When and why did orc alignment switch?

[Dr.Samurai]

Does anyone know why the orc alignment has sort of waffled around a bit throughout the editions? It's been consistent for the last three editions, so it seems D&D has settled on orc alignment, but I'm curious why the change.

According to a Stack Exchange answer, they started out as Chaotic or Neutral when there was only one axis to alignment, then switched to Lawful Evil in 1st and 2nd edition when that combo was possible, then to Chaotic Evil in 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition.

I find playing around with orc archetypes in a well structured military more interesting than with hobgoblins, so I'll likely use them as lawful evil types, but I'm just wondering if there's any designer reasons for the changes. I was reading something on Acheron and it even mentions that Gruumsh and the orcs don't seem lawful enough for the plane. That made me wonder if that was (likely) a post-change revision, or if something was explained in the lore/canon that describes the switch from lawful to chaotic.

[GeoffWatson]

IIRC it was so Hobgoblins (LE Militaristic) and Orcs (CE Hordes) were more different.

[awa]

The difference between second edition orcs and third edition orcs are pretty significant.

I think partially it was the fact that non d&d orcs had been trending more and more chaotic barbarian (see warhammer and warcraft) and less random goons for evil overlords.

though trying to differentiate them from hobgoblins makes a lot of sense as well in second edition they were very interchangeable.

[Vahnavoi]

You already answered when, this is a change that happened between editions, because orcs and alignment are different between versions of D&D.

As for why, it's part of a larger shift where individual authors reinvent orcs as something different and this then trickles to popular stereotypes.

For example, Tolkien was British writing European fantasy, but Gygax was American and this significantly influenced D&D's interpretation of orcs. In simple terms, orcs, and various other evil creatures, started taking elements from Native Americans since D&D took cues from Westerns. Once people picked up on this trend, they started more consciously using orcs as stand-ins for various indigenuous and colonized peoples, which is the root for various sympathetic and "noble savage" type portrayals.

At the same time, interpreting Lord of the Rings as allegory or analogy for the world wars, and later the cold war, was very popular. So when you look at 1st Edition Lawful Evil orcs, think of them as literal fascist pigs. Hobgoblins are the same but Japanese. Other works of Post-Tolkien genre fantasy took these ideas and ran with them, using orc-like creatures as stand-ins for whatever political or ideological opponent they had gripes with. This continues today, it isn't hard to figure out who are currently being cast the Dark Lord and his orcish horde.

[Prime32]

At the same time, interpreting Lord of the Rings as allegory or analogy for the world wars, and later the cold war, was very popular. So when you look at 1st Edition Lawful Evil orcs, think of them as literal fascist pigs.
IIRC in Three Hearts and Three Lions (one of the major influences on D&D) this was explicit, to the point where the fortunes of one in fantasyland impact the other on Earth and vice versa.


For example, Tolkien was British writing European fantasy, but Gygax was American and this significantly influenced D&D's interpretation of orcs. In simple terms, orcs, and various other evil creatures, started taking elements from Native Americans since D&D took cues from Westerns. Once people picked up on this trend, they started more consciously using orcs as stand-ins for various indigenuous and colonized peoples, which is the root for various sympathetic and "noble savage" type portrayals.
The irony being that Tolkien's orcs were associated with the worst parts of the Industrial Revolution.

[Vahnavoi]

@Prime32: Aye. Further layers of irony come from the fact that Tolkien himself had some difficulty pinning down origin of orcs and reconciling them with his ideas of free will and redemption. If Tolkien had finished Silmarillion, or lived long enough to create a revised edition of Lord of the Rings, we might've gotten non-evil proud warrior race orcs in the trope codifying work!

[Grim Portent]

The irony being that Tolkien's orcs were associated with the worst parts of the Industrial Revolution.

In one of his letters he writes the line 'we were all made orcs in the Great War.' The orcs can be argued to represent different things at different times, but in LotR I would say they are victims of their industrial overlords and their industrial war.

In the Hobbit they are the industrialists and victimisers of course, but that's a very different work with no dark lords to define the orcs so the orcs get top billing as the makers and purveyors of industrial war.


I do find it odd they made the orcs chaotic evil and not the hobgoblins personally. Goblins tend to be NE and bugbears CE, so having Hobgoblins be NE or CE would tie the goblinoids up in a nice CE box together.

[awa]

You already answered when, this is a change that happened between editions, because orcs and alignment are different between versions of D&D.

As for why, it's part of a larger shift where individual authors reinvent orcs as something different and this then trickles to popular stereotypes.

For example, Tolkien was British writing European fantasy, but Gygax was American and this significantly influenced D&D's interpretation of orcs. In simple terms, orcs, and various other evil creatures, started taking elements from Native Americans since D&D took cues from Westerns. Once people picked up on this trend, they started more consciously using orcs as stand-ins for various indigenuous and colonized peoples, which is the root for various sympathetic and "noble savage" type portrayals.


While orcs definitively eventually started taking on indigenous coding I dont think it was straight at the switch from 2nd to 3rd those orcs were more generic European barbarian the vikings without the boats that are so common in fiction.

My gut instinct is that once they become can't believe its not vikings they start adding some positive traits to their evilness like courage and honor (becoming a proud warrior race rather than cowardly thugs) then they stop being designated evil and pick up the nature/ primitive angle and then that transitions into noble savage territory and before long they are the oppressed victims and are basically the opposite of the Tolkien orcs.

I'm not exactly sure where the switch happened for d&d, war hammer never transitioned, Warcraft switched with Warcraft 3 (2002) where they stop using necromancers and start using shamans.

[Vahnavoi]

Don't make complex what is simple. The question of when orc alignment switched is answered sufficiently well by looking at publication history of various D&D editions and their supplemental books, that way you can get a precise date for when orcs were this or that. If you want to dig deeper, you can then look at development history of those books, but for practical purposes that tends to be overkill.

Why it happened is an on-going process that isn't limited to a single line of games, so not amenable to having single date or cause pinned to it.

[MrZJunior]

Didn't Tolkien's orcs also have a "yellow peril" or great horde from the east thing going on? Those tropes were much more current in the early to mid 20th century, but are dead now. It makes sense that orcs would change as they become unmoored.

[Vahnavoi]

Yes and no. Tolkien once said orcs physically resemble "(to Europeans) least lovely mongol-types"... in a letter... in response to an illustrator or movie-maker (I forget which) who was spectacularly confused over what orcs look like (as in, they made orcs have feathers)... because orcs aren't described all that exactly in Tolkiens main works, similarly to how whether Legolas is blonde or brunette or whether Balrogs have wings are left vague.

So, based on rough physical similarity and the role orcs play in the story of Lord of the Rings as an enemy coming from the East, you can make comparison between them and the historical Golden Horde. But this comparison is weakened by the fact that Tolkien didn't firmly settle on origins of his orcs and in Silmarillion, they come from the North, not East. In his other letters, he also makes it clear he thinks of orcs as representatives of the worst of humanity in general, such as when he said "there were orcs on both sides" about his war experiences. And, finally, real humans of South and East have much more direct parallel in Middle-Earth's humans of South and East, who are distinct from orcs.

So, overall, reading orcs as "yellow peril" caricatures makes about as much sense as reading orcs as caricatures of German, Soviet or Russian soldiers. This isn't what Tolkien was doing and we know it because he told us that isn't what he was doing.

This doesn't mean people other than Tolkien didn't take the trope and run with it.

[Beelzebub1111]

I would compare orcs in D&D to the depiction of Picts in Beyond the Black River by Robert E Howard more than orcs in tolkeen or any native american group. D&D's roots seem more in that kind of pulp adventure than Tolkeen's mythological epic.

[Vahnavoi]

Not just "seems"; we know D&D was inspired by works of Howard, Lovecraft, Poulson, Moorcock etc., because Gygax kindly told us so.

[awa]

I would compare orcs in D&D to the depiction of Picts in Beyond the Black River by Robert E Howard more than orcs in tolkeen or any native american group. D&D's roots seem more in that kind of pulp adventure than Tolkeen's mythological epic.

I dont think I agree, early d&d orcs largely lack any kind of indigenous coding and the picts have fairly extreme native American coding like about as extreme as you can get. Like literally the picts are fighting settlers who stole their land through unfair trade deals.

Yes d&ds roots are pulp adventure that is definitely true, but whether they are wandering bands of dumb thugs squatting in ruined castles or caves, land viking invading civilized lands or vague noble savages I dont think I have every seen an orc depicted that has been as Native American coded as the Picts of Conan.

[GeoffWatson]

I dont think I agree, early d&d orcs largely lack any kind of indigenous coding and the picts have fairly extreme native American coding like about as extreme as you can get. Like literally the picts are fighting settlers who stole their land through unfair trade deals.

Yes d&ds roots are pulp adventure that is definitely true, but whether they are wandering bands of dumb thugs squatting in ruined castles or caves, land viking invading civilized lands or vague noble savages I dont think I have every seen an orc depicted that has been as Native American coded as the Picts of Conan.

Picts were historical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts

[Grim Portent]

Picts were historical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts

Reading a summary, the Picts from the story have nothing in common with real Picts. The story is a Western-inspired Conan the Barbarian story set in a pseudo-Indian jungle.

[Vahnavoi]

The reason for the confusion is that Howard was a history buff but wrote sword and sorcery so that he wouldn't be burdened by having to be historically accurate. As a result, Conan stories in particular are full of names from real cultures, put in places where they make little to no sense.

[awa]

Picts were historical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts

and have next to nothing to do with the picts of conan other than the name.

[Dr.Samurai]

I accidentally included "when" in the title though I had already figured it was between the editions (though am still a little confused because I thought Spelljammer Scro were supposed to be lawful evil as an opposite of orcs, but orcs appear to still be lawful evil in 2E).

So it seems orcs changed to differentiate them from Tolkien orcs. I'm no Tolkien super lore wizard but... alignment never came into my head when reading Tolkien or watching the movies so that's a weird reason for me.

[Metastachydium]

The reason for the confusion is that Howard was a history buff but wrote sword and sorcery so that he wouldn't be burdened by having to be historically accurate. As a result, Conan stories in particular are full of names from real cultures, put in places where they make little to no sense.

Case in point: Cimmerians.

[awa]

I accidentally included "when" in the title though I had already figured it was between the editions (though am still a little confused because I thought Spelljammer Scro were supposed to be lawful evil as an opposite of orcs, but orcs appear to still be lawful evil in 2E).

So it seems orcs changed to differentiate them from Tolkien orcs. I'm no Tolkien super lore wizard but... alignment never came into my head when reading Tolkien or watching the movies so that's a weird reason for me.

I dont know that that's true, I suspect popular conception of what an orc is was already changing see war-hammer/Warcraft the fact that people commonly assume orcs are supposed to be green shows that d&d and Tolkien were not the primary ones defining what an orc is.


Though thinking about It I'm not certain d&d orcs were every depicted as particularly organized despite having lawful written on their character sheets.

The scro were what made me think of it because while they were both "lawful" the scro were organized as opposed to the disorganized conventional orcs.
So it might just be a matter of updating their rules to match their lore/common depictions.

[Beelzebub1111]

Reading a summary, the Picts from the story have nothing in common with real Picts. The story is a Western-inspired Conan the Barbarian story set in a pseudo-Indian jungle.

I mean there's tracks with the reports of Roman contact with the picts. Fighting "naked" except for war paint, Communication via drums, shamanistic religious practices, fighting against an invading colonizing force with superior technology (the romans). To say it's "native american coded" sounds like...not a stretch, but a refection of the media biases of the viewer.

[awa]

I mean there's tracks with the reports of Roman contact with the picts. Fighting "naked" except for war paint, Communication via drums, shamanistic religious practices, fighting against an invading colonizing force with superior technology (the romans). To say it's "native american coded" sounds like...not a stretch, but a refection of the media biases of the viewer.

Its the widely accepted interpretation of the story, even at the time the story came out. The settlers are not depicted like roman legions they are depicted like frontier woodsmen.

[Prime32]

Didn't Tolkien's orcs also have a "yellow peril" or great horde from the east thing going on? Those tropes were much more current in the early to mid 20th century, but are dead now. It makes sense that orcs would change as they become unmoored.
There were a bunch of stories at the time from Anglo-Irish writers, set in ancient Ireland, which used the great-but-diminished Tuatha Dé Danann as allegories for the native Irish, the mortal Milesians for the Anglo-Irish, and the monstrous Fomorians for the British (including being industrious and "invaders from the East"). C.S. Lewis introduced them to Tolkien and he reportedly enjoyed their themes. Though Tolkien also found the Irish language ugly and wasn't that interested in digging deeper into its old literature, which Lewis expressed annoyance with.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

The reason for the confusion is that Howard was a history buff but wrote sword and sorcery so that he wouldn't be burdened by having to be historically accurate. As a result, Conan stories in particular are full of names from real cultures, put in places where they make little to no sense.

Isn't that also because Howard wrote Conan's Hyborian Age as a mythopoeia for our own world? He imagined it as a lost age occurring before the beginnings of recorded history. So the cultures are all loosely connected to real human cultures, though obviously he used them in whatever ways he wanted and wasn't historically accurate to any of them.

[Vahnavoi]

Sort of. The point of setting stories in a "lost age" was a device to do historical stories without actual history; Howard was never as serious about mythopoeia as Tolkien was.

[Dr.Samurai]

I dont know that that's true, I suspect popular conception of what an orc is was already changing see war-hammer/Warcraft the fact that people commonly assume orcs are supposed to be green shows that d&d and Tolkien were not the primary ones defining what an orc is.
I don't think I understand. Are you saying there was some sort of united shift in what an "orc" is across different mediums happening at around the same time? I'm wondering why D&D did it.

Though thinking about It I'm not certain d&d orcs were every depicted as particularly organized despite having lawful written on their character sheets.

The scro were what made me think of it because while they were both "lawful" the scro were organized as opposed to the disorganized conventional orcs.
So it might just be a matter of updating their rules to match their lore/common depictions.
From what I've read (I didn't play before 3rd edition) it seems to be that orcs were mercenaries and mooks, eager to fight for a strong leader. And I guess that was considered Lawful at the time. Not sure.

[awa]

I don't think I understand. Are you saying there was some sort of united shift in what an "orc" is across different mediums happening at around the same time? I'm wondering why D&D did it.

From what I've read (I didn't play before 3rd edition) it seems to be that orcs were mercenaries and mooks, eager to fight for a strong leader. And I guess that was considered Lawful at the time. Not sure.
Yes the fact that the default orc is green and bigger than a human when that was not true of Tolkien or 2ed edition orcs. My gut instinct is it was warhammer/Warcraft that popularized it because of the increased prominence of orcs in their material but have no sources to back it up other than the fact that both are very popular.

I'm also saying d&d did not exists in a vacuum the creators were influenced by what they saw and read just like any other creators, 2nd edition monsters were pretty basic the mechanical differences between a hobgoblin and an orc were tiny, certainly compared to third edition. With the transition to third edition orcs needed a much more concrete vision of what an orc looked like and what they ended up resembling is far closer to the warhammer/Warcraft orc than the 2nd edition or Tolkien orcs.

Orcs in those media are barbarians and in the case of war hammer orcs are all but defined by being chaotic, ironically more so than the actual chaos faction. So I think the reason d&d did it because it was part of a larger cultural shift in what an orc was.

every edition of d&d redefines the alignment system to one degree or another and it is possible that the orcs who at least to my mind never seemed all that lawful made a better fit to the chaotic alignment.

On top of that they likely decided they needed one of the standard mook monsters to be chaotic evil and orcs most natural fit the bill.

[Luccan]

That analysis makes sense to me. What's more, you have to consider they were originally Neutral or Chaotic because on the one-axis alignment system those basically just meant "Selfish Coward" and "Evil" unless you were an elf

[Dr.Samurai]

Thank you Awa, that makes more sense to me, I appreciate you expanding on that.

I really liked Obould in the FR novels, and always wondered what the orcs might be like if they weren't as they are generally characterized; too chaotic for their own good. So it was interesting to discover they used to be lawful at one point. I think the bits in Volo's with the various warriors that follow the different orc gods would make for a formidable and interesting military organization, more than the "massive horde of savage barbarians!!!".

Anyways, that can all be accomplished whether they are lawful or chaotic, so this is mostly just wondering about the shift.

[Deepbluediver]

Yes the fact that the default orc is green and bigger than a human when that was not true of Tolkien or 2ed edition orcs. My gut instinct is it was warhammer/Warcraft that popularized it because of the increased prominence of orcs in their material but have no sources to back it up other than the fact that both are very popular.

I'm also saying d&d did not exists in a vacuum the creators were influenced by what they saw and read just like any other creators, 2nd edition monsters were pretty basic the mechanical differences between a hobgoblin and an orc were tiny, certainly compared to third edition. With the transition to third edition orcs needed a much more concrete vision of what an orc looked like and what they ended up resembling is far closer to the warhammer/Warcraft orc than the 2nd edition or Tolkien orcs.

Orcs in those media are barbarians and in the case of war hammer orcs are all but defined by being chaotic, ironically more so than the actual chaos faction. So I think the reason d&d did it because it was part of a larger cultural shift in what an orc was.

every edition of d&d redefines the alignment system to one degree or another and it is possible that the orcs who at least to my mind never seemed all that lawful made a better fit to the chaotic alignment.

On top of that they likely decided they needed one of the standard mook monsters to be chaotic evil and orcs most natural fit the bill.
I just wanted to chime in here not because I disagree but just because I was enjoying the discussion and want to throw my 2 cp into the ring as well. I agree with virtually everything you said and would like to elaborate further.


Basically, "WHY" things change is because game-design doesn't happen in a vacuum. Every new generation of writers, designers, and players wants something slightly different from the game, and is heavily influenced by whatever stories they've consumed and what pop-culture is big and common at that time.

It wasn't just Orcs alignment or personality that got a makeover, their physical aspects changed, too. There's some confusion because Tolkien tended to use the terms "orc" and goblin" largely interchangeably, and later versions (the uruk-hai and man-orc hybrids) were specifically bred Sauron and Sarumon to increase their size and strength (treating them much like humans treated domestic animals, if you're looking for more allegory). But the original orcs where quite small- the hobits were able to pass as orcs at one point, while the only way they would get close to the modern orc-size would be if they did the "2 kids in a trenchcoat" bit with one hobbit standing on the other's shoulders. As another poster pointed out, some of Tolkein's inspiration comes from the industrialization of his childhood home, so in a way the orcs represented and overworked and undernourished population that had degraded into something lesser.

And it wasn't just the orcs that got a makeover- their polar opposite, the fair and athletic elves, were often described (in the LOTR) as being taller than humans by a significant margin. I don't know how exactly they were portrayed in 1st and 2nd edition, but by 3.5 at least they'd shrunk to be shorter than humans by a good foot. Possibly to bring them more into line with the classic interpretation of "elf" as a kind of faye creature that close to ankle-biter size; sort of synonymous with the modern version of pixie.
Think of stories like "the cobbler and the elves", etc.

Or for a non-gamer example, look at something like the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde). Most modern interpretations, from Looney Tunes to Hollywood, portray the "Hyde" personality as a kind of musclebound monster. But in the original story, he was more of a shrunken gremlin, representing a kind of vestigal evil part of Dr. Jekyll, that allowed him to indulge in the base and vile impulses that an educated society man like himself would supposedly never give in to. In other words, it was a lot more philosophical and mental than just "drink potion, turn into a cross between a werewolf and frankenstein (the monster, not the doctor, lol)".

So anyway, the reason WHY things change are because the culture that created it and that is the customer-base for new material changed, and the game and it's characters had to change to keep people happy. If you're asking why orcs specifically changed in the exact process that they did, I don't know if you can get more ultimate than "because that's what someone thought would make a good fit for the story they wanted to tell at that time". It could easily have gone another way.

To add one final point, I also think orcs and other monsters change because they are trying to maintain at least a somewhat unique identity in an increasingly crowded field. Tolkien was one of the first popular modern fantasy writers, so of course nearly everything contains a healthy does of LOTR DNA, but modern writers keep trying to put their own spin on things. Like definitively splitting orcs and goblins up into separate races. And then adding in subraces like Hobgoblins. And then you get new or different races, like gnolls, that check a lot of the same boxes: evil savage-barbarians warriors that don't fit nicely into modern society, etc etc etc. How many of those do we really need?
So as more and more pieces get crammed into the puzzle, sometimes stuff gets shunted around just so it's not all lying on top of one another.

Anyway, that's for indulging my longwinded rant, feel free to respond to any, all, or none of it. :smallbiggrin:

[Thane of Fife]

According to a Stack Exchange answer, they started out as Chaotic or Neutral when there was only one axis to alignment, then switched to Lawful Evil in 1st and 2nd edition when that combo was possible, then to Chaotic Evil in 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition.

This answer seems to be missing the rather essential information that orcs were Chaotic Evil first. In Chainmail, they were Chaotic. In OD&D, they were Neutral or Chaotic. When Gygax introduced the 5-alignment system in the Strategic Review, they were listed as Chaotic Evil, along with the ogres and trolls they associated with, whereas goblins and kobolds were Lawful Evil. This persisted in Holmes Basic. It's only with AD&D and the 9-alignment system(though there is some thought that the AD&D Monster Manual was written still using the 5-alignment system) that orcs suddenly hopped the fence to being Lawful Evil (even though ogres and trolls persisted as being Chaotic Evil). In spite of this, there wasn't really any shift in how orcs behaved, with them remaining as fractious and violent as ever. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if orcs were Lawful Evil in AD&D because of a transcription error on Gygax's part.

[awa]

rereading my advanced monster manual the orcs seem neither particularly lawful or chaotic while the entries for ogres mention how not even other ogres can trust an ogre and talking about the vicious albeit impermanent infighting among trolls so those are clearly more chaotic than orcs.

Humanoid handbook is much the same it doesn't mention anything that strikes me as particularly lawful or chaotic.

[Lord Torath]

And it wasn't just the orcs that got a makeover- their polar opposite, the fair and athletic elves, were often described (in the LOTR) as being taller than humans by a significant margin. I don't know how exactly they were portrayed in 1st and 2nd edition, but by 3.5 at least they'd shrunk to be shorter than humans by a good foot. In 1E elves were 5+ feet tall (according to the Monster Manual)
In 2E AD&D, they were roughly a foot shorter than humans (4'-3" to 5'-5" tall).
In Holmes Basic, elves were "five or more feet in height, slim of build, weigh about 120 pounds..."
In B/X they are 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall and 120 lbs.
BECMI they are 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall and 120 lbs.

I don't know about in Chainmail or OD&D.

[Luccan]

In 1E elves were 5+ feet tall (according to the Monster Manual)
In 2E AD&D, they were roughly a foot shorter than humans (4'-3" to 5'-5" tall).
In Holmes Basic, elves were "five or more feet in height, slim of build, weigh about 120 pounds..."
In B/X they are 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall and 120 lbs.
BECMI they are 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall and 120 lbs.

I don't know about in Chainmail or OD&D.

I saw this come up elsewhere online and from what I can find OD&D doesn't describe the elves physically at all. It seems to rely on the players to already having an idea of what an elf is. However, as they started describing elves (specifically as notably shorter than humans rather than as tall or taller like LOTR's elves) there was another change as well: Hobbits became Halflings. I speculated that perhaps the designers chose to make elves short specifically to try to avoid further legal trouble with the Tolkien estate

[Psyren]

Yes the fact that the default orc is green and bigger than a human when that was not true of Tolkien or 2ed edition orcs. My gut instinct is it was warhammer/Warcraft that popularized it because of the increased prominence of orcs in their material but have no sources to back it up other than the fact that both are very popular.

I'm also saying d&d did not exists in a vacuum the creators were influenced by what they saw and read just like any other creators, 2nd edition monsters were pretty basic the mechanical differences between a hobgoblin and an orc were tiny, certainly compared to third edition. With the transition to third edition orcs needed a much more concrete vision of what an orc looked like and what they ended up resembling is far closer to the warhammer/Warcraft orc than the 2nd edition or Tolkien orcs.

Orcs in those media are barbarians and in the case of war hammer orcs are all but defined by being chaotic, ironically more so than the actual chaos faction. So I think the reason d&d did it because it was part of a larger cultural shift in what an orc was.

every edition of d&d redefines the alignment system to one degree or another and it is possible that the orcs who at least to my mind never seemed all that lawful made a better fit to the chaotic alignment.

On top of that they likely decided they needed one of the standard mook monsters to be chaotic evil and orcs most natural fit the bill.

Agreed and just wanted to add - Both Warcraft 1 (Orcs and Humans) and Elder Scrolls 1 (Arena) came out in the same year, 1994, and both featured muscular green-skinned orcs. I think Warhammer Fantasy Battle being the common ancestor for both depictions makes the most sense.

[awa]

Thinking of the evolution of the orc reminds me of the Japanese pig orc a wildly different depiction of an orc (physically at least), an alternate evolutionary path. D&d was apparently popular in japan but not war-hammer so they evolved in a different direction doubling down on a couple pictures in an early monster manual. It also reminds me just how haphazard early d&d art was.

[Deepbluediver]

In 1E elves were 5+ feet tall (according to the Monster Manual)
In 2E AD&D, they were roughly a foot shorter than humans (4'-3" to 5'-5" tall).
In Holmes Basic, elves were "five or more feet in height, slim of build, weigh about 120 pounds..."
In B/X they are 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall and 120 lbs.
BECMI they are 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall and 120 lbs.

I don't know about in Chainmail or OD&D.
Thank you for the information.

Honestly, this feels kinda like someone who was stealing borrowing heavily from Tolkien but didn't quite read all the cliff-notes (hence why elves where long-lived and good with magic, but still short), or someone who was trying to add JUST ENOUGH of a change to not get sued for copyright infringement. Kinda like how we play as "halflings" instead of "hobbits".

[Satinavian]

Eh, Tolkien was not particularly consistent when it comes to how elves compare to humans in size and strength either. Roughly comparable, yes, but otherwise he flip-flopped a couple of times.

[Psyren]

I like my elves anywhere from just under human height to well above it and ethereal. Super-short elves should be Forest Gnomes.

[Witty Username]

Given that humans range between 1 foot* to 7+ ft in height, this seems easy to overthink.

About human, or slightly taller and more wirery, is probably sufficient.

*I exaggerated here accidentally, the shortest recorded humans hover around 2 ft tall, either way point stands.

[oxybe]

Thinking of the evolution of the orc reminds me of the Japanese pig orc a wildly different depiction of an orc (physically at least), an alternate evolutionary path. D&d was apparently popular in japan but not war-hammer so they evolved in a different direction doubling down on a couple pictures in an early monster manual. It also reminds me just how haphazard early d&d art was.

I'll be honest: I prefer Pig Orcs then the rubber fang humans we currently have. Give me monstrous Orcs!

[Luccan]

Given that humans range between 1 foot to 7+ ft in height, this seems easy to overthink.

About human, or slightly taller and more wirery, is probably sufficient.

I actually like shorter elves, so I'll generally tell players that normally elves are on the shorter end of the human scale. And if you want to play a really tall elf, that's fine. My partner's first character was an almost 7'0 tall wood elf, so it was mostly just funny because every other elf they met was like 5'4


I'll be honest: I prefer Pig Orcs then the rubber fang humans we currently have. Give me monstrous Orcs!

I only object when Half-Orcs are on the table, it feels odd in that case. But otherwise agree: Pig Orcs are more visually fun. You can use the whole spectrum from goofy looking to Ganon for porcine orcs

[PhoenixPhyre]

I follow 4e (and Elder Scrolls) with elves and split the species in half. Wood elves are on the short side of human norms (but not tons) and have all the Sylvan, fey, driving druidic stuff. High elves are taller (a little bit) than human norms and have the arcane "crystal spires" aesthetic, as well as the "snooty better than thou" attitude. And historically the two do not get along. In fact, both are much more fond of dwarves and orcs than each other.

Orcs, like humans, were originally artificially created by different factions of elves at about the same time. Orcs used hobgoblin base + wood elf + animal traits. Humans used hobgoblin base + high elf + celestial/infernal traits (which is why tieflings and aasimar are so much more common on human stock than on other stock). This is also why half elves/half orcs are fertile. In fact, there are "wood orcs" or "wild elves" that are orc/wood elf crossbreeds.

Of course, I have completely removed all alignment as an actual thing. For anyone. Some orc societies are chaotic. Others are orderly. Etc.

[Psyren]

I'll be honest: I prefer Pig Orcs then the rubber fang humans we currently have. Give me monstrous Orcs!



I only object when Half-Orcs are on the table, it feels odd in that case. But otherwise agree: Pig Orcs are more visually fun. You can use the whole spectrum from goofy looking to Ganon for porcine orcs

See, it's impossible for me to take porcine orcs seriously; I prefer the more serious Warcraft/TES/Modern D&D look by a country mile. It's the same reason I prefer draconic kobolds to murine ones. (Though ironically, the latter are also what Warcraft went with.)

[awa]

See, it's impossible for me to take porcine orcs seriously; I prefer the more serious Warcraft/TES/Modern D&D look by a country mile. It's the same reason I prefer draconic kobolds to murine ones. (Though ironically, the latter are also what Warcraft went with.)

for me the devil is in the details, I have seen some good boar style pig orcs.

[Psyren]

To be clear, I'm not against pig people in general, I'm just against them being Orcs. Warcraft managed this by breaking the pig people out to a separate race (Quillboar.) I would be totally okay with D&D doing the same, or at the very least having a mutable animal-race like Ardlings that could be porcine.

[Pauly]

Thinking of the evolution of the orc reminds me of the Japanese pig orc a wildly different depiction of an orc (physically at least), an alternate evolutionary path. D&d was apparently popular in japan but not war-hammer so they evolved in a different direction doubling down on a couple pictures in an early monster manual. It also reminds me just how haphazard early d&d art was.

There’s a bit more to it than just a few MM pictures. In English describing someone as ‘pig like’ is short hand for a combination of some or all of a round face, small close set eyes and an upturned nose. Japanese literature doesn’t have the same shorthand.
East Asian folklore has a slew of animal headed demons, in particular horse headed and bull headed. So for someone in that culture describing an orc as having “pig like features” it’s a shorter jump to imagining a pig head on a humaniform body than it is in Western culture.
Other the descriptions of orcs are quite similar to Niomon (traditional temple guardians of Buddhist temples), who are well known good guys in the culture.

[Vahnavoi]

Europeans and Americans have a history of using anthropomorphic pigs as symbols for detestable people. Indeed, variations on "pig" and "swine" are among stock insults.

[oxybe]

I generally don't allow "half" somethings unless there is some serious juju involved: it could be powerful transformational magics, a divine miracle, a demonic pact at work, alchemy using long-forgotten methods (or methods far beyond your current time's capabilities), etc... an elf is an elf is an elf. a dwarf is a dwarf. No there is no hundred or so sub-types of elves and dwarves.

But yeah, my orcs are basically beast form Gannon: give it the physical build of a hap-hazardly shaved gorilla, some blue-green mottled skin, a boar head with large tusks, and thick, oily, rust-burgundy colored mane of hair and proudly decorate them with trophies from their favourite kills. Arm it with a breastplate, the most vicious axe or polearm it can wield and you have the Orc.

Should orcs on patrol grab a whiff of you, it's not some "attack! kill the humie!" followed by a semi-orderly attack formation. You get a squad of linebackers with the size and temperament of a furious silverback armed with poleaxes screaming bloody murder doing a beeline at you. And those who are thankful they managed to dodge on the inside of the axe or polearm swing now have to contend with getting gored and potentially grabbed and swung around like a ragdoll before they dogpile for having the genius idea to get within arm's reach.

I'll also admit to liking murine kobolds and use them for the over the reptilian ones. Nothing particular against the scaly kobolds, but I already have lizardfolk for reptile people descended from dragons in my setting. Note that I also borrow heavily from the mannerisms and archetype of warcraft's skaven and traditional D&D drow for my murine kobolds. They're tiny little scavengers, trap setters, poison brewers, alchemists and with delusions of grandeur under the leadership of a single matriarch that also acts as the high priestess (and thus the political and religious head) for their warren. They're kept in check usually because most intelligent creatures know to crush a warren when found before it grows too big as individually they're pretty weak and any warren that grows too big will fall prey to either A) bumping with another large warren and war with each other, thus reducing their numbers, or B) a younger female will attempt to overthrow the current matriarch in a bloody coup in the name of their. terrible deity.

[Grim Portent]

I've become much more pro pig-orcs over the years, to the point I prefer them over man-orcs. I feel a lot of the possible inhuman nature of orcs is lost when they become green men with tusks rather than monsters with prominent beast features. Not necessarily full on pig/boar heads, but upturned noses, a bit of a snout and so on. Though lately I've got a soft spot for them having heads that run a scale from slightly pig-like through more pig-like up to full on boar heads with crazy tusks,* with all of them just accepting that those heads are all equally orcish while the humans give in to a bigoted perception that the full porcine-heads are more bestial than the ones with only slightly pig-like heads, while to orcs it's like the difference between blonde and brown hair.

Not that I then treat the pig-orcs as monsters mind you, they're still people, just not pretty people, but they shouldn't need to look human for humans to respect them.

Since I have little use for 'monsters for the sake of monsters' outside of Warhammer RPGs, horror games or things like demons/angels/fey, I tend to feel orcs work well in two roles;

1) A metaphor for soldiers/veterans with uncaring masters, or people facing long standing violent oppression. Tolkien's orcs kind of fit into this, in that they are exploited and abused and become bad people as a result. This works well for orcs that are magical abominations made by dark lords or demon gods and used as slave soldiers. Most of them are so far gone that they cannot reasonably be rehabilitated, generational trauma takes it's toll, but occasionally you find one who manages to recover and it highlights the tragedy inherent to a species of slaves.

2) A metaphor for indigenous peoples or religious groups being oppressed or conquered piecemeal for their percieved savagery/primitism by a colonial or evangelical group. They aren't necessarily nice people, but they still don't deserve to be driven from their homes and replaced with elves/men/dwarves/whatever. They aren't even necessarily 'primitive' by any sensible definition, the perception they are is just in the colonial power's point of view.

And in these two roles making the orcs green men feels rather lazy and counter to the point. There's a strong trend towards making orcs look more and more human as they become more sympathetically portrayed, and I feel it does a disservice to the genre. We shouldn't be making the things we want to care about more human, we should be broadening ourselves to see value in the non-human.


*Like a babarusa. Tusks that curve back into the head unless trimmed, or grow out through parts of the skull rather than the mouth.

[RustyArcana]

I find it really interesting that 3E turned Orcs into a C/E race but at the same time there was a lot of movement, in other media, pushing Orcs to being more Lawfully aligned, based on their adherence to a code of honor.

[Grim Portent]

I find it really interesting that 3E turned Orcs into a C/E race but at the same time there was a lot of movement, in other media, pushing Orcs to being more Lawfully aligned, based on their adherence to a code of honor.

I suppose the issue there is that the difference between Lawful and Chaotic varies based on interpretation.

For a lot of people Chaotic seems to mean 'tribal' or 'barbarian' basically, so as long as the culture uses tribal aesthetics it's Chaotic. Which is more or less how the original D&D alignment system worked, Law was basically (pseudo-feudal european) human civilisation with chaos being mostly made up of various flavours of barbarian.

Vikings are an iconic flavour of Chaos in media, most readily seen in D&D with Frost Giants, but any attempt to faithfully transfer them from reality to fiction brings along a lot of qualities that could be seen as Lawful.


Even Warhammer Orcs aren't completely without rules, laws, tradition or honour, and they are a society based on the principle that the best fighter is the boss and are used as an icon of chaotic behaviour.

[SpyOne]

To say it's "native american coded" sounds like...not a stretch, but a refection of the media biases of the viewer.
There are rough drafts of the story where it is a western. What became the Picts when it was changed to a Conan story were originally American Indians.
It isn't a reflection of the bias of the reader, it's noticing the stuff that's in the story.

[SpyOne]

I found this in the comments on a blog. I don't even remember what blog, and I didn't note the name of the poster, but I found it interesting enough to save a copy.


Orcs as barbarians was a lore retcon created by WoTC when they wanted to have a race with a favored multiclass of barbarian in 3e. The original point of this race was that they combined the hardiness and general evil temperament of orcs with the cunning and adaptability of humans. Orcs in 1st and 2nd edition D&D were Lawful evil warlords rather than CE barbarian tribals. And the half-orc race was saddled with an inappropriate Intelligence penalty (full-blooded orcs were a little dim-witted in the earlier editions, but not stupid enough to justify an Intelligence penalty, let alone their half-human progeny). According to WoTC, this was because they felt the Strength bonus more than outweighed this penalty, which is nonsense. In other words, despite their new emphasis on player flexibility and the removal of race restrictions in 3e, the designers couldn't imagine a reason why you'd want to play a half-orc other than taking advantage of the possibility of starting off with a Strength of 20 at first level!

And the character of half-orcs was completely different in older editions. In 1st edition, half-orcs were the only non-human race that was allowed unlimited advancement in the Assassin class, and the only race that could multi-class as assassins. Fighter/Assassin was a particularly awesome combination. In Unearthed Arcana, the Barbarian class wasn't even open to them.

Here's how Gygax described Half-orcs in the '79 DMG:

"Half-orcs are boors. They are rude, crude, crass, and generally obnoxious. Because most are cowardly they tend to be bullies and cruel to the weak, but they will quickly knuckle under to the stronger. This does not mean that all half-orcs are horrid, only most of them. It neither means that they are necessarily stupid nor incapable. They will always seek to gain the upper hand and dominate those around them so as to be able to exercise their natural tendencies; half-orcs are greedy too. They can, of course, favor their human parent more than their orcish one."

^ That description gives us a vivid impression that a typical half-orc has a personality similar to Merle from "Walking Dead" or perhaps Marv from "Sin City". Horrible men, yes, but compelling characters with cunning and depth.

Now here's the the 3rd edition PHB says:

"Half-orcs are short-tempered and sullen. They would rather act than ponder and would rather fight than argue. Those who are successful, however, are those with enough self-control to live in a civilized land, not the crazy ones."
"Half-orcs love simple pleasures such as feasting, drinking, boasting, singing, wrestling, drumming, and wild dancing. Refined enjoyments such as poetry, courtly dancing, and philosophy are lost on them. At the right sort of party, a half-orc is an asset. At the duchess's grand ball, he's a liability."

^ OK, now does that sound like the same character Gygax described back in the days of 1e? A big, dumb, uncomplicated power-house that sucks at everything except fighting? Not interesting to me. That's what 2e half-ogres were. I miss the original half-orcs.


I was recently doing a dive into my first edition books and was struck by the fact that Half Orcs were the only non-humans that could be Clerics, and thus the only race that could multi class Cleric with Thief.
Pious is not a word that is brought to mind by Orcs.

[oxybe]

I found this in the comments on a blog. I don't even remember what blog, and I didn't note the name of the poster, but I found it interesting enough to save a copy.

I was recently doing a dive into my first edition books and was struck by the fact that Half Orcs were the only non-humans that could be Clerics, and thus the only race that could multi class Cleric with Thief.
Pious is not a word that is brought to mind by Orcs.

Pious not in the traditional sense, but Dragon Mag 62 describes the creation of the orcs:


In the beginning all the gods met and drew lots for the parts of the world in which their representative races would dwell.

The human gods drew the lot that allowed humans to dwell where they pleased, in any environment. The elven gods drew the green forests, the dwarven gods drew the high mountains, the gnomish gods the rocky, sunlit hills, and the halfling gods picked the lot that gave them the fields and meadows.

Then the assembled gods turned to the orcish gods and laughed loud and long. “All the lots are taken!” they said tauntingly. “Where will your people dwell, OneEye? There is no place left!”

There was silence upon the world then, as Gruumsh One-Eye lifted his great iron spear and stretched it forth over the world. The shaft blotted out the sun over a great part of the lands as he spoke: “No. You lie. You have rigged the drawing of the lots, hoping to cheat me and my followers. But One-Eye never sleeps; One-Eye sees all. There is a place for orcs to dwell . . . here!”

With that, Gruumsh struck the forests with his spear, and a part of them withered with rot.
“And here!” he bellowed, and his spear pierced the mountains, opening mighty rifts and chasms.
“And here!” and the spearhead split the hills and made them shake and covered them in dust.
“And here!” and the black spear gouged the meadows, and made them barren.

“There!” roared He- Who-Watches triumphantly, and his voice carried to the ends of the world. “There is where the orcs shall dwell! There they shall survive, and multiply, and grow stronger, and a day shall come when they cover the world, and shall slay all of your collected peoples! Orcs shall inherit the world you sought to cheat me of

For an Orc, waging war, pillaging a village or even just robbing a merchant going between towns and leaving them to die are all acts done in some perverted way in service to Gruumsh. That's why they can be clerics.

EDIT: Note that they also call him "One Eye", something that would only happen AFTER his failed attack on Corellon that cost him his other eye.

[Dr.Samurai]

I found this in the comments on a blog. I don't even remember what blog, and I didn't note the name of the poster, but I found it interesting enough to save a copy.



I was recently doing a dive into my first edition books and was struck by the fact that Half Orcs were the only non-humans that could be Clerics, and thus the only race that could multi class Cleric with Thief.
Pious is not a word that is brought to mind by Orcs.
Thank you for sharing this! Pity the original blog is unknown.

I think my issue is that, generally, "chaotic" is typically depicted as "works against oneself" when in a traditional "enemy" race, such as the orcs. They can't get along, they're unreliable, disorganized, and fixated on violence, etc. and it doesn't allow them to progress or maintain any victory.

When applied to elves, "chaotic" means "everyone governs themselves and gets along without an authority having to impose that on them". It's like anarchic harmony basically.

So in a sense, the issue, for me, isn't so much whether they are lawful or chaotic, but more in how those traits are expressed or described by the game. I much prefer the older descriptions in that blog post to the 3rd edition take, and I think it jives more with the 5e treatment in Volo's as well.

[SpyOne]

Pious not in the traditional sense, but Dragon Mag 62 describes the creation of the orcs:

Thank you. I had read that story once, but only vaguely remembered it.
I was struck by how it parallels the story that the Greek/Roman gods agreed how to divide the world and ... Hades felt he'd been tricked. That when he agreed to pick third, after Zeus and Poseidon, he didn't think they'd pick such vast realms.
But that his would be the last laugh, because by making the dead his domain his would be the largest kingdom and eventually everyone would be his subject.

[Vahnavoi]

I think my issue is that, generally, "chaotic" is typically depicted as "works against oneself" when in a traditional "enemy" race, such as the orcs. They can't get along, they're unreliable, disorganized, and fixated on violence, etc. and it doesn't allow them to progress or maintain any victory.

When applied to elves, "chaotic" means "everyone governs themselves and gets along without an authority having to impose that on them". It's like anarchic harmony basically.

That would be a difference between Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Good as described by 1st Edition AD&D, yes. With the irony of course being that 1st Edition AD&D orcs are Lawful.

Proper Lawful Evil orcs are only unreliable, disorganized, violent etc. towards each other until it's time to put the orc boot on the face of all the non-orcs - then they have no problem working together for the greater glory of the orcish race.

[Lord Torath]

Thank you. I had read that story once, but only vaguely remembered it.
I was struck by how it parallels the story that the Greek/Roman gods agreed how to divide the world and ... Hades felt he'd been tricked. That when he agreed to pick third, after Zeus and Poseidon, he didn't think they'd pick such vast realms.
But that his would be the last laugh, because by making the dead his domain his would be the largest kingdom and eventually everyone would be his subject.
"You know, a little dark, a little gloomy. And, as always, hey, full of dead people. What are you gonna do?"

[skyth]

I was recently doing a dive into my first edition books and was struck by the fact that Half Orcs were the only non-humans that could be Clerics, and thus the only race that could multi class Cleric with Thief.
Pious is not a word that is brought to mind by Orcs.

Half elves could be clerics and could do the Fighter/Magic User/Cleric multi class. Can't remember offhand if they could multiclass as a Cleric/Thief.

Pretty sure Dwarves could be clerics too, but not 100% and can't remember if they could multi in it.

[Luccan]

Half elves could be clerics and could do the Fighter/Magic User/Cleric multi class. Can't remember offhand if they could multiclass as a Cleric/Thief.

Pretty sure Dwarves could be clerics too, but not 100% and can't remember if they could multi in it.

Dwarves could not be clerics as PCs. Every race had NPC clerics (except Halflings, who had NPC druids instead), but non-human PCs couldn't be clerics unless they were half-human (i.e. half-elves and Half-Orcs).

Whether or not Half-Elves could be Cleric/Thieves depends on whether you think the multi-class section provided examples or if you think it listed all legal combinations of multi-classes and the races that could legally use them

Also, someone said this earlier and I'd like to echo the Int penalty in 3e was dumb and whenever I DM a 3.X game I always let Half-Orc and Orc players choose one of their penalties they drop

[Errorname]

I generally don't allow "half" somethings unless there is some serious juju involved: it could be powerful transformational magics, a divine miracle, a demonic pact at work, alchemy using long-forgotten methods (or methods far beyond your current time's capabilities), etc... an elf is an elf is an elf. a dwarf is a dwarf. No there is no hundred or so sub-types of elves and dwarves.

Eh, I can see that for very obviously of a different lineage like a human and a lizardman, but stuff like Elves and Dwarves are close enough to human that they don't feel so separate they can't produce viable offspring.

[oxybe]

Eh, I can see that for very obviously of a different lineage like a human and a lizardman, but stuff like Elves and Dwarves are close enough to human that they don't feel so separate they can't produce viable offspring.

I explain "general humanoid shape" as the ground-dwelling tool-user equivalent of Carcinization. Multiple gods came to the same conclusion that 2 arms with fingers on a bipedal upright body with a single forward facing head is a good base for their species, kinda like how multiple different unrelated crustaceans all try to evolve into crab.

[Vahnavoi]

The general term would be "convergent evolution", even if evolution precisely isn't what's going on. It's similar to how a mongoose and a ferret look pretty much the same, despite being as distant as cats from dogs genealogically.

[SpyOne]

I prefer not to go overboard with the half breeds, for sure, but:
What with pigs being very similar to humans biologically and Orcs being pig-like (more or less), half Orcs kinda made sense. It helps drive home that Orcs aren't so different from humans.
And half elves are such a staple that it seems harsh to exclude them.
But, for instance, I can only recall one setting where Orcs could breed with Elves.

However, I do like indulging the trope the humans seem to be able to breed with anything.
Like maybe there aren't any half-dragon Dwarves, Elves, or Halflings, but humans? Sure.
Like somewhere out there is a half Sauhaughn.

[SpyOne]

... Every race had NPC clerics (except Halflings, who had NPC druids instead), but non-human PCs couldn't be clerics unless they were half-human (i.e. half-elves and Half-Orcs).
Thanks for the correction. I remembered it wrong.

Whether or not Half-Elves could be Cleric/Thieves depends on whether you think the multi-class section provided examples or if you think it listed all legal combinations of multi-classes and the races that could legally use them..
Yeah. Ugh.
Sometimes it lists every possible combination, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it includes "for example", sometimes it doesn't.
And the nagging questions of whether the differences were intentional and whether they were important.
Like when they say a multi classed Gnome "is restricted to leather armor, regardless of which class combination he or she has chosen, unless only fighting is performed by the character", was that intended to say that Gnome Illusionist/Thiefs can wear armor? Because Gnome Illusionists can't.

Rowing desperately back towards the topic: first edition Half Orcs could be Clerics, Fighters, Thieves, and Assassins.Half-Orcs had unlimited advancement only in Assassin, and were the only non humans with unlimited advancement in Assassin. They could multiclass into any two classes except Thief/Assassin. (It seemed to be no multiclassing into a subclass of your other class, so no Cleric/Druids, no Thief/Assassins, no Fighter/Rangers. Magic User couldn't multi class with Illusionist because only Humans could be both, and Humans couldn't multi class. And Paladins were Humans only.)

They get +1 to Strength and Constitution, and -2 to Charisma. It is noted that their Charisma penalty doesn't apply when dealing with other Half-Orcs.
And it is explicitly said that Player Character Half Orcs are from the 10% of such cross breeds that can pass for Human.

[Satinavian]

Thanks for the correction. I remembered it wrong.
It was changes in UA and in AD&D2.



And to the topic : The last alignment switch for orcs was exactly at the same time they stopped being goblinoids. Maybe it really was part of some rework/reimagining.

[Errorname]

I explain "general humanoid shape" as the ground-dwelling tool-user equivalent of Carcinization. Multiple gods came to the same conclusion that 2 arms with fingers on a bipedal upright body with a single forward facing head is a good base for their species, kinda like how multiple different unrelated crustaceans all try to evolve into crab.

Right, but Elves and Dwarves are not simply humanoid in their body plan, they look like humans with minor differences. The stock Elf or Dwarf could with minimal effort pass as human.

I personally generally prefer settings where sapient species are so different they can’t produce viable offspring, but that isn’t really the world Tolkien and his imitators wrote.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I personally generally prefer settings where sapient species are so different they can’t produce viable offspring, but that isn’t really the world Tolkien and his imitators wrote.

The more I've thought about this, the more I've come to the conclusion that my preferences are...well...not related to "producing viable offspring" (I don't care about that part one way or another), but around relatability. Yes, I want sapient species that are more or less human. Because they're going to have to be portrayed and understood by humans operating under resource constraints. Time, attention, etc. I'd rather portray something 90% human well, then half-bake something 50% alien. Or worse.

[Errorname]

The more I've thought about this, the more I've come to the conclusion that my preferences are...well...not related to "producing viable offspring" (I don't care about that part one way or another), but around relatability. Yes, I want sapient species that are more or less human. Because they're going to have to be portrayed and understood by humans operating under resource constraints. Time, attention, etc. I'd rather portray something 90% human well, then half-bake something 50% alien. Or worse.

That's fair. I find the idea of having to co-exist with life that is truly not human a very interesting one to explore in fiction, but that's not really the approach that suits a lot of games or fiction. That said I think you can generally do more interesting design work than "humans with funny ears" while still having the characters be basically just people.

But yeah when you're dealing with Orcs and Elves and Dwarves, yeah my preference is very much 'functionally just weird human' because that's the visual language being used, and I think that's what most people expect from D&D type settings.

[Satinavian]

The more I've thought about this, the more I've come to the conclusion that my preferences are...well...not related to "producing viable offspring" (I don't care about that part one way or another), but around relatability. Yes, I want sapient species that are more or less human. Because they're going to have to be portrayed and understood by humans operating under resource constraints. Time, attention, etc. I'd rather portray something 90% human well, then half-bake something 50% alien. Or worse.Preferences differ. I personally am bored by humans in setting that allow for other races because humans already are explored in every kind of genre ad nauseam. Races that are in some important ways fundamentally different actually have a far easier time to catch my interest. They might be human like in others to make stuff not over-complicated but when it becomes "humans with slight cosmetic differences and maybe a behavioral quirk" i don't want a race for it.

[Psyren]

Thank you for sharing this! Pity the original blog is unknown.

I think my issue is that, generally, "chaotic" is typically depicted as "works against oneself" when in a traditional "enemy" race, such as the orcs. They can't get along, they're unreliable, disorganized, and fixated on violence, etc. and it doesn't allow them to progress or maintain any victory.

When applied to elves, "chaotic" means "everyone governs themselves and gets along without an authority having to impose that on them". It's like anarchic harmony basically.

So in a sense, the issue, for me, isn't so much whether they are lawful or chaotic, but more in how those traits are expressed or described by the game. I much prefer the older descriptions in that blog post to the 3rd edition take, and I think it jives more with the 5e treatment in Volo's as well.

I mean, the elves are in decline too, it's just a lot more gradual.

[Witty Username]

So in a sense, the issue, for me, isn't so much whether they are lawful or chaotic, but more in how those traits are expressed or described by the game. I much prefer the older descriptions in that blog post to the 3rd edition take, and I think it jives more with the 5e treatment in Volo's as well.

One of the frustrating things about alignment is that the natural read is the diagram
Good - Neutral -Evil
Law
Neutral
Chaos

But in practice it is more like nine distinct alignments
Law and chaos change meaning when applied to good and evil
And good and evil change meaning when applied to law and chaos.

I think alignment is better for it personally but it does make it alot harder to grok.

[Grim Portent]

One of the frustrating things about alignment is that the natural read is the diagram
Good - Neutral -Evil
Law
Neutral
Chaos

But in practice it is more like nine distinct alignments
Law and chaos change meaning when applied to good and evil
And good and evil change meaning when applied to law and chaos.

I think alignment is better for it personally but it does make it alot harder to grok.

I've come to favour a shift to Chaotic meaning 'thinks the world shouldn't exist,' Lawful meaning 'the world should exist,' and Good/Evil being about how to destroy the world or keep it from being destroyed. A variation on the cosmic war between Law and Chaos. You could sum it up with the following quote.


The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Chaos is all about being non-materialist, embracing impernanence and insignificance, the idea that nothing going on really matters. Chaotic Good wants people to become enlightened and let go of reality, which is the source of all suffering. When everyone has done so, the world will naturally dissolve into nothing and everyone will be freed from the limitations it imposes. Chaotic Evil wants to break people's sense of linear reality by force, drive them from existence with suffering so extreme they have no choice but to disconnect, allowing the world to dissolve now because the Chaotic Evil refuse to wait on everyone being ready to let go willingly.

Lawful is about attachment to the world and it's familiarity, the belief that even if this world isn't strictly ideal there's no point in destroying it and taking chances on whatever comes after it. Lawful Good wants to turn the world and afterlives into a utopia that focuses on tangible positive parts of existence, Lawful Evil wants to break people down so they cannot conceive of a broader reality than the one that exists, and so cannot shed their earthly shackles, because Lawful Evil fears losing what they already have.

Lawful and Chaotic Good are as such enemies, because while they both want people to be happy, one thinks the world needs to be kept going even if it means some are unwilling prisoners inside it, while the other wants to destroy it and hope that people will be better off in the primordial state of pre-creation. Mortals may not entirely get the whole conflict, but they approach problems in fundamentally different ways that naturally encourage a certain level of resentment.

[Psyren]

Eh, I can see that for very obviously of a different lineage like a human and a lizardman, but stuff like Elves and Dwarves are close enough to human that they don't feel so separate they can't produce viable offspring.

This is why I love the half-heritages that both 5.5 and PF2.5 are coming out with now. There's never really been a good reason that humans are the only ones allowed to be half-anything.


The more I've thought about this, the more I've come to the conclusion that my preferences are...well...not related to "producing viable offspring" (I don't care about that part one way or another), but around relatability. Yes, I want sapient species that are more or less human. Because they're going to have to be portrayed and understood by humans operating under resource constraints. Time, attention, etc. I'd rather portray something 90% human well, then half-bake something 50% alien. Or worse.

Yeah, the whole "alien mindset" thing seems like it would get tiring fast.

But you can actually have your cake and eat it. I could imagine, say, elves and dwarves being mostly human, whereas things like plasmoids and thri-kreen get to be truly wacky.


I've come to favour a shift to Chaotic meaning 'thinks the world shouldn't exist,' Lawful meaning 'the world should exist,' and Good/Evil being about how to destroy the world or keep it from being destroyed. A variation on the cosmic war between Law and Chaos. You could sum it up with the following quote.

I would view the axis instead as Society should/shouldn't exist. Destroying the world itself is too bleak a prospect for there to be a good variant of it unless the entire world is somehow beyond redemption. But undermining a society that's grown too insular and bureaucratic/aristocratic could definitely be done in both a CG or CE way depending on the method used and how much good said society does (or doesn't) do.

[Grim Portent]

I would view the axis instead as Society should/shouldn't exist. Destroying the world itself is too bleak a prospect for there to be a good variant of it unless the entire world is somehow beyond redemption. But undermining a society that's grown too insular and bureaucratic/aristocratic could definitely be done in both a CG or CE way depending on the method used and how much good said society does (or doesn't) do.

The idea is rooted in a gnostic inspired setting, everything that's in the world existed before the world, and some of them were swept up in creation against their will or have come to regret tying themselves to material rules rather than the infinite possibilities of pre-creation, but no one can leave until everyone decides to leave.

For most of the mortals, who don't all quite understand what the actual end goal is until they get somewhere close to enlightenment, this tends to boil down to the idea that rules, possessions, structured society, laws and so on are self imposed limitations that keep people from being happy (if Good) or strong (if Evil). For angellic/demonic beings and enlightened people the idea is more that mortal attachments are locks on the door back to the true nature of existence and only with them being abandoned or severed can everyone be free from the mistakes inherent to the creation of the world again.


For a non-Gnostic setting the destroy the world part becomes a weird fit, but then Law/Chaos break down as useful ideas anyway because defining Chaos especially becomes difficult to the point of impossibility, so I just throw it out at that point.

[Witty Username]

Chaos is also in a weird spot as it seems to lack street cred.
4e being the most obvious about it where chaos and law are treated as components of evil and good respectively.

Also, in fiction writting chaotic character writing tends to be a heroic character trait, but the causes tend towards order. Batman style keep the system running but operating outside of it kinda stuff or overthrowing the evil king to put in the good king.

I blame authoritarian monarchies throughout history, not wanting people to get funny ideas.

[J-H]

That's fair. I find the idea of having to co-exist with life that is truly not human a very interesting one to explore in fiction, but that's not really the approach that suits a lot of games or fiction. That said I think you can generally do more interesting design work than "humans with funny ears" while still having the characters be basically just people.

But yeah when you're dealing with Orcs and Elves and Dwarves, yeah my preference is very much 'functionally just weird human' because that's the visual language being used, and I think that's what most people expect from D&D type settings.
It's also harder for the casual player to truly come up with an alien mindset. I think most D&D characters end up being cardboard cutouts with 2-4 distinctive traits or differences from the player, plus a bunch of data on the character sheet.

Truly alien viewpoints are
a) hard to do at the table and
b) hard to make mesh with a bunch of humans/human-adjacent characters with relatable goals.

Kosh from Babylon 5 comes to mind.

One thing this discussion did remind me of is that, aside from a bit of fluff from the rarely-used lizardfolk, D&D doesn't really have any carnivorous PCs. Hobgoblins, orcs, etc. are just "funny looking people with slightly different cultures and genetics" and the genetics part is going away with 5.5. There's some design space left over for something more like the Kzinti - intelligent, organized, not "fringe demon-crazy" like the gnolls, and also carnivorous and fine with eating other people because they are predators and everyone else is prey... but they can also negotiate in good faith, have a sense of honor, don't mindlessly eat their minions, and have their own culture with poetry, art, puzzle-making, etc.
You can be neighbors with them... you just have to be careful.

I suppose the "eats other sapient creatures" bit is a design space WOTC would not touch these days though.

[Psyren]

The idea is rooted in a gnostic inspired setting, everything that's in the world existed before the world, and some of them were swept up in creation against their will or have come to regret tying themselves to material rules rather than the infinite possibilities of pre-creation, but no one can leave until everyone decides to leave.

For most of the mortals, who don't all quite understand what the actual end goal is until they get somewhere close to enlightenment, this tends to boil down to the idea that rules, possessions, structured society, laws and so on are self imposed limitations that keep people from being happy (if Good) or strong (if Evil). For angellic/demonic beings and enlightened people the idea is more that mortal attachments are locks on the door back to the true nature of existence and only with them being abandoned or severed can everyone be free from the mistakes inherent to the creation of the world again.


For a non-Gnostic setting the destroy the world part becomes a weird fit, but then Law/Chaos break down as useful ideas anyway because defining Chaos especially becomes difficult to the point of impossibility, so I just throw it out at that point.

Are there any D&D settings that work that way? In Forgotten Realms for instance, the world was indeed the first thing created (by Selune and Shar) - there were no pre-existing "unwilling entities" that got swept into creation, they came about because of creation.

[Grim Portent]

I suppose the "eats other sapient creatures" bit is a design space WOTC would not touch these days though.

Which is weird to me, because a race of non-human-morality cannibals is one of the most logical places to go for a race that isn't humans in a costume. Cannibalism is such a visceral thing to most people that a race who just shrugs and says 'meat is meat' while eating anyone who dies on their turf is going to feel massively alien and inherently cause discussion over what is and is not ethical.

Obviously it's been a go to for making races 'evil' for a long time in D&D, so it has baggage, but interspecific and intraspecific cannibalism has always been a trait of the non-evil Lizardfolk who are also generally presented as the most alien of the mundane races, and obligate sapiophagic versions of vampires and mind flayers often raise the question of if it's ethical to persecute them for choosing life over death even if it means they have to eat people.

I'm a bit of an outlier in terms of tase admittedly, but I'd happily swap out orcs, elves, dwarves and other 'humans in costumes' races for lizardfolk, actual big cat like tabaxi, trolls and other similar more monstrous races and give them all moral and/or anatomical qualities that make them distinctly uncomfortable for humans, like cannibalism, total indifference to violence, absolute lack of familial ties, massive brood sizes with lots of infant deaths towards which they do not care, hive mentality (not a hive mind, but rather the absolute prioritisation of their society/species over individuals.) You know, things other than 'human but likes trees,' or 'human but short and drunk.'


Are there any D&D settings that work that way? In Forgotten Realms for instance, the world was indeed the first thing created (by Selune and Shar) - there were no pre-existing "unwilling entities" that got swept into creation, they came about because of creation.

Official D&D? Probably not, D&D sticks to a certain set of religious influences when it comes to creation stories, and they don't tend to involve enlightenment as an actual escape of reality type of thing, but more just becoming one with Good/Evil/Law/Chaos despite them all being components of the world enlightenment should be about transcending beyond.

It's become my go to for homebrew settings that creation was either a trick, an accident or a violation of the fundamental rules of the universe though, and I think it allows Chaos/Disorder/Individualism to have a more concrete identity rather than the wishy washy internally contradictory one that D&D tends to wind up with ever since it stopped being about the (still arbitrary) civilisation vs barbarism divide.

In one setting the world was created by a Demiurge, who was just one of an infinite number of equally powerful spirits that existed in the void and just made things, little temporary things like trees and physical forms for fun. The Demiurge persuaded a bunch of them to take forms in the world they made, but neglected to tell them they couldn't leave afterwards. Most spirits that entered took on personalities suited to the form they took in the world, a sort of metaphysical LARPing, and only remember they're trapped in the brief period between death and reincarnation. Enlightenement frees them to return to the void, but some choose to stay to try and teach the others how to escape, or to abuse the power this knowledge gives them over the other trapped beings.

In another the world is made of the stolen pieces of the unitary being that is meant to be the only thing in the universe. A bunch of alien gods forced their way into a reality where everything was one thing, which caused the one thing to die as it was no longer the one and only thing, violating the definition of itself. The alien gods then took chunks of this dead being and turned them into almost everything that exists, but all those pieces subconsciously still yearn to be restored to their original state. Enlightenement is a step towards the dissolution of the wrongfully created fake reality, individuality and the restoration of a primordial oneness. Enlightenment also turns you into a shapeshifting immortal who can be banished to the void by the unenlightened who buy into divine propaganda about the creation of the world.

In the third the world just kind of happened, sprung unbidden from nothing, but much like our world it kind of sucks most of the time for most things in it. Living things reincarnate, but that just perpetuates a cycle of at best mediocrity. Some mortals made little fake afterlives, pocket dimensions inside of pearls and stuff like that which emulate their ideas of heaven and/or hell, others pursue enlightenment with the goal of no longer reincarnating. The perfect outcome is every living thing reaching enlightenment and just dissapearing into nothing, perhaps to return when the world itself dies and reincarnates into a hopefully better form.

[Metastachydium]

The idea is rooted in a gnostic inspired setting, everything that's in the world existed before the world, and some of them were swept up in creation against their will or have come to regret tying themselves to material rules rather than the infinite possibilities of pre-creation, but no one can leave until everyone decides to leave.

For most of the mortals, who don't all quite understand what the actual end goal is until they get somewhere close to enlightenment, this tends to boil down to the idea that rules, possessions, structured society, laws and so on are self imposed limitations that keep people from being happy (if Good) or strong (if Evil). For angellic/demonic beings and enlightened people the idea is more that mortal attachments are locks on the door back to the true nature of existence and only with them being abandoned or severed can everyone be free from the mistakes inherent to the creation of the world again.


For a non-Gnostic setting the destroy the world part becomes a weird fit, but then Law/Chaos break down as useful ideas anyway because defining Chaos especially becomes difficult to the point of impossibility, so I just throw it out at that point.

That's kind of the opposite of how gnostic thought and its predeccessors work, actually. Things get simpler, cleaner and more quiet as one advances upwards, so to say, ontologically speaking. More pertinently, this this is just a twist on the old and unappealing notion that one of the alignment extremes is Objectively and Absolutely Right, Enlightened and So Much More Valid than the other, just, perhaps, cranked even further up than usual.

[Satinavian]

I'm a bit of an outlier in terms of tase admittedly, but I'd happily swap out orcs, elves, dwarves and other 'humans in costumes' races for lizardfolk, actual big cat like tabaxi, trolls and other similar more monstrous races and give them all moral and/or anatomical qualities that make them distinctly uncomfortable for humans, like cannibalism, total indifference to violence, absolute lack of familial ties, massive brood sizes with lots of infant deaths towards which they do not care, hive mentality (not a hive mind, but rather the absolute prioritisation of their society/species over individuals.) You know, things other than 'human but likes trees,' or 'human but short and drunk.'I don't think you are really an outlier for that.

[Grim Portent]

I don't think you are really an outlier for that.

Statistics indicate that people mostly play humans or elves in most fantasy games.


That's kind of the opposite of how gnostic thought and its predeccessors work, actually. Things get simpler, cleaner and more quiet as one advances upwards, so to say, ontologically speaking. More pertinently, this this is just a twist on the old and unappealing notion that one of the alignment extremes is Objectively and Absolutely Right, Enlightened and So Much More Valid than the other, just, perhaps, cranked even further up than usual.

Forum rules prohibit talking about the specific Gnostic interpretation (a cliffnotes version of it mind you) I took inspiration from, but rather than enlightenment and transcendence being de facto good and allowing a virtuous person to reunite with a supreme being/escape a demiurgic figure/reincarnation cycle, it's conflicted with the reasonable desire others have to not blow up the world by linking it with a variant on the concept of a consensus reality.

Neither the world ending or the world continuing are actually correct choices, there isn't really a correct choice to be had. There's a choice some beings want, and one some others want. Both could be argued as ethically superior, but in practice Good is still morally better than Evil, being founded in consent and respect for the right of creatures to make decisions, and Law and Chaos are equivalent being based on personal preferences.

[Satinavian]

Statistics indicate that people mostly play humans or elves in most fantasy games.
Yes, but humans also are the most common race in fantasy settings with elves a close second. What is more is that oh so many settings are human dominated, thus having far more variety in culture and background than the other races who are often somewhat pigeonholed. If those things are not true, played humans are often just a minority like the others. Probably still one of the more popular races, but no more than that.

But i won't go so far to say that your preferrences match those of the majority of players, only that they are far too common to call them an outlier

[Grim Portent]

Yes, but humans also are the most common race in fantasy settings with elves a close second. What is more is that oh so many settings are human dominated, thus having far more variety in culture and background than the other races who are often somewhat pigeonholed. If those things are not true, played humans are often just a minority like the others. Probably still one of the more popular races, but no more than that.

But i won't go so far to say that your preferrences match those of the majority of players, only that they are far too common to call them an outlier

The dominance of humans and elves in fantasy in general might be part of it, but my experience has been that almost everyone I've played with went for humans, elves or tieflings, and never monstery tieflings* even when monsters were on the table and cultures are left undefined and open to creation specifically for PC concepts. Obviously my experience isn't statistically relevant, but people actually wanting to be not just something other than human/elf, but something emphatically non-human seems to be a rare enough that most groups probably don't have anyone in them who wants to do it.

I think people just like to play characters they can easily identify with, which generally means humans or near humans.


*With one exception who themed his tiefling after Baalzebul so he was kind of a banana slug in a lopsided grotesque humanoid body. All the others have been humans but with horns and pastel skin.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The dominance of humans and elves in fantasy in general might be part of it, but my experience has been that almost everyone I've played with went for humans, elves or tieflings, and never monstery tieflings* even when monsters were on the table and cultures are left undefined and open to creation specifically for PC concepts. Obviously my experience isn't statistically relevant, but people actually wanting to be not just something other than human/elf, but something emphatically non-human seems to be a rare enough that most groups probably don't have anyone in them who wants to do it.

I think people just like to play characters they can easily identify with, which generally means humans or near humans.


*With one exception who themed his tiefling after Baalzebul so he was kind of a banana slug in a lopsided grotesque humanoid body. All the others have been humans but with horns and pastel skin.

In a long history of games in my setting, I've had...3-4 characters that weren't "classic D&D races". Most of those were "anthropomorphic robots" (a knock-off of the warforged). One cat person.

Quite a few dragonborn.

[Metastachydium]

Forum rules prohibit talking about the specific Gnostic interpretation (a cliffnotes version of it mind you) I took inspiration from, but rather than enlightenment and transcendence being de facto good and allowing a virtuous person to reunite with a supreme being/escape a demiurgic figure/reincarnation cycle, it's conflicted with the reasonable desire others have to not blow up the world by linking it with a variant on the concept of a consensus reality.

Neither the world ending or the world continuing are actually correct choices, there isn't really a correct choice to be had. There's a choice some beings want, and one some others want. Both could be argued as ethically superior, but in practice Good is still morally better than Evil, being founded in consent and respect for the right of creatures to make decisions, and Law and Chaos are equivalent being based on personal preferences.

The deviations from the source material ("it is a return to Chaos and Endless Possibilities" is such a deviation, but alright, let's focus on the "all or nothing/no one" aspect) could seem to mitigate the issue indeed, but then it's the Chaotic side of things that falls apart, because robbing others from the option of choice through enforced oblivion doesn't really scream Good.


I don't think you are really an outlier for that.


Statistics indicate that people mostly play humans or elves in most fantasy games.



Yes, but humans also are the most common race in fantasy settings with elves a close second. What is more is that oh so many settings are human dominated, thus having far more variety in culture and background than the other races who are often somewhat pigeonholed. If those things are not true, played humans are often just a minority like the others. Probably still one of the more popular races, but no more than that.

But i won't go so far to say that your preferrences match those of the majority of players, only that they are far too common to call them an outlier


The dominance of humans and elves in fantasy in general might be part of it, but my experience has been that almost everyone I've played with went for humans, elves or tieflings, and never monstery tieflings* even when monsters were on the table and cultures are left undefined and open to creation specifically for PC concepts. Obviously my experience isn't statistically relevant, but people actually wanting to be not just something other than human/elf, but something emphatically non-human seems to be a rare enough that most groups probably don't have anyone in them who wants to do it.

I think people just like to play characters they can easily identify with, which generally means humans or near humans.


*With one exception who themed his tiefling after Baalzebul so he was kind of a banana slug in a lopsided grotesque humanoid body. All the others have been humans but with horns and pastel skin.


In a long history of games in my setting, I've had...3-4 characters that weren't "classic D&D races". Most of those were "anthropomorphic robots" (a knock-off of the warforged). One cat person.

Quite a few dragonborn.

A data point from me: races I played in games where not being Human was an option include (HomebrewnAmonkhet!)Naga, Diopsid, Nixie (very scaly, very blue with gills!), Illumian, Sparrow Hengeyokai (who never assumes human form), Nymph, Poison Dusk Lizardfolk, Crane Hengeyokai (who never assumes human form), (PF!)Tengu, Winged Dark Lesser Zenythri (with many-jointed, stupidly long noodle arms from Inhuman Reach), (Oslecamo's )Shambling Mound, Mountain Spirit Folk (with golden skin), Forestlord Elf (very green, in a "PCs get stranded in Early Modern Ottoman-occupied Crete" game), Deep Halfling, Eneko (very green, very tusky), Rilkan (with bright purple scales), Chicken (yes, regular chicken), Killoren, (Pathfinder!)Sylph, Fetchling and only two Humans (one because the game premise was "the PCs are all one family", and one because I wanted to go D-Class in an SCP game).

Races I applied to games with but didn't get selected include Oslecamo's Tarrasque, full Aasimar (very metallic-looking), Muckdweller, Crucian, High Elf (cut me some slack, it was a PHB races only game pitch), Badger Hengeyokai, Voidmind Oslecamo's Noble Salamander, Tasloi, Krinth, Half-Dragon Seven-Headed Hydra with hands and Geodite.

[Batcathat]

I think people just like to play characters they can easily identify with, which generally means humans or near humans.

While it's possible that you're correct, at least about some people, it strikes me as odd in a game where many characters wave their fingers around to warp reality, which I suspect is quite different from most people's real life. (Hell, even something as "basic" as a fighter who makes a living going around sticking sharp metal into living beings should be fairly hard to identify with for most modern humans).

[Keltest]

While it's possible that you're correct, at least about some people, it strikes me as odd in a game where many characters wave their fingers around to warp reality, which I suspect is quite different from most people's real life. (Hell, even something as "basic" as a fighter who makes a living going around sticking sharp metal into living beings should be fairly hard to identify with for most modern humans).

Yeah, but "can alter reality" isnt really a personality trait.

[Metastachydium]

Yeah, but "can alter reality" isnt really a personality trait.

"Prefers to have no fixed abode and charges into tight spaces to fight with things that want to murder (and possibly eat or zombify) 'em for fun and profit" probably is, on the other hand.

[Keltest]

"Prefers to have no fixed abode and charges into tight spaces to fight with things that want to murder (and possibly eat or zombify) 'em for fun and profit" probably is, on the other hand.

Yeah, i've known a couple guys like that.

[Vahnavoi]

While it's possible that you're correct, at least about some people, it strikes me as odd in a game where many characters wave their fingers around to warp reality, which I suspect is quite different from most people's real life. (Hell, even something as "basic" as a fighter who makes a living going around sticking sharp metal into living beings should be fairly hard to identify with for most modern humans).

Those things tend to be heavily abstracted to the point they're barely a distraction from the fact that the players are just hanging out with their friends, using the game as an excuse for a social call.

Actually dwell on the details of what it would take to be a martial artists or a mystic, and suddenly you lose good chunk of such audience.

Same goes for playing non-humans; Gygax explained it in 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and people don't give him enough credit for that. Shortly, his argument was that only a minority of players are interested in deep speculation of non-human viewpoints, and many such though experiments are naturally limited due to players themselves being limited to a human viewpoint. Majority of players, by contrast, have neither will nor capacity to play outside a human perspective, and see any special traits of non-human characters as mere game tokens to use for pursuing very simple and very human game goals. Hence, even if author of a setting is capable of positing wildly inhuman and colorful creatures, giving them to players as roles is usually a waste since the end result is humans in fancy hats.

[Grim Portent]

The deviations from the source material ("it is a return to Chaos and Endless Possibilities" is such a deviation, but alright, let's focus on the "all or nothing/no one" aspect) could seem to mitigate the issue indeed, but then it's the Chaotic side of things that falls apart, because robbing others from the option of choice through enforced oblivion doesn't really scream Good.

The issue there is 'forced.' In this context evil forces, or tries to force, you to exist or not exist depending on their Law/Chaos alignment, Good persuades you to exist or not because they think you should have the right to choose and they will be patient and ultimately abide by the majority decision. The mass dissolution doesn't happen until you hit either a totality or at least some kind of critical mass event anyway, so a non-proselytising Good or Neutral Chaos Enlightened is more comparable to the kind of mythical monk who lives on a mountain and doesn't need to eat or drink anymore, while their Evil Counterparts are running around saying 'if you won't abandon material attachments willingly, we'll torment you until you can't bear to be attached to anything.' Good proselytising ones are wandering around talking about desire leading to suffering and that you should let go, either of division between self and non-self* or of material things/selfish desires** depending on setting.

This would arguably rob future generations of choice post-dissolution of reality, in the same way as half-elves in LotR can't choose to be an elf if their ancestor chose to be human, but if the ancestor chose elf then the descendents can still choose, but dependng on model there might not strictly be something analagous to a future generation because it's the same life energy being endlessly reincarnated. And enforcing suffering on the now because the future might also want to choose to suffer (for a given value of suffering) is not inherently ethical.

*In the context of all things having originally been one thing, and Chaos in this scenario seeking to return everything to the One.

**In the context that the world is a fabrication that souls/angels/god-like pre-creation beings are trapped in and realising that the world is a fabrication and there is a greater existence outside it is the key to freedom from it.


"Prefers to have no fixed abode and charges into tight spaces to fight with things that want to murder (and possibly eat or zombify) 'em for fun and profit" probably is, on the other hand.

Adrenaline Junky could well be considered an important part of someone's personality, and that's not all that far off. Don't think most people who play RPGs are AJs though.

It's kind of besides the point though, people don't necessarily identify with their RPG characters because they act and think like them, but because they are recognisably human, perhaps somewhat or entirely idealised. It's possible to identify with a character on an extremely shallow level, and for whatever reason humans don't do it as easily with things like lizardfolk or snake people. I don't get it, but it's something that clearly exists.

A lot of the people I've played with basically churn out characters who are essentially just humans but brave, athletic, often sexy, and so on and so forth. The number who show up with a character who is either entirely unlike them, unlike how they would like to be, or unlike someone they would like to be with is pretty low.

[Luccan]

It's also worth noting that sometimes the "alien traits" list for a set of beings in fiction is one thing humans don't tend to do (frequent cannibalism, outside desperation or ritual, for instance) and then just traits plenty of humans actually do have to varying degrees, just treated like it makes them inhuman (see: almost everything about Data's personality that he attributes to being an android)

[PhoenixPhyre]

My setting has a take on the "desires to return all things to One" concept:

In the beginning, before this universe existed and even surrounding it now, there was the Dreaming Dark. One entity, existing in a space outside of space and time, eternal, unchanging.

But then, one day, after a timeless eternity of dreaming, the Dark dreamed "I am myself." Which necessarily implied that there are Not-Me, Other. And thus the Dreamers were born, sparks of light, separate dreams. They proceeded to dream their own dreams, spinning all the universes that ever were or ever might be[1] inside this endless Dark. Not all of them settled down to create universes; an uncountable number swim still in the Dark between universes. One of them, in particular, thought this whole thing was a Bad Idea, and dreamed a dream of waking up. One where all the universes would join in one...and then go out. Or what transpired, that it would invade these hateful creations of its brothers, absorb/assimilate them, and then destroy that part of itself. It became called the Awakener. And it is a cosmic threat, one that my setting's angels are constantly fighting against. Destroying these invasive thought forms (because in the Dark there is no form other than that born of thoughts themselves), these infectious memes, before they can infect the world.

The Awakener is the closest thing the setting has to "pure evil", although the source of demons is pretty close. That's just outside the entire shebang and is entropy, personified. Except without the personification. It simply hungers for nothingness.

[1] including all other D&D settings, fictional settings, etc. In fact, the D&D "multiverse" is just one of these universes created by a Dreamer (or in this case a collection of Dreamers working together), despite its pretensions at universality.

[Grim Portent]

My setting has a take on the "desires to return all things to One" concept:

In the beginning, before this universe existed and even surrounding it now, there was the Dreaming Dark. One entity, existing in a space outside of space and time, eternal, unchanging.

But then, one day, after a timeless eternity of dreaming, the Dark dreamed "I am myself." Which necessarily implied that there are Not-Me, Other. And thus the Dreamers were born, sparks of light, separate dreams. They proceeded to dream their own dreams, spinning all the universes that ever were or ever might be[1] inside this endless Dark. Not all of them settled down to create universes; an uncountable number swim still in the Dark between universes. One of them, in particular, thought this whole thing was a Bad Idea, and dreamed a dream of waking up. One where all the universes would join in one...and then go out. Or what transpired, that it would invade these hateful creations of its brothers, absorb/assimilate them, and then destroy that part of itself. It became called the Awakener. And it is a cosmic threat, one that my setting's angels are constantly fighting against. Destroying these invasive thought forms (because in the Dark there is no form other than that born of thoughts themselves), these infectious memes, before they can infect the world.

The Awakener is the closest thing the setting has to "pure evil", although the source of demons is pretty close. That's just outside the entire shebang and is entropy, personified. Except without the personification. It simply hungers for nothingness.

[1] including all other D&D settings, fictional settings, etc. In fact, the D&D "multiverse" is just one of these universes created by a Dreamer (or in this case a collection of Dreamers working together), despite its pretensions at universality.


Ah, rather reminiscent of Azathoth from Loveraft, but with an evil aspect desiring nihilistic destruction. Do have to love a dreaming overgod.

I described my 'all returns to the One' concept in Worldbuilding ages ago, but the gist of it was inspired by Ch'thon from Grim Dawn, the concept of gods that embody all things and their opposites from a few IRL religions, and an idea of 'what if enlightenment is ugly?'

My One being was everything, the totality of it's universe. Male, female, light, dark, alive, dead, so on and so forth. It defininitionally comprised the entirety of reality as it existed around it. Some other gods invaded, their presence contradicted the fundamental nature of the One, so the One died. The invaders carved up the remains (the metaphysical building blocks of reality) and made them into things they found pretty. The bits left over yearned in a directionless sort of way, and shaped themselves to be like the meat puppets the gods made. The gods found these unwanted creatures disgusting and banished them as far from their creations as possible, but they slunk back in and started mingling with their lost pieces, telling them the truth about how they all came to be, so the god's stripped their creations of their inherent immortality, erased their memories, erected a metaphysical barrier to keep the unbidden away and tried to keep playing with their toys. The god's creations became mortals, and the unbidden life became demons, persecuted and literally demonised by the gods. All mortals and demons,* even the very ground and air, have an inexplicable and insatiable sense of loss, longing or curiosity in them, the lingering memory that they are incomplete. Some demons just want to be close to mortals, to have all the pieces of the One exist together but apart,** others want to completely return to the One because it is the only thing that will truly end their feeling of loss.

Enlightenment in this setting results in a mortal turning into a demon, as they shed the artificial limits placed upon them. It is rare, but an inherent part of realising that the distinction between 'I' and 'Them' or 'This' and 'That' isn't real.

*And angels which are basically BDSM simp demons that think they can change themselves enough to make the now absent gods love them. They engage in self mutilation to try and better emulate the 'artistry' of the gods own designs. Like pretty versions of the Tainted Coil from Brutal Legend.

**Demons are intended to have creepy stalker vibes in more than a few ways. Consequence of not understanding the limitations the gods put on mortals, whle demons are true immortals, indivisible and inviolate. Two demons can wear one another like skin suits to feel less lonely for a while, or a myriad of other body horror shenanigans, but funnily enough that sort of thing has consequences for mortals and the demons don't really get it.


EDIT: Thought of a fictional context to discuss Gnostic ideas in. The Silmarillion, by Tolkien, took a few basic elements, blurred by the elements taken from a bunch of other inspirations mind you, and Tolkien even referenced the concept of a Demiurge while describing Morgoth's corruption of the material world in a letter. The version of Gnostic thought I am most familiar with would have Morgoth be the creator of the world rather than Illuvatar, but I imagine there were multiple different ideas about the creation of the world in Gnostic philosophy and I don't know which one if any Tolkien would have taken direct ideas from, or if he was just referencing a vague concept.

I really liked the idea of a Demiurge, essentially an evil deity that created (sometimes) and/or controls the material world, keeping the things living in it separate from the real deity, and more importantly in my opinion, from their true selves. In the context of LotR this actually happens, as Morgoth convinces various groups of mortals to worship him and to be ignorant of Illuvatar and fearful towards Illuvatar's actual servants, and cowed and subservient despite their metaphysical status as humans, and while Tolkien never goes into how such mortals will be judged after death I got the impression it will lead to them basically being damned until such a time as they can be redeemed.

So far so good, evil tyrant gods are good RPG material, but the Demiurge comes with an attendent Supreme Being, a BIG god that is definitionally morally correct, which means defining a strict moral right and wrong, or at least the possibility of a strict right and wrong, which is not really all that good for an RPG setting to be honest. Not even when the god isn't interested in morality, like Ao, who basically just comes across as a sort of boring evil in his own setting. Even if finding out what the objectively moral thing between two nominally good deeds is is difficult, just having the answer is kind of bleh and likely to lead to issues down the line when you have to explain why when two different moral systems clash.

So I took a leaf from a book series I read ages ago, and just thought 'What if everything, including the Demiurge, is roughly on the same power level in their natural state, and escaping the Demiurge is about remembering what sort of being you originally were rather than aligning to and trusting in an outside force?' So the Demiurge became one of a group of equals who tricked their peers into trapping themselves in weaker, ignorant forms over which they could rule. To escape the Demiurge you have to remember your own inherent divinity, which varies from person to person based on what kind of being you were before you got stuck in the material world.

The setting idea I had after this line of thought never got fleshed out too much, because I was between RPG groups and had other things to do, and the current setting I'm working on and trying to get my group to play in is the one with the dead One Being and a much darker tone overall because these days the idea of overthrowing a false tyrant god and transcending the mundane towards liberating divinity is less appealing to me compared to things like body horror and generational trauma.

[SpyOne]

Also, in fiction writting chaotic character writing tends to be a heroic character trait, but the causes tend towards order. Batman style keep the system running but operating outside of it kinda stuff or overthrowing the evil king to put in the good king.

My go-to example of a Chaotic Good character is Superman.
I have never once seen Superman arrive at the scene of a bank robbery and say to one of the cops, "officer, there's a cat stuck in a tree in the 300 block of Myrtle Street. Could you make sure someone helps get it down?" Never.
What I have seen is Superman foil the bank robbery and then go rescue that cat.
I guess it's supposed to show that no good deed is beneath him, but what it shows me is a man who finds it impossible to delegate and feels that he needs to handle everything himself.

Captain America, on the other hand, set up a toll-free number for folks to call if they feel they have a problem and that number is staffed by professionals who can alert local authorities, refer folks to counseling, and/or dispatch folks with appropriate powers from the rather extensive membership of the Avengers. And he spends most of his time during a fight ensuring that his side is cooperating and coordinating their efforts. He's so Lawful Good it makes paladins feel inadequate.

[Grim Portent]

My go-to example of a Chaotic Good character is Superman.
I have never once seen Superman arrive at the scene of a bank robbery and say to one of the cops, "officer, there's a cat stuck in a tree in the 300 block of Myrtle Street. Could you make sure someone helps get it down?" Never.
What I have seen is Superman foil the bank robbery and then go rescue that cat.
I guess it's supposed to show that no good deed is beneath him, but what it shows me is a man who finds it impossible to delegate and feels that he needs to handle everything himself.

Captain America, on the other hand, set up a toll-free number for folks to call if they feel they have a problem and that number is staffed by professionals who can alert local authorities, refer folks to counseling, and/or dispatch folks with appropriate powers from the rather extensive membership of the Avengers. And he spends most of his time during a fight ensuring that his side is cooperating and coordinating their efforts. He's so Lawful Good it makes paladins feel inadequate.

In the context of Superman not asking someone else to save a cat while he stops some criminals is not necessarily a refusal to delegate, odds are he can foil the crime and still rescue the cat faster and with less stress for all involved than any cop he asks to sort it out before gets to work on the crime. At his level of power delegation can become unethical if doing so allows for the problem that need fixing to keep existing for longer, but that does veer into super dictatorship terrirory fast when actually examined.

Superman, to me, is more or less one of the iconic Lawful heroes*, he's usually all about trusting the system, has an extremely strict code of ethics for himself and those around him. Obviously his exact ethics change over time, but 'Truth, Justice and the American Way' is not the tagline for a Chaotic character imo. He's basically Captain America but also an alien with god powers. The only times he questions the status quo is when Luthor is a politician or when it relates to some secret super soldier thing like Cadmus where the people in power are blatantly villainous.

Chaotic heroes are actually kind of rare in my opinion, probably due to the various rules comics had to abide by over the years that strongly encouraged them to teach deference to authority, abide by a common morality, always win and so on. Superhero morality is very much a product of a particular set of decades in a particular country, and most classic heroes are still heavily tied to how they were depicted in the past. Guys like Spider-Punk and some of the X-men I would consider Chaotic, but even then it depends on how you define Chaos.


*Maybe not during his clickbait before clickbait period, with all the wacky front covers that made no sense. Think it might have been the Silver Age of comics? But then at that point he might not even qualify as a good person.

[Batcathat]

*Maybe not during his clickbait before clickbait period, with all the wacky front covers that made no sense. Think it might have been the Silver Age of comics? But then at that point he might not even qualify as a good person.

Yeah, that phase of his life seemed to have been less about rescuing cats from trees and more about ruining loved ones lives in random ways (yes, there was usually some sort of "reason" for it, but it's still a super weird trend for someone who's major defining character trait is usually Being Good).

[Vahnavoi]

Superman, like many long-running characters with many different version, has drifted considerably.

As far as "Truth, Justice and the America way" goes, it's that last part that makes it or breaks it depending on how it is interpreted. Why? Because Unites States of America is a notably individualist culture compared to many others, and the conflict between large organized groups versus the individual is the essence of Law versus Chaos by AD&D definitions.

One Superman story that tackles this conflict fairly directly and arguably has a Chaotic Superman, is Man of Steel (which I happen to actually like, so eat that, haters). It's present in several key scenes, but if I had to build an argument for Chaotic Superman (in that interpretation), I'd pay especially close attention to Clark interactions with the military. All of the conflict there exists because a group believes it has to control a powerful individual, with the powerful individual responding "how about you trust me a little and stay out of my personal space?".

[Metastachydium]

The issue there is 'forced.' In this context evil forces, or tries to force, you to exist or not exist depending on their Law/Chaos alignment, Good persuades you to exist or not because they think you should have the right to choose and they will be patient and ultimately abide by the majority decision. The mass dissolution doesn't happen until you hit either a totality or at least some kind of critical mass event anyway, so a non-proselytising Good or Neutral Chaos Enlightened is more comparable to the kind of mythical monk who lives on a mountain and doesn't need to eat or drink anymore, while their Evil Counterparts are running around saying 'if you won't abandon material attachments willingly, we'll torment you until you can't bear to be attached to anything.' Good proselytising ones are wandering around talking about desire leading to suffering and that you should let go, either of division between self and non-self* or of material things/selfish desires** depending on setting.

This would arguably rob future generations of choice post-dissolution of reality, in the same way as half-elves in LotR can't choose to be an elf if their ancestor chose to be human, but if the ancestor chose elf then the descendents can still choose, but dependng on model there might not strictly be something analagous to a future generation because it's the same life energy being endlessly reincarnated. And enforcing suffering on the now because the future might also want to choose to suffer (for a given value of suffering) is not inherently ethical.

*In the context of all things having originally been one thing, and Chaos in this scenario seeking to return everything to the One.

**In the context that the world is a fabrication that souls/angels/god-like pre-creation beings are trapped in and realising that the world is a fabrication and there is a greater existence outside it is the key to freedom from it.

Fair enough, that sorts the Good/Evil distinction out sufficiently for my liking. However, why the other alignment axis is interesting and evocative (and much more so, intelectually, than standard D&D's), I can't help but find Lawful and Chaotic misnomers for Attached and Detached. One could indeed argue that the latter mean to dissolve a system in place, while the former aim at conserving it, but the dissolution would ultimately lead to restoring a previous status quo of lower complexity but greater purity (to stay on the safe side of things, consider how the Platonic eidos is general and unitary as opposed to the mirror-image phenomena; the further back one moves within the ontological towards the henological, the more pronounced this becomes, by neccessity). Why shackle it to the standard terminology, then?

(At any rate, I like the idea, even as in the setting I'm developing myslef, I took a more Pre-Socratic apporach, where the material world is an accidental by-product of a slow burning struggle between Cosmic and Chaotic principles, which makes worship of either useful (as it grants power), but counter-intuitive insofar as should one prevail over the other, the All would either collpase into a perfectly proportioned, static and crystalline singularity or break down into an ever-changing, supremely dynamic and plurivalent cacophony of instability.)


A lot of the people I've played with basically churn out characters who are essentially just humans but brave, athletic, often sexy, and so on and so forth. The number who show up with a character who is either entirely unlike them, unlike how they would like to be, or unlike someone they would like to be with is pretty low.

Yup. Things like fanfiction and roleplaying have a very powerful wish-fulfillment aspect for many people, in which context "like me, but better and without my problems" is mora appealing to these people than experimenting with (notional) Possible Worlds.

[Mechalich]

Chaotic heroes are actually kind of rare in my opinion, probably due to the various rules comics had to abide by over the years that strongly encouraged them to teach deference to authority, abide by a common morality, always win and so on. Superhero morality is very much a product of a particular set of decades in a particular country, and most classic heroes are still heavily tied to how they were depicted in the past. Guys like Spider-Punk and some of the X-men I would consider Chaotic, but even then it depends on how you define Chaos.

Most of the big-name heroes also inevitably drift into some kind of high-level position of authority - running a country, corporation, planet, large team, etc. - that requires them to operate by some set of rules, delegate accordingly, and so forth. Truly chaotic characters who are unable to at least occasionally accept that kind of role tend to remain back-benchers, even when they're really powerful. The best they can do is someone like Wolverine who participates in a truly massive number of stories, but is the lead in comparatively few of them.

[Witty Username]

All of the conflict there exists because a group believes it has to control a powerful individual, with the powerful individual responding "how about you trust me a little and stay out of my personal space?".

I think that is brought up in Supergirl (the CW one) as well,
Mostly as a thing of why she is working with the government agency but Superman isn't. Because he has some trust issues with the government generally, as I understood it.

[Haggo]

Those things tend to be heavily abstracted to the point they're barely a distraction from the fact that the players are just hanging out with their friends, using the game as an excuse for a social call.

Actually dwell on the details of what it would take to be a martial artists or a mystic, and suddenly you lose good chunk of such audience.

Same goes for playing non-humans; Gygax explained it in 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and people don't give him enough credit for that. Shortly, his argument was that only a minority of players are interested in deep speculation of non-human viewpoints, and many such though experiments are naturally limited due to players themselves being limited to a human viewpoint. Majority of players, by contrast, have neither will nor capacity to play outside a human perspective, and see any special traits of non-human characters as mere game tokens to use for pursuing very simple and very human game goals. Hence, even if author of a setting is capable of positing wildly inhuman and colorful creatures, giving them to players as roles is usually a waste since the end result is humans in fancy hats.

Unironically I'm fine with that last one happening. Either go all in on 'humans in funny hats' or not allow non-humans at all is my preference.

[Satinavian]

Same goes for playing non-humans; Gygax explained it in 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and people don't give him enough credit for that. Shortly, his argument was that only a minority of players are interested in deep speculation of non-human viewpoints, and many such though experiments are naturally limited due to players themselves being limited to a human viewpoint. Majority of players, by contrast, have neither will nor capacity to play outside a human perspective, and see any special traits of non-human characters as mere game tokens to use for pursuing very simple and very human game goals. Hence, even if author of a setting is capable of positing wildly inhuman and colorful creatures, giving them to players as roles is usually a waste since the end result is humans in fancy hats.
Oh, people give him credit for it.

Specifically they complain about his pro-human-bias and the legacy that has left in the game all the time.

Just because Gygax had an opinion does not make it right. We should all be aware, that Gygax, when he wrote for the first edition, had vastly less experience with RPGs, different playstyles, a diverse player base or best practices than most of use have now. So take his old advice with an appropriate amount of salt but don't fault him for not knowing stuff he could not reasonably know.

[Keltest]

Oh, people give him credit for it.

Specifically they complain about his pro-human-bias and the legacy that has left in the game all the time.

Just because Gygax had an opinion does not make it right. We should all be aware, that Gygax, when he wrote for the first edition, had vastly less experience with RPGs, different playstyles, a diverse player base or best practices than most of use have now. So take his old advice with an appropriate amount of salt but don't fault him for not knowing stuff he could not reasonably know.

I mean, the data seems to back Gygax up here. When given the options, people pretty overwhelmingly gravitate towards humans and humans-in-hats. It doesnt always seem like it from inside the different community bubbles, but pretty much any time we get any sort of statistics for preference like this, it shows a dominance for human based races.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mean, the data seems to back Gygax up here. When given the options, people pretty overwhelmingly gravitate towards humans and humans-in-hats. It doesnt always seem like it from inside the different community bubbles, but pretty much any time we get any sort of statistics for preference like this, it shows a dominance for human based races.

Yeah. This is in line with my experience as well. And even if they play a "less human like" race... They tend to play it as if it was a human in a hat.

[Satinavian]

I mean, the data seems to back Gygax up here. When given the options, people pretty overwhelmingly gravitate towards humans and humans-in-hats. It doesnt always seem like it from inside the different community bubbles, but pretty much any time we get any sort of statistics for preference like this, it shows a dominance for human based races.
I have the feeling we recently had this discussion.

Sure, humans are very popular. But not overwhelmingly popular. They might get chosen more than any other race, but tend to fall short by a huge margin from "all other races combined". Most people would rather play something else than humans but they will likely differ in what exactly.

And that is without going into mechanical incentives. There are very few games that make humans outright bad, they are usually one of the better options. And they tend to get the versatility shtick, making them compatible with a huge variety of concepts where often other races are shoehorned into a specific niche. In systems where humans don't get the versatility edge and are not dominating the setting, they tend to get played even less.

Gygax might have had a point that a lot of people want to play humans. But his various attempts to push the other players to humans as well (only human centric settings, various human only classes, max levels for nonhuman) are more than only a tad annoying.


As for people preferring more or less exotic beings, well, that changes from person to person.

[Grim Portent]

For me the big issue with playing a proper non-human is the game rarely works with the non-human perspective, either due to the other players or the constraints of the module (assuming a modile is being played.)

Lizardfolk for example. Described as emotionless cannibals with little to no concern for the wellbeing of people outside their tribe, or concern for matters that don't affect their tribe.

GM or module puts a lost child in the scenario. No incentives related to the child exist other than the moral ones related to not harming children. The lizardfolk answer is to eat them or ignore them, because food is food and there is no ethical issue with eating a defenseless, isolated child any more than there would be in eating a random fish, and ignoring because a child cannot realistically help a lizardfolk with any goals they have. Obviously actually doing this conflicts with the ethics and morality of most non-Lizardfolk people, so the Lizardfolk's player cannot do them, and has to instead find a reason they go along with the rest of the party doing what normally happens in these situations, which is adopting the kid as a mascot or trying to return them to their family.

There is admittedly also the issue of getting into a non-human headspace, in which my first impulse on encountering a defenseless child is not to help it, which is tricky. My most recent Lizardfolk character on several occasions did default to my responses (generally helpful) rather than me automatically reaching for his amoral and indifferent stance which views all creatures as potential prey.

[awa]

well rational self interest, help the child because you are aware that humans will care and you have this party of adventurers that increases your survival chances if you remain united in purpose. You might return the child to other humans because you believe you could earn a reward or for the simple fact that being perceived of as a hero rather than a monster is in your rational self interest.

[Metastachydium]

you have this party of adventurers

Forget the rest. This is all you need. If the lizard has reason to be with and work with the rest of the party, you don't need a separate reason not to eat five year olds.

[Satinavian]

Yes, playing stock modules without adapting then when you have uncommon party members can lead to problems.

But most GMs are very much able to at least tailor the hook to whatever characters are going to go.

[Keltest]

I have the feeling we recently had this discussion.

Sure, humans are very popular. But not overwhelmingly popular. They might get chosen more than any other race, but tend to fall short by a huge margin from "all other races combined". Most people would rather play something else than humans but they will likely differ in what exactly.

And that is without going into mechanical incentives. There are very few games that make humans outright bad, they are usually one of the better options. And they tend to get the versatility shtick, making them compatible with a huge variety of concepts where often other races are shoehorned into a specific niche. In systems where humans don't get the versatility edge and are not dominating the setting, they tend to get played even less.

Gygax might have had a point that a lot of people want to play humans. But his various attempts to push the other players to humans as well (only human centric settings, various human only classes, max levels for nonhuman) are more than only a tad annoying.


As for people preferring more or less exotic beings, well, that changes from person to person.

I mean, is an elf or half elf really meaningfully different from a human in that aspect? Is a dwarf? Heck, modern tieflings are literally human but people are bigoted.

[Grim Portent]

Forget the rest. This is all you need. If the lizard has reason to be with and work with the rest of the party, you don't need a separate reason not to eat five year olds.


well rational self interest, help the child because you are aware that humans will care and you have this party of adventurers that increases your survival chances if you remain united in purpose. You might return the child to other humans because you believe you could earn a reward or for the simple fact that being perceived of as a hero rather than a monster is in your rational self interest.

The problem is more that my first response was to help the child out of concern and to resent any who had done them wrong, rather than my first reponse being to think about eating the child and then deciding not to for the sake of cooperation with the rest of the 'pack' (the party.) Obviously actually eating a child would be bad gameplay in itself, but so is unhesitatingly helping a child while playing a person whose default instinct is to eat his own children if they wander near him while he's hungry.

There were occasions where I got into the animal mentality and did things like grapple, bite and drag enemies away to eat them without any hesitation, at which times the character felt like a bipedal crocodile, but a lot of the time the character wound up acting not too different from a slightly weird human with no grasp of social norms.

[Keltest]

When one of my players was a lizardfolk, I actually had a flow chart made to decide his feelings on everything. It wasn't especially complex, but it made the character really funny, especially when he ran into an edge case the chart didn't cover well.

[awa]

The problem is more that my first response was to help the child out of concern and to resent any who had done them wrong, rather than my first reponse being to think about eating the child and then deciding not to for the sake of cooperation with the rest of the 'pack' (the party.) Obviously actually eating a child would be bad gameplay in itself, but so is unhesitatingly helping a child while playing a person whose default instinct is to eat his own children if they wander near him while he's hungry.

There were occasions where I got into the animal mentality and did things like grapple, bite and drag enemies away to eat them without any hesitation, at which times the character felt like a bipedal crocodile, but a lot of the time the character wound up acting not too different from a slightly weird human with no grasp of social norms.

some people just want to play themselves with powers some people want to explore something different. If you can't put yourself in an alien mindset then you should just play a human or a rubber forehead alien. Some people love playing things that are not them that have a widely different view point then they themselves have.

I like inhuman non-humans because I can wrap my head around these alternate view points; and its a significant part of what I enjoy about the game (I Dm more than I play).

And lizard men aren't that self destructive, eating your own young except in the most desperate situation is maladaptive because the resources spent getting them to that point are wasted for a significant net loss. Now if its a situation where they need the hunters to be sufficiently strong to provide food for the rest of this group then eating the weakest members (the youngest and oldest) might be the most adaptive utilitarian choice to maximize the success of the group. Of course anyone who dies should be eaten because that's just free meat under normal circumstances.

[Satinavian]

I mean, is an elf or half elf really meaningfully different from a human in that aspect? Is a dwarf? Heck, modern tieflings are literally human but people are bigoted.
Elf ? Depends on the setting and system. People like to get elf some extra spin or two. That is why TV Tropes has a page "Our elves are different". In my most played system, elves were different enough to the point that they were often cited by the "human players can only play humans with hats" group as something too exotic and strange to be a PC. Half-Elves however were seen as very human like. Dwarfs were portayed with a lot of differences but generally not as intrusive ones as elves so behavior like a human would not be too strange in most situations. On the other end of the scale we have SR where elves, dwarves and so on literally are just new races of humans. Though the newer versions let you play quite exotic beings like paracritters, spirists and AIs which is certainly different enough.

Generally there are races/species with only some differences and other with a lot. And how different a race/species is, depends often exactly on system and setting. But when it comes to what is appropriate to be played, player preferences differ wildly. And any attempt to limit playable characters to humans and nearly humans will make your game unappealing to a lot of possible players. Completely excluding humans and human likes however will make you game unappealing to even more potential players.

[Grim Portent]

And lizard men aren't that self destructive, eating your own young except in the most desperate situation is maladaptive because the resources spent getting them to that point are wasted for a significant net loss. Now if its a situation where they need the hunters to be sufficiently strong to provide food for the rest of this group then eating the weakest members (the youngest and oldest) might be the most adaptive utilitarian choice to maximize the success of the group. Of course anyone who dies should be eaten because that's just free meat under normal circumstances.

K-selection vs r-selection, many r-selected species eat their offspring as casually as they eat any other prey item, because the individual offspring mean nothing. Exactly how lizardfolk reproduction works is never specified, so I went with them being r-selected. They consistently lay clutches of 12-30* eggs every year as seasonal fertility dictates, they protect the eggs but pay little to no head to the welfare of the young after they hatch until they reach an age capable of speech and can understand the social heirarchy, and will eat them if they get the chance prior to that point. The young survive by being small, fast and trying to make it not worth the effort involved in catching them.

*A point between large monitor lizards and crocodiles. Monitor lizards in particular were an inspiration, and they happily eat their own young given the chance. Intra-familial cannibalism is quite common in predatory reptiles.

[awa]

we know lizard men age cycles and they dont reproduce that fast, further they take a long time to reach adult hood at least compared to an animal. Thus they may be more cavalier about it than a human but not to the point of eating their own young out of convenience.

[Grim Portent]

we know lizard men age cycles and they dont reproduce that fast, further they take a long time to reach adult hood at least compared to an animal. Thus they may be more cavalier about it than a human but not to the point of eating their own young out of convenience.

They age at a similar rate to komodo dragons* who eat their own young and any members of their species small enough to safely kill when hungry, and lay eggs at most once per year. The thought process was 'what if lizard but able to talk?' instead of 'what if man but lizard?'

*8-10 years to reach sexual maturity, 5e lizardfolk are mature at 14, in some older material they were adults as fast as 5 years of age.

[awa]

sure but they are also group living and need training to use tools and be of value to the community, thus requiring a greater investment of time and effort. That said I dont suppose it makes a difference, their is nothing stopping a dm from saying this is how lizard-men work in my setting and I have read books where Lizard-men analogs worked in such a manner.

[Satinavian]

Yes, "lizardmen" is something that has a lot of different takes in different settings.

In TDE the most explored kind of lizard people, the Achaz, certainly do not eat their yound. However they don't really rear them either. After laying the eggs, the eggs are abandoned (though some cultures do have a profession that is tasked with looking a bit after the eggs, but that is a job, not something coming naturally from paternal instinct). After the eggs hatch, the young lizards are also left alone and fights among them at this stage are common (though there is a special lizard goddess of peace whose priests can bless eggs so that fights don't happen). Only after a certain age (based on moltings) the young ones are admitted to society and taught various stuff.
That is why those lizard people basically never know their parents or children or other relatives.

Hmm, but maybe we should switch to another thread ? Lizardmen are not orcs.