Still busy this week so this is drive-by.
Art previews of the new D&D 5R (D&D 2024) Player's Handbook were released including art for orcs as a playable species. As expected the Grognard crowd is taking this with measured patience one should expect from the elder statesmen of our hobby.
No, they didn't. They predictably completely lost their shit. Again.
This seems especially true of the segments that claim never to play "WotC" versions of D&D and don't pay any attention to them. So the ones that will be least likely to play this version are also bitching and moaning the loudest.
I mean the art is bit too cutesy for me, but a.) this is for a Player's book, not the monster book. and b.) I am not (nor should I be) the target audience. That is something I am going to get back to, but let's address the prominent issue; that of non-evil orcs.
When it comes to orcs many like to point to their history as defined by the Professor. This great, IF (and only if) we are talking about Lord of the Rings or Middle-Earth. This is D&D and Gary did nothing else if not spend a lot of ink telling us that D&D is not Lord of the Rings. So all the talk of "Melkor can't create" is cute but has little bearing here.
D&D and AD&D has had "good orcs" before, this is not a new concept. The Forgotten Realms boxed set had them. The AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Compendiums had them. Good Orcs are not a new thing. Even Half-orcs were a playable race as long as they were non-good.
One of the cardinal rules of D&D has always been to change what you want to work with your group. That means yes, people can have "good" orcs, and other groups can have "evil" orcs. This should counter any "one true wayism" that seems to clutter up the D&D-related YouTube channels.
Besides no one is saying you can't have purely evil orcs as well. I have several sub-species of orc, some good, many very evil. Works great for me. Pathfinder 2 has orcs you can have as characters and still fight.
I think what the older crowd, of which I am a member of that crowd, needs to realize is that we are no longer being catered to. We do not have the buying power we have enjoyed for so long. This group, or at least many members of it, have said "we are not buying any non-TSR D&D" and WotC has said "fine, we don't really need your money." And they don't. The younger generations have shown they have buying power all on their own.
Look, Wizards of the Coast is not without some serious flaws and a lot of blame. Their handling of the OGL, sending out Pinkertons, all the layoffs and firings. Not to mention some rather lack lustre adventures. But freaking out over good orcs? Yeah, that should not even be on the list.
So here are a couple of reminders.
- Whatever appears in the D&D 5r books only maters to people playing D&D 5r.
- Nothing posted in D&D 5r effects any other game. Same as nothing in Pathfinder effects any version of D&D.
- Despite the Chicken Littling out there no past book has ever been changed.
Play how you want. Let others play how they want. Stop acting like it's the end of the damn world.
Better yet, adopt these new orcs into your old-school games to challenge your players.
