TheRPGSite

Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: jhkim on December 02, 2018, 01:10:12 AM

Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 02, 2018, 01:10:12 AM
I've been refreshing myself up on Greyhawk while developing my own campaign world that is an offshoot of it.

Something that stood out to me was how dominant humans are across the whole setting, which is in part deliberate. Evil races like orcs are a minority everywhere, and there isn't a place like Mordor in Tolkien. This seems weird to me, because it means that its hard to have humanoids be a credible threat to humanity. It runs counter to the theme in Tolkien where humans were threatened by being overrun with orcs.

I'm curious about other humanocentric settings people play, including homebrew and published. In your setting, is there something like Mordor, so some force is a real rival to humanity? Or is humanity's dominance unquestioned?
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: JeremyR on December 02, 2018, 03:00:00 AM
I always got the impression in Tolkien that the orcs were not particularly threatening, in of themselves, but simply because they were united under one leader who wanted conquest - Sauron. Whereas the humans (and elves and dwarves) were not.

I think a good (if perhaps touchy) analogy is American Indians and Mesoamericans vs Westerners. Their technology was not nearly as high, and they weren't particularly united, preferring to fight with each other

I think the problem in D&D fantasy settings is that orcs aren't a threat, but other human nations aren't. They probably shouldn't cooperate so much. (But then again, gods and alignment would change things dramatically)
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: S'mon on December 02, 2018, 03:47:19 AM
The Empire of Iuz does become a Mordor analogue in Greyhawk.

In my Wilderlands I would say humans tend to be the biggest threat as befits a sword & sorcery type setting. Golarion has Belkzen an orcish realm. Faerun has huge orc hordes that somehow spawn in subarctic mountains.

Even in Tolkien I get the impression the bulk of Sauron's forces are human Easterlings and Southrons, and humans grow food for the Mordor orcs.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: soltakss on December 02, 2018, 06:36:48 AM
Quote from: JeremyR;1067085
I always got the impression in Tolkien that the orcs were not particularly threatening, in of themselves, but simply because they were united under one leader who wanted conquest - Sauron. Whereas the humans (and elves and dwarves) were not.

In my games, Orcs are suckers for a Dark Lord. They will muddle by without one quite happily, but as soon as someone comes along and tries to unite Orc clans with a bit of Sorcery/Necromancy/Whatever, they come flocking to the banner. It's a fundamental Orcish character flaw, in my opinion.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Chainsaw on December 02, 2018, 06:41:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim;1067079
Something that stood out to me was how dominant humans are across the whole setting, which is in part deliberate. Evil races like orcs are a minority everywhere, and there isn't a place like Mordor in Tolkien. This seems weird to me, because it means that its hard to have humanoids be a credible threat to humanity. It runs counter to the theme in Tolkien where humans were threatened by being overrun with orcs.

I'm curious about other humanocentric settings people play, including homebrew and published. In your setting, is there something like Mordor, so some force is a real rival to humanity? Or is humanity's dominance unquestioned?
Underdark?
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: David Johansen on December 02, 2018, 08:32:44 AM
There were orcs in the Misty Mountains and Mount Gundabad too.  Really, the orcs started out in Angbad anyhow.  But right around when third edition came out there was an article by Gary Gygax in Dragon magazine where he talked about having always intended the humanoids to be some what sympathetic analogs to native americans.  Bearing in mind that the original map he used was one of the area around Chicago.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: RandyB on December 02, 2018, 09:26:04 AM
Quote from: jhkim;1067079
I've been refreshing myself up on Greyhawk while developing my own campaign world that is an offshoot of it.

Something that stood out to me was how dominant humans are across the whole setting, which is in part deliberate. Evil races like orcs are a minority everywhere, and there isn't a place like Mordor in Tolkien. This seems weird to me, because it means that its hard to have humanoids be a credible threat to humanity. It runs counter to the theme in Tolkien where humans were threatened by being overrun with orcs.

I'm curious about other humanocentric settings people play, including homebrew and published. In your setting, is there something like Mordor, so some force is a real rival to humanity? Or is humanity's dominance unquestioned?

The Pomarj was an area overrun by orcs and their ilk, as I recall. Not a Dark Lord-led Mordor, to be sure.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Thornhammer on December 02, 2018, 11:28:50 AM
Quote from: soltakss;1067106
In my games, Orcs are suckers for a Dark Lord. They will muddle by without one quite happily, but as soon as someone comes along and tries to unite Orc clans with a bit of Sorcery/Necromancy/Whatever, they come flocking to the banner.


So they're Despicable Me type Minions.  But they're green and not yellow.

That would be an amusing take on Orcs.  Huh.  Gotta think on that a bit.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Philotomy Jurament on December 02, 2018, 12:06:19 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1067092
The Empire of Iuz does become a Mordor analogue in Greyhawk...Even in Tolkien I get the impression the bulk of Sauron's forces are human Easterlings and Southrons, and humans grow food for the Mordor orcs.
This.

Sauron used orcs, but he also used a lot of evil humans: Easterling tribes, Haradrim, Black Numenoreans/Corsairs of Umbar, et cetera. The lands of Iuz fit the Mordor model pretty well: evil (and possibly demonic) leader, uses evil humans and also makes heavy use of humanoids, threat to the civilized lands, et cetera.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Toadmaster on December 02, 2018, 02:44:56 PM
Quote from: JeremyR;1067085
I always got the impression in Tolkien that the orcs were not particularly threatening, in of themselves, but simply because they were united under one leader who wanted conquest - Sauron. Whereas the humans (and elves and dwarves) were not.

I think a good (if perhaps touchy) analogy is American Indians and Mesoamericans vs Westerners. Their technology was not nearly as high, and they weren't particularly united, preferring to fight with each other

I think the problem in D&D fantasy settings is that orcs aren't a threat, but other human nations aren't. They probably shouldn't cooperate so much. (But then again, gods and alignment would change things dramatically)



Agree on both points, except you can substitute any number of nomadic people, mongols, huns, vikings. Dangerous in small groups to those on the periphery but only really dangerous to large settlements when united under a strong leader.

Fantasy literature tends to have some significant inter-kingdom / empire rivalry which many fantasy games seem to lack. While not openly hostile, Rohan and Gondor were not particularly friendly even with a common threat. It took some subterfuge on the part of Gandolf and Pippin to nudge them into cooperation.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 02, 2018, 02:55:34 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067079
I'm curious about other humanocentric settings people play, including homebrew and published. In your setting, is there something like Mordor, so some force is a real rival to humanity? Or is humanity's dominance unquestioned?
Outside of classic fantasy, I've noticed this in sci-fi & sci-fant as well. Star Wars has thousands of species but humans are both everywhere and in great numbers. I actually prefer to play with humans being everywhere but spread a bit thin overall, especially as there's not a significant external opponent to the Republic/Empire in many eras. In Star Trek, I prefer to point out that while individual ships are dominated by one species, the Federation itself has perhaps only slightly more humans in it than it does Vulcans, Andorians, or other major member species. I often would color adventures just by changing a group of colonists from the default assumption of humans to another species. Star Trek also has numerous external threats to the Federation, none of which have significant human populations.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: rawma on December 02, 2018, 03:44:55 PM
Quote from: Toadmaster;1067146
Agree on both points, except you can substitute any number of nomadic people, mongols, huns, vikings. Dangerous in small groups to those on the periphery but only really dangerous to large settlements when united under a strong leader.

Fantasy literature tends to have some significant inter-kingdom / empire rivalry which many fantasy games seem to lack. While not openly hostile, Rohan and Gondor were not particularly friendly even with a common threat. It took some subterfuge on the part of Gandolf and Pippin to nudge them into cooperation.


But RPGs tend to focus on small groups, like a fellowship from diverse races who might have a quest to destroy an artifact. Miniatures battles involving armies are more Return of the King, and mostly not what goes on in RPGs, except perhaps off screen. If one kingdom intervenes in support of another, it's because the player characters persuaded the rulers (fulfilling a quest, defeating their champion, whatever) and the battles involving the armies sent are resolved very quickly. When there are rival kingdoms, they are usually in relative balance or slowly moving toward the defeat of the good guys, but with enough time for small scale adventuring to tip the balance the other way.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1067148
Outside of classic fantasy, I've noticed this in sci-fi & sci-fant as well. Star Wars has thousands of species but humans are both everywhere and in great numbers. I actually prefer to play with humans being everywhere but spread a bit thin overall, especially as there's not a significant external opponent to the Republic/Empire in many eras. In Star Trek, I prefer to point out that while individual ships are dominated by one species, the Federation itself has perhaps only slightly more humans in it than it does Vulcans, Andorians, or other major member species. I often would color adventures just by changing a group of colonists from the default assumption of humans to another species. Star Trek also has numerous external threats to the Federation, none of which have significant human populations.


In films and TV there's also the expense of large numbers of alien extras and the difficulty of actors conveying emotions through many layers of makeup and special effects, so even the aliens are close to human. But in any format there's a tendency to play to the vanity of the audience, that their species/nationality/whatever is central to the story. Star Wars would have been less successful if the resistance were all droids but with a couple of wacky human sidekicks for comic relief.

Specific to Star Trek, how are Vulcans going to outbreed or even match humans if they only want sex every seven years? It's not just D&D where half-whatever always has human as the other half.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 02, 2018, 03:51:18 PM
Quote from: Chainsaw;1067107
Underdark?


Exactly. Orcs take up the caves and underground areas. But if I recall correctly there are some regions in Greyhawk that actually do have sizable orc populations.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 02, 2018, 04:11:18 PM
Quote from: JeremyR;1067085
I always got the impression in Tolkien that the orcs were not particularly threatening, in of themselves, but simply because they were united under one leader who wanted conquest - Sauron. Whereas the humans (and elves and dwarves) were not.

I think a good (if perhaps touchy) analogy is American Indians and Mesoamericans vs Westerners. Their technology was not nearly as high, and they weren't particularly united, preferring to fight with each other

I think the problem in D&D fantasy settings is that orcs aren't a threat, but other human nations aren't. They probably shouldn't cooperate so much. (But then again, gods and alignment would change things dramatically)


You miss a few points then.

1: Orcs are a mostly subterrene race. They occupy caves and dungeons below ground quite a bit.

2: In Greyhawk at least if I recall correctly there actually are some regions with orc populations. But keep in mind the whole area is in a state of re-population and migration into what was prior a mostly sparsely populated land I believe.

3: Why do they need a Mordor? Bandits and other threats crop up and can be a major problem just the same.

4: This one is a little more obscure. But. Also potentially orcs or anyone else can have a Mordor. Just on a smaller scale. Due to the random habitation tables you can and eventually will end up with orcs and whatever occupying castles and ruins which gives them protentially dominion over the whole hex they occupy. Or not.

5: As someone else pointed out above. Technically there is a Mordor in Greyhawk. Iuz's kingdom.

6: In other settings it is all over the place with orcs all over. Or settings where orcs occupy a sizable kingdom even. In FR the orcs had a whole board game dedicated to their goofball kingdom wars. And in the Known World orcs and goblins controlled quite a bit of land. Especially goblins with no less than four regions.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 02, 2018, 08:35:57 PM
Quote from: rawma;1067156
Specific to Star Trek, how are Vulcans going to outbreed or even match humans if they only want sex every seven years? It's not just D&D where half-whatever always has human as the other half.
They also have much longer lifespans. A slower rate of population growth is OK if your mortality rate is similarly low.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: rawma on December 02, 2018, 09:15:42 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze;1067198
They also have much longer lifespans. A slower rate of population growth is OK if your mortality rate is similarly low.


Vulcans apparently live to between 200 and 300 years old; that's a really long time to live and only have sex 40 times or so. Humans in the Star Trek world also have rather longer lifespans, but not that long. But logic would dictate that Vulcans should breed like rabbits to keep up with the humans, pon farr or not, and that's probably the best pickup line you're going to get out of someone who's mostly not interested in sex.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Brad on December 02, 2018, 10:04:18 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067079
I've been refreshing myself up on Greyhawk while developing my own campaign world that is an offshoot of it.

Something that stood out to me was how dominant humans are across the whole setting, which is in part deliberate. Evil races like orcs are a minority everywhere, and there isn't a place like Mordor in Tolkien. This seems weird to me, because it means that its hard to have humanoids be a credible threat to humanity. It runs counter to the theme in Tolkien where humans were threatened by being overrun with orcs.

I'm curious about other humanocentric settings people play, including homebrew and published. In your setting, is there something like Mordor, so some force is a real rival to humanity? Or is humanity's dominance unquestioned?

Orcs could be more like roaches: really annoying and impossible to stamp out, but not a legitimate threat. Humanoid vermin you just expect to deal with in civilized areas. Just because humans are 100% dominant doesn't mean orcs can't be a dangerous and credible threat. A few years back a school by my house closed for the day because there was a mountain lion roaming the premises. Yeah, it's a super rare occurrence but I sure as fuck wouldn't hang around to see what the mountain lion was going to do. Maybe the rarity of such encounters would actually make them more dangerous because people wouldn't really know how to react in those situations.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 02, 2018, 11:10:04 PM
Quote from: rawma;1067199
Vulcans apparently live to between 200 and 300 years old; that's a really long time to live and only have sex 40 times or so. Humans in the Star Trek world also have rather longer lifespans, but not that long. But logic would dictate that Vulcans should breed like rabbits to keep up with the humans, pon farr or not, and that's probably the best pickup line you're going to get out of someone who's mostly not interested in sex.

Vulcans are driven to mate during pon farr, but they certainly can and do have sex at other times.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: crkrueger on December 03, 2018, 01:41:35 AM
Back to Greyhawk:

As far as Mordor goes, there's two:

The Lands of Iuz, where Iuz, the rumored son of the Demon Lord Graz'zt and possibly the witch Iggwilv, rules hordes of evil humanoids and humans.

The Horned Society where a religion ruled by humans worshipping devils and the evil god Hextor, also have hordes of humanoid armies.

As far as Mount Gundabad goes, there's at least one:

The Pomarj, an entire peninsula where Orcs and Goblins rule.

There's also the Great Kingdom, a vast, decadent evil empire that has many humanoids living within it's society, as well as the Bone March, a northern province where humanoids have seized significant land.

That's not counting the massive amounts in the various mountain ranges as well as, of course, the lands of the Drow.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 03, 2018, 03:18:47 PM
Short form - I agree that Iuz is the parallel to Mordor in Greyhawk, but it is primarily human, with only a smattering of orcs and other humanoids. Whereas Mordor is described as a vast land only inhabited by orcs, trolls, and the like - Iuz is a human kingdom. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is a significant difference from Tolkien.

Quote from: JeremyR
I always got the impression in Tolkien that the orcs were not particularly threatening, in of themselves, but simply because they were united under one leader who wanted conquest - Sauron. Whereas the humans (and elves and dwarves) were not.
Quote from: Toadmaster;1067146
Agree on both points, except you can substitute any number of nomadic people, mongols, huns, vikings. Dangerous in small groups to those on the periphery but only really dangerous to large settlements when united under a strong leader.

Fantasy literature tends to have some significant inter-kingdom / empire rivalry which many fantasy games seem to lack. While not openly hostile, Rohan and Gondor were not particularly friendly even with a common threat. It took some subterfuge on the part of Gandolf and Pippin to nudge them into cooperation.
Well, for them to be threatening under a strong leader, then you need a lot of them. In the real world, for example, there was a vast area with vast numbers of mongols. Likewise, in Tolkien, there were a lot of just orcs in Mordor - which was described as a land that could field lots of armies. Even after the armies attacking Gondor were broken, the assault on Mordor faced huge numbers of orcs that dwarfed what Gondor was able to muster.

In Greyhawk, even if there is a leader like Iuz to unite them, there doesn't seem to be that sort of population of orcs and other humanoids compared to the vast kingdoms of humans.


Quote from: Brad;1067207
Orcs could be more like roaches: really annoying and impossible to stamp out, but not a legitimate threat. Humanoid vermin you just expect to deal with in civilized areas. Just because humans are 100% dominant doesn't mean orcs can't be a dangerous and credible threat. A few years back a school by my house closed for the day because there was a mountain lion roaming the premises. Yeah, it's a super rare occurrence but I sure as fuck wouldn't hang around to see what the mountain lion was going to do. Maybe the rarity of such encounters would actually make them more dangerous because people wouldn't really know how to react in those situations.
Yeah, that is my impression. It doesn't mean that orcs are meaningless or not dangerous - but orcs as vermin is a different tone from Tolkien where they are a threat to rival humanity.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: S'mon on December 03, 2018, 03:26:44 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067352
Short form - I agree that Iuz is the parallel to Mordor in Greyhawk, but it is primarily human, with only a smattering of orcs and other humanoids. Whereas Mordor is described as a vast land only inhabited by orcs, trolls, and the like

No, if you read RoTK carefully you'll see there are lots of humans in Mordor, they grow the food that feeds Sauron's armies. Frodo & Bilbo are just trekking through a small bit of NW Mordor where the foundries and orc garrisons are. At one point they do see a human farming village in the distance.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: S'mon on December 03, 2018, 03:28:42 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067352

Well, for them to be threatening under a strong leader, then you need a lot of them. In the real world, for example, there was a vast area with vast numbers of mongols. Likewise, in Tolkien, there were a lot of just orcs in Mordor - which was described as a land that could field lots of armies. Even after the armies attacking Gondor were broken, the assault on Mordor faced huge numbers of orcs that dwarfed what Gondor was able to muster.

In Greyhawk, even if there is a leader like Iuz to unite them, there doesn't seem to be that sort of population of orcs and other humanoids compared to the vast kingdoms of humans.


I think that's more a feature of the Men of the West, especially the Gondoreans, being so few in number, which is part of Tolkien's Declinist theme.

Sauron recruited tons of Easterlings Southrons Black Numenoreans and other humans - all the humans he could get. He clearly didn't feel he could rely on orcs alone. There isn't really a 'kill all humans' theme in the LoTR books to my mind, that was more introduced in the film version.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: tenbones on December 03, 2018, 04:18:41 PM
Spelljammer.

The humans are the relative newcomers and the Scro are literally evolved Orcs that are intelligent, militant, organized and super dangerous with some of the best ships in the game. The Elven Imperial Fleet are their primary competitors and the largest human fleet that I can think of - is the Wa Navy from the Japanese analogue - Wa. Shou Lung is probably second largest.

Of course Spelljammer is kind of a meta-setting, but humans are definitely not the largest powers by any stretch.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 03, 2018, 04:32:52 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1067362
I think that's more a feature of the Men of the West, especially the Gondoreans, being so few in number, which is part of Tolkien's Declinist theme.

Sauron recruited tons of Easterlings Southrons Black Numenoreans and other humans - all the humans he could get. He clearly didn't feel he could rely on orcs alone. There isn't really a 'kill all humans' theme in the LoTR books to my mind, that was more introduced in the film version.
OK, I went too far in saying that Mordor was *only* orcs. There is evidence that there were some humans there - but I still think that orcs were portrayed as a real rival to humanity.

Tolkien doesn't give numerical comparisons, but orcs feature predominantly in most of selected description of the battles. It seems massive stretching to say that Lord of the Rings only shows the orc-heavy parts of the narrative - the battle descriptions are only of the orc-heavy side, and Frodo and Sam only go through the orc-heavy parts of Mordor, etc. Orcs are present in huge numbers. That's part of the declinist theme - how evil breeds quickly.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 03, 2018, 04:34:03 PM
Quote from: tenbones;1067389
Spelljammer.

The humans are the relative newcomers and the Scro are literally evolved Orcs that are intelligent, militant, organized and super dangerous with some of the best ships in the game. The Elven Imperial Fleet are their primary competitors and the largest human fleet that I can think of - is the Wa Navy from the Japanese analogue - Wa. Shou Lung is probably second largest.

Of course Spelljammer is kind of a meta-setting, but humans are definitely not the largest powers by any stretch.
Cool. I haven't checked out Spelljammer yet, so that's interesting to hear.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Chris24601 on December 03, 2018, 05:52:20 PM
Another point worth noting here is the importance of "history." The Mongols were a threat at a particular place and time in history because of a confluence of events that would have been impossible to replicate a hundred years prior or hence. 500 years after the fact they weren't even relevant to the great empires of the day.

Way too many fantasy settings have a very "status quo is god" mindset on its history. The same families rule the same territories for not just centuries, but millennia. The orc tribes which challenged the kingdom 500 years ago are the exact same tribes which threaten it today.

If you wanted realism the average human dynasty lasts maybe a century-and-a-half, two if it's really lucky (ballpark 3-5 generations of rulers) before it collapses and gets replaced by someone at best tangentially related to the previous dynasty.

Orc tribes break apart and reform every generation (two at the outside if the chief's heir is particularly competent) with smaller ones getting eaten up (sometimes literally) by the larger tribes. Every four to six generations an orc warlord comes along who can unite enough of the other tribes to launch a mass pillage that lines up with a neighboring kingdom having dynastic issues and you get a kingdom wiped off the map.

Then a hundred years later when the warlord's heirs have squandered the unity of tribes and had the tribes splinter up you have a region ripe for some ambitious adventurer to come along and establish their own new kingdom in the area.

The point being that WHEN your campaign is set is just as important as where it is set and the conditions now don't have to be at all like they were before or how they might be after the campaign.

It could be that your game is set during the twilight of the Orcs time as a dominant force; that ever encroaching humans have splintered the orc's historic unity and ensured that, so long as the current generation is kept from re-unification, the orcs will one day be completely conquered and integrated into human civilization.

Or it could be set at the dawn of an Orcish Ghengis Khan. The orcs weren't a significant threat before, but now they will sweep almost unstoppably across the continent and the best the PCs can hope for is to evacuate those they care about ahead of the Green Death.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 03, 2018, 08:02:39 PM
Quote from: CRKrueger;1067231
Back to Greyhawk:

The Pomarj, an entire peninsula where Orcs and Goblins rule.


Oooh yes had totally forgotten about the Orcs of the Pomarj! Doh that was where Jan's half-orcs usually hailed from even.

I really need to dig out my box set and re-read.:o
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: David Johansen on December 03, 2018, 10:48:02 PM
In one campaign I had a human Alexander the Great type who commanded an orc horde that circumnavigated the globe.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 03, 2018, 10:50:53 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067393
Cool. I haven't checked out Spelljammer yet, so that's interesting to hear.

There is a module even dedicated to the Scro and allied races staging a second space war. You could end up with some fun stuff involving scro such as the really devastating weapons used by both sides. Elves were employing essentially bio-mecha to fight orc bred planet depopulating giant monsters.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: tenbones on December 04, 2018, 11:26:28 AM
Quote from: jhkim;1067393
Cool. I haven't checked out Spelljammer yet, so that's interesting to hear.

BRO??? You haven't checked out Spelljammer?  Bruuuuhhhh!!!!..

You need to fix this. It's like D&D by way of Baron Munchhausen having a lovechild with Gary Gygax and George Lucas's lovechild, then doing a bunch of bonghits and magic-mushrooms with H.R. Puffinstuff and Willy Wonka - who both then tell you that those weren't magic-mushrooms - it really was PCP, and took that and set it in Warhammer Fantasy space.

Okay... maybe that's just my Spelljammer games.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: tenbones on December 04, 2018, 11:34:28 AM
Quote from: Chris24601;1067407
Another point worth noting here is the importance of "history." The Mongols were a threat at a particular place and time in history because of a confluence of events that would have been impossible to replicate a hundred years prior or hence. 500 years after the fact they weren't even relevant to the great empires of the day.

Way too many fantasy settings have a very "status quo is god" mindset on its history. The same families rule the same territories for not just centuries, but millennia. The orc tribes which challenged the kingdom 500 years ago are the exact same tribes which threaten it today.

If you wanted realism the average human dynasty lasts maybe a century-and-a-half, two if it's really lucky (ballpark 3-5 generations of rulers) before it collapses and gets replaced by someone at best tangentially related to the previous dynasty.

Orc tribes break apart and reform every generation (two at the outside if the chief's heir is particularly competent) with smaller ones getting eaten up (sometimes literally) by the larger tribes. Every four to six generations an orc warlord comes along who can unite enough of the other tribes to launch a mass pillage that lines up with a neighboring kingdom having dynastic issues and you get a kingdom wiped off the map.

Then a hundred years later when the warlord's heirs have squandered the unity of tribes and had the tribes splinter up you have a region ripe for some ambitious adventurer to come along and establish their own new kingdom in the area.

The point being that WHEN your campaign is set is just as important as where it is set and the conditions now don't have to be at all like they were before or how they might be after the campaign.

It could be that your game is set during the twilight of the Orcs time as a dominant force; that ever encroaching humans have splintered the orc's historic unity and ensured that, so long as the current generation is kept from re-unification, the orcs will one day be completely conquered and integrated into human civilization.

Or it could be set at the dawn of an Orcish Ghengis Khan. The orcs weren't a significant threat before, but now they will sweep almost unstoppably across the continent and the best the PCs can hope for is to evacuate those they care about ahead of the Green Death.

This is pretty much how I do Orcs. It always irks me to think of any sentient race in my campaigns living contextually as only "punching bags" for the PC's. That might very well be the case from the player perspective. It might even be that way because culturally Goblinoid races are supposed to be stupid. But that also means they must have some semblance of a system to justify their existence as a social group - assuming you're doing a sandbox campaign.

A good Orc warlord is cunning and smart while being able to play the normal Orc cultural might-is-right social norms. That is the Orc Khan you make your players fear. Have him use tactics that are novel and strategic. Even forcing tactical losses in order to win on a larger strategic scale. There is no reason Orcs can't be dominant and successful in a setting, unless you make them punching bags.

Dang... now I'm thinking of doing this in my game...
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Chris24601 on December 04, 2018, 12:36:28 PM
In my own campaign world orcs aren't even stupid (at least not any more so than a human). They're basically super-predators; stronger, faster and with sharper senses than a human (the average orc warrior would be a roughly even match for three 0-level human infantry or one first level PC).

The only thing working against them at the moment is that Great Kahn figure died (and has been deified) and leadership has passed to his three sons and one daughter who are all vying against each other to be the next Great Kahn... giving a bit of breathing room to the neighboring kingdoms, but everyone knows it's a pause, not an end, unless something is done to break the back of the Great Orc Horde (i.e. make their internal conflict as costly as possible).

If the PCs can break them the threat of the orcs as world conquerors will likely be ended forever in that campaign world though isolated tribes would continue to be local threats for decades to come.

If they can ally with the most open-minded of the orc leaders (the middle son, neither raised to follow in his father's footsteps nor coddled like the baby of the family and not going overboard to prove herself every bit the orc warrior as her brothers) they might be able to create a viable orcish state who can have diplomatic relations with its neighbors.

If the orcs are able to unify under the eldest brother, the conquest will continue as before after the pause. If the youngest brother wins the struggle the unity will eventually break, but the stronger orc tribes will continue to hold the land already claimed. If the daughter wins she will order the orcs to even greater levels of savagry in their conquest.

None of those is a "best choice" but there are definitely some bad choices in that mix, but the main thing is... whatever they choose though there's no status quo to really go back to.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 04, 2018, 02:39:53 PM
Quote from: tenbones;1067483
This is pretty much how I do Orcs. It always irks me to think of any sentient race in my campaigns living contextually as only "punching bags" for the PC's. That might very well be the case from the player perspective. It might even be that way because culturally Goblinoid races are supposed to be stupid. But that also means they must have some semblance of a system to justify their existence as a social group - assuming you're doing a sandbox campaign.

I haven't minded it that much in previous campaigns - but as I think more about it, I like the idea of the enemy being a large-scale threat rather than a nuisance that can be dangerous in their small areas. In some games, there isn't the sense of an imminent threat like Mordor - and so adventuring has seemed like more of a lark - a way to grab money or fame, but not a higher purpose.

--

In my own current setting, the main enemy is humans - who in this world are an evil race - and even though I haven't detailed the wider world, the players at least understand that humans are freaking dangerous, and could easily become dominant and wipe the other races out completely in the future. I like the feeling of that wider threat. It makes fights against humans more driven, rather than just something to do.

(I'm currently trying to detail the wider world, which will take some hard choices. I'm not sure if I should talk about that here or in another thread.)
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: SHARK on December 04, 2018, 03:20:57 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067497
I haven't minded it that much in previous campaigns - but as I think more about it, I like the idea of the enemy being a large-scale threat rather than a nuisance that can be dangerous in their small areas. In some games, there isn't the sense of an imminent threat like Mordor - and so adventuring has seemed like more of a lark - a way to grab money or fame, but not a higher purpose.

--

In my own current setting, the main enemy is humans - who in this world are an evil race - and even though I haven't detailed the wider world, the players at least understand that humans are freaking dangerous, and could easily become dominant and wipe the other races out completely in the future. I like the feeling of that wider threat. It makes fights against humans more driven, rather than just something to do.

(I'm currently trying to detail the wider world, which will take some hard choices. I'm not sure if I should talk about that here or in another thread.)

Greetings!

You know, JHKIM, that got me thinking...you don't really see too many *human* kingdoms really positioned as "evil opponents" in many modules and settings. They exist, but I'm thinking on the nation-state scale, where they really serve as an ongoing, long-term threat.

I think one reason for their seeming absence is the desire to maintain this sort of "barbaric frontier" theme on a constant basis. Certainly having such a theme is very flexible, but as Tenbones alluded to, having that be everywhere, and go on perpetually--doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: tenbones on December 04, 2018, 03:41:43 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067497
I haven't minded it that much in previous campaigns - but as I think more about it, I like the idea of the enemy being a large-scale threat rather than a nuisance that can be dangerous in their small areas. In some games, there isn't the sense of an imminent threat like Mordor - and so adventuring has seemed like more of a lark - a way to grab money or fame, but not a higher purpose.

Well I like to look at it like this - if you're not particularly smart, you'll only be a localized threat. Like gangbangers in a city. But when someone with a little bit of intelligence or cunning coupled with charisma or strong intimidation skills, you can parley that power into a much more formidable issue. Give them a little MORE intelligence - and the ability to cultivate some semblance of trust whether it's based in blood or history and the leader can cultivate lieutenants of equal or surpassing competency, even if it's just super-specialization, then you're talking about a true Khan-like potential figure.

That's when you get someone capable of making alliances with former enemies against larger threats (humanity). This is represented over and over in history on a variety of scales.

Quote from: jhkim;1067497
In my own current setting, the main enemy is humans - who in this world are an evil race - and even though I haven't detailed the wider world, the players at least understand that humans are freaking dangerous, and could easily become dominant and wipe the other races out completely in the future. I like the feeling of that wider threat. It makes fights against humans more driven, rather than just something to do.

(I'm currently trying to detail the wider world, which will take some hard choices. I'm not sure if I should talk about that here or in another thread.)

Is there anything particular that makes the Humans "evil"? Other than they hate orcs? Are orcs open to the possibility of co-existence at all?

I've had an idea similar to this - but I wanted it to be goblins/hobgoblins/ogres vs. Humans. I can never sell it to my players.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 04, 2018, 03:52:08 PM
Quote from: tenbones;1067509
Well I like to look at it like this - if you're not particularly smart, you'll only be a localized threat. Like gangbangers in a city. But when someone with a little bit of intelligence or cunning coupled with charisma or strong intimidation skills, you can parley that power into a much more formidable issue. Give them a little MORE intelligence - and the ability to cultivate some semblance of trust whether it's based in blood or history and the leader can cultivate lieutenants of equal or surpassing competency, even if it's just super-specialization, then you're talking about a true Khan-like potential figure.

That's when you get someone capable of making alliances with former enemies against larger threats (humanity). This is represented over and over in history on a variety of scales.



Is there anything particular that makes the Humans "evil"? Other than they hate orcs? Are orcs open to the possibility of co-existence at all?

I've had an idea similar to this - but I wanted it to be goblins/hobgoblins/ogres vs. Humans. I can never sell it to my players.

IIRC, the backside of Krynn had the continent of Taladas where the minotaurs had a lawful (and perhaps good) society with human neighbors to the south that were all necromancy and naughty.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Haffrung on December 04, 2018, 04:19:15 PM
The vikings terrified much of Northern Europe, despite their relatively small numbers. The common people aren't prepared for sudden raids of a 100-200 fast-moving and brutal warriors, and organized defence takes time and a lot of resources. I assume orcs act in the same way. They only rarely organize into full armies that can challenge organized states.

And it's a mistake to assume that all fantasy worlds are made up mostly of settled, densely populated kingdoms. In settings like the Wilderlands, civilization is made up of city-states and scattered,often beleaguered communities trying to survive in the midst of wilderness and hostile, sparsely settled land. A small walled city of 3,000 or 4,000 could be seriously threatened by a couple hundred orcs living in the nearby hills.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 04, 2018, 05:05:14 PM
Quote from: SHARK;1067507
You know, JHKIM, that got me thinking...you don't really see too many *human* kingdoms really positioned as "evil opponents" in many modules and settings. They exist, but I'm thinking on the nation-state scale, where they really serve as an ongoing, long-term threat.

I think one reason for their seeming absence is the desire to maintain this sort of "barbaric frontier" theme on a constant basis. Certainly having such a theme is very flexible, but as Tenbones alluded to, having that be everywhere, and go on perpetually--doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Yeah. In the setting books for Greyhawk features some evil human nations, but the vast majority of modules have monsters as foes. Even though the Monster Manual has always had some human entries, I think the genre of D&D has always focused on fighting monsters.

This is something that I've been handling a little differently in my current campaign. Humans are the enemy, though in my case that's because humans are the monsters. The difference is that there is more variety of humans than typical of monsters. Whereas monsters are often treated as mostly cookie-cutter (with exceptions), I'm gradually introducing greater variety of human foes.

Quote from: tenbones;1067509
Is there anything particular that makes the Humans "evil"? Other than they hate orcs? Are orcs open to the possibility of co-existence at all?

I've had an idea similar to this - but I wanted it to be goblins/hobgoblins/ogres vs. Humans. I can never sell it to my players.
In my campaign, humans are just plain bad news. They are warlike, greedy, and sadistic. They delight in conquering and enslaving other races. They tend towards neutral evil - capable of organizing, but often too individually greedy to successfully unify. The most common way for them to organize is in different cults.

As for peace... Currently my players are in a small monastery of bugbears and gnolls at an old moathouse. The monks think they can make peace with the humans, and the PCs are trying to talk them out of it, successfully. There is a human - Lareth the Beautiful - who has been selling them stories of how peace is possible, but the PCs know Lareth is a puppet to the human forces - and have seen the large human force currently tracking them down. Next session will probably be the siege of the moathouse, hindered by trying to protect a bunch of peace-loving monks.

Everyone has had fun with the concept. I don't think it's going to take the gaming world by storm or anything, but I'm finding it to be a fun twist.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 04, 2018, 08:19:14 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067497
I haven't minded it that much in previous campaigns - but as I think more about it, I like the idea of the enemy being a large-scale threat rather than a nuisance that can be dangerous in their small areas. In some games, there isn't the sense of an imminent threat like Mordor - and so adventuring has seemed like more of a lark - a way to grab money or fame, but not a higher purpose.

In FR orcs are a major threat and the Sword Coast book touches on at least two dwarven underground cites that have been totally wiped out and how the orcs sweep through the region and pretty much devastate it till driven off by one of the major powers and even that has not been enough apparently. Over time some orcs are getting more civilized and trying to seek alternatives. But seems the greater majority just want to wipe everyone off the map and under the map too. They seem to be a particularly devastating problem for dwarves. To the point that the book describes one city so paranoid prepped that they line the whole place with traps and visitors better not stray or else. And another one that was a joint human above and dwarven below arrangement and when one of the orc waves came through the dwarves just sealed up and the city above was laid to ruin.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: rawma on December 04, 2018, 10:47:49 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze;1067220
Vulcans are driven to mate during pon farr, but they certainly can and do have sex at other times.


If they're only doing it because it's logical to do so, it is the saddest sex possible.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 04, 2018, 11:31:46 PM
Quote from: rawma;1067559
If they're only doing it because it's logical to do so, it is the saddest sex possible.

Logic is basically their religion. Not all of them are exceptionally pious.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: tenbones on December 05, 2018, 12:28:43 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze;1067510
IIRC, the backside of Krynn had the continent of Taladas where the minotaurs had a lawful (and perhaps good) society with human neighbors to the south that were all necromancy and naughty.


Oh hell yeah! The League! Love that! Minotaur Romans. (Like the Wolfen Empire in Palladium Fantasy).
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: soltakss on December 07, 2018, 02:43:06 PM
Quote from: Chris24601;1067407
Or it could be set at the dawn of an Orcish Ghengis Khan.

Yep, Orcs flock to a Dark Lord.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 07, 2018, 04:24:05 PM
The premise of Orcwars was various orc leaders trying to unite the fractions clans.

Quote
Once upon a time, in a land of eternal warfare, a Lord of Chaos rose among his peers and ruled them all, becoming the greatest of their champions. He united hordes no one else could control, and soon his legions marched to crush the Fair Realms. Thar was his name, the very one who filled humans and elves with terror in the time of night. . . .
Ahem . . . or so the orcs tell it.
The Great Orc Wars, when the 10 Tribal Chiefs of the Known World attempted (in vain) to unite their humanoid hordes for control of the caravan routes and supremacy over the neighboring human and elven realms.

Orcwars eventually ended up as a pack in game for the Orcs of Thar gazeteer for Mystara.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 07, 2018, 05:35:43 PM
Quote from: Omega;1067540
In FR orcs are a major threat and the Sword Coast book touches on at least two dwarven underground cites that have been totally wiped out and how the orcs sweep through the region and pretty much devastate it till driven off by one of the major powers and even that has not been enough apparently. Over time some orcs are getting more civilized and trying to seek alternatives. But seems the greater majority just want to wipe everyone off the map and under the map too. They seem to be a particularly devastating problem for dwarves. To the point that the book describes one city so paranoid prepped that they line the whole place with traps and visitors better not stray or else. And another one that was a joint human above and dwarven below arrangement and when one of the orc waves came through the dwarves just sealed up and the city above was laid to ruin.
Caveat:  I've played some in Forgotten Realms, but I don't know it in detail.

Offhand, this doesn't make sense to me. From looking over the Sword Coast map and area descriptions, the orcs don't seem to hold any significant territory. Like with Greyhawk, there's no vast orcish land like Mordor. So where do the orcs come from to conquer whole regions? Is there something I'm missing?
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on December 07, 2018, 05:46:52 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067907
Caveat:  I've played some in Forgotten Realms, but I don't know it in detail.

Offhand, this doesn't make sense to me. From looking over the Sword Coast map and area descriptions, the orcs don't seem to hold any significant territory. Like with Greyhawk, there's no vast orcish land like Mordor. So where do the orcs come from to conquer whole regions? Is there something I'm missing?

There is a lot of "unsettled" wilderness, sometimes inhabited by various tribes, monstrous or otherwise.  At least that was the earlier idea.  Whether they've kept that up consistently through the editions, I couldn't say.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 07, 2018, 07:04:11 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067907
Caveat:  I've played some in Forgotten Realms, but I don't know it in detail.

Offhand, this doesn't make sense to me. From looking over the Sword Coast map and area descriptions, the orcs don't seem to hold any significant territory.

Like with Greyhawk, there's no vast orcish land like Mordor. So where do the orcs come from to conquer whole regions? Is there something I'm missing?

1: same here.

2: Do they need an area on the map to count as a threat? Why? According to Sword Coast Orcs hold chunks of territory. And it lists the following civilizations as having been destroyed by orcs. Illfarn, Athalantar, Phalorm, the dwarven kingdoms of Gharraghaur, Sundabar and Delzoun. It is also mentioned as the reason Gauntleglim was not rediscovered sooner as the orc wars were hitting most of the dwarven holdings. Mithral Hall notes that the dwarves there worked out a treaty with the orc Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Other areas are noted to be home to large populations of other monsters like the aptly named Hartsvale being home to several large tribes of ogres, the aptly named Trollclaws being home to alot of trolls, and so on. The Yuan Ti have an area secured as well. This all from just a quick glance through the book.

er... You missed the mention of the orcs of the Pomarje didnt you? Also as noted above. Mystara had Thar which is a defined orc kingdom and got its own Gazeteer.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: SHARK on December 07, 2018, 09:14:41 PM
Quote from: Omega;1067917
1: same here.

2: Do they need an area on the map to count as a threat? Why? According to Sword Coast Orcs hold chunks of territory. And it lists the following civilizations as having been destroyed by orcs. Illfarn, Athalantar, Phalorm, the dwarven kingdoms of Gharraghaur, Sundabar and Delzoun. It is also mentioned as the reason Gauntleglim was not rediscovered sooner as the orc wars were hitting most of the dwarven holdings. Mithral Hall notes that the dwarves there worked out a treaty with the orc Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Other areas are noted to be home to large populations of other monsters like the aptly named Hartsvale being home to several large tribes of ogres, the aptly named Trollclaws being home to alot of trolls, and so on. The Yuan Ti have an area secured as well. This all from just a quick glance through the book.

er... You missed the mention of the orcs of the Pomarje didnt you? Also as noted above. Mystara had Thar which is a defined orc kingdom and got its own Gazeteer.

Greetings!

Very true, Omega. In addition, there are relatively few real "kingdoms" in the Forgotten Realms, certainly in a territorial, "Nation-State" model. Most such civilized settlements and "realms"--such as they are, tend to be mostly made up of City States.

It always seemed obvious to me that Orcs and such like, essentially roam about within all of the wilderness areas *in between*, around, and beyond such city states and "realms".

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 07, 2018, 09:17:49 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1067910
There is a lot of "unsettled" wilderness, sometimes inhabited by various tribes, monstrous or otherwise.  At least that was the earlier idea.  Whether they've kept that up consistently through the editions, I couldn't say.
If there are tens of thousands of orcs in an area, that should be somehow described differently from a true wilderness with only wild animals and wandering monsters. It makes a huge difference if the PCs go to that place. i.e. Are they marching and camping openly and setting watches in case a few orcs wander by, or is it like going into Mordor and they are hiding, surrounded by massive armies?

Quote from: Omega;1067917
Do they need an area on the map to count as a threat? Why? According to Sword Coast Orcs hold chunks of territory. And it lists the following civilizations as having been destroyed by orcs. Illfarn, Athalantar, Phalorm, the dwarven kingdoms of Gharraghaur, Sundabar and Delzoun. It is also mentioned as the reason Gauntleglim was not rediscovered sooner as the orc wars were hitting most of the dwarven holdings. Mithral Hall notes that the dwarves there worked out a treaty with the orc Kingdom of Many-Arrows.
Well, yes, I think so. If there are enough orcs to destroy whole kingdoms, then they should be living somewhere on the map. It just doesn't make sense for tens of thousands of orcs to appear out of nowhere to destroy things and then disappear.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: SHARK on December 07, 2018, 09:30:53 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067931
If there are tens of thousands of orcs in an area, that should be somehow described differently from a true wilderness with only wild animals and wandering monsters. It makes a huge difference if the PCs go to that place. i.e. Are they marching and camping openly and setting watches in case a few orcs wander by, or is it like going into Mordor and they are hiding, surrounded by massive armies?


Well, yes, I think so. If there are enough orcs to destroy whole kingdoms, then they should be living somewhere on the map. It just doesn't make sense for tens of thousands of orcs to appear out of nowhere to destroy things and then disappear.

Greetings!

Hey Jhkim! I can't disagree with your criticism here, and in truth, I agree with it. While having various loosely-organized tribes of Orcs wandering around the "wilderness" is *somewhat* plausible--at the same time, for the reasons you point out, it can stretch believability as well. I tend to chalk that detail up with FR being a somehat silly "Throw jello at the wall and see what sticks" kind of campaign setting. FR has more than a few cool elements, to be sure--but embracing strong, logical geo-politics and an ordered sense of geography have never been the setting's strong suits.

In my own campaign world, I have more than one vast wilderness area that is barbaric and under the control primarily of X race for example. In one area, I have a realm of semi-wilderness that is roughly 2,600 miles long, from east to west, and 1600 to 2500 miles from north to south that is ruled by an Orc Kingdom. Within this realm, the Orcs have dozens of huge cities, and hundreds of fortified towns and villages. This Orc kingdom can regularly put an army of 300,000 warriors in the field.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: S'mon on December 07, 2018, 10:33:18 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067931
If there are tens of thousands of orcs in an area, that should be somehow described differently from a true wilderness with only wild animals and wandering monsters. It makes a huge difference if the PCs go to that place. i.e. Are they marching and camping openly and setting watches in case a few orcs wander by, or is it like going into Mordor and they are hiding, surrounded by massive armies?

Well, yes, I think so. If there are enough orcs to destroy whole kingdoms, then they should be living somewhere on the map. It just doesn't make sense for tens of thousands of orcs to appear out of nowhere to destroy things and then disappear.

The numbers of orcs definitely don't make sense, but as I mentioned upthread, this is canonical in FR.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 08, 2018, 12:50:38 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067931
If there are tens of thousands of orcs in an area, that should be somehow described differently from a true wilderness with only wild animals and wandering monsters. It makes a huge difference if the PCs go to that place. i.e. Are they marching and camping openly and setting watches in case a few orcs wander by, or is it like going into Mordor and they are hiding, surrounded by massive armies?


Well, yes, I think so. If there are enough orcs to destroy whole kingdoms, then they should be living somewhere on the map. It just doesn't make sense for tens of thousands of orcs to appear out of nowhere to destroy things and then disappear.

You have no sense of scale then. A single 24mile hex is alot of real-estate. More importantly theres more land under that. I mean really. Show me on the map where the drow are? Cant? Then I guess drow can never ever be a threat. Illithids? Gosh guess that whole put out the sun thing was just mass hysteria. mm-hmm. And dwarves! Not a single above ground kingdom? Guess they are meaningless then.

And as noted. At least in GH Orcs do hold a chunk of land. In fact most of the D&D settings have one in some manner. Or lands where they can rally to. In FR they seem to hang out ALOT in mountainous regions and battle dwarves ALOT for underground holdings.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Pat on December 08, 2018, 01:33:36 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067931
If there are tens of thousands of orcs in an area, that should be somehow described differently from a true wilderness with only wild animals and wandering monsters. It makes a huge difference if the PCs go to that place. i.e. Are they marching and camping openly and setting watches in case a few orcs wander by, or is it like going into Mordor and they are hiding, surrounded by massive armies?
I'm not familiar with the Sword Coast book, but in the classic Forgotten Realms (specifically thinking of 1e's gray box), there was this vast area known as "the North". Starting with Waterdeep (the southwest anchor), there were a handful of cities were strung along the coast. In the interior, there were only a few villages and towns, and one city (Silverymoon). Since we're talking Canadian-large stretches of land, that amounts to remarkably little human settlement. The area was almost entirely empty, or more precisely, wild. Wild in nature, and wild in humanoids. And that's where all the orc hordes came from. The question wasn't how to justify a huge number of orcs, but why human civilization hadn't been wiped out entirely.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 08, 2018, 03:33:52 PM
Quote from: Pat;1067988
The question wasn't how to justify a huge number of orcs, but why human civilization hadn't been wiped out entirely.

It also makes you wonder why, in a world with so many dire threats, including flying and burrowing threats, the villages look less well-defended than real-world settlements. It's almost like these fools want to die or be captured so that PCs can come and avenge or rescue them.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 08, 2018, 04:41:09 PM
In FR at least they do die in droves. Whole villages wiped out on a regular basis.

Most FR towns that survive seem to usually have at least one resident wizard, or a temple to some deity, sometimes both. Also from the way it is oft written it seems that hiring adventurers is one way they hold back the threats. But there are also druids and rangers out there putting down threats too.

Yje other thing seems to be that normally alot of these monster races arent actively hostile and it tends to be some external force that sets conflict in motion. Be it evil priests gathering an army, or the rise of a war hungry chief, or even just a need for more slaves.

According to FR Campaign Guide:

Quote
The Kingdom of Many-Arrows was an orc kingdom founded by Obould Many-Arrows in 1371 DR and recognized as a sovereign realm by several of the Silver Marches signatories the following year. It stretched from Mithral Hall in the west to the Moonwood in the east and to the Evermoors in the south.[citation needed]

A glimpse into the future made it known that the kingdom would last at least 100 years to the reign of King Obould VI, but even then, renegade shamans of Gruumsh attempted to return to the old orc ways and wished to attack their neighbors instead of continuing to foster peaceful relations with them.

The Obould dynasty reigned almost uninterrupted since the kingdom's founding. Although there were some civil wars, peace was maintained since the Year of the Malachite Shadows, 1460 DR.

The orcs of Many-Arrows occasionally raided southern lands but open conflict between Luruar and Many-Arrows had been completely averted as of 1479 DR. Open conflict between Many-Arrows and the Uthgardt of the region however was rife since the realm's inception.[citation needed]

The peace and stability of Many-Arrows fell into disarray in 1484 DR, when the drow Quenthel Baenre incited the orcs into war. The orc Hartusk, a known detractor of Obould's peaceful methodology, took control of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Hartusk began to conquer large portions of Luruar, from Nesmé and Sundabar, and laid siege to the great dwarven strongolds of Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar. The tide of the battle turned however, when Bruenor Battlehammer sallied the dwarven forces, and began to crush the opposition.

As the battles raged, Bruenor and his men were able to defeat the last of Chief Hartusk's forces at Dark Arrow Keep, before restoring control of the fortress to Lorgru, the son of Obould XVII, who had been framed for the assassination of his father. His name was cleared, and he took control of the remnants of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, retreating back to Dark Arrow Keep and the Spine of the World, to try and continue his father's legacy of peaceful integration with the people of the Silver Marches.


aaaaand... Opening up the Sword Coast book for 5e... There it is on the map. (Id totally missed it prior as its squashed right at the top) According to hex maps of the area looks like it covers some 300 miles of mountain. That is a freaking lot of territory!
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: crkrueger on December 09, 2018, 05:48:10 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1067931
If there are enough orcs to destroy whole kingdoms, then they should be living somewhere on the map.
You mean like the mountains surrounding Dead Orc Pass where 60,000 orcs live or the range around the Citadel of Many Arrows, where another 40,000 dwell?
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 10, 2018, 01:15:44 PM
Quote from: Omega;1068000
Opening up the Sword Coast book for 5e... There it is on the map. (Id totally missed it prior as its squashed right at the top) According to hex maps of the area looks like it covers some 300 miles of mountain. That is a freaking lot of territory!
OK, admittedly I have the Sword Coast book and didn't see this part about the Kingdom of Many-Arrows either. And that's basically my point.

If the most notable orc kingdom in the book is something that you can blink and miss, then it is a far cry from Mordor in Middle-Earth. There are a handful of mentions of the kingdom in the Sword Coast guide, but it doesn't have a section or subsection of its own. If you asked most people playing in Forgotten Realms and ask them what they think of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, I suspect most of them wouldn't know what it is.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 10, 2018, 02:56:42 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1068127
If the most notable orc kingdom in the book is something that you can blink and miss, then it is a far cry from Mordor in Middle-Earth. There are a handful of mentions of the kingdom in the Sword Coast guide, but it doesn't have a section or subsection of its own. If you asked most people playing in Forgotten Realms and ask them what they think of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, I suspect most of them wouldn't know what it is.

Nice goalpost moving there.

"Orcs dont mean nuttin cause they arent a threat!"
orcs are shown to be a threat.
"Ok. But orcs dont mean nuttin cause they aint on the map!"
orcs are shown to be on the map.
"Ok. But orcs dont mean nuttin cause they dont get their own entry in the book!"
Orc kingdom has an entry in the book.

I dont even need to call the psychic hotline to predict the next one. Lets see...
"Ok. But orcs dont mean nuttin cause they dont get their own entry in the NEW book!"
and/or
"Orcs dont mean nuttin cause those population numbers is too small!"

etc Ad Fucking Nausium.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 10, 2018, 03:07:52 PM
Quote from: Omega;1068129
Nice goalpost moving there.

"Orcs dont mean nuttin cause they arent a threat!"
orcs are shown to be a threat.
"Ok. But orcs dont mean nuttin cause they aint on the map!"
orcs are shown to be on the map.
"Ok. But orcs dont mean nuttin cause they dont get their own entry in the book!"
Orc kingdom has an entry in the book.
I invite you to re-read my statement from the OP. Regarding Greyhawk, I said -

Quote from: jhkim
Something that stood out to me was how dominant humans are across the whole setting, which is in part deliberate. Evil races like orcs are a minority everywhere, and there isn't a place like Mordor in Tolkien. This seems weird to me, because it means that its hard to have humanoids be a credible threat to humanity. It runs counter to the theme in Tolkien where humans were threatened by being overrun with orcs.

From the start, and even in the subject line, what I talked about was having something like Mordor - such that orcs (or other evil races) were a global threat to humanity's dominance of the world.

I assert that the Pomarj in Greyhawk and the Kingdom of Many-Arrows in Forgotten Realms aren't anything close to the equivalent of Mordor - which was my original criteria.

And that doesn't mean that those settings are wrong - but it does mean that they have a different tone than Tolkien.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: tenbones on December 10, 2018, 03:13:47 PM
I've used the Kingdom of Many-Arrows for *years* as a threat to the North. I think I might have even made up an Orc/Hobgoblin/Troll horde there in the High Moors that predates the official implementation...

Yeah I don't get the whole notion they're not legit. I'll admit that historically WotC has always been lite on fleshing out "Orc Culture" - but only if you squint a bit, I guess. There's plenty of information you can glean in various books - especially in the 2e stuff (Faiths and Pantheons is pretty in-depth on their gods and their religious practices) beyond that, it's not too difficult. Spelljammer has a good template concerning a more "evolved" and downright Klingon-ish version of Orcs (the Scro - yeah I know, clever..ugh) but they can work if you want a less barbaric template.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 10, 2018, 04:53:48 PM
Quote from: tenbones;1068131
Yeah I don't get the whole notion they're not legit. I'll admit that historically WotC has always been lite on fleshing out "Orc Culture" - but only if you squint a bit, I guess. There's plenty of information you can glean in various books - especially in the 2e stuff (Faiths and Pantheons is pretty in-depth on their gods and their religious practices) beyond that, it's not too difficult. Spelljammer has a good template concerning a more "evolved" and downright Klingon-ish version of Orcs (the Scro - yeah I know, clever..ugh) but they can work if you want a less barbaric template.
I haven't seen the 2e stuff. I suspect it's based on the excellent articles in Dragon Magazine (1e era) by Roger Moore that details gods and culture of the orcs. I agree there's a lot of material to make orcs into central opponents in a campaign setting, and/or to have them be a global threat. I'll be keeping an eye out for Spelljammer stuff.

An individual campaign can have various things:

1) Orcs be poised to have global dominance, like in a Lord of the Rings campaign.
2) Orcs be a major local threat in some areas, but not poised to surpass humanity as #1.
3) Orcs can be more the flunkies and henchmen to bigger threats like giants or drow.
4) There are no orcs. Instead there are other monsters.
5) There are no monsters, only humans - like in historical campaigns.

All of these are legit, and they're also all different from each other.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: EOTB on December 10, 2018, 07:10:46 PM
The reason you don't have vast kingdoms of orcs is because this is a game.

More specifically, in this game the author structured it locally.  You don't have the epic of the immovable human object against the irresistible orc force, a la Tolkien.

The archetype of this game is keep on the borderlands; or Hommlet and the moat house; or one of any dozen similar such structures whose purpose is to provide tenuous settlement and immediate (but manageable) threat within the same hex.

Everything published in the 1st wave of D&D was primarily focused on teaching people who had zero clue (no 40-odd years of cultural seepage), what D&D was.  It did this over and over to the detriment of everything else, because when you're riding a wave you keep fresh ground-zero stuff for new people to do.  Also, the war gaming never got the traction like squad-level play did.  There's not much you can do with a 300,000 strong orc kingdom that doesn't involve a sand table.  

But as others have mentioned, multiple "kingdoms of evil" are in GH.  

I wouldn't have ripped off Morder for GH either if I were writing it, and keep in mind we only saw the tip of the Iceberg on GH.  If it looks complete to you, then you weren't reading about all the stuff that didn't make it into the box, contemporaneously in Dragon.  

TL;DR - I'm not sure why the OP would be an expectation outside of a MERP product.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 10, 2018, 08:32:11 PM
Quote from: EOTB;1068141
Everything published in the 1st wave of D&D was primarily focused on teaching people who had zero clue (no 40-odd years of cultural seepage), what D&D was.  It did this over and over to the detriment of everything else, because when you're riding a wave you keep fresh ground-zero stuff for new people to do.  Also, the war gaming never got the traction like squad-level play did.  There's not much you can do with a 300,000 strong orc kingdom that doesn't involve a sand table.  

But as others have mentioned, multiple "kingdoms of evil" are in GH.
I think it's going too far to say that a 300,000 strong orc kingdom is only for wargaming. In practice, I've played in many games where there were large regions of bad guys - Klingons, Sathar, Chaosites, orcs, etc. I don't think it breaks the game to have bad guy kingdoms. For example, Greyhawk has the large Empire of Iuz that was evil. I think having Iuz there was fine, but I think it would also have been find if instead of Iuz there were an equally large orc kingdom.

What I think you might be saying is that as a game world, Greyhawk was designed so that human+demihuman adventurers can freely wander to anywhere on the map without too much difficulty. i.e. They need a boat for water areas, water for desert areas, but nothing too tough. Wandering around within an orc kingdom, though, would be too difficult for most parties - so it's not included. Is that the idea?

I can see the logic there, but I think it's going too far. I think it should be OK if some parts of the map are too difficult or inaccessible to most adventuring parties. The difficult parts can still be there for high-level challenges - for adventurers who can hide as orcs, teleport or fly in behind enemy lines, etc.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: rawma on December 10, 2018, 11:43:55 PM
I don't think the orcs in Tolkien were generally a menace to humans; where they were threatening, they were led by something more dangerous - Sauron and the Nazgul and large armies of evil humans in Mordor, the Balrog in Moria, Saruman's magics (both enhancing his orcs and providing magical offense) in the vicinity of Rohan. The sole exception was in the Hobbit, where an army of goblins tried to win the Battle of Five Armies, but the dwarves were not numerous, the humans had just had their town destroyed, and elves were never numerous - it's not clear they could have overrun any normal human kingdom. And from the movies we now know they only got that far because of the sand worms.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: EOTB on December 11, 2018, 12:17:52 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1068151
I think it's going too far to say that a 300,000 strong orc kingdom is only for wargaming. In practice, I've played in many games where there were large regions of bad guys - Klingons, Sathar, Chaosites, orcs, etc. I don't think it breaks the game to have bad guy kingdoms. For example, Greyhawk has the large Empire of Iuz that was evil. I think having Iuz there was fine, but I think it would also have been find if instead of Iuz there were an equally large orc kingdom.

Good thing nobody said it a 300,000 strong orc kingdom was only for wargaming then.  EDIT - that is a little unfair as my original comment does mention a sand table.  But at the end of the day, without a sand table, A DM will run a 300,000-orc kingdom in a way not materially different than a cave of 100 orcs.  

Quote from: jhkim;1068151
What I think you might be saying is that as a game world, Greyhawk was designed so that human+demihuman adventurers can freely wander to anywhere on the map without too much difficulty. i.e. They need a boat for water areas, water for desert areas, but nothing too tough. Wandering around within an orc kingdom, though, would be too difficult for most parties - so it's not included. Is that the idea?

I can see the logic there, but I think it's going too far. I think it should be OK if some parts of the map are too difficult or inaccessible to most adventuring parties. The difficult parts can still be there for high-level challenges - for adventurers who can hide as orcs, teleport or fly in behind enemy lines, etc.

Have you ever worked in a place where decisions weren't made through judging something's intrinsic value, but instead the comparative value between options?  When I make decisions, those I didn't choose weren't necessarily bad, just comparatively less attractive in combination with everything else going on.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: jhkim on December 11, 2018, 01:29:08 PM
Quote from: EOTB;1068221
Good thing nobody said it a 300,000 strong orc kingdom was only for wargaming then.  EDIT - that is a little unfair as my original comment does mention a sand table.  But at the end of the day, without a sand table, A DM will run a 300,000-orc kingdom in a way not materially different than a cave of 100 orcs.
Thanks for the edit.

It seems to me that the possibility of massive reinforcements does change things materially. If the PCs are taking on an isolated cave of orcs, they can use attrition tactics and they don't need to worry about orcs escaping, etc. However, if they are taking on an outpost of an orc kingdom, then they need to approach under stealth and be careful not to allow any alarm to go out - and even then, they need to be on guard for other orc forces moving through that might cut them off.

I have run a number of "behind enemy lines" scenarios - it has a very different feel as well as different tactics compared to just taking on an isolated enemy force.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: rawma on December 15, 2018, 12:17:24 PM
Quote from: jhkim;1068136
An individual campaign can have various things:

1) Orcs be poised to have global dominance, like in a Lord of the Rings campaign.
2) Orcs be a major local threat in some areas, but not poised to surpass humanity as #1.
3) Orcs can be more the flunkies and henchmen to bigger threats like giants or drow.
4) There are no orcs. Instead there are other monsters.
5) There are no monsters, only humans - like in historical campaigns.

All of these are legit, and they're also all different from each other.


But the Lord of the Rings is #3 or maybe #2 after Sauron is defeated, not #1; Mordor is Sauron's kingdom, not the orcs'. I don't see much indication in Tolkien that orcs alone would organize into kingdoms to rival the largest single human kingdom. They might continue to outnumber humans in places humans don't want to live (in D&D worlds, the Underdark). But they were poised to overrun humans in the Lord of the Rings only because of Sauron and his powerful lieutenants and large armies of evil humans (or, for Rohan, because of Saruman and his enhanced orcs); on their own they would not seem to pose an existential threat (Aragorn is left with wars to fight before Gondor can live in peace, but not so dire a threat as before Sauron's defeat, and presumably not only against orcs).
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Doom on December 15, 2018, 02:57:01 PM
Well, in my Minarian campaign there's Zorn, a land ringed with mountains and populated with goblins...hobgoblins now, since the players two campaigns ago failed to stop an incursion from the East.

The hobgoblins recently forced the goblins to kill off their goat herds, to better motivate them to make war on their southern neighbor; there is no Sauran-like entity, however.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: RPGPundit on December 22, 2018, 04:55:53 AM
The non-human races don't have to have massive numbers to be a threat to humanity. They have to symbolize disorder. They represent what happens when civilization is threatened.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Abraxus on December 22, 2018, 07:20:54 AM
Another issue I think is the alignment system hampers the effectiveness of many of the non-human races imo.

I see why TSR then WOTC focused more on Orcs to tap into the fans like of Tolkiens works. Yet as long as they remain Chaotic Evil they never should represent a long term threat. Simply because if played properly even with a strong leader in charge. They will as a race try to take out the strong leader. No real concept of tactics or at least lasting long enough ot be a threat. I always pictured them as a raging barbarian horde smashing and killing of everything in their path before taking enough casualties and running off to hide until they breed more soldiers. Sure one can have a Mary Sue Salvatore literary creation unite them yet it's not in the Orcs nature to settle down and become civilized. It's like in Paizo Golarion where because they wanted to tap into the Warcraft fan abse Goblins are a new player race. Even when it makes zero sense in terms of the context of their own rpg. No one likes Goblins. Not even goblins like goblins. Suddenly because of new edition and wanting to tap into a section of the player market we are supposed to forgive and forget that they are sociopathic, psychotic, insane, cannibalistic, bloodthirsty, hate the written word monsters. Of course like the FR Orcs we will see a Mary Sue event that is supposed to make everyone in the rpg world forgive an forget.

If they truly wanted a threat in the FR realms they should have gone with Hobgoblins. Lawful Evil in alignment with a somewhat disciplined army who can work together, use tactics and follow leaders. With the leaders having to worry that some young buck is going to want to take them out and take control. Who have terrified the goblins into working for them and with enough numbers to make sure the Bugbears don't try something stupid. I can see Hobgoblins making a deal with other non-evil non-human races. I can definitely see Humans if treated well working for Hobgoblins and founding a kingdom.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Pat on December 22, 2018, 10:04:57 AM
Quote from: sureshot;1069400
Another issue I think is the alignment system hampers the effectiveness of many of the non-human races imo.

I see why TSR then WOTC focused more on Orcs to tap into the fans like of Tolkiens works. Yet as long as they remain Chaotic Evil they never should represent a long term threat. Simply because if played properly even with a strong leader in charge. They will as a race try to take out the strong leader. No real concept of tactics or at least lasting long enough ot be a threat. I always pictured them as a raging barbarian horde smashing and killing of everything in their path before taking enough casualties and running off to hide until they breed more soldiers. Sure one can have a Mary Sue Salvatore literary creation unite them yet it's not in the Orcs nature to settle down and become civilized. It's like in Paizo Golarion where because they wanted to tap into the Warcraft fan abse Goblins are a new player race. Even when it makes zero sense in terms of the context of their own rpg. No one likes Goblins. Not even goblins like goblins. Suddenly because of new edition and wanting to tap into a section of the player market we are supposed to forgive and forget that they are sociopathic, psychotic, insane, cannibalistic, bloodthirsty, hate the written word monsters. Of course like the FR Orcs we will see a Mary Sue event that is supposed to make everyone in the rpg world forgive an forget.

If they truly wanted a threat in the FR realms they should have gone with Hobgoblins. Lawful Evil in alignment with a somewhat disciplined army who can work together, use tactics and follow leaders. With the leaders having to worry that some young buck is going to want to take them out and take control. Who have terrified the goblins into working for them and with enough numbers to make sure the Bugbears don't try something stupid. I can see Hobgoblins making a deal with other non-evil non-human races. I can definitely see Humans if treated well working for Hobgoblins and founding a kingdom.
Orcs in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition are lawful evil. Making them chaotic evil barbarians was one of the changes introduced in third edition.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Armchair Gamer on December 22, 2018, 10:56:52 AM
Quote from: Pat;1069408
Orcs in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition are lawful evil. Making them chaotic evil barbarians was one of the changes introduced in third edition.

As I recall, this was supposed to be bringing them into alignment with the way they were used in most games.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Abraxus on December 22, 2018, 11:55:21 AM
Quote from: Pat;1069408
Orcs in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition are lawful evil. Making them chaotic evil barbarians was one of the changes introduced in third edition.


Thanks for pointing that out and my mistake. Why would they change it to Chaotic Evil. Well then I will ignore their alignment description past 2E D&D. I still prefer Hobgoblins over Orcs though.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1069411
As I recall, this was supposed to be bringing them into alignment with the way they were used in most games.


Dumb thing to do imo. I ran a mix of both. some groups were Chaotic Evil large groups were lawful evil.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Pat on December 22, 2018, 12:17:35 PM
Quote from: sureshot;1069414
Thanks for pointing that out and my mistake. Why would they change it to Chaotic Evil. Well then I will ignore their alignment description past 2E D&D. I still prefer Hobgoblins over Orcs though.
I think it was the orc horde concept, plus they needed a favored class for the half-orc, plus hobs could stand in for the organized army of evil. The downsides are they lost the core popular definition, Mordor-style orcs, and hobgoblins are a second tier humanoid. It might have been interesting if they split the difference and said NE.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 23, 2018, 05:17:13 AM
Quote from: sureshot;1069400
Another issue I think is the alignment system hampers the effectiveness of many of the non-human races imo.

I see why TSR then WOTC focused more on Orcs to tap into the fans like of Tolkiens works. Yet as long as they remain Chaotic Evil they never should represent a long term threat. Simply because if played properly even with a strong leader in charge. They will as a race try to take out the strong leader. No real concept of tactics or at least lasting long enough ot be a threat. I always pictured them as a raging barbarian horde smashing and killing of everything in their path before taking enough casualties and running off to hide until they breed more soldiers. Sure one can have a Mary Sue Salvatore literary creation unite them yet it's not in the Orcs nature to settle down and become civilized. It's like in Paizo Golarion where because they wanted to tap into the Warcraft fan abse Goblins are a new player race. Even when it makes zero sense in terms of the context of their own rpg. No one likes Goblins. Not even goblins like goblins. Suddenly because of new edition and wanting to tap into a section of the player market we are supposed to forgive and forget that they are sociopathic, psychotic, insane, cannibalistic, bloodthirsty, hate the written word monsters. Of course like the FR Orcs we will see a Mary Sue event that is supposed to make everyone in the rpg world forgive an forget.

If they truly wanted a threat in the FR realms they should have gone with Hobgoblins. Lawful Evil in alignment with a somewhat disciplined army who can work together, use tactics and follow leaders. With the leaders having to worry that some young buck is going to want to take them out and take control. Who have terrified the goblins into working for them and with enough numbers to make sure the Bugbears don't try something stupid. I can see Hobgoblins making a deal with other non-evil non-human races. I can definitely see Humans if treated well working for Hobgoblins and founding a kingdom.


Except they arent all chaotic evil. They have not been since the start. I can't find in the books now or perhaps it was a Dragon article. But it was explained that the alignments are for those creatures the PCs tend to meed and fight. There many monsters have non-evil aligned members. But especially in O and BX alignment was not a guarantee of something being good, bad or indifferent. This was also shown in official modules with pretty much any monster and even a few demons and devils being good aligned.

And that also goes the other way too. You can have evil aligned versions of normally good creatures.

2e D&D also totally threw open the door and there were ALOT of monsters now opened up to play as any alignment.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Abraxus on December 23, 2018, 09:52:22 AM
Quote from: Omega;1069461
Except they arent all chaotic evil. They have not been since the start. I can't find in the books now or perhaps it was a Dragon article. But it was explained that the alignments are for those creatures the PCs tend to meed and fight. There many monsters have non-evil aligned members. But especially in O and BX alignment was not a guarantee of something being good, bad or indifferent. This was also shown in official modules with pretty much any monster and even a few demons and devils being good aligned.

True but exceptions to the rule do not suddenly make a race less evil. First edition had Orcs as Lawful Evil. Second Edition had them listed as Often Chaotic Evil. So sure I as a DM can rework some creatures to be good. Yet if run properly imo the mostly evil members of the race would consider them cowards or worse hunt them down. When I need to I do have good exceptions when needed for the story. Yet in my campaigns they are the exception and not the rule and they must remain in hiding. I still find alignments to be a poorly implemented mechanic in D&D
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Abraxus on December 23, 2018, 09:52:56 AM
Quote from: Omega;1069461

Except they arent all chaotic evil. They have not been since the start. I can't find in the books now or perhaps it was a Dragon article. But it was explained that the alignments are for those creatures the PCs tend to meed and fight. There many monsters have non-evil aligned members. But especially in O and BX alignment was not a guarantee of something being good, bad or indifferent. This was also shown in official modules with pretty much any monster and even a few demons and devils being good aligned.


True but exceptions to the rule do not suddenly make a race less evil. First edition had Orcs as Lawful Evil. Second Edition had them listed as Often Chaotic Evil. So sure I as a DM can rework some creatures to be good. Yet if run properly imo the mostly evil members of the race would consider them cowards or worse hunt them down. When I need to I do have good exceptions when needed for the story. Yet in my campaigns they are the exception and not the rule and they must remain in hiding. I still find alignments to be a poorly implemented mechanic in D&D
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Pat on December 23, 2018, 11:57:57 AM
Quote from: sureshot;1069474
Second Edition had them listed as Often Chaotic Evil.

(Given we just covered this, I assume you meant third edition.)
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: kythri on December 23, 2018, 12:51:35 PM
Quote from: 2E Monstrous Manual
It is often believed that orcs are so bloodthirsty and cruel that they are ineffective tacticians and that they would rather be vicious than victorious. Like most stereotypes, this is highly misleading; it is true for some orc tribes but not for all. Many orc tribes have waged wars for decades and have developed a frightening efficiency with battle tactics.

Orcs and Orogs are Lawful Evil in 2E, as has been stated.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Abraxus on December 23, 2018, 07:23:37 PM
Sorry suffering from pre X-mas overload at work.

My mistake still I wish them kept Lawful Evil as an alignment.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 24, 2018, 12:03:55 AM
Quote from: sureshot;1069474
True but exceptions to the rule do not suddenly make a race less evil.

Put the goal posts down kid. We can see you quite clearly.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: rawma on December 25, 2018, 07:15:12 PM
Quote from: Pat;1069408
Orcs in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition are lawful evil. Making them chaotic evil barbarians was one of the changes introduced in third edition.


In Strategic Review #6 Gary Gygax described the two-dimensional alignment system. Orcs were listed in the chaotic evil quadrant.

My recollection was they were chaotic evil in AD&D 1e, but the Monster Manual (1977) says lawful evil; however, the later DMG (1979) gives as an example of a cave complex which is the lair of an orc band, under Monster Organization, page 104, and says under Situation 2 (the party rests and recovers and returns to the same location) that "There is not much chance that the chaotic orcs will have sent for reinforcements" (and I seem to recall other quotes about the difficulty of using orcs as hired troops because of their chaotic nature, but I cannot find such).
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: S'mon on December 26, 2018, 04:57:36 AM
Quote from: rawma;1069671
In Strategic Review #6 Gary Gygax described the two-dimensional alignment system. Orcs were listed in the chaotic evil quadrant.

My recollection was they were chaotic evil in AD&D 1e, but the Monster Manual (1977) says lawful evil; however, the later DMG (1979) gives as an example of a cave complex which is the lair of an orc band, under Monster Organization, page 104, and says under Situation 2 (the party rests and recovers and returns to the same location) that "There is not much chance that the chaotic orcs will have sent for reinforcements" (and I seem to recall other quotes about the difficulty of using orcs as hired troops because of their chaotic nature, but I cannot find such).


Yeah I was thinking about that - the MM was written before the DMG AFAIK so it's a bit odd that the DMG text refers to orcs as Chaotic when the MM is supposed to be the official version of 1e monsters.

3e/4e/5e CE orcs are basically mini Ogres, being high-STR barbaric savage humanoids. 1e Orcs are very much 'Dark Lord's faceless minions' - I guess the issue is that 1e Goblins, Orcs & Hobgoblins have very few distinguishing features. They even tend to have the same piglike snouts on the orcs & hobgoblins.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 26, 2018, 08:53:16 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1069705
3e/4e/5e CE orcs are basically mini Ogres, being high-STR barbaric savage humanoids. 1e Orcs are very much 'Dark Lord's faceless minions' - I guess the issue is that 1e Goblins, Orcs & Hobgoblins have very few distinguishing features. They even tend to have the same piglike snouts on the orcs & hobgoblins.

um... since when? The AD&D goblins look not at all pig-like. More like twisted halflings. And the hobgoblins look more like eastern goblins and are very humanoid by comparison. Whereas for a time werent hobgoblins babboon people?
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: S'mon on December 26, 2018, 09:08:01 AM
Quote from: Omega;1069716
um... since when? The AD&D goblins look not at all pig-like. More like twisted halflings. And the hobgoblins look more like eastern goblins and are very humanoid by comparison. Whereas for a time werent hobgoblins babboon people?

(https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/I/m/D%26DHobgoblin.JPG)

(http://www.zayix.com/Media/races/kobold.jpeg)

(http://www.zayix.com/Media/races/kobold.jpeg)

The 1e MM Goblin snout is broad and flat rather than snouty:

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/08/b5/0a08b5e90f9d69ac4fdb26576ead02f4.jpg)
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Pat on December 26, 2018, 12:39:35 PM
I never found the humanoid art or physical descriptions in first edition's Monster Manual particularly inspiring. Orcs as pig people, primary color goblins, bright clown noses on the hobgoblins -- it felt too cartoonish and random, so we pretty much ignored that. Though big furry but silent bugbears, hyenafolk gnolls, and dog-lizard kobolds were fine.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: RPGPundit on December 28, 2018, 03:20:13 AM
From an archetypal perspective I think CE fits Orcs much better.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Omega on December 28, 2018, 08:57:39 PM
Depends on the orcs.

In D&D they tend to be actually organized more oft than they are just every orc for himself. Especially in FR where they seem really organized which is the problem for the rest of the world as eventually some leader rises that wants to war and slaughter and looting and whole civilizations are laid ruin over and over.

Though one could just harken that to Lawful aligned leaders and organizers as orcs are not all CE and never were. Which is the point some keep missing.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: SHARK on December 29, 2018, 06:16:45 AM
Quote from: Omega;1069913
Depends on the orcs.

In D&D they tend to be actually organized more oft than they are just every orc for himself. Especially in FR where they seem really organized which is the problem for the rest of the world as eventually some leader rises that wants to war and slaughter and looting and whole civilizations are laid ruin over and over.

Though one could just harken that to Lawful aligned leaders and organizers as orcs are not all CE and never were. Which is the point some keep missing.

Greetings!

That's a good point, Omega. I've always assumed that most Orcs are wicked and evil--but, just like humans--come in different "flavours"; some being Lawful Evil, some are Chaotic Evil, and some being Neutral Evil. As for Orc Hordes cooperating, or Orc Kingdoms forming, why not?

While it is essentially true that Chaotic Evil types may have difficulties in staying loyal, not being selfish, or being very organized--it is not impossible. After all, CHAOTIC GOOD people, like humans, fey races, lots of elves--have relatively few problems with following or cooperating with a Lawful Good hero or a Lawful Good kingdom in fighting evil forces, so why couldn't Chaotic Evil Orcs cooperate with some Lawful Evil hero or a group of Lawful Evil Orcs in waging war against the good peoples?

Just like with Chaotic Good characters, they are likely to differentiate with Lawful types by temperaments and how to go about achieving specific goals--but such differences do not necessarily require a violent resistance, or lethal treason. They can be devoted to the cause, the mission, the goal--and be loyal to pursuing such--but at the same time, argue and bitch with the Lawful types on how best to achieve such goals, and the style and so on in which such is pursued.

Chaotic Evil Orcs can operate in a similar manner. Certainly, the Chaotic Evil Orcs can have problems with discipline, focus, committing atrocities--all of which may annoy the fuck out of the Lawful Evil Orcs, but they still tolerate and work with the Chaotic Evil Orcs because they bring other stuff to the mission--loyalty, numbers, ferocity, skill, whatever.

Human kings don't say, "Well, fuck the Chaotic Elves. We don't need them!" Instead, the Lawful humans for example, find ways to accept the elves, and appreciate them for the essential contributions they are making to the goal. Assuming lots of elves are Chaotic Good, as implied by numerous sources. Orcs can manage the same thing. Indeed, if they really were not capable of doing so, it isn't really reasonable to assume the Orcs could ever be much of a threat to anyone. This fundamental organizational difference is key to understanding or using the Orcs as a viable threat to society--on a state level--or otherwise, such a salient failure in culture would doom the Orcs to being forever nothing more of a threat to civilized realms than a localized infestation of rats.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 29, 2018, 07:11:41 AM
Quote from: SHARK;1069950
Human kings don't say, "Well, fuck the Chaotic Elves. We don't need them!"
I wouldn't say that. "Fuck the elves" is how half-elves come about, and all those special snowflake PC half-elves might just result from a little primae noctis (who cares how historically accurate it is, we can't let half-orcs take all of the rape rap) from the king.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: soltakss on December 29, 2018, 11:16:45 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1069850
From an archetypal perspective I think CE fits Orcs much better.

But LE fits orcs who follow a Dark Lord.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: Christopher Brady on December 29, 2018, 01:10:30 PM
Quote from: soltakss;1069968
But LE fits orcs who follow a Dark Lord.

Not really.  Anyone can follow a Dark Lord, it's HOW they act as a group.

LE would be a group of soldiers who have a structure, like legions and platoons.

CE would be closer to a horde.  

Personal opinion.
Title: Humanocentrism - orcs but no Mordor?
Post by: HappyDaze on December 29, 2018, 03:04:35 PM
Quote from: soltakss;1069968
But LE fits orcs who follow a Dark Lord.


So do either of the other Evil alignments. The trick is in figuring out "why" and "how loyally" they follow the Dark Lord (and that DL may not even be LE himself).