To go to LOTR Orcs:

Morgoth genetically modified elves to naturally prefer and gravitate towards being evil. Evil explicitly because he wanted to be a dick and fuck shit up for all of the earth because he wanted to grief in the server he and the rest of the Valar created because daddy illuvitar wouldn't let him play with his credit card.


Is an orc redeemable? Probably yes. Are they predisposed to being capital E Evil? Also yes.

Debating the ethics of actions to be taken is fun, but in no way are they related to black people, and it's a completely different banana to suggest that orcs as a concept should not exist.

The real problem is when idiots read the alignment tags or background text and treat it as if it means every one of these creatures everywhere all the time. Even when text elsewhere in the rules says otherwise. Or there are existing representatives or whole cultures of these creatures that are very NOT what the books say because you are freaking told to change things.

Dont like that orcs can be non evil? Change it!
Dont like that unicorns are good? Change it!
Dont like that beings from the lower planes are evil? Change it!

All of the above have been done and so much more.

But to these morons no no no! Its NEVER been that way and they were always always misrepresented and we must FIX this! None of this is remotely new.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 16, 2021, 08:56:18 PM
Sidenote: whoever it is running OAG is not the same guy from years past.

Yeah. OAG was getting hit hard with by DDoS attacks, false flags and take down cancel culture last year.  Billy, guy who ran most of it, eventually gave up and I believe sold it off.  It's run by a corporation now and they denounce any material on the site previous to Jan 1st 2021.  If you look, most of their anti-woke articles on censorship and other things stopped around August of 2020.

From their own blog:

QuoteTime to Change
October 29, 2020  Karol

We are excited to announce that we are rebranding and restructuring the entire One Angry Gamer project. The previous webmaster has decided to invest his time into other ventures and had passed over the reigns to a new team.

OneAngryGamer.net will be on maintenance up until around March 2021, might be up and running a lot sooner – depends from investors, keep your eyes out for updates! (Comment sections will be opened again as soon as they are revised and cleaned up)

The new ownership is not responsible for any of the content that has been made up until 01/01/2021. If there are people who'd wish to edit their content or have issues regarding this topic, do not hesitate and contact us at: admin @ oneangrygamer (dot) net

We will start this journey by giving a website a new look, a more convenient functionality and a slight change to the politically related content. We will mainly be focusing on high quality articles on your favorite topics: games, cheats, discounts, technology news and so on.

The Terms of Service will be revised and updated according to Google's AdSense policies, which can be found here: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9335564. Hope you will understand why this change was mandatory to secure the survival of OAG

We hope you will stay with us on this big step for the OAGamer community and talk to you soon!

We are also looking for passionate, hard-working writers to join our new team!

Potential investors can contact us at: admin @ oneangrygamer (dot) net for business inquires as well.

Quote
and a slight change to the politically related content.

My lawyer will immediately point at this and say "Uhm..."

Quote from: rgalex on April 17, 2021, 11:01:02 AM
Yeah. OAG was getting hit hard with by DDoS attacks, false flags and take down cancel culture last year.  Billy, guy who ran most of it, eventually gave up and I believe sold it off.  It's run by a corporation now and they denounce any material on the site previous to Jan 1st 2021.

I didn't like OAG (not my stuff), but these sorts of changes are so dang typical.

Greetings!

Well, I think having naturally Evil races is a good thing. Few of these moral hall-monitors seldom question Unicorns and Sprites being Good. Beyond cosmology, historically human beings have been just fine with killing other human beings because they have a different skin colour, speak a different language, or embrace a different religion. And by that, let's remember doing so isn't merely "incidental"--but entire tribes, whole cities, entire regions have been ruthlessly put to the sword.

Being "Evil" can just as well be shorthand for a half dozen ethnic, cultural, or religious differences that summed up comprise a people that you and your neighbors don't want living in your town, fucking your sons and daughters, or gaining power over your community and deciding that they don't approve of YOUR culture, and YOU need to change--or else.

So, there's lots of reasons when you get down to it about why people A may not want people B living near them at all--and eagerly attack and kill them at every opportunity.

How much more pronounced would these differences, conflicts, and problems be with races that are not even human? So many people like to intellectually look down their noses and bloviate smugly about such--but I think that attitude is born entirely from condescending entitlement, vast ignorance, and a total lack of a realistic understanding of how people REALLY ARE.

Forget alluring, gorgeous elves that everyone wants to bang. Or sexy halflings, Gnomes, or even--in some art--half orcs, or orcs , too.

Those races are all still very much relatable to humans--and fetishized, and viewed in differing degrees as desirable. Think of many non-human races of humanids that would appear unappealing physically--or have cultures where they regularly ate human beings like we eat cattle or pigs, or chicken. Think of cultures of humanoids that absolutely enjoy keeping slaves, or maintain a brutal caste system. Imagine Rat Humanoids that eagerly embrace public orgies, or a Vulture-humanoid race that are entirely and casually cannibalistic, with those amongst their own community that are weak or crippled being brutally torn apart and devoured by their fellows. Or a Insect-Humanoid race that views females as being special and superior in social rank--just because they are females--and insists that males devote themselves to constantly serving females, and working in every way to fulfill a female's whim and desire.

These differences noted here--in addition to such races having different religions and cultures--combined with the *OPTICS* of them being humanoids--and you have even more reasons for entire kingdoms full of humans that would kill, persecute, and otherwise oppress and seek to exterminate such exotic and different races. All the while not necesarily giving a damn about what the *alignement tag* may say.

In my own campaign world of Thandor, I have a Rat-Humanoid race, a Vulture-Humanoid race, and an Insect-Humanoid race--with some of the details noted above--that humans everywhere would likely fear, loathe, and hate. Some of my own players--they find these races absolutely disgusting, and have zero sympathy for them what so ever. The women, too, *LOVE* killing them, at every opportunity. While such of course is *in-game*--if such races really existed out in the world, where humans encountered them, I don't think humans would likely respond any different than how they respond in-game.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Another view from another podcaster. Similarly dismissive, but more from an Actual Play angle.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nR0mXC0T-Og&feature=youtube

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 17, 2021, 09:38:27 AM
To go to LOTR Orcs:

Morgoth genetically modified elves to naturally prefer and gravitate towards being evil. Evil explicitly because he wanted to be a dick and fuck shit up for all of the earth because he wanted to grief in the server he and the rest of the Valar created because daddy illuvitar wouldn't let him play with his credit card.


Is an orc redeemable? Probably yes. Are they predisposed to being capital E Evil? Also yes.

Debating the ethics of actions to be taken is fun, but in no way are they related to black people, and it's a completely different banana to suggest that orcs as a concept should not exist.

You are sugar coating what Morgoth did to his captives. It was worse than anything you can imagine, by design.

It's implied that, among other things, he raped them. Why do I bring this up? Because elves normally die when they're raped. One can only imagine how Morgoth pulled that off, but he did. (Here's an article on the subject: https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/rape-in-tolkiens-middle-earth-part-i/ )

You can't really say that orcs have a choice in the matter when their souls have raped by Satan. To be genuinely evil requires a choice, otherwise it's amoral.

And what little we see of orcish culture in the books suggests they do have some kind of recognizable moral value system, with taboos against cannibalism and treachery and not pursuing vengeance, albeit warped by propaganda (they think elves and humans are evil gits motivated by greed) and the aforementioned Satanic soul rape.

The modern concept of orcs as a proud warrior race ironically does have some basis in Tolkien. Obviously this was cut from the movies, but still.

Quote from: SHARK on April 17, 2021, 12:36:26 PM
Greetings!

Well, I think having naturally Evil races is a good thing. Few of these moral hall-monitors seldom question Unicorns and Sprites being Good. Beyond cosmology, historically human beings have been just fine with killing other human beings because they have a different skin colour, speak a different language, or embrace a different religion. And by that, let's remember doing so isn't merely "incidental"--but entire tribes, whole cities, entire regions have been ruthlessly put to the sword.

Being "Evil" can just as well be shorthand for a half dozen ethnic, cultural, or religious differences that summed up comprise a people that you and your neighbors don't want living in your town, fucking your sons and daughters, or gaining power over your community and deciding that they don't approve of YOUR culture, and YOU need to change--or else.

So, there's lots of reasons when you get down to it about why people A may not want people B living near them at all--and eagerly attack and kill them at every opportunity.

How much more pronounced would these differences, conflicts, and problems be with races that are not even human? So many people like to intellectually look down their noses and bloviate smugly about such--but I think that attitude is born entirely from condescending entitlement, vast ignorance, and a total lack of a realistic understanding of how people REALLY ARE.

Forget alluring, gorgeous elves that everyone wants to bang. Or sexy halflings, Gnomes, or even--in some art--half orcs, or orcs , too.

Those races are all still very much relatable to humans--and fetishized, and viewed in differing degrees as desirable. Think of many non-human races of humanids that would appear unappealing physically--or have cultures where they regularly ate human beings like we eat cattle or pigs, or chicken. Think of cultures of humanoids that absolutely enjoy keeping slaves, or maintain a brutal caste system. Imagine Rat Humanoids that eagerly embrace public orgies, or a Vulture-humanoid race that are entirely and casually cannibalistic, with those amongst their own community that are weak or crippled being brutally torn apart and devoured by their fellows. Or a Insect-Humanoid race that views females as being special and superior in social rank--just because they are females--and insists that males devote themselves to constantly serving females, and working in every way to fulfill a female's whim and desire.

These differences noted here--in addition to such races having different religions and cultures--combined with the *OPTICS* of them being humanoids--and you have even more reasons for entire kingdoms full of humans that would kill, persecute, and otherwise oppress and seek to exterminate such exotic and different races. All the while not necesarily giving a damn about what the *alignement tag* may say.

In my own campaign world of Thandor, I have a Rat-Humanoid race, a Vulture-Humanoid race, and an Insect-Humanoid race--with some of the details noted above--that humans everywhere would likely fear, loathe, and hate. Some of my own players--they find these races absolutely disgusting, and have zero sympathy for them what so ever. The women, too, *LOVE* killing them, at every opportunity. While such of course is *in-game*--if such races really existed out in the world, where humans encountered them, I don't think humans would likely respond any different than how they respond in-game.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I think a lot of the argument boils down to semantics and misunderstandings. What is morality? Who has moral agency? Does it matter?

I think both sides agree more than they disagree, but both think they disagree more due to different framing.

Ultimately I think this boils down to two things: 1) we need to mow down mooks in our violent murder simulator elf-games, and 2) fighting orcs are just cooler than scalping boring old human bandits.

I don't think anybody here has ever actually played the orc village massacre scene that commonly appears in leftist blog posts on the subject. That's clearly a misleading caricature.

AD&D, RoleMaster, Gurps Fantasy, T&T, and tons of others all have evil races.
In essence, they are saying that 80%+ of RPGs have this particular bad design feature.
They are full of crap.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 17, 2021, 01:16:50 PM
I don't think anybody here has ever actually played the orc village massacre scene that commonly appears in leftist blog posts on the subject. That's clearly a misleading caricature.

I can't wait for the author of "Winter Tide" to write a book where the "orc village massacre" is compared with village massacres in Vietnam 

Quote from: SHARK on April 17, 2021, 12:36:26 PM

Being "Evil" can just as well be shorthand for a half dozen ethnic, cultural, or religious differences that summed up comprise a people that you and your neighbors don't want living in your town, fucking your sons and daughters, or gaining power over your community and deciding that they don't approve of YOUR culture, and YOU need to change--or else.

So, there's lots of reasons when you get down to it about why people A may not want people B living near them at all--and eagerly attack and kill them at every opportunity.

So there's no real reason for A to be evil rather than B being evil other than which one of the neighbors you ask? This sounds like an argument against having objectively evil races.

Quote from: DocJones on April 17, 2021, 07:29:00 PM
AD&D, RoleMaster, Gurps Fantasy, T&T, and tons of others all have evil races.
In essence, they are saying that 80%+ of RPGs have this particular bad design feature.
They are full of crap.

That is the EXACT argument that the SJW crowd is making; 80%+ of RPGs are bad design, racist, and full of thoughtcrime.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 17, 2021, 01:16:50 PM
I don't think anybody here has ever actually played the orc village massacre scene that commonly appears in leftist blog posts on the subject. That's clearly a misleading caricature.

As a player, I've often come across villages that were massacred by orcs.  That's why we hate them.  They don't blog about that.

Quote from: DocJones on April 18, 2021, 12:56:50 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 17, 2021, 01:16:50 PM
I don't think anybody here has ever actually played the orc village massacre scene that commonly appears in leftist blog posts on the subject. That's clearly a misleading caricature.

As a player, I've often come across villages that were massacred by orcs.  That's why we hate them.  They don't blog about that.

Just because some members of ethnic group X massacre villages of ethnic group Y doesn't mean all members of ethnic group X are mass murdering psychopaths. Assuming such leads to a vicious cycle of ethnic cleansing.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 18, 2021, 01:15:46 PMJust because some members of ethnic group X massacre villages of ethnic group Y doesn't mean all members of ethnic group X are mass murdering psychopaths. Assuming such leads to a vicious cycle of ethnic cleansing.

Why do you have to attach real-world groups to fantasy fiction? Is the idea we can't even entertain some ideas because they would be too dangerous otherwise?