Thoughts on the New Orc Bard Hero?

[cornixt]

Standing ovation.
You sir have encapsulated the situation precisely, the new Hasbroquest orcs are a serious retcon from anything HeroQuest, and the original game was clear on their position=bad guys.

I don't think that conclusion follows on from what you were agreeing with. Orcs were gendered, they still are in the new HQ. Orcs were more intelligent and thoughtful than "must kill them", and still are. They aren't really evil, just taking advantage of someone who can get them food. They were bad guys because they worked for the big bad guy, it never needed to be more complicated than that and it still isn't. Nothing seems to have changed, so they can't have been retconned.

I think bards are a terrible RPG concept for fighting based games. Giving them musical magic is just a copout to make up for their actual inability to do anything that isn't charisma based. An Orc Bard is clearly for comedic effect alone, in combining two traditionally diametrically opposite roles. It's silly, but also, who cares. Plenty of other heroes on this site.

[Kurgan]

See I thought of the Orcs as greedy and intelligent, not dumb brutes who fight for meat... that is the description of the OGRES who are truly chaotic evil.

You can create your own backstory. The Orcs may be natural creatures in this particular universe, but they're mostly evil. If a good Orc slipped out, became a singing pirate and joined up, I guess that's that. Is it more plausible than an Orc acrobat? I agree you could have had a monster merc or hero that wasn't a Bard. It's done for comic effect.

[Zenithfleet]

That's when I researched the origins and found that the term never had a definite meaning as it was only popularized by Tolkien. Much like Elves have changing descriptions depending on the writer, this seems to work the same with orcs.

This is true of most creatures from actual mythology. Same with vampires, werewolves, dwarves, dark elves (same thing as dwarves?), dragons, ghouls, demons... Various concepts attach to them all and then drift away or merge with others depending on the culture and the time period.

I'm pretty sure the names of the dwarves and Gandalf in The Hobbit came from an actual Norse poem, and the word 'Gandalf' meant 'staff-elf'!

It's only when you get things like D&D that try to codify and quantify everything in a very modern, scientific way that you end up with people on the internet arguing about whether a fire-breathing giant scaly thing with wings is a 'dragon' or a 'wyvern' based on its number of limbs. In the old days you could call it a dragon, a wyrm, a worm, a serpent, greed and lies incarnate, or an accursed spawn of Hell, whatever you like. What matters is that it's a big scary monster that just burned down our hall. To arms!

Tolkien put a lot of modern concepts into his orcs and goblins, like their love of newfangled destructive machinery, their polluting industrial labour, and the way the Orcs in LotR talk like a) those terribly uncouth lower classes and b) soldiers (he'd been to war).

Old-school D&D, pre-Forgotten Realms, appears to have emphasised the military angle (as well as making them pig-snouted).

Warhammer did its own thing with them--green and dim and amusingly hooliganish.

The old Warcraft RTS games borrowed from GW's take on their physical appearance (big, green, tusked), but made Warcraft orcs more intelligent and honourable (or so I hear).

The Warcraft take seems to have seeped back into more recent D&D.

Finally we have Hasbroquest, which is clearly D&Difying everything, and so is naturally making its Orcs match whatever the current vogue for Orcs is in dungeon and dragon land. It seems to be something like 'large muscular green humanlike blokes with tusks, who are just another race like Dwarves or Elves', rather than being specifically Bad Guys. Some people see this as rehabilitating the concept of Orcs, because dismissing an entire race or species as Bad Guys doesn't go down well in real life.

People with more knowledge of these things should probably interject at this point...

See I thought of the Orcs as greedy and intelligent, not dumb brutes who fight for meat... that is the description of the OGRES who are truly chaotic evil.

You can create your own backstory. The Orcs may be natural creatures in this particular universe, but they're mostly evil. If a good Orc slipped out, became a singing pirate and joined up, I guess that's that. Is it more plausible than an Orc acrobat? I agree you could have had a monster merc or hero that wasn't a Bard. It's done for comic effect.

Uh oh, he mentioned D&D alignments! Get him lads!



Never much liked D&D's habit of declaring whole races 'good' or 'evil' so that it's OK for one to kill the other. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the new Hasbroquest does just that.

In classic HeroQuest the monster descriptions in the back of the book don't call any of them evil, not even Chaos Warriors. (Not Ogres, either. Ogre Horde specifically says they're not evil, just violent and hungry all the time.)

In Warhammer many of the factions fight each other for historical grudge reasons or territorial disputes or conflicts over resources or greed or stupidity or religion or whatever. Proper historical motives, rather than 'because evil'.

Chaos itself is evil, and the Dark Elves are possibly even more so because they choose to do what they do. (It's a bit hard for a Chaos god of rage to stop being a god of rage...)

But Warhammer Orcs are never described as evil as far as I recall. They're just so cheerfully violent and callous that if you don't kill them, they'll kill you. For fun. And burn down your city. For fun. And they don't particularly mind if other Orcs get killed, since that leaves more fun (and loot) for them.

They will always be The Bad Guys to everyone else--not because they were churned out by an Evil Factory, but because they instinctively act in a way that ruins everyone else's day.

They sometimes serve Chaos if they're promised a good fight--which seems to be the implied unfolding story in HeroQuest, with Orcs doing petty looting and kidnapping in the early Quests, while occasional Chaos Warriors drop by to 'persuade' the local Orcs into signing up to Morcar's armies. But they're not creatures of Chaos themselves and frankly find the actual forces of Chaos a bit disturbing.

Good quote from an old Warhammer book (p58, 4th edition Chaos army book from 1994, so a bit after HeroQuest's time):

The old Orc cleared his throat and spoke. "Ladz," he said, "Ladz, I knows what you're thinking." He paused for a moment to let this sink in. "Chaos." He paused again. "You're thinking: why do we 'as to fight them 'orrible dirty disgustin' things?" The Orcs murmured uncomfortably. "Well I'll tell ya," Klaw continued. "I'll tell ya why. Ya all knows as how the lackeys of da Dark Gods 'as been getting ready for da big push. Well this is it. They's in front of us. They's behind us. They's captured the bridge over da big river and they's got da runties [humans] holed up in the big city they call Praag. There ain't nowhere for us to hide, ladz. There ain't no way out. We's got to fight and happen as not we're gonna die."

"Gork knows we ain't afraid a dyin' Boss," cried the Orc with the big ears, "but them things..." the Orc made a face which expressed his utter disgust. "Giv' us a scrap agin' them stuntie Dwarfs or skinny Elves, or against Hurk's mob and we's wiv yer... but... them's not natural... not proper flesh and blood them's not."

"Lads, ladz," sighed Klaw, "yer right, an' no-one knows it more than me. If I 'ad my way we'd be livin' it up in Black Crag or lordin' it over them gobbos at Mount Grimfang, but we ain't. We's here and now, an' the filthy Dark Gods is marchin' down on us."

Even as the old Orc spoke the truth behind his words was revealed as out of the mists there emerged a huge army. Rank upon rank of iron-clad Chaos Warriors tramped forward. Behind the Chaos Warriors, their horrific shapes still concealed in the mist, marched daemons and monstrous spawn of the Dark Gods.

But all that's been swept away now that the new Hasbroquest is set in Generically Kiddified D&D Land rather than Saturday Morning Cartoonified Warhammer World.

It's understandable that they're changing 'HeroQuest canon' per se. They'd have to do that anyway since they can't use the Warhammer-inspired background. I don't like their new take on Orcs, but then I don't much like the random fish monsters either. It is what it is.

[Kurgan]

Chaos, slaves of darkness, men who have become monsters. Cruel, savage, vicious, foul creatures. Bad. Without just saying "evil!" they say it in so many words. Mentor calls them evil at times (for being minions of Zargon, he doesn't say any "race" is inherently bad). Individuals (like the Witch Lord) can be evil, and are explicitly called that in Classic Hero Quest.

Maybe there are all kinds of great, wonderful, kind, puppy petting Orcs and Goblins and Zombies out there, but they are not the ones you are encountering in these dungeons. These are the footsoldiers of the enemy in a war for survival. Act accordingly... (and use your "Parley" deck if you really want to try to win a friend)

Even though they will ALWAYS Be "Chaos" Warriors to me, it is fun that they are also called "... these dread warriors.." in the NA quest book descriptions at the end.

[cynthialee]

Well I like him and he would fit right in with one of my players playing style.

[Kurgan]

Pledgers... come take the non-Scalper Oath!

PS: I have nothing against people selling rare items on Ebay, this was in reference to the hypothetical practice of buying up stocks of it in order to make a current item rare, and then taking advantage of the ignorance of fans to charge an unreasonable price.

[Oftkilted]

... come take the non-Scalper Oath!

As an evil Wizard, I solemnly swear that I am up to no good and will do all in my power to thwart the Heroes in their quest to become champions. Should they die in any quests, I solemnly swear that I will not scalp the heroes and I will try to not let the orcs scalp the heroes. However the orcs of late are violent creatures at heart, and they will do what they choose. So I can promise nothing on their behalf.

[Kurgan]

You can still be evil IN THE GAME, the point is not to be evil WITH the game. See the difference?

[wallydubbs]

Finally we have Hasbroquest, which is clearly D&Difying everything, and so is naturally making its Orcs match whatever the current vogue for Orcs is in dungeon and dragon land. It seems to be something like 'large muscular green humanlike blokes with tusks, who
In classic HeroQuest the monster descriptions in the back of the book don't call any of them evil, not even Chaos Warriors. (Not Ogres, either. Ogre Horde specifically says they're not evil, just violent and hungry all the time.)

In Warhammer many of the factions fight each other for historical grudge reasons or territorial disputes or conflicts over resources or greed or stupidity or religion or whatever. Proper historical motives, rather than 'because evil'.

Chaos itself is evil, and the Dark Elves are possibly even more so because they choose to do what they do. (It's a bit hard for a Chaos god of rage to stop being a god of rage...)

But Warhammer Orcs are never described as evil as far as I recall. They're just so cheerfully violent and callous that if you don't kill them, they'll kill you. For fun. And burn down your city. For fun. And they don't particularly mind if other Orcs get killed, since that leaves more fun (and loot) for them.

They will always be The Bad Guys to everyone else--not because they were churned out by an Evil Factory, but because they instinctively act in a way that ruins everyone else's day.

They sometimes serve Chaos if they're promised a good fight--which seems to be the implied unfolding story in HeroQuest, with Orcs doing petty looting and kidnapping in the early Quests, while occasional Chaos Warriors drop by to 'persuade' the local Orcs into signing up to Morcar's armies. But they're not creatures of Chaos themselves and frankly find the actual forces of Chaos a bit disturbing.

I've always thought the Ogres to be too dumb to be evil. It takes a large degree of intent to actually be evil, like you said with the Dark Elves. The Ogres, I wager, made a deal with Festral based on food. They're destructive eating machines that reap their rewards off of the Empire's livestock.

I've never really thought of Orcs as evil either, I'm not well versed in Warhammer fantasy either, but I took the dispute between orcs and the Empire as a matter of location and upbringing... maybe even economics since they're stealing the Emperor's gold. But this brings up a whole question on gold and how each species values money.

I don't know much about the Chaos God, but if Orcs are very warlike in nature, then it seems reasonable to recruit them for your armies, even if the justification for that war is "just because."
If the Chaos God is the God of Rage, what other god could he be? Supposedly they're all anthropomorphized, but simply lean closer go one thing over another. But why do the gods choose to be the god of what they are?

Orcs were probably originally used by Tolkien as a prop to justify all the killing. Tolkein doesn't do half as much description on orc livelihood as Warhammer. With Tolkein, the less we know about orcs the more we fear them. Therefore in killing them we don't have to take into account the morality of the death toll since we're not killing humans.

Warhammer, though, runs with creative fantasy and can come up with all types of fascinating concepts as to why Orcs are the way they are. The same can be said about Goblins and Fimirs.
However, not everyone playing Hero Quest is familiar with Warhammer and might just do as I did and adopt of what I knew from Tolkein and Salvatore.

In either case, where does the Orc Bard fit in? Are there even Orc Bards in Warhammer? Doesn't matter, it's a reboot with no connection to Warhammer, not the same.
I can see that some people will take this comedy character into their hearts and groups, like Jar Jar Binks. But as a fan of the original game and the mood it was meant in I cannot accept him.

[Oftkilted]

In Warhammer there were multiple chaos gods:

Khorne - The “Blood god” the patron of wrath, violence, and murder. Every act of violence and killing gives Khorne power
Tzeentch - The “Changer of ways” associated with sorcery and magic, as well as dynamic mutation, and grand, convoluted scheming.
Slaanesh - The “Prince of Excess”. The god of pleasure, passion, and decadence. Self indulgence, and pride are typical hallmarks of followers of Slaanesh.
Nurgle - The god of Decay. Typically aligned with disease, destruction, decay, and death. And at the same time embraces the life that comes from that decay.

Orcs in Warhammer typically follow Mork and Gork. Who are “cunning but deadly” and “deadly but cunning” and are neither good nor evil. They are merely a wanton force of destruction.

Death is another pantheon, and historically there were numerous gods of death. But eventually that were all subsumed by Nagash. A necromancer that became a god.