they 'lay waste to civilizations and carry off the populace to eat' they do so because the writer decides that's what they do. And I don't see what the narrative function of that is.

To give the PCs someone they don't feel bad about killing. It's the same reason Space Invaders didn't give a personality and culture to the little spaceships sliding back and forth across the screen. Nowadays we don't like to dehumanise our human enemies as much as we used to, we recognise that the Japanese (for example) we firebombed were every bit as human as ourselves. Thus, we are not that comfortable about mowing down hordes of Japanese in a computer game or tabletop roleplaying game. We'll still do it, sometimes, but it's not exactly a mainstay of modern media.

Along with the sense of our civilisation being mortal, that's the reason zombie movies and games have become popular: they really are mindless beasts with only the form of humans, so we can have the pleasure of gunning things down without the ensuing angst required of us by modern society.

To hell with orcs! Kill them all! Bottles of flaming oil on their babies!

Getting on a bit of a circular pass here...

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139294To give the PCs someone they don't feel bad about killing. It's the same reason Space Invaders didn't give a personality and culture to the little spaceships sliding back and forth across the screen.

I get then but why then, make them into a 'race' or a 'culture' rather than have them be unnatural monsters?

Quote from: TJS;1139273I have to admit I don't get Orcs in D&D.  I haven't used them in a long time and I don't really see any function they fill that couldn't be better be filled by human bandits or raiders.

Yeah. That is exactly I'm thinking.

Either use humans (or slightly different-looking humans, if you think it necessary) or use supernatural monsters.

The 'sapient human-like beings with culture and civilization... and they are all evil' does not click with me.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139298The 'sapient human-like beings with culture and civilization... and they are all evil' does not click with me.

   Likewise, but I'm coming at it from the same baseline as Tolkien, who had similar issues with his Orcs as he developed his legendarium. One approach I want to try if I ever get around to running a game, inspired by 4E, 13th Age, 3E Ravenloft, discussions on TBP before the rot set in so deep, and elsewhere:

   1. Goblinoids are generally wicked fey who construct bodies out of natural material, and 'killing' them just destroys that body and weakens them as they have to spend time and energy to rebuild, a la Tolkien's Valar and Maiar.

   2. The ones 4E labelled as "Chaotic Evil"--orcs, gnolls, sahuagin, troglodytes--are basically uplifted beasts with elaborate infusion of knowledge/programming but no real rationality or self-awareness. They can use tools and weapons and have sufficient 'AI' to fight effectively and even communicate using preprogrammed responses, but there's no 'person' there. Half-orcs are the result of attempts to apply the process to human beings, but with mixed results and no predilection to evil.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139275Are supposed to never accurately describe things

You cannot "accurately describe" things that do not exist.
Orcs do not exist. In general, species of sapient humanoid beings with advanced cultures and human-like social life who are also vicious animals driven by instinct to destroy other intelligent life do not exist either.

QuoteWhy shouldn't we write fantasy creatures like that?

Reasons of taste, mostly? I would not ever say that fantasies about being justified in slaughtering even small children because they belong to an inherently evil race of quasi-humans should be banned or censored. But I would not want to play something like that, nor would I, as a publisher, support it.

This is way off-topic wrt OA. As I originally said, throwing in OA's scattering of at worst misguided stereotypes with wholesale genocide fantasies is one of the problem.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139303You cannot "accurately describe" things that do not exist.

Except that you can when describing what is or isn't within the context of a fictional world with an established and defined ecology and cosmology. And within the context of most D&D worlds or derivative fiction based off Tolkien or D&D describing orcs as a destructive species comparable to rats (amongst other things) is an accurate comparison.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139303Orcs do not exist. In general, species of sapient humanoid beings with advanced cultures and human-like social life who are also vicious animals driven by instinct to destroy other intelligent life do not exist either.

And neither do happy friendly orcs singing Kumbaya. But they could exist hypothetically, particularly in the context of a fictional world.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139303Reasons of taste, mostly? I would not ever say that fantasies about being justified in slaughtering even small children because they belong to an inherently evil race of quasi-humans should be banned or censored. But I would not want to play something like that, nor would I, as a publisher, support it.

This is way off-topic wrt OA. As I originally said, throwing in OA's scattering of at worst misguided stereotypes with wholesale genocide fantasies is one of the problem.

Who's taste? Yours? You don't even understand context or the idea that you can speak accurately about fictional worlds with established parameters. Why should I trust your taste?

And no one (other than maybe you or Crayon) said anything about being justified in slaughtering imaginary orc children. But the more I see that straw man the more I think that maybe it's a good idea.

Also...

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139294To give the PCs someone they don't feel bad about killing.

No one feels bad about killing human bandits either. I've never seen anyone quit a Cyberpunk session cuz they couldn't take killing humans anymore in a world where all the enemies were basically human (except for the occasional drone or cyber goon that's so heavily modified they're more robot than human). Orcs are traditionally monsters because in Middle Earth they were intended to represent the corrupted beings that were more machine-like or living weapons than human.

But even as a species with a violent culture (as presented in D&D) they still represent an added threat of an enemy that can rarely be reasoned with, and represent the darker impulses that humans have demonstrated throughout history. This is further reinforced by the presence of the orcs' dark gods, who demand blood sacrifice from them, and their spread through conquest of the "lesser" races. Which helps explain how an intelligent species could be driven to such ends: they were created by their gods with such purpose and indoctrinated into it. Could orcs turn from such ways? Perhaps, but that only adds more depth to them in my view.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139314No one feels bad about killing human bandits either. I've never seen anyone quit a Cyberpunk session cuz they couldn't take killing humans anymore in a world where all the enemies were basically human (except for the occasional drone or cyber goon that's so heavily modified they're more robot than human). Orcs are traditionally monsters because in Middle Earth they were intended to represent the corrupted beings that were more machine-like or living weapons than human.

But even as a species with a violent culture (as presented in D&D) they still represent an added threat of an enemy that can rarely be reasoned with, and represent the darker impulses that humans have demonstrated throughout history. This is further reinforced by the presence of the orcs' dark gods, who demand blood sacrifice from them, and their spread through conquest of the "lesser" races. Which helps explain how an intelligent species could be driven to such ends: they were created by their gods with such purpose and indoctrinated into it. Could orcs turn from such ways? Perhaps, but that only adds more depth to them in my view.

I agree. I've had something of a private laugh all this time around people getting worked up about Orcs when, in a game like Conan, nobody gives a second thought to slaughtering countless Picts (stand-ins for Iroquoi) or Stygians (Egyptians). These groups are rarely depicted in a flattering light. And in the case of the Pictish Wilderness there's even a strong element of European colonization encroaching into the Pict territory.

I have half suspected the reason why there's no uproar (yet) around that is because your average player in a Conan game is going to give precisely zero fucks about the "cultural implications" or "problematic nature" of such wanton slaughter. Which, you know, if you pull up a chair in such a game is exactly as it should be.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139297I get then but why then, make them into a 'race' or a 'culture' rather than have them be unnatural monsters?

Because orcs also personify the bad aspects of human behavior. Thus leading into the question of how 'human' are they?
Obviously people fall on different sides of whether orcs are soulless creatures, or noble green savages.

Personally, I've settled (for now) on the idea that orcs are a corrupted race, like in Tolkien. The evil powers took an existing race, (some ur-orc) and made them into what they are today. They are not irredeemable, but it's hard to talk an orc warband out of attacking your village while they're hacking your limbs off. If you tried to reason with an orc, philisophically, they'd laugh and beat your head in. But in rare cases, it can be done.

What did I miss that it now matters whether fantasy creatures are "people" or not? When does this ever come up in-game and why does it matter? What does it even mean?

The important thing in these settings and games is not whether a creature is a "person" or not, but whether they are of a race or group that has goals opposed to your own, or that wants to eat you, right?

The only context in which people (lol) playing D&D would consider whether a creature was a person or not is in regard to ideas about how they have rights. "They're people too!" But rights don't really matter in D&D do they, there's no stat for that, and whether its an insect-monster or a man with a big knife between you and the treasure-chest, you're still gonna find a way to get them out of the way.

Does this make sense? This whole "orcs are people!" thing seems to me to be an attempt to bring questions of societal rights and morality into the fantasy setting, a kind of meta-civil rights movement that is bogglingly weird to me considering that D&D is about fighting things and recovering treasure, not about reshaping the fantasy world in the image of a just and free society.*

Edit:

Quote from: Wulfhelm(in response to post that orcs are evil so we don't feel bad about killing them)I get then but why then, make them into a 'race' or a 'culture' rather than have them be unnatural monsters?

Orcs are unnatural monsters. They are not humans, or cattle, or chickens. They are monstrous. The difference between humans and them is not a question of culture, but of their being a different kind of creature. I don't understand what you're getting at exactly. Do you mean, why are they sentient humanoids? Because they are! What do you mean? Or why do they live in communities like most humanoids do, and not live on their own like a Lich or other solitary humanoid? Because that's part of what defines them, they fill that role. They're a kind of invading-force sort of monster. A stand-in for the archetype of the foreign invader.

Perhaps I've lost the thread of what you guys are talking about. If so I'd like it explained I think.

2nd edit:
*One can use D&D to play that kind of game. It won't work as well as in other game systems, but it could work. That doesn't mean that that's what all D&D is now or should be, though. In most modern adventures the PCs are the good guys, perhaps that is confusing people.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1139301Likewise, but I'm coming at it from the same baseline as Tolkien, who had similar issues with his Orcs as he developed his legendarium. One approach I want to try if I ever get around to running a game, inspired by 4E, 13th Age, 3E Ravenloft, discussions on TBP before the rot set in so deep, and elsewhere:

   1. Goblinoids are generally wicked fey who construct bodies out of natural material, and 'killing' them just destroys that body and weakens them as they have to spend time and energy to rebuild, a la Tolkien's Valar and Maiar.

   2. The ones 4E labelled as "Chaotic Evil"--orcs, gnolls, sahuagin, troglodytes--are basically uplifted beasts with elaborate infusion of knowledge/programming but no real rationality or self-awareness. They can use tools and weapons and have sufficient 'AI' to fight effectively and even communicate using preprogrammed responses, but there's no 'person' there. Half-orcs are the result of attempts to apply the process to human beings, but with mixed results and no predilection to evil.

Both of these approaches seem quite sensible to me.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139314And neither do happy friendly orcs singing Kumbaya. But they could exist hypothetically, particularly in the context of a fictional world.

I could just imagine the reports back to the King:  The Orcs conducted a mostly peaceful raid into our Kingdom, my Lord.