"D&D 2024/2025 - no orcs?" Topic

Did the new version of the D&D Monster Manual really get rid of orcs?

No, lol…there are orcs, arguably more than ever

They're orcs, but let's just say "They're different' and leave it at that.

I was asking about in the game, not on the staff.

WoTC turned them into Mexicans and then deported them from the Monster Manual.

link

From eWorld

Happily ignoring WotC D&D.

But really, TSR already did the "orcs can be PCs and aren't necessarily always evil" thing back in the ‘80s. Heck, The Orcs of Thar campaign setting by Bruce Heard was presented as a campaign setting which assumed the PCs would be the various humanoid races, including goblins, kobolds, ogres and yes, even trolls(!), among others. It was approached as being a bit silly, but there you go. (And "good" orcs appeared in it and in The Elves of Alfheim.)

The difference is that Heard's emphasis was on "this would be fun," and had no other agenda (or fear of one).

Personally, I prefer the classic approach— orcs, goblins, etc., are always evil. Slay ‘em without remorse. It's a game, y'all.

They are in a Monster Manual appendix, but otherwise, orcs are a playable "race".

Nothing will change in any of my future campaigns. They will continue to be the servants of evil. Although a campaign with PC's playing a party of petty, mischievous goblins might be fun.

Just curious though. Of all the humanoids in the MM why were orcs changed? Why not drow, mindflayers, or gnolls?

I think drows were changed too, actually

And sphinxes …

Almost surprised they publish a Monster Manual – after all there is no evil – just misunderstood and misrepresented people and creatures.

+1 Parzival

DisasterWargamer +1

We had players using Orcs and Half Orcs as characters back in the 70s. I don't see what the big deal is. And they had green skin.
Mine even had a vicious hound as a pet.

Another +1 Parzival. And Drow and Githyanki as well. I dislike Drizz't with a passion.

Some of this hyperbole is overblown—while I agree WOTC is undermining millennia of myth that posit evil races and creatures inimical to mankind, and doing so in the name of "cultural sensitivity" which is a flat contradiction to what they are actually doing—it is also true that Orcs have been portrayed as just another playable race since World of Warcraft and its many imitators appeared in the early 2000s, so the whole "Orcs are evil monsters" doesn't hold as much water with audiences the way it once did. Millennials and Gen Z want to play Orcs, so WOTC is giving them what they want, not because they are "woke" necessarily (though they are) but because that is just business and the player base.

There's a certain level of irony in the social justice assumption that orcs are a stand in for real-life racial groups— which means that the person making that assumption identifies non-white racial groups with ugly hulking brutes with animalistic facial features and notoriously low intelligence— basically the same assumptions as the worst sort of real-life racist! Back in the day (and now) I knew NO ONE who associated orcs with any real-life racial or ethnic group or even individual. They were orcs— fantastical, not-real monsters— they were explicitly NOT human beings in any way, shape, or form. Why the heck is anybody now arguing differently? That's not social progress, that's social regression! The whole point of the orc is that it is literally a monster— a thing of evil, thoroughly without possibility of redemption, and therefore to be destroyed. If it represents anything, it is the sins of humanity, and the obstacles to our own redemption, against which we must fight.
But even that in the game is putting too much into it.

There's that old, so last century quote.

"It's not easy being green."

Now you tell me that wasn't a reaction to colour prejudice ;-)

Shadowrun 1e already did this in the 80s. It was so they could have 'racism' in the game without any player at the table being personally targeted by it.

Ironically, after running D&D games for 7 years back in early years, I never ran a game using orcs. So many more interesting creatures kill.

This is another amusing step down this particular road.

When 40K starts trying to redeem orks, that will be even funnier.

"When 40K starts trying to redeem orks, that will be even funnier."

What? You don't want justice for soccer/futbol/football hooligans?!?!? :)