Do orcs eat humans?

[Ronnocius]

Does it say somewhere in the Monster Manual or Volo's Guide to Monsters whether orcs eat humanoids (humans, halflings, elves, other orcs etc)? Do you think orcs in general eat humanoids?

[90sMusic]

Orcs are usually treated as monsters, monsters tend to eat humans.

Of course this may vary from DM to DM, some don't like to give races that are basically reskinned humans such traits because for whatever reason they think a humanoid eating another humanoid is somehow worse than a four legged beast with claws eating a humanoid. Go figure. People are weird like that.

Pretty sure it used to be implied, if not outright stated, beings like half-orcs were born from mostly the raping and pillaging of orcs, similar to old school greek centaur myth. But in recent editions I believe it's been toned down in our modern world of "make everything super PC" so now orcs just "make alliances" with humans that sometimes yield offspring, and half-orcs these days are considered good things and respected by orcs for being just as strong but also more intelligent, yadda yadda.

[Thrudd]

Traditionally - yes, orcs eat other sentient beings, "man flesh" is one of their favorites. "elf flesh" is probably a delicacy. They'll stoop to eating each other if there's nothing better, or gods forbid *gags* goblin meat. The haughtier the person, the more satisfying they are to eat.

[imanidiot]

Different orcs do different things. The stanard 5e Chaotic Evil orcsin the Monsters Manual almost certainly do eat humans and other humanoids. Why waste energy hunting when you can just carry off a few bodies on a raid that you were giing to do anyway?

[Kane0]

Stock standard ones would be likely to, but ask your DM just in case. You can literally make your own world after all, there's nothing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535178-Breaking-campaign-sterotypes-role-reversal) set in stone (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535326-Should-Monsters-be-Frightened-of-Humanity).

[Haldir]

It almost certainly depends on the geographic situation. Humans (and animals in general) only engage in cannibalism when there is little other dietary option. Most cannibalism is outlawed by even the most rudimentary cultures for moral reasons except in cases of protein deficiency. Historically cannibalistic cultures were almost exclusively islanders who had a dearth of other sources of nutrients. (This is not counting modern cultures who probably imported cannibalism through media.)

How horrible do you want your orcs to be? Tolkien used Orcs consuming humans as a method to accentuate the evil of the Uruk-hai. I do not recall a mention of human flesh being consumed by non-Orthanc tribes, but I could just be misremembering.

For your world you need to decide what the balance between "Noble Savage" and "Amoral Heathen" is.

Edit- Clarifying that my underlying assumption is that sentient races of similiar physiology recognize other sentient races as such, and therefore would have a moral qualm with consuming them. Even the most deranged racist wouldn't claim that other sentients are fodder, but that's based exclusively on humans/ human history.

[qube]

Obviously it is dependant on setting, but in the default setting, I'd look to that:


For millennia orcs have plagued civilizations as raiders and pillaging hordes ...

-- fearun Faerûn wikia, on history

Orcs have poor temperaments and are given to anger more easily than some races. Easily offended and impatient, orcs generally prefer violent solutions and rarely consider multiple ways of approaching a problem.

-- Faerûn wikia, on psychology

Traditional orcish culture is extremely warlike and when not at war the race is usually planning for it. Most orcs approach life with the belief that to survive, one must subjugate potential enemies and control as much resources as possible, which puts them naturally at odds with other races as well as each other.
...
Male orcs dominate most orcish societies [...] Orcs also prize the possession of slaves, though relatively few own them.

-- Faerûn wikia, on culture

Eyes of Gruumsh are orcs specially tied to the one-eyed god and offer sacrifices, read omens, and advise tribes through Gruumsh's will

-- Faerûn wikia, on culture

I would say, no. (at least, not more then humans -- as Haldir points out: even for humans, cannibalism is a thing).
For "wild" orcs, I would say slavery, and blood sacrifice to Gruumsh ... but eating? no.
For the Many-Arrows orc (the huge orc kingdom in the North, which seems to be more interested in peace) I would say they replaced humans by animals (being brutal, and sacrificing animals, but not humanoid --- or at least 'legaly' )

[Jerrykhor]

Orc: Did you just assume my diet?!

[Coidzor]

In FR, most orcs do not eat humans unless they retconned it that way. Most places it'd be a quality that set a particular orc or group of orcs apart. ****ing humans and making half-orcs is a lot more likely than eating them, certainly.

I believe there are certain parts of Toril that are supposed to have more cannibalistic cultures around, possibly Maztica or Chult given their association with jungles and the parts that are drawing from popular history regarding the Aztecs.

In most of the settings I'm aware of, orcs aren't all that prone to eating other humanoids. Well, beyond the fact that they apparently are more prone to being driven to raiding and violence by food shortages and how that does make cannibalism out of desperation a potential factor.

Of course, someone makes elf pudding for there to have been elf pudding in the Sunless Citadel, but that might be the work of goblinoids.

[Chugger]

Social Justice for Orcs! They're actually misunderstood and wrongly judged by evil humans!

Tolkien created or perhaps repurposed orcs from various European myths. He called them goblins in The Hobbit but decided that that was too silly a name for such an evil and dangerous species of creatures. The name orc comes from a creature in Beuwulf (aka orcneas) which are more demonic than an evil prone race of humanoids. I'm not sure Tolkien ever completely locked them down (are there orc females or are they created by necromancy - it's honestly hard to tell) - but it is said somewhere in his work that an evil god or godlike being, Morgoth, grew to hate the creator god, Illuvatar, and since Morgoth couldn't truly create he somehow made orcs as a warped version of elves (or perhaps warped actual elf captives to create orcs) - in an evil mockery of Illuvatar's creations.

Yes, orcs eat human flesh as often as they can - they might prefer it - it is not taboo for them - it is probably preferred. Is the OP trolling us? I somehow suspect he is. And I am kidding (and not kidding, all at the same time). But seriously, I think the OP and the guy saying humans are just as bad as orcs because sometimes humans stuck in lifeboats will nibble on a human corpse to survive could be working together - I have no proof at all - but trolls are that sneaky. Which of course leads us to the infinitely more interesting question: do trolls eat human flesh?! :D (and yes, of course I'm being absurd, except orcs do eat human and humanoid flesh)

[Unoriginal]

Orcs probably eat humanoid flesh, even orc flesh, on a semi-regular basis.

In the sense that they probably won't go out of their ways to get some if there is some tastier food nearby, but if it's there and they want to eat something, they are not likely to refuse eating it.

That being said, they're not like Gnolls or Trolls who *will* eat people anytime they want.

[Regitnui]

Depends on your setting, but in general not unless they have to. Gnolls' habit of eating sentients is a defining feature (in FR anyway) and because of that I'd assume that orcs, goblinoids and other humanoid monsters are threatening in different ways, embodying different threats to civilisation as defined by European history. Goblinoids would likely be conquest (the barbarian hordes to the east) and orcs the raiders from uninhabitable areas (the demonised vikings). Bloodthirsty, savage, brutal, yes. Cannibals? No.

In Eberron, depends on the orc. Most of them are spiritual people, either druidic or aberration cults, but very few of the aberration cults would kill and eat others, just because if they did, the rest of the orc society would have destroyed them. Even the wordt kind of evil doesn't tolerate a threat to its existence.

[KorvinStarmast]

Gnolls:
OD&D

GNOLLS: A cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany did not really make it all that clear) with +2 morale. Otherwise they are similar to Hobgoblins, although the Gnoll king and his bodyguard of from 1 - 4 will fight as Trolls but lack regenerative power. A big change in AD&D and subsequent. I seem to recall the gnolls eating humans but it's been a lot of years.

D&D 1e MM.
Description: There is a great resemblance between gnolls and hyenas.

From a 1e era dragon magazine article ...

The gnoll’s resemblance to the hyena is more than skin (fur?) deep. Gnolls are hunters and scavengers; they are able to digest rotting meat without discomfort, though they prefer freshly killed food. Doesn't spell out eating humanoids per se, but it could be implied.


AD&D 2e: Gnolls eat intelligent, warm blooded creatures.

I finally looked this up, since we'd always wondered how the OD&D gnoll turned into this hyena headed thing in AD&D 1e. (And subsequently) The Wikipedia article is interesting, I need to look up my old BECMI stuff to see how my memory has missed that version.

[Mighty_Chicken]

I think a mistake everyone is making is implying cannibalism is something so inherently Evil even orcs would refrain from it; or that humans don't do it unless they're desperate.

However, the Tupi, the most important native etnicity in Brazil, used to engage in cannibalism. Not of "humanoids", but of people - people they did regard as people. And if you know anything about the Tupi, you know they're as "Noble Savage" as you can get in real life. A really chill people, who were tragically opressed in more than one way.

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupi_people#Cannibalism):


The Tupi were divided into several tribes which would constantly engage in war with each other. In these wars the Tupi would normally try to capture their enemies to later kill them in cannibalistic rituals.[3] The warriors captured from other Tupi tribes were eaten as it was believed by the Indians that such act would lead to their strength being absorbed and digested, thus in fear of absorbing weakness, they chose only to sacrifice warriors perceived to be strong and brave. For the Tupi warriors, even when prisoners, it was a great honor to die valiantly during battle or to display courage during the festivities leading to his sacrifice.[4] The Tupi have also been documented to eat the remains of dead relatives as a form of honoring them.[5]

The practice of cannibalism among the Tupi was made famous in Europe by Hans Staden, a German soldier and mariner who was captured by the Tupi in 1552. In his account published in 1557, he tells that the Tupi carried him to their village where it was claimed he was to be devoured at the next festivity. There, he allegedly won the friendship of a powerful chief, whom he cured of a disease, and his life was spared.[citation needed]

Cannibalistic rituals among Tupi and other tribes in Brazil decreased steadily after European contact and religious intervention. When Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish conquistador, arrived in Santa Catarina in 1541, for instance, he attempted to ban cannibalistic practices in the name of the King of Spain.[6]

Due to the fact that our understanding of Tupi cannibalism relies solely on primary source accounts of primarily European writers, the very existence of cannibalism has been disputed by some in academic circles. William Arens seeks to discredit Staden's and other writers' accounts of cannibalism in his book The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology & Anthropophagy, where he claims that when concerning the Tupinambá, "rather than dealing with an instance of serial documentation of cannibalism, we are more likely confronting only one source of dubious testimony which has been incorporated almost verbatim into the written reports of others claiming to be eyewitnesses"

Hans Staden was probably spared because he cried befor dying, which woul confuse the Tupi and make them not as wanting to consume the flesh of a coward. The Tupi warrior would face their deaths with dignity, and promise his captors/eaters his relatives would come and avenge him.

The Golden Rule applies here: the Tupi did not understan cannibalism as cruelty. They did not think it was cruel to eat them. Therefore, it was not cruel to eat others. It was actually a form of honoring their adversaries.

So if real life people did it orderly, honorably and even piously, and they did of for reasons other than dietary, I see no reason why the "Evil Savage" orcs doing it would be too much.

[Vingelot]

Pretty sure it used to be implied, if not outright stated, beings like half-orcs were born from mostly the raping and pillaging of orcs, similar to old school greek centaur myth. But in recent editions I believe it's been toned down in our modern world of "make everything super PC" so now orcs just "make alliances" with humans that sometimes yield offspring, and half-orcs these days are considered good things and respected by orcs for being just as strong but also more intelligent, yadda yadda.

I wouldn't call what they did making "everything super PC", rather simply that they did what's fashionable and stopped applying fixed/external measures of morality to people's (I use the term loosely, here) actions. Which actually led to a kind of moral myopia usually only seen in large banks or tax consultancies and which basically broke the good-evil axis of the alignment system. Which, again, led to never-ending discussions, on this board among others, where people can't agree on the simplest of morality issues simply because everyone applies different sets of rules to the process.

[Unoriginal]

I think a mistake everyone is making is implying cannibalism is something so inherently Evil even orcs would refrain from it; or that humans don't do it unless they're desperate.


I'm not doing that mistake.

I'm just saying that orcs usually will have better stuff to eat than humanoids, so it won't be their first choice as a meal, but they wouldn't care much otherwise. Unless the orcs in question have cultural reasons to do it, or if they want to make the humanoids concerned fear them or suffer.

[Maxilian]

Some do, having in mind that most Orcs groups do not plant or harverst anything, or produce food in any other way than attacking village or groups of other races, taking their stuff, killing them and raping those that left behind to please their warriors, then...i assume some of those, may eat *insert name of race of the victim*

[Sigreid]

DM campaign decision. Could be fun to have a campaign where the reputation of orcs is that they are baby eating cannibles but the truth is that's just a disinformation campaign to make it ok to commit genocide and take their land and stuff.

[Unoriginal]

having in mind that most Orcs groups do not plant or harverst anything, or produce food in any other way than attacking village or groups of other races

That's a big assumption. Even the Volo's make clear orcs do breed beasts of burdens, and presumably also eat them.

[War_lord]

There's nothing in Volo's guide about Orcs eating other demi-humans or even humans. In fact it's noted that an Orc raid is about gathering supplies if it's against humans, about taking the Hold against Dwarves and only about pure slaughter if it's against Elves. Compare that to Gnolls who'll eat every last creature, alive if possible, and leave all the valuables behind. Doesn't say Orcs eat people anywhere.


That's a big assumption. Even the Volo's make clear orcs do breed beasts of burdens, and presumably also eat them.

Orcs breed Aurochs, but they're seen as sacred animals to be ridden into battle as symbols of Baghtru, specifically NOT eaten.

[Maxilian]

That's a big assumption. Even the Volo's make clear orcs do breed beasts of burdens, and presumably also eat them.

Well... they do hunt... but they do get most of their resources out of pillaging and hunting all the things in the area (until there is not enough resources for them) and leave to pillage someone elses village, but they don't eat their animals of burden (pretty sure they preffer elfs ears)

[KorvinStarmast]

I think a mistake everyone is making is implying cannibalism is something so inherently Evil even orcs would refrain from it; or that humans don't do it unless they're desperate. --snip--
So if real life people did it orderly, honorably and even piously, and they did of for reasons other than dietary, I see no reason why the "Evil Savage" orcs doing it would be too much. Great post, thank you so much! :smallsmile: My only caveat to your conclusion is that if orcs are less "lawful/organize" than the Tupi, they might not follow the same template whereas Hobgoblins, who tend to be very lawful and organized, might fit that mold slightly better.

Still a great post, I really enjoyed it.

[Regitnui]

I think a mistake everyone is making is implying cannibalism is something so inherently Evil even orcs would refrain from it; or that humans don't do it unless they're desperate.

However, the Tupi, the most important native etnicity in Brazil, used to engage in cannibalism. Not of "humanoids", but of people - people they did regard as people. And if you know anything about the Tupi, you know they're as "Noble Savage" as you can get in real life. A really chill people, who were tragically opressed in more than one way.


Interesting. I did consider that, but dismissed the reasoning because:

a) pretty much everything is weaker than orcs, so 'gaining the enemies' strength' is counterproductive. Gruumsh and their other gods may even forbid the sullying of the orc purity with weaker flesh, whether breeding or eating. It's one reason why half-orcs have such a hard time in orcish society, being smaller and weaker.

b) They fight for resources (humans and dwarves), where it's smarter to take everything, leave the people alone, then come back later to 'harvest' the village again when it's recovered. And when fighting elves, they're fighting a race they consider infidels at best, vermin at worst. Humans just slaughter those types, so the more savage orcs are more likely, IMHO, to poop on an elven corpse than eat it.

[Willie the Duck]

Historically cannibalistic cultures were almost exclusively islanders who had a dearth of other sources of nutrients. (This is not counting modern cultures who probably imported cannibalism through media.)

Do you have reference that established that this is the reason that islanders practiced cannibalism? That sounds like a biological dead end.



AD&D 2e: Gnolls eat intelligent, warm blooded creatures.

I finally looked this up, since we'd always wondered how the OD&D gnoll turned into this hyena headed thing in AD&D 1e. (And subsequently) The Wikipedia article is interesting, I need to look up my old BECMI stuff to see how my memory has missed that version.

I believe 2e is where the idea that most of the humanoid races would eat people they captured came from. Goblins also got that added. Obviously, Tolkein also had his orcs threaten to eat hobbits, but for A/D&D I think it is 2e that is the outlier by including cannibalism in all these races. So no, it isn't some modern "make everything super PC" BS, it is returning things back to normal after an 11 year blip.

[Dr. Cliché]

That being said, they're not like Gnolls or Trolls who *will* eat people anytime they want.

I had some fun with this in a campaign I ran a while back. The party found a group of gnolls that had been kidnapping humans for use as sacrifices in a ritual.

However, the overweight leader frequently got peckish and decided that their master probably wouldn't care too much if his sacrifices weren't intact. Hence, when the party found him, he was happily munching on a human arm (and would naturally take large bites out of it during their brief conversation).

Sometimes the most depraved villains are also the most fun. :smallamused:

[Maxilian]

Interesting. I did consider that, but dismissed the reasoning because:

a) pretty much everything is weaker than orcs, so 'gaining the enemies' strength' is counterproductive. Gruumsh and their other gods may even forbid the sullying of the orc purity with weaker flesh, whether breeding or eating. It's one reason why half-orcs have such a hard time in orcish society, being smaller and weaker.

As far as i know, the Orcs do not think like that, is actually the other way around, they do like to "gain the strenght" of their enemies, but not by eating them, but by reproducing with them (Most likely ending up in rape), i mean... they even got the "blessing" of the goddest of fertility that let them reproduce with, almost, all other races.



b) They fight for resources (humans and dwarves), where it's smarter to take everything, leave the people alone, then come back later to 'harvest' the village again when it's recovered. And when fighting elves, they're fighting a race they consider infidels at best, vermin at worst. Humans just slaughter those types, so the more savage orcs are more likely, IMHO, to poop on an elven corpse than eat it.

That depends, they may see the fact of eating elves as a way to say "**** you and your gods that left us with no lands!, now i leave you with nothing more than bones!", but when it comes to elves, they don't reproduce with elves only because they can't (i believe they can't)

[90sMusic]

I wouldn't call what they did making "everything super PC", rather simply that they did what's fashionable and stopped applying fixed/external measures of morality to people's (I use the term loosely, here) actions. Which actually led to a kind of moral myopia usually only seen in large banks or tax consultancies and which basically broke the good-evil axis of the alignment system. Which, again, led to never-ending discussions, on this board among others, where people can't agree on the simplest of morality issues simply because everyone applies different sets of rules to the process.

Good and evil don't exist objectively, they're manmade constructs we apply to everything in a very relativistic sense. It's one of the reasons I think alignments in D&D are garbage and glad 5e all but does away with them, because people are far too complex to be simplified into one category, even if everyone could agree what that category meant. But you are still left with the issue of "good vs evil" in a world with deities that do objectively define what is and isn't good or evil.

But hey, morality has to be loose when half the game is killing things, usually people.

[ZorroGames]

Some do, having in mind that most Orcs groups do not plant or harverst anything, or produce food in any other way than attacking village or groups of other races, taking their stuff, killing them and raping those that left behind to please their warriors, then...i assume some of those, may eat *insert name of race of the victim*

Some human cultutres were not big on eating non-meat if meat as available (not implying cannibalism,) just as some war like cultures were very much into meat as a rare, special event meal item.

I can see Orcs as hunter warriors with females or children gathering vegetables or plants to season the meat.

Many raiding cultures used meat/fish/poultry in between raids.

[Naanomi]

But you are still left with the issue of "good vs evil" in a world with deities that do objectively define what is and isn't good or evil.
Point of clarification: the Gods have nothing to do with deciding what is Good and Evil in DnD Cosmology, they are bound to the objective (if hard to understand from a mortal or even divine perspective) definitions of the term that supersede their meager influences. Good and Evil (and even more so Law and Chaos) are far beyond little things like Gods

[Jophiel]

But hey, morality has to be loose when half the game is killing things, usually people.
Or morality has to be tight: If evil is clearly defined* then bopping orcs or bandits on the head is easily justified. Which works fine for me in the context of heroic fantasy -- there's enough other RPGs all about edgy handwringing and being misunderstood that I'm cool with my D&D games being about shining knights putting swords through evil critters.

*By which I mean the DM says "These bandits are evil" and you accept it at face value for the story instead of demanding to know about their childhoods and lack of gainful employment opportunities.

[ZorroGames]

Point of clarification: the Gods have nothing to do with deciding what is Good and Evil in DnD Cosmology, they are bound to the objective (if hard to understand from a mortal or even divine perspective) definitions of the term that supersede their meager influences. Good and Evil (and even more so Law and Chaos) are far beyond little things like Gods


Agreed, fantasy usually has some degree of fixed goid and evil.

And the world is messed up ("fallen" if you will) so expecting there to be more than a broad agreement in principle at best in the 'real world' does not prove there is no objective measure of good and evil.

[Chugger]

In your world, you can define orcs any way you want. You can make them greatly misunderstood "people" (not a different species from humans, but perhaps a "subrace" of homo sapiens) who just look different and have a different culture - one that has scared ignorant and paranoid "humans" in the past (humans who didn't see orcs as "human").

But if you want to keep with the tradition that rose out of anything close to Tolkien's world, orcs are not that - orcs are not a "subrace of humans". They seem to be magically created (Sauruman seems to have been given the power to create "adult like" orcs in the ukukhai form pretty much created ready to fight or with minimal training), though other parts of the books from JRRT mention "sons" of orcs - or orcs having "parentage". Now, is this because there was a female orc (never seen in any of the books, iirc) who gave birth to an orc sired by this other orc? Or is it because in orc culture "father" and "son" have different meanings, i.e. the son is adopted - or the necromancer made an orc using some blood or flesh from the older orc? We're not told. Tolkien is dead - he can't tell us.

I much prefer a world where orcs are very much _not_ human or elf, where perhaps a Morgoth-like being mixed bits of elf corpse or blood with magic and other things to create a race of orcs which then do not procreate - their replacements are made by followers of this Morgoth like entity. Or maybe both - maybe some female orcs exist and they procreate some, but a worshiper of M can also make them - maybe it's really hard. And these orcs are, yes, _evil_. But that's just what feels right to me. If you don't like it, hey, make orcs anything - in need of (edit, removed possibly wrong word here) protection from bad humans - whatever you want. It's a flexible game. Always has been. Always will be.

With that said, there's a word we need to address as part of this argument. Conflation. People above have argued that cannibalism is not necessarily evil, and then this has been blurred with an idea that it's somehow "never" evil ... or at least some of the arguments are ranging that way. If you're trapped in the Donner pass in the 1800s and there's no food, and a person has died from an accident or starvation or disease - is eating them evil? Probably not. But if no one has died and everyone is really hungry, and Mrs. Smith over there is looking weak - and we suspect she did something bad anyway - and someone knifes her and cooks her and offers her to the others - is this evil? Of course it is. But if they hadn't done that maybe they all would have gotten so weak they all might have suddenly died "at once". Well, sometimes you either die or commit evil and live. The end does not always justify the means (some would say it never does).

You guys, besides staying off my lawn, really need to be careful with this "all is relative" stuff that is so trendy. It has a limit - not all bad - but like anything, moderation is the key. It's probably not as dangerous as the old way of people claiming to know absolutely what is evil and good and then feeling justified about doing horrible things based on that. But it's really dicey either way. If we say there is good and evil - now what? But when we say there is no good or evil - we get a different and also-large problem. Just because humans have distorted what "good" is and done horrible things in the name of good in the past doesn't mean there is no good - it means that most humans have serious problems and are kind of stupid (or very stupid). That has no bearing on whether or not, on a meaningful metaphysical level (whatever that is), there is or is not good and evil. It's complicated. Please be careful going too simplistic on either side of it - that's all I'm really saying.

I like simple orcs who don't really know what good is and don't really have a lot of "choice" in their lives. Instinct (or an inherent connection to some "evil force") tends to force them to want to hurt others to get material gains. They would also have self-preservation instincts but don't truly love anything - they may not be able to feel love or empathy and so on.

Humans are capable of choice (a few maybe are like orcs in that they're psychopathic and can't truly love or feel empathy, not in any normal sense, anyway) but aren't inherently "good". Humans can choose to be good, or evil or somewhere in between (though arguably some humans might be so wired towards strong feelings of love and empathy that it's really hard for them to do evil - and some might be so wired towards no-empathy and no-love that they usually choose evil). For most humans choice is important - and having choice makes humans special.

I would use other races to throw ethics-tests at DnD parties, not orcs. Orcs are evil (to me - but hey, you don't have to follow me - really!). And they eat human and humanoid flesh not because of any noble reasons. They like to hurt others and eating victims is another way to hurt them (and their loved ones) after you can't torture them any more (because you killed them). Some things enjoy causing pain in a fantasy world. Limits to their violence and evil come from calculations - i.e. they don't eat all their captives because they need to force them to do work or may be able to ransom them for gold. This is pretty much how human psychopaths function.

If you make your world too relativistic and all wishy-washy in this area, it goes bleh - just like making it too black and white (the other extreme) - and I am not arguing for too black-and-white or simplistic, either. But for goodness sakes, there is an argument for leaving orcs as evil, truly evil. I'm tempted to say "play WoW if you want the other kind of orcs" ("me not that kind of orc!") - but I won't. You have choice. There are consequences to what you choose, but do what you want. That's really it.

(a few tweaks made based on another forum contributor's comments - thanks)

[War_lord]

I for one am getting really tired of reading posts from Chugger that go "well LOTR did it like this, and that's traditional, so everything should do it like that, if they don't they're doing it wrong."

What Tolkien did doesn't matter. Dungeons and Dragons is not Lord of the Rings. Much of the inspiration for early D&D comes from works that predate Tolkien. Or works that were explicitly anti-Tolkien, criticism of Tolkien's moral absolutism, blind worship of Parochialism and Classism, and nasty racial undertones is not new by any means. I don't care about what Tolkien did and I don't care about any one person's personal moral justifications. In my experience people who throw around "SJW" don't actually have any morals. Unless a thread is specifically about Tolkien, answering it by talking about Tolkien is at best off-topic and worst actively disruptive.

[Temperjoke]

In Volo's guide, it mentions that cultists of Shargaas will "waylay orcs that have proved themselves ineffectual in leadership or combat, then drag them into Shargaas's dark caverns to be ritually murdered and devoured." The book also mentions that orcs have regular hunters and foragers in their tribes. The monster manual makes no mention of cannibalism, but does mention that they have hunters and foragers as well.

So, I'd imagine that for general purposes the orcs of D&D do not eat other humanoids under normal circumstances.

[hamishspence]

The implication in Morgoth's Ring was that standard orcs eat prisoners "at need" - I.E when there's little other food.


Morgoth's Ring, Text X (written c 1960):

the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not 'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil. They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.* This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded.

Footnote: Few Orcs ever did so in the Elder Days, and at no time would any Orc treat with any Elf. For one thing Morgoth had achieved was to convince the Orcs beyond refutation that the Elves were crueller than themselves, taking captives only for 'amusement', or to eat them (as the Orcs would do at need).)

[Thrudd]

I think monsters are a bit scarier when you know they eat people. The world is a little scarier and more desperate when your species is not the undisputed apex of the food pyramid. So I like player characters knowing or at least expecting/suspecting that most monsters, humanoids included, are likely viewing them as potential meals.

[Unoriginal]

IMO the best explanations is "orcs aren't necessarily humanoid-eater, but given they're generally very violent, sadistic and like to humiliate those weaker than them they won't have much reasons to *not* eat people if it come down to it"

Orcs as they are usually portrayed in D&D have little empathy and even less respect for other beings. I can't see them having a particular taboo about eating sapient beings, but they don't have any reason or quirk that would push them to eat people regularly.

[Chugger]

I for one am getting really tired of reading posts from Chugger that go "well LOTR did it like this, and that's traditional, so everything should do it like that, if they don't they're doing it wrong."

What Tolkien did doesn't matter. Dungeons and Dragons is not Lord of the Rings. Much of the inspiration for early D&D comes from works that predate Tolkien. Or works that were explicitly anti-Tolkien, criticism of Tolkien's moral absolutism, blind worship of Parochialism and Classism, and nasty racial undertones is not new by any means. I don't care about what Tolkien did and I don't care about any one person's personal moral justifications. In my experience people who throw around "SJW" don't actually have any morals. Unless a thread is specifically about Tolkien, answering it by talking about Tolkien is at best off-topic and worst actively disruptive.


I also don't think you understand even half of what I wrote. I'm mostly saying that the JRRT take on orcs exists. And if you want to use it, there it is - or go with someone else's take or your own. Or do some other version of orcs. You're free.

[Unoriginal]

Chugger, War_lord, talking about current political issues is against the forum rules, it's not worth getting a strike for this

[Chugger]

Chugger, War_lord, talking about current political issues is against the forum rules, it's not worth getting a strike for this

You're right. I'll edit. I also don't think it's worth arguing - I've stated a version of a JRRT take on orcs - and if people want to go with it they can. And if they don't want to, they don't have to - as I said above. Not quite sure why someone would get so upset over that. (edit - thanks)

[Chugger]

IMO the best explanations is "orcs aren't necessarily humanoid-eater, but given they're generally very violent, sadistic and like to humiliate those weaker than them they won't have much reasons to *not* eat people if it come down to it"

Orcs as they are usually portrayed in D&D have little empathy and even less respect for other beings. I can't see them having a particular taboo about eating sapient beings, but they don't have any reason or quirk that would push them to eat people regularly.

And this is a perfectly reasonable take on orcs.

As has been said in other posts, orcs should be scary. For me, they're scary because they they don't really have an impulse to "do good" or to "be nice" (or as we've both said, no real empathy). They operate on a different, weird and scary system.

Humanoid captives are probably too valuable to eat regularly, and thus humanoid captives would probably be held and kept alive as slaves (forced to work) or hostages (hoping for ransom). But the second enough orcs are hungry and there's not enough other food around - I would say low-value captives are on the menu.

[Naanomi]

The defining trait of orcs in my campaign setting is their extreme clannishness. Their tribe first, other orcs second, everyone else 100th at best. In that vein, they are cannibalistic when the need strikes, not because they are 'evil' but because they don't really consider anyone outside of their circle 'important enough' to have a moral consideration over. This is compounded by their own lack of reverence for the bodies of the dead (cannibalism is only 'bad' if you feel like the bodies have some moral agency connected to their previous lives.

Human meat, once dead, is just like cow or fish or anything else... and so may be other orcflesh.

[Dr. Cliché]

Personally, I think it depends whether you want orcs to be monsters who happen to have humanoid proportions or humanoids who happen to have a somewhat monstrous appearance.

Basically, do you want your players to empathise with them (at least to some degree) or do you want them to just despise them and kill them on sight?

If you want your players to empathise with them then it's probably best that they don't generally eat human flesh. In addition, they should probably have some redeeming traits. In effect, you want them to be along the lines of a stereotypical barbarian, rather than just being complete psychopaths.

If you want your players to treat them like monsters, then by all means have them scarf down human flesh after a raid. Bonus points if they eat humans alive, eat children/babies and/or bite the heads off small puppies. :smallwink:

[Unoriginal]

Personally, I think it depends whether you want orcs to be monsters who happen to have humanoid proportions or humanoids who happen to have a somewhat monstrous appearance.

Basically, do you want your players to empathise with them (at least to some degree) or do you want them to just despise them and kill them on sight?

If you want your players to empathise with them then it's probably best that they don't generally eat human flesh. In addition, they should probably have some redeeming traits. In effect, you want them to be along the lines of a stereotypical barbarian, rather than just being complete psychopaths.

If you want your players to treat them like monsters, then by all means have them scarf down human flesh after a raid. Bonus points if they eat humans alive, eat children/babies and/or bite the heads off small puppies. :smallwink:

Never thought D&D's orcs were that monstrous looking.

It's not a choice between humanoids vs monsters.

Orcs are people. Evil, violent, horrible people in general, but people none the less.

[Naanomi]

Personally, I think it depends whether you want orcs to be monsters who happen to have humanoid proportions or humanoids who happen to have a somewhat monstrous appearance.
I disagree that you couldn't make orcs sympathetic even as cannibals. After all, we have real human cultures that engage in ritual cannibalism, and labeling them all as godless savages worthy of death is so last century...

rather than just being complete psychopaths.:
Then again I work in the mental health field, so I have a lot of sympathy for psychopaths as well...

[Willie the Duck]

I disagree that you couldn't make orcs sympathetic even as cannibals. After all, we have real human cultures that engage in ritual cannibalism, and labeling them all as godless savages worthy of death is so last century...

That's a true statement with limited relevance. I don't think anyone really cares about the option that orcs are ritualist cannibals, fervently venerating their elders by consuming their flesh or something. The question at hand is whether when you enter a dungeon and the DM tells you that you see signs of orcs, do you prepare yourself for an opponent who might kill you and/or capture and enslave you, or one that might kill you and eat you and/or capture and eat you, and what that does to the experience.

[War_lord]

It's not a choice between humanoids vs monsters.

Orcs are people. Evil, violent, horrible people in general, but people none the less.

This, Orcs are Humanoids. Humanoids with a culture that is by any standard savage, nasty and brutal. But they're still people, and should be treated the same as any other people if at the mercy of the players. They're not like Gnolls, Demons or Devils.

[Naanomi]

That's a true statement with limited relevance. I don't think anyone really cares about the option that orcs are ritualist cannibals, fervently venerating their elders by consuming their flesh or something. The question at hand is whether when you enter a dungeon and the DM tells you that you see signs of orcs, do you prepare yourself for an opponent who might kill you and/or capture and enslave you, or one that might kill you and eat you and/or capture and eat you, and what that does to the experience.
I see a lot of variability in this, not just 'monster or not'... are orcs who raid the lowland villages when the herds are scarce and take the dead the kill for food (along with other plunder) worse than the jungle halfling village that eats the honored dead to hasten their ascension to honored ancestor? For sure... but they are better than the troll who prefers to eats children because they 'are sweeter'; who is in turn better than the demon who doesn't need food at all but still eats buckets of living people because he likes the way they wiggle

[Willie the Duck]

And I am saying that the tribe of _____ that performs ritual cannibalism is so far outside the general area of concern as to not really be relevant.

[Mighty_Chicken]

Seems to me that even a tribe of "noble flesh eaters" woul be absolutely feared given the circustances. Don't we do horror with cults of gentlemen who capture and sacrifice victims while being nice to them? And this is horrifying.

You see how the Europeans described Tupi rituals of cannibalism, it's they're witnessing humanity's lowest point. In the drawings, Hans Staden is looking in every direction while the Tupi eat people. You don't know if Hans is sorry for the eaten, sorry for the eaters, or wondering if this is hell.

http://www.overmundo.com.br/uploads/overblog/multiplas/1173056093_canibal4p.jpg

Looking up for this series of drawing or for the stories of Staden an other explorers is nice to understand how Europeans reacted to cannibalism. Not nicely.

HOWEVER, they still needed the natives as allies. They would continue to make business with them, because you had natives allied to the Portuguese, natives allied to the French, you could not go without the Tupi if you were warring in that portion of the Americas. You had to make part of their own wars against other tribes, you had to marry your men to their daughters.

So, horror and utility may even walk side by side, until the day you're captured and now it's you who will see other men being eaten for weeks or months before it's your turn. Also, consider European Catholics had their rites too. Having their bodies profaned was nightmarish in its own right.

This is why I think a "grey" re-reading of orcs is a good place for cannibalism. KorvinStarmast is right in that orcs have a more barbaric fluff, while Hobgoblins are the organize ones. But I usualy imagine Hobs as "civilized evils", dweling in city states and villages. If you want to make your orcs both human, capable of good, and scary, you can make them respectful cannibals; it serves as much to humanize them as to make them monsters.

[90sMusic]

Or morality has to be tight: If evil is clearly defined* then bopping orcs or bandits on the head is easily justified. Which works fine for me in the context of heroic fantasy -- there's enough other RPGs all about edgy handwringing and being misunderstood that I'm cool with my D&D games being about shining knights putting swords through evil critters.

*By which I mean the DM says "These bandits are evil" and you accept it at face value for the story instead of demanding to know about their childhoods and lack of gainful employment opportunities.

That bandit may just be a dumb teenager that fell into a bad crowd, going along with them because he lives in an area they control and resisting would result in the throats being slit of himself and his entire family.

He may not be some brave hero stopping at nothing to do the "right thing", but he's far from evil. Desperate situations turn even the most decent people in society into monsters when things get bad enough. Survival is a strong instinct.

Objective definitions of good and evil are silly, everything is relative.

[Mighty_Chicken]

I think your definitions of good and evil are very objective: you talk like being a bandit is something evil, but the teenager as "far from evil". Like acts can be defined as evil, but not people.

This is, possibly, the oldest objective definition of good and evil in our civilization. What is "silly" is the Alignment system, which is based on fantasy literature and pulp fiction, not on philosophical and religious works about the objectiveness of good and evil. But even in a game, you can have objective good and evil without writing it down in the character's sheet.

What D&D goes further into having is "concrete" good and evil; as in, good and evil being abstract, real concepts and also something with physical(-like) properties.

[Jophiel]

Objective definitions of good and evil are silly, everything is relative.
Perhaps, but I don't usually find that high fantasy adventure is the best (or most entertaining; it is a game after all) vehicle for exploring that. I prefer more clearly defined good/evil boundaries for the sake of heroic story telling. That's just my own taste though. If I want tortured morality, I can go play a vampire in 1990s Chicago or something :smalltongue: I'm not afraid of relative morality, I just don't much care for it in the heroic high fantasy milieu.

This, of course, doesn't mean that there's NO place for someone bucking the trend but then Drizzt or your good-hearted orc warrior or the green dragon who was just trying to prevent its mate's burial barrow from being encroached upon by elves are that much more unique and interesting when the rest of the Drow/orcs/green dragons are evil and not just misunderstood people. Again, just my own tastes and opinions. If someone else wants tragically misunderstood ogres then that's cool for them.

[90sMusic]

I think your definitions of good and evil are very objective: you talk like being a bandit is something evil, but the teenager as "far from evil". Like acts can be defined as evil, but not people.

This is, possibly, the oldest objective definition of good and evil in our civilization. What is "silly" is the Alignment system, which is based on fantasy literature and pulp fiction, not on philosophical and religious works about the objectiveness of good and evil. But even in a game, you can have objective good and evil without writing it down in the character's sheet.

What D&D goes further into having is "concrete" good and evil; as in, good and evil being abstract, real concepts and also something with physical(-like) properties.

I'm not the one defining things as good and evil, even the actions. Bandits were referred to as evil, so I just compared my hypothetical person as not being really evil even if he is committing similar actions or helping in some small way the people who were defined as thus.

I don't really consider anything to be evil inherently.

For instance, killing babies is pretty frowned upon, but what if that baby is the anti-christ and going to end the world when it grows up?

Forcing sex on an unwilling victim is generally frowned upon, but we do it every single day to animals by forcing them to breed, whether they want to or not. They have special stalls for mares for instance and strap them down so they physically cannot get away. But nobody bats an eye or cares in the slightest when it's animals. Everything is relative.

We say killing people is bad and wrong, even many religious doctrines hold this as one of their "sacred laws" but at the same time we, as a society, kill people all the time be it through executions, wars, or whatever other excuse we decide to justify our actions with.

And again, killing and torture and being humane, people only seem to care when it affects them and their own kind. They mistreat creatures they consider to be their lessers routinely. Humans will kill rabbits not just for food, but for fun. Then go home to their loving family, smiles and happiness all around. None of them consider the others to be evil for doing so. I don't think anyone can argue that a human is a lesser creature to a dragon, so why are they evil just for killing humans? Even if it is just for fun. How can we say one thing is evil and the other isn't? Because vain and prideful humans think only they matter and everything has to be relative specifically to them.

If a human builds a giant cage to contain dozens or even hundreds of rabbits to breed, sell, and eat, it doesn't matter. If a dragon did the same thing to people, suddenly it would be "Evil". But why? They're smaller, less intelligent, and far more of them in both cases. Where is the line of distinction that makes it "ok" to do one but not the other. You can try to draw that line, but even other people who think that line exists won't all agree on where it goes. You can argue for things like "humans are sentient!" but by what right do you have to decide a creature that isn't as intelligent as you are should simply be used as a resource and not considered at all. It can still feel pain, it can still feel fear, it can still die and it still wants desperately to live. There could be another type of heightened consciousness or awareness that would consider our own level of sentience to be inferior and not worth consideration just because it too is inferior.

That is the flaw in objective morality in a fantasy setting. Humans have a hard time letting go from that self-centered notion of "humans are the only thing that matters" and making our objective good and evil tied specifically to things that HUMANS consider to be good or evil relative to themselves. Even in fantasy where all sorts of other creatures and special circumstances can exist, they still make everything completely human-centric as far as morality goes.

I mean as a thought experiment, what if objective morality was centered on orcs. What if it was an act of good to kill weaker, lesser creatures in order to keep those remaining stronger by giving them more space and resources to thrive on? What if showing weakness or mercy were acts of evil and punishable not only by mortal agents but by the divine as well?

Alignments are terrible. Objective good and evil is terrible as a concept unless you want a world where only one species really does matter, objectively.

[Temperjoke]

And there it is, thread fully derailed.

[90sMusic]

Perhaps, but I don't usually find that high fantasy adventure is the best (or most entertaining; it is a game after all) vehicle for exploring that. I prefer more clearly defined good/evil boundaries for the sake of heroic story telling. That's just my own taste though. If I want tortured morality, I can go play a vampire in 1990s Chicago or something :smalltongue: I'm not afraid of relative morality, I just don't much care for it in the heroic high fantasy milieu.

This, of course, doesn't mean that there's NO place for someone bucking the trend but then Drizzt or your good-hearted orc warrior or the green dragon who was just trying to prevent its mate's burial barrow from being encroached upon by elves are that much more unique and interesting when the rest of the Drow/orcs/green dragons are evil and not just misunderstood people. Again, just my own tastes and opinions. If someone else wants tragically misunderstood ogres then that's cool for them.

I can agree with that, it's too deep of a thing to get into, especially since a lot of people get very triggered by things that have anything to do with religion and morality seems unfortunately tied to real world religious beliefs.

I'm just saying, I don't like the good vs evil dynamic and never have. It's too cliche and overdone and too "simple" and unrealistic for my tastes. I like at least a shade of grey in there or imperfect heroes who sometimes just do the best they can in the situation they are in. There is no judgement for what they do or how they do it, there is no right or wrong, but it's fun to watch them think of ways to handle situations without those constraints. They often try to be as "good" as they can be, but sometimes they will do something more traditionally considered evil or at the very least questionable because they think it'll net better results.

[90sMusic]

And there it is, thread fully derailed.

Thread has been concluded. "Do orcs eat humans" is practically a yes or no answer, with minor additions from sources of that answer.

[Regitnui]

You can argue for things like "humans are sentient!" but by what right do you have to decide a creature that isn't as intelligent as you are should simply be used as a resource and not considered at all. It can still feel pain, it can still feel fear, it can still die and it still wants desperately to live. There could be another type of heightened consciousness or awareness that would consider our own level of sentience to be inferior and not worth consideration just because it too is inferior.

I'd like to point out that most dragons hatch as smart as humans and only get smarter from there. Even an animalistic white dragon isn't too far behind. So would dragons eat humans? Yes. Even the Good ones. Humans are to dragons as rabbits are to us.

[Chugger]

And there it is, thread fully derailed.

Pretty much, yes. Nothing to see here folks. Move along. Move along....

[Chugger]

This might help.

Would a human severely risk or even sacrifice his/her own life for a stranger, or possibly even a member of another species?

Yes. Many documented cases of this. Not all humans do so - also many documented cases of humans doing nothing (or even laughing) while someone or something suffers or even dies. Humans can choose.

Would an orc risk or even sacrifice his/her own life for a stranger, or possibly even a member of another species?

Not really. It might look like it in battle, but when that orc charged was it "sacrificing" or so infused with battle-lust that it just charged? Or was it delusional - i.e. it really thought it could take on three fighters. Does it join a suicide charge out of noble reasons or because it fears the lash more than it fears death in battle? If there is an exception - where an orc is "noble" - that might be interesting (but for me, I'd say 99.99% of the time no - orcs just don't go there).

If orcs are too much like us, then your game risks not feeling exotic enough. If they are all like zombies (mindless killers), then your game risks being monotonous. I would say to differentiate them from zombies don't make them too much like us - give them concerns that a mindless zombie wouldn't have - but try to think from an orc's point of view. What about behavioral limits (i.e. not killing someone) coming only from pragmatic concerns (he could be valuable if ransomed - he could be valuable to us in the slave pits - we need to save him for questioning) and never empathy? That makes orcs different from humans and different from zombies.

The bandit example is a great wrinkle for a fight. As the bandits fall, one of them, a teen, throws down his club and says, "Please, don't kill me! I'm not really one of them! They made me join them or they would kill me mum!!!" Now you're asking the party to put this bandit on trial. Do they tie him up until they can get him to a Pal with zone of truth or until the next day, when a character can use a mind-reading spell? If he turns out to be a liar do they "execute" him (commit vigilante murder)? Turn him over to the proper authorities? Or do they not even try - do they just turn him over (to lawful authorties known to make examples of all crooks - i.e. near certain death)? Do they not accept his surrender and kill him? Does it matter that at the start of the fight he hit the cleric for 5 points of damage?

You're not going to get this with an orc fight. Sure the last orc might surrender and beg not to be killed, but it probably won't say "I'm really a pacifist at heart, a Buddhist with Zen leanings - they made me go raiding!" That just doesn't fit. At least it doesn't for me.

Now with other races, it might make sense. And it makes sense to have many different types of creatures with differentiated traits. If orcs, hobgoblins, goblins, gnolls, bugbears and kobolds are all identical, it could get boring - just as boring (and tedious) as if they're all "misunderstood ritual cannibals." Something needs to fill the role of "vicious killer who only keeps you alive to sell you as a slave or hold you for ransom". You have undead as the most mindless of killers. Then mindless and vicious living creatures, like oozes or stirges perhaps. Then things like orcs. The game might not have enough in the way of more "neutral" races that might or might not be dangerous and who might feel some empathy, but just like humans err or can get bloody - they can, too - or they can be surprisingly empathetic and kind - depending. But making orcs even remotely filling this role, to me, is silly.

Look, people - us, players - probably "want to kill things" but in a justified way. It's a fantasy that most humans have - not one we talk about much - but it's pretty obvious when you look at how adventure and action movies are structured. A lot of the movie is (or at least was) dedicated to setting up how the badguys really are bad and how justice (in this story) is broken and how our heroes now have a right and a duty to kill all those people over there. Not so much in comic movies - they tend to do non-lethal violence. That's been a tradition of comics for decades (has much to do with staving off censorship in the old days). Action movies - once it's clear the badguys are vicious killers with no redeeming qualities - then it's about the hero tracking them down and killing them all. Really - look at almost any given action movie, and you'll see this pattern. In DnD you will have all sorts of combats - but for most parties your need something to fill the role of a traditional orc. But you also don't want that to be, of course, the only encounter. Some can be morally challenging. Too much of that and it's like an action movie where the hero joins a monastery and gives up - I'm joking - but some of what DnD is about is escapist fantasy - escapist fantasy that feeds this (somewhat dark) part of our psyches - a need to feel like we're in control or can do something if the entities that are supposed to protect us from harm break down or aren't there in our moment of need. So orcs - or something - needs to stay evil - traditionally evil - or you're arguably just torturing your players.

At the end of the day, it's your world. Do what you want. That doesn't mean your choices have no consequences - they do - and all I'm trying to do is to get us to think about what the consequences of our choices are. I'm not trying to tell anyone "you must do it like this". What I say is very much my opinion, and of course you should question it. Good luck.

[hamishspence]

Action movies - once it's clear the badguys are vicious killers with no redeeming qualities - then it's about the hero tracking them down and killing them all. Really - look at almost any given action movie, and you'll see this pattern. If action movies are often about "hunting down vicious killers with no redeeming qualities" (but with the vicious killers being human, and not all humans being considered vicious killers) - why exactly can't D&D handle most humanoids the way action movies handle humans?

An orc doesn't need to be "evil from birth" to be a vicious killer - all they need is the same sort of background as any action movie antagonist.

[Unoriginal]

Orcs aren't evil at birth in 5e.

It's just that, if you follow the infos in the PHB and the other books, Gruumsh, who doesn't value free will much (as one can deduce), has created them with intense violent urges and has made the orc society so that ideas like benevolence, altruism or mercy would be stomped out of anyone who'd get the idea to follow them (most of the times, anyway).

[Willie the Duck]

If action movies are often about "hunting down vicious killers with no redeeming qualities" (but with the vicious killers being human, and not all humans being considered vicious killers) - why exactly can't D&D handle most humanoids the way action movies handle humans?

An orc doesn't need to be "evil from birth" to be a vicious killer - all they need is the same sort of background as any action movie antagonist.

If you want to establish motivations for all your antagonists, then that works. If you want mooks that it's clear that you can stab without feeling bad, then you want 'evil from birth' opponents.

Let's stay on action movies and look at The Princess Bride-- this is a world where everyone is exquisitely polite, even to (perhaps especially to) people trying to kill them. You offer people ropes, you wait while they do acrobatics and don't stab them while they are waiting to see if the sword lands in their hand (because how cool is that). Everything is spiffy and shiny... for main characters. For Prince Humperdink's guards, they are slaughtered en mass by the supposed "heroes" for no reason except that they were protecting the lawful (and to the knowledge of everyone except the heroes and the audience, righteous) ruler. Wesley and Fezzik and company are really terrorists and murderers.

So, do you 1) want to spend the time to explain how each enemy the PCs face are truly irredeemable and therefore it is okay to kill them, 2) give them some kind of shorthand that makes it okay ("orcs," or "the kult of Vecna"), 3) some kind of garbage justification ("the PCs are fighting for the liberation of the kingdom, so it's okay if some of the guards they kill are good people"), or 4) not care? Pretty much all of them but #1 have some kind of moral inconsistency if you look closely enough, and if you can actually accomplish #1 and keep the game enjoyable, well then you are a paragon (and I don't believe you exist).

[hamishspence]

Wasn't the whole point of Holocaust Cloak stratagem, to get through Humperdinck's guards without fighting them?

[Unoriginal]

Wasn't the whole point of Holocaust Cloak stratagem, to get through Humperdinck's guards without fighting them?

Well, tbf, they'd have fought them if they thought they could win.

And they do end up fighting some guards inside the castle.

[Willie the Duck]

Wasn't the whole point of Holocaust Cloak stratagem, to get through Humperdinck's guards without fighting them?

I remember that being because there were too many of them, not it having anything to do with sparing the poor guard's lives.

Next question--do your PCs do that? All or most of the time? If not, then D&D still needs a way to make enemy mooks that it is okay to kill, be it through clear signage that they (the mooks) have decided to be villains, or through some inherent villainity tag like evil cult or inherently evil race.

[hamishspence]

It's a common problem:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatMeasureIsAMook

but sometimes the solution is worse than the problem is.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysChaoticEvil

IMO it's better just to recalibrate your expectations of what's needed for various alignments - Good characters still need to show some respect for life, even to enemy soldiers and guards - only Evil ones can slaughter their way through without putting any effort into minimising the amount of killing done.

[Willie the Duck]

That's one of many acceptable ways of doing it.

[Unoriginal]

I remember that being because there were too many of them, not it having anything to do with sparing the poor guard's lives.

Next question--do your PCs do that? All or most of the time? If not, then D&D still needs a way to make enemy mooks that it is okay to kill, be it through clear signage that they (the mooks) have decided to be villains, or through some inherent villainity tag like evil cult or inherently evil race.

I don't know for you, but I consider that if a character wants to kill people because of the species they belong to -be it aasimar, orc or hill giant-, it is a sign said character has at minimum evil tendencies (after all, chaotic evil is described as among other things "arbitrary violence due to hatred"), but that having to kill people because they are part of a group that desire to inflict harm and death on others can hardly be considered an evil thing in itself.

If you kill an orc because he's an orc, you're a big ****stain. If you kill a raider who wanted to torch a village, maim and kill its inhabitant and steal all the valuables because you want to protect said village, you are doing so out of benevolence, and it doesn't matter if the raider is an orc, a drow, an human or a gnome. And while a good character would try to show mercy, they aren't going to foolishly assume the raider is going to stop trying to harm people just like that.

The orcs, goblins and other humanoids PCs fight aren't usually innocent people who just live their lives before PCs show up to slaughter them for no reason, they're openly hostile and generally attack travelers and nearby settlements. And the cultists of evil gods aren't just praying happily in their corner, they're generally killing or capturing people to do horrible things to them, and can cause a lot of damages if not stopped.

Now, it sometime happens that the PCs have to fight guards or the like who are not bad people themselves, but who are unwittingly helping someone who is using them in their dark schemes. In my experience, unless the PCs are evil, they will try to talk this out, and only attack those guards if left no choice.

[Willie the Duck]

Now, it sometime happens that the PCs have to fight guards or the like who are not bad people themselves, but who are unwittingly helping someone who is using them in their dark schemes. In my experience, unless the PCs are evil, they will try to talk this out, and only attack those guards if left no choice.

I've found it about half and half for both D&D adventures and movies. Like all things, the acceptability of designated villains is dependent on where your verisimilitude breaks. Hamishspence had the right link with the TVtropes. The mook being a mook is a trope, and whether that's a problem depends on the group. After all, tropes are tools (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreNotBad).

[Chugger]

If action movies are often about "hunting down vicious killers with no redeeming qualities" (but with the vicious killers being human, and not all humans being considered vicious killers) - why exactly can't D&D handle most humanoids the way action movies handle humans?

An orc doesn't need to be "evil from birth" to be a vicious killer - all they need is the same sort of background as any action movie antagonist.

Aha, you forgot the "with no redeeming qualities" part. Now, I was being a bit sardonic here - really, you think when I say these things I'm like a one-dimensional robot with no appretiation for the complexities and problems of these positions? (that's a function of this being a typed-on-Internet argument - were we face to face there is no way any of you would be thinking this - we'd be having a totally different conversation because most of you would be catching my tone of voice, nuances and body language and so on).

So when you remove an important caveat that I said and then act like we're still talking about the same thing, this is a logical fallacy - though which one is a question. I'd say strawman. You can't beat my argument with the caveat included, so you neatly take it out and act like you're beating my argument - but you're only beating _half_ my argument. So please figure this out, come back, and try again. Thanks.

[Chugger]

I don't know for you, but I consider that if a character wants to kill people because of the species they belong to -be it aasimar, orc or hill giant-, it is a sign said character has at minimum evil tendencies

So by this logic I'm a big ****stain for killing mosquitos because of the species they belong to. So now, not to be a big ****stain I have to put each individual mosquito on trial and see if it is the one in a billion who ... is a vegan mosquito or something?

Now, let's move on to zombies. We're evil for killing zombies on sight? "Oh sure, because in my world pacifist zombies exist who..." And yeah, if this is more than just a novelty item, a one-off haha, I'm leaving your table.

We're talking about a fantasy setting. And movies. Not the reality I want to escape from. Oh, but I'm sure this somehow makes me evil or a giant ****stain anyway, because someone is into high-handed pronouncements of judgment on others?

Part of what I was talking about in the movie reference is that for most humans, even in fantasy, some form of "trial" has to exist - some sort of "it's okay" has to exist - or yes, we are being evil. Movies overcome this by either throwing undead at us (and yes, sometimes undead aren't evil and have to stop us from killing them - a handful of nice zombies do exist in movies) - (edit, hint, by throwing zombies at us I mean having something that is "evil by nature" - inherently evil - doesn't need to be put on trial - it is bad because it's made that way - precisely so we can confront it for game purposes). Or by showing you that certain characters (not born or created that way) are not redeemable - beyond the power of justice to bring in - so bad they deserve Arnold Snorkenator shooting them while one-lining them).

And in some cases it is species wide. Like in "Aliens" and the sequels. You're telling me I'm a ***stain and evil for killing-on-sight creatures like in Aliens? Hey, they can't help what they are - they're only acting as Nature made them, right? So I guess I am totally evil here. Oh gosh. And me caught without any pearls to clutch. Where's my fainting couch?

Fantasy. Game. Also, I'm not even making the argument you think I'm making - we're talking around each other. You on your topic, me on mine - and wow, yeah (do you even see this?).

[Coidzor]

If you want every session of every game to be some grand morality play, good on you for knowing what is fun for you and doing it. Different people like different things, and that's OK.

Where you go wrong is expecting everyone else to march in lockstep with you on whatever it is that you like and starting or escalating fights with actual people, outside of games because of it.

Personally, I think it sounds exhausting to have my leisure time entirely devoted to finding the most moral solution to all problems.

[Unoriginal]

So by this logic I'm a big ****stain for killing mosquitos because of the species they belong to. So now, not to be a big ****stain I have to put each individual mosquito on trial and see if it is the one in a billion who ... is a vegan mosquito or something?.

Mosquitos aren't people. They are not what I was talking about.

And you are not a character, so what you do was not what I was talking about either.



Now, let's move on to zombies. We're evil for killing zombies on sight? "Oh sure, because in my world pacifist zombies exist who..." And yeah, if this is more than just a novelty item, a one-off haha, I'm leaving your table.

Zombies are sapient enough in 5e, if barely. They are also omnicidal, evil beings who should be shot on sight because they are dangerous and will kill anyone and anything they get their hands on if left to their own device.

If a character kills a zombie because how dangerous and murderous it is, it's not a question of hatred.

If a character kills a zombie because they love to apply lethal, arbitrary violence on other beings and zombies are convenient punching bags, they're probably not good guys.


We're talking about a fantasy setting. And movies. Not the reality I want to escape from. Oh, but I'm sure this somehow makes me evil or a giant ****stain anyway, because someone is into high-handed pronouncements of judgment on others?

Why do you think I'm talking about you? I'm talking about characters in D&D. You are not a character in D&D.




And in some cases it is species wide. Like in "Aliens" and the sequels. You're telling me I'm a ***stain and evil for killing-on-sight creatures like in Aliens?

No. I've never said that, nor have I implied that.

Orcs are not Xenomorphs.




Fantasy. Game. Also, I'm not even making the argument you think I'm making - we're talking around each other. You on your topic, me on mine - and wow, yeah (do you even see this?).

...what are you even talking about?

Why is me saying that I think fictional characters who kill out of hatred are evil, as written in the PHB, this much of an issue for you? Why are you acting as if I personally insulted you when you say you're talking about a different topic than mine?

[. Shadowblade .]

yes, of horse they do :biggrin:

[Chugger]

Mosquitos aren't people. They are not what I was talking about.

And you are not a character, so what you do was not what I was talking about either.



Zombies are sapient enough in 5e, if barely. They are also omnicidal, evil beings who should be shot on sight because they are dangerous and will kill anyone and anything they get their hands on if left to their own device.

If a character kills a zombie because how dangerous and murderous it is, it's not a question of hatred.

If a character kills a zombie because they love to apply lethal, arbitrary violence on other beings and zombies are convenient punching bags, they're probably not good guys.



Why do you think I'm talking about you? I'm talking about characters in D&D. You are not a character in D&D.





No. I've never said that, nor have I implied that.

Orcs are not Xenomorphs.




...what are you even talking about?

Why is me saying that I think fictional characters who kill out of hatred are evil, as written in the PHB, this much of an issue for you? Why are you acting as if I personally insulted you when you say you're talking about a different topic than mine?

See, right there at the end, this is the problem that I've been talking about - it's an Internet problem - it's a problem that only rarely occurs when people talk face to face - but it's a problem that is persistent and awful on the (typed) Internet. And that is we are not really communicating with each other. That you assume I've "personally insulted" you is ludicrous to me - fantasy - mass derangement on your part - except it isn't. It's just Forum-blindness - it's that humans need to hear tone of voice and be able to see facial expression to better understand what others are saying.

I'm not upset with you. I'm frustrated because you seem to be refusing to understand a couple of really, dirt-simple premises I've laid out. And I think you're talking about real-world ethics, not game/story ethics. My base premise, which I've repeated now several times, is not that I really insist you must do x (make orcs really bad) - it's just that however you choose to set or describe or cast orcs in your world, there are consequences to it. Mostly entertainment-level consequences - and in a fantasy game most players need something like a classical orc - whether they get it as a zombie - a mosquito - or cultists - or whatever.

So which are we going to discuss here: real world ethics or game consequences? I don't want to discuss real world ethics with you, especially not here - I've already spent enough time studying them and "get" every argument made. What you seem not to be getting is game - DnD - you need to offer entertainment to your players - and you need to finesse the fine line between providing things that are scary and need to be eliminated if possible and that getting too boring (so sometimes throwing in a surprise). So, where exactly is there a problem with this?

[Unoriginal]

If you don't want people to believe you are insulted, then don't write statements like " Oh, but I'm sure this somehow makes me evil or a giant ****stain anyway, because someone is into high-handed pronouncements of judgment on others?"

As for your premises, I can understand them, it doesn't mean I have to agree with them.

And no, I'm talking about in-game ethics, or whatever you want to call them. A character who kills a sapient being because of what kind of sapient being they are, rather than because of said sapient being's actions, is "act[ing] with arbitrary violence, spurred by their [...] hatred" which is a textbook case of chaotic evil behavior. There are plenty of good reason to kill an orc raider, but none of them is "because he's an orc". Being a violent, bloodthirsty murderer is more than enough for adventurers to oppose and kill him.

Does it mean a character who kills out of hatred is unplayable? No. Does it mean they should be avoided? Depends if the table is ok with that kind of stories, but as long as everyone is on board, it can work well.

If you want to go meta and say "but there need to be adversaries for your players to be entertained", well, duh. But adversaries don't need to be a "don't have to feel bad about killing them 'cus they're pure evil" faceless mass. They just need to be people, often horrible people, that the PCs are justified in killing because their end goals will harm people/nations/worlds/ideals the PCs care about, and stopping them in an awesome manner is what provide the entertainment.

[Chugger]

For goodness sakes I was being playful - again - you can't tell because you can't hear the "smile in my voice" and the whimsical look on my face! We're typing.

What I think you're failing to grasp is that a game world is necessarily removed from your level of ethics and you're conflating. I teased you about mosquitoes earlier (and you didn't like that, but you also didn't get my point, it seems, because of the tangent you took in response) because "are mosquitoes evil"? They're just doing as nature programs them, making us suffer and die from malaria - among other things - malaria has been and still is one of the most deadly diseases in the world. Yet some argue that mosquitoes are not evil. I'm not sure it matters - I'm killing them. And I'm not feeling guilty about killing them. I might feel guilty about killing pelican chicks because the DDT someone used might have had that affect, but I'm not going to feel guilty about killing mosquitoes.

In-game orcs are (to a large extent) no different if they're defined a certain way. If you define them another way, then they very much _are_ different - and when I say consequences - this is what I mean. That's it.

You are conflating. You're trying to get away with saying that anyone who hates and kills another race or species based on its race or species is necessarily evil. And I'm saying that if a game race or species is defined as necessarily (and sufficiently) evil by nature, it's not evil to hate and kill them. Whether or not this exists in reality isn't important for this forum. How you set thing in your game - and the consequences that arise from these choices - is all that matters. (edit, and I'm not mainly talking about ethical consequences here - I'm mainly talking about the entertainment value of our game sessions, of which ethical considerations are a subset).

Do I need to explain it in some other way? I'm not being snarky. I genuinely hope you see that what I'm talking about is only barely contained in the set of things you're talking about.

[Chugger]

I have probably badly miscommunicated here.

In the real world we can't control the "large" variables, when it comes to ethics. Instead we need to to look at things we find and try to be as honest as possible about what nature (or reality or God) has thrown at us - and do the best we can with them. When we have labeled entire groups as "evil" because "they do ____" and then wiped them out - while calling it "good" - of course it's right to question that and question that severely.

In a fantasy world we are lower-case g gods. We get to set the large variables, if we want to. Therefore, we can define some groups of creatures as "inherently evil" - and there are many ways to do that. We don't have to worry about a reality knocking on our doors and saying, "Ahem, you might have got that wrong there - you might be unethical..." - at least not so much - because we can set the levers - the definitions of things in our lower case w worlds so that simplistic morals work and we can free up our minds to focus on entertaining players.

And if too simple a set-up gets tedious, hey, we can throw "an orc with a conscience" at the players if we want to/need to.

I'm guessing that people were confused by how I was using the word "consequences" and were assuming it was in some 200 year old Puritanical sense or worse. No. I meant the entertainment-value-consequences. That's all. How you set your world variables - including ones with ethical ramifications - determines how enjoyable gaming in your world is going to be for people with ______ expectations or basic mindsets. It will be different for people with some other basic mindset.

That's it. It's that simple. And I'm grinning. Big grin. See? ---> :smallbiggrin:

[ZorroGames]

Can you two please stick to the subject?

Do Orcs eat humans?

My answer, if it means being delayed and killed by pursuers, no.

If it means cleaning up fresh killed hordes of invading [fill in the blank] or risking disease by leaving corrupting bodies, then Yes.