The Forge Archives

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On 2001-12-13 11:47, contracycle wrote:
Yeah, the Kafer were cool,

Yep, me too. I love all things Traveller, despite 2300 not having anything to do withe the rest of hte line.

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If this is what you are trying to getting at, I see where you are coming from Mike.  This would make a cool alternative psychology to play against rather than the simple Evil approach.  

That's it essentially, though I don't mind the Evil thing in a universe which has a cosmology that makes it sensible. I'd still like to see the description of that Evil society. How does it function day-to-day.

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Although it has to be said, given the prevalence of the concept of "barbarian" among "civilised" states - that pretty much any fur-wearing club-wielders are routinely seen as fair game, with no recognition of mutual humanity.  In a sense, D&D orcs are perfectly accurate in this regard, although this also appears to have been construed as Stupid, which Tolkiens orcs were not, IIRC (healing magic etc).

I don't really have a problem with the essential D&D description. I just find it thin (though that supplement which was mentioned sounds interesting; still, don't know that I trust those writers to do it right, tho).

As far as coming from Middle Earth, I always just have to ignore that connection. They aren't the same thing. Orcs are twisted elves in ME, and some that are poorly bred are pretty dumb. But others are quite clever. Not really here or there. D&D says that Orcs and goblins are two different things, which they're not in ME (though the different tribes have a lot of differences; I wonder if the movies will address that).

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However, thats also why they have been banished from my games.  I am uncomfortable with propagating such a view of biologically-determinate psychology (despite being a materialist).  I see too much 20th Century racism in D&D's "races" of humanoids: pale smart peaceful elves as the antithesis of dark stupid violent orcs.  All a bit too close to the bone, in my case anyway.  My fantasy worlds have nothing but humans, and various human cultures.  Its more interesting that way anyway, I think.

Well, I like non-humans because they are non-human. Allows a lot of "What if" play. Like the Kafer example.

But I agree with your assesment of the potential racism inherent. Worse than the elf/orc dichotomy (IMO) is the light-elf/dark-elf thing. In ICE's shadow world Amthor fixes this by making them all white (the dark then refers to their spirits). But in D&D the bad guys elves are actually black. Wonderful idea (not).

With the right group, however, I can feel comfortable discussing the idea of non-human intelligence being different (and possibly inferior from the human POV).

Extremely interesting subject matter, IMO.

Mike

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What I would like to see is the same sort of consistency applied to orcs as the violent, brutal, craven, and honorless monsters that they are in most games.

I always liked how the society of the Space Orks was described in 2nd ed. Warhammer 40K. They were big, mean, and ugly, and they enjoyed fighting and killing because, as a warrior race , they were genetically engineered to do so, so they'd wage war on the other races. The thing was, they had no idea that the other races did not enjoy fighting and killing as much as they did.

Basically, they grew up in a society where being honorless, violent, etc. was the norm but they they have such an orkish view of the universe that it never occurs to them that other societies aren't the same way.

I remember reading some fluff text in one of the Warhammer books about the orks conquering a city and enslaving the humans. They made the humans march and were extremely confused when the humans began dying from the extreme physical stress it was placing on them. The orks were fine and they didn't know why the humans weren't!

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(well, yours is only consistent in that it is too short to have inconsistencies).

Heh...very true.

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But that's what I want. A description of how such a society works on a day-to-day basis, their psychology, etc.

Ahh, so you're looking for a source-book on a type of orcs, not necessarily on just any orcish culture (such as an honorable one)?

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but I'd like to see a less "revisionist" version. Something that looks more at the "alien-ness" or the creatures.

Unfortunately, you probably won't get that from me.  "Orcs" is meant to be more comedic in tone -- except for the mechanics, which are actually a serious attempt to make narrativist tools (ie: mechs tied to the game) -- spoofing the whole orcish bit as bad-guy fodder.

The 'honorable' bit comes in from the mechanics.  Since the main thrust of the game, in terms of gaining personal power for your orc, is about screwing with your buddies' dice and making things tougher for them, if you aren't careful about what you use all that power for, your buddies might put your head up on a pole.

If you help your buddies past their bad luck (and all orcs are unlucky, right?  They're always comic relief bad guys (and I think the mechanics express this nicely)) -- regardless that it was imposed by you -- they'll return the favor.

If they don't, you can string them up by their toes.

You make a good point, I've hijacked your thread. You've made what you wanted, and it looks pretty fun. I was just going on about something else.

My Apollogies. At least you know that you are not alone in the honorable orc thing.

Mike

Before I start: thanks to all the folks who said nice things about ORKWORLD. You rule.

Now, on to other business...

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On 2001-12-07 17:22, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
At the risk of continuing the thread-hijack . . .   Here's a quote from Ryan Dancy about Orcs in D&D...

Here's why saying "orcs are all chaotic evil" is a good idea.

Ryan's statement: I am about to explain why the genodice of a race that doesn't look like me is justified in D&D.

QuoteIf the monster's alignments are determined by their own personal belief systems, actions, upbringing and culture, then it would be an evil act to slay, out of hand and without attempts to parlay, a monster.

That makes most D&D groups I know "evil." Including the Knights of the Dinner Table. Not the characters, but the _players_.

QuoteIt also brings in issues of ethics regarding children and noncombatants. Do you kill the orc babies? You do if they always without exception period grow up to be Orcs (sadistic, evil creatures). You probably don't if you could send them back to your home village and have them raised under better circumstances to be productive members of civilization.

That's right: Murder them before they get a chance to be evil. But if we can send them back to _our_ culture (the good and holy one), we can re-educate them.

I'm sure my Native-American friends will _love_ this argument.

QuoteIn the D&D cosmology, some creatures are evil because the gods want them that way.

According to elven scholars no doubt.

QuoteNot because they're misunderstood, or uneducated or come from barbarous uncivil tribal backgrounds.

Unlike the civilized races like... oh, let's say... humanity. Men _never_ kill other men. Or dwarves. Who _never_ go to war with each other. Or elves. Heaven knows "elven war" is a term we just never use.

QuoteGruumsh, the One-Eyed

An obvious misrepresentation of Bashthraka if I ever saw it.

Quoteon the day of creation, stirred a little bit of evil into the soul of each and every Orc ever to be born, so that they would satisfy some diefic and fiendish plan.

And the human gods gave their boys and girls "freewill."
So they could _choose_ to exterminate other races. Cute.

QuoteThus, it is "OK" for the characters to slay orcs on site, kill the orc babies and noncombatants, put their villages to the torch, and salt the earth when the embers cool.

Kill them on sight.
Even the children.

And Ryan expects this to be a representation of "good."

No wonder Ghandi's in Hell.

Remember: Ryan said at the beginning of this he was going to explain why making all orcs (ugh) "chaotic evil" was a good idea.

He didn't.

He explained why _killing_ orks on sight was a good idea. Because they're all evil.

In other words, making all orks evil is a good idea because it makes the ethics of killing all orks on sight easy.

Not the same thing at all.

Take care,
John

(PS: Your Orc game looks like a lot of fun. I remember you e-mailing me about it. Keep up the good work.)

Take care,
John
Ork Liberation Front
Member #29783
"I think there ought to be a rule in war that says you gotta sit down with a fella and talk to him for a few minutes before you can shoot at him."
- Colonel Sherman T. Potter

[ This Message was edited by: John Wick on 2001-12-18 12:30 ]

John,

I dunno, man.  

(I had more here, and others did respond to it, but I have decided that the whole thing is off-topic and should take my comments off of this thread, leaving my on-topic comments which are sorely lacking.  I'd just delete my post were that an option)

In any case, this is completely off-topic and kind of a pointless conversation.  Some people use them as cannon fodder, some people prefer to think of them as a true race.  There is no way to stop either.


Anyway, back to the topic.

Raven,

The games look good.  Unfortunately, I can't really give them a thorough read-through.  (I had surgery yesterday and can't seem to concentrate on anything.  Life is sad when "certain sites" can no longer hold my interest, if you know what I mean)

Unfortunately, even if I could concentrate I don't believe either would interest me very much.  Nothing wrong with your games per se.  It's all me.

I had personally been working with games that don't use numbers at all, not in the typical way, anyway.  Silly, I know, but that's where I am so I'm not going to be very helpful to you on that point.

But in either case I want to encourage you to pursue them.  Maybe that's besides the point to you as you've mentioned that they're old and you've probably moved on to something else.

Oh well

[ This Message was edited by: pblock on 2001-12-19 12:27 ]

QuoteJohn Wick wrote:

QuoteGordon C. Landis wrote:

Here's why saying "orcs are all chaotic evil" is a good idea.

Ryan's statement: I am about to explain why the genodice of a race that doesn't look like me is justified in D&D.

['Racism on display' snipped, nothing to add.]

You know, I guess I don't take thing literally enough.  When I ran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons back in the seventies, I had to ask myself, "Are all these 'evil monsters' so brutal to their own kind?"

I couldn't help but answer no.

So why does the Monster Manual list so many arguably sentient creatures as evil?  My answer: human bias.

Orcs hate humans?  Then they're evil.  Drow hate humans?  Then they're evil too.  A race really doesn't care what humans do?  They must be neutral.  Another race allies itself to mankind?  Neutral good.  See the pattern?

Following these conclusions, I began using so-called 'evil' races as thematic statements on daily life and global politics.  I mean the Klingons and then the Romulans were supposed to be two different faces of the 'red menace' during the cold war.  (What did that guy call the soviet union?  Oh yeah, 'The Evil Empire.'  Did that mean soviet citizens ran around brutalizing each other all the time?)  What can I say?  Before I became The Anti-Star Trek Fan, I was a trekker.

Thinking back, I am kinda surprised to realize I was already using premises and themes consciously in my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games as far back as '79, woo am I getting that old?

Fang Langford
[Who wonders about so many people taking gaming texts so literally, or maybe I'm the crazy one.]

I just couldn't let this one slip by without a comment:

"We're never shown why the empire is so bad, really, aside from the fact the dudes in charge of it follow the Dark Side of the Force."

I'd say that blowing up an ENTIRE PLANET just to make a point IS evil.

... and the stormtroopers killed Lukes family, violated Leia's diplomatic immunity yadda yadda.

I don't buy the stock badguy argument; the problem with RPG is that it is NOT linear media and we are obliged to extrapolate the probable from the known.  If we have a shitty, shallow explanation for a phenomenon in our games, it will show.

I'm also not happy with the "human bias" argument; this implies that really, all the products in the chain are just the "human" supplement showing human prejudices, like say a clanbook or similar.  This doesn't wash - especially for a core rules set, it should not be perspective-specific.

Are not orcs really the barbarian ante portas?  They're there because its in the imperial heroic tradition to wade through hordes of spear-carrying sub-humans.

Hey, it occurred to me that you might be able to a do a arther different interpretation based on Neanderthals.  There is some evidence for ritual burial and, more speculatively, whistle-based language.  If so this implies a smarter group than we are inclined to think, and the whistle language might be exploited to make them mysterious: no-one can talk to them.  We simply don't have the buccal arrangements to make their sounds, nor they ours.  This gives you a potential, even likely, enemy if for no reason more than the inability to talk to one another.

Quotecontracycle wrote:

I'm also not happy with the "human bias" argument; this implies that really, all the products in the chain are just the "human" supplement showing human prejudices, like say a clanbook or similar.  This doesn't wash - especially for a core rules set, it should not be perspective-specific.

I wasn't talking about products in general; I was talking about Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the first hardbound edition back in the seventies in particular, arguably primitive by any measure.  I would hope this kind of thing no longer occurs.  The funny thing is I don't have to explain what I mean, because you did:

QuoteI don't buy the stock badguy argument; the problem with [an] RPG is that it is NOT linear media and we are obliged to extrapolate the probable from the known.  If we have a shitty, shallow explanation for a phenomenon in our games, it will show.

In demonstrating that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, in its initial hardbound edition (and yes, my Deities & Demigods has C'thulhu and et cetera in it), was "a shitty, shallow" product in this fashion, I wanted to support an argument against 'Orcs are evil, by definition' revisionists the same way you "don't buy" it.  Nothing more.

But while I am on the subject, aren't we skating awfully close to whole 'played as written' issue?  People trying to justify killing Orcs simply because they are evil sound like apologists just trying to 'play the game as it was written.'  On the other hand are people who 'take the game as a basis' and do whatever they want (like me and the AD&D Orcs).

Which way is right?  That cannot be determined (probably a subjective answer anyway).  The point I am raising is that as a game designer or writer or creator, there is no way I can control how someone uses my games (sounds a little like Oppenheimer, doesn't it?).  What I can do is try and write better than "shitty, shallow" products and take away the 'because it is (whatever)ist' argument against 'playing the game as written.'

Ideally, for my product, I would want 'playing the game as written' to appeal to a broad selection of people (not to be confused with 'the lowest common denominator') thus not to introduce another hurdle ('we have to ignore all this stuff just to play it') to reaching an audience.

Fang Langford

[ This Message was edited by: Le Joueur on 2001-12-19 09:22 ]

Folks, folks, sorry to intrude, but you've all gone and hijacked the thread.  I also don't (personally) think this is a particularly constructive discussion.

Either your game world has concrete concepts of good and evil, and certain races are and certain races aren't, or it doesn't.  End of story.

Discussions of universal morality, of good and evil, and of moral relativism -- excepting as they relate to "the truths" of our game worlds -- are not for this forum and should be left where they belong: philosophy and religious discussion groups.

Let's be more constructive: first, move this to another thread; second, let's talk about the value of utilizing one form of morality-expression as opposed to another in a game.
That is, what are games with defined morality good for?  What are games with relative morality good for?

Non-relative morality usually relies on an afterlife to punish the wicked and reward the good. If everything is relative then the fact that a certian group around 1940's in Germany treated *their own* fairly well might not get them branded 'evil' regardless of what else they did (and almost no one wants that). So absolute cultural relativity is pretty much out.

Even with AD&D's discrete alignements, it was more just an outlook than a real morality. Is the Slytherin house in Harry Potter *evil?* It sure seems that way but the books icon of good (Harry himself) was almost put in there. Now maybe it was because he could, with provocation 'go evil' but the subtext of the book was that the house's loose ethics was merely a quicker path to power. Maybe if he had been inducted in to the 'evil' house he would have made them good.

So I don't think fixed moralites without a concpet of an afterlife are useful (except in the case of the Paladin where deviations lose you powers--or if you use an Xp punishment--which I've never seen actually done). And if the afterlife question was answered (as it is in AD&D--you can go there) then what's the point? Who would want to go to the 796th level of the Abyss for ever even if it meant you got to be Duke for 30 years? No one.

-Marco

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So I don't think fixed moralites without a concpet of an afterlife are useful (except in the case of the Paladin

Ah but hang on - concerns over an afterlife are a powerful motivator for perceived moral behaviour.  I don't think that AD&D ever did answer the question, can't talk about third.  It mentioned that there were heavens; it mentioend that gods favourites went there; but it did not describe how the good worshipper made sure they went.  There was no moral code; there were not commandments; theories of afterlife and god are theories of his the world came to be, how it works, and AD&D did not discuss this (aprt from the multi-plane concept).

Strangely enough, HeroWars does not really delve into this aspect either.  It does better than most, though.

I like the idea of "final fate" tables; I believe Bushido had one, although I have only browsed a friends copy.  Essentially, the idea is to resolve just heavenly/infernal reward the character recives post mortem; I argue that this provides a goal for moral behaviour to aim at.  I know some people (one of my players) are outright horrified by the idea, but I feel quite strongly that unless/until some sort of systematic measurement of moral behaviour is introduced (not a prescriptive one like Alignment, though), such game-world issues will be seen as rather secondary matters in the course of play.  If they don't appear in the mechanics, players are being told that they are unimportant to play.

Hmmm ... okay ... good points--however, consider this:

1. The commandments are *pretty much* spelled out as the alignments--you go to your god if you follow the alignment. Now granted, we aren't talking the 10 commandments written out on a stone tablet but with huge organizations backing each cause and each alignment having its own language (WTF!?) I think the standard of behavior is pretty clear  (I mean, were all those Lawful Good NPC's just *winging* it?). The game wasn't about *questions* of good and evil, it was more about which army you fought for.

2. The final-fate table is an interesting idea--although I think my own moral code would probably override whatever someone put in the game book.

Anyway, I've never really seen the point that "what's in the game book" is going to be what's important to the GM and players.

-Marco