Quote from: Omega on Today at 09:13:16 AM

Quote from: bat on May 04, 2025, 12:27:06 AM

Quote from: Omega on May 03, 2025, 09:49:42 PMWhat some of the village idiot applicants here keep willfully forgetting is that D&D orcs were originally NOT just purely evil. They could be Chaotic AND neutral. Though I do not recall ever finding out why there were neutral orcs.

Wow. Not everyone started out with OD&D. While correct, Holmes, Basic and 1e, which a lot of people are used to, did not have the neutral alignment listed. I can see neutral orcs though, survivors of a warband left without direction, without the drive to destroy they just become neutral and live out their lives not trying to break or kill everything in their path.

Not you. The other members here who endlessly proclaim over and over "Orcs should have remained Evil!" when they damn well know they werent.

   I did not think I was on that particular list, although common opinion may vary on that, I was just stating that to a lot of people, they have only seen orcs list as evil or chaotic (even OD&D retroclones like S&W list orcs as Chaotic and maybe with 5 or 6 of this it is easy to forget the OD&D listing as it is watered down by all of the other sources.

Quote from: Fheredin on Today at 08:22:33 AMJust because you are yourself the victim of a crime does not absolve you of responsibilities you commit afterwards, so the orcs are still fully responsible for wrongdoing with Morgoth and Sauron guilty of accessory. This logic applies quite well to our current political climate; a lot of people drinking a whole lot of political Kool-Aid are effectively political footsoldiers. They don't want to take personal responsibility for their actions, but they are still morally culpable for the wrongdoing, and just because you don't like someone doesn't give you a license to commit crime against them.

Interesting invocation of modern politics...
I will note you might be in the J.R.R Martin camp of criticizing Aragorn's policy decisions. because he does in fact politically pardons the minions of Sauron, just not the orcs. such as the Easterlings and the Haradrim. mind you both cultures that had been corrupted and controlled by Sauron for centuries and had even Morgoth worship as a stable of their cultural practices. even they get more consideration to their circumstances than the Orcs.
why are we holding ancestral guilt for one but not the other?

QuoteElvish souls don't die the way the other races of Middle Earth do; they are bound to Arda, to the point that they live forever unless they are killed and even when they are killed, they can be reincarnated in some circumstances. Presumably, elvish souls will cease to be when Arda ceases to exist, which really puts a dampener on how much value penance can actually provide. The only carrot possible for penance is a return to the Undying lands, but otherwise they will be stuck in an indefinite life and reincarnation cycle until the end of Arda

This would promote a rather hedonistic and materialistic mindset among the elves as they basically just have a form of mechanistic determinism with extra steps.  which of course we don't see, and puts a rather nihilistic note on the story, which I don't think Tolkien was going for.

But that is rather beside the point because You are mistaking speculative information within the setting for factual, in so far as Elves fates after Arda is "destroyed" if it ever even is properly destroyed. while yes their souls are tied to Arda and don't pass on (I've already noted this before) It's never spelled out or made clear what happens after Arda for them, Dwarves believe they are responsible for rebuilding Arda after it's destruction, despite their souls being just as tethered to the direct fate of Arda, so in no way is this implication set in stone or affirmed as fact anyway that they all cease to be after some specific event or time.

Also there is that pesky detail that we never see orcs or former orcs in the halls of Mandos. or even a slight hint to that idea.

QuoteMy supposition is that Tolkien thought his wordcount for his denoument was valuable to keep from rambling on forever, and he wanted to keep Sharkey's raid on the Shire to demonstrate the Hobbits' character growth and to create a, "you can't go home again," moment at the end. This isn't exactly a "mistake," so much as deprioritizing giving an antagonist race closure (which most readers won't care about unless they start waxing philosophical about the nature of orcness) to give that wordcount to viewpoint characters in a way which materially influences the ending.

The fact of the matter is wordcount and rambling wasn't the issue here, he devoted more lines to giving closure to aspects of the setting we had less direct exposure with than the orcs, but couldn't be bothered with the orcs?

The pragmatic editorial explanation doesn't really answer this one.

Greetings!

*Sigh* Some people like to assume that OD&D is somehow the absolute authority on Orcs or whatever. Noone cares what OD&D said about anything. Back in the day, most everyone viewed OD&D as the "Basic Game" for kids. AD&D was the official book and standard that everyone embraced. In AD&D, Orcs are EVIL.

I also don't understand this deep-seated need by some folks to chase after the idea that somehow, some way, the Orcs must be REDEEMABLE. Whatever Tolkien may have jumped around on philosophically navel-gazing about the deeper morality of Orcs is again, not relevant in D&D. In AD&D, while Orcs are obviously inspired by Tolkien's interpretation, "Orcs" as a concept taken from history and mythology where there are definite mythological inspirations for savage, evil humanoid monsters like Orcs that Tolkien was likewise inspired from in his depiction of Orcs.

Even when reading Tolkien, such as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings--as a kid, what was people's impressions of Orcs back in the day? Orcs are savage, evil humanoid monsters. End of story.

Well, but letter #156 that Tolkien wrote to his sister in 1956, Tolkien felt guilty and wrestled with his depiction of Orcs being entirely evil, or postulated that Orcs could be redeemed somehow, blah, blah, blah. Again, so what? That isn't relevant either, and especially irrelevant to some kids that read just The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings back in the day.

Clearly, AD&D was not just inspired by Tolkien. So, therefore, when playing D&D, you are playing a game set up in your own world--NOT Middle Earth. The prime author and arbiter here is the DM--not Tolkien.

Even a casual reading of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings shows that Orcs are savage, evil monsters. For game purposes such as D&D, Orcs do not need to be any more complicated than that.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Some more Tolkien orcs by McBride, and with a cave troll in the background

Quote from: SHARK on Today at 01:19:23 PMClearly, AD&D was not just inspired by Tolkien. So, therefore, when playing D&D, you are playing a game set up in your own world--NOT Middle Earth. The prime author and arbiter here is the DM--not Tolkien.

Even a casual reading of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings shows that Orcs are savage, evil monsters. For game purposes such as D&D, Orcs do not need to be any more complicated than that.

No one is arguing against the DM choosing whatever they want.

Some people are pushing that orcs should be one particular way because that's what they originally were -- but I think that's a hollow argument, especially when original orcs aren't as described (like OD&D orcs being neutral or chaotic). Orcs were changed from Tolkien to early D&D, and there's no reason they shouldn't be changed further. I don't think Warcraft or Shadowrun or Earthdawn orcs are particularly woke, even though they aren't inherently evil.