ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies???

[AmadanNaBriona]

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

 

I tend to only use Orcs if I'm running a game in a setting that already possesses them (Pretty much this means Middle Earth or the Warhammer world). Last time I recall facing any in a game was is a Middle Earth Rolemaster game, and 3 3rd level Uruk-Hai came very close to exterminating the whole party, 5 characters averaging 5th level.

[Lucius]

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

 

[*]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.

 

You know, it's really funny you should say that.

 

Because I was going to make the point that Goblinoids, Orcs included (perhaps especially) are perhaps the most Humanlike of all fantasy races.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

On the ubiquitous palindromedary

[garou]

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

 

You know, it's really funny you should say that.

 

Because I was going to make the point that Goblinoids, Orcs included (perhaps especially) are perhaps the most Humanlike of all fantasy races.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

On the ubiquitous palindromedary

That's just rampant specism. Humans are the most Orclike of all fantasy races.

[Old Man]

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

 

I like having a "fundamentally evil" race for PCs to whack without any issues of moral equivalence. I have gone so far as to eliminate orc females and children.

[assault]

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

 

I like having a "fundamentally evil" race for PCs to whack without any issues of moral equivalence. I have gone so far as to eliminate orc females and children.

 

I've considered doing a "proper" writeup of Orcs, based on Tolkien's various accounts of their origins mixed with some nasty ideas of my own.

 

Sooner or later, of course, a bunch of PCs would end up meeting the Father of Orcs himself. Yes, the very first Orc ever would still be around...

 

Not all of my Orcs would necessarily be "fundamentally evil", so much as psychotically insane, armed and violent, and/or dominated by the will of the Dark Lord.

 

Anyone who wanted to get wussy about them would soon get what they were leaving themselves open for.

[Mr. Negative]

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

 

I like having a "fundamentally evil" race for PCs to whack without any issues of moral equivalence. I have gone so far as to eliminate orc females and children.

 

 

This is interesting, because that's precisely what Games Workshop did with their 'orks' in Warhammer 40K (their futuristic miniature game). Orks reproduced by spores, grew underground, and emerged with their basic personality and even skills developed. Their rationale was some sort of extremely complicated genetic engineering in the far distant past to create a race of warriors.

 

However, what this did, functionally, was create a relatively believable rationale for having a species who created societies which were violent, aggressive, and cruel, but didn't think of itself as 'Evil'. After all, Orks did not receive any sort of nurture when young (as they emerge fully grown), nor do they have to care for either young or for pregnant females. Ork society was based completely on the strong ruling over the weak (with the added caveat that orks who successfully dominated their peers would actualy grow larger than them).

 

Even horrible practices like forced labor for children and the elderly were viewed as routine by Orks. They themselves didn't have 'young orks' who needed time to grow and mature, nor did they have elderly Orks who were infirm (they evidently didn't age, but either prospered and grew stronger, or faltered and were killed).

 

The lack of any parental care (and any need for parental care) is quite alien to relatively intelligent species (both in the real world, and in most fictional worlds), so it has always struck me as an idea with interesting ramifications.

 

GW, of course, went even further, and envisioned their Orks as growing larger and stronger from any successful conflicts (which leads them to seek out war and strife to prosper). Orks seek out conflict the way that other races might strive for stability. Thus, they created the perfect Horde/Fodder enemy: they live to fight, they love to fight, and they reproduce like mad (even dead orks shed viable spores).

[Old Man]

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

 

Yeah, but my orcs have no comic relief value whatsoever. They're just vile, and they live only to destroy, kill, and defile.

[Lord Liaden]

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

 

And we seem to have come back to lawyers again.

[Markdoc]

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

 

Why do we like orcs? Because for the GM*, they come in handy, snack sized pacakages. You can have as many or as few as you want. And they never, ever run out!

 

Basically they're the junk food of enemies.

 

cheers, Mark

 

*Although for me, Orcs went the way of dwarves and elves long ago. There are plenty of agressive, violent people in my game world - I don't actually need a seperate race for them.

[garou]

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

 

GW' date=' of course, went even further, and envisioned their Orks as growing larger and stronger from any successful conflicts (which leads them to seek out war and strife to prosper). Orks seek out conflict the way that other races might strive for stability. Thus, they created the perfect Horde/Fodder enemy: they live to fight, they love to fight, and they reproduce like mad (even dead orks shed viable spores).[/quote']

Yes, and then someone pointed out the inherent problem with that - humanity, Eldar, etc all will lose, eventually. The Imperium* is outnumbered, and, despite the general crudity of Orkish weaponry, outgunned. It's only a matter of time. The same thing applies to the Tyranids - only more so.

 

* The Imperium were ostensibly the good guys, though in the original Rogue Trader days, the Imperium had penal battalions (for serious crimes like jaywalking and overdue library books), and the Emperor survived only by the sacrifice of thousands of psychics per day. And then GW lightened up the tone on the whole thing, and it just wasn't the same anymore.

[GothKidSamurai]

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

 

The thing about 40k is there are NO good guys. Except maybe the Tau. But they're Commies. So who knows?

[Phil]

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

 

I agree with most of the comments above as to why Orcs are so popular. I've also just started reading 'Orcs' by Stan Nicholls, a fantasy novel focused around an orcish warband which is really interesting reading. Orcs are still a violent, blood-thirsty warrior race, but it casts them in a slightly different perspective.

 

Personally the Orcs I like are definitely more Tolkienesque and First Age at that. Which means that they are extremely tough, compared to 'normal' people, and a handful can quite happily see off many times their number of human peasants. It's just that the Heroes in that setting are tougher still, so that balance of single hero vs. marauding horde can be maintained

[Vestnik]

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

 

Considering the ease with which orcs typically get slaughtered, one wonders why they went into the warrior race business in the first place. They should give it up and take up shepherding or construction work. It's like D&D kobolds -- no race that weak would ever be f*ing with humans. They should be living on grubs in the forest, HIDING from the humans.

[tkdguy]

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

 

I've drifted away from the "orcs are always evil" convention. In one of my campaign ideas, orcs were a subrace of humanity, descended from several nomadic tribes.

 

This last idea came from a dream. I was dreaming about a nomadic tribe of orcs on the move. Then they started singing (I swear I'm not making this up)! Now I've never dreamt of singing orcs again, but it was enough to make an impression.

 

And no, the song was NOT "Where there's a whip, there a way."

[Vestnik]

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

 

I've drifted away from the "orcs are always evil" convention. In one of my campaign ideas' date=' orcs were a subrace of humanity, descended from several nomadic tribes.[/quote']

 

I have a hazy memory of an article in an old Dragon magazine (that I would have read when I was about 13) that linekd the various D&D humanoid races to actual hominid species. Or is that my memory confabulating?

[tkdguy]

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

 

I have a hazy memory of an article in an old Dragon magazine (that I would have read when I was about 13) that linekd the various D&D humanoid races to actual hominid species. Or is that my memory confabulating?

I don't think I've read such an article, but I'm pretty sure someone has thought about it before.

[garou]

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

 

Considering the ease with which orcs typically get slaughtered' date=' one wonders why they went into the warrior race business in the first place. They should give it up and take up shepherding or construction work. It's like D&D kobolds -- no race that weak would ever be f*ing with humans. They should be living on grubs in the forest, HIDING from the humans.[/quote']

It's a genre convention - the same sort of thing that compells dragons to sit on big honkin; piles of magical treasure (and yet, never use any of it), and vampires to always go after the attractive lady with the underwired nightclothes.

 

Kobolds aren't the brightest of monsters, but they aren't stupid. Yet, for some reason, these 4' high humanoids build tunnels that allow humans with torches to pass with ease. They number in the hundreds, and often have at least some minor magic items (potions, a sword, shield, maybe even a wand or two), and never ever use them. They don't ambush, they don't retreat, they just come in waves to die at the end of a sword.

 

And you don't want to know what I think about how the average dragon, vampire or lich is run.

[AmadanNaBriona]

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

 

I have a hazy memory of an article in an old Dragon magazine (that I would have read when I was about 13) that linekd the various D&D humanoid races to actual hominid species. Or is that my memory confabulating?

 

There are a couple of old threads on these boards discussing the same thing... Neandertals as Orcs etc... Might be what you're thinking of. Wouldn't suprise me to have seen something of the same sort in Dragon either, tho.

[AmadanNaBriona]

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

 

It's a genre convention - the same sort of thing that compells dragons to sit on big honkin; piles of magical treasure (and yet, never use any of it), and vampires to always go after the attractive lady with the underwired nightclothes.

 

Kobolds aren't the brightest of monsters, but they aren't stupid. Yet, for some reason, these 4' high humanoids build tunnels that allow humans with torches to pass with ease. They number in the hundreds, and often have at least some minor magic items (potions, a sword, shield, maybe even a wand or two), and never ever use them. They don't ambush, they don't retreat, they just come in waves to die at the end of a sword.

 

And you don't want to know what I think about how the average dragon, vampire or lich is run.

 

You'd like how I run my badguys then

The only time I've used a Dragon in one of my FH games it looked like a TPK was gonna occur on a group of 6 250-300 point characters. They turned the fight around right before the crisis point, but it was REAL close.

[Dale A. Ward]

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

 

~malicious grin~

 

Give me an average tribe of kobolds and I'll make sure they dine well on any party of up to six 250-300 pt. PCs.

 

[Nolgroth]

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

 

Considering the ease with which orcs typically get slaughtered' date=' one wonders why they went into the warrior race business in the first place. They should give it up and take up shepherding or construction work. It's like D&D kobolds -- no race that weak would ever be f*ing with humans. They should be living on grubs in the forest, HIDING from the humans.[/quote']Well, D&D anything should do that after the characters reach a certain level. I think kobolds make an ideal 1st level opponent, but are pretty much used up in toe to toe combat after that. The power inflation that comes with leveling in D&D is cause for the obsolescence of many a great monster race. Third edition made that somewhat less of a sure thing, with higher level monster NPCs. I suppose with all those Hit Points that higher level characters have, it just makes it harder to provide a challenge from a common low-level enemy. That's kind of sad in some ways, but is a typical trope of fantasy gaming and literature.

[AmadanNaBriona]

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

 

Well' date=' D&D [i']anything[/i] should do that after the characters reach a certain level. I think kobolds make an ideal 1st level opponent, but are pretty much used up in toe to toe combat after that. The power inflation that comes with leveling in D&D is cause for the obsolescence of many a great monster race. Third edition made that somewhat less of a sure thing, with higher level monster NPCs. I suppose with all those Hit Points that higher level characters have, it just makes it harder to provide a challenge from a common low-level enemy. That's kind of sad in some ways, but is a typical trope of fantasy gaming and literature.

 

Hence the card in Munchkin : "3,872 Orcs", as a low to mid level threat

[Manic Typist]

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

 

Yes, and then someone pointed out the inherent problem with that - humanity, Eldar, etc all will lose, eventually. The Imperium* is outnumbered, and, despite the general crudity of Orkish weaponry, outgunned. It's only a matter of time. The same thing applies to the Tyranids - only more so.

 

* The Imperium were ostensibly the good guys, though in the original Rogue Trader days, the Imperium had penal battalions (for serious crimes like jaywalking and overdue library books), and the Emperor survived only by the sacrifice of thousands of psychics per day. And then GW lightened up the tone on the whole thing, and it just wasn't the same anymore.

 

The source material itself pointed out that the Orks, if they ever united, would be nigh unstopppable. However, fortunately for EVERYONE (even Chaos), the Orks are just far too confrontational to ever muster the level of cooperation that was necessary.

 

I don't recall any lightening in tone, actually. But still, the Imperium WERE the good guys- they just had to do some really dark stuff.

 

Don't even get me started on the Tau. Their arrogance would doom us all, xenos scum that they are.

 

AmadanNaBriona- what did they do to turn the tide on the dragon?

[AmadanNaBriona]

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

 

The source material itself pointed out that the Orks, if they ever united, would be nigh unstopppable. However, fortunately for EVERYONE (even Chaos), the Orks are just far too confrontational to every muster the level of cooperation that was necessary.

 

I don't recall any lightening in tone, actually. But still, the Imperium WERE the good guys- they just had to do some really dark stuff.

 

Don't even get me started on the Tau. Their arrogance would doom us all, xenos scum that they are.

 

AmadanNaBriona- what did they do to turn the tide on the dragon?

 

I just spent an hour or so flipping through Wikipedia entries on the 40K universe, and damn, they're getting almost marvelesque in their retconnning.

 

As for the Dragon.... One of the 2 mages in the party used a VPP magic system based on The Will and the Word from The Belgariad, and he finally pulled his cranium from his nether regions and came up with a creative application of his VPP other than simply blasting away with damage effects. Some variety of illusion... dont recall the specfics. This gave just enough of a breather for the other mage to get out of cover and heal the two big hitter warrior types. The overmuscled Conan clone moved in and began annoying the dragon into paying more attention to him than the rest of the group, while the norseman started weakening the supports to the cavern roof with the uber magic sword he was toting (these swords were the macguffins of the campaign... there were a half dozen scattered around the world in various godsforsaken locales... hence why the C's were fighting this particular Dragon). That particular sword was pretty *meh* in normal combat, but almost unstopable against unliving targets.... great for shattering through armor or knocking down castle gates (and eventualy destroying the gemstone that held the arch-badguys soul). Long story short... they finally stopped trying to beat the thing the old fashioned way, brought the cavern down on the dragon, then Conan boy finished it off it with the sword they had come to find. The Dragons sword was tied to the concepts of Justice and Retribtion, and among its suite of powers was the ability to toss out in one big hunk all the damage a foe had inflicted on the weilder... As the Barbarian had been playing punching bag for the Dragon, and had been knocked to -10 or more body twice in the fight, he had a whole big bag of magic whoopass he could let go.

 

The Dragon was around 750 points IIRC. I built it like a Dinosaur (my versions, not the publshed ones) Much Damage Reduction. Massive body. Quick. Smart.

 

It was a pretty archtypical fantasy party, and this was probably the single most cliched portion of the campaign. They had been kinda annoyed at the lack of classic genre tropes, so I forcefed them some, along with a reminder why no one tried to take Smaug in a stand up fight.

 

The Dragon almost ended things before they began... unbeknownst to the players, I had already, early in the fight, done an on the fly revision to the write up when it became clear on my side of the screen that if i didn't alter the Dragons write up, it was gonna flatten them with spells and hit & run attacks before they even found the bloody thing. It was playing cat and mouse with them through a giant underdarkish/Journey to the Center of the Earth style subterannean Fungus Forest. Midway through the hunt for the dragon, when 3 of the 6 were already on the ropes, I decided to end the Dragons illusion spells so they stopped chasing phantoms ( IIRC, I spontaneously downgraded its End Reserve), and I added a couple of appropriate Enraged disads so that if they managed the right provokation it'd stop fighting so smart.

[Curufea]

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

 

It's their retconning that is one of the reasons I stopped getting Games Workshop - they care more about getting people to buy the latest miniature - than, say, playtesting or at least looking to see if the new rules don't completely overbalance the game.

That, and they are some of the most unnecessesarily expensive miniatures you can get.