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Thoughtbot360
2008-09-20, 01:20 AM
Yeah, yeah, I know. Everything from Owlbears to Dragons (especially Dragons) and nonhumanoid monsters of all sorts collect gold and jewels because its shiny/they ate it but couldn't digest it/for gits and shiggles. But humanoid monsters are both as smart as the "good" races and they have hands but lack natural weaponry-they require tools, weapons, and could build cities if they only had the resources- they probably have an actual economy in which they might (though admittedly, not necessarily) have an actual use for gold.

Actually, one idea I don't see very often in campaign settings is the idea of monsters developing a complex culture and trading with, and possibly even living with each other (similar to how the humans do with Dwarves and Elves in every tradition D&D setting ever.) I'm not just talking about there being a "Gnoll Empire" or an occasional tribe of Orcs using their prosperity to build a city-state instead of a watered-down version of the Mongol horde, I'm talking about vast tracks of nations, several of each race, and many that inter-mingle, and of these even had an economy.

Maybe humanoid society in general is suffering from a dark age, but had been united under a large empire that had collapsed, and humans rose (or are in a position to rise) to a power that fills the gap. Countless races potentially mean countless ancient cultures from which treasure and ruins might be left behind. Maybe most "dungeons" are old palaces or barrow mounds built by "monsters", or even simply fortresses inhabited by the descendants of bandits and pillagers that sacked the humanoid cities when they were wealthy. Maybe those cities are still around an populated.... Wonder what the PCs would do with it?

Of course, seeing as how the Kobolds that attacked the village that hired the level 1 or level 2 PC live within a few miles at most, and how it seems that monsters are packed into every nook and cranny of "civilized" lands that a settlement/wheatfield/mine doesn't occupy, I'd kind of like to see the geopolitical map of where intelligent races live and how much they predate off each other.

Hope this comes out understandable and wasn't just me slamming the keys in a half-asleep frenzy and me just hallucinating that the words made sense. Well, maybe I should sign off by focusing really hard on my closing thoughts:

thklhahut54u9jresyroki 7yr4bjn 74 ybbvuys bien!

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-20, 01:29 AM
Kobolds are said in Races of the Dragon to have actually mined more gold than Dwarfs. Why do they live in holes in the ground, then? They tribute all of it, every clipped coin, to Dragons. Which explains both where the Kobolds get their gear, why they have so little, and why the Dragons have so much that is useless for them.

bosssmiley
2008-09-20, 05:21 AM
What the OP says about the humanoids suffering a Dark Age has been played with in a couple of settings recently (Eberron's Dhakaani Empire and Xendrik giants are the first that springs to mind, with WFRPs Lizardmen and Giants arguably fitting the bill too).

By-and-large though tribal monsters in D&D live in a pre-money 'primitive' economy, rather than in the ruins of a regressed society (that trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AfterTheEnd) fits the Elves, Giants and Kou-Toa more closely). The humanoids don't spend their money on getting stuff or on investments; instead they use it for all the things pre-modern cultures do (status display, honouring the gods, dowries, etc.). Some humanoids might even have formal cultural taboos against trading, like the men of the Iron Isles in "Song of Fire and Ice".

So how do the humanoids get stuff? Why, by raiding and slaughtering the puny weaky mud-grubbing humans as Gruumsh, Maglibuyet and Yeenoghu command. This makes the gods happy, enhances warrior status, and gives rich opportunities for looting, pillaging and...let's just call that last 'making half-orcs' shall we. :smalleek: When the humans send counter-raiding parties (aka adventurers) after you, well, that's just the cost of doing business; try to be elsewhere when they arrive.

Recent revisionism (WoW Orcs) aside humanoids have long been used in fantasy as placeholders for the barbarian other in his 'screaming horde of raiders' mode. It being deemed tasteless to overtly drive out the Celts, slaughter the Amerindians or drive the Neanderthals to extinction in our games we re-skin the wild men beyond our borders with pig noses, tusks and funny skin tones. Conscience-salving demonisation, just like great-grandpa used to do. :smallamused:

Matthew
2008-09-20, 05:35 AM
There is nothing stopping humanoids trading with one another or with humans, or with demi humans. Humanising the monsters Star Trek style undermines the point in having monsters, in my opinion. How organised you want the monsters to be is up to you, and is a parallel concern, but its pretty traditional for them to be the foot soldiers of some greater highly organised evil (or else corrupt imitations of human societies).

BobVosh
2008-09-20, 05:39 AM
There is nothing stopping humanoids trading with one another or with humans, or with demi humans. Humanising the monsters Star Trek style undermines the point in having monsters, in my opinion. How organised you want the monsters to be is up to you, but its pretty traditional for them to be the foot soldiers of some greater evil.

In other words...monsters aren't people, don't have souls, and exist to die for your amusement.

Most worlds just don't pander to this sort of thing. Forgotten realms does, but only 500 yards( i think) underground. Whereever the underdark begins, monsterous races economy begins.

*edit* that first sentence of mine is not meant to be flame, I was going to say it before I read his, sorry if it sounds that way

Matthew
2008-09-20, 05:44 AM
In other words...monsters aren't people, don't have souls, and exist to die for your amusement.

Well, more like exist to provide conflict in the story and a truly "evil" other, but the issue of "orc souls" is one that even Tolkien never settled on an answer for. Arguably, the purpose of everything that exists in the campaign setting is to die (or at least submit) for the amusement of the players. :smallwink:

nagora
2008-09-20, 06:17 AM
I agree with Matthew on the dangers of turning monsters into humans in rubber suits, which is the current vogue. Dragons collect gold because they like it - which isn't wildly far from why humans collect it - other monsters do other things with it, but mostly I don't see them as having any real use for it themselves. Evil monsters will, of course, take gold off humans (and demi-humans) simply because it causes the humans distress to do so. But they're much more likely to want the practical stuff like magic items or livestock. In the case if highly intelligent races like Mind Flayers, I think a gold economy also robs them of some mystic. Perhaps they like gold art, but their economy might be built on some strange psychic barter or polyhedral dice. Gold, is just too mundane and above all too human to work well as a monster economy, IMO.

Naturally, certain evil humans will trade with monsters like orcs but by and large, the evil monsters are there as a threat to society and the "normal" way of life, not an alternative lifestyle. If the orc tribe over the hill is just another tribe that might trade normally with other tribes and states then there simply isn't any point in them being orcs and you've fallen into the trap of making them "just green people".

Whether monsters have souls or not is moot; the important point is that for some reason or other they want to separate your soul from your body.

Gamerlord
2008-09-20, 06:21 AM
Well i think they spend them at black market areas and some sort of areas created specifically for trading gold for loot.

Oslecamo
2008-09-20, 07:08 AM
It's simply usefull to have gold and shiny stuff to get in good terms with the local dragon.

Plus, it's shiny. Lots of animals like to collect shiny stuff. Primitive mens collected pretty shells and bones despite having no real use for them.

charl
2008-09-20, 08:50 AM
It's great for attracting the attention of humans, most of which are stupid and easy to make into primate kebab. Yummy. :)

The occasional adventurer party is just one of those hazards you have to live with.
EDIT: Or die with, as it were.

Yahzi
2008-09-20, 07:43 PM
I agree with Matthew on the dangers of turning monsters into humans in rubber suits
The alternative is meaningless. If monsters don't choose to be evil, then they aren't evil; at worst, they are amoral, like animals. But how can you have a moral victory over an animal?

So either your campaign treats the monsters as humanized (possessing the most humanizing trait possible: the ability to choose between good and evil) or your campaign is simply Wild Safari.

chiasaur11
2008-09-20, 07:55 PM
The alternative is meaningless. If monsters don't choose to be evil, then they aren't evil; at worst, they are amoral, like animals. But how can you have a moral victory over an animal?

So either your campaign treats the monsters as humanized (possessing the most humanizing trait possible: the ability to choose between good and evil) or your campaign is simply Wild Safari.

Hey, I have an example of a wild animal you can have a moral victory over:

Bears.

Matthew
2008-09-20, 08:06 PM
The alternative is meaningless. If monsters don't choose to be evil, then they aren't evil; at worst, they are amoral, like animals. But how can you have a moral victory over an animal?

So either your campaign treats the monsters as humanized (possessing the most humanizing trait possible: the ability to choose between good and evil) or your campaign is simply Wild Safari.

That doesn't make a lick of sense. Is the victory over the orcs in the Lord of the Rings meaningless? They cannot choose to be good, after all.

AstralFire
2008-09-20, 08:11 PM
I personally choose the other option earlier outlined: skipping monsters entirely, for the most part. I only keep a few things around just to be killed because they are dangerous, dumb animals. Mostly dragons. Monstrous races kept are full PC races.

Dragons all deserve to die.

nagora
2008-09-20, 08:28 PM
The alternative is meaningless. If monsters don't choose to be evil, then they aren't evil; at worst, they are amoral, like animals. But how can you have a moral victory over an animal?
There's two answers to that (at least): firstly, who claimed to be having a moral victory over the orcs? They are a danger; they have to be solved. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you can have a moral victory over whoever put the orcs there. The latter is the LotR solution Matt suggested, and one I've suggested elsewhere as an interesting twist on druids.

Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe and sometimes the orcs hate you because they are built that way and the Mind Flayers hate you because you taste so damn good and won't hold still.

Making the gameworld into a re-sprayed version of our own world with the same mundane challenges applied to orcs and goblins instead of China and America, or whatever, is not a rewarding or interesting experience when one is playing an adventurer in an alien world.

Some races are allies or at least tolerate humans if left alone, others resent them and covet what they have. Humanoids are a convienient example of the latter.

I have much more admiration for someone like MAR Barker who, on rejecting this, go away and design their own races with their own rationales instead of simply assigning a social worker to every orc tribe and then pretending that they've discovered a new roleplaying paradigm.

We are supposed to be engaged in the creation of new myths and legends (as the orc shaman tells the young orc warriors); not wringing our hands and wishing for a Disney "wouldn't it be nice if everydody was nice" world. Somethings hate you, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

AstralFire
2008-09-20, 08:33 PM
Somethings hate you, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

This is true. That doesn't make the assumption of entire races of such things more or less mature or intellectual in any way than the contrary.

I just find dedicated evil to be all the more interesting when it is rarer and a choice. And even moreso when it is a warranted hatred rather than some megalomaniacal 'evil'. Hence why I avoid monster usage.

Except dragons. Who must be killed.

And about your comment about things being alien; there is much alien to be found in the familiar and ordinary. If a campaign focuses on those, what then? Your presentation of spray-painted variations on human society as the nature of exploring races beyond "auto-evil" is something of a false choice. It's no more spray-painted than taking everyday rivals and sociopaths and putting them into an entire group devoted to killing you.

Knaight
2008-09-20, 08:40 PM
I use the same method as Astral fire, although there are some dangerous things with animal intellect around, but they are basically just animals. Often pretty weird animals, but if we didn't know skunks existed their musk spraying would seem like something from fantasy, so they still fit in the animals category.

Prometheus
2008-09-20, 10:08 PM
Here's the thing about the humans in the dark age and monsters being civilized: If their way of life worked, they wouldn't be evil. If they were civilized, they wouldn't be wild monsters. Now I agree, monsters should not be meaningless obstacles that come into existence when they are rolled on the encounter table and pop out of the fog of war, however monsters aren't people for a reason.

I try to have a least one monster kingdom (usually more) in each campaign but what I try to really drive home is how different that society and their very minds work than ours:
-One where the rule of law is put aside for constant power struggle.
-Beings that do not value or recognize any other sentient lifeforms.
-Creatures who always want more even when their needs are fulfilled.
-Being who are misunderstood, and really want to be like us (but aren't)
-Beings who don't lie or break promises.
-With more energy than we devote to art, they devote to something that we wouldn't compare to art at all

If monster didn't feel some other emotions or thoughts with a stronger influence and others with a weaker influence, they would be humanoids.

Leon
2008-09-21, 05:48 AM
Ebay*
Home and Dungeon
MonsterMart
etc





*no not what you think, the E is for Evil

Kami2awa
2008-09-21, 06:29 AM
Monsters might collect treasure from a magpie-like instinct (e.g. dragons), or a mystical reason (like Discworld dwarfs, who need gold to 'buy' their partner from their parents to get married). Or of course, they may have economies between tribes; they clearly produce a lot of weapons to trade, and also keep slaves (and might trade them).

GolemsVoice
2008-09-21, 06:43 AM
Well, you could always go with the Lovecraft variant. (Some) Monsters are in no way better or worse than our society, but rather so alien to us, and we to them, that we cannot hope to comprehend their ways and goals, and they can in no way hope to come to terms with ours. Most humans today have a set of values, a mixture of cultural heritage, personal experience, individual and society-wide goals, religious beliefs, the like. As our planet is rather small, and we today have come to the understanding that some ways of living work, while others do not, our basic values do not differ all that much, if you boil it down to what is really the core, and we have come to accpet such behaviour as normal. Of course, the opposite is true as well. Someone who contradicts our ethics and moral standarts for reasons we cannot understand, or cannot deem good, is often met with fear and exclusion.

Now, take on the one side us humans, as presented in most standart fantasy settings. Though they have had different cultural backgrounds, and different world views, their moral values are basically the same (this is a little odd, due to the existence of functional evil countries, but roll with it). Now, take another race, such as the kobolds, or the mind flayers. They are so strange to us, so alien and utterly incomprehensible that we need not begin to try to understand why they are not like us, and why they do what they do, because we lack the background to accept their way of life. (This is more true for societies not designed to emphasis one special facette of the human way of life, such as "everyone works for the greater good", "everyone has skills much greater than humans do") So, why do some monsters do the things they do, and have not yet developed another kind of civilization? It's becausethey have reasons for it which humans can never know!

Morty
2008-09-21, 07:18 AM
I personally choose the other option earlier outlined: skipping monsters entirely, for the most part. I only keep a few things around just to be killed because they are dangerous, dumb animals. Mostly dragons. Monstrous races kept are full PC races.


I use the same method. There are no "monstrous" races, although there are some simply uncivilized ones, just as there were barbarians living next to civilized societies in real world. But they aren't simply "evil and in need to be exterminated" as that's just plain stupid. This of course is a problem when playing D&D, because we play in FR that uses the "cannon fodder" theme to its full. Luckily I've never DMed a D&D game, so it hasn't been a problem so far.

nagora
2008-09-21, 12:00 PM
I use the same method. There are no "monstrous" races, although there are some simply uncivilized ones, just as there were barbarians living next to civilized societies in real world. But they aren't simply "evil and in need to be exterminated" as that's just plain stupid.
I don't think the orcs would agree; it's not their fault that humans have this genetic weakness that makes so many of them want to co-operate instead of conquring and enslaving.

Some orc shamen have even suggested that this is a sign that humans are not actually intelligent beings with free-will at all, and have questioned therefore whether killing or torturing them should actually count as service to the gods. The shamen suggest that killing humans is no greater service to the dukes of hell than clearing vermin out of a food store.

Morty
2008-09-21, 12:02 PM
I don't think the orcs would agree; it's not their fault that humans have this genetic weakness that makes so many of them want to co-operate instead of conquring and enslaving.

Some orc shamen have even suggested that this is a sign that humans are not actually intelligent beings with free-will at all, and have questioned therefore whether killing or torturing them should actually count as service to the gods. The shamen suggest that killing humans is no greater service to the dukes of hell than clearing vermin out of a food store.

Having an entire race think the same purely evil way is something I'd classify as "silly" or at least "not something I want in a setting".

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 12:06 PM
This looks to me more like a parody of way people regard killing of orcs in a D&D setting: unsubtle, but it does raise a point.

Personally, I'd say The Orc King novel is beginning to rectify this: suggesting orcs are capable of co-operation, and introducing idea of a mixed orc-dwarf civilization that collapsed, naturally, rather than due to orc treachery.

nagora
2008-09-21, 12:09 PM
Having an entire race think the same purely evil way is something I'd classify as "silly" or at least "not something I want in a setting".
If their gods designed them that way, then why not? Do you complain if all beholders have multiple eyes?

As I said, if you don't like out-of-the-box advisary races, then I'd be much more impressed if you made some new ones up instead of turning the ones that are there into cardboard cutouts of modern Western liberalised thinking - that seems far sillier to me, especially in light of real-world history.

Certainly orcs co-operate with each other - they're LE. They just don't even consider the idea of co-operating with humans and their ilk who are inferior scum occupying the orc's natural place as rulers of all.

Morty
2008-09-21, 12:18 PM
If their gods designed them that way, then why not? Do you complain if all beholders have multiple eyes?

It might make perfect sense in the context of a setting; but it doesn't make me like it.


As I said, if you don't like out-of-the-box advisary races, then I'd be much more impressed if you made some new ones up instead of turning the ones that are there into cardboard cutouts of modern Western liberalised thinking - that seems far sillier to me, especially in light of real-world history.

If I make a race of tough, pragmatic and simple people who dwell on the wastelands and are suited to fighting but nevetheless capable of interacting with other races in a non-martial manner what's the difference between calling them orcs and something entirely different? At least "orcs" sound familiar.
I also fail to see how is reshaping standars fantasy races into something more fitting my tastes makes them "cardboard cutouts" of anything. The anaglogies to real-world history are equally lost on me.


Certainly orcs co-operate with each other - they're LE. They just don't even consider the idea of co-operating with humans and their ilk who are inferior scumm occupying the orc's natural place as rulers of all.

Again, because it makes sense in the context of a setting doesn't mean I have to like it.

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 12:23 PM
And its hobgoblins that are LE: Orcs are CE on average.

Which doesn't mean both can't form armies, but orc ones tend to be undisciplined hordes kept in line by fear of retribution from vicious leader, whereas hobgoblins are conditioned to be very obedient to authority.

And remember, since 3rd ed, it has been Often CE, and killing orcs just for being orcs is frowned upon. Novels have tried to stress that orcs aren't always evil and have redeeming features, even if they are more likely to be evil than most player races.

nagora
2008-09-21, 12:40 PM
IIf I make a race of tough, pragmatic and simple people who dwell on the wastelands and are suited to fighting but nevetheless capable of interacting with other races in a non-martial manner what's the difference between calling them orcs and something entirely different? At least "orcs" sound familiar.
Well, that's the shallow spray-painting I'm talking about. You're saying "orc" but you clearly mean "humans". Why use a well known word to mean something else unless it's just laziness? You seem to want the "ambiance" of having orcs but without the effort of making them any different from the other races.


I also fail to see how is reshaping standars fantasy races into something more fitting my tastes makes them "cardboard cutouts" of anything.
They're cardboard cutout orcs because they're not really orcs, they're just fairly nice, reasonable modern people standing behind a picture of an orc.


The anaglogies to real-world history are equally lost on me.
The tribes inhabiting what is now the US were hunted as animals with not the slightest consideration for their existance. To them the white settlers were no different from the classic fantasy orcs. Similar, indeed worse, things happened in Indonesia and Australia as well as Africa.

You are taking a very narrow view of intelligence. You're saying, to make an analogy, that an intelligent shark would have the same morality and intelligence as a human and would find other strategies for survival than simply eating everything tasty. I'm saying that perhaps the truth is different.

At essense I think you're making the same assumption that the people who coined the term "primate" made - that the human way is the best way and any intelligent race deserving of the title would be just like us; all development is in the direction of our state of being today and everything else is "primitive". I don't think so and even if I did, I don't think that assumption makes for an interesting setting.

Morty
2008-09-21, 12:47 PM
Well, that's the shallow spray-painting I'm talking about. You're saying "orc" but you clearly mean "humans". Why use a well known word to mean something else unless it's just laziness? You seem to want the "ambiance" of having orcs but without the effort of making them any different from the other races.

Now you're simply putting words in my mouth. What about orcs not being genocidal maniacs make them bland? By your reasoning it seems, there should be no non-monster sentient races other than humans.


They're cardboard cutout orcs because they're not really orcs, they're just fairly nice, reasonable modern people standing behind a picture of an orc.

No, they're not. What makes you think they are? Just because they're not D&D-like cannon fodder you automatically list them under "cheap WoW orcs knockoffs"? Come on.


The tribes inhabiting what is now the US were hunted as animals with not the slightest consideration for their existance. To them the white settlers were no different from the classic fantasy orcs. Similar, indeed worse, things happened in Indonesia and Australia as well as Africa.

You are taking a very narrow view of intelligence. You're saying, to make an analogy, that an intelligent shark would have the same morality and intelligence as a human and would find other strategies for survival than simply eating everything tasty. I'm saying that perhaps the truth is different.

At essense I think you're making the same assumption that the people who coined the term "primate" made - that the human way is the best way and any intelligent race deserving of the title would be just like us; all development is in the direction of our state of being today and everything else is "primitive". I don't think so and even if I did, I don't think that assumption makes for an interesting setting.

Again, assumptions. What makes you think in a setting where orcs and humans are on equal level of intelligence, are neither inherently good nor evil and in case of a RPG game have PC race status individual societies of orcs and humans still can't hate each other and wage genocidal wards against each other?

Matthew
2008-09-21, 12:48 PM
And its hobgoblins that are LE: Orcs are CE on average.

Which doesn't mean both can't form armies, but orc ones tend to be undisciplined hordes kept in line by fear of retribution from vicious leader, whereas hobgoblins are conditioned to be very obedient to authority.

And remember, since 3rd ed, it has been Often CE, and killing orcs just for being orcs is frowned upon. Novels have tried to stress that orcs aren't always evil and have redeeming features, even if they are more likely to be evil than most player races.

It is only since D20/3e that orcs have been Chaotic Evil, as well; previously they were Lawful Evil (or just plain Chaotic in the BD&D three alignment system). There has always been the potential to change their alignment as a part of the game rules. The question is not whether it is possible to do so under the game rules, but whether you should as a matter of how you use them within your campaign milieu.

This is all going to come down to preference, once again. If you find it more believable for orcs to be capable of free alignment choice, then more power to you. I personally don't like that idea, but there's nothing about my point of view (or yours) that can be construed as absolutely correct. I would argue that my point of view is more in line with traditional mythology and orcs as presented in Lord of the Rings, but if you don't like those portrayals, I am not going to crucify you for it.

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 12:49 PM
Predator, scavenger, herbivore, forager, pack hunter, any of these might be intelligent, but approach the world differently.

Humans are scavenger/foragers turned pack hunters: there is an interesting theory that humans started pack-hunter behaviour when they began to domesticate wolves, since human social behaviour has more in common with the wolf, than either species of chimp.

nagora
2008-09-21, 12:52 PM
What makes you think in a setting where orcs and humans are on equal level of intelligence, are neither inherently good nor evil and in case of a RPG game have PC race status individual societies of orcs and humans still can't hate each other and wage genocidal wards against each other?
Of course they can; it was you who said

Having an entire race think the same purely evil way is something I'd classify as "silly" or at least "not something I want in a setting".
Given that genocide is evil I'm beginning to wonder what it is you are trying to say. I was suggesting that having orcs be implacible enemies of humans and their allies is a perfectly good role for them to play since that's what the source material suggests. My other point was that if you don't want them to be that way then you shouldn't call them orcs because that's just lazy plotting. I thought you were objecting to those points.

Morty
2008-09-21, 12:57 PM
Given that genocide is evil I'm beginning to wonder what it is you are trying to say. I was suggesting that having orcs be implacible enemies of humans and their allies is a perfectly good role for them to play since that's what the source material suggests. My other point was that if you don't want them to be that way then you shouldn't call them orcs because that's just lazy plotting. I thought you were objecting to those points.

I'm objecting to dedicating an entire race to a single purpose, this purpose being "enemy". In typical fantasy, orcs or some other "evil" race are designated enemies to humans, elves and other "good" races, it being clear that the orcs are the agressors and need to be exterminated. They're also usually defined as nothing more but "evil, ugly and easy to kill, mooks that heroes mow through". I have no real problem with sentient races commiting genocide against each other as long as it's not as one-sided as it is in generic D&D.

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 12:58 PM
I prefer the notion that Orc evilness is mostly due to upbringing and that an orc raised as a human would only have a slightly increased chance to be evil. Reason for slight genetic evilness is their deity Grummsh. Reason for societal evilness is its run by priests of Grummsh.

True, this may be an unsatsfying hybrid between "Its All genetic" and "Its All upbringing", but I think its closest to the book version.

Books like Campions of Ruin stress that upbringing is a major part of evil of goblinoid and orcish races, and this kind of evil is both the most likely to hate and fear people who are different, and the most likely to change when exposed to other cultures.

nagora
2008-09-21, 01:03 PM
I'm objecting to dedicating an entire race to a single purpose, this purpose being "enemy".
But why do you object? What do you think is wrong with that?

BTW: Sorry, Hamish, I'm reading you posts but with only so much time I'm concentrating on one thread of argument. I would say, though that the "Nature Vs Nurture" debate is another terribly modern trope and again adds tot eh feeling that the authors are attempting to make the fantasy world into a copy of our own without wanting to admit it.

Morty
2008-09-21, 01:07 PM
But why do you object? What do you think is wrong with that?


Simple. It makes the world seem black and white, silly, unbelivable and less enjoyable. Now, for other people it makes it more enjoyable, but I don't see how is this supposed to make me change my mind.

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 01:10 PM
I'd say, for the moment, that in D&D, intelligent mortal races are not irredeemably evil by nature. Yes, it may be caving to the Drizzt crowd, but I prefer that notion that one should deal with "Orcs, goblins and even the thoroughly evil drow" with the awareness that they can be redeemed.

Yahzi
2008-09-21, 01:13 PM
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you can have a moral victory over whoever put the orcs there.
Right, which in LotR is Morgoth, the dark lord. He choose to be evil. The orcs are just his pawns.


Making the gameworld into a re-sprayed version of our own world
Sure, I agree that is boring. But making the monsters mindless saps who can't figure out how to spend gold on better equipment isn't fun, either. I think the DM has to be fair to the monsters; he has to play them to the best of their ability.

For orc barbarians, that can mean hide armor and battleaxes. But for Mind Flayers, who have genius intelligence, they are going to buy magic items and hire mercenaries. They are going to invest in traps and defenses. They are going to have successful economies with enough technology to allow more than 5% of the population to be soldiers. And so on.


We are supposed to be engaged in the creation of new myths and legends (as the orc shaman tells the young orc warriors);
"You can't build a thousand-year riech without breaking a few eggs." (Bonus points for naming the movie! :smallbiggrin: )


not wringing our hands and wishing for a Disney "wouldn't it be nice if everydody was nice" world. Somethings hate you, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Which is what paladins are for. They go out and kill stuff because that's the way it is. Not just human law, not just god's law, but cosmic law.

But for people of the highest level of moral development (i.e. universal rights), that's not good enough. True heroes don't kill the evil guy's pawns; they kill the evil guy that is forcing the pawns to be evil. The adventuring party should view its job as shutting down Morgoth, not as killing orcs. They only kill as many orcs as necessary.

It has to be said that under this scheme, Legolas and Gimili are not all that good. Whereas the hobbits are; they only kill what they have to. I think Tolkien intended that contrast.



Here's the thing about the humans in the dark age and monsters being civilized: If their way of life worked, they wouldn't be evil. If they were civilized, they wouldn't be wild monsters.
But that's not true. Morality is a function of biology, and other creatures might have different biologies. For instance, what is moral behaviour for a Formian could be quite different. This leads to the greatest moral conflict: when both sides are doing what is right for them. Now there's some RP potential!

Also, just because their way of life works, doesn't mean they're good (or civilized, in the nice sense of the word). The Nazi war machine worked pretty well, at least for a while. I agree it was ultimately weaker than democracy, but Fascism was stronger than monarchy. So if your world is full of petty kingdoms, then the Mind Flayer's fascist regime of pure evil might still be strong enough to thrive.

Bandededed
2008-09-21, 01:14 PM
The Mind Flayers hate you because you taste so damn good and won't hold still.

So sigged :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, I feel that alignment is really more of a viewpoint feeling - Ex. Were you an orc child, and a band of adventurers dropped in, killed all the menfolk and stole all the pretties daddy gave you, then the races comprising that adventuring band ARE EVIL to you. When you see yourself, years later, slaughtering them, you feel that it's a GOOD thing.

Funnily enough, this works the same way if you replace "orc child" with "human/elf/dwarf child", only in reverse.

This is also why I assume that the monster manual entries are NOT typical for their race. They instead exist only for when I need my players to have a violent encounter with members of that society (most everything in my world is neutral anyway)

Edit: Whoops! Monster races in my games usually don't have a great economy, and instead usually carry items and useful things rather than hard cash. They might have gems, though, since most cultures of humanoids like pretties. It can also make the appraise skill useful :smallwink:. They barter what they have for what they want. Easy enough.

Edit2: Ninja'd. That'll teach me to go get food while trying to post.

nagora
2008-09-21, 01:19 PM
Simple. It makes the world seem black and white, silly, unbelivable and less enjoyable.
Okay, but I think that you're objecting to black and white because you are the product of a society which assumes greyness in everything - yet this outlook is probably less than 60 years old in our world*. That's why I find your vision uninteresting - I can get it in RL anytime I want.

Given our real world's endless obsession with greys, I think the black and white of a typical D&D setting is actually more intellectually stimulating than a "realistic" moral set up.

As to nature/nurture: perhaps an orc can repent, briefly, but their nature will out (which is a classic bit of archetypal symbolism), so you need to kill them as soon as possibile after they do repent or they will miss their chance to go to heaven and go back to doing evil things. Mercy can be very misguided when nature > nurture. It's bloody tragic, ain't it?

Again, exploring a world with different parameters is more interesting to me than exploring one where essentially all the normal everyday moral dilemmas and values are carried over with only small changes to the labels.

*Occassional philosophers excepted; I mean as a general baseline assumption.

Morty
2008-09-21, 01:26 PM
Okay, but I think that you're objecting to black and white because you are the product of a society which assumes greyness in everything - yet this outlook is probably less than 60 years old in our world*. That's why I find your vision uninteresting - I can get it in RL anytime I want.

Given our real world's endless obsession with greys, I think the black and white of a typical D&D setting is actually more intellectually stimulating than a "realistic" moral set up.

I admit I've never seen it that way. I suppose our perspectives and expectations are simply entirely mutually exclusive. I don't mind some black-and-whiteness once in a while, but not when it's built into the world. Races and cultures existing for the sole purpose of being evil aren't intellectually stimulating for me, simply boring. Now, ineraction between species with completely different mentalities can be interesting -although it's not what I want in fantasy to be honest- but in case of "greenskins" in D&D it's only there so that the heroes might have some disposable mooks to cut through.

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 01:27 PM
I wouldn't go that far, but I would place upgringing high on the causative factors. Books like The Lucifer Effect (concerning the Stanford Prison Experiment) stress that people really are very prone to doing evil acts on authority's orders, and, in a society with a dark moral code handed to them, it would not be surprising that only mavericks differ from usual alightment.

Fiendish Codex 2 tells us that, with a bit of encouragement, human societies can be set up that have 9 of of 10 people LE. So, extrapolate from that to others.

I take view that when it's Often CE, that doesn't mean homogenously: it means 55+% of orcs a CE: there may be many orc villages where nearly all are CE, a few NE or LE ones, and some where most orcs in the village are non-evil.

Its very hard to be good in an Evil village, which is why vast majority of orcs in Evil village are evil, but that doesn't mean every village is evil.

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 01:31 PM
I think your version of gray might be slightly different. Believing that most evil people are evil because of peer pressure is not the same as believing Good is impossible or undesirable.

I like the notion that, in D&D, Good exists, evil exists, but most evil beings have potential for redemption. Doesn't mean you mustn't fight evil, does mean you must be aware of this, use your efforts where they do the most good, and not fall into the assumption that "the only good orc is a dead orc"

RTGoodman
2008-09-21, 01:47 PM
*Wanders in and interrupts big debate on morality*

Where do monsters spend their money? Why, at the Mon-Store, of course!

*Crickets*

:sigh:

Guess I'll go now... :smallredface:

I've been trying to keep myself from making this joke since this thread started, but I guess I failed...

hamishspence
2008-09-21, 02:02 PM
Hee hee :smallbiggrin: I must admit, I liked one answer: they get their cool items from the Anti-Santa, in a Nodwick strip in Dragon magazine.

Swordguy
2008-09-21, 02:18 PM
Hee hee :smallbiggrin: I must admit, I liked one answer: they get their cool items from the Anti-Santa, ...

Approves of such shenannigans:


http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n294/wolffe42/04019-3.jpg

chiasaur11
2008-09-21, 02:36 PM
*Wanders in and interrupts big debate on morality*

Where do monsters spend their money? Why, at the Mon-Store, of course!

*Crickets*

:sigh:

Guess I'll go now... :smallredface:

I've been trying to keep myself from making this joke since this thread started, but I guess I failed...

Baboom Shish!

Thank you, thank you, he'll be here all week.

AstralFire
2008-09-21, 04:33 PM
And about your comment about things being alien; there is much alien to be found in the familiar and ordinary. If a campaign focuses on those, what then? Your presentation of spray-painted variations on human society as the nature of exploring races beyond "auto-evil" is something of a false choice. It's no more or less spray-painted than taking everyday rivals and sociopaths and putting them into an entire group devoted to killing you.

Restated for emphasis.

nagora
2008-09-21, 05:09 PM
Restated for emphasis.
Okay, but no one disagreed with you. Or are you suggesting that the familiar should be thinly disguised as an orc to make it interesting?

AstralFire
2008-09-21, 05:16 PM
Okay, but no one disagreed with you. Or are you suggesting that the familiar should be thinly disguised as an orc to make it interesting?

It is not thinly disguised as anything.

The orc in one setting is not the orc in another, and if you want to back up the fanciful image of a foreign culture with different racial abilities, then that might be a useful tool for you. Or maybe you wish to emphasize the ultimate sameness a little more and use all humans. Neither one is better than the other universally. Maybe you just like how orcs look.

horseboy
2008-09-21, 06:39 PM
What do monsters do with their money? Well, used to be, orcs and what not didn't have money. they had some copper, maybe some silver. Any gold they had was what they'd just stolen and the players were trying to get back. If they didn't then the orcs traded the worthless crap to this "big guy" who traded it for useful things, like steel armour and weapons. The "big guy" then takes the box of gold and buys up all the discount gear that adventurers bring into town. You know the stuff that they've stripped from their enemies and don't bother to fix because they don't care that much. Yeah, that's why the armour orcs wore was always beaten and dirty, and that's how BBEGs would finance their revolutions. In 3.x, well, Magic-mart is open 24 hours for their convenience.

As to the fundamental evil thing, I blame that too on the awkward and cumbersome alignment issues. You just can't say orcs are a non-cursorial species that the alpha-male rules over. Successful alphas tend to be slightly further sighted then their counterparts. It requires constant displays of authority and power to keep the others motivated and maintain social hierarchies. This drives the culture to constantly seek out great glory and display their dominance on all the surrounding area. Nope, can't say that, they just get the big, rubber stamp of "EVIL". Which puts it on the "hostiles" section of the player's mind. Which, operant conditioning will quickly tell players to eliminate because they're dangerous. Enough encounters will drive the player into a "kill it and take it's stuff" mentality. After all, all the little buggers always attack every time they see them, so may as well get the first swing in. In order to deal with the perception of D&D being a "kill it and take it's stuff" game they then start writing all kinds of legalese loopholes that come to the point of "why even have an alignment system in the first place if it doesn't mean what you say it means?" But hey, in the modern era it's more "interesting" to make good fall for genocide than it is for the orcs to just be irredeemably antagonistic. Because standards and decency are some how judgmental and therefore evil instead of just common sense- whoa, was channeling a little too much Huey Freeman there. But, uh, what was I saying again? Oh yeah, totally another problem of the craptacular alignment system.

AstralFire
2008-09-21, 06:52 PM
But hey, in the modern era it's more "interesting" to make good fall for genocide than it is for the orcs to just be irredeemably antagonistic. Because standards and decency are some how judgmental and therefore evil instead of just common sense

That's another issue entirely and only tangentially related to this one.

Doomsy
2008-09-21, 08:35 PM
Real monsters would just leave it with their victims corpses or collect it in a magpie like nonsensical manner (Oooh shinies!).

If you mean intelligent races like orcs, you assume they have their own economy and such. It is not like they can walk in from the wilderness and just buy the steel axes and such they are habitually armed with, and if they build it themselves they must have an economic and social system of fair to middling complexity beyond mere barter. Mining and blacksmithing requires quite a bit of civilization. We are talking actual orc towns with orc chiefs and orc city councils and ork farmers to support that population, since hunting would never do. And ork engineers to provide a water supply for such numbers. Of course, this interferes with the idea that orcs are mindless barbarians who mostly just want blood for their blood god.
Personally, I blame Tolkien. Never trust a linguist to do an anthropologists job. He could make an entire elfin language but the orcs were just savages with no support for their lifestyle.

Most other hostile NPC races are depicted as having their own city states and cultural organization. D&D generally prefers orcs as being barbaric to a tribal, almost paleolithic extent, so they are the only ones who matter here for as spending money goes. Drow go to the Underdark Stop 'n Shoppe, mind flayers can use proxies to buy their material goods, hobgoblins have a skeletal civilization built around 'let's make war' which kind of makes sense in a sick army ant kind of way, and others have implied ways and means.

Khanderas
2008-09-22, 02:17 AM
Well, that's the shallow spray-painting I'm talking about. You're saying "orc" but you clearly mean "humans". Why use a well known word to mean something else unless it's just laziness? You seem to want the "ambiance" of having orcs but without the effort of making them any different from the other races.


They're cardboard cutout orcs because they're not really orcs, they're just fairly nice, reasonable modern people standing behind a picture of an orc.


The tribes inhabiting what is now the US were hunted as animals with not the slightest consideration for their existance. To them the white settlers were no different from the classic fantasy orcs. Similar, indeed worse, things happened in Indonesia and Australia as well as Africa.

You are taking a very narrow view of intelligence. You're saying, to make an analogy, that an intelligent shark would have the same morality and intelligence as a human and would find other strategies for survival than simply eating everything tasty. I'm saying that perhaps the truth is different.

At essense I think you're making the same assumption that the people who coined the term "primate" made - that the human way is the best way and any intelligent race deserving of the title would be just like us; all development is in the direction of our state of being today and everything else is "primitive". I don't think so and even if I did, I don't think that assumption makes for an interesting setting.
I didn't want to quote it all, but I couldn't find anything that should go.
The Orcs from Warcraft universe are awesome and I prefer to play the Horde when in those games...

But le's not try to move monsters from what they are now to Humans-with-a-different-skin where everything has to fit the human perspective (cooperation, socialisition, gender equality, economic structure). Perhaps this comes from a kind of Disneyfication where anything intelligent is humanised. The shark anology says it even better actually (see the quote), a shark is BUILT the way it is, it swims and eats fish. Adding intelligence wont make them start to build apartments or invent the telephone or go vegetarian.

"Evil" humanoids do what they do because they are wired that way. Either from evolution where orcs that were strong and fought, got the women, or a devine mandate that states Gruumsh want's it this way. Both approaches will all but ensure that there is a thick hardwire, instinct if you will, that ensures Orcs will not become farmers just because you show them how, or tailors just because you got them away from their thuggish friends who were a bad influence on them. Orcs do NOT have a secret dream of living peacefully, evolution or Devinity ensures that is not part of the equation.

Thoughtbot360
2008-09-22, 03:45 PM
I didn't want to quote it all, but I couldn't find anything that should go.
The Orcs from Warcraft universe are awesome and I prefer to play the Horde when in those games...

But le's not try to move monsters from what they are now to Humans-with-a-different-skin where everything has to fit the human perspective (cooperation, socialisition, gender equality, economic structure). Perhaps this comes from a kind of Disneyfication where anything intelligent is humanised. The shark anology says it even better actually (see the quote), a shark is BUILT the way it is, it swims and eats fish. Adding intelligence wont make them start to build apartments or invent the telephone or go vegetarian.


Thats mostly because a Shark is a Shark. You don't see me talking about Nonhumanoids making cities. Orcs have a basically human body (two legs, opposable thumbs, loads of weaknesses that are best countered by gathering into a tribe and even one guy occasionally making a heroic sacrifice to save the rest of the hunting party.) and so they can only be "Wired" differently from humans to the nth degree, Aboleths on the other hand........

Edit: Also, I'd like to point out another little thing.

Orcs will not become farmers just because you show them how, or tailors just because you got them away from their thuggish friends who were a bad influence on them.

So every Orc under the sun is a warrior? That's possible. It requires a hunter-gather society (Few numbers in each tribe) or a Barbarian Horde (Lasts about as long as their charismatic leader, and when he dies, they break up and have to find work elsewhere. "Attilas" to do not grow on trees, and Hordes *NEED* Cities to steal from.) Even Raid-o-holic Viking communities had humble farmers who lived peaceful, boring lives.

So Orcs cannot be these three things all at once:

-A major threat
-An enduring society that will not break down after a generation.
-Made up entirely of warriors because they just can't understand any other way to interact with other races beyond pillaging and raiding their cities.

Which one do YOU want to give up?

Mind you, an intelligent carnivorous species might not be inclined to be friendly, but as long as they can reliably herd food animals of their own, they can have a civilization. Of course, ranching animals requires loads of land, and it might be beneficial to try to make alliances/non-intervention pacts (or at least try to intimidate potential rivals, and just give the impression that the other humanoids would face a massive, horrific retaliation if they don't respect your territory. Its not peace-peace didn't involve hundreds of skulls on stakes along your border, but it is....order. And its also fairly alien/evil.) all because for a carnivorous race to run an agarian society to support even the tiniest population of nonfarmers, their poor, overworked military can't be worrying about chasing everyone and their brother out of their sprawling, indefensible farmlands.

chronoplasm
2008-09-22, 06:37 PM
Idea:

All Orcs are warriors, but they use other races to do all the peaceful, boring jobs. By other races I mean Gobbins!!!

The Goblins do all the boring jobs while the Orcs fight. The Goblins farm, they mine, they build, they trade. The Orcs attack, defend, and relay commands from the goblins' demonic overlords.

The Orcs bring their loot back to the Goblins in exchange for food, shelter, weapons, and armor. The Goblins use that gold to trade with the Kobolds for pseudo-dragon mounts, and to trade with Liches and other mages for magical items.

horseboy
2008-09-22, 07:37 PM
Gobo-slaves are pretty much a standard of goblinoid societal structures. Of course, given that they're non-cursorial hunters as well, well, it explains much about goblinoid "kulture".

monty
2008-09-22, 07:44 PM
What do monsters spend their money on?

Booze and women. Obviously.

TeeEl
2008-09-22, 08:43 PM
Okay, but I think that you're objecting to black and white because you are the product of a society which assumes greyness in everything - yet this outlook is probably less than 60 years old in our world*. That's why I find your vision uninteresting - I can get it in RL anytime I want.

Given our real world's endless obsession with greys, I think the black and white of a typical D&D setting is actually more intellectually stimulating than a "realistic" moral set up.

As to nature/nurture: perhaps an orc can repent, briefly, but their nature will out (which is a classic bit of archetypal symbolism), so you need to kill them as soon as possibile after they do repent or they will miss their chance to go to heaven and go back to doing evil things. Mercy can be very misguided when nature > nurture. It's bloody tragic, ain't it?

Again, exploring a world with different parameters is more interesting to me than exploring one where essentially all the normal everyday moral dilemmas and values are carried over with only small changes to the labels.

*Occassional philosophers excepted; I mean as a general baseline assumption.

Hmm. Let's try this black and white thing out. Ahem.

YOU ARE WRONG. I AM RIGHT.

Hey, that was pretty awesome. Maybe there's something to your point of view after all oh crap I just made a paradox. Poop.



In all seriousness, you pose an interesting thought experiment, but the more you jiggle around the world's parameters the more frequently you run into divide by cucumber errors. Mindlessly evil races tend to run into sustainability issues which make it difficult to justify them as a race. Where do the orc tribes' resources come from? They are a failed society, unable to support themselves. Plunder cannot sustainably support them; there is no possible people-to-monster ratio that allows enough monsters to threaten the civilized people while allowing enough surplus for the orc tribes to harvest. Clearly, "always evil" races do not have societies at all. "Always evil" orcs are spontaneously generated by evil gods as a scourge upon the civilized people of the world, and their supplies are obtained largely as a direct subsidy from their patrons. Tolkien took this route himself, and interestingly he was far from the only one; historically quite a lot of observers attributed similar sources to their cultural enemies. Vikings? Mongols? Jews? Satan did it! (Note that although these examples are stereotypically Christian European in their origin, Europeans were by no means unique in their tendency to demonize foreign enemies.)

Personally, I don't mind the idea of "Always Evil" quite so much itself. It's "Always Stupid Evil" that irritates me. The classic depiction of "always evil" orcs paints them as being in many ways dumber than animals, as their inability to act in their own self-interest goes beyond mere shortsightedness. Evil humans can frequently function in a non-evil society, simply because cooperation usually has a better risk-reward ratio than aggression. There's no particular reason that evil orcs and goblins shouldn't be able to figure this out as well.

horseboy
2008-09-22, 08:56 PM
Personally, I don't mind the idea of "Always Evil" quite so much itself. It's "Always Stupid Evil" that irritates me. The classic depiction of "always evil" orcs paints them as being in many ways dumber than animals, as their inability to act in their own self-interest goes beyond mere shortsightedness. Evil humans can frequently function in a non-evil society, simply because cooperation usually has a better risk-reward ratio than aggression. There's no particular reason that evil orcs and goblins shouldn't be able to figure this out as well.
Sure there is. The evil human can trust the non-evil member of society, even if that trust is just for them to be a rube. He can also trust that said non-evil member of society isn't going to try and stab him in the back while he sleeps and take his stuff and money. Goblinoids don't have that trust. Likewise you're assuming that goblinoids are capable of long term planning.

TeeEl
2008-09-22, 09:12 PM
Sure there is. The evil human can trust the non-evil member of society, even if that trust is just for them to be a rube. He can also trust that said non-evil member of society isn't going to try and stab him in the back while he sleeps and take his stuff and money. Goblinoids don't have that trust.

Paranoid people can usually function just fine, too.



Likewise you're assuming that goblinoids are capable of long term planning.

Why yes, I am indeed operating under the assumption that a race which is defined as being every bit as intelligent as humans is in fact as intelligent as humans. Admittedly most humans tend to have difficulty with long term planning too, but that doesn't stop human societies from progressing.

(Orcs, at least, are defined as being slightly less intelligent than humans, so you'd have some argument there. But even then, a slightly-above-average orc is just as smart as an average human, so some of them would be just as capable of long-term planning.)

Thoughtbot360
2008-09-22, 09:19 PM
Hmm. Let's try this black and white thing out. Ahem.

YOU ARE WRONG. I AM RIGHT.

Hey, that was pretty awesome. Maybe there's something to your point of view after all oh crap I just made a paradox. Poop.



In all seriousness, you pose an interesting thought experiment, but the more you jiggle around the world's parameters the more frequently you run into divide by cucumber errors. Mindlessly evil races tend to run into sustainability issues which make it difficult to justify them as a race. Where do the orc tribes' resources come from? They are a failed society, unable to support themselves. Plunder cannot sustainably support them; there is no possible people-to-monster ratio that allows enough monsters to threaten the civilized people while allowing enough surplus for the orc tribes to harvest. Clearly, "always evil" races do not have societies at all. "Always evil" orcs are spontaneously generated by evil gods as a scourge upon the civilized people of the world, and their supplies are obtained largely as a direct subsidy from their patrons. Tolkien took this route himself, and interestingly he was far from the only one; historically quite a lot of observers attributed similar sources to their cultural enemies. Vikings? Mongols? Jews? Satan did it! (Note that although these examples are stereotypically Christian European in their origin, Europeans were by no means unique in their tendency to demonize foreign enemies.)

Personally, I don't mind the idea of "Always Evil" quite so much itself. It's "Always Stupid Evil" that irritates me. The classic depiction of "always evil" orcs paints them as being in many ways dumber than animals, as their inability to act in their own self-interest goes beyond mere shortsightedness. Evil humans can frequently function in a non-evil society, simply because cooperation usually has a better risk-reward ratio than aggression. There's no particular reason that evil orcs and goblins shouldn't be able to figure this out as well.

I freaking love you, man.


Likewise you're assuming that goblinoids are capable of long term planning.

Sigh...Goblins don't even hav an Intelligence penalty. Neither do Hobgoblins or Bugbears. For a "Sentient" species, lacking long-term planning is like a lacking "Object permanence." If a PC casts invisibility on himself -or just hides behind anything for that matter- do goblinoids immediately assume he's gone and no longer a problem and that they shouldn't look for him? (For those who don't know, Object permanence is the mental ability to see an object, watch that object disappear from view behind a veil or barrier of some kind, and remember that said object still actually exists. Younger babies might not develop it that early in life, but they will usually develop it before they learn to walk.)

But, let me just tell you what we're assuming: we're assuming that humanoid monster species x actually has avoided extinction long enough to develop fire and battle axes that they are using to pillage and burn the poor, innocent NPC peasants that will pay you gold to kill the monsters in retribution and turn your PC from being just a "random, murderous drifter armed with steel and/or magic" into an "adventurer", and if it floats your boat, a "savior of the world."

Fishy
2008-09-22, 10:08 PM
So, I have this thing about cockroaches. If someone needs me to look after their dog, I'll happily take care of it for a few days. If a bird gets into my house, I will open a window and let it out. If I find a spider, I'll scoop it up and take it outside. If a roach gets into my house, I will grab the nearest blunt object, kill them quickly and gruesomely, and mutilate the corpse until I'm sure it's dead. I like to think I'm an intelligent, rational, non-sociopathic person about most things, but something about roaches just triggers a reflex. "Gah- WRONG! Kill it!"

That's sort of how I think about the 'monster' races must feel. Maybe it's an uncanny valley thing, and humans look and move just enough like orcs for it to be freaky. Maybe it's a cultural thing, and orc kids are brought up hearing about how humans are filthy, "unclean", and carry all sorts of of diseases, and they crawl all over your house when it's too dark to see, and they're clever and quick and damn hard to kill, and the only people who have them in their house are too poor or lazy to get rid of them, and after the end of the world they'll be the only thing that survives, and even if you cut off their heads they'll squirm and writhe and keep trying to run away-

Anyway. It's not impossible for orcs, kobolds and hobgoblins to have perfectly well developed societies, with art and science and culture and philosophy- but if they see a human/elf/dwarf, they will instantly drop everything that they're doing and attack until it is dead or out of sight. With a mighty battle cry of "Eww! Gross!"

Khanderas
2008-09-23, 01:31 AM
I didn't want to quote it all, but I couldn't find anything that should go.
The Orcs from Warcraft universe are awesome and I prefer to play the Horde when in those games...

But le's not try to move monsters from what they are now to Humans-with-a-different-skin where everything has to fit the human perspective (cooperation, socialisition, gender equality, economic structure). Perhaps this comes from a kind of Disneyfication where anything intelligent is humanised. The shark anology says it even better actually (see the quote), a shark is BUILT the way it is, it swims and eats fish. Adding intelligence wont make them start to build apartments or invent the telephone or go vegetarian.

"Evil" humanoids do what they do because they are wired that way. Either from evolution where orcs that were strong and fought, got the women, or a devine mandate that states Gruumsh want's it this way. Both approaches will all but ensure that there is a thick hardwire, instinct if you will, that ensures Orcs will not become farmers just because you show them how, or tailors just because you got them away from their thuggish friends who were a bad influence on them. Orcs do NOT have a secret dream of living peacefully, evolution or Devinity ensures that is not part of the equation.

Thats mostly because a Shark is a Shark. You don't see me talking about Nonhumanoids making cities. Orcs have a basically human body (two legs, opposable thumbs, loads of weaknesses that are best countered by gathering into a tribe and even one guy occasionally making a heroic sacrifice to save the rest of the hunting party.) and so they can only be "Wired" differently from humans to the nth degree, Aboleths on the other hand........



So every Orc under the sun is a warrior? That's possible. It requires a hunter-gather society (Few numbers in each tribe) or a Barbarian Horde (Lasts about as long as their charismatic leader, and when he dies, they break up and have to find work elsewhere. "Attilas" to do not grow on trees, and Hordes *NEED* Cities to steal from.) Even Raid-o-holic Viking communities had humble farmers who lived peaceful, boring lives.

So Orcs cannot be these three things all at once:

-A major threat
-An enduring society that will not break down after a generation.
-Made up entirely of warriors because they just can't understand any other way to interact with other races beyond pillaging and raiding their cities.

Which one do YOU want to give up?

Mind you, an intelligent carnivorous species might not be inclined to be friendly, but as long as they can reliably herd food animals of their own, they can have a civilization. Of course, ranching animals requires loads of land, and it might be beneficial to try to make alliances/non-intervention pacts (or at least try to intimidate potential rivals, and just give the impression that the other humanoids would face a massive, horrific retaliation if they don't respect your territory. Its not peace-peace didn't involve hundreds of skulls on stakes along your border, but it is....order. And its also fairly alien/evil.) all because for a carnivorous race to run an agarian society to support even the tiniest population of nonfarmers, their poor, overworked military can't be worrying about chasing everyone and their brother out of their sprawling, indefensible farmlands.
Well if I have to give up one of those alternatives it would be the major threat part. Individually an orc is very big and much inclined to bash your cranium, but as a civilisation they don't pose much of a threat.

I get the feeling your post was some kind of rebuttal, but I must be missing something since you seem to mostly agree with me.

nagora
2008-09-23, 02:36 AM
Mindlessly evil races tend to run into sustainability issues which make it difficult to justify them as a race.
You're right; I'm glad I didn't suggest that.

Also, I'm playing 1e where orcs are LE, which does have some effect on their ability to trust each other. But even CE creatures with Int>5 know when they have common cause/enemies, and they know when they are too weak to risk offending another member of society's friends by sticking a knife in their back, for example.

In 1e at least, orcs are much more dangerous and tougher than humans on an individual basis, and hobgoblins are tougher still.


Plunder cannot sustainably support them; there is no possible people-to-monster ratio that allows enough monsters to threaten the civilized people while allowing enough surplus for the orc tribes to harvest.
We'll be in trouble if they ever discover slavery...oh, wait! Seriously, though, you need to stop equating "Evil" with "Dumb as an ox"; that's something you appear to be bringing to the table.

You also need to bear in mind that alignment is defined within the game and the orcs etc. are perfectly capable of acting in intelligent self-interested and organised ways which are evil by that standard.

In one campaign, I have cities where the occassional orc party will mix with humans and demi-humans. They're still evil, but that doesn't mean they just run around the marketplace killing everyone until the city guard takes them down. I mean, it's not Texas! But they hate trading with "weaklings" and will steal and lie and cheat IF they can get away with it. In areas of lower human population density, they will do just that. Near the big city, they will sometimes trade (always with a level of dishonesty that rivals the human merchants') but they're still evil. Irredeemably evil.

One important characteristic of them being irredeemably evil is that their total resistance to "conversion" causes humans to compromise their morals in order to deal with them (hire them as mercenaries usually, but also some trade in the bigger cities). Then the humans start to slide down the slippery slope too.


Mind you, an intelligent carnivorous species might not be inclined to be friendly, but as long as they can reliably herd food animals of their own, they can have a civilization.
Fine - they can herd humans and halflings. Happy now?

Matthew
2008-09-23, 03:43 AM
In all seriousness, you pose an interesting thought experiment, but the more you jiggle around the world's parameters the more frequently you run into divide by cucumber errors. Mindlessly evil races tend to run into sustainability issues which make it difficult to justify them as a race. Where do the orc tribes' resources come from? They are a failed society, unable to support themselves. Plunder cannot sustainably support them; there is no possible people-to-monster ratio that allows enough monsters to threaten the civilized people while allowing enough surplus for the orc tribes to harvest. Clearly, "always evil" races do not have societies at all. "Always evil" orcs are spontaneously generated by evil gods as a scourge upon the civilized people of the world, and their supplies are obtained largely as a direct subsidy from their patrons. Tolkien took this route himself, and interestingly he was far from the only one; historically quite a lot of observers attributed similar sources to their cultural enemies. Vikings? Mongols? Jews? Satan did it! (Note that although these examples are stereotypically Christian European in their origin, Europeans were by no means unique in their tendency to demonize foreign enemies.)

This rather completely misses the point of a treating orcs and other humanoids as monsters. A viable ecology is not at all of interest (even less so than with elves) in this paradigm. The monsters are mythological, placing them in a real world ecology is part of humanising them.

Tolkien actually never really settled on a genesis for the orcs, whether they are self aware or mere automotons animated only by the will of their creators is an issue bound up with his religious views, but that is a very complicated subject for another time.

As for the demonising of historical peoples, yes, that is a very normal human response to a perceived other, and a subject that is often addressed with a "who are the real monsters?" question already answered. However, the proposition put forth by Tolkien, and the mythological root, is that monsters and demons are real and so are our perceptions of them, which stands in stark contrast to the "monsters are more similar to us than you might think" Star Trek message.

I would compare orcs and humanoids to demons and devils, but it seems that D20/3e/4e has made allowance for "good" demons...

horseboy
2008-09-23, 12:55 PM
Sigh...Goblins don't even hav an Intelligence penalty. Neither do Hobgoblins or Bugbears. For a "Sentient" species, lacking long-term planning is like a lacking "Object permanence." If a PC casts invisibility on himself -or just hides behind anything for that matter- do goblinoids immediately assume he's gone and no longer a problem and that they shouldn't look for him? (For those who don't know, Object permanence is the mental ability to see an object, watch that object disappear from view behind a veil or barrier of some kind, and remember that said object still actually exists. Younger babies might not develop it that early in life, but they will usually develop it before they learn to walk.)No, a non-cursoiral species would have object permanence. It would be closer to say they all suffer ADHD. Let's look at the typical goblinoid. They're brutal raiders. They only siege when directed by an outside force. They're art (when it exists) and tools are crude and rough. They allow their belongings to succumb to entropy. They prefer to rely on traps to protect their homes rather than sentries. They're lazy. Everything about this screams ambush predator, rather than cursorial hunter. Now, I do understand that you'd think humans and goblinoids should have a common ancestor, given the existence of half-orcs, but that would also mean that humans and dragons have one too. So, no, an orc's mind doesn't have to work like a human's. If anything it would work more like a cat's. Highly effective at what it does, but easily distracted and bored quickly. As such, they don't develop things like technology nearly as fast as a human who can set and watch an animal for months at a time just to see what they do. They get bored making the sword too quick to put all the folds in it and all the filigree and beautiful bits that a human or dwarf would do. They see movement and their first reflex is "pounce". That they're able to curb that to be able to work together does indeed say something about their level of intelligence.

Jayabalard
2008-09-23, 02:53 PM
Why yes, I am indeed operating under the assumption that a race which is defined as being every bit as intelligent as humans is in fact as intelligent as humans. Admittedly most humans tend to have difficulty with long term planning too, but that doesn't stop human societies from progressing. You're also making the assumption that thier intelligence manifests itself in exactly the same ways that it does for humans... which isn't necessarily the case. That's fine if they're just humans in rubber suits, but much less so if you want them to be the least bit alien. Personally, I don't have much interest in non-human races that don't think and act fundamentally different than humans do.

So it's quite reasonable to have goblinoids that are just as intelligent as humans but are totally incapable of long term planning.

Likewise, it's completely reasonable to have entire races of non-humans who think it's just fine to kill and eat humans on sight, rape their horses, and ride off on their women (ie, always evil)

Or an otherwise intelligent starfaring race who's warriors can't really come up with a strategy more complex than "Scream and leap" until after the warriors class has been systematically killed for hundreds of years (forced evolution by natural selection with the smart ones staying home and passing on their genes)

MartinHarper
2008-09-23, 04:15 PM
For a "Sentient" species, lacking long-term planning is like a lacking "Object permanence." If a PC casts invisibility on himself -or just hides behind anything for that matter- do goblinoids immediately assume he's gone and no longer a problem and that they shouldn't look for him?

I think by "long term planning" we're talking about months, not minutes. A species can have object permanence and not care about what happens in a month's time. That implies that either its young can start reproducing in a month or less, or that it produces many young and relies on numbers to have some of them make it to reproductive age. This need not mean they have a sub-par intelligence score, given how many things that stat measures.

Piedmon_Sama
2008-09-23, 04:56 PM
I can only tell you how it works in my settings, and what I do with each monstrous race is different.

Hobgoblins use gold, silver and copper after the fashion of human societies, because in my settings they are typically obsessed with aping the grandiose achievements of the more powerful races. They specifically pattern their architecture, armor and weaponry as well as social customs on the "Old Empire" (basically whatever the Ancient Rome analogue was in my most-used settings). They live in and restore (to the best of their ability) ruins from the long-gone days (King Louis the Ape from the Jungle Book is a point of inspiration here, as he and his troup of monkeys lived in ancient jungle palaces and crudely imitated a human court). As a result, they trade regularly with humans (Hobgoblins are, afterall, lawful, and not every human society is going to be good) for artifacts, slaves, tools and weapons, as well as any kind of relic from the ancient days they can use in their ceremonies.

My Goblins are usually split between the high-tech, amoral traders found in World of Warcraft and the worg-riding, cave-dwelling savages from traditional fantasy. They're naturally very intelligent and skilled engineers (I like to use an alternate Goblin with +2 Int) but there are some "traditionalists" who are usually led by Druids or Shamans. In the case of the traders, they value human currency because it's the most widespread and widely used form of money in the setting, so it allows their caravans to buy and sell in the largest variety of locations. They aren't always scrupulous about how they get it (Goblins will trade and occasionally fight for anybody, and notoriously sticky-fingered when they pass through a settlement) but they at least nominally operate within the same system as everybody else. The traditionalist Goblins actually despise gold money along with most other aspects of "civilized" culture, and will leave it behind when raiding a human village, and barter between their tribes is based on livestock (mostly the hardy goat, which can fluorish in their mountain homelands and provide milk as well as meat).

The sort of Orc civilization I use the most frequently makes "Orc society" a contradiction in terms. In the most remote parts of the map, Orcs live in small bands of extended family-units that follow herds of oxen, caribou or whatever (my orcs are completely carniverous, making agriculture a pointless endeavour for them). However, while there are no formal Orc nations, they live in large numbers just about everywhere; the guiding rule of Orc culture is "survival of the fittest." Gruumsh teaches every Orc to think for his own good, and so they approach the world very differently from other races: instead of "us vs them" it's "me vs everybody" (family usually excluded). As a result, Orcs will fight (sometimes other services, but almost always fight) for anybody--humans, hobgoblins, dwarves, they don't care, and they don't care if they fight each other. Since Orcs are by nature combative and fervent individualists, they don't do well in dense urban areas, but they are in high demand throughout many kingdoms as bodyguards, border-guards, caravan-guards, trackers and bounty hunters, assassins, maybe law enforcement if your local Feudal overlord has a twisted sense of humor. Orcs who live in human (or hobgoblin) society use human currency like anyone else, although they often negotiate to be payed simply in weapons, food and board, and perhaps the right to settle and raise a family somewhere in the community.

The point is, I've never seen why you need to "neuter" goblinoids and orcs in order to make them "palatable." Orcs are meat-eaters, possibly cannibals, and vary from hardcore anarchists to amoral barbarian ubermenschen... doesn't mean there's no place for them in a human society! Similarly, Hobgoblins can be brutal slavers, and that hardly makes them unfit for interaction with humanity, since quite a few human cultures once fit that bill.

On the other side of the coin, you have Elves and Dwarves, humanity's "traditional allies." I'm not gonna lie, I don't like to use either because all too often players just treat them like "humans in funny costumes" and forget just how alien a mindset something with a lifespan measured in centuries should be. Elves and Dwarves in my settings usually live far, far away from areas of high human population and interact little with the younger race. When they do appear, Elves treat humans at best with the condescending kindness you'd give a child, or at worst like nuisances or irritating apes. Dwarves are utterly obsessed with their artifices, so much so that it's hard for a Dwarf to understand how you could find a life more important than, say, a magic axe. I'm not trying to raise sympathy for the traditionally vile races, but I do try to heap some doubt on the typically "good" races. Sure, they're not out to conquer or raid humans, but the Elf and Dwarf societies I run are meant to be alien and framed outside of human morality. I think it makes a more exciting game when you can't immediately trust someone, no matter what their race is.

I've seen a lot of threads like this where someone asks the question of how you use inhuman races in your game, and it invariably devolves to arguing. Everyone seems to pay lipservice to the idea that there's no "wrong" way to play D&D, and then turn around and write epic posts defending why their way is "more interesting" and "more entertaining" or "more mythological" or (this one being truly WTF) "more realistic." Guys, isn't it possible that you can have orcs who are crafted from the raw, bubbling black crude of cosmic evil and spring up from the ground, weapons in hand, at the behest of a world-devouring evil deity, or orcs who are simply a mortal species with its own unique viewpoint and morality that can interact in a variety of ways with others, and neither of these approaches is superior to the other? That it's just how interesting you make the story, not the stock elements you use or the sources you borrow from?

Matthew
2008-09-23, 05:50 PM
I've seen a lot of threads like this where someone asks the question of how you use inhuman races in your game, and it invariably devolves to arguing. Everyone seems to pay lipservice to the idea that there's no "wrong" way to play D&D, and then turn around and write epic posts defending why their way is "more interesting" and "more entertaining" or "more mythological" or (this one being truly WTF) "more realistic." Guys, isn't it possible that you can have orcs who are crafted from the raw, bubbling black crude of cosmic evil and spring up from the ground, weapons in hand, at the behest of a world-devouring evil deity, or orcs who are simply a mortal species with its own unique viewpoint and morality that can interact in a variety of ways with others, and neither of these approaches is superior to the other? That it's just how interesting you make the story, not the stock elements you use or the sources you borrow from?

There is a huge difference between "My way is the best way" and "I think my way is the best way for me, here is why I think so." Recognising that these are two different statements is not always easy, but it is useful. If I say, "I would argue that my view is closer to the mythological and Tolkienesque roots of orcs" it is an invitation to debate, not a closing off of discussion. That this is prefaced by the something to the effect of "all ways are valid" is not lip service, but an attempt to put such statements into context.

In any case, it sounds like you have put a lot of thought into how you want various humanoids to work in your campaign milieu.

Raz_Fox
2008-09-23, 07:43 PM
The sort of Orc civilization I use the most frequently makes "Orc society" a contradiction in terms. In the most remote parts of the map, Orcs live in small bands of extended family-units that follow herds of oxen, caribou or whatever (my orcs are completely carniverous, making agriculture a pointless endeavour for them). However, while there are no formal Orc nations, they live in large numbers just about everywhere; the guiding rule of Orc culture is "survival of the fittest." Gruumsh teaches every Orc to think for his own good, and so they approach the world very differently from other races: instead of "us vs them" it's "me vs everybody" (family usually excluded). As a result, Orcs will fight (sometimes other services, but almost always fight) for anybody--humans, hobgoblins, dwarves, they don't care, and they don't care if they fight each other. Since Orcs are by nature combative and fervent individualists, they don't do well in dense urban areas, but they are in high demand throughout many kingdoms as bodyguards, border-guards, caravan-guards, trackers and bounty hunters, assassins, maybe law enforcement if your local Feudal overlord has a twisted sense of humor. Orcs who live in human (or hobgoblin) society use human currency like anyone else, although they often negotiate to be payed simply in weapons, food and board, and perhaps the right to settle and raise a family somewhere in the community.

On the other side of the coin, you have Elves and Dwarves, humanity's "traditional allies." I'm not gonna lie, I don't like to use either because all too often players just treat them like "humans in funny costumes" and forget just how alien a mindset something with a lifespan measured in centuries should be. Elves and Dwarves in my settings usually live far, far away from areas of high human population and interact little with the younger race. When they do appear, Elves treat humans at best with the condescending kindness you'd give a child, or at worst like nuisances or irritating apes. Dwarves are utterly obsessed with their artifices, so much so that it's hard for a Dwarf to understand how you could find a life more important than, say, a magic axe. I'm not trying to raise sympathy for the traditionally vile races, but I do try to heap some doubt on the typically "good" races. Sure, they're not out to conquer or raid humans, but the Elf and Dwarf societies I run are meant to be alien and framed outside of human morality. I think it makes a more exciting game when you can't immediately trust someone, no matter what their race is.

Cool! I like your ideas for non-human civilizations. The individuality of Orcs you've mentioned above might be something I'd use. (My orcs tend to have parties that other races call rampages). Your Elves are truly inhuman - mine simply don't care how much time they spend doing something. If something's worth doing, it's worth spending as much time as needs to be spent to do it perfectly. Of course, I play 4th Edition, so these are the traits of the Eladrin, or High Elves. And your Dwarves are interesting, to say the least. That's an angle I've never considered before.
Even more fun is to think about how these "inhuman" races view humanity. Crazy, wild mayflies that nevertheless leave a huge mark upon the world, inventors and explorers that will be remembered in history for a timespan many times their short lives.

Doomsy
2008-09-23, 08:30 PM
I'm with the idea that you really cannot have orcs as a major threat or in large numbers unless you add in some civilizing factors, unless you are playing total handwave style in which case anything works out fine. Making them carnivorous would sharply limit their numbers or their metabolism - it takes about two hundred or so prey animals to support one predator, if I remember my old college lessons right. It shifts radically depending on the nature of the predator, of course - a snake eating a sheep is set for a month, a tiger doing the same is going to have to take roughly one or more each week, maybe more.

Also, if you really like the cattle idea and want to destroy your players minds, base the orcs off the Maasai rather than the Mongols. Almost all of their food and culture is based off the cattle they guard, and besides being relatively friendly they are also known for being fierce warriors. Also they used to believe that all cattle on earth is theirs - which lead to them stealing them from their neighbors often. Makes for a fun conflict with a semi-stable nomadic network of tribes that you can settle with words or with the ol' kill 'em all strategy.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-23, 08:44 PM
I'm with the idea that you really cannot have orcs as a major threat or in large numbers unless you add in some civilizing factors, unless you are playing total handwave style in which case anything works out fine. Making them carnivorous would sharply limit their numbers or their metabolism - it takes about two hundred or so prey animals to support one predator, if I remember my old college lessons right. It shifts radically depending on the nature of the predator, of course - a snake eating a sheep is set for a month, a tiger doing the same is going to have to take roughly one or more each week, maybe more.The rule is 50% of an environment, by weight, can be predatory if they're cold-blooded predators. Only 10% of an environment can be if they're warm-blooded.

Thoughtbot360
2008-09-23, 09:32 PM
The rule is 50% of an environment, by weight, can be predatory if they're cold-blooded predators. Only 10% of an environment can be if they're warm-blooded.

Also, if they are cold-blooded they go into torpors when it gets too cold (potentially helpless if caught in mid-morning.) They are easily coup de graced in that state. No wonder Lizardman culture focuses entirely on survival.

Piedmon_Sama
2008-09-23, 09:49 PM
I'm with the idea that you really cannot have orcs as a major threat or in large numbers unless you add in some civilizing factors, unless you are playing total handwave style in which case anything works out fine. Making them carnivorous would sharply limit their numbers or their metabolism - it takes about two hundred or so prey animals to support one predator, if I remember my old college lessons right. It shifts radically depending on the nature of the predator, of course - a snake eating a sheep is set for a month, a tiger doing the same is going to have to take roughly one or more each week, maybe more.

Not to add on to a growing pile of handwavium or anything, but to defend my idea of carniverous orcs, there's two ways they can get to a population level higher than, say, one pack for every five hundred or so miles:

1) There's an animal that not only herds in incomparably huge numbers, but almost always remains completely stable and fixed rather than migratory. That animal is man. A city of 10,000 humans could feed a ravenous orc tribe for quite some time.

2) A typical D&D setting has no lack of huge animals for Orcs to target. Orcs could "prey" on solitary giants, ogres, even trolls (troll meat being the only thing orcs bother to cook), not to mention the various huge and dangerous animals that fill in a typical campaign setting's caverns and dungeons. You could get a certainly unique storyline going for an orc adventurer who's not out for wealth or power, just to fill his stomach.

Yahzi
2008-09-23, 10:17 PM
1) There's an animal that not only herds in incomparably huge numbers, but almost always remains completely stable and fixed rather than migratory. That animal is man. A city of 10,000 humans could feed a ravenous orc tribe for quite some time.
Er, no. Humans take way too long to grow to full size to be an effective dietary source.


2) A typical D&D setting has no lack of huge animals for Orcs to target.
Dinosuars, maybe.


I don't like the idea of orcs just being constructs. It just seems too contrived. It means there's only one enemy - the dark lord. I need more BBEGs than that, especially at the rate my players kill them. :smallbiggrin:

AslanCross
2008-09-23, 11:36 PM
Yeah, yeah, I know. Everything from Owlbears to Dragons (especially Dragons) and nonhumanoid monsters of all sorts collect gold and jewels because its shiny/they ate it but couldn't digest it/for gits and shiggles. But humanoid monsters are both as smart as the "good" races and they have hands but lack natural weaponry-they require tools, weapons, and could build cities if they only had the resources- they probably have an actual economy in which they might (though admittedly, not necessarily) have an actual use for gold.

Actually, according to the Draconomicon, dragons can digest literally anything (something along the lines of stomachs being like blast furnaces due to the elemental energy in their systems) and sometimes do eat some of their treasure.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-23, 11:40 PM
Actually, according to the Draconomicon, dragons can digest literally anything (something along the lines of stomachs being like blast furnaces due to the elemental energy in their systems) and sometimes do eat some of their treasure.How does electricity digest metal? I could understand Fire or Acid, and even cold if it just made anything brittle enough to shatter and be crushed, but...lightning?

monty
2008-09-23, 11:47 PM
How does electricity digest metal? I could understand Fire or Acid, and even cold if it just made anything brittle enough to shatter and be crushed, but...lightning?

I don't pretend to be an expert on electrochemistry, but I'm pretty sure it's possible.

TheThan
2008-09-24, 01:03 AM
This looks to me more like a parody of way people regard killing of orcs in a D&D setting: unsubtle, but it does raise a point.

Personally, I'd say The Orc King novel is beginning to rectify this: suggesting orcs are capable of co-operation, and introducing idea of a mixed orc-dwarf civilization that collapsed, naturally, rather than due to orc treachery.

Or see the warcraft franchise.

What was once just a bunch of rampaging monsters have come full circle into their own unique civilization.

AslanCross
2008-09-24, 03:34 AM
How does electricity digest metal? I could understand Fire or Acid, and even cold if it just made anything brittle enough to shatter and be crushed, but...lightning?

Of course it's a question of physics and magic again, but I'm pretty sure electricity can heat metal enough until it melts. After all, lightning can be as hot as around 54000 F.

pjackson
2008-09-24, 05:16 AM
I'm with the idea that you really cannot have orcs as a major threat or in large numbers unless you add in some civilizing factors, unless you are playing total handwave style in which case anything works out fine. Making them carnivorous would sharply limit their numbers or their metabolism - it takes about two hundred or so prey animals to support one predator, if I remember my old college lessons right. It shifts radically depending on the nature of the predator, of course - a snake eating a sheep is set for a month, a tiger doing the same is going to have to take roughly one or more each week, maybe more.


My "solution" is that human farmers use magic to grow more than in historical societies, but as in historical socieites much is lost to pests - rodents and insects typically, some of which have become giant sized as a result. Such pests are then eaten by orcs and the like, increasing the number of orcs around human societies. In times of famine low status orcs will eat vegetables. High status ones get what meat can be obtained or eat the low status orcs. Whilst orcs will herd animals for meat, they consider growing vegetables for food degrading.

Thoughtbot360
2008-09-28, 01:10 AM
Sure there is. The evil human can trust the non-evil member of society, even if that trust is just for them to be a rube. He can also trust that said non-evil member of society isn't going to try and stab him in the back while he sleeps and take his stuff and money. Goblinoids don't have that trust. Likewise you're assuming that goblinoids are capable of long term planning.

Except wasn't the question over how a literally all-evil society can exist? Truth be told, I used to wonder why it was that all the intrigue-obsessed devils hadn't (even just by the law of probability, devils have been around for a long time and the courts of Baator might be lawful, but they don't strike me as a low-risk environment) got together and simultaneously slit each others at some banquet or another, or even just caused their society to collapse via overpredation on themselves.

I mean, think about it, its like a society of Kabutos (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0595.html).

A Society of them.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to say why I only *used* to wonder why devil society managed to hold together.

....I simply stopped caring. The end.

Go away.

Xuincherguixe
2008-09-28, 11:00 AM
Well, I'm a Shadowrun sort of person myself, and in that game Orks really are humans :P

Let's face it, Dwarves and Elves are already pretty Human. Halflings and Gnomes too, but those aren't especially popular races.

Orcs are typically depicted in a dumb, but pretty human. Mind you I'm a tad misanthropic.


Do they have to all have be good? No. But they can have different values.

I also think if you're using them as enemies, that Intelligent monsters should be a threat. How they are typically depicted, Orcs are not much of a threat. An entire society of people too dumb to live.


As for getting back on topic? If monsters have a society, they spend the money within it. Maybe, your coins have pictures of some particularly famous Goblin. Urk the deadly poker. Made famous for the countless varieties of deadly poking devices she created revolutionizing the entire poking industry. Or, you might have coins with long vicious slashes over them for an Orc Coin.

Maybe they don't trade precious metals at all. Barter works, or it could be something given an arbitrary value, or even credit (if you want your campaign to have modern themes of economics :P). I would treat their "treasure" as being worth that number of coins if it's a race that would not normally have coins. Like magic rocks.

chronoplasm
2008-09-28, 11:09 AM
Idea:
Instead of coins, Dwarves use little figurines of monsters as currency.
The smallest unit of dwarven currency is The Flumph, worth about 5 copper.

monty
2008-09-28, 11:12 AM
Idea:
Instead of coins, Dwarves use little figurines of monsters as currency.
The smallest unit of dwarven currency is The Flumph, worth about 5 copper.

So...they trade miniatures?

Thoughtbot360
2008-09-28, 11:23 AM
Idea:
Instead of coins, Dwarves use little figurines of monsters as currency.
The smallest unit of dwarven currency is The Flumph, worth about 5 copper.

Dwarf customer: Do you have change for a Storm Giant?
Shopkeeper: Sigh....Let me see... *opens a booster pack*....I need an Umber hulk...Umber hulk....Umber hulk...BAH! MORADIN'S BEARD! Nothing but more lizardmen! I'm sorry, I only have some Goblins and an Owlbear -and of course infinite numbers of Lizardmen-, can you buy something else?
Customer: *Searches his "wallet" and realizes that he has one of those new Ogres, which are idiotically more colorful than the old ones, with bigger faces* Stupid financial system changing currency everytime we turn around...What we really need a way to help the blind tell the difference between a Gold Dragon and a Red One....

Doomsy
2008-09-28, 06:36 PM
Not to add on to a growing pile of handwavium or anything, but to defend my idea of carniverous orcs, there's two ways they can get to a population level higher than, say, one pack for every five hundred or so miles:

1) There's an animal that not only herds in incomparably huge numbers, but almost always remains completely stable and fixed rather than migratory. That animal is man. A city of 10,000 humans could feed a ravenous orc tribe for quite some time.

2) A typical D&D setting has no lack of huge animals for Orcs to target. Orcs could "prey" on solitary giants, ogres, even trolls (troll meat being the only thing orcs bother to cook), not to mention the various huge and dangerous animals that fill in a typical campaign setting's caverns and dungeons. You could get a certainly unique storyline going for an orc adventurer who's not out for wealth or power, just to fill his stomach.



1. You do not prey regularly on intelligent species ever and stay alive as your own independent cultural state in an even close to realistic setting unless you have the most secure bolt hole imaginable and a massive power advantage. The mind flayers barely work for this because they take great pains to not raid their neighbors and to do their slave raiding far outside their 'cities' as they can. This is for one very important reason: Humans and pretty much any intelligent species would regard anything that hunts them for pure food to be a massive threat worthy of genocide. A tribe of ravenous orc is by definition outnumbered by their food source in your scenario. A food source of relatively easily armed and very, very angry intelligent people who will pour over them in a human wave attack despite their vaunted orc strength and murder them down to the last child. The orcs would be all extinct within five generations. The only reason vampires get away with it is because they blend in with human society and have become parasites more than predators.

2. Huge prey still hits the environment really hard. At this rate you're talking about orcs living like neanderthals and hunting things like dire mammoths in the most isolated parts of the world where civilization has not tamed or killed such beasts to protect their crops and way of life. This hardly makes them dangerous or a horde threat - they'd be more tribal nomadic hunters like the American Indians raiding the far more technologically advanced medieval-era with magic civilized forces. Again, it would end in genocide or them being pushed slowly but surely right out of civilized areas. They just wouldn't be capable of bringing the numbers to bear to make up for civilized tech advantages and numbers.



If you really want them as carnivores in a setting and you don't want to do the handwavium route, make them ape-like savage predators. You downgrade their intelligence even further and massively upgrade their power. Like the most crazed baboons ever with a roughly neanderthal level of intelligence - poor coordination ability but some crude social ability. Nomadic, fast breeding, and capable of using crude stone-age tools or scavenged human ones. If you think this would make them less scary in combat, consider the idea of a stone club swing by something with a chimp or a gorilla. Ever read Congo? Yeah. Plus it makes them easier to see as literally feral mercenaries used by more intelligent races. The high mortality rate of their lifestyle and living environment would kill off most of them before they reached adulthood. Or cannibalism. They'd fit into a lost world style or maybe a modified great plains style system fairly well.