Is there any monster the SJWs don't see as Black People?

[Pat]

It's the exact lesson why I agree with those scientists who think Earth needs to STFU and stop sending random signals out to the galaxy with no idea who is listening because we're not even the Indians in that game.

Agreed. The universe may be a Dark Forest, and letting everyone know where we are could be our doom. Even if the chance is tiny, it's not worth the risk, because we're talking about the survival of humanity.

[EOTB]

Over-engaged fans insert meaning into their time sinks as others find faces in clouds

[Bruwulf]

I admit I'm more than a little offended at the whole 'RPGs have no more depth than a violent video game'. That's kind of a slap to every module writer who's tried to write an adventure that was more than just 'go to point A and kill stuff', from our gracious host to ol' Gygax and Arneson.

I think it's also obnoxious that he keeps falling back on the "Every game presents orcs (or other 'outsider' figures) as slavering beasts and encourages people to slaughter then in job lots because they're nothing but pure evil" thing. Which kind of ignores the fact that, outside of D&D and it's dubious "Always Evil" entries in monster manuals, RPGs have been trying to "humanize" such races for decades. Even when I started playing in the late 80s, you could see that. Even D&D, outside of it's monster manuals, often tried to do that in modules or other settings than stock.


I mean, look, D&D grew out of wargaming roots. There was no particular need in a wargame to ask why the enemy needs killing. They're just games about tactics and strategy, with a wrapping of some setting to give a little flavor. Whether you go all the way down to the sort of ur-wargames like Chess and Go, or up to some of the modern recreationist wargames... The ultimate point is just the strategy and tactics, not the plot. So, yeah. Early D&D did tend to have a lot of "The enemy is just bad. Kill them. Don't ask questions." baked in, but... At least from what I can see looking back before I started playing in the late 80s, I think it's pretty clear that once the RPG was out of the bag, people started adding nuance almost immediately.


So it feels sort of like The Crayonster is arguing against a straw-man version of RPGs that doesn't really represent a majority sampling of the games played.

[Bruwulf]

But that's just how D&D works; over time, any sufficiently expansive setting will explore every possible theme and historical trope, and coherence be damned.

A bit of an aside, but this is what I detest about Forgotten Realms. There are, individually, some very neat settings in the Forgotten Realms. But they don't fit together sometimes. Not just setting, but themes and tones and scales. I find if you just sort of snip some of them out and use them on their own, it's far more... plausible, I suppose. The tonal shock of trying to cram Maztica and Realmspace and the Savage North and such all together, just... Yeah. Didn't work. Doesn't work.

[Pat]

A bit of an aside, but this is what I detest about Forgotten Realms. There are, individually, some very neat settings in the Forgotten Realms. But they don't fit together sometimes. Not just setting, but themes and tones and scales. I find if you just sort of snip some of them out and use them on their own, it's far more... plausible, I suppose. The tonal shock of trying to cram Maztica and Realmspace and the Savage North and such all together, just... Yeah. Didn't work. Doesn't work.

I think it's an inevitable consequence of 35 years of development by hundreds of writers. Hell, 3 years and a half a dozen writers would be hard to keep on theme. Though there is something to be a said for a pre-gray box Realms: Just Greenwood, just the Dragon magazine articles. They had a coherent theme, dripping with flavor and mystery. It was a dark and dangerous world, full of wonders to uncover. If you can survive....

[Steven Mitchell]

A bit of an aside, but this is what I detest about Forgotten Realms. There are, individually, some very neat settings in the Forgotten Realms. But they don't fit together sometimes. Not just setting, but themes and tones and scales. I find if you just sort of snip some of them out and use them on their own, it's far more... plausible, I suppose. The tonal shock of trying to cram Maztica and Realmspace and the Savage North and such all together, just... Yeah. Didn't work. Doesn't work.

I think it's an inevitable consequence of 35 years of development by hundreds of writers. Hell, 3 years and a half a dozen writers would be hard to keep on theme. Though there is something to be a said for a pre-gray box Realms: Just Greenwood, just the Dragon magazine articles. They had a coherent theme, dripping with flavor and mystery. It was a dark and dangerous world, full of wonders to uncover. If you can survive....

Yes.  That, plus a lot of things are happily not decided yet. Start there and go your own direction, it works as well as many other settings.  If you happen to cherry pick some of the stuff that game later that fits in with your vision of the FR, that works too. 


Edit:  Wait, we are talking gaming on Pundit's forum.  Is that allowed.

[Ghostmaker]

I am reminded of a truism that Bruce Lee used regarding martial arts and learning: absorb what is useful, but discard what is not. The same applies to campaigns and settings. If you're a DM, YOU are the ultimate arbiter as to what goes into your setting.


All this fol-de-rol about orcs is just people wanting to impose THEIR views on YOUR campaign.

[The Spaniard]

I am reminded of a truism that Bruce Lee used regarding martial arts and learning: absorb what is useful, but discard what is not. The same applies to campaigns and settings. If you're a DM, YOU are the ultimate arbiter as to what goes into your setting.


All this fol-de-rol about orcs is just people wanting to impose THEIR views on YOUR campaign.

Not only in your campaign, but also in everything else.

[BoxCrayonTales]

So it feels sort of like The Crayonster is arguing against a straw-man version of RPGs that doesn't really represent a majority sampling of the games played.

I always figured that most people think of orcs as basically green-skinned humans and they're used as mooks more often than humans in order to emphasize that this is a fantasy setting. Also, I guess orcs are just cooler than humans or something? According to google, outside of Tolkien movies the fantasy artists generally seem to depict orcs as supermodels.


Whenever people went into detail on orcish culture, it was typically the official books like D&D and Pathfinder that went out of their way to paint orcs as being all evil all the time. All the fan-made cultures I remember reading simply treated them like humans, capable of both good and evil. Probably because writing evil cultures gets boring? IDK.


I see the SJW talking point that depicting orcs (or any fictional race) as inherently evil will somehow promote racist attitudes, but I don't see any evidence for that. In fact, I see far more evidence that as people mature they will reject the standard depiction of evil orcs as shallow and unrealistic.


I never really internalized that orcs were inherently evil. I grew up playing Warcraft 3.


Sure, orcs work fine as evil mooks for a generic evil overlord. But real life is complicated. Killing mooks is cathartic, but it doesn't satisfy the more complex tastes of the human mind.


Whenever I see people writing more morally agent orcs, the justification is always that alignment is unrealistic and not that writing evil cultures promotes racist thinking.


I'm sorry if I come across as an evil SJW who wants to take away your fun. I'm sorry for offending you and I will try to be more conscientious in the future.

[Ratman_tf]

So it feels sort of like The Crayonster is arguing against a straw-man version of RPGs that doesn't really represent a majority sampling of the games played.

I always figured that most people think of orcs as basically green-skinned humans and they're used as mooks more often than humans in order to emphasize that this is a fantasy setting. Also, I guess orcs are just cooler than humans or something? According to google, outside of Tolkien movies the fantasy artists generally seem to depict orcs as supermodels.


Whenever people went into detail on orcish culture, it was typically the official books like D&D and Pathfinder that went out of their way to paint orcs as being all evil all the time. All the fan-made cultures I remember reading simply treated them like humans, capable of both good and evil. Probably because writing evil cultures gets boring? IDK.


I see the SJW talking point that depicting orcs (or any fictional race) as inherently evil will somehow promote racist attitudes, but I don't see any evidence for that. In fact, I see far more evidence that as people mature they will reject the standard depiction of evil orcs as shallow and unrealistic.


I never really internalized that orcs were inherently evil. I grew up playing Warcraft 3.


Sure, orcs work fine as evil mooks for a generic evil overlord. But real life is complicated. Killing mooks is cathartic, but it doesn't satisfy the more complex tastes of the human mind.


Whenever I see people writing more morally agent orcs, the justification is always that alignment is unrealistic and not that writing evil cultures promotes racist thinking.


I'm sorry if I come across as an evil SJW who wants to take away your fun. I'm sorry for offending you and I will try to be more conscientious in the future.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?


The problem is some drippy SJWs decided to "deconstruct" D&D as part of their agenda to deconstruct the culture and spread their ideology.
Their mistake is in comparing real world wartime propoganda and prejudices to fictional settings where, in the context of the fiction, creatures can objectively be irredeemably evil, or at least be as guilty of their reputations as the text says they are.
And as a complication, there's no one true definition of "Orc", between settings or campaigns or even systems.

[BoxCrayonTales]

So it feels sort of like The Crayonster is arguing against a straw-man version of RPGs that doesn't really represent a majority sampling of the games played.

I always figured that most people think of orcs as basically green-skinned humans and they're used as mooks more often than humans in order to emphasize that this is a fantasy setting. Also, I guess orcs are just cooler than humans or something? According to google, outside of Tolkien movies the fantasy artists generally seem to depict orcs as supermodels.


Whenever people went into detail on orcish culture, it was typically the official books like D&D and Pathfinder that went out of their way to paint orcs as being all evil all the time. All the fan-made cultures I remember reading simply treated them like humans, capable of both good and evil. Probably because writing evil cultures gets boring? IDK.


I see the SJW talking point that depicting orcs (or any fictional race) as inherently evil will somehow promote racist attitudes, but I don't see any evidence for that. In fact, I see far more evidence that as people mature they will reject the standard depiction of evil orcs as shallow and unrealistic.


I never really internalized that orcs were inherently evil. I grew up playing Warcraft 3.


Sure, orcs work fine as evil mooks for a generic evil overlord. But real life is complicated. Killing mooks is cathartic, but it doesn't satisfy the more complex tastes of the human mind.


Whenever I see people writing more morally agent orcs, the justification is always that alignment is unrealistic and not that writing evil cultures promotes racist thinking.


I'm sorry if I come across as an evil SJW who wants to take away your fun. I'm sorry for offending you and I will try to be more conscientious in the future.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?


The problem is some drippy SJWs decided to "deconstruct" D&D as part of their agenda to deconstruct the culture and spread their ideology.
Their mistake is in comparing real world wartime propoganda and prejudices to fictional settings where, in the context of the fiction, creatures can objectively be irredeemably evil, or at least be as guilty of their reputations as the text says they are.
And as a complication, there's no one true definition of "Orc", between settings or campaigns or even systems.

Yes

[DocJones]

I can't imagine Jane Austen writing To Reign in Hell or Elric of Melniboné, either. I can't imagine her writing outside the genre that she wrote within.

I really enjoyed her "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies".  Top notch.  :-)

[David Johansen]

I need to sculpt some blinged out orks with afros.

[HappyDaze]

I need to sculpt some blinged out orks with afros.

I have a vague memory of a Shadowrun product that already did this, but the orks may have had dreadlocks instead of afros... It's been many years.

[VisionStorm]

Random google search...



Also cutesie orc gurl...



Shooped orc-fro



How half-orcs are made... (I wanna keep that girl)