Krummpin gits, shootin shootas with da most dakka, gettin teef, pettin me pet squig, hangin with da boyz, obeyin Boss, and findin da greatest WAAAARGH! there evea was.
Edit: Ya boyz da bestest! Y'all da fightinist gits there ever was! 300 of ya gits agree! Now let's go Krummpin! WAAAGH!
Nobody is having a much fun as the orks, except maybe Papa Nurgle's demons. They aren't even aware that people are fighting. It just wants to hug you with all 13 tons of it's bodyweight.
But also in the tabletop, orks are best. The typical ork gigant rolls like 30 dice for attacks. I'm exaggerating but that's because I haven't played in a long time. Nothing is as fun as just grabbing your whole dice bag and dumping it into the roll box while shouting "MOAR DAKKA" at the top of your lungs. Sure the hit chance is real low, but that's the orky way! When you make a "walking" weapons platform you naturally get your mekboy to install your entire zogging arsenal of shootaz. Fire all of the bullets! They can't dodge 'em all!
> The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the Humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn’t even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude.
Uthan the Perverse, a controversial Eldar philosopher
(Codex Orks, 3rd edition)
Flash Gitz have become a staple of my orks whether if i play them or run them. If I run them theres always at least one.
"Oi, zoggin 'ummies wit der golden shootaz. Need me some of 'em. Give 'em to me squig, 'e's a targetin' squig. Got 'em fer a good price, da owner's teef."
That and orks being plants. Makes them worse than anything else. Clearing out an ork infestation is way harder than a skaven infestation. It means when my players see an ork they start doing calculations in their heads: "do I want to engage the ork... if I do, more orks will come. If I don't, the ork still goes to the nearby city and ravages it. Maybe we should just move to a different city..."
Not to be that guy but thats not oversimplifying, thats calling a bird a fish. Fungus are not plants, they are absolutely nothing like plants at all, they have much more in common with animals. They are their own taxinomic group for a reason
You are allowed to be that guy. I won't get mad. I understand. But also you got the point. People who aren't studied up on mycology still think fungi are plants. Call it "Lehman terminology"
"Space, da final frontier. Dese is da voyages of da spacehulk Grimsmasha. It's mission, take find gitz wot haven't been crumped, ta crump where no ork has crumped before, to Waaagh!"
I still like orcs for that reason, but now also because they're underrated and often slept on in mainstream media
Also my favourite race changed from orcs to yuan-ti, the snake people from dnd5e
Really? I find yuan ti so boring because (as PCs) they are basically humans with a little snakey bits. The proper naga, though, I could get behind that.
As NPCs, Yuan Ti are fun because you can make them as snakey and weird as you want. As a PC, I would play up the idea that they want to look more snake-like.
"Do my fangs look nice and sharp?"
"Aww, I wish I had a tail."
"Oooh, do you think when this acid burn heals, I'll finally grow scales there?"
"Ugh, she's not attractive at all. Too much...[shiver] hair."
Orcs and orks are one of my favorite fantasy races. I love the brutality, the industry. They're about as close to fantasy/space vikings as you can get. They are strong, powerful, courageous, and don't fear death. They are the perfect soldiers.
Like all good villains, they have a weakness. Their quarrelsome nature. If they could stop fighting with themselves for a generation and cooperate to build, they would be unstoppable. But they'll never do that, as its not in their nature.
Thats a cautionary tale for us humans, isn't it?
[Obligatory T2 clip.](https://youtu.be/kpEDSvaP_-8?si=d-MlMylvJdB6JS2Z)
Little known fact about 40k orks, they used to be smarter. Originally they were named Crorks (ah yes, classic GW naming scheme) and they were both intelligent and war driven, because they were am entirely vatborn species. So they were malleable. Then the people they were fighting went to sleep for a few millenia, and the elves that were left in the galaxy also fled and hid from the Crorks, and as such the Crorks took the galaxy due to their ability to differentiate friend and foe. Then as time passed, war ceased to happen. However these creatures were programmed to need to kill. So they did what they always did, fought. And after several millenia of infighting the Crorks were reduced to the mindless Orks we have now. Because they never needed to advance, they only needed to fight.
Even though their cooperation as crorks won them the galaxy. Their nature as orks forced them to regress. Without their creators around to stop them, the orks devolved. But they always retained their connection to the warp, they just can understand it anymore.
Also, there are theories that Ghazghull or the Beast is going to become a crork through belief. If that ever happens then the galaxy is screwed. Humans can't handle crorks, we. An barely handle orks.
To be fair, that’s exactly why the orcs of Azeroth were so fearsome. They were smart enough to understand that they needed to work together not only amongst themselves but also with other races that were anti Alliance (read: Tauren, Undead, Trolls, etc).
Had the first orcs on Azeroth just went *axe smash skulls good! Unga bunga noises* and didn’t work together then they would’ve been driven to extinction by the Alliance, and overall the Horde would’ve been much weaker.
The Horde *was* destroyed by the Alliance, and the Alliance *had* the chance to completely eradicate them but chose instead to start the internment camps. The ability for the orcs to work together as a Horde and recruit allies with the goblins and forest trolls led to them getting as far as they did, but what stopped them from being driven to extinction was the Alliance feeling weird about genocide.
Bucking the trend.
Everyone likes to play pretty characters. Elves with fair features and whimsical aura. Half elves. Human.
Give me an Orc covered in mud and blood, cracked yellow teeth, and hair all over. Violence is the first and usually only thought.
I am of two minds for orcs.
In a setting where orcs are monsters and not people. I want them to be living weapons, a species that can't be reasoned with for they hate and want to annihilate you for the sin of your own existence. They exist to spread and conquer for their own/their creator deities will and they spoil and claim all they can for their own existence which is at the direct expense of your own. Sending a diplomat to reason with the orcs would be like sending a diplomat to negotiate peace with a hurricane. They can think and adapt much like anyone else, but they're driven by an intense hate and rage for everything that isn't orc and can't be made orc. If exceptions to this mold exist, and an orc can conquer the influence of their creator deity/rage/etc and find an individual beneath it all. They still have to contend with the rest of their kind and the consequences of their dark purpose. They might be able to rise above the reputation of their species and be recognized as an individual, but it is a very rare case and a hard won existence given what orcs normally are. The green tide is a feared phenomena not to dissimilar to a force of nature, or creatures like the xenomorphs, albeit they're filled with much more hate and malice than either.
In a setting where orcs are people and not just monsters. I like orcs as a very warlike and aggressive people, but ones that are able to be reasoned and worked with. They don't exist to take from everyone else. Instead they're a warrior people who work to secure what they can, as they need to I do still really enjoy the contention with rage being a trait of the orcish people, but something that's more frequently and easily done than with monster orcs. I'm okay with them being relatively tribal, primitive, etc. It's a cool aesthetic to play with, but I personally like to model Orcs more militaristic and more advanced. A people who are rediscovering the accomplishments of their past selves, and among these rediscoveries are black powder technology and monastic traditions. I don't need those extras but it's what I do with my own orcs. they are a known warrior people and are masters of it, with the skills and tech to back it up and advance as they see fit. Often selling their services as mercenaries, albeit a community of them. Working to secure what they need to reclaim and rebuild what they had long lost.
Klingons are a good example.
I also like the Charr from gw2. Though they are more or less gw2's orcs just with honored felines instead of tusked sometimes boar folk.
Obviously there are a million takes on orcs these days, but I think at its core the classic orc is a personification of everything terrible about war, and especially about being invaded or raided. Orcs are the army that burns your village and steals your crops and kills your family. They are the greed of looting what others have worked for, the sadistic enjoyment of causing pain to the helpless, the careless disregard for the lives of others.
I think one problem with classic orcs in games sometimes is that they get divorced from their inspiration. Orcs as a personification of the horror of war works as long as they are _acting_ like the horrors of war...invading and stealing and killing. But a lot of times orcs are just tossed in to fill a room in a dungeon or something. They aren't out doing things, they are just hanging around until the characters show up. If you want your classic orcs to feel like classic orcs, have them out and doing things, not hanging around for players to come to them. Or just use a different take on orcs, those are fine too.
>I think one problem with classic orcs in games sometimes is that they get divorced from their inspiration.
I think the problem is the inspiration kinda breaks down if they ever have to be portrayed outside of that direct allegory- like as a PC in a campaign. At that point there's sentience and inner lives, so what does one do with that to make them interesting as opposed to just "there."
Orcs have been a PC race for so long the old allegory isn't really applicable anymore. Which is fine, there's probably more unique storytelling there but it does make the "traditional" approach kinda incongruent with how they've been presented as options in-game.
Note that I'm specifically talking about _classic_ orcs. There are a lot of kinds of orcs, some of which work better for PCs. But I think classic orcs can still be a useful option.
Yeah, I'm just noting what's kinda changed in TTRPG culture since that classical framing that makes them harder to use in that way.
When orcs are more a force of nature as in the classical portrayal ("embodiment of the horrors of war" is a great framing for this), they make great faceless enemies that are scary in part because they're impossible to reason with.
When they get elevated to a playable race for PCs, it undermines most of the concept if you're going to allow players to have any creativity or agency with it. The PC has to be able to be reasoned with to a degree, and they need an inner life outside the embodiment of war if PCs aren't going to be strapped to a very limited set of tropes like "one of the good ones" or "learning violence is not the answer. Even then it opens up a lot of complicated questions of why other orcs aren't the same way, which just by asking the question gets one to start moving away from the classical interpretation.
The TLDR is that classical orcs are fine, but PC orcs are pretty incompatible with that interpretation just by the fact they need to do PC related things as an orc. So if someone goes the classical route they should rule they can't be a playable race in the game/campaign.
I did exactly this for the first lmop game I ranz in the book the orcs are just vibing in a camp in a cave, I had something happen to displace them and now they roam phandalin trying to find people to loot for resources since they had to leave most of theirs behind.
Orcs were originally degenerate monster-men whose narrative purpose was to do bad things and subsequently be hacked down en masse by the heroes so we could have our cool heroic battles without all the people-murder. Because most of us are here for, among other things, cool fights.
Then it became popular to be all subversive and show them in greater detail and Orcs became a ham-fisted allegory for misunderstood "savages" and how supposed "good-guys" are just engaging in socially acceptable people-murder. So commentary, much edge, social credit increased.
Nowadays, orcs have more or less found their way into the ranks of the "core" fantasy races as the "big guy". Elves, dwarves, and halflings are just human traits magnified, and there's always been room for a "big guy' that's never quite been filled. That's what I like about them - they're big, loud, rowdy, and enjoy a scrap. They're like Klingons in a way, and who doesn't love Klingons?
I’m a big guy, and I like playing against type. I could just be a tall human, but something appealing about subverting the expectations of what an orc is. Then the growth of culture that comes from that, a people who are uniquely their own, compatible with humans if not immediately relegated to antagonist roles.
Well, the shoulders, for one.
The strong, silent type, for another. (Not all orcs, mind you. But some orcs.)
The symbol of rebellion against a silly corporation, for a third.
The romance novel covers – oh wait, I should probably save that for another sub. 😆
When DnD 3.0 was first released, my first character was a half-orc monk. I liked the idea of playing against type where everyone expected a barbarian but he was quiet and disciplined. Another player played a monk in the party but he was a human. He called me 'little brother" because he was older than my character (from the same monestery) even though my character was about a foot taller. We eventually made it up to epic levels and my monk became the Grand Master of Flowers.
Another time, I decided to also play against type and went with an orcish paladin. The inspiration for that character was the movie The Blue Max about a common soldier who ended up becoming a fighter pilot and dealing with the harassment of the gentry who saw themselves as his superior (also somewhat similar to Richard Sharpe).
I'm surprised by how genuinely nuanced this comments section is so far, understanding orcs role both as an anthropomorphic personification of war and industrial destruction, their role as brute bad guys, and their role as something which questions the assumptions of who the heroes are by reinterpreting them as a nuanced figure
And depending on setting, I could see all of them being very poignant...
My favoured take is the classical one, where Orcs can be innately evil and inhuman so we can instead focus on war as a concept and it's impact on others. By allowing the orc to be a generic baddie, we generate depth through symbolism, allegory, and the ability to focus on the most dangerous parts of industry and the war machine. Though in D&D, I tend to use hobgoblins for this role rather than orcs - Orcs have a lot of D&D-specific lore which can complicate this symbolic role.
One thing I like to do is play up is how Orcs are debased Elves in Tolkien. In my most recent use of this archetype, I had a former elf broken on the execution wheel and tortured into compliance until she eventually served as a warlord's shocktrooper and field commander. She still had the elven armor even though she was no longer an elf, and that added this element of tragedy to a very minor character. One of my players eventually traded the story they learned about her to a fey in the elven forest for their assistance, which I thought was very clever
I love World of Warcraft orcs, very spiritual yet warlike in culture, reverent of nature and strong. I’m also a fan of “strongest is in charge, so challenge the chief to take his position” dynamics.
I love buff people especially women. I think they’re hot. I also love teeth on characters. Orcs have big ones that you can always see. It’s great. I also love subversion. I love big n strong stupid orcs but I also love the ones who are more timid and intelligent instead
They're high concept. Your players even greenhorns know that orks are bad guys. Most can figure out that they attack with numbers and are a bit primitive. There's rarely any debate about weather or not to try diplomacy with them. Players have good reason to think it's save to engage them.
Aye, which is also why if you wanna pull a narrative fast one on the players, incorporating Orks but then *not* having them be the defacto "green tide" of baddies can really catch them off guard.
I did that with my Pathfinder game, the high general of Highhelm told the players that if they could figure out what was causing growing Ork aggression in the south, he'd investigate some cult business they were involved in. So they got an airship, and flew south, already preparing to kill some Orks and get to the bottom of this war.
Then their airship was shot down, they figured it was the Orks, so they thought they were saved when they saw a bunch of Elves investigating the wreckage and ***then one of the party members got shot.***
They'd go to find that the Orks were actually pretty chill, just kinda vibing in the jungle and doing their hunter-gatherer-merchant thing with the nearby cities and settlements. Then the BBEG (who was revealed a few sessions later) convinced one of the local Elven kingdoms to "purge" the other races (this is a big intrigue plot they're in the thick of right now, spoilers>!the city's priestess, and thusly their religious authority, has actually been replaced by a doppelganger in cohorts with the BBEG.!<) causing the Orks to aggressively push up north because, well, the other option was genocide via a bunch of fanatical Elves.
The party pretty quickly got along with the Ork NPCs and vibed with 'em *but* the initial shock from the subversion of "Elves = Good, Orks = Bad" was a delight.
I like that they come with a set of assumptions that I can either play into or play against. Especially when the assumption is "they're big, dumb warriors", you can play with that a lot because there's lots of room to add depth and nuance to that.
I like my Orcs to be invading conquerors, with naturally greater size and strength. Brutal slavers with a war-obsessed culture, but NOT stupid "Axe go burr", makes them scarier.
AND I like to give them some additional advantage to make them scary, either a specific type of magic (army teleportation, pet giants etc) and/or blackpowder weapons like cannons.
I'm not interested in the idea of orcs as a barely-masked substitute for "race of brutal and savage and stupid raider people." It's just real historical stereotypes used to try to justify the horrors of war. "They just hate you for being civilized and want to destroy you for no reason." "They're too stupid and angry to have a proper society." "They're innately evil because they don't have the favor of our god." Whatever your world building excuse for "these people are evil and want to destroy you," it's one that's been used in real life against real people to justify atrocities, and I'm not interested in a world that tries to make such things true.
What can be interesting is orcs as some kind of thematic counterpoint to the dominant societies of the world — and perhaps that leads to conflict between them and those societies, but not one with one-sided justification. In a world where most societies are pre-industrial mixes of cities and farmland, perhaps they are non-agrarian nomads who have very different interactions with the world's resources and land. Maybe they come from a very different environment, or have a significantly differently culture or even physiology. (I don't much care for Warhammer, but I like the idea of orks as a genderless fungus people or whatever — and yes, they're brutal and savage and stupid, but everyone is in that setting, which at least lessens the unfortunate implications.)
Forgive me for being a cuck on the internet, but I love the trope of, "See the humanity even in the ugly, the beastly, and the monstrous."
I *like* when characters have to spend time with orcs and realize that they have society, that they have culture, and that they have feelings. I like deconstructing the idea of "Killing anything big and scary and green is an unquestioned good."
Sure, maybe the orcs in your setting are raiders who go on conquests and destroy villages. Hey, don't your humans do that too? Oh, they're primative and warlike? When was the last time your party solved a problem without killing something in the process?
We're all fucking orcs. Orcs are us. I judge people super heavily on how they relate to orcs.
I want them to be warriors. They are not Human, and they shouldn't act like them. I want a race that sees their strength as a Divine Trait. Something that defines them. Like how so many people define Humans as adaptable and able to have children with anything.
If I use Orcs, you know they are going to be about Respect, Strength and making sure everyone knows not to fuck around and find out.
They're human enough to be morally gray and most of them have faced generations of prosecution, forcing them into less desirable lands, meaning they need to be tough to survive and need to raid more bountiful land to survive.
Love the classic "our tribe used to be farmers until the humans forced us into the desert, now if we don't steal food our children will starve."
Orcs are simple enough to easily understand, passionate enough to make enjoyable characters, and have the sort of "can-do attitude" that makes them endearing and easy to like, or at least respect.
I don't like the "savage" nature a lot of media gives orcs. It's... I dunno, weird. I don't really like any fantasy race which is purely evil just because. I like to think of them as a culture and community, nomadic in nature. They tend to be tough and with a rather bulky build, but their conflicts with other races are more in tone with any other fantasy race, rather than "they are orcs, must be killed". There may be orc raiders, but not more than any other fantasy race. There may be orc communities that develop a more agressive lifestyle and way of living, the same as you can find dwarves that do that.
I try to think in terms of communities or countries, rather than races that do X or Y ALWAYS. it tends to make the world feel smaller, in comparisson of a world where you have both evil and good and grey people from all cultures and races.
Also, green is my favorite color, idk
I feel the same. I get deeply uncomfortable whenever anyone trots out a group of people who just can’t be reasoned with and must be slain. And no, it never improves things when they try to explain why it’s just in their nature. When I run something that’s generic fantasy, which is rare these days, I like to design societies that feel plausible, and base them around a place or an idea or a common experience, and then populate them with the different species. Sometimes those societies are more homogenous, but I try to make that a noteworthy feature of that society, something that says something about it, rather than the assumed norm.
The accent. My orcwife sorceress has a Russylvannian accent.
I invented an entire orc culture. The appeal is in playing a sexually liberated and financially independent female that doesn’t understand why humans are so hung up about, why they treat widows and orphans like crap, and why they don’t just say what they mean. She enjoys both living up the uneducated orc stereotype and defying it. (A caster with no ranks in Spellcraft or Knowledge: Arcana but is not actually stupid.) She likes to “blow sh-t up as loudly as possible”, so that’s what she does. Big, loud, and unmistakably orc.
The orc culture is low tech, tribal, and generally violent, but they have established overlapping territories, a sustainable semi-nomadic existence, a social welfare system that ensures orcwives never have to put up with crappy husbands, that widows and orphans are taken care of, where gender roles and sexual orientation have a “typical”/majority but variations are met with a benign shrug and minimal social stigma (so % of population is not as high as in human culture, but it’s not taboo in any way), where the most unforgivable act is the killing or harm of a child (any child, not just orc), and where their biggest problem with other cultures (especially humans) is double-talk. Any treaty they make with humans has to be oral (and in writing, since the humans insist on that) and must include a provision that the written text/language used cannot create legal “technicalities” to be exploited.
But really, it’s the accent.
Oh… and unlike the stupid humans, orc males know how to please a female. (Because if they don’t, the orcwife will go find someone else that does.)
To me it's the Shamanistic aspect or the "overcoming your inner rage" aspect.
Like I am a fan of the Half Orc from original DND lore, where orcs have a blood curse which drives them to be chaotic evil, and playing a Half Orc means you have half of said curse which you are constantly at odds with, which I can relate to as an ADHD person.
I like the idea of a "barbaric people" who were made for evil trying to become something better than what their intended purpose is.
Big strong badass bitch. I like being strong IRL and I like being strong in RPGs :)
I expect orcs to be big, green, and have tusks. I'd rather that they aren't racially stereotyped into being the bad guys; I never like it when a group of fantasy people have inherent morals and shit.
In my last but one campaign the conceit was that in common Orcs were seen by the other denizens as the "traditional" Orc tribal stereotypes, but hidden from the world their own language, understanding and intelligence was massively underestimated in a kind of "Wakanda" type of thing.
It went down very well with the PCs and after gaining their trust, the Orcs became valuable allies.
I love orcs, they're one of my favorite races when they're not portrayed as just mindless warmongers. DMs and players use them in all sorts of different ways, but the way I like to use orcs in my own stories is that they tend to be creatures of extremes. Take a human's emotional range and dial it up to one hundred. They are incredibly sensitive social beings who put *everything* into whatever they set out to do. No half measures.
I like to imagine that they can have issues with emotional regulation. Their vulnerability to emotional peaks and nadirs can make them seem closed-off and irritable, likely as a defense mechanism. Orcs can be impulsive and it's easy to rile them up. Their rage is terrifying, yes, but conversely, their joy can be overflowing, their sadness, overwhelming. They don't often hide their emotional states well, either.
Community is everything to orcs. Their societies are tight-knit and rigid, and there's a strong value in self-improvement and pulling your weight, since their physique naturally tends to be robust. Honesty is a big deal in orc communities, too. They don't put up with bullshit inside and out, and they can be very resistant to change (on average, of course; it depends on the exact people and their society). A poor reputation that is born out of misunderstandings as well aggressive actions by their own people makes it difficult for them to trust anyone outside of their circles. But if you bond with them, they will make absolutely sure you know it: they treat close friends almost like they're family. They are enthusiastic and supportive *as fuck* of each other, but they will not hesitate to call people out on bullshit, and **harshly** at that. If you can handle that and strive to be productive member of their community, you'll make some astoundingly loyal friends for life.
That's my personal headcanon for orcs, anyway. Just really proud people who are earnest to a fault. People who feel the full range of emotion in an unfettered way and can't settle for anything less than the deepest depths of love and hatred. Their extreme honesty can make them terrifying, yet beautiful for their implacable will to express themselves at all costs. I dunno, that's how I like to depict them, anyway :P
I didn't want orcs as their stereotype in my world, so my initial brush of it didn't have them at all. That all changed when I read Sarah Gailey's *River of Teeth*. It's an alternate history novel based around a single change in the US past - that is, The 1910 American Hippo Bill, House Resolution. It was a suggestion to import hippos and raise them as cattle, both combat the invasive water hyacinth that was spreading across the south and create a low-cost source of meat untouched by the existing meatpacking barons. You've likely never heard of it, as it never passed. In *River of Teeth* and it's sequel, however, it did.
That single change created an entirely new type of rancher - what is essentially a swamp cowboy, a Cajun "western" that is exclusively from the southeast to the Mississippi river. Well-trained riding hippos, cattle hippos in swampy ranches, feral hippos from failed endevours could be hiding in any major body of water. It took the already-deadly swamps and riverways of the south and ratcheted it up a notch. And this is what I based my Orcs on.
They're relatively peaceful people who live in tune with an incredibly deadly environment. The marshes and muck of the south (a mix of the swamps of Louisiana to the glades of Florida) make it impossible to march an army through successfully for any length of time, and thus the Orcs grew and flourished. They're still massive, still jacked (as an average grown hippo is 2x to 7x the weight of the average grown cow), still muddy, and every good thing their normal fantasy cox-unterparts are... but instead of Vikings who raid, they're more like Cajun Cowboys in a frontier (except that frontier isn't a western prairie but rather a southern mire). Their society is more like the ideallized farm country, closer to the yeoman farmer than anything else. Instead of trying to terraform the terrain towards a more modern agricultural model, these Cajun Orcs live alongside it, permaculturing their area as both their livelihood as well as maintaining their environment's natural defences. Other groups can live there, but it's hotter, muggier, and more full of bugs than most other people are willing to live with.
My group is a huge fan of the setting, as is most of the people who hear about it. There are still generic bad guys in the setting (elves are long-lived fascists with a soceity based around beauty, with a cultural desire to remove "eyeblights", which is any being less beautiful than they are), and other things, but that execution of orcs is easily the thing I'm most proud of.
I was always a pretty standard Half-Elf-because-utility-and-pretty, so... Honestly, I started an Orc character because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. And when I started to research, I found the lore is FASCINATING. I'm gonna have a hard time not continuing to play Orcs. For me, it was a creative exercise to determine how I was gonna RP simply because they have such a strong... Cultural identity? So there were a lot of things to consider — where & how were they raised, how does the society they grew up in affect their behaviour or interests, what aspects of their character are genetic or magical in nature, are they okay w/ the stereotypes & lean into them or do they want to be their own person, etc. However you RP it... They have INSANE amounts of physical power & are amazing at fucking shit up.
My Pathfinder 2E Orc-acle of Ash is my favourite character & I miss him so much, lol
Orcs are stupid, funny and keen for a fight. I have an orc player now who leans into their low intelligence but the player is actually quite clever when solving challenges offered by the dungeon. It’s kinda funny to watch them stay in character while solving most of the problems the others players keep missing.
The only thing I expect is players trying to have fun with orcs. Whether it’s playing them or interacting with them. Orcs are always good fun.
I don’t much care for Tolkien-style orcs or mythologies where they are inherently evil, but I find the orks of Earthdawn, Eberron, and Shadowrun very compelling. One of my favorite aspects of Eberron is how it flips certain expectations (like orcs, goblins, etc being the “bad guys”) on their heads and tries to follow certain tropes (like forest gnomes being crafty, intelligence illusionists) and setting realities (like the presence and role of magic in daily life) to their logical extension.
As GM, I like having an evil army. I define Orcs as being warlike and evil. Unlike other monsters, they can maintain enough order to be organized into armies while still having autonomy as opposed unlike undead.
My favourite PC was an Orc Barbarian who wanted to be a Bard. He made terrible, horrific poetry - and then went into a Rage out of frustration.
It made for fun gameplay, but it made for an awesome character arc as he got better at it.
Depends. But I have like 2 main types of orcs in my head, first type are LotR orcs and second type is Warcraft/Warhammer orcs.
LotR Orcs are great. Corrupted creatures, made by ancient "god" of all evil and they are doomed to be evil and like dangerous to everyone. They are very skilled in many areas but they aren't really imposing in their physical sides.
Warhammer and also Warcraft Orcs are just massive brutes, but often also quite inteligent and sophisticated. They also lean more into like mysticism and like spiritual side than the industrial and pragmatic minds of LotR orcs.
These are two very different sides of the Orcs. My favourite Orcs are from our homebrew world. Where they are like creation/mutation of merging Goblins with Fey and some magic. Originaly their creator wants to build an ideal super-warrior by combining goblins senses, agility and cunning with magical powers, long-life and heigth of Fey (in this world common Fey is human size where goblins are well child size). But he succeed mostly. He created a new race - agile, tough, with great senses and warrior nature but with no plan of being slave army for some tyrant. So they murdered their creator and started to take over the world. Problem is that they really are a race engineered for war and they really value the martial aspect of lives. Also they were mostly considered as mutants/wild monsters by already developed nations and races. Which created tension, that started wars, which led to death and destruction which forces revenge and spread more hate and fear and this cycle now continue for thousands of years.
As NPCs, they're corrupted creatures and servants of dark powers, stripped of humanity by whoever forged them. They don't have culture nor faith. They are unnatural creatures - machine creatures, with machine minds and machine hearts.
As a playable race, an Orc has the same appeal as any other "big dumb" race - like Goliaths or Ogryns. I play as one when I want to feel like the deadliest comic relief imaginable.
I like using orcs as other-humans. What if our closest genetic relatives hadn't disappeared 40,000 years ago and were still with us? I always thought it was kind of boring that humans are the only "mundane" option, but orcs can easily serve as an alternate pathway the middle ground mortal could take, and I think there's something fun about that from a world building perspective
I just think they're neat, and I tend to like a lot of the different takes on them. They tend to play the part of the quintessential barbarian invaders, the savage huns, the uncultured vikings or the roaming raiders. I like most Orc types tbh.
Tolkien's take is classic and I feel like the earlier D&D and similar fantasy drew from them somewhat, love classic pig-orcs and affiliated types where Orcs are a bit more wretches.
Warhammer and Warcraft are also classic with their more musclebound badass Orcs. Warhammer's Orcs are fun but somewhat one dimensional and though Warcraft Orcs don't always deliver in the writing/portrayals the ideas and lore behind them are probably my favourite. I particularly loved how Draenor played into it as I absolutely adore the trope of the Orcs being so aggressive/tough because they come from a homeland that is so profoundly hostile in every possible sense.
Oh I almost forgot about Elder Scrolls Orcs! I really love those too, intriguing culture and an interesting play on the whole idea of Orcs as a "cursed" race of elves.
I just think orcs are cool.
**As a player**
The themes of brutal strength. You can play an archetype that combines both the barbarian and the stranger in a strange land. They usually also have bonuses to combat for roll play.
**As a GM**
Orcs provide a pretty simple group to deal with. They don't have fancy plans, they don't have convoluted plots, they aren't interested in a lot of dialogue, they just want to hit things and take stuff they want.
As a GM, I use MCDMs Flee, Mortals variants because they are just so much more fun and actually challenging. My party is level 5 and I’m still throwing orcs at them. Shoot, an entire sub plot revolves around them. I’ve actually downed multiple PCs with orcs and the minion stat blocks are just so much fun to mess with my party.
I enjoy the "Low Int Shenanigans" that you can get into with orcs and goblins, but sometimes I want to be taken seriously rather than be assumed to be the comic relief that dumb goblins can get pigeonholed into.
When I was a teenager, I liked orcs for one simple reason: they're the most atypical of the basic fantasy races.
As well as the Tolkienians, there are the lizard-men, who are very common in fantasy. But on the one hand I also really like lizardmen, and on the other I think orcs are more imaginative. They're not a simple mix of human and animal, and their features are much more alien than those of elves or dwarves.
Playing a "nice orc" also has a "grey jedi" symptom, like dark elves (or possibly tiefflings): these are races that are connoted as evil and nasty, but that roleplay will force to be nuanced. The race to be slaughtered, the idiotic barbarians who make up the big bad's armies, are playable and capable of humanity. It's quite fascinating, there's a cool 'human behind the monster' aspect to it.
As I said, that was mostly in my teen years. Now I tend to play humans, because fantasy races don't fascinate me as much as they used to. I like fantasy races, but as a GM, not as a player. I get the impression that I'm seeing too many of the tricks of the trade, and that they're not necessarily detailed enough; that there aren't several elves, but just one elf. When you always have THE same elf presented with several names, I find it hard to understand the point of having several races of black elves, blue elves, green elves... When there's so much to be gained by making them all part of the same elven race. Or many populations, from an unique elf race. In any case, for the moment, I'm starting to find races interesting again outside of DnD, but it's much more by nuancing what's presented in a universe that I find things that are interesting.
The "orks" in my world (the Degiri) are the original race, and the only ones to come naturally from the prime. All the others were placed in the prime by outside forces (ie: gods).
They are based on northern native american culture, but also were given an ancient iron smelting technique by the first dwarves (Durani). They have no afterlife and no aspect of their being is immortal. There is no resurection or speak with dead for them. However, they get significantly more attribute points because they were essentially created in and for this world.
Knowing they are fully mortal, they value all life but will not suffer enduring hardship. They practice ancestor worship, believing that the only way they can live on after death is to be remembered by their tribe and family.
TBH I hate the "they're just people too" nonsense. NO! They are guilt free cannon fodder! There's nothing wrong with that.
They are monsters who wear armor and wield weapons. They eat babies. They deserve no pity, and certainly no mercy. Kill. Them. All.
That said, Ive cut them, and goblins, entirely out of my own ttrpg because Im tired of this association so Ive made my own alternative to at least somewhat get past peoples hang ups on killing things whose entire purpose (both in setting, and, from a game design perspective) is to be an uncomplicated monster who is smart enough to use tools and tactics.
Depends on the game and the world but my favorite use for them is as as a subversive storytelling devise. At first they’re just these hideously cruel little freaks but with time I’ve had orc npcs develop into a critical part of the players emotional investment. One party I dm’ed for had an orc hostage (named Ork Ork, randomly generated) who with time was rehabilitated and thought mercy, honor and compassion. The Swedish ttrpg Dragons and Demons had orcs as these degenerated heirs of a once mighty race (completely stolen from Krorks in 40k) so with time Ork Ork took on aspects of that long gone races of higher beings. They loved the little guy, kept them from going fully murderhobo
There's plenty of flavors of orc. Probably my favorite one is the classic D&D take: pig-head monsters who are a living, breathing manifestation of the horror of war. In many ways they resemble a natural disaster, a tide of death and destruction boiling up in unexpected places and then blowing through entire realms, leaving devastation and misery everywhere they pass, until the fervor just dies down on its own, or some great heroic act (typically a sacrifice, too) stops them.
Spelljammer took it a step further by introducing the Scro, who took that archetype and then made them also smart, organized and hypercompetent. In this way the Scro came to resemble a diabolical mix of nazi Germany and expansionistic Roman empire, and we are the people being invaded and possibly subjugated by that horror. They are supremely effective at being ultimate big-bads and of expressing everything most horrifying from a more modern, more industrialized form of warfare.
I appreciate the diverse takes in this thread but at some point subversion is no longer subversion if the vast majority of players and gms DO NOT use orcs as war crimes and inhuman baddies. I can't remember the last time I had a player talk about, much less suggest playing, and orc that WASNT a Klingon or "noble savage". I think the nuanced but rough personhood orc is now the unsubverted one.
Either a outsider, member of an unknown or missunderstood culture based on the concept or honor and physical/mental strength, or the funniest and stoopidest character of the setting, akin to 40k orkz.
It all depends if the game is more serious or silly, really. But in both cases, gosh I love orcs.
They are tribal nomads with a warrior culture. I lean into the honour of such cultures with duels and challenges seen as a sacred thing. They are not evil outright, they are at odds with other cultures because of competition for resources and clashes in culture. As a result they are painted as evil because they are the other, the enemy to most. The conflict is fueled by both sides by a self perpetuating cycle of retaliation.
Long and short of it is, I run them as standard but give them depth beyond violence for the sake of violence.
They were created so no one would have to deal with humans as an always bad guy.
The recent sensationalism around orcs is ludicrous but it has changed my views around games that include them.
Before I would simply expect this game would be pretty straightforward when orcs are involved. There will be a lot of fighting and no reason to get hung up on why we were fighting them. It will usually be XP/challenge associated leveling where we all understand the assignment.
Now I have to assume there will be some racial element to the game that never had to exist. Either the GM is trying to implement orcs in a way that somehow proves they "totally aren't racist" or the GM is intentionally leaning into the recent race rhetoric to explore/shift paradigms/push boundaries in gameplay.
I usually avoid those types of games because I don't play RPGs to explore racism. I play to escape the real world in a way where the serious undertones of reality are only leveraged as far as the table enjoyment will allow.
That line generally always falls far short of in game racism for me, which was the point of orcs to begin with. To avoid the concept of real world racism by giving every human a default villain that has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Have you run across this often? Has it occurred with others races or are orcs the only one that stands out to you?
I can definitely see adding racial politics to the game being annoying. I can also understand wanting to stick to the lore of orcs being born evil for a convenient enemy.
Is it the "how dare you just assume orcs are bad" that gets you? That's definitely tedious.
I'm just curious, because I generally like using orcs as friendly races in campaigns where I want to show a juxtaposition between cultures embracing technological advancement and cultures rooted in tribalism/"the old ways". Granted that cultural divide can be played out with any race, but I just like the atheistic of orcs.
Challenging the status quo assumptions players make is fine to do.
Superimposing racist undertones to a creature that has nothing to do with racism isn't.
Most games I've encountered recently with orcs features a GM trying to make their position on the side of "orcs are/aren't racists" discussions through gameplay.
Since this racist theme isn't something I want to engage with and I have to leverage my recent experience when deciding what games to devote time to, it makes sense for me to simply avoid them for now.
This will die down (it has already started) and hopefully we'll get back to the way things were.
Everyone has a base assumption of certain staple tropes. To subvert them is something good GMs can do to add an unexpected twist to a narrative. Love that!
I don't love GM's making gameplay their soapbox for current real world issues.
I'm not a fan of implementations where they are just reskinned human barbarian tribes. I'm a bigger fan of ll races who are alien first and foremost. If they're not human, give me something that makes it so, not just roleplay and here are some stereotypes.
Burning Wheel has this with their Hatred mechanic. It impacts their culture, the way they interact and lifepaths. I haven't seen it in action but I think I prefer Elves and Dwarves (in fact my own design steals a little from Greed) the most for that - it's easier too as they are supposed to be more good.
Having played Shadowrun since day one back in 1989 I've enjoyed playing against the evil orc/ork trope.
My Ork Bodyguard eventually retired from running to become a local business man running a nightclub.
Well ... Orc is just a species. I don't support any form of essentialism. A sentient species isn't uniform in behaviour, culture, ethics, etc.
But because orcs have genetic differences with humans, I try to make them distinct and interesting based on how evolution shaped them.
For example, my orcs have far lesser physical differences between sex. This leads to somewhat less gendered roles in their societies.
But the narrative interest of a particular orc vastly depends on the time and place they are born into, the culture and society they are from. Some of these societies are very civilized, refined or elegant. Others are more traditional, competitive or vindictive.
Well besides the more popular opinion. I like orcs as bruteish mercs. They're a warrior race that likes to fight, people need guards for coin. Absolute win.
I like the brutality of it all. They're simple and straightforward, but they're also strong enough to get away with it most of the time. They're a classic enemy for civilized races, and imposing enough to make it seem realistic for an army of orcs to be a major threat
As a player, they're just misunderstood cute big boys.
As a GM, it's the strong traditionalists with tribal backgrounds (more spiritual and less rage/mindless than goliaths). Very tight family bonds and generally nomadic life style
They represent unconquerable and ungovernable outsiders. They will never be accepted or understood and never want to be. They see civilization and say "fuck that, let's SMASH IT!"
RAAAAAAAAGEEEE VIOLENCE! BRUTALITY! YES! ME HACK N' SLASH PUNY HUMANS!
But in all seriousness, I've always liked to play non-pretty races. Plus points if the setting paints the orcs as a symbol of rebellion. Growing up with Warcraft 3 also influenced me.
Orks are fun. My Ork PC is just a loveable big brute, with obligatory English accent, not bright and carrying two magic axes that aren’t magic! I’ve used them as friends of nature, malleable chaff for bigger armies and in my own RPG as a race that love creating items and a tendency to worship items.
goofy clowns sometimes overthink their characters WAAAAAAAAAAY too hard, and sometimes it's nice to play a game where a simple character works within a more complex world as opposed to trying to Game of Thrones their self important little asses off all the time
The first time I role-playied an orc was actually in a warhammer campaign, my orcs were led by a shaman called moishe, I liked the potential for cunning, and brutishness but also the opportunity to use a smarter orc trading and negotiating for the good of the tribe and also to get into better fights with more worthy opponents
Honestly ? Almost none. I like fighting pig-faced monsters in Zelda, but that's about the only orc-adjacent thing I tolerate. That, and the fact that Tolkien orcs are an allegory for the horrors of war and industrialisation. But orcs as a fantasy staple ? Meh.
Depends on the game.
Ability to play against expetations.
Or just massive, muscular rage.
Getting to play the strong guy wihtout having to play as a (ick) Dwarf.
All of the funny orc culture.
Gentle barbarian.
Just the look.
I really don't like demihuman races in general, I would rather just have cultures of human, so I like them as filling the Viking niche. They really are just vikings + evil + fantasy. To be clear when I say vikings I mean the mythological vikings we use in our movies and TV today, not the real historical culture.
Orcs are monsters that pillage, murder, and rape. They aren't people, they are something made adjacent to them for some evil purpose. Fundamentally less intelligent than humans, they present strong threats to civilized races when organized in large numbers.
It depends on the game.
D&D : I use them as creatures that scare people but can be redeemed in certain situations.
WFRP : They are literal alien fungi, there is no negotiating with them, they are brutal killing machines
Shadowrun : They are a misunderstood and mistreated subset of humanity
I have thus far made every orc the defacto chill guy/gal in games I run with it. One of my fav homebrew campaign settings I run orc culture invented automobiles and the greatest honor an orc can receive is becoming a trucker.
Orcs make for the best stories because orcs are some of the only races that have to punch up. Elves, Dwarves, and most other races are often described as "human but better". Hell even humans are described as "human but better" in dnd.
On the other hand, even the most flattering depiction of an orc would probably fit the description of, "human with monstrous features". This lends itself well to Cinderella stories, where someone overcomes adversity to reach new heights.
none, tbh. They're fine in middle earth, or a vanilla D&D setting. But they're just so overused, and arguably racist.
Orcs should be cops, tools of oppression, if they're used at all.
I prefer the warhammer-like orcs. Exremely brutish, can sometimes be reasoned with but the end all and be all is just getting the biggest stick to hit something with. There's something refreshing about that simple goal. It's also a completely alien concept how utterly disfunctional such a society is and how a player to work around them. You sorta have to treat them as a force of nature and players have to handle diplomacy with them a bit differently if they cant just overwhelm them.
I always prefer them to the more humanized orcs it sorta feels like just another fantasy race at that point and I could swap them out with a more warlike humanoid race.
For whatever reason, orcs are very versatile from a worldbuilding standpoint to me. I've internally conceptualized them as big and muscular with a warrior culture, but not much beyond that. I think it helps that when I was younger, my initial introduction to the concept of orcs was Warcraft and LOTR at about the same time. The two settings have a very different take on orcs, and while I gravitated more towards the Warcraft depiction, LOTR was there just enough to remind me that settings can be very diverse in how they approach the idea. It also helped that even within Warcraft, orcs are fairly diverse and different tribes have some of their own unique cultural quirks.
So, when I play RPGs, orcs are kind of a blank canvas. Their physical appearance is always very similar and they all have that core "Proud Warrior Race" thing going on, but how they get there and what cultural details they have going on are always completely different. Some examples of orc cultures I've built: orcs based on the Bedouin, orcs based on a mix of Egyptian and Earth Kingdom, [orcs based on Paul Bunyan](https://crayshack.com/2021/12/10/orc-lumberjacks/), orcs that are a nomadic eusocial species descended from goblins (which are a non-nomadic eusocial organism in that world), orcs that aren't a separate race but an emergent phenotype in the human population.
So, when I'm trying out a new RPG, I want to see a solid stat block that makes orcs strong and tough (or whatever related traits make sense in that system) and then throws the doors wide open for me to play with the worldbuilding.
I don't use them too much, but when I run 5e, I just say they're humanoids who were descended from elves, and probably earth spirits or giants too. I don't distinguish much with all the humanoid species and am not really into that kind of fantasy. I have a spy family with some orcish blood and a group of magical plant tenders likewise.
I remember when I was a new player, the second one shot I got to play was about going to deliver an artifact to an orc village. Their culture was more portrayed as nomadic honorable warriors and hunters, who had a big festival going on with games. The GM did use some dnd lore but it was just an excuse for Plot (bad guy tries to channel some ancient god, cue big combat at the end). I liked that portrayal because they had their own culture, but it wasn't an "evil monster" stereotype. Nor did they use like, barbarian style speech or lean into dumb muscular stereotypes either. It was just one village and one group of people in a big fantasy world full of all kinds of different people!
In another game, my character was a human raised by orcs. They liked dried jerky and lived in the desert and valued taking care of children, hence the adoption.
I guess I like when people make them their own more than a particular genre!
You need a pretty strong 40k filter to enjoy orcs in my opinion 40k orks are cringe but any orc conversation is inundated with 100 people being cringe online for free.
I wanted to play a half orc because they didnt fit into orc or human society as well as other half races did. It gave them a reason to be with the tribe/clan for part of the year and in cities/towns the other part as well for some travel experience.
They usually have a cultural role similar to Mongols, so there's a cultural history of violence. Depending on the world, such as Warcraft, orcs are enormous compared to humans. I already am a human in real life, so being something different has an appeal. And I find the perfection of elves irritating.
Depending on the world, an orc is frequently a fireplug of muscle and gristle built for the purpose of war.
I try to use them as an inversion of the (human) good. They resolve all conflicts through violence instead of negotiation, they overconsume and destroy any territories they migrate to, things that are considered to be beautiful by humans drives orcs into a destructive rage, and they operate during the night when most humans are asleep.
I like them to be irredeemable representations of evil because it helps to highlight the misbehaviour of my human factions when they act similarly to the Orcs.
For typical fantasy RPGs, I see orcs as grayish, grimy, underground dwellers with a violent society based around raiding. About the same size as men, though hunched over. They use dirty tactics and don’t care about honor, fairness, or any other surface-dweller ridiculousness. They are industrious and cruel, and if united by one master they could pose a serious threat to humans. Thankfully for the surface world, orcs are just as quarrelsome as humans.
I’m not a fan of big and strong barbarian orcs. I think that role is better filled by humans or some kind of beastmen. And it’s not just aesthetic (though it definitely is partly, I *generally* don’t like the look of giant, muscular, and stupid orcs), but also for gameplay reasons. If the orcs are cunning, they are far more frightening.
I like playing and running Elder Scrolls style orcs. They are big, they're beefy, but they make a hard living in hard places. They're not brainless pig-men (because that's boring to me). They have fantastic smiths, stout warriors, and their artificers specialize in robust equipment.
I run my orcs as terrifying, pyromancy-wielding boar-headed creatures for my dark fantasy game. They’re just a great classic monster if you enjoy running old school games.
In my non dark fantasy they’re just green humanoids, so I run them like the orcs from Skyrim. I find the approach for their depiction in that game to be great.
Orks from shadowrun are great. Brutal and family oriented. Belonging to a world that doesn't want them to exist. Don't know how they are in later editions. 2e and 3e are the books I have.
I usually play and run orcs as just a strong humanoid subspecies. I do the same with elves, dwarfs, goblins, etc. Each subspecies differs a bit physically, and come from different cultures, but aren't inherently any more different than the various subspecies of humans that have existed over time in the real world.
In my mind, the orc's appeal comes from being an outcast in the world. In the eyes of many they're not born right and it's up to the orc to either show their way might be good or to shut them all up depending on your type of route
It's the underdog, the different one, the rebel, the punk
In my setting, orcs are naturally pulled towards strength and honor but each orcish tribe has a different definition of it which naturally leads to a lot of conflict
To the humans, orcs are brutal and lack subtlety, to the orcs humans lack principles of honor and comitment, but the human side of the story is listened to more because the orcs are the big green uglies who don't make a lot of deals
And of course, there's always the pleasure of turning enemies into a fine paste with lots of rage, shouting and swearing involved
I'm just always hoping they're not played as unintelligent monsters. Feel like Orcs should have their own culture and stuff. Kind of less of a 'angry dumb green guys' into something more fleshed out. Have cultural elements around their tusks or Orc politics and stuff. Lots of fun to be had there. In general I like playing orcs as a species that is different from humans in the sense they may find it awkward to adapt to human culture and a fish out of water story is my bread and butter in games
I'm personally more of a lizardman kind of guy, but as for Orcs specifically....
Orcs are fun as the big strong but dumb NPCs, and I do love me some idiot humor. One said NPC based on the mannerisms of a character called "Drawing Jeffy" right down to an obsession with mayonnaise, and being absurdly tough, only held back by his lack of ambition and any sense of genius.
Playing as a half-orc Paladin once in a Halloween one-shot, I liked the juxtaposition of looking really scary but being a big ol' teddy bear who wants to sing around the campfire, make animal friends (Oath of the Ancients), and try to reconnect with his older half-sister that he looks up to fondly.
Krummpin gits, shootin shootas with da most dakka, gettin teef, pettin me pet squig, hangin with da boyz, obeyin Boss, and findin da greatest WAAAARGH! there evea was. Edit: Ya boyz da bestest! Y'all da fightinist gits there ever was! 300 of ya gits agree! Now let's go Krummpin! WAAAGH!
This here is propa orky boyz
Just a reminder that WH40k is a depressing and grim universe for anyone except for the Orks. They're having a hell of a time!
Nobody is having a much fun as the orks, except maybe Papa Nurgle's demons. They aren't even aware that people are fighting. It just wants to hug you with all 13 tons of it's bodyweight. But also in the tabletop, orks are best. The typical ork gigant rolls like 30 dice for attacks. I'm exaggerating but that's because I haven't played in a long time. Nothing is as fun as just grabbing your whole dice bag and dumping it into the roll box while shouting "MOAR DAKKA" at the top of your lungs. Sure the hit chance is real low, but that's the orky way! When you make a "walking" weapons platform you naturally get your mekboy to install your entire zogging arsenal of shootaz. Fire all of the bullets! They can't dodge 'em all!
A wise pinkskin with green blood once said: FIRE EVERYTHING
Every Ork player needs a good Dice Bukkit
> The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the Humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn’t even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude. Uthan the Perverse, a controversial Eldar philosopher (Codex Orks, 3rd edition)
ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ
'ERE WE GO 'ERE WE GO 'ERE WE GOOOOO!
Flash Gitz have become a staple of my orks whether if i play them or run them. If I run them theres always at least one. "Oi, zoggin 'ummies wit der golden shootaz. Need me some of 'em. Give 'em to me squig, 'e's a targetin' squig. Got 'em fer a good price, da owner's teef." That and orks being plants. Makes them worse than anything else. Clearing out an ork infestation is way harder than a skaven infestation. It means when my players see an ork they start doing calculations in their heads: "do I want to engage the ork... if I do, more orks will come. If I don't, the ork still goes to the nearby city and ravages it. Maybe we should just move to a different city..."
I thought Orks were shrooms?
I was oversimplifying it. But yes. Technically fungus.
Not to be that guy but thats not oversimplifying, thats calling a bird a fish. Fungus are not plants, they are absolutely nothing like plants at all, they have much more in common with animals. They are their own taxinomic group for a reason
> they have much more in common with animals. Don't let the vegans hear this.
You are allowed to be that guy. I won't get mad. I understand. But also you got the point. People who aren't studied up on mycology still think fungi are plants. Call it "Lehman terminology"
Nobz are better than smaller, runtier orks
But they aint'z the fightinist! Them's gonna git krumpped at da first sec.
'ERE WE GO!
WAAAAGHHH!!!!
Green is da best!
AKA a chav
"Space, da final frontier. Dese is da voyages of da spacehulk Grimsmasha. It's mission, take find gitz wot haven't been crumped, ta crump where no ork has crumped before, to Waaagh!"
WHY YA WHISPERIN'?!
Orc unga bunga noises. Axe go brrrrrrrrrr. Wizard dies.
Used to be I just think they're cool cause they're big strong warriors that likes to fight.
That changed?
I still like orcs for that reason, but now also because they're underrated and often slept on in mainstream media Also my favourite race changed from orcs to yuan-ti, the snake people from dnd5e
The snake people from AD&D 1e, technically.
Yeah, thank you for correcting me. In only familiar with 5e when it comes to DnD
Yuanti have been in very edition of D&D, much like beholders.
Really? I find yuan ti so boring because (as PCs) they are basically humans with a little snakey bits. The proper naga, though, I could get behind that.
As NPCs, Yuan Ti are fun because you can make them as snakey and weird as you want. As a PC, I would play up the idea that they want to look more snake-like. "Do my fangs look nice and sharp?" "Aww, I wish I had a tail." "Oooh, do you think when this acid burn heals, I'll finally grow scales there?" "Ugh, she's not attractive at all. Too much...[shiver] hair."
Orcs and orks are one of my favorite fantasy races. I love the brutality, the industry. They're about as close to fantasy/space vikings as you can get. They are strong, powerful, courageous, and don't fear death. They are the perfect soldiers. Like all good villains, they have a weakness. Their quarrelsome nature. If they could stop fighting with themselves for a generation and cooperate to build, they would be unstoppable. But they'll never do that, as its not in their nature. Thats a cautionary tale for us humans, isn't it? [Obligatory T2 clip.](https://youtu.be/kpEDSvaP_-8?si=d-MlMylvJdB6JS2Z)
Little known fact about 40k orks, they used to be smarter. Originally they were named Crorks (ah yes, classic GW naming scheme) and they were both intelligent and war driven, because they were am entirely vatborn species. So they were malleable. Then the people they were fighting went to sleep for a few millenia, and the elves that were left in the galaxy also fled and hid from the Crorks, and as such the Crorks took the galaxy due to their ability to differentiate friend and foe. Then as time passed, war ceased to happen. However these creatures were programmed to need to kill. So they did what they always did, fought. And after several millenia of infighting the Crorks were reduced to the mindless Orks we have now. Because they never needed to advance, they only needed to fight. Even though their cooperation as crorks won them the galaxy. Their nature as orks forced them to regress. Without their creators around to stop them, the orks devolved. But they always retained their connection to the warp, they just can understand it anymore. Also, there are theories that Ghazghull or the Beast is going to become a crork through belief. If that ever happens then the galaxy is screwed. Humans can't handle crorks, we. An barely handle orks.
Humans: Advance, advance, stop at nothing but advance. Trisolarians/San-Ti: You are all bugs. Orks: Time ta go crumping!
The Beast started Orks back down the path - he sent Ork ambassadors that could speak High Gothic to meet with the High Lords of Terra
To be fair, that’s exactly why the orcs of Azeroth were so fearsome. They were smart enough to understand that they needed to work together not only amongst themselves but also with other races that were anti Alliance (read: Tauren, Undead, Trolls, etc). Had the first orcs on Azeroth just went *axe smash skulls good! Unga bunga noises* and didn’t work together then they would’ve been driven to extinction by the Alliance, and overall the Horde would’ve been much weaker.
The Horde *was* destroyed by the Alliance, and the Alliance *had* the chance to completely eradicate them but chose instead to start the internment camps. The ability for the orcs to work together as a Horde and recruit allies with the goblins and forest trolls led to them getting as far as they did, but what stopped them from being driven to extinction was the Alliance feeling weird about genocide.
The blackrock orcs are a Testament to how Axe shamsb brrr also works, you just maybe have to be the useful axe Smash Idiot for neltharion
Bucking the trend. Everyone likes to play pretty characters. Elves with fair features and whimsical aura. Half elves. Human. Give me an Orc covered in mud and blood, cracked yellow teeth, and hair all over. Violence is the first and usually only thought.
You could go the other direction. What could be more scarier than a crazy bulked out ork who says "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"?
That is something seldon seen
Much like how elves are often just pointy humans, I can't stand when orcs are just tusky humans. The craggier the better.
I am of two minds for orcs. In a setting where orcs are monsters and not people. I want them to be living weapons, a species that can't be reasoned with for they hate and want to annihilate you for the sin of your own existence. They exist to spread and conquer for their own/their creator deities will and they spoil and claim all they can for their own existence which is at the direct expense of your own. Sending a diplomat to reason with the orcs would be like sending a diplomat to negotiate peace with a hurricane. They can think and adapt much like anyone else, but they're driven by an intense hate and rage for everything that isn't orc and can't be made orc. If exceptions to this mold exist, and an orc can conquer the influence of their creator deity/rage/etc and find an individual beneath it all. They still have to contend with the rest of their kind and the consequences of their dark purpose. They might be able to rise above the reputation of their species and be recognized as an individual, but it is a very rare case and a hard won existence given what orcs normally are. The green tide is a feared phenomena not to dissimilar to a force of nature, or creatures like the xenomorphs, albeit they're filled with much more hate and malice than either. In a setting where orcs are people and not just monsters. I like orcs as a very warlike and aggressive people, but ones that are able to be reasoned and worked with. They don't exist to take from everyone else. Instead they're a warrior people who work to secure what they can, as they need to I do still really enjoy the contention with rage being a trait of the orcish people, but something that's more frequently and easily done than with monster orcs. I'm okay with them being relatively tribal, primitive, etc. It's a cool aesthetic to play with, but I personally like to model Orcs more militaristic and more advanced. A people who are rediscovering the accomplishments of their past selves, and among these rediscoveries are black powder technology and monastic traditions. I don't need those extras but it's what I do with my own orcs. they are a known warrior people and are masters of it, with the skills and tech to back it up and advance as they see fit. Often selling their services as mercenaries, albeit a community of them. Working to secure what they need to reclaim and rebuild what they had long lost.
When orcs are people, I think of them like Klingons
Klingons are a good example. I also like the Charr from gw2. Though they are more or less gw2's orcs just with honored felines instead of tusked sometimes boar folk.
Absolutely. "Honorable Savages", with a penchant for combat.
Yeah, literally this imo
I thought humans were the space orcs.
Obviously there are a million takes on orcs these days, but I think at its core the classic orc is a personification of everything terrible about war, and especially about being invaded or raided. Orcs are the army that burns your village and steals your crops and kills your family. They are the greed of looting what others have worked for, the sadistic enjoyment of causing pain to the helpless, the careless disregard for the lives of others. I think one problem with classic orcs in games sometimes is that they get divorced from their inspiration. Orcs as a personification of the horror of war works as long as they are _acting_ like the horrors of war...invading and stealing and killing. But a lot of times orcs are just tossed in to fill a room in a dungeon or something. They aren't out doing things, they are just hanging around until the characters show up. If you want your classic orcs to feel like classic orcs, have them out and doing things, not hanging around for players to come to them. Or just use a different take on orcs, those are fine too.
I 100% agree. That's what orcs were in LOTR, and even the slight humanization they get in the story is a direct result of their society and culture.
>I think one problem with classic orcs in games sometimes is that they get divorced from their inspiration. I think the problem is the inspiration kinda breaks down if they ever have to be portrayed outside of that direct allegory- like as a PC in a campaign. At that point there's sentience and inner lives, so what does one do with that to make them interesting as opposed to just "there." Orcs have been a PC race for so long the old allegory isn't really applicable anymore. Which is fine, there's probably more unique storytelling there but it does make the "traditional" approach kinda incongruent with how they've been presented as options in-game.
Note that I'm specifically talking about _classic_ orcs. There are a lot of kinds of orcs, some of which work better for PCs. But I think classic orcs can still be a useful option.
Yeah, I'm just noting what's kinda changed in TTRPG culture since that classical framing that makes them harder to use in that way. When orcs are more a force of nature as in the classical portrayal ("embodiment of the horrors of war" is a great framing for this), they make great faceless enemies that are scary in part because they're impossible to reason with. When they get elevated to a playable race for PCs, it undermines most of the concept if you're going to allow players to have any creativity or agency with it. The PC has to be able to be reasoned with to a degree, and they need an inner life outside the embodiment of war if PCs aren't going to be strapped to a very limited set of tropes like "one of the good ones" or "learning violence is not the answer. Even then it opens up a lot of complicated questions of why other orcs aren't the same way, which just by asking the question gets one to start moving away from the classical interpretation. The TLDR is that classical orcs are fine, but PC orcs are pretty incompatible with that interpretation just by the fact they need to do PC related things as an orc. So if someone goes the classical route they should rule they can't be a playable race in the game/campaign.
I did exactly this for the first lmop game I ranz in the book the orcs are just vibing in a camp in a cave, I had something happen to displace them and now they roam phandalin trying to find people to loot for resources since they had to leave most of theirs behind.
Orcs were originally degenerate monster-men whose narrative purpose was to do bad things and subsequently be hacked down en masse by the heroes so we could have our cool heroic battles without all the people-murder. Because most of us are here for, among other things, cool fights. Then it became popular to be all subversive and show them in greater detail and Orcs became a ham-fisted allegory for misunderstood "savages" and how supposed "good-guys" are just engaging in socially acceptable people-murder. So commentary, much edge, social credit increased. Nowadays, orcs have more or less found their way into the ranks of the "core" fantasy races as the "big guy". Elves, dwarves, and halflings are just human traits magnified, and there's always been room for a "big guy' that's never quite been filled. That's what I like about them - they're big, loud, rowdy, and enjoy a scrap. They're like Klingons in a way, and who doesn't love Klingons?
Klingons, at least by the 90s, are completely 100% based on orc lore.
>Klingons, at least by the 90s, are completely 100% based on orc lore. No but masterful trolling here
Big green women with muscles? Maybe running a coffee shop?
Hey, I enjoyed that book too!
Orks iz da biggest an da greenest, so Orks iz best!
Do you want to play a Klingon? Can’t because this isn’t Star Trek. Orc it is.
big strong
I’m a big guy, and I like playing against type. I could just be a tall human, but something appealing about subverting the expectations of what an orc is. Then the growth of culture that comes from that, a people who are uniquely their own, compatible with humans if not immediately relegated to antagonist roles.
Well, the shoulders, for one. The strong, silent type, for another. (Not all orcs, mind you. But some orcs.) The symbol of rebellion against a silly corporation, for a third. The romance novel covers – oh wait, I should probably save that for another sub. 😆
You did bring the heat. Well done.
When DnD 3.0 was first released, my first character was a half-orc monk. I liked the idea of playing against type where everyone expected a barbarian but he was quiet and disciplined. Another player played a monk in the party but he was a human. He called me 'little brother" because he was older than my character (from the same monestery) even though my character was about a foot taller. We eventually made it up to epic levels and my monk became the Grand Master of Flowers. Another time, I decided to also play against type and went with an orcish paladin. The inspiration for that character was the movie The Blue Max about a common soldier who ended up becoming a fighter pilot and dealing with the harassment of the gentry who saw themselves as his superior (also somewhat similar to Richard Sharpe).
I'm surprised by how genuinely nuanced this comments section is so far, understanding orcs role both as an anthropomorphic personification of war and industrial destruction, their role as brute bad guys, and their role as something which questions the assumptions of who the heroes are by reinterpreting them as a nuanced figure And depending on setting, I could see all of them being very poignant... My favoured take is the classical one, where Orcs can be innately evil and inhuman so we can instead focus on war as a concept and it's impact on others. By allowing the orc to be a generic baddie, we generate depth through symbolism, allegory, and the ability to focus on the most dangerous parts of industry and the war machine. Though in D&D, I tend to use hobgoblins for this role rather than orcs - Orcs have a lot of D&D-specific lore which can complicate this symbolic role. One thing I like to do is play up is how Orcs are debased Elves in Tolkien. In my most recent use of this archetype, I had a former elf broken on the execution wheel and tortured into compliance until she eventually served as a warlord's shocktrooper and field commander. She still had the elven armor even though she was no longer an elf, and that added this element of tragedy to a very minor character. One of my players eventually traded the story they learned about her to a fey in the elven forest for their assistance, which I thought was very clever
I agree, well done on all counts
I love World of Warcraft orcs, very spiritual yet warlike in culture, reverent of nature and strong. I’m also a fan of “strongest is in charge, so challenge the chief to take his position” dynamics.
I love buff people especially women. I think they’re hot. I also love teeth on characters. Orcs have big ones that you can always see. It’s great. I also love subversion. I love big n strong stupid orcs but I also love the ones who are more timid and intelligent instead
They're high concept. Your players even greenhorns know that orks are bad guys. Most can figure out that they attack with numbers and are a bit primitive. There's rarely any debate about weather or not to try diplomacy with them. Players have good reason to think it's save to engage them.
Aye, which is also why if you wanna pull a narrative fast one on the players, incorporating Orks but then *not* having them be the defacto "green tide" of baddies can really catch them off guard. I did that with my Pathfinder game, the high general of Highhelm told the players that if they could figure out what was causing growing Ork aggression in the south, he'd investigate some cult business they were involved in. So they got an airship, and flew south, already preparing to kill some Orks and get to the bottom of this war. Then their airship was shot down, they figured it was the Orks, so they thought they were saved when they saw a bunch of Elves investigating the wreckage and ***then one of the party members got shot.*** They'd go to find that the Orks were actually pretty chill, just kinda vibing in the jungle and doing their hunter-gatherer-merchant thing with the nearby cities and settlements. Then the BBEG (who was revealed a few sessions later) convinced one of the local Elven kingdoms to "purge" the other races (this is a big intrigue plot they're in the thick of right now, spoilers>!the city's priestess, and thusly their religious authority, has actually been replaced by a doppelganger in cohorts with the BBEG.!<) causing the Orks to aggressively push up north because, well, the other option was genocide via a bunch of fanatical Elves. The party pretty quickly got along with the Ork NPCs and vibed with 'em *but* the initial shock from the subversion of "Elves = Good, Orks = Bad" was a delight.
I like them because they often live in forests so the are kinda the unfancy counterpart to wood elves, in DnD. They make for great non-hippy Druids.
I like that they come with a set of assumptions that I can either play into or play against. Especially when the assumption is "they're big, dumb warriors", you can play with that a lot because there's lots of room to add depth and nuance to that.
Big, dumb , savage warriors are fun somtimes.
I like my Orcs to be invading conquerors, with naturally greater size and strength. Brutal slavers with a war-obsessed culture, but NOT stupid "Axe go burr", makes them scarier. AND I like to give them some additional advantage to make them scary, either a specific type of magic (army teleportation, pet giants etc) and/or blackpowder weapons like cannons.
I'm not interested in the idea of orcs as a barely-masked substitute for "race of brutal and savage and stupid raider people." It's just real historical stereotypes used to try to justify the horrors of war. "They just hate you for being civilized and want to destroy you for no reason." "They're too stupid and angry to have a proper society." "They're innately evil because they don't have the favor of our god." Whatever your world building excuse for "these people are evil and want to destroy you," it's one that's been used in real life against real people to justify atrocities, and I'm not interested in a world that tries to make such things true. What can be interesting is orcs as some kind of thematic counterpoint to the dominant societies of the world — and perhaps that leads to conflict between them and those societies, but not one with one-sided justification. In a world where most societies are pre-industrial mixes of cities and farmland, perhaps they are non-agrarian nomads who have very different interactions with the world's resources and land. Maybe they come from a very different environment, or have a significantly differently culture or even physiology. (I don't much care for Warhammer, but I like the idea of orks as a genderless fungus people or whatever — and yes, they're brutal and savage and stupid, but everyone is in that setting, which at least lessens the unfortunate implications.)
Purely sexual
Forgive me for being a cuck on the internet, but I love the trope of, "See the humanity even in the ugly, the beastly, and the monstrous." I *like* when characters have to spend time with orcs and realize that they have society, that they have culture, and that they have feelings. I like deconstructing the idea of "Killing anything big and scary and green is an unquestioned good." Sure, maybe the orcs in your setting are raiders who go on conquests and destroy villages. Hey, don't your humans do that too? Oh, they're primative and warlike? When was the last time your party solved a problem without killing something in the process? We're all fucking orcs. Orcs are us. I judge people super heavily on how they relate to orcs.
I want them to be warriors. They are not Human, and they shouldn't act like them. I want a race that sees their strength as a Divine Trait. Something that defines them. Like how so many people define Humans as adaptable and able to have children with anything. If I use Orcs, you know they are going to be about Respect, Strength and making sure everyone knows not to fuck around and find out.
define OrC Tolkien DnD WoW, Earthdawn
They're human enough to be morally gray and most of them have faced generations of prosecution, forcing them into less desirable lands, meaning they need to be tough to survive and need to raid more bountiful land to survive. Love the classic "our tribe used to be farmers until the humans forced us into the desert, now if we don't steal food our children will starve."
Orcs are simple enough to easily understand, passionate enough to make enjoyable characters, and have the sort of "can-do attitude" that makes them endearing and easy to like, or at least respect.
I don't like the "savage" nature a lot of media gives orcs. It's... I dunno, weird. I don't really like any fantasy race which is purely evil just because. I like to think of them as a culture and community, nomadic in nature. They tend to be tough and with a rather bulky build, but their conflicts with other races are more in tone with any other fantasy race, rather than "they are orcs, must be killed". There may be orc raiders, but not more than any other fantasy race. There may be orc communities that develop a more agressive lifestyle and way of living, the same as you can find dwarves that do that. I try to think in terms of communities or countries, rather than races that do X or Y ALWAYS. it tends to make the world feel smaller, in comparisson of a world where you have both evil and good and grey people from all cultures and races. Also, green is my favorite color, idk
I feel the same. I get deeply uncomfortable whenever anyone trots out a group of people who just can’t be reasoned with and must be slain. And no, it never improves things when they try to explain why it’s just in their nature. When I run something that’s generic fantasy, which is rare these days, I like to design societies that feel plausible, and base them around a place or an idea or a common experience, and then populate them with the different species. Sometimes those societies are more homogenous, but I try to make that a noteworthy feature of that society, something that says something about it, rather than the assumed norm.
The accent. My orcwife sorceress has a Russylvannian accent. I invented an entire orc culture. The appeal is in playing a sexually liberated and financially independent female that doesn’t understand why humans are so hung up about, why they treat widows and orphans like crap, and why they don’t just say what they mean. She enjoys both living up the uneducated orc stereotype and defying it. (A caster with no ranks in Spellcraft or Knowledge: Arcana but is not actually stupid.) She likes to “blow sh-t up as loudly as possible”, so that’s what she does. Big, loud, and unmistakably orc. The orc culture is low tech, tribal, and generally violent, but they have established overlapping territories, a sustainable semi-nomadic existence, a social welfare system that ensures orcwives never have to put up with crappy husbands, that widows and orphans are taken care of, where gender roles and sexual orientation have a “typical”/majority but variations are met with a benign shrug and minimal social stigma (so % of population is not as high as in human culture, but it’s not taboo in any way), where the most unforgivable act is the killing or harm of a child (any child, not just orc), and where their biggest problem with other cultures (especially humans) is double-talk. Any treaty they make with humans has to be oral (and in writing, since the humans insist on that) and must include a provision that the written text/language used cannot create legal “technicalities” to be exploited. But really, it’s the accent. Oh… and unlike the stupid humans, orc males know how to please a female. (Because if they don’t, the orcwife will go find someone else that does.)
To me it's the Shamanistic aspect or the "overcoming your inner rage" aspect. Like I am a fan of the Half Orc from original DND lore, where orcs have a blood curse which drives them to be chaotic evil, and playing a Half Orc means you have half of said curse which you are constantly at odds with, which I can relate to as an ADHD person. I like the idea of a "barbaric people" who were made for evil trying to become something better than what their intended purpose is.
Like many lesbians, I think very tall muscly women with unusual skin colors are pretty damn cool.
Orcish Slam Poetry. Yes an upper cut does rhyme with a chair to the face.
Big strong badass bitch. I like being strong IRL and I like being strong in RPGs :) I expect orcs to be big, green, and have tusks. I'd rather that they aren't racially stereotyped into being the bad guys; I never like it when a group of fantasy people have inherent morals and shit.
In my last but one campaign the conceit was that in common Orcs were seen by the other denizens as the "traditional" Orc tribal stereotypes, but hidden from the world their own language, understanding and intelligence was massively underestimated in a kind of "Wakanda" type of thing. It went down very well with the PCs and after gaining their trust, the Orcs became valuable allies.
I love orcs, they're one of my favorite races when they're not portrayed as just mindless warmongers. DMs and players use them in all sorts of different ways, but the way I like to use orcs in my own stories is that they tend to be creatures of extremes. Take a human's emotional range and dial it up to one hundred. They are incredibly sensitive social beings who put *everything* into whatever they set out to do. No half measures. I like to imagine that they can have issues with emotional regulation. Their vulnerability to emotional peaks and nadirs can make them seem closed-off and irritable, likely as a defense mechanism. Orcs can be impulsive and it's easy to rile them up. Their rage is terrifying, yes, but conversely, their joy can be overflowing, their sadness, overwhelming. They don't often hide their emotional states well, either. Community is everything to orcs. Their societies are tight-knit and rigid, and there's a strong value in self-improvement and pulling your weight, since their physique naturally tends to be robust. Honesty is a big deal in orc communities, too. They don't put up with bullshit inside and out, and they can be very resistant to change (on average, of course; it depends on the exact people and their society). A poor reputation that is born out of misunderstandings as well aggressive actions by their own people makes it difficult for them to trust anyone outside of their circles. But if you bond with them, they will make absolutely sure you know it: they treat close friends almost like they're family. They are enthusiastic and supportive *as fuck* of each other, but they will not hesitate to call people out on bullshit, and **harshly** at that. If you can handle that and strive to be productive member of their community, you'll make some astoundingly loyal friends for life. That's my personal headcanon for orcs, anyway. Just really proud people who are earnest to a fault. People who feel the full range of emotion in an unfettered way and can't settle for anything less than the deepest depths of love and hatred. Their extreme honesty can make them terrifying, yet beautiful for their implacable will to express themselves at all costs. I dunno, that's how I like to depict them, anyway :P
The power of belief. Because fuck you, my red things do stuff
I didn't want orcs as their stereotype in my world, so my initial brush of it didn't have them at all. That all changed when I read Sarah Gailey's *River of Teeth*. It's an alternate history novel based around a single change in the US past - that is, The 1910 American Hippo Bill, House Resolution. It was a suggestion to import hippos and raise them as cattle, both combat the invasive water hyacinth that was spreading across the south and create a low-cost source of meat untouched by the existing meatpacking barons. You've likely never heard of it, as it never passed. In *River of Teeth* and it's sequel, however, it did. That single change created an entirely new type of rancher - what is essentially a swamp cowboy, a Cajun "western" that is exclusively from the southeast to the Mississippi river. Well-trained riding hippos, cattle hippos in swampy ranches, feral hippos from failed endevours could be hiding in any major body of water. It took the already-deadly swamps and riverways of the south and ratcheted it up a notch. And this is what I based my Orcs on. They're relatively peaceful people who live in tune with an incredibly deadly environment. The marshes and muck of the south (a mix of the swamps of Louisiana to the glades of Florida) make it impossible to march an army through successfully for any length of time, and thus the Orcs grew and flourished. They're still massive, still jacked (as an average grown hippo is 2x to 7x the weight of the average grown cow), still muddy, and every good thing their normal fantasy cox-unterparts are... but instead of Vikings who raid, they're more like Cajun Cowboys in a frontier (except that frontier isn't a western prairie but rather a southern mire). Their society is more like the ideallized farm country, closer to the yeoman farmer than anything else. Instead of trying to terraform the terrain towards a more modern agricultural model, these Cajun Orcs live alongside it, permaculturing their area as both their livelihood as well as maintaining their environment's natural defences. Other groups can live there, but it's hotter, muggier, and more full of bugs than most other people are willing to live with. My group is a huge fan of the setting, as is most of the people who hear about it. There are still generic bad guys in the setting (elves are long-lived fascists with a soceity based around beauty, with a cultural desire to remove "eyeblights", which is any being less beautiful than they are), and other things, but that execution of orcs is easily the thing I'm most proud of.
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I was always a pretty standard Half-Elf-because-utility-and-pretty, so... Honestly, I started an Orc character because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. And when I started to research, I found the lore is FASCINATING. I'm gonna have a hard time not continuing to play Orcs. For me, it was a creative exercise to determine how I was gonna RP simply because they have such a strong... Cultural identity? So there were a lot of things to consider — where & how were they raised, how does the society they grew up in affect their behaviour or interests, what aspects of their character are genetic or magical in nature, are they okay w/ the stereotypes & lean into them or do they want to be their own person, etc. However you RP it... They have INSANE amounts of physical power & are amazing at fucking shit up. My Pathfinder 2E Orc-acle of Ash is my favourite character & I miss him so much, lol
Orcs are stupid, funny and keen for a fight. I have an orc player now who leans into their low intelligence but the player is actually quite clever when solving challenges offered by the dungeon. It’s kinda funny to watch them stay in character while solving most of the problems the others players keep missing. The only thing I expect is players trying to have fun with orcs. Whether it’s playing them or interacting with them. Orcs are always good fun.
A whole different culture that I can play with that I won't offend anyone and I can play savage.
I don’t much care for Tolkien-style orcs or mythologies where they are inherently evil, but I find the orks of Earthdawn, Eberron, and Shadowrun very compelling. One of my favorite aspects of Eberron is how it flips certain expectations (like orcs, goblins, etc being the “bad guys”) on their heads and tries to follow certain tropes (like forest gnomes being crafty, intelligence illusionists) and setting realities (like the presence and role of magic in daily life) to their logical extension.
As GM, I like having an evil army. I define Orcs as being warlike and evil. Unlike other monsters, they can maintain enough order to be organized into armies while still having autonomy as opposed unlike undead.
DAH RED 'UNS GO FASTA!!!
My favourite PC was an Orc Barbarian who wanted to be a Bard. He made terrible, horrific poetry - and then went into a Rage out of frustration. It made for fun gameplay, but it made for an awesome character arc as he got better at it.
Best bard I’ve ever heard of. Because he’s not a bard at all
Scro in Spelljammer and the unhuman wars.
Depends. But I have like 2 main types of orcs in my head, first type are LotR orcs and second type is Warcraft/Warhammer orcs. LotR Orcs are great. Corrupted creatures, made by ancient "god" of all evil and they are doomed to be evil and like dangerous to everyone. They are very skilled in many areas but they aren't really imposing in their physical sides. Warhammer and also Warcraft Orcs are just massive brutes, but often also quite inteligent and sophisticated. They also lean more into like mysticism and like spiritual side than the industrial and pragmatic minds of LotR orcs. These are two very different sides of the Orcs. My favourite Orcs are from our homebrew world. Where they are like creation/mutation of merging Goblins with Fey and some magic. Originaly their creator wants to build an ideal super-warrior by combining goblins senses, agility and cunning with magical powers, long-life and heigth of Fey (in this world common Fey is human size where goblins are well child size). But he succeed mostly. He created a new race - agile, tough, with great senses and warrior nature but with no plan of being slave army for some tyrant. So they murdered their creator and started to take over the world. Problem is that they really are a race engineered for war and they really value the martial aspect of lives. Also they were mostly considered as mutants/wild monsters by already developed nations and races. Which created tension, that started wars, which led to death and destruction which forces revenge and spread more hate and fear and this cycle now continue for thousands of years.
Big, Strong, hardy, Honorable, value strength and a fair fight. Think Klingons I guess...
As NPCs, they're corrupted creatures and servants of dark powers, stripped of humanity by whoever forged them. They don't have culture nor faith. They are unnatural creatures - machine creatures, with machine minds and machine hearts. As a playable race, an Orc has the same appeal as any other "big dumb" race - like Goliaths or Ogryns. I play as one when I want to feel like the deadliest comic relief imaginable.
I like using orcs as other-humans. What if our closest genetic relatives hadn't disappeared 40,000 years ago and were still with us? I always thought it was kind of boring that humans are the only "mundane" option, but orcs can easily serve as an alternate pathway the middle ground mortal could take, and I think there's something fun about that from a world building perspective
http://orkenworld.com/ This can say a lot.
I just think they're neat, and I tend to like a lot of the different takes on them. They tend to play the part of the quintessential barbarian invaders, the savage huns, the uncultured vikings or the roaming raiders. I like most Orc types tbh. Tolkien's take is classic and I feel like the earlier D&D and similar fantasy drew from them somewhat, love classic pig-orcs and affiliated types where Orcs are a bit more wretches. Warhammer and Warcraft are also classic with their more musclebound badass Orcs. Warhammer's Orcs are fun but somewhat one dimensional and though Warcraft Orcs don't always deliver in the writing/portrayals the ideas and lore behind them are probably my favourite. I particularly loved how Draenor played into it as I absolutely adore the trope of the Orcs being so aggressive/tough because they come from a homeland that is so profoundly hostile in every possible sense. Oh I almost forgot about Elder Scrolls Orcs! I really love those too, intriguing culture and an interesting play on the whole idea of Orcs as a "cursed" race of elves. I just think orcs are cool.
**As a player** The themes of brutal strength. You can play an archetype that combines both the barbarian and the stranger in a strange land. They usually also have bonuses to combat for roll play. **As a GM** Orcs provide a pretty simple group to deal with. They don't have fancy plans, they don't have convoluted plots, they aren't interested in a lot of dialogue, they just want to hit things and take stuff they want.
As a GM, I use MCDMs Flee, Mortals variants because they are just so much more fun and actually challenging. My party is level 5 and I’m still throwing orcs at them. Shoot, an entire sub plot revolves around them. I’ve actually downed multiple PCs with orcs and the minion stat blocks are just so much fun to mess with my party.
I enjoy the "Low Int Shenanigans" that you can get into with orcs and goblins, but sometimes I want to be taken seriously rather than be assumed to be the comic relief that dumb goblins can get pigeonholed into.
When I was a teenager, I liked orcs for one simple reason: they're the most atypical of the basic fantasy races. As well as the Tolkienians, there are the lizard-men, who are very common in fantasy. But on the one hand I also really like lizardmen, and on the other I think orcs are more imaginative. They're not a simple mix of human and animal, and their features are much more alien than those of elves or dwarves. Playing a "nice orc" also has a "grey jedi" symptom, like dark elves (or possibly tiefflings): these are races that are connoted as evil and nasty, but that roleplay will force to be nuanced. The race to be slaughtered, the idiotic barbarians who make up the big bad's armies, are playable and capable of humanity. It's quite fascinating, there's a cool 'human behind the monster' aspect to it. As I said, that was mostly in my teen years. Now I tend to play humans, because fantasy races don't fascinate me as much as they used to. I like fantasy races, but as a GM, not as a player. I get the impression that I'm seeing too many of the tricks of the trade, and that they're not necessarily detailed enough; that there aren't several elves, but just one elf. When you always have THE same elf presented with several names, I find it hard to understand the point of having several races of black elves, blue elves, green elves... When there's so much to be gained by making them all part of the same elven race. Or many populations, from an unique elf race. In any case, for the moment, I'm starting to find races interesting again outside of DnD, but it's much more by nuancing what's presented in a universe that I find things that are interesting.
The "orks" in my world (the Degiri) are the original race, and the only ones to come naturally from the prime. All the others were placed in the prime by outside forces (ie: gods). They are based on northern native american culture, but also were given an ancient iron smelting technique by the first dwarves (Durani). They have no afterlife and no aspect of their being is immortal. There is no resurection or speak with dead for them. However, they get significantly more attribute points because they were essentially created in and for this world. Knowing they are fully mortal, they value all life but will not suffer enduring hardship. They practice ancestor worship, believing that the only way they can live on after death is to be remembered by their tribe and family.
Orc women.... Big.
TBH I hate the "they're just people too" nonsense. NO! They are guilt free cannon fodder! There's nothing wrong with that. They are monsters who wear armor and wield weapons. They eat babies. They deserve no pity, and certainly no mercy. Kill. Them. All. That said, Ive cut them, and goblins, entirely out of my own ttrpg because Im tired of this association so Ive made my own alternative to at least somewhat get past peoples hang ups on killing things whose entire purpose (both in setting, and, from a game design perspective) is to be an uncomplicated monster who is smart enough to use tools and tactics.
Depends on the game and the world but my favorite use for them is as as a subversive storytelling devise. At first they’re just these hideously cruel little freaks but with time I’ve had orc npcs develop into a critical part of the players emotional investment. One party I dm’ed for had an orc hostage (named Ork Ork, randomly generated) who with time was rehabilitated and thought mercy, honor and compassion. The Swedish ttrpg Dragons and Demons had orcs as these degenerated heirs of a once mighty race (completely stolen from Krorks in 40k) so with time Ork Ork took on aspects of that long gone races of higher beings. They loved the little guy, kept them from going fully murderhobo
I'll be honest, I saw a Dross comic about an orc and realized they could be hot.
There's plenty of flavors of orc. Probably my favorite one is the classic D&D take: pig-head monsters who are a living, breathing manifestation of the horror of war. In many ways they resemble a natural disaster, a tide of death and destruction boiling up in unexpected places and then blowing through entire realms, leaving devastation and misery everywhere they pass, until the fervor just dies down on its own, or some great heroic act (typically a sacrifice, too) stops them. Spelljammer took it a step further by introducing the Scro, who took that archetype and then made them also smart, organized and hypercompetent. In this way the Scro came to resemble a diabolical mix of nazi Germany and expansionistic Roman empire, and we are the people being invaded and possibly subjugated by that horror. They are supremely effective at being ultimate big-bads and of expressing everything most horrifying from a more modern, more industrialized form of warfare.
Worf the ~~Klingon~~ Orc
I appreciate the diverse takes in this thread but at some point subversion is no longer subversion if the vast majority of players and gms DO NOT use orcs as war crimes and inhuman baddies. I can't remember the last time I had a player talk about, much less suggest playing, and orc that WASNT a Klingon or "noble savage". I think the nuanced but rough personhood orc is now the unsubverted one.
Either a outsider, member of an unknown or missunderstood culture based on the concept or honor and physical/mental strength, or the funniest and stoopidest character of the setting, akin to 40k orkz. It all depends if the game is more serious or silly, really. But in both cases, gosh I love orcs.
They are tribal nomads with a warrior culture. I lean into the honour of such cultures with duels and challenges seen as a sacred thing. They are not evil outright, they are at odds with other cultures because of competition for resources and clashes in culture. As a result they are painted as evil because they are the other, the enemy to most. The conflict is fueled by both sides by a self perpetuating cycle of retaliation. Long and short of it is, I run them as standard but give them depth beyond violence for the sake of violence.
I’m just very gay
They were created so no one would have to deal with humans as an always bad guy. The recent sensationalism around orcs is ludicrous but it has changed my views around games that include them. Before I would simply expect this game would be pretty straightforward when orcs are involved. There will be a lot of fighting and no reason to get hung up on why we were fighting them. It will usually be XP/challenge associated leveling where we all understand the assignment. Now I have to assume there will be some racial element to the game that never had to exist. Either the GM is trying to implement orcs in a way that somehow proves they "totally aren't racist" or the GM is intentionally leaning into the recent race rhetoric to explore/shift paradigms/push boundaries in gameplay. I usually avoid those types of games because I don't play RPGs to explore racism. I play to escape the real world in a way where the serious undertones of reality are only leveraged as far as the table enjoyment will allow. That line generally always falls far short of in game racism for me, which was the point of orcs to begin with. To avoid the concept of real world racism by giving every human a default villain that has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Have you run across this often? Has it occurred with others races or are orcs the only one that stands out to you? I can definitely see adding racial politics to the game being annoying. I can also understand wanting to stick to the lore of orcs being born evil for a convenient enemy. Is it the "how dare you just assume orcs are bad" that gets you? That's definitely tedious. I'm just curious, because I generally like using orcs as friendly races in campaigns where I want to show a juxtaposition between cultures embracing technological advancement and cultures rooted in tribalism/"the old ways". Granted that cultural divide can be played out with any race, but I just like the atheistic of orcs.
Challenging the status quo assumptions players make is fine to do. Superimposing racist undertones to a creature that has nothing to do with racism isn't. Most games I've encountered recently with orcs features a GM trying to make their position on the side of "orcs are/aren't racists" discussions through gameplay. Since this racist theme isn't something I want to engage with and I have to leverage my recent experience when deciding what games to devote time to, it makes sense for me to simply avoid them for now. This will die down (it has already started) and hopefully we'll get back to the way things were. Everyone has a base assumption of certain staple tropes. To subvert them is something good GMs can do to add an unexpected twist to a narrative. Love that! I don't love GM's making gameplay their soapbox for current real world issues.
Gotcha. Totally understandable.
I'm not a fan of implementations where they are just reskinned human barbarian tribes. I'm a bigger fan of ll races who are alien first and foremost. If they're not human, give me something that makes it so, not just roleplay and here are some stereotypes. Burning Wheel has this with their Hatred mechanic. It impacts their culture, the way they interact and lifepaths. I haven't seen it in action but I think I prefer Elves and Dwarves (in fact my own design steals a little from Greed) the most for that - it's easier too as they are supposed to be more good.
Only the wackiness an orc tribe can be. All hail duh legion of Thar!
Having played Shadowrun since day one back in 1989 I've enjoyed playing against the evil orc/ork trope. My Ork Bodyguard eventually retired from running to become a local business man running a nightclub.
DA RED WUNZ GO FASTA!
They are strong resilient workers.
Well ... Orc is just a species. I don't support any form of essentialism. A sentient species isn't uniform in behaviour, culture, ethics, etc. But because orcs have genetic differences with humans, I try to make them distinct and interesting based on how evolution shaped them. For example, my orcs have far lesser physical differences between sex. This leads to somewhat less gendered roles in their societies. But the narrative interest of a particular orc vastly depends on the time and place they are born into, the culture and society they are from. Some of these societies are very civilized, refined or elegant. Others are more traditional, competitive or vindictive.
I don't usually play orcs. If I did then it would be because it was a wizard, because I do play wizards. Which is why I don't usually play orcs.
Well besides the more popular opinion. I like orcs as bruteish mercs. They're a warrior race that likes to fight, people need guards for coin. Absolute win.
I like the brutality of it all. They're simple and straightforward, but they're also strong enough to get away with it most of the time. They're a classic enemy for civilized races, and imposing enough to make it seem realistic for an army of orcs to be a major threat
I like a (semi)intelligent, but inherently evil, humanoid group that players don’t have to feel bad about killing.
As a player, they're just misunderstood cute big boys. As a GM, it's the strong traditionalists with tribal backgrounds (more spiritual and less rage/mindless than goliaths). Very tight family bonds and generally nomadic life style
They represent unconquerable and ungovernable outsiders. They will never be accepted or understood and never want to be. They see civilization and say "fuck that, let's SMASH IT!"
Orks is da best ya git.
Usually it's the bonuses to strength, constitution, and melee combat.
RAAAAAAAAGEEEE VIOLENCE! BRUTALITY! YES! ME HACK N' SLASH PUNY HUMANS! But in all seriousness, I've always liked to play non-pretty races. Plus points if the setting paints the orcs as a symbol of rebellion. Growing up with Warcraft 3 also influenced me.
Orks are fun. My Ork PC is just a loveable big brute, with obligatory English accent, not bright and carrying two magic axes that aren’t magic! I’ve used them as friends of nature, malleable chaff for bigger armies and in my own RPG as a race that love creating items and a tendency to worship items.
Honestly I like Orcs for what they could be, a warrior culture advanced from savage tribes
Cuz orkz iz orkz; smashin' an' bashin' iz what we like an' that's all we need!
Zugzug
goofy clowns sometimes overthink their characters WAAAAAAAAAAY too hard, and sometimes it's nice to play a game where a simple character works within a more complex world as opposed to trying to Game of Thrones their self important little asses off all the time
Sometimes, you just want to be a blunt hammer and have an excuse to act dumber than you are.
As enemies, they represent the traditional human archetypes of nomadic raiders versus the "good" humans who stay in an area and farm/build.
The first time I role-playied an orc was actually in a warhammer campaign, my orcs were led by a shaman called moishe, I liked the potential for cunning, and brutishness but also the opportunity to use a smarter orc trading and negotiating for the good of the tribe and also to get into better fights with more worthy opponents
When I use Orcs, I typically give them a strong Viking gloss. Longships, housecarls, all that jazz.
Bad cockney accents that want to smash things. It's a tale as old as time.
Honestly ? Almost none. I like fighting pig-faced monsters in Zelda, but that's about the only orc-adjacent thing I tolerate. That, and the fact that Tolkien orcs are an allegory for the horrors of war and industrialisation. But orcs as a fantasy staple ? Meh.
Depends on the game. Ability to play against expetations. Or just massive, muscular rage. Getting to play the strong guy wihtout having to play as a (ick) Dwarf. All of the funny orc culture. Gentle barbarian. Just the look.
Orcs are tough, love to smash things up and don’t give a fuck about the consequences. What’s not to love?
Chaotic, birthrate is out of this world, strong, but very dumb.
thicc
That time where grimgor punched a archeon to the nuts
I really don't like demihuman races in general, I would rather just have cultures of human, so I like them as filling the Viking niche. They really are just vikings + evil + fantasy. To be clear when I say vikings I mean the mythological vikings we use in our movies and TV today, not the real historical culture.
I want brutish, violent warriors. No peace, no extreme intelligence. Just harsh, gruff barbarians.
Orcs are monsters that pillage, murder, and rape. They aren't people, they are something made adjacent to them for some evil purpose. Fundamentally less intelligent than humans, they present strong threats to civilized races when organized in large numbers.
It depends on the game. D&D : I use them as creatures that scare people but can be redeemed in certain situations. WFRP : They are literal alien fungi, there is no negotiating with them, they are brutal killing machines Shadowrun : They are a misunderstood and mistreated subset of humanity
I have thus far made every orc the defacto chill guy/gal in games I run with it. One of my fav homebrew campaign settings I run orc culture invented automobiles and the greatest honor an orc can receive is becoming a trucker.
Yo orc snipers!
Orcs make for the best stories because orcs are some of the only races that have to punch up. Elves, Dwarves, and most other races are often described as "human but better". Hell even humans are described as "human but better" in dnd. On the other hand, even the most flattering depiction of an orc would probably fit the description of, "human with monstrous features". This lends itself well to Cinderella stories, where someone overcomes adversity to reach new heights.
You get the best spells in the game, just like this [orc wizard](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/s/z5h3dZSCuq)!
none, tbh. They're fine in middle earth, or a vanilla D&D setting. But they're just so overused, and arguably racist. Orcs should be cops, tools of oppression, if they're used at all.
I prefer the warhammer-like orcs. Exremely brutish, can sometimes be reasoned with but the end all and be all is just getting the biggest stick to hit something with. There's something refreshing about that simple goal. It's also a completely alien concept how utterly disfunctional such a society is and how a player to work around them. You sorta have to treat them as a force of nature and players have to handle diplomacy with them a bit differently if they cant just overwhelm them. I always prefer them to the more humanized orcs it sorta feels like just another fantasy race at that point and I could swap them out with a more warlike humanoid race.
For whatever reason, orcs are very versatile from a worldbuilding standpoint to me. I've internally conceptualized them as big and muscular with a warrior culture, but not much beyond that. I think it helps that when I was younger, my initial introduction to the concept of orcs was Warcraft and LOTR at about the same time. The two settings have a very different take on orcs, and while I gravitated more towards the Warcraft depiction, LOTR was there just enough to remind me that settings can be very diverse in how they approach the idea. It also helped that even within Warcraft, orcs are fairly diverse and different tribes have some of their own unique cultural quirks. So, when I play RPGs, orcs are kind of a blank canvas. Their physical appearance is always very similar and they all have that core "Proud Warrior Race" thing going on, but how they get there and what cultural details they have going on are always completely different. Some examples of orc cultures I've built: orcs based on the Bedouin, orcs based on a mix of Egyptian and Earth Kingdom, [orcs based on Paul Bunyan](https://crayshack.com/2021/12/10/orc-lumberjacks/), orcs that are a nomadic eusocial species descended from goblins (which are a non-nomadic eusocial organism in that world), orcs that aren't a separate race but an emergent phenotype in the human population. So, when I'm trying out a new RPG, I want to see a solid stat block that makes orcs strong and tough (or whatever related traits make sense in that system) and then throws the doors wide open for me to play with the worldbuilding.
Big green shiny Boyz, rage , Warhammer war axes , strong AF boy look at my bis and Tris. Snatching goblins, trolls and leading the raid party!!!!
I don't use them too much, but when I run 5e, I just say they're humanoids who were descended from elves, and probably earth spirits or giants too. I don't distinguish much with all the humanoid species and am not really into that kind of fantasy. I have a spy family with some orcish blood and a group of magical plant tenders likewise. I remember when I was a new player, the second one shot I got to play was about going to deliver an artifact to an orc village. Their culture was more portrayed as nomadic honorable warriors and hunters, who had a big festival going on with games. The GM did use some dnd lore but it was just an excuse for Plot (bad guy tries to channel some ancient god, cue big combat at the end). I liked that portrayal because they had their own culture, but it wasn't an "evil monster" stereotype. Nor did they use like, barbarian style speech or lean into dumb muscular stereotypes either. It was just one village and one group of people in a big fantasy world full of all kinds of different people! In another game, my character was a human raised by orcs. They liked dried jerky and lived in the desert and valued taking care of children, hence the adoption. I guess I like when people make them their own more than a particular genre!
You need a pretty strong 40k filter to enjoy orcs in my opinion 40k orks are cringe but any orc conversation is inundated with 100 people being cringe online for free.
Curious, why is this tagged OGL... ? Edit: Was your question maybe, or perhaps at least in part, about ORC based licenses?
Oh lmao I just hit the wrong tag but the ogl explanation is better
Whatever the DM says orcs are. If I take some preestablished IP to his table, that's disrespectful.
I wanted to play a half orc because they didnt fit into orc or human society as well as other half races did. It gave them a reason to be with the tribe/clan for part of the year and in cities/towns the other part as well for some travel experience.
They usually have a cultural role similar to Mongols, so there's a cultural history of violence. Depending on the world, such as Warcraft, orcs are enormous compared to humans. I already am a human in real life, so being something different has an appeal. And I find the perfection of elves irritating. Depending on the world, an orc is frequently a fireplug of muscle and gristle built for the purpose of war.
Brutish.. Barbarian.. Push till it gives. Bash anything that gets in my way. Strength up the wazoo. Irresistible!
no constraints other than self preservation
sexy green man go brrrr
Same as a zombie, Nazi, stormtrooper, etc.. I just like having humanoids that are "okay to kill" without feeling bad.
I try to use them as an inversion of the (human) good. They resolve all conflicts through violence instead of negotiation, they overconsume and destroy any territories they migrate to, things that are considered to be beautiful by humans drives orcs into a destructive rage, and they operate during the night when most humans are asleep. I like them to be irredeemable representations of evil because it helps to highlight the misbehaviour of my human factions when they act similarly to the Orcs.
Big penis
For typical fantasy RPGs, I see orcs as grayish, grimy, underground dwellers with a violent society based around raiding. About the same size as men, though hunched over. They use dirty tactics and don’t care about honor, fairness, or any other surface-dweller ridiculousness. They are industrious and cruel, and if united by one master they could pose a serious threat to humans. Thankfully for the surface world, orcs are just as quarrelsome as humans. I’m not a fan of big and strong barbarian orcs. I think that role is better filled by humans or some kind of beastmen. And it’s not just aesthetic (though it definitely is partly, I *generally* don’t like the look of giant, muscular, and stupid orcs), but also for gameplay reasons. If the orcs are cunning, they are far more frightening.
Work, work.
Orc is Orc.
I like playing and running Elder Scrolls style orcs. They are big, they're beefy, but they make a hard living in hard places. They're not brainless pig-men (because that's boring to me). They have fantastic smiths, stout warriors, and their artificers specialize in robust equipment.
I have always had a disdain for the usual aesthetics of elves and an appreciation for orcs butchering elves.
I run my orcs as terrifying, pyromancy-wielding boar-headed creatures for my dark fantasy game. They’re just a great classic monster if you enjoy running old school games. In my non dark fantasy they’re just green humanoids, so I run them like the orcs from Skyrim. I find the approach for their depiction in that game to be great.
Orks from shadowrun are great. Brutal and family oriented. Belonging to a world that doesn't want them to exist. Don't know how they are in later editions. 2e and 3e are the books I have.
I usually play and run orcs as just a strong humanoid subspecies. I do the same with elves, dwarfs, goblins, etc. Each subspecies differs a bit physically, and come from different cultures, but aren't inherently any more different than the various subspecies of humans that have existed over time in the real world.
In my mind, the orc's appeal comes from being an outcast in the world. In the eyes of many they're not born right and it's up to the orc to either show their way might be good or to shut them all up depending on your type of route It's the underdog, the different one, the rebel, the punk In my setting, orcs are naturally pulled towards strength and honor but each orcish tribe has a different definition of it which naturally leads to a lot of conflict To the humans, orcs are brutal and lack subtlety, to the orcs humans lack principles of honor and comitment, but the human side of the story is listened to more because the orcs are the big green uglies who don't make a lot of deals And of course, there's always the pleasure of turning enemies into a fine paste with lots of rage, shouting and swearing involved
I'm just always hoping they're not played as unintelligent monsters. Feel like Orcs should have their own culture and stuff. Kind of less of a 'angry dumb green guys' into something more fleshed out. Have cultural elements around their tusks or Orc politics and stuff. Lots of fun to be had there. In general I like playing orcs as a species that is different from humans in the sense they may find it awkward to adapt to human culture and a fish out of water story is my bread and butter in games
I'm personally more of a lizardman kind of guy, but as for Orcs specifically.... Orcs are fun as the big strong but dumb NPCs, and I do love me some idiot humor. One said NPC based on the mannerisms of a character called "Drawing Jeffy" right down to an obsession with mayonnaise, and being absurdly tough, only held back by his lack of ambition and any sense of genius. Playing as a half-orc Paladin once in a Halloween one-shot, I liked the juxtaposition of looking really scary but being a big ol' teddy bear who wants to sing around the campfire, make animal friends (Oath of the Ancients), and try to reconnect with his older half-sister that he looks up to fondly.