ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

[TheQuestionMan]

ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

I am prepaing a scenario for our Friday Night Gaming Group TM and I realized that of all the adversaries hey have fought they always seem to really enjoy battling Orcs.

 

Why is that do you think? Here are a few of my thoughts.

 

1. There is no ambiguity with Orcs, like Demons are obviously evil and must be fought wherever they are found.

 

2. No Mercy

 

3.

 

 

 

Cheers

 

QM

[Eosin]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Philosophical Answer:

 

Orcs probably represent some Jungian archtype deep within our subconscious. I think White Wolf tapped into part of this with both Werewolf and Vampire. We all have inner demons and desires that we fear (Vampire), just as we all posses a silent rage burning in us (Werewolf) that both desires and fears release. Orcs are not quite so clear cut but battling them is something akin to battling all the ills of moral frailness. They allow us to rebel against the maxim "might makes right." You could argue that orcs are the antithesis of social development and just society. They don't abide by any social contract, nor do they posses any hope for the future. They are not the beastial nature within man like Werewolf; they are what is left when everything that makes us humanity good is boiled away.

 

They aren't quite the perfect enemy because they lack a few fundamentel traits necessary for a monster to truly become monsterous. This lack of rebellion against "Gods Divine Plan" relegates them to a secondary role in the pantheon of villiany but they still shine in RPGs because players can generally oppose their machinations (sp?) without overly examining the moral-philosophical-religious aspects of whackin' 'em up.

[Narratio]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Eosin hit it in one. Orcs are always on the bad guys side. See an Orc, know where the baddies are. Of course, there are a few stories that turn the tail on these view points. Mary Gentles 'Grunts' being the best and makes a pithy comment with this quote:

 

"Let me tell all of you something about orcs...If you're born an orc, everyone's hand is against you. Every Dark Leader that happens along thinks, I need an army, what about a few thousand orcs? They're brutal, efficient, cheap, and there's always plenty more where they came from." -- Ashnak the Orc.

 

See?

[Curufea]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

They're not my favourite. Humans are.

I haven't used them yet in my current setting anyway.

In my setting though, orcs aren't a race - they're created beings. If you want to get philosophical (other than the obvious Tolkein influence) - it lets me justify the notion that a particular group can all be "evil" - that they are two dimensional enough to all be generic. They were built that way, and they can never evolve.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Great points of view and valuable to me.

 

Thanks

 

QM

[Eosin]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

I have long hankered to write an essay on "The Best Villainy Has to Offer." It would be a guide to the unspoken rules and motifs of evil and how some of those things have been carried forward through history, while others have been discarded. The study of "monsters" facinates me. I am equally facinated by how, time and again, the same monster in differnet clothes is able to tap into pop culture.

 

It would be a bear to cite though.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Then you really need to write it and post it. The Forum members round these here parts r pretty savy bunch and could help where needed. Even if it is just a sounding board yrrr lookin fer.

 

LOL

 

QM

[OddHat]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Orcs are Butch Bottoms.

 

They look big and tough, they grunt and hoot, and in the end a few apprentice pig farmers and a disguised princess can slaughter thousands of the wimpy things and feel good about it. They're classic fairy tale monsters, impressive and scary, dangerous to the no name masses but easy for the hero to overcome with moderate cleverness or minimal skill. Even if the protagonist dies fighting Orcs (far more likely in an RPG than in fiction), he'll die taking a horde of the wussy beasts with him.

 

Heck, one shire hobbit can take out a half dozen orcs given a minimally magic sword.

 

Want to challenge the player characters? Send them up against an army of hobbits.

[assault]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Hack and slash is easy and fun, and Orcs are made for this purpose.

 

Really. No matter how clever we pretend to be, it all comes down to this.

 

Want to challenge the player characters? Send them up against an army of hobbits.

 

Eww!

 

The problem is arranging it, of course. Very difficult, but interesting, to do in their original setting. Less difficult, but usually less interesting in others.

 

I once commented long ago that the difference between hobbits and goblins was that hobbits paid their taxes. In short, I was suggesting that they were all really just peasants, as viewed by their social superiors - bucolic yokels when they were well behaved, and rampaging, probably cannibalistic, monsters when they rebelled.

 

Without being this extreme, you could probably muck about with a situation in which legitimate authority is contested, and "good" forces are in conflict with each other. In Tolkien's world, the Arthedain/Cardolan/Rhudaur conflict would be a possible example.

 

The PCs could end up as part of a garrison of Big Folk in an area settled by hobbits. This doesn't have to be the Shire or Bree, as there were mentions of other areas where hobbits had lived in Tolkien's work, and hints that at least some hobbits still lived outside the known areas. In any case, Bree would work just fine.

 

File off the serial numbers for other settings.

 

Nasty thought, incidentally.

 

I have considered setting campaigns in various bits of Tolkien's world, with the serial numbers "lost" of course. The area around the Shire and Bree would work quite well all by itself. You would need to provide some detail on the areas around them, so you don't have too drastic an "edge of the map" problem. You could probably fix that by moving certain other areas in closer.

 

Another neat campaign area could be based on the area between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood, down to Dol Guldur and Lorien. You would have Orcs, Elves, Dwarves (in Moria!), and various flavours of humans. You could run a whole Lord of the Rings/Hobbit type story line in this area alone, since all the major elements are here, and the rest could be plugged in without too much drama.

 

Hail Oddhat, Hammer of the Hobbits!

[Edsel]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Good analysis so far. For the simplistic view add the following reasons. (Warning peanut gallery logic ahead.)

• Orc or Orcs is easy and quicker to say than Goblin, HobGoblin, Skeleton, Vampire, Mummy, etc.
  
• Somehow goblin sounds too much like something out of a children's tale. You rarely hear of children's stories that involve Orcs.
  
• Orc rhymes with pork. Which reminds us of pigs, filthy critters that everyone knows and who shares enough similarities with us that it frightens us. Killing an Orc helps you disassociate with your porcine nature.
  

[Lord Liaden]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

No disputing any of the preceding points, but to add one other observation: orcs often appear in hordes, like army ants, despoiling everything in their path. This adds to their terrifying aspect, since killing any number of individuals doesn't stop the advance of the horde. OTOH since they are for the most part faceless destroyers devoid of individual personality (aside from exceptional individuals or when the plot requires it) , you can kill them in numbers without qualm, and even boast about it like Gimli and Legolas keeping score.

 

And let's face it, no scenario says "warrior hero" better than a few brave souls standing up to a rampaging horde.

[Edsel]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

No disputing any of the preceding points, but to add one other observation: orcs often appear in hordes, like army ants, despoiling everything in their path. This adds to their terrifying aspect, since killing any number of individuals doesn't stop the advance of the horde. OTOH since they are for the most part faceless destroyers devoid of individual personality (aside from exceptional individuals or when the plot requires it) , you can kill them in numbers without qualm, and even boast about it like Gimli and Legolas keeping score.

 

And let's face it, no scenario says "warrior hero" better than a few brave souls standing up to a rampaging horde.

So you're saying they are a lot like lawyers.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

So you're saying they are a lot like lawyers.

 

Well, not exactly. Lawyers are more individualistic; at most they travel in packs, like jackals or vampires.

 

Except of course for lawyers who have seen the light and become game writers.

[prodigyduck]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Good save...

[L. Marcus]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

. . . They're the Klingons of fantasy?

[garou]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Heck, one shire hobbit can take out a half dozen orcs given a minimally magic sword.

 

Want to challenge the player characters? Send them up against an army of hobbits.

Or a single elf.

 

I blame Tolkein (or credit, depending on POV). The problem with Orcs is that it is incredibly rare for their to be any explanation as to why the overltly military race, ruled by an iron fist, born and bred to fight, surly, tough, strong, aggressive as all get out, and numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands, invariably loses to an obscenely small number of "good" guys (meaning, humans and elves, possibly dwarves & hobbits) who are completely and utterly lacking in tactics or common sense.

 

"Grunts" did a good job turning this on it's head, but, sadly, Orcs (aka Klingons, Bikers, VIPER, Stormtroopers, Mooks, etc) all exist to allow the PCs to rake in enough XP in order to hit a power level where stupid mistakes (ie, pretty much everything a character does) doesn't kill them outright.

 

Random note - you ever notice how, in many D20 fantasy games, Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, etc all disappear by the time the characters hit 8-10th level? What happened to them? Did the rampaging hordes get tired and go home? There's never a good explanation for that, either.

[Vondy]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

I stronly prefer human antagonists.

[GothKidSamurai]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

 

Random note - you ever notice how, in many D20 fantasy games, Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, etc all disappear by the time the characters hit 8-10th level? What happened to them? Did the rampaging hordes get tired and go home? There's never a good explanation for that, either.

 

 

Orcs with class levels solves this problem quickly and simply.

[OddHat]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

In my own serious fantasy games, I don't use Orcs or other Tolkien style humanoids, at least not in the last twenty years or so.

[mayapuppies]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Undead for the horde! At least that's my preference. I rarely use orcs, mostly undead and "PC races". Invariably I find the players to be their own worst enemies...I remember a rather steep and rocky hill became the nemesis for several game sessions.

 

The boulder knocked loose that smashed the halfling waiting in the parties camp below was rather poetic.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Speaking as a person who has played orcs (not half-orcs, but full-blooded orcs) as PCs, I would like to voice my dissent with this entire premise.

 

Orcs are no more inherently evil than humans are inherently good. The same can be said for practically any creature with average intelligence. In fact, in one of my older game worlds, I had entire cities populated primarily by highly civilized and benevolent orcs.

 

I'll admit that most of them are not aesthetically appealing to the eye, but is ugliness an excuse to kill someone?!?

 

Won't someone please give the orcs an even chance?

 

P.S.- I gotta read Grunts! one of these days.

[garou]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Orcs with class levels solves this problem quickly and simply.

 

So do Tucker's kobolds.

[garou]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Won't someone please give the orcs an even chance?

 

Years ago, when I was an unpaid shill for a certain clicky company, I founded the OLF - the Orcish Liberation Front, dedicated to the idea that Orcs were people too. Sadly, beyond a few devotees, it never really caught on with the masses.

[Sir Ofeelya]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

I like Orcs. In my game they are more often than not on the side of the bad guys, but mainly because they are always attacked by humans and the they figure that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But sometimes they are not the bad guys. Hey, they love their kids too - especially with some salt and a nice brew.

[Bismark]

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

 

Old-timers may remember a certain SPI boardgame called Swords & Sorcery, which featured an interesting Orc state that broke apart in revolution, where the 'White' Orcs lead by Tsar Krawn the Crazy battled (and lost) against the revolutionary forces of the ORC [Orcish Revolutionary Coalition] led by Chairman Naskhund. Good for a laugh - and gave people a legitimate reason (especially back in the late 1970s) to hate most Orcs - after all, 'Commies' were very, very unpopular back then. One of Greg Costikyan's (Paranoia 1st ed.) more amusing pieces of work.

 

I tend to use Orcs quite sparingly in my Turakian Age game - Goblins take their place as the 'mooks to the slaughter' and Hobgoblins are the 'Kal-Turak's disciplined rank & File' option. I have used a few 'wild Orcs' (which the party dispatched with ease) and a couple of leader-types (a Necromancer and a Valakar battle priest) - both of which gave the PCs a lot of grief . The sparing use of Orcs is simply because the standard TA warrior Orc is so much more formidable than the 'classic' Tolkien-style rank & file Orc - TA Goblins fit the bill far better.

 

BTW, Hobgoblins in a proper shield wall, with missile troops at the back, a couple of levels in Teamwork and backed by a couple of tough characters (like the aforementioned Orcs) are scary even for a party of 175pt characters who have a vague idea what they are doing (I so enjoyed scaring the PCs that day ).

 

Those people wishing to 'streamline' or 'rationalise' their games could of course simply change 'Goblin', 'Hobgoblin' and 'Orc' into 'Orc varieties', and use other means of differentiating between sub-races (e.g. giving some [but not others] the usual Sunless Realms Life Support option, making some much more tolerant of hot/cold climates etc.).

 

Basically I think people like killing Orcs because they (the Tolkein variety at least) are almost uniformly unpleasant and no-one (apart from the local dark Lord, who wants to recruit them) really gives a **** if they get slaughtered. Most RPG Orcs are actually rather more pleasant than the Tolkien variety (not necessarily being evil, for a start), but the stigma remains.