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Mike Mayer
United States
Cary
North Carolina
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Hey all!
Here's a slightly leading question: does anyone enjoy orcs? I played at lot of AD&D in the distant past and remember orcs as being those bland and dull monsters you had to wade through at first level before being allowed to encounter interesting foes. Just get'em over and done with, was my thought, so we can start enjoying ourselves. Now, years later an after only intermittent D&D play, I pick up a recent module meant for higher level characters only to discover a horde of orcs standing front-and-center in the plot. Even when suppressing my bias, I'm sad to discover an eighth-level orc feels just as dull as a first-level one. Now it's true that in this adventure the horde makes logical sense and combines well with some of the other monsters in the area, but, man, they're still dull, dull, dull.
Am I missing something (rhetorical question)? Who in the gaming world looks forward to fighting evermore orcs, especially when there are multitudes of truly inspiring monster out there to take down?
I think even the marketing department realizes the problem with orcs, since nowhere on the module's box are they mentioned. Instead, the much more interesting aspects of the adventure are highlighted. I can hear the marketing boss shouting, "Whatever you do, don't mention orcs!"
As a way of somewhat spurious proof of orc dullness, take a look at the Lord of the Rings movies. Orcs are nothing but fodder, and even in their featured scenes they're almost always combined with much cooler monsters to keep viewers awake. They're background noise.
So am I way off base here? Should I 86 my idea of a petition that orcs never appear in D&D again? Or should I seek out professional help for my completely unwarranted bias?
-Mike
Edit: the adventure allows the players to sneakily avoid the orcs...again and again...which is nice. But still, spending time avoiding orcs is almost as dull as fighting them.
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Dave Bernazzani (@rpggeek)
United States
Plainville
Massachusetts
I wish to provide legendary service to the RPG community to help grow our hobby and enrich the lives of gamers everywhere.
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I'm a big fan of iconic monsters and low-level play. I can't imagine running a game without Orcs in some capacity. Mundane? Maybe... But ... Must ... Kill ... Orcsies!
Dave
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Brian Leet
United States
Montpelier
Vermont
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I think orcs become dull when people make them that way. If you populate your world with ever more fantastical monsters it is a danger. If you save all your coolest ideas for those fantastical monsters it is a certainty.
The Lord of the Rings movies may have treated orcs as background noise, but the books certainly did not. They had distinct personality and variation, in addition to being savage and evil.
If orcs are becoming nothing more than 'speed bumps' in your games, a great way to catch players off guard is to have some orcs turn out to be far more clever, interesting, and dangerous than they expect.
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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I hear the same complaint about kobolds - "Kobolds again!?!!??"... because those types of creatures seem to be pervasive and expected at lower levels.
But I wholeheartedly agree with Dave and Brian on this one - any creature type will get stale and boring if you allow that.
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Eric Jome
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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I like big dramatic special monsters. I usually make my own monsters - I use the stats of something and dress it in a different body. Orcs are often not just "orcs" but "The Black Hand tribe" with lots of iconography and some weird practices to make them more of a character. But even then, I'm more inclined to a ghost of the town blacksmith ... stats = rust monster.
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Mike Mayer
United States
Cary
North Carolina
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I agree you have to try to make any monster interesting by treating them special and creating dramatic situations around them. Problem is, for me, orcs are aesthetically dull in any situation. Almost viscerally so. It's not even a mechanical issue for me. They're the Osmonds of D&D monsters. I've never met or created an exciting encounter and said to myself, "This is pretty great, but what it really needs to put it over the top is a sprinkling of orc juice!"
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Charles Donnell
United States
Houston
Texas
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Two of the monsters the players from my last couple of campaigns still talk about were orcs.
One they took prison and when questioned about how many other orcs there were in his band he counted, "One... two... more than two... Yes, much many more than two." He was affable enough that the players' characters didn't put him down and ended up hiring him some time later in the campaign as an assistant shopkeeper.
The other was a manhunter - an orc mercenary that specialized in collecting on bounties posted for adventurers. The first time the characters saw him they were first level and put down almost as a side effect of his taking a bounty. When the characters reached paragon level and found they were on his list of bounties to collect the campaign turned into a very dangerous cat and mouse affair for several sessions which ended when the party and the bounty hunter reached a stand off while fighting over a crevasse.
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Andrés Santiago Pérez-Bergquist
United States
Mountain View
California
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lorddillon wrote: I hear the same complaint about kobolds - "Kobolds again!?!!??"... because those types of creatures seem to be pervasive and expected at lower levels.
Man, kobolds in 4E are deeply annoying little buggers with their shifting all over the place. Giving each species of generic humanoid monster a distinctive mechanical identity is an excellent thing that 4E did. Kobolds and goblins and orcs all feel different in a fight.
lorddillon wrote: But I wholeheartedly agree with Dave and Brian on this one - any creature type will get stale and boring if you allow that.
Yeah, include lots of variety, and when presenting something, don't put it forth as commonplace, but make it feel special. "Five orcs attack you, again." is dull. "Howling towards you come four savage orcs bearing the sign of the Blackhand tribe, and you're pretty sure that the shaman they're guarding in back is none other than Rend Deadeye, because no one else wears a necklace of 100 human noses." sets up a much more memorable fight.
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Dave Bernazzani (@rpggeek)
United States
Plainville
Massachusetts
I wish to provide legendary service to the RPG community to help grow our hobby and enrich the lives of gamers everywhere.
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Quote:
Man, kobolds in 4E are deeply annoying little buggers with their shifting all over the place.
I read this on an iPad and the text was a little small. I totally misread the word "shifting" and have been laughing ever since 
Dave
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Maurice Tousignant
Canada
Windsor
Ontario
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I've always liked orcs. They are iconic and some of the most fun monsters to use when they aren't just a bunch of stat blocks. As noted previously, I love the way 4e made each monster type mechanically different. To me Orcs will always be Warhammer Orcs though with the bad cockney accent, fighting over teeh (orcs prize teeth as money) and constant animosity between themselves.
Now Kobolds I am sick of, expecially in 4e. I run far too many Encounters, RPGA and game day modules at low levels and there really needs to be a new level 1-4 foe.
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Richard
Greece
Marousi
Athens
RPGGrEEK Guild, γινετε μελος εδω:http://rpggeek.com/guild/1256
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Also Orcs and Goblins are great foes for new players because they know them from films, books and mainstream fantasy in general.
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Andrew Goenner
United States
Superior
Wisconsin
Running 5 PbFs
And still sane...mostly
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In the campaign world, I made huge changes to the fluff of orcs and made them feel like new to my players. It has to do with their entire ecology.
Basically, goblins/orcs/ogres/trolls were all one race.
Goblins are the first iteration of the species, born normally. However they are eyeless ("seeing" with their sense of smell). After a certain amount of time, goblins go into a chrystalis phase and come out as orcs. This is the stage at which they can breed (and give birth to goblins). Orcs had no mouths and communicated mentally with each other (making them much more tactical in battle than regular orcs, but still not making them much tougher to defeat).
If orcs manage to survive for any period of time, they go into a final Chrystalis phase. Depending on their heritage and the environment in which they go into the chrystalis, they come out as either ogres or trolls. Trolls are the heavy hitters of the race, elite guards and soldiers. Ogres either come out ogre mages or ogre chieftains. Usually only one ogre chieftain per brood. If more than one orc changes into an ogre chieftain, they either fight to the death or split the tribe into two tribes, going their own way.
Nothing really changed at all mechanics-wise, but the ecology of the race made them a lot more interesting for my PCs.
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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MasterGeek wrote: In the campaign world, I made huge changes to the fluff of orcs and made them feel like new to my players. It has to do with their entire ecology.
Basically, goblins/orcs/ogres/trolls were all one race.
Goblins are the first iteration of the species, born normally. However they are eyeless ("seeing" with their sense of smell). After a certain amount of time, goblins go into a chrystalis phase and come out as orcs. This is the stage at which they can breed (and give birth to goblins). Orcs had no mouths and communicated mentally with each other (making them much more tactical in battle than regular orcs, but still not making them much tougher to defeat).
If orcs manage to survive for any period of time, they go into a final Chrystalis phase. Depending on their heritage and the environment in which they go into the chrystalis, they come out as either ogres or trolls. Trolls are the heavy hitters of the race, elite guards and soldiers. Ogres either come out ogre mages or ogre chieftains. Usually only one ogre chieftain per brood. If more than one orc changes into an ogre chieftain, they either fight to the death or split the tribe into two tribes, going their own way.
Nothing really changed at all mechanics-wise, but the ecology of the race made them a lot more interesting for my PCs.
Sounds very awesome! And speaks to my biology geek very nicely - I may have to steal it 
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Andrew Goenner
United States
Superior
Wisconsin
Running 5 PbFs
And still sane...mostly
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lorddillon wrote: MasterGeek wrote: In the campaign world, I made huge changes to the fluff of orcs and made them feel like new to my players. It has to do with their entire ecology.
Basically, goblins/orcs/ogres/trolls were all one race.
Goblins are the first iteration of the species, born normally. However they are eyeless ("seeing" with their sense of smell). After a certain amount of time, goblins go into a chrystalis phase and come out as orcs. This is the stage at which they can breed (and give birth to goblins). Orcs had no mouths and communicated mentally with each other (making them much more tactical in battle than regular orcs, but still not making them much tougher to defeat).
If orcs manage to survive for any period of time, they go into a final Chrystalis phase. Depending on their heritage and the environment in which they go into the chrystalis, they come out as either ogres or trolls. Trolls are the heavy hitters of the race, elite guards and soldiers. Ogres either come out ogre mages or ogre chieftains. Usually only one ogre chieftain per brood. If more than one orc changes into an ogre chieftain, they either fight to the death or split the tribe into two tribes, going their own way.
Nothing really changed at all mechanics-wise, but the ecology of the race made them a lot more interesting for my PCs. Sounds very awesome! And speaks to my biology geek very nicely - I may have to steal it
Heh, as long as you don't publish anything with it. 
Someday I'll finish the damned book set in my world and then you'd be in trouble.
In case it wasn't obvious, goblins were used to scout ahead of orc warbands. The orcs were the basic grunt soldiers (although more cohesive units than standard orcs), trolls were the heavy hitters, ogre chieftains led orc tribes and ogre magi were...well...magic-using ogres. There were never more than a few ogre mages/trolls in any one tribe (partially because very few orcs survived long enough to enter that final stage).
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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MasterGeek wrote: Heh, as long as you don't publish anything with it. Someday I'll finish the damned book set in my world and then you'd be in trouble.
What?!? You mean this isn't open gaming material? Dang!!!
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Andrés Santiago Pérez-Bergquist
United States
Mountain View
California
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MasterGeek wrote: In the campaign world, I made huge changes to the fluff of orcs and made them feel like new to my players. It has to do with their entire ecology.
Neat. In my world, I decided that goblins are a gender-changing species, that are born female and after about twenty years turn male. Goblin warrens don't need a lot of excess older males sitting around eating up resources, so most of them get chucked out, which explains why there's so many bands of wandering goblin warriors out in the world. They're intelligent and tolerated amongst civilization, as long as they stick to being mercenaries and not bandits. The PCs got this from Splurg, a goblin sidekick that joined up with them after they dusted the rest of his warband that had been hired to be in their way.
Kobolds are a dim-witted race that was bred for slave labor by the ancient dragons of Arkhosia, in contrast to dragonborn, who were the warrior caste and needed to be able to think independently. Kobolds instinctively follow and worship dragonborn and actual dragons, a fact which many a dragonborn has abused to set himself up as chieftain of a little fiefdom.
Orcs are the original inhabitants of the world, and are a physically imposing humanoid race, most of whom live in a tribal society and are deemed barbarians by city-dwellers, but the PCs have been operating out of Hammerfall, which is a mixed orc-dwarf settlement founded by the remains of two armies that smashed into each other hundreds of years ago.
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Posted Sun Dec 11, 2011 5:31 pm
