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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: EltonJ on March 12, 2022, 04:42:48 PM
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Recent developments in my private life has made me rethink the idea that orcs are veritably evil.
I can't go into it, but lately the World of Warcraft game and the Elder Scrolls made me rethink orcs. Also, like I said, recent developments in my private life has made me question an orc's alignment.
Certainly, there are bad orcs. But what if there was an adventure where you are helping orcs survive? Obviously not in Middle Earth or in Shadow World. But in an adventure where an orc paladin asks you to help his village? Certainly that would be a different take.
I explored this before, I developed a campaign (https://the-orcs-of-karakar.fandom.com/wiki/The_Orcs_of_Kara%27Kar_Wikia) for Pathfinder where the player characters are playing "Horde" races (including orcs.) I don't think that orcs are irredeemable. They aren't given a chance to shine. What do you think? Why should they be low level fodder in your campaign?
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RM2 orcs are MERP orcs, which was how orcs were portrayed back in the 80s, meaning "monsters" to be defeated. The world has changed since then and nowadays, modern, orcs in many games, stories, anime, manga, and whatever aren't "irredeemably evil" any longer. As such, yours are what you want them to be, really. Giving an alignment to any sentient race is so very 80s one should just get around it nowadays.
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Because the rule book says so. Don't let the rule book rule you.
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This has been a topic in many campaigns, and the vary issue of evil, as well.
From a seminary school aspect, evil is a conscious choice, a result of individual volition. A race that has no choice in individual action cannot be evil. You are eaten by a lion, not due to the lion being evil but because the lion is hungry and you happen to be there. If an Orc's nature compels it to act in a way that you interpret as evil, can that Orc be evil if it has no rational choice? You may as well consider a sword or gun evil.
It an Orc has individual choice and the capacity for reason, then you have the argument of Nature vs Nurture -The propensity for evil vs the ability to learn good. If somebody cannot learn the difference between right and wrong, does can that person actually be evil?
A person is what he does. To be evil a person has to know that he has a choice to choose evil, which also means he has to understand good.
Middle Earth Orcs were a plot mechanic. They were the hordes of enemies that could be killed in droves and nobody would care about any of them. Their sole purpose was to war on Sauron's enemies, even in time of peace and had Sauron succeeded, they would likely have been allowed to die out when no longer needed. But we all know that wasn't going to happen...
Considering that Orcs were creatures designed to serve the ultimate evil, they were pretty much little more than tools. A ME Orc on his own would live a low human/high animal existence without somebody giving it orders.
Outside of ME, you can have them more or less human as you want.
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We didn't have the issue with 100% evil orcs. Speaking back to the 80's games, and a little more recently, players could choose Orcs and half-orcs as their PC. The issue that I warn players about is the in-game social interactions in have an orc or other rare race. In-game social prejudices depending on the region in which the players find themselves.
Something I started changing once I had a few years of gaming is the RM2 Dark Elves. Everyone assumes they are the Drow elves and therefore all evil. We just treat them as another Elven race. Just as there are a myriad of different hues of human skin tones, so there are for Elves.
It simply comes down to this fact: It's your game world.
As the GM, you are more powerful than the gods. You can have whatever social interactions and tropes you want in your world. If you don't want to have orcs fully accepted into society, have sections of the gaming world accept them. For us, the frontier towns are more more accepting of the races that are found in the region. The larger trading ports and cities are more accepting as traders can get their hands rare or forbidden goods for trade.
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One of my favorite roleplaying sessions back in the early 90's was a sidebar where my warhammer FRP half-orc pit fighter got into a philosophy discussion with the elven ranger about altruism. He was trying to explain the concept to my character who had a decent intelligence, but whose whole life experience revolved around the strong taking from the weak and doing as they will. It was a lot of fun.
For a different take on orc society, I recently ran across this site: https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html (https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html)
It paints an interesting picture of how you can have orcs act evil without being evil per se.
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I'm not sure "orcs are evil" are an issue, say, in Tolkien's work - they are clearly depicted as "constructs of darkness" with no actual free will, and when Sauron is ultimately destroyed at the end of RotK, they literally lose their mind. So orcs as we meet them in LotR are the equivalent of autonomous weapons - enough intelligence to act autonomously, but their morality is that of their controller.
Orcs (and Dark Elves, and others) in RPGs are more problematic because there are not defined as such. Rather, they are defined as intrinsically evil as a race. They are given physiological features that make them easily recognisable and are evil "because the gods said so", which is eerily reminiscent of how people in medieval europe depicted people "from outside" (vikings - even adding horns to their helmets in iconography to make them look more evil, muslim arabs, mongols...) . In all cases, those people were outsiders preying upon the christian community, and stamping them as "evil" absolved christians of any sin when killing them.
And that's the same with "evil" orcs and dark elves in early fantasy RPGs : since they are "evil", killing them (and stealing their possessions) is not a crime, and thus "adventurers" can be rich heroes without any moral judgement.
Fast-forward a few decades later, and such easy targets have lost part of their appeal, mostly because RPGs have drifted from the black and white world trope. Evil is not a race, it is a state of mind. By escaping the fantasy stereotypes into historical, modern, cyberpunk, and other genres, RPGs have mostly redefined evil as an individual feature. Orcs maybe savages and raiders (and, sadly, still often are in most fantasy RPGs), and the peasants they raid may still see them as evil, but that's a relative evil and orcs become people - much like the aforementioned vikings and mongols.
I think even D&D started deviating from the "evil races" stereotypes in the Forgotten Realms in the early 90s (there was an orcish culture that was defined as "not evil", and a number of drow individuals were breaching the stereotype - to the extent that drow characters were suddenly 'cool'). One drow ranger was an exception to contrast with the evilness of the whole race. A few thousand player characters later, drows had become part of the mainstream, and the later editions of D&D simply added them as playable races - while still keeping orcs out of the list, by the way. I'm pretty sure orcs still need their Drizzt Do'Urden - maybe a female one to go with the times.
I'm not sure the hobby has completely moved on from the old "evil race" trope - D&D certainly still includes it in its generic fantasy settings (and our own real world still embraces the idea that skin color implies a propension for criminal behaviour, as far-right populists in many countries claim). But many other games have clearly embraced the idea that evil isn't born, but raised. And most have also acknowledged that 'evil' is a qualifier nailed to a particular set of cultural values and, as such, relative to those values.
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I thought https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/6/30/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-ii-theyre-not-human and part 1 was useful in considering the underlying issues here.
Personally, I shifted my world from having murderous orcish tribes to having a reaver culture. There are many orcs who participate in that culture, but also humans, and conversely there are orcs that are part of cultures that are not murderous. Orcs have some traits that adapt well to that culture (strength, sturdiness, nightvision, but also they tend to prefer clear hierarchies and to formalize life milestones e.g. with initiation ceremonies/rites) but those traits themselves are morally neutral, and whether they are good or bad depends on context. So, that lets me play with regular fantasy tropes and use classic styled orc bad guys, while untangling race and culture, permitting orcs that aren't evil, creating new opportunities for humans who are evil (and not just in the trope form of evil humans who subjugate orcs), and offering less distasteful origins for half-orcs.
RMU already separates race and culture, so mechanically that's a very easy division.
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I like the way RM handles Dark Elves (not inherently evil, just a bit more likely to be seduced by it) and separates race from culture. I also think Orcs, if they are to be a playable race, should not be inherently evil (I probably wouldn't allow them or Trolls as playable races in Middle Earth for that very reason; but outside of Middle Earth, I don't think Orcs or Trolls need to be inherently evil).
One question I do have, though, is what do you do about creatures that are supposed to be inherently evil -- because there do seem to be some that should be inherently evil. Devils, for example, or demons in RM. Obviously, they don't make good playable races... but don't they demonstrate that there are some creatures that need to be inherently evil?
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Are devils and demons races, though, at least in the "classical" definitions? As the wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil) states, they usually are personifications or manifestations of evil itself, so they aren't really a race or even individuals. Demons are… harder to classify, if because what some people call a demon is not what other people call a demon, though "being evil" may be a common attribute given to one. However, if "being evil" is part of the definition of a "demon", then, though a demon would always be evil (by definition), a given individual that is being called a demon by some people may not: it's just that people would call him so because they perceive him to be "evil".
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In 1975 the D&D supplement Greyhawk hit the shelves in the only game shop in Honolulu. A new character class was introduced: The Paladin. My GM at the time asked me if I wanted to convert my fighter to paladin and I agreed to try it... At 16 years old I had already had nearly a year in a Catholic college and I had already presented my poor GM with complications to his very simple world... A war of genocide against the "evil" races. I don't mean raids on villages and caves, I mean rounding up populations, concentration camps, slave labor and eventually mass executions. I hit the research books on methods of genocide and I played to win...which the GM found disturbing.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." -Friederich Nietsche
Heh...I've been reading Nietsche since the 6th grade...
So...the genocidal war caused a lot of discussions on morality but I was already an experienced debater, while my GM was a rather genteel Sansei (Third generation Japanese) who lived a very protected life so instead of arguing the issue, left it all up to a series of random die rolls...and pretty much let me do anything I wanted.
During World War Two, the Japanese population in Hawaii was too large to be sent to concentration camps and the territory was simply placed under direct administration of the US military, under martial law. Considering over 60% of the population of Hawaii is Asian and if you didn't look Caucasian you were treated as a second-class citizen...and sometimes the target of brutal treatment by irate servicemen who were aware they never be punished. My grandfather was a policeman and he'd come home some nights with a broken billy club after arresting unruly Marines who had beaten up Japanese farmers and trashed their homes. That all being said, having a Japanese GM meant I had a GM sensitive to victimization tempered with a traditional (almost slavish) obedience to authority...and he let a teenager who constantly questioned authority take charge...
Everything worked just fine, evil races were on the brink of total annihilation until the GM introduced the concept of "balance" to the world. So all the surviving evil races were exiled to an island continent where they could thrive and execute limited raids.
Tolkein's Middle Earth was destined to be a human-centric world, with Elves, Orcs, Dragons and other creatures eventually fading from existence and into mythology. Galadriel realized that the one ring's existence preserved the presence of the Elves on Middle Earth and its destruction meant the Elves would have to leave or be fated to fade from existence amid humans. Like the Orcs, they were a plot mechanic that were no longer required once the war was over.
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I know some people would say no race should be inherently good or evil, it should always be an individual choice. I would leave demons and devils as exceptions even if you adopt that as a rule; they are more like the pure, elemental form of evil. A good demon is like a warm ice elemental. But if you consider them to have free will and to construct their own societies, if they are essentially just alien, that might not be the case, and maybe they shouldn't be inherently evil either.
If a race is not inherently evil, then genocide of that race must be evil, even if a particular culture at a particular moment in time happens to be evil. You can seek to change a culture without annihilating everyone born into it.
Personally, I would go farther and say it's ok to construct an inherently evil race. But don't give that race the traits and characteristics of real world races or ethnicities, or the traits and characteristics assigned to real races or ethnicities in stereotypes and racist tropes. That can be a challenge to avoid, so it's safer not to go that way at all, but.... For example in the link I posted before (and other entries there) he discusses how orcs have traditionally been assigned traits meant to signify or characterize Asians, or Blacks, or Native Americans, but also mentions how Warhammer 40K went a completely different direction and coded them as English football hooligans. Or as another example, while Lovecraft has plenty of issues, when he wrote the Deep Ones and linked them to inbred, insular New Englanders, I don't see any racist angle there. I would be comfortable using Deep Ones as an irredeemably evil race of minions to some kind of ancient horror. In general, I think the less human the better. Orcs are humanoid mammals, and their physical traits are generally exaggerations of human traits or of human disabilities (which has its own issues), but Deep Ones are fish/frog creatures that live in an environment where no humans live.
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If a race is not inherently evil, then genocide of that race must be evil, even if a particular culture at a particular moment in time happens to be evil. You can seek to change a culture without annihilating everyone born into it.
An interesting problem, if all orcs belong to orcish culture and orcish culture is evil. then all orcs are evil. Two cases I can think of could result in a non-evil orc:
1) an individual orc leaves their culture, an adopts a new culture (similiar to a popular dark elf from another franchise of fantasy writing)
2) a group or perhaps singular orc is raised seperated from traditional orcish culture; an orc is an orc; but the label of "evil" wouldn't necessarily apply to them.
An earlier post mentioned that MERP Orcs vs. Rolemaster Orcs. Middle Earth orcs were created from elves corrupted by Morgoth ("big bad" of Middle Earth). The corruption left by Morgoth on Middle Earth and its peoples is one of the key themes of Tolkiens writtings. I don't think you'll find a "redeemed" orc anywhere in canon.
Rolemaster/HARP orcs depend on the game world. Each fantasy world has its own creation story and were orcs and other races fit it. Maybe because HARP was written in the 2000s instead of the 1980s the portray of orcs as a species is lighter; or maybe the writters just decided to break out of the mold for creating Cyradon.
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Rolemaster/HARP orcs depend on the game world. Each fantasy world has its own creation story and were orcs and other races fit it. Maybe because HARP was written in the 2000s instead of the 1980s the portray of orcs as a species is lighter; or maybe the writters just decided to break out of the mold for creating Cyradon.
Not only does each world have a creation story, but each culture within a world has one, or more. The evil orc creation story among humans isn't necessarily the creation myth among orcs, and may differ from what's told among elves or dwarves. An Absolute Truth creation story is up to the DM. If the morality of evil races or cultures is an issue in a particular gaming group, the GM may have to decide on their world's Absolute Truth.
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Not only does each world have a creation story, but each culture within a world has one, or more. The evil orc creation story among humans isn't necessarily the creation myth among orcs, and may differ from what's told among elves or dwarves. An Absolute Truth creation story is up to the DM. If the morality of evil races or cultures is an issue in a particular gaming group, the GM may have to decide on their world's Absolute Truth.
Ah, I like that.
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If a race is not inherently evil, then genocide of that race must be evil, even if a particular culture at a particular moment in time happens to be evil. You can seek to change a culture without annihilating everyone born into it.
This has always disagreements as "Who determines what is good or evil?" If you use the Torah (Old Testament) as a guide, a lot of things considered evil are acceptable today while many things considered moral are looked upon as evil. If you've ever studied the Talmud, then you would think a bunch of lawyers got together to find loopholes in laws set down in the Torah. That is the nature if interpretation, or misinterpretation.
As far as a race being inherently evil or not, how do you even determine that? Every religious war in human history had one or more sides that believed they had a divine mandate to conquer or destroy their enemies so when you have two or more parties declaring the others evil and themselves good, you then have to realize that the concepts of good and evil are moving goalposts that also appear different from various angles of view and perceptions.
The term morality stems from the Latin "mores" or "normal". My favorite comedian, Lenny Bruce, had a routine that went: "The Torah has a law says you are not to have sex with farm animals. You know, you don't have a law unless you have a problem."
Most fantasy worlds have a cosmology or a system of deities that either have a hand in creation or making laws. I've run campaigns where the cosmology was total garbage and gods commonly worshiped only existed to explain things. Organized religion was a means for a select few to obtain wealth and political power and the players pretty much accepted all of it at face value and saw no reason to question any of the conventions, no matter how extreme.
Few players challenge cosmology. Back in the 1980s when I first started playing MERP, I did just that. I decided that I was not taking sides in the Ring War. I didn't like the idea of being cannon fodder for people who pretty much looked down on us. The party was all humans so they followed when I said: "We go South." That line then became a catch phrase in my group, meaning "We don't like the plot of the adventure so we're going someplace else." and we still use it today.
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As far as a race being inherently evil or not, how do you even determine that? Every religious war in human history had one or more sides that believed they had a divine mandate to conquer or destroy their enemies so when you have two or more parties declaring the others evil and themselves good, you then have to realize that the concepts of good and evil are moving goalposts that also appear different from various angles of view and perceptions.
I think that's a different argument. I have an opinion about it https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?topic=20447.0 but I don't think I need to rehash that opinion. For purposes of the topic of this thread, the important thing is that all of those historical wars were fought by humans. All of those cultures were human. We know humans are capable of good and evil. Good in humans does not provide immunity from making mistakes or even being corrupted into evil, and conversely evil in humans is not so all-consuming that everyone in a culture becomes irredeemable. Race in humans doesn't alter that (and the possibility that it does alter that in fantasy settings is an argument to use a different term than race).
In principle, when we create a fictional setting we can ascribe whatever traits we want to its inhabitants, and it's possible to write a species that is irredeemably evil. But they are imaginary and we as creators are responsible for what we create and what experience they create for the people who interact with our creation.
And then, like you say, the players can choose to accept or reject the cosmology you set forth.
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The last part is true.
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We know humans are capable of good and evil. Good in humans does not provide immunity from making mistakes or even being corrupted into evil, and conversely evil in humans is not so all-consuming that everyone in a culture becomes irredeemable.
In The Silmarillion the Noldor had no qualms about taking the ships from the Teleri, even killing many of them in the process. The repercussions of this act included the Doom of Mandos and the isolation of those who participated in the kinslaying by the Sindar. In that respect, the Noldor, despite their heroics, were irredeemably evil, as their ill-fated quest to claim the the Silmarils made them ruthless in their pursuit of revenge. Finarfin and his followers, who had mistakenly aided the Noldor in the kinslaying, returned to Valinor, begged for and received forgiveness. Whereas, Fëanor was wholly unrepentant for his acts of evil.
One might say that the kinslaying was an unusually human reaction for Elves. A virtually immortal race would have all the time they needed to build ships but Fëanor was afraid that the Noldor would lose interest in pursuing revenge against Melkor/Morgoth. In The Silmarillion Fëanor is presented as a selfish and rash hothead, an unpopular king among his people, despite being a brilliant orator. Fëanor had no reservations in lying to his people into joining him in his campaign. He evoked images of the kingdoms his people could build in Middle-earth, and the glory that could be theirs once they regained the Silmarils.
One has to ask themselves about how only one tenth of the Noldor chose to remain with Finarfin while the majority abandoned reason and followed Fëanor to their doom. Yes, we realize that it was a plot mechanic -Tolkein needed massed armies to assail the world's greatest evil and set the stage for the Ring story but it did illustrate how a large portion of a near-divine race could be willingly led into evil.
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Orcs (and the like) are only considered "Evil", because they are "Different and alien" to what is perceived as being "Good... or normally acceptable".
But, remember, Human's aren't, and have never been, on the whole, paragons of "Good"... so it is only logical that there must always be exceptions and variations amongst the "other intelligent races" too, but it's the dominant culture that determines the ability for these exceptions to survive or thrive within "their" society that allows it..... so, in a culture that IS necessarily cruel and competitive will often quickly perceive anything other than "the norm" as abhorrent, dissuading such characteristics, attitudes etc.
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Orcs (and the like) are only considered "Evil", because they are "Different and alien" to what is perceived as being "Good... or normally acceptable".
I do not believe Tolkein's view of Orcs was so shallow so that Melkor's plan was merely to create a race that was simply different cosmetically.
"Bin ich nicht ein Narr, daß ich mich schrecken ließ?--Es giebt ja schwarze Vögel in der Welt, warum denn nicht auch schwarze Menschen?" ("Am I not a fool, that I was terrified? There are certainly black birds in the world, so why then not also black humans?") -Papageno, after fleeing in terror at the sight of a Moorish slave, from “Die Zauberflöte” (The Magic Flute), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
"Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar."
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
Orcs were not simply "ugly Elves" but creations in cruel parody and defiance of very creator of the universe, so their very creation was a deliberate act of evil. The nature of Orcs was almost self-destructive, as they hated everything, including other Orcs and reveled in cruel and abhorrent practices which went well beyond being noisy neighbors or eating well-done steaks.
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Orcs (and the like) are only considered "Evil", because they are "Different and alien" to what is perceived as being "Good... or normally acceptable".
But, remember, Human's aren't, and have never been, on the whole, paragons of "Good"... so it is only logical that there must always be exceptions and variations amongst the "other intelligent races" too, but it's the dominant culture that determines the ability for these exceptions to survive or thrive within "their" society that allows it..... so, in a culture that IS necessarily cruel and competitive will often quickly perceive anything other than "the norm" as abhorrent, dissuading such characteristics, attitudes etc.
They are only "alien" because we never met them. And I know humans have never been paragons of "Good." We keep trying to kill each other for no apparent reason.
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My point here was simply to say that although a "Race" maybe considered "Evil" within the context of literature, and when establishing "setting" within a game... there are always exceptions to the "rule", and that often the regimes that these exceptions live within prevent any major changes to indicate otherwise. Therefore, it is OK to say that "all" Tolkienian Orcs were evil, as that was as intended by the author, but it doesn't mean to say that Orcs in other settings have to be the same, or must be different, to those in the books, it's a matter of choice. If I want to say that all Hobbits were cannibalistic savage barbarians, rather than homebody gardeners, then I could, in MY game.... but it must be remembered, that in literature, especially literature, it is often the exceptions that are the focus of the story.... Frodo and Bilbo were not typical Hobbits, who is to say that there isn't the possibility of orcs/goblins with equally diverse attitudes?
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It basically amounts to the difference between "plot devices" and "real people", does it not ?
"plot device" orcs can be evil as a race - they are in the setting for that effect.
"real people" orcs are evil only as individuals, and evil is a behaviour clashing with a set of morals (which is typically the one in which the PCs were raised). It means "bad for us" - from another point of view, the same behaviour might not be "evil".
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It basically amounts to the difference between "plot devices" and "real people", does it not ?
"plot device" orcs can be evil as a race - they are in the setting for that effect.
"real people" orcs are evil only as individuals, and evil is a behaviour clashing with a set of morals (which is typically the one in which the PCs were raised). It means "bad for us" - from another point of view, the same behaviour might not be "evil".
The fallacy of populating a world with "real people" races is that they are just humans with cosmetic differences, so why even bother having other races?
The Greeks portrayed their gods as very powerful humans -Prone to petty acts of evil, selfishness, greed and pride, while some cosmologies portray divinities as infallible, perfect beings.
While any GM could create a world based on any theme, ranging from JRR Tolkein to RE Howard, to Lewis Carroll, most GMs have their own vision on what a fantasy world should be, which may include nonhuman races with nonhuman motivations. Races that are long lived see the world from perspectives that races with shorter life spans cannot comprehend. A race with an average life span of 30 years may have a difficult time imagining long-range planning and will see little value in it.
Using "canned" races from other sources gives a GM time to flesh out a world without having to give a race its history and personality over thousands of years. I've had a GM do just that with over a hundred individual races, from individual appearances and variations, to societies, to general perceptions of other races so that every race could be played and a party of five players could play a different race over dozens of campaigns without duplicating a particular race. And yes, you could play a race that was universally detested and prone to violence, even acts of extreme evil.
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The fallacy of populating a world with "real people" races is that they are just humans with cosmetic differences, so why even bother having other races?
I don't think it's a fallacy to assign traditions, customs, laws and sense of what is worthy and unworthy to a culture, and derive behaviour from that instead of from merely an idea of what opponents I need to give the PCs.
That's what I call "real people".
It has nothing to do with humans. It has nothing to do with them being playable races. It has everything to do with making suspension of disbelief easier and reinforcing the idea that morals are relative.
If the only thing I need is a plot device, then I create a plot device, not a culture.
It is not limited to races either. Individuals, groups, religions, cults, secret cabals, guilds, you name it. All social constructs can be made "real" by anchoring their behaviour in environment, history, emotions and beliefs.
Additionally, all GMs are human (as far as I know, at least). Their creations are limited by what they can comprehend and accept as globally consistent. As such, everything we create - races, settings, characters - is based on our own limitations as humans.
I won't even go into the "kissing a slug is no fun" trope, even if there is a grain of truth to it - the more human-like races are, the more meaningful social interactions they can have with one another, and this is a core part of character creation (RPGs being, essentially, social games).
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The fallacy of populating a world with "real people" races is that they are just humans with cosmetic differences, so why even bother having other races?
Why are there different professions? Why don't we just say all horses are brown? Why aren't all the monsters just trolls? Why bother having players create backgrounds for their PCs? Variety.
They are obviously also not just cosmetic differences. Stat modifiers and things like adolescence skills make a difference too.
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The fallacy of populating a world with "real people" races is that they are just humans with cosmetic differences, so why even bother having other races?
Why are there different professions? Why don't we just say all horses are brown? Why aren't all the monsters just trolls? Why bother having players create backgrounds for their PCs? Variety.
They are obviously also not just cosmetic differences. Stat modifiers and things like adolescence skills make a difference too.
Variety is the spice of life . . . it's also the spice of a campaign. When I did my horde campaign, I borrowed cultural details from WoW. Just so that the orcs aren't irredeemably evil. I also included a number of "Horde" races in the campaign. Jungle trolls, gnolls, forest trolls, minotaurs, deer-men, drow, and carnosaurians. I wanted variety. Although the drow joined because one of my campaigns included the drow of one drow city state joining.
I could have borrowed cultural details from the Elder Scrolls (Skyrim) as well, since the orcs there aren't evil. I'm currently playing an orc in Skyrim, and I'm enjoying it. I'm just frustrated with the orcs being portrayed as evil, as cultural details are constantly borrowed from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, and Eberron subverted the Tolkien trope.
In the original Monster Manual for AD&D, orcs were portrayed as being violent and stupid. The truth is true for Rolemaster 2/Classic. As a GM, I can make my own world that subverts the trope. It felt frustrating because orcs are thought to be monsters, and are portrayed as such for most fantasy roleplaying games.
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Variety
I don't require it. I could run a game with every PC and NPC as identical clones and make it work.
My players look at all NPC as targets of varying threat levels. The difference between one NPC and another is the order in which they are killed, and much the same for the PCs.
Declaring one race evil just raises their rank in the killing order for some players, even if they aren't really evil.
Orcs are subject to interpretation in a variety of games and it really doesn't matter for fantasy races, even playable ones. If you need a race to die in droves, Orcs fit that role fine for most people. My players have no qualms about killing regular humans without reason.
My friend divided Elves into several sub races which ranged from serious, esoteric intellectuals to scatterbrained, frivolous children. That works for me, too.
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Variety
I don't require it. I could run a game with every PC and NPC as identical clones and make it work.
Our groups would find that boring as hell.
My players look at all NPC as targets of varying threat levels.
If all your NPC and PC's were identical clones there would be no 'varying'.
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In the original Monster Manual for AD&D, orcs were portrayed as being violent and stupid. The truth is true for Rolemaster 2/Classic. As a GM, I can make my own world that subverts the trope. It felt frustrating because orcs are thought to be monsters, and are portrayed as such for most fantasy roleplaying games.
Yes, though one unusual thing about Rolemaster is that it always included 'evil' races as playable races in its core books. It describes Orcs as 'without exception cannibalistic, bloodthirsty and cruel' (though noting that greater Orcs are capable of reason), and Trolls are 'stupid' and hate all other creatures. Yet there they are in the core books: comprising 3 of the 11 races offered.
Does this reflect a more relativistic moral view? Rolemaster does have good and evil spells, but does not have alignments or heavens in the DnD sense. But it might also just reflect the fact that Rolemaster was a bit more closely tied to Middle Earth (the list of races itself goes back to RM1 Character Law, which came out about the same time the Tolkien license was acquired, IIRC).
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Does this reflect a more relativistic moral view?
I don't think so. It *does* give you the opportunity to play "evil" characters (races, and spells), but it is still based on a concept of absolute evil (and absolute good, though this is less obvious - the 'Light' and 'Dark' channeling spell lists are indicative of absolutes).
the lack of alignment is more convincing. In fact, if the "evil" qualifier for the evil spell lists were removed, along with the "light" and "dark" qualifiers for the relevant lists (and the aura color reading, now that I think of it), most of the absolutes would be disposed of, I think.
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If all your NPC and PC's were identical clones there would be no 'varying'.
The players determine that on their own, even among identical clones as all NPCs may as well be identical, as my players look at all NPCs as enemies, even the friendly ones.
In our last session:
GM: "It appears that Bob is being subject to some form of mind control."
John: "I kill him."
GM: "Okay. He has no defense. Bob, make another character."
The party necromancer animated Bob and had him dig his own grave...Watching, the party roasted Bob, commenting that Zombie Bob accomplished more than live Bob ever did for the group.
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If all your NPC and PC's were identical clones there would be no 'varying'.
The players determine that on their own, even among identical clones as all NPCs may as well be identical, as my players look at all NPCs as enemies, even the friendly ones.
In our last session:
GM: "It appears that Bob is being subject to some form of mind control."
John: "I kill him."
GM: "Okay. He has no defense. Bob, make another character."
The party necromancer animated Bob and had him dig his own grave...Watching, the party roasted Bob, commenting that Zombie Bob accomplished more than live Bob ever did for the group.
That's is funny, but also macabre. Was the party powerful enough to break the enchantment? It seems your players are more willing to kill than to save.
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That's is funny, but also macabre. Was the party powerful enough to break the enchantment? It seems your players are more willing to kill than to save.
The idea of breaking the enchantment never even crossed our minds...and Bob was useless, and never bothered to learn RM.
More willing to kill? Yup. The Paladin of the group is the next one -he's been threatening the necromancer without bothering to discuss his problem with the necromancer. The good/evil rubbish means nothing to my character and threatening violence over harmless actions is childish. Our Post Expiration Labor and Resource Reclamation Engineer (Necromancer) has proven to be of great value with his craft and imaginative uses for animated creatures, while the Paladin has just been a bossy grunt.
After he digs his grave, I'm going to order him to lay in it face down while we cover him with dirt.
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Well, if your players are having fun, then I should I criticize?
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Well, if your players are having fun, then I should I criticize?
Everybody has an opinion. I may or may not agree but gaming is subjective. I've been war gaming since the 1960s and playing RPGs since 1974, so I've seen my share of games and GM styles. I've had a GM who could not do anything without a die roll table and one who would tell you how your character would RP situations; I played with GMs who couldn't run a campaign without a canned scenario and with brilliant world builders, who would spent weeks preparing maps, NPCs and storylines for the worlds they created, one whose world became the basis for a computer game.
I've had control freak GMs and I've even run a campaign as a parody of a controlling GM's campaign, which allowed the players to do anything they wanted to do, as long as they were aware of the possible consequences.
Some GMs run Orcs like their other monsters: Suicidal wandering damage. Orcs may be less intelligent but not self-destructive. If they have the force of numbers, they may try to overwhelm an enemy. Lacking numbers, they may opt for ambush or even keep the enemy under observation to see if they they may be vulnerable at some point. Sapient NPCs should act with sufficient intelligence to value self-preservation and the ability to plan. That also means that they should have an idea when to run away.
Monsters and animals lack the level of forethought possessed by sapient beings so act with animal motivations, such as hunger, fear, territoriality. etc. Unless under some strong motivation, like extreme hunger, maternal or territorial nature, few animals will fight to the death.
Smart opponents usually make for a more interesting adventure...for me, as a player...as a GM, my players may as well be roleplaying an arcade game. They may a well be Tolkein's version of Orcs...
The current RM campaign is a struggle between players that look for ways to exploit rules and the GM, who works to counter exploits, mostly by restricting professions and spell lists. The real hassle is that arguing with the GM eats into valuable game time which has been limited even more since the GM is recovering from a stroke and his roommate just had a leg amputated last week.