Quote from: blackstone on February 12, 2025, 10:45:10 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 12, 2025, 09:54:35 AM

Quote from: blackstone on February 12, 2025, 09:08:17 AMNow?

We have heated arguments on forums

IME, people that meet face-to-face don't behave like those on forums. Sure, you hear horror stories of weird shit at the table, but for every one of those, there are uncounted sessions that go by without such drama. This is a social media (and I include forums as an early version of social media) problem, not a gaming problem.

I certainly hope you're right, but who knows what the future holds.

I'm a "hope for the best, but expect the worst", kind of guy.

That's been my experience as well. I play with randos on the internet, and in the last three years I haven't had a single politics-related dispute break out in one of my games.

Quote from: blackstone on February 12, 2025, 08:47:33 AMYou can add such content to your game in a tasteful way:

Quote"The Orcs fell upon the village, there hearts filled with rage and lust. No man, woman, or child would be safe. The men, murdered in their beds, or cut down in the heat of battle. The women would be brutalized in ways unimaginable. The lucky ones would be dead at the end of their ordeal. The unlucky, taken into slavery. The children? Either taken to be used as slaves, or if too young...The orcs would truly show how black their hearts and souls truly are."

Basically, just suggest at the sexual threat they pose. Leave it up to the imagination of the players to fill in the blanks. Sometimes the best horror is to just see part of the monster, and not the whole thing.

I get that concept, and I can see how it would work as box-text or other exposition. I'm more curious how far people have been willing/able to push the line in play. Do the PCs raid an orc lair and find a room full of brutalized, naked women? That I feel like you could get away with as long as your players are sane adults. Do the orcs actually try to capture party henchwomen or even female (or potentially even male, if you want them to be truly horrifying) PCs to satisfy their nefarious appetites? I assume most people aren't going to take it that far, but there's a part of me that thinks the threat is meaningless if it's not something your characters might actually have to encounter in some way. Maybe the way to handle that is to treat being captured by orcs as an automatic death sentence. Just tell your player "well, your character has been carried off to be horribly tortured and violated to death by orcs. Roll a new one". I don't know.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 12, 2025, 11:00:34 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 11, 2025, 08:25:57 PMBut I've always shied away from putting that into any RPG material, on the assumption that it would just be horribly awkward in practice and such things are better left for non-interactive mediums.

I feel the same way. The supermajority of the time even in non-interactive mediums it's handled poorly.

So I use the orcs as described in Dungeons & Delvers. They're demons sent by Orcus who possess corpses to exist in the mortal world. After killing their victims, they use the corpses as vessels for more orcs. They don't go around being patriarchal and misogynistic. They don't need to be.

I get that approach, too. That sounds a bit like the way things work in the Evil Dead series.  At the same time, when you phrase it that way there's something faintly ridiculous about the idea of a creature of ultimate evil, which cheerfully engages in slavery, murder, torture and/or cannibalism, but simultaneously misogyny is somehow beneath them.   

Usually I would operate on the logic of "The monsters don't see humans as a sexual prospect because they just see them as food", so orcs would see banging a human the same way humans would see banging a sheep. I suppose an alternative would be to make them so thoroughly racial supremacist that they would never sully their orc blood by breeding with a lesser race.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 11, 2025, 08:25:57 PMI'm curious, though. How does all that rape appear in your game when you're actually running it at the table? I find that a lot of the best monsters pose some level of sexual threat, whether that's in the direct sense of something like Lovecraft's Deep Ones or the more symbolic sense of the Xenomorph. But I've always shied away from putting that into any RPG material, on the assumption that it would just be horribly awkward in practice and such things are better left for non-interactive mediums.

I don't show the act while it happens, but I show the aftermath of that act.

(There was a lot more to this, but that should have a different thread.)

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMI get that approach, too. That sounds a bit like the way things work in the Evil Dead series.  At the same time, when you phrase it that way there's something faintly ridiculous about the idea of a creature of ultimate evil, which cheerfully engages in slavery, murder, torture and/or cannibalism, but simultaneously misogyny is somehow beneath them. 

If you treat men and women equally badly, then by definition you can't be misogynistic. Anyway, I don't describe them engaging in torture porn. They just kill people indiscriminately, sacrifice them to to Orcus, and reanimate the corpses as more orcs. They literally don't have the intelligence to do anything more than that. They're zombies with just enough intelligence to organize, use weapons, and increase their numbers.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMUsually I would operate on the logic of "The monsters don't see humans as a sexual prospect because they just see them as food", so orcs would see banging a human the same way humans would see banging a sheep. I suppose an alternative would be to make them so thoroughly racial supremacist that they would never sully their orc blood by breeding with a lesser race.

The Dungeons & Delvers orcs don't have functioning genitals. They're hollowed-out corpses reanimated by demons.

I really don't see the appeal of describing torture-porn. I get enough of that from the news media and I don't want to be reminded of that in my escapist fiction. If you know, then you know.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 12, 2025, 03:14:30 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMI get that approach, too. That sounds a bit like the way things work in the Evil Dead series.  At the same time, when you phrase it that way there's something faintly ridiculous about the idea of a creature of ultimate evil, which cheerfully engages in slavery, murder, torture and/or cannibalism, but simultaneously misogyny is somehow beneath them.

If you treat men and women equally badly, then by definition you can't be misogynistic. Anyway, I don't describe them engaging in torture porn. They just kill people indiscriminately, sacrifice them to to Orcus, and reanimate the corpses as more orcs. They literally don't have the intelligence to do anything more than that. They're zombies with just enough intelligence to organize, use weapons, and increase their numbers.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMUsually I would operate on the logic of "The monsters don't see humans as a sexual prospect because they just see them as food", so orcs would see banging a human the same way humans would see banging a sheep. I suppose an alternative would be to make them so thoroughly racial supremacist that they would never sully their orc blood by breeding with a lesser race.

The Dungeons & Delvers orcs don't have functioning genitals. They're hollowed-out corpses reanimated by demons.

I really don't see the appeal of describing torture-porn. I get enough of that from the news media and I don't want to be reminded of that in my escapist fiction. If you know, then you know.

Yeah, there's nothing really wrong with that. Orcs don't need to be the most horrifying monster possible, and if your goal is a light-hearted adventure game they probably shouldn't be. I'm mostly just curious about the practical experience of people who do choose to take their game there.

I cited Lovecraft's Deep Ones before. The Deep Ones don't engage in rapine and pillage directly. They use bribery and deceit to corrupt humans into agreeing to ritually breed with them, and they do it as a way of planting subversive agents into human society and slowly breeding humanity out of existence. That's the kind thing I could see myself actually using in a game. It's evil and extremely sinister, but in a way where all the really graphic stuff can plausibly happen offscreen and without much likelihood of PCs getting directly involved in it. Seems like a more workable balance.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 11, 2025, 08:25:57 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 11, 2025, 04:29:24 PMGreetings!

Orcs. Indeed, in my Thandor world, Orcs are savage, brutal, and ruthless. Absolutely devoted to conquest, plunder, and rape. They glorify and exalt conquering, enslaving, and raping other races and creatures. Mass slaughters, huge bonfire celebrations where thousands are sacrificed to the Dark Gods, while herds of captive enemies are kept shackled in the chains of bondage, to be devoured, or ruthlessly bred with on the Orc's whims and bestial desires. Bands of Orc marauders are always fanning out, patrolling their borders, and always on the lookout for any kind of enemies. Orc armies frequently gather and march against some hapless, weak nation, and bring absolute terror and destruction to them.

Orcs laugh at pathetic Human reasoning, philosophy, and intellectualism. The Orcs enjoy taking smug, urban intellectuals captive, and roasting them slowly over the firepits. Or keeping them in a mud-drenched cave where they are routinely tortured and raped, over and over again. With an iron chain around their neck, and being beaten by the whip of their Orc masters. The pathetic civilized Humans learn to beg and scrape on their knees to their rightful masters.

For the Orcs, that is the proper place for Humans, and other races alike.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

As usual, SHARK manages to make everything sound far more exciting.

I'm curious, though. How does all that rape appear in your game when you're actually running it at the table? I find that a lot of the best monsters pose some level of sexual threat, whether that's in the direct sense of something like Lovecraft's Deep Ones or the more symbolic sense of the Xenomorph. But I've always shied away from putting that into any RPG material, on the assumption that it would just be horribly awkward in practice and such things are better left for non-interactive mediums.

Greetings!

Good afternoon, my friend! Definitely a good time here for some fresh brewed coffee! I'm drinking some Italian Roast. Very nice to have, anytime, though especially on cold, winter days! Lighting up a good cigar, and chewing on your questions here.

Well, most of the time, experiencing the aftermath of being taken captive by savage Orcs has been shown by the testimonies and accounts made by the rescued survivors to the Player Characters.

"There now, are three farm girls that emerge from the blasted caves, and the fires crackling in pits nearby. The farm girls appear gaunt, beaten and crushed down, with distant, aloof eyes. Two of them are pregnant, heavy with child. Their hair is generally long, matted, and covered in sweat and blood. The women are decorated with numerous scars from being clawed, whipped, and bitten. The women speak in only sharp, halting speech, and follow your instructions quickly, though with an observed docility and servitude. A larger gaggle of rescued slaves follows them out from the dark slave pens, and they all have a similar grim appearance. Nonetheless, there are meek flickers of gratitude that they express as they follow your instructions. They have survived a terrifying and harrowing experience.

And yes, there amidst the throng of desperate slaves, is the Wizard's Apprentice you were originally searching for. Clive Taben is alive, though entirely transformed from what you knew of him from over a year since passed. Where once Clive was a clean-cut, well-dressed scholar, an urban gentleman just entering his prime with a bright, curious smile and inspiring cheerfulness--that is all gone. Now Clive Taben has a full beard, his hair grown well passed his shoulders in an unruly mass, and he occasionally growls and makes strange animal-like noises. His naked body is somewhat muscular and lean--no doubt from the frequent hard labour he has been subjected to by the Orcs. As you find some clothes for him to wear, it is striking to notice that his shoulders and sides have long, deepened scars. His chest has a rough tattoo of a boar's head scribed into his flesh, and he wears a simple necklace made of iron chain links, and holding iron-dipped wolves' teeth.

On the march back to civilization from the encampments of the Black Fist Orc tribe, you have rescued some 40 Human women, and about 18 Human men. Along the journey, you learn that these captives were enslaved for months at a time, with some being enslaved for several years. Whether they were enslaved for months, or several years, the slaves' experiences will no doubt stay with them forever. Many of the women are currently pregnant with child. Many of them have been virtually kept constantly pregnant during their years of enslavement. Year after year, breeding for their Orc masters. The surviving men relate to you that alongside their daily labour in the nearby iron mines, they were frequently tortured and beaten by the Orc masters. Whipped and beaten down, by one brute Orc, or several. The Orcs guarded them watchfully, even suspiciously, on a constant basis. Barking harsh commands at them, snarling savage insults at them, and always swift with the gauntleted hand of discipline. Meanwhile, at night, groups of fierce Orc women would take their turns raping the men, again and again. A few men refused and sought to resist early on--one was fed right there to the Spined Boars that the Orcs kept in nearby pens. Several others were set upon by the large, aggressive Orc women, and swiftly beaten down, and ripped open, for all to see. The Orc women were just as violent and ruthlessly brutal as the Orc men. The Orc women commanded obedience--and for the Human men that survived, they bowed their heads and submitted quickly. Over time, the Orc women would show some favour and preference for their Human slaves by feeding them rations of extra meat, and even a sip of harsh fire ale now and then. The men were treated with the frequent news that their female Orc mistresses were pregnant. The Orcs are robust and savage, and very fertile. While the Orc women had a rough hierarchy, and the stronger had more privileges, the Orc women eagerly shared their male Human slaves amongst them, several dozen and more of Orc women from the tribe. Always more Orc women joining in the nighttime orgies by the bonfires. The Human men were exhausted, day and night. Every new day brought more backbreaking work in the mines, and lashings from the whips of their Orc masters."

So, that is pretty typical. The Player Characters know very well what dealing with the Orcs is like. They have seen up close what the Orcs stand for, and what the Orcs seek to accomplish. The Orcs always view themselves as the superior race, the masters, entitled to obedience, animals, land, and booty. Other races are destined to be beaten down by the mighty hand of the Orc, and crushed as slaves for the Orcs. The Orcs are proud, simple, brutal, and ruthless.

As for how the Players handle it? Well, the Players handle it just fine. This is a harsh and brutal world their characters live within, so they expect the environment to be a Dark Ages of savagery, fire, blood, and ruthless brutality. "Might Makes Right!", and "The Strong Rule Over The Weak!"--these things are known to be deep truths and everyday reality. As for their *Characters*--well, they handle all of this with different levels of outrage, inspiration, leadership, and wisdom. They know they are dealing with a hostile, brutal culture and race that is foreign to them--but also oppositional, on almost every level. The aftermath and residual consequences are the victims and survivors alike caught up in the trauma of war, conquest, slavery, and terror.

And, well, of course, back in civilization, many Human communities have growing hordes of dark, sweaty poor people teeming in their streets, clamoring always for more food, more silver, more rights. Always in the midst of the unwashed masses are many Half Orcs. The masses of unwashed poor are often covered in mud and lead harsh and brutal lives within the shadows and gutters of civilization.

So, yes, there is always tension, drama, and conflict involved, whether such is political, economic, and racial strife, as well as emotional and family-related drama, fights, and disputes. Arguments rage back and forth over the proper response, the proper and effective policy for government and society, but these conflicts are also grappled with on the family level and within a neighborhood level and scope.

I hope I have answered your questions, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMDo the orcs actually try to capture party henchwomen or even female (or potentially even male, if you want them to be truly horrifying) PCs to satisfy their nefarious appetites?

An entire society of rapists should be 'truly horrifying' regardless of whether or not they rape males.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PM

Quote from: blackstone on February 12, 2025, 10:45:10 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 12, 2025, 09:54:35 AM

Quote from: blackstone on February 12, 2025, 09:08:17 AMNow?

We have heated arguments on forums

IME, people that meet face-to-face don't behave like those on forums. Sure, you hear horror stories of weird shit at the table, but for every one of those, there are uncounted sessions that go by without such drama. This is a social media (and I include forums as an early version of social media) problem, not a gaming problem.

I certainly hope you're right, but who knows what the future holds.

I'm a "hope for the best, but expect the worst", kind of guy.

That's been my experience as well. I play with randos on the internet, and in the last three years I haven't had a single politics-related dispute break out in one of my games.

Quote from: blackstone on February 12, 2025, 08:47:33 AMYou can add such content to your game in a tasteful way:

Quote"The Orcs fell upon the village, there hearts filled with rage and lust. No man, woman, or child would be safe. The men, murdered in their beds, or cut down in the heat of battle. The women would be brutalized in ways unimaginable. The lucky ones would be dead at the end of their ordeal. The unlucky, taken into slavery. The children? Either taken to be used as slaves, or if too young...The orcs would truly show how black their hearts and souls truly are."

Basically, just suggest at the sexual threat they pose. Leave it up to the imagination of the players to fill in the blanks. Sometimes the best horror is to just see part of the monster, and not the whole thing.

I get that concept, and I can see how it would work as box-text or other exposition. I'm more curious how far people have been willing/able to push the line in play. Do the PCs raid an orc lair and find a room full of brutalized, naked women? That I feel like you could get away with as long as your players are sane adults. Do the orcs actually try to capture party henchwomen or even female (or potentially even male, if you want them to be truly horrifying) PCs to satisfy their nefarious appetites? I assume most people aren't going to take it that far, but there's a part of me that thinks the threat is meaningless if it's not something your characters might actually have to encounter in some way. Maybe the way to handle that is to treat being captured by orcs as an automatic death sentence. Just tell your player "well, your character has been carried off to be horribly tortured and violated to death by orcs. Roll a new one". I don't know.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 12, 2025, 11:00:34 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 11, 2025, 08:25:57 PMBut I've always shied away from putting that into any RPG material, on the assumption that it would just be horribly awkward in practice and such things are better left for non-interactive mediums.

I feel the same way. The supermajority of the time even in non-interactive mediums it's handled poorly.

So I use the orcs as described in Dungeons & Delvers. They're demons sent by Orcus who possess corpses to exist in the mortal world. After killing their victims, they use the corpses as vessels for more orcs. They don't go around being patriarchal and misogynistic. They don't need to be.

I get that approach, too. That sounds a bit like the way things work in the Evil Dead series.  At the same time, when you phrase it that way there's something faintly ridiculous about the idea of a creature of ultimate evil, which cheerfully engages in slavery, murder, torture and/or cannibalism, but simultaneously misogyny is somehow beneath them. 

Usually I would operate on the logic of "The monsters don't see humans as a sexual prospect because they just see them as food", so orcs would see banging a human the same way humans would see banging a sheep. I suppose an alternative would be to make them so thoroughly racial supremacist that they would never sully their orc blood by breeding with a lesser race.

Greetings!

Yes, always lots of naked, brutalized women and men, too. That's what slavery is all about--labour, breeding, and dominion of one race over another. And profits, as well, if only expressed to different degrees and levels of development.

Even at the small, personal scale at the game table, the Player Characters grapple with all of these issues and more. I don't usually have kids playing at my game table, so therefore, mature adult themes are constant. War, death, slavery, rape, poverty, heroism, leadership, adventure, responsibility, defending your family, community, and kingdom, are constant themes. Not likely to be understandable to kids, so dealing with kids isn't something I as the DM must consider. So, mature adults can handle all of this very well. What do you think is in the Bible? All of this is subtext throughout our own histories and historical documents. Heroism, slavery, war, conquest, poverty, family drama, racism, hatred, and so forth. *Laughing*

I'm often reminded of the foundational story of the early history of Rome. "The Rape of the Sabines!". The Romans, at this early time in their history, were nothing more than a small collection of settlements on the Tiber River. Most of the inhabitants were men, and most of them were young, single men. They were outcasts, impoverished, criminals, bandits, and struggling. They had only a few women in their communities. So, the Romans gathered together, and went and raided a nearby tribe--the Sabines. The Romans especially carried off thousands of Sabine women, and took them as slaves back to Rome. Several years of fighting followed, as the Sabine tribe sought to get their many enslaved women back from the fierce Romans. Classic war and revenge and conquest story, right?

The real wrinkle in the tale though, is when the Sabines were pressing hard against the Romans and fighting, talks were opened up, and the Sabines demanded their women back from the Romans. The Romans were more or less eager to talk. When given the opportunity to return to their tribe, the Sabine women, well, they *refused to return to their Sabine tribal homeland*. The Sabine women had not just been slaves to the Romans, but had had children, and created families. Beyond that, the Sabine women weren't really slaves anymore. More than that, though, is that their children with their Roman fathers were growing up in a part of a new and bold society--the Sabine women knew that the Romans were violent, aggressive, warlike, and ambitious. Women everywhere really are deeply attracted to strong, vioent men. Even thousands of years ago, the Sabine women were zealous in their loyalty to their Roman men that had taken them by force, and initially raped them. The Sabine women quickly grew accustomed to a new place of pride and dignity and promise, a vision of something new, special, and adventurous.

So, the Sabine women refused to return to their Sabine tribe, and instead chose to remain with the young, struggling Romans. And the Sabine women would by their own hands contribute to building the glorious Roman Empire. Strains and elements of this fact are woven throughout Roman history, celebrating not just Roman virility, manhood, and warlike prowess, but also dignity, pride, womanhood, and motherhood. And family, and honour, and loyalty.

It's often said, "History is Stranger than Fiction." Yes, all of this really happened in ancient Rome, in the early years of struggle and poverty, fear and uncertainty.

High drama, conflict, and struggle is great for a campaign. I load my players up with a full plate of all kinds of things to chew on and consider. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMThat's been my experience as well. I play with randos on the internet, and in the last three years I haven't had a single politics-related dispute break out in one of my games.

This hasn't been a problem in my games but I have seen it happen in games I have played in.  The difference was simply that I discouraged it while the other GMs encouraged it.  Whether this became a problem was entirely down to whether the GM encouraged it or not.

Another reason not to buy 2024 DnD books. If I had time, I'd make an orc focused book and put it up on DriveThru just to poke at the Wackos of the Coast.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 04:31:46 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 12, 2025, 03:14:30 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMI get that approach, too. That sounds a bit like the way things work in the Evil Dead series.  At the same time, when you phrase it that way there's something faintly ridiculous about the idea of a creature of ultimate evil, which cheerfully engages in slavery, murder, torture and/or cannibalism, but simultaneously misogyny is somehow beneath them.

If you treat men and women equally badly, then by definition you can't be misogynistic. Anyway, I don't describe them engaging in torture porn. They just kill people indiscriminately, sacrifice them to to Orcus, and reanimate the corpses as more orcs. They literally don't have the intelligence to do anything more than that. They're zombies with just enough intelligence to organize, use weapons, and increase their numbers.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 12, 2025, 01:08:23 PMUsually I would operate on the logic of "The monsters don't see humans as a sexual prospect because they just see them as food", so orcs would see banging a human the same way humans would see banging a sheep. I suppose an alternative would be to make them so thoroughly racial supremacist that they would never sully their orc blood by breeding with a lesser race.

The Dungeons & Delvers orcs don't have functioning genitals. They're hollowed-out corpses reanimated by demons.

I really don't see the appeal of describing torture-porn. I get enough of that from the news media and I don't want to be reminded of that in my escapist fiction. If you know, then you know.

Yeah, there's nothing really wrong with that. Orcs don't need to be the most horrifying monster possible, and if your goal is a light-hearted adventure game they probably shouldn't be. I'm mostly just curious about the practical experience of people who do choose to take their game there.

I cited Lovecraft's Deep Ones before. The Deep Ones don't engage in rapine and pillage directly. They use bribery and deceit to corrupt humans into agreeing to ritually breed with them, and they do it as a way of planting subversive agents into human society and slowly breeding humanity out of existence. That's the kind thing I could see myself actually using in a game. It's evil and extremely sinister, but in a way where all the really graphic stuff can plausibly happen offscreen and without much likelihood of PCs getting directly involved in it. Seems like a more workable balance.

I don't like that either because the woke have fetishized it too. "Activist in the streets, colonizer in the sheets."

Like, they made Annette black in the Castlevania cartoon so that they could make the future Belmonts black as a gotcha against white people. It's so creepy and dehumanizing. The one drop rule was designed to deprive innocent people of rights, but the woke have turned it into a sexual fetish. "We've impregnated your white daughters with our black babies. Now your entire bloodline can't go back. Take that, nazis!" Blegh.

I use Leila Hahn's version of deep ones instead. According to her analysis, the starfish headed old ones created the deep ones as a consolation prize for humanity. "Oh, you poor pathetic hominids, dying after a few decades. Let's make some aquatic immortality genes for you because we feel pity for your pathetic existences. Also, we need slaves. That too." It's still horrifying, but in the Frankensteinian sense.

OK, dumb question. Does anyone else have their orcs and various humanoids eat their captives or occasionally each other (in times of famine)? Or is it just me in my games?

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 12, 2025, 05:25:04 PM

QuoteDo the orcs actually try to capture party henchwomen or even female (or potentially even male, if you want them to be truly horrifying) PCs to satisfy their nefarious appetites?

An entire society of rapists should be 'truly horrifying' regardless of whether or not they rape males.

Sure. I just meant it'd probably freak the average player out more.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 12, 2025, 08:24:59 PM

QuoteI cited Lovecraft's Deep Ones before. The Deep Ones don't engage in rapine and pillage directly. They use bribery and deceit to corrupt humans into agreeing to ritually breed with them, and they do it as a way of planting subversive agents into human society and slowly breeding humanity out of existence. That's the kind thing I could see myself actually using in a game. It's evil and extremely sinister, but in a way where all the really graphic stuff can plausibly happen offscreen and without much likelihood of PCs getting directly involved in it. Seems like a more workable balance.

I don't like that either because the woke have fetishized it too. "Activist in the streets, colonizer in the sheets."

Like, they made Annette black in the Castlevania cartoon so that they could make the future Belmonts black as a gotcha against white people. It's so creepy and dehumanizing. The one drop rule was designed to deprive innocent people of rights, but the woke have turned it into a sexual fetish. "We've impregnated your white daughters with our black babies. Now your entire bloodline can't go back. Take that, nazis!" Blegh.

I never would have made that connection. I'm mostly following Sandy Peterson's interpretation there. It's possible that Lovecraft would have made it, though, so I guess that's something.

Quote from: SHARK on February 12, 2025, 04:58:06 PMWell, most of the time, experiencing the aftermath of being taken captive by savage Orcs has been shown by the testimonies and accounts made by the rescued survivors to the Player Characters.

"There now, are three farm girls that emerge from the blasted caves, and the fires crackling in pits nearby. The farm girls appear gaunt, beaten and crushed down, with distant, aloof eyes. Two of them are pregnant, heavy with child. Their hair is generally long, matted, and covered in sweat and blood. The women are decorated with numerous scars from being clawed, whipped, and bitten. The women speak in only sharp, halting speech, and follow your instructions quickly, though with an observed docility and servitude....

...So, yes, there is always tension, drama, and conflict involved, whether such is political, economic, and racial strife, as well as emotional and family-related drama, fights, and disputes. Arguments rage back and forth over the proper response, the proper and effective policy for government and society, but these conflicts are also grappled with on the family level and within a neighborhood level and scope.

I hope I have answered your questions, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Thanks for the typically thorough response. I think I get the picture. It sounds like you also mostly address it in exposition, albeit in amply graphic detail. I suspect that if I included that narration into one of my campaigns, my players would respond with some variant of "Eww. Why are we talking about this?". It's possible your players are built different from mine, or maybe I've misjudged them.

Quote from: SHARK on February 12, 2025, 05:36:52 PMI'm often reminded of the foundational story of the early history of Rome. "The Rape of the Sabines!"...

Odd you should bring that up. Wife-raiding is a strange practice that pops up here and there in history, and is clearly a different phenomenon from standard rapine. It's actually something I considered putting into a campaign setting I was working on a while ago (and subsequently abandoned), and would have been a prominent origin for half-orcs in that setting.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 31, 2025, 09:29:02 PMI saw the latest video from ClownFish channel on YouTube.  The topic was the removal of Orcs from the Monster Manual for current day D&D.

I'm ok with this.  It will drive fans away, and D&D has had too much of a monopoly on the tabletop RPG industry.  Go play other games.

Free games: Olde Swords Reign, Mini-Six Bare Bones, Pocket Fantasy, Basic Fantasy, Castles and Crusades 7th printing.

Paid games:  Shadowdark, Old School Essentials, Kogarashi/True D6 Printable Edition, Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool edition.

Just, for the love of all that is normal, don't play D&D from the current idiots.

What's really, really stupid about this is, as others have already said, orcs were playable since at least 2e, as were kobolds, gnolls, goblins, and a bunch of other 'monsters'. They were in the Complete Book of Humanoids.

Also, I'm pretty sure humans were in the Monster Manual for 2e, as were elves, dwarves, etc. Remember the big 3-ring binder, and you could take the individual monster sheets out so you had all the stats and such easily accessible when you needed them, rather than having to paw thru a book or copy it all on another piece of paper? (Back in the days before everyone had printers and PDFs of everything, I mean)

Quote from: Hague on February 12, 2025, 10:06:48 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 31, 2025, 09:29:02 PMI saw the latest video from ClownFish channel on YouTube.  The topic was the removal of Orcs from the Monster Manual for current day D&D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Z30DmwvrI

What's really, really stupid about this is, as others have already said, orcs were playable since at least 2e, as were kobolds, gnolls, goblins, and a bunch of other 'monsters'. They were in the Complete Book of Humanoids.

Also, I'm pretty sure humans were in the Monster Manual for 2e, as were elves, dwarves, etc.

Yes, elves, dwarves and humans have been in the MM from 1E through 4E. However, they were removed from the MM as of 5E in 2014. In the 2014 Monster Manual, there were no entries for "Dwarf", "Elf", or "Human". Instead, there was an appendix of NPC templates that could supposedly be of any race.

The thing is, I played a fair amount of 5E, and removing the "Dwarf" entry from the MM made no difference to my having dwarves as antagonists in my D&D campaigns. In one adventure of my last campaign, they faced off with a cult whose cover was a dwarven stonemasons guild. For the last quarter of the campaign, one of their key enemies was an evil dwarven paladin of vengeance.

People need to look at the bright side.   At least with this edition, they haven't added conservatives in (yet) as a monster stat block.   We have hopefully at least another five years before they get around to that!