Thoughts on the New Orc Bard Hero?

[Kurgan]

Of course you can play HQ with just generic dudes (or pretend its an idealized version of yourself transported to another world), but its fun to give them "character." The last time I played the Elf, I named him "Will the Feral" [aka "the wild"] a play on the actor who starred in the comedy "Elf."

Whoever heard of a non-gay bard? I guess he could be playing only sad songs...*


* oh, you mean the more modern definition? Say no more...

[Oftkilted]

“When a humble bard
Graced a ride along
With the Wizard of Mystery
Along with her Elf...

...

Toss a coin to your Heroes
O' Valley of Plenty
O' Valley of Plenty, oh
Toss a coin to your Heroes
All friends of humanity.”

[Kurgan]

I suppose I should get to work on my Swashbuckling Piratey Orc adventure... I have only a year to complete it. Wish me luck!

[Davane]

I wait with baited breath to see the world Hasbro creates, as we simply haven't seen anything from them about it. I look forward to seeing the rewrites for the Quest Packs of the Game System, Kellar's Keep, and Return of the Witchlord, and all the others, as they are all littered with Warhammer references that Hasbro can no longer use.

The only thing SJWs have managed to achieve is pointless virtue signalling. Designers have been creating and subverting tropes for decades, and Orcs are no exception. SJWs are just projecting their own inadequacies and internalised guilt onto things where it simply isn't relevant.

What it comes down to is the role of prejudice in storytelling. Stereotypes are not an issue, because stereotypes provide simple examples of complex ideas so stories can look at other things. An Orc is an Orc, and unless you define otherwise for a setting (i.e. subvert the trope), it's just a stereotype for Obviously Evil humanoid, that it's okay to kill without worrying about moral implications. They might be called different things in different Genres, but ultimately, it's essentially dehumanising so you don't have to have a moral dilemma every time you have an action sequence.

The problem isn't that dehumanised Orcs are a trope. The problem is that some people have taken to inappropriately dehumanising POC.

At the most basic level, our identities and experience of the world can be brought to the dichotomy of "me" and "not me." This often becomes "us" and "them", as we identify ourselves as much by who we share traits with as "us" and who we don't as "them." It's also common for our own self-esteem to assign positive traits to "us" and negative traits to "them," which can often include dehumanising descriptions. This is because we are all the protagonists in our own stories, so by definition, we are always "good" and therefore anyone who is not "us" is "evil."

Unfortunately, because of historical conflicts and attitudes, that have stemmed from a LOT of wars by a LOT of supposed protagonists, POC have sometimes ended up being "them." Besides Fantasy, I like Pulp Storytelling Action (which often involves simple tropes). One of the key genres of Pulp Stories come pre-World War 1, when the British Empire was still a thing, and a common threat was often protagonists versus the natives. That genre features a LOT of racism, because when the genre is essentially Redcoats pacifying Zulus against all odds whilst exploring the heart of the African continent, you are going to see POC as "them." That's the point. But to the Zulu's, the Redcoats were "them," just as much as the Redcoats were "them" in most stories set around the American War of Independence. It's absurd for me to assume that POC out in the street are "them" just because they were "them" during conflicts over a century ago. The same as it's absurd to think that all Germans are "them" because of the Nazi Party prior to World War 2.

The problem is that historical persecution gets handed down in stories, and if people aren't paying attention, it's easy to assume that people see you as "them" just because people you identify with were seen as "them" in the past due to some historical conflict which is barely relevant today. That's what diversity in D&D is all about - people identifying with Orcs as "them" because at some point in the past, they were identified as "them" because of some conflict or another. But the truth is that we would all have been identified as, and identify with, someone thought of as "them" at some point by another human being in the whole of human history.

We are never going to get rid of that "us" and "them" mentality on an instinctive level. We are hardwired to think that way, because our survival often depended upon it. What we CAN do is redefine who we see as "us" and "them" in the context of the modern world. Monsters will always exist, because we NEED them to exist. But POC are not necessarily monsters. Even if we redefine Orcs as no longer being monsters, monsters will still exist. Some other Obviously Evil stereotype will fill the gap, or we will create new ones for that purpose, because we need them for simple storytelling.

That's why Diversity in D&D is ultimately a pointless exercise in SJW virtue signalling. Whilst these people are busy representing existing monsters as something else, they will not get rid of the idea of monsters itself. Plus, when they think fictional monsters need more representation than actual POC, there's a problem. Their time could be better spent representing POC as not monsters, which most of us already know, because if you've got time for games, you're probably not living in a warzone or some other situation where "us" and "them" are going to be vital survival strategies...

[Davane]

I suppose I should get to work on my Swashbuckling Piratey Orc adventure... I have only a year to complete it. Wish me luck!

Make it a Quest Pack! Of course, the Orc Bard might not be a Pirate, but could be a Musketeer... for King and Country!

[Kurgan]

One last thing I'll say about SJWs ("Social Justice Warriors"). If I were one, well maybe I would think totally differently.. maybe I'd want to enforce my view on everyone for the "greater good." But here is what I hope I would think:

I'd be like... wow, you have this GAME that is open ended, encourages you to create your own stuff. Perfect. I would get my other SJW friends with me and we'd have our gaming sessions and we'd create the exact characters we wanted and write the exact quests we wanted, and it would celebrate and explore all the SJW values and ideas we wanted and we'd all be filled with happiness together.

That's the beauty of it. But someone who doesn't share your same beliefs may choose to play the game a different way. And there's no harm in that. In fact, that's a strength, because it is flexible to many different playing styles.

Heck, I modified the system to remove Magic (and I love the magic in the game!). It's still fun. And when I'm not playing with the anti-magic player, I use the regular game. Perfect!

Maybe you're against violence of all kinds, even fantasy violence. Maybe try a different game, you might say, but you could, in theory, modify your game such that you're not killing your enemies to win. It's possible! The only limits are your imagination, really...


Now when Hasbro wants to sit some author down to write the "Official, Canon book of How Hero Quest really happened" product, they are going to end up excluding millions of possible combinations from players. But guess what? Players don't have to care about that "canon" either. Yes, the game gives us the quests, but it gives us a BLANK quest too. And how the actual quest plays out is determined by the players, NOT by some executive board, or even the person who wrote it. Playing the game as written, is a lot of fun. But all of us, in our various ways, go beyond it. We get to shape it, and enjoy it.

Let's say you found something in the game objectionable, you change it. That doesn't stop somebody else from changing it a different way, or just playing it as written.

So to the SJWs I would say this... you want to convince me that you're right, show me the "light" etc? SELL me on it. Don't threaten me... rather give me a GOOD STORY. Give me GOOD CHARACTERS. Draw me in! And let me try your take on it.

And if at the end of the day, it's entertaining and good, I may still not agree with your politics, but I can accept a piece of art you've created. And that's how you earn respect. HeroQuest can be a game for everyone, for the 2-5 people at the game table, it turns out!

[benvoliothefirst]

Yep, 15 pages in and still nothing intelligent anywhere in this thread.

[Kurgan]

Yep, 15 pages in and still nothing intelligent anywhere in this thread.

You mean besides my genius level comments, right?


Be the change you believe in!

Also, there's this thread.

[Orc26]

Hey, it takes effort to be at my level of unintelligence. Also it is looking like I may get some time tonight to play around on TTS, bard testing is high on my list. Let's see if he can help a wizard, dwarf, and barbarian save a soon to be traitor.

Side note: Anyone else think that saving Ragnar actually interrupted his report on the state of the empire?

[Shadzar]

This all seems a bit too much like wanting to keep established racism/sexism in a continuing franchise just because it is comfortable and easy.

Sorry, but like all those i have told elsewhere, there were female hereos in HQ 30 years ago: Elf and Barbarian. so no clue where you are brining sexism into this orc jsut because it is the only male "extra" and the others are females. Unless you mean the fact they said they had no plans to make the swapped gender version of them like they did for ALL the core games heroes.

and D&D nor HQ was ever racist.

You are reading straight from the SJW playbook to complain about things that have nothing to do with anything someone else is saying to promote your agenda, and that is the problem. you clearly prefer your agenda over HQ, so go play by yourself and keep it to yourself. Stop trying to force yourself onto other people. You would likely get kicked out of game, and probably have been, for trying to turn someones game into some sort of political argument when people are jsut trying to play and enjoy a game for ESCAPISM. Which hq is.

....

As to the GW elements, yeah the whole world will likely be rewritten because HASBRO doesnt own it so he world of HQ wil be... Faerun of D&D Forgotten Realms now? Nobody wants that. But it is most likely, look at the timeline.

models take a while to create and the core Heroic Tier included 76 minis. How long does that take?

HASBRO took Avalon Hill away from WotC in August. This website people were seeing was at least 2 weeks with a timer, and opened up on Sept 22nd. That is less that 60 days, you ant make 76+ minis in that time, Plus they already had the extras designed as well. This means WotC was already working on this stuff, at the exclusion of working on material for their other brands such as Risk and Axis & Allies. A&A has... Nazis in it because WWII Germany. Makes sense to remove those doesnt it? How would AA&A play without Japan and Germany as "bad guys"?

We can telljsut from this little bit of info that WotC was already working on this thing for months before HASBRO stepped in. Mostlikely due to A&A and the fact new material wasnt being released or attempted changes to it so removed AH from WotC control.

D&D team working on it for months, inclusion of "orc bard" which as someone mentinoed, pick one, not both a "race" & "class" to follow HQ format. Orcs would not be common to replace in the ame thus why this was bonus material to entice SJWs to buy the game.

30 year old game.. who was it targetted at? Look at the advertising or lack thereof and it was cler only markete marketed to people that played or the few that followed Joe of Death Saves that fancies himself a D&D celebrity. His tweet about it even being "its D&D in a box".

Sure that may have been Bakers intent, but it never worked that way. So much so that AHQ and WHQ came out to fill that role. the people that play HQ werent looking for D&D because they could have already been playing it for that original $50 price. AHQ and WHQ didnt last too long as surrogates for D&D either because people just went and played D&D instead. Was that somehow the play for HQ'21 to get people to play D&D? Most already did, and those who dont play current D&D arent interested in modern D&D. Nobody wants HQ to be a TTRPG, anyone that has tried has likely failed, or is playing some version of homebrew that is no longer HQ. They are just using the board and pieces to play some fantasy heartbreaker version of D&D.

D&D is not HQ, and HQ is not D&D.

There is no reason to change it, and really they haven't but tried to force themselves into it. I have played D&D since the 80s, but never once tried to force anyone to play D&D from a game of HQ. These people seem to think you should and that all things should be D&D, because they want a D&D "lifestyle". No such thing exists int he world outside of weird cosplay niches. People want games. Games they can play and have fun with.

remove "medieval" form D&D and/or HQ? There is no reason, if YOU don't like it because it is set in a bygone era, then dont play it, you do NOT have the right to force others to not play games because you dont like them, Marge Simpson.

as for politics in this thread, blame WotC for it because of the inclusion of their political ideals, that likely cost them Avalon Hill control.

HQ was advertised to the few that already new it with forced politics and things that didnt fit the HQ design concepts. People are pushing back against that in response to being ASKED what product peole want int he future. People are telling them online, not jsut here, but in many places, "We do not want WokeQuest".

Orcs in HQ, be they GW or otherwise is a simple black and white. These are the bad guys you fight, for a game aged 11 and up.

Add what you want at your table of 30+, but for the masses f kids, leave them alone and out of your politics, as many parents will be sharing this game with their kids that may have never played it before. Orcs are the bad guy, kill them to take their treasure. simple murder hobo game, not a philosophy course on gender studies or colonialism.

I havent even mentioned "bard" yet, but to point it into text. the idea of "bard" is and always was stupid. bards are the ones that write tales of people who did great things, they are Robyn' and his minstrels from Holy Grail. They are William Shakespeare. They are NOT combatants, they are comic relief like Elan fro OotS. it doesnt fit in HQ anymore than the "good orc" because "orcs are people too" nonsense.

probably missed replyng to something, but i am tired... if it is important then someone remind me to respond to something you wanted me to say more on that i might have missed.