In your game how different are orcs and goblins?

Orcs and Goblins are not 'basically the same' in Warhammer. They're both Goblinoids, but that's like saying Monkeys and Humans are basically the same because they're both Apes.

Guess I'm thinking mostly Fantasy Battle, but how
are they truly different?

I voted 1, but when running a more "Authentic" Medieval setting I treat kobolds, goblins, and orcs as basically the same or related. Pig-orcs may kind of exist as a sort of beastmen in the forest or something.

Voted 1, even though it's not strictly accurate. I don't do pigface orcs.  The approach varies from world to world, but I pretty much never run it that orcs and goblins are variations on the same thing. Often I'll have one or the other in the setting, but not both. They can be kind of redundant.  If the setting I'm leans towards the fairytale or medieval-authentic, I treat both goblins and trolls as kinds of fairies (as well as elves and gnomes usually). I'll usually leave orcs out of a setting like that, but if they exist, then they are instead creations of sorcery. The most recent setting I'm working on is more science-fantasy, so orcs (again as a race spawned of black magic), but no goblins.

And then obviously, if I'm running a published setting, I'll usually just go with whatever the canon is.

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 24, 2024, 09:26:04 PM
Guess I'm thinking mostly Fantasy Battle, but how are they truly different?

If memory serves, Orcs and Goblins (as well as Hobgoblins, Snotlings, Gretchins, Squigs and possibly Night Goblins) are all different species of "Greenskin". It's a fuzzy distinction though. In the real world, one of the chief ways you differentiate species from subspecies is whether they can interbreed, and Warhammer Greenskins don't breed at all, so.....shrug?

In answer 3 I said kobolds are in Warhammer. They aren't but I meant Gretchen's which fit the same niche but I couldn't remember their name.

Well there was a goblin group called Fire Kobolds in Warhammer Fantasy, but other than that no kobolds iirc

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 24, 2024, 09:26:04 PM
Guess I'm thinking mostly Fantasy Battle, but how
are they truly different?

Orcs are taller, wider and generally more massive than Goblins. Even a runty Orc is probably 2-3 times the size of a Goblin.

Orcs are far stronger and tougher than Goblins.

While Goblins are vicious in numbers, then can become scared and break when things go against them. Orcs are practically fearless, only tending to run when confused or everyone else leaves. They often come back, again and again, as they do not fear death.


You have to remember that while they are both Goblinoids, and come out of the same fungal sacs, so do Snotlings and Squigs. Squigs range from decorative accessories (hair Squigs) through food, and riding beasts. So Orcs and Goblins are cousin creatures, but quite different both physiologically and mentally. They're not like Tolkien where the line between Orcs and Goblin-Men is incredibly hazy, and may not exist.

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 24, 2024, 10:59:28 PM
In answer 3 I said kobolds are in Warhammer. They aren't but I meant Gretchen's which fit the same niche but I couldn't remember their name.

Gretchen are what Goblins are called in Warhammer 40k.

Depends on the setting. For something like Greyhawk, orcs are distinct from goblins. For Middle Earth, orc and goblin are different terms for the same thing. In my homebrew campaign there are no "orcs." There are "faerie humanoids" that are all related to one degree or another and include both "dark" and "light" types (e.g., brownie, bugbear, changeling, dryad, dwarf, elf, goblin, hobgoblin, kobold, nixie, pixie, satyr, sprite, sylph). And there are non-faerie humanoids (e.g., beastmen, giants, gnolls, lizard-men, minotaur, norkers, ogres, serpent-men, trolls).

I'm afraid it just depends on the game.  I lean towards tribes and cultures having different names.  So they call them orc over here and goblins over there.  Sometimes different variations will exist.  Still, I generally associate goblins with faerie and I don't associate orcs with that.  But if I'm running Middle Earth the goblins are just smaller orcs and if I'm runnning Yrth they're totally unrealted species.

..and then there's Wolves of God set in Anglo-Saxon England where the Orcs are undead. There's lots of room for variance.

In my setting orcs are humans mutated by the energies of the Cataclysm. Their adrenal glands are overcharged making them stronger and prone to violence. They have also been convinced that they are the descendants of the former Imperial family who ruled the world before the Cataclysm and that it is therefore their sacred duty to reclaim the world through conquest and unite it under their imperial banner once more.

Ogres are orcs who don't stop growing and eventually get dumb as rocks as more and more brain matter goes to keeping the body running (basically they die when they get too big and too stupid to breathe). Their brethren use them as living siege engines in a philosophy of "better to burn out than fade away."

Goblins are a bio-formed race of small bat-men with winged forelimbs. They were reclusive, but technologically advanced, lived about 60 years and were sexually mature by age 2. The ones most people are familiar with though are the ones the orcs captured and bred over a hundred generations (200 years) into virtually feral slave soldiers whose wings are atrophied to uselessness and are kept near starving so they can be released in Zerg-rushes against the orcs' enemies.

Cobalts are another bio-formed race of small cobalt-blue-scaled lizard-men bred to squeeze into small spaces of the sewers and undercities to eat rats and other vermin. They developed a love of engineering and kept doing that once the Beastmen Revolution overthrew the humans who had created them. In the present day they squeeze their communities into the spaces between larger folks' homes in the cities and are generally regarded as among the best engineers in the realms (debatably second only to dwarves and unmatched at jury-rigging). Their culture heroes are crafty inventors and their chief god is giant fire-breathing cobalt with mechanical wings.

There are also bio-formed boar-men who are colloquially called Porks. They're large gruff omnivores who live in small family groups and other than the punny name are pretty much uninvolved with typical Orcish shenanigans.

Quote from: ForgottenF on March 24, 2024, 10:58:00 PM
The approach varies from world to world, but I pretty much never run it that orcs and goblins are variations on the same thing. Often I'll have one or the other in the setting, but not both. They can be kind of redundant.  If the setting I'm leans towards the fairytale or medieval-authentic, I treat both goblins and trolls as kinds of fairies (as well as elves and gnomes usually). I'll usually leave orcs out of a setting like that, but if they exist, then they are instead creations of sorcery. The most recent setting I'm working on is more science-fantasy, so orcs (again as a race spawned of black magic), but no goblins.

Saved me the trouble of typing.  Yeah, mostly this.  The exception is when I treat goblins as something barely intelligent from a human perspective--monkey brains plus limited speech plus slightly better tool use with a bad attitude and fleas.

Voted one, and orcs are pig-faced imc!

I've always had orcs treat goblins as underlings or lesser beings. Orcs are usually more organized.