|
Orcs
are ugly human-like creatures who look like a combination
of animal and man. Orcs are nocturnal (usually sleeping
in the day and active at night or in the dark), and
prefer to live underground... They have bad tempers
and do not like other living things; they will often
kill something for their own amusement. They are afraid
of anything which looks larger and stronger than they
are, but may be forced to fight by their leaders.
Those
words, from the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rulebook
(the "red book" from the boxed set put out by TSR
in 1980) were my first introduction to the classic
evil humanoid of fantasy roleplaying. Oh sure, there
were other evil humanoids in D&D at the time
- orcs shared the limelight with kobolds, goblins,
hobgoblins, and bugbears in The Keep on the Borderlands
adventure from the same boxed set. Somehow though,
those other monsters just never had the appeal of
orcs. Kobolds and goblins were too weak to be much
of a challenge, bugbears too tough for novice players,
and hobgoblins... well, how could you respect anything
with a blue nose?
Orcs,
on the other hand, had a strange sort of class to
them. They were a challenge to low-level characters
but not too much of a challenge. They were vicious
but cowardly, somewhat intelligent, and evil to the
core. In higher level adventures, they were the expendable
henchmen of countless villains. And they had a society.
One of the first issues of Dragon magazine
I ever bought featured the gods of the orcs in all
their gory glory. Suddenly, orcs weren't just an armour
class to be beaten and hit points to be destroyed,
but a race on par with humans, dwarves, and elves.
Nor, of course, did it hurt that orcs had an impeccable
fantasy pedigree, vaulting into roleplaying games
from the hallowed pages of The Hobbit and Lord
of the Rings (the source, apparently, of many
classic orc traits, including their infamous conflict
with elves - Tolkien described the first orcs as being
created from elven captives).
For
all that though, orcs still somehow remained little
more than cannon fodder. After all, they were still
cowards and bullies, their lairs were always described
as filthy and unkempt, and while they might not have
had blue noses, they did bear a marked resemblance
to green, bipedal pigs. There wasn't much to make
them sympathetic characters. They were still just
monsters. Sure, you could play a half-orc in first
edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but nobody
liked you, your class options were limited, your special
abilities barely put you above a human, and to top
it all off, you were as ugly as sin.
When
half-orcs vanished altogether in the second edition
of AD&D, the bloom was definitely off the green
rose. Orcs just seemed to slip into the background.
They were still there, ready to trot out whenever
a villain needed masses of troops or elves needed
their traditional enemy, but they were never the focus.
New evils rose up. In AD&D, drow, mindflayers,
and other evil creatures toppled orcs from the bad
guy power chain. Some popular settings, like Dark
Sun and Dragonlance, didn't bother with
orcs at all, while others found more three-dimensional
foes in evil human characters. Eventually, half-orcs
did come back as an AD&D player race, but only
as an option in a confusing add-on system. Gaming
as a whole turned away from fantasy, and thus orcs.
Orcs lingered in a few games, like FASA's Earthdawn
and Shadowrun, but for me at least, they never
seemed to have the same oomph.
But
hold onto your hat and put on a clean pair of pants.
Orcs are back and back big.
Terrorizing
a New Millennium
I
don't think there's a gamer out there who could not
have been aware of the big roleplaying game
release for 2000. Dungeons & Dragons came back
in a third edition (having lost the Advanced somewhere
along the way) and with it came the fantasy role-player's
ability to step into the big, smelly boots of a half-orc
- a vastly improved half-orc. Now, as with all other
races in D&D 3E, they have no restrictions
to their choice of class. Their special abilities
might not be substantially changed, but they are fleshed
out as a race and culture and are not so universally
disliked. Best of all, they might still be ugly but
they're ugly in a good way. For years my image of
the typical half-orc was based on the lanky, half-obscured,
flat-faced creature illustrated in the AD&D
first edition Player's Handbook. The hulking,
tusked brutes - male and female - drawn by
Todd Lockwood for the third edition Player's Handbook
replaced that image in a second.
Full-blooded
orcs have a new lease on life in D&D 3E as
well. They have a distinct identity now, not just
as minions interchangeable with goblins or hobgoblins,
but as warring tribes with a barbarian-type culture.
They're not necessarily evil and short sample
adventures that have appeared on Wizards of the Coast's
web site paint a picture of an orc tribe that trades
with a nearby human village. These are fleshed-out
creatures with a place in the world. A dungeonmaster
can have fun with these orcs!
But
the orc renaissance goes beyond the D&D machine.
Not one but two games featuring orcs as player
characters were premiered at the 2000 GenCon, Ork!
from Green Ronin Publishing and Orkworld from
Wicked Press. The pre-eminent wargaming company, Games
Workshop, released a sixth edition of their Warhammer
fantasy battles game in 2000 and orc troops replaced
the lizardman that had been included in the fifth
edition boxed set. Naturally, an updated supplement
detailing the full army wasn't far behind and Warhammer
Armies: Orcs and Goblins was released last fall.
Beyond the realm of gaming, orcs are stepping to the
fore in fantasy fiction as well with the three books
of Stan Nicholls' Orcs: First Blood series.
What
is it with the return of orcs? After lingering in
the shadows so long, what has brought them howling
back? For one thing, I think, they're not just villains
anymore. Orcs can be anti-heroes. Much in the same
way that Klingons have found an enduring place in
the fan culture of Star Trek, orcs may be mean
and nasty, but at the same time they have a certain
savage dignity - or comic savagery, depending on how
you look at them. They're the bad guys you love to
hate and the good guys so wild they're only a step
away from villainy.
Granted
this is nothing new. The Klingons have been around
for years and there's no lack of anti-heroes in fantasy
roleplaying. Drow, the dark elves of Dungeons &
Dragons, have developed something a cult following
in the last decade. Initially heartless, cold, and
cruel, they've since taken on an appealing aura of
exotic honour. The best-loved dark elves, like R.A.
Salvatore's signature character Drizzt Do'Urden from
his novels for Wizards of the Coast, maintain this
exotic appeal while struggling against type. Why,
then, aren't there new roleplaying games being introduced
called Drow! or Drow-world?
Perhaps
drow have had their time in the sun (if you'll pardon
the expression) as fantasy anti-heroes. If anti-heroes
rise as reflections to symbols of authority, dark
elves were the perfect foil for the corporate Eighties
and early Nineties - free spirits breaking away from
cool, calculating evil. As the legendary corporate
excesses of that time waned in the later Nineties,
however, it could be argued that drow anti-heroes
no longer had the same significance. Now the business
suit has given way to business casual, corporate powerbrokers
to software designers, ruthlessness to warm and fuzzy
consideration. For all that, however, there is perhaps
an increased sense of the demands of proper social
behaviour upon us at the same time that the ability
to make social change (small or large) is being constricted.
Wouldn't it be nice to tell your manager to screw
his deadline? Wouldn't it be great to say whatever
you wanted, however you wanted? Wouldn't it be fantastic
to wade into some ridiculous political wrangling,
knock a few heads together, and tell politicians they're
acting like babies? Wouldn't it be wonderful sometimes
to be a loud, crude, barbarian lout?
Wouldn't you like to be an orc?
The
Green Horde: Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000
For
those who don't know it, Warhammer is a tabletop
game of fantasy battles produced by Games Workshop.
Its cousin, Warhammer 40,000, is a game of
far-future battles. Both games involve, essentially,
collecting an army of miniatures and marching them
into war. There's a good deal of strategy involved,
of course, and more than one army to collect. Naturally
the army that concerns us the most here are the Orcs
(capitalized in this game) and their far-future counterparts,
the Orks. Because Warhammer is a war game rather
than a role-playing game (a Warhammer Fantasy Role-play
game does exist, produced by Hogshead Publishing,
but orcs are strictly monsters), you might think that
the opportunity to indulge in the role of the orc
would be lost. Not so.
|
Warhammer
puts you into the roaring, ravaging role of
the Orc on a big scale. Although not role-playing
as a D&D player might conceive of it,
there is a distinct culture attached to each
Warhammer army. Games Workshop publishes
army books for each available army and in the
strictest game sense, the function of these
books is to provide rules and statistics for
the army as a whole and for the different types
of models of which it is composed. Beyond that,
however, they place the army within the rich
context of the Warhammeror Warhammer
40,000world, providing it with a culture
and history. With this kind of background, a
player can really get into the character of
his army, not just as a strategist but as a
part of it.
And
who wouldn't want to be part of an Orc horde?
This is gleeful mayhem at its best. An Orc horde
is properly called a Waaagh! and if the
Orcs of a Waaagh! aren't fighting an
enemy, chances are they're fighting themselves
- and that's encoded in the rules! Some of them
ride wild, bad-tempered, flatulent boars. Some
of their Goblin cousins work themselves up into
a suicidal frenzy by chugging a magical fungus
beer. Orc shamans can tap into the wild power
of the Waaagh! to fuel their magic so
long as it doesn't make their heads explode.
In the Warhammer 40,000game, Orks can
be found driving cobbled-together war machines
and racing battered trucks (painted red, because
red makes them go faster). All of them - Orcs
and Orks - have horrendous grammar and thick
accents. To quote from the introduction to Warhammer
Armies: Orcs and Goblins (also known as
"Da Front Bit"), "Ahem. Mornin' humie scum.
I is Scraggit and dis is da Boss. Yeah, dat's
right, da really big green guy behind me...
We is da Orcs (and Gobbos). We is green. Green
is best."
|
|
|
According
to the friendly and helpful staff at my local Games
Workshop store, it's precisely this mayhem that often
attracts players to an Orc army. Orcs are fun and
you never quite know what's going to happen in an
Orc battle. Carefully laid plans can dissolve in the
face of two units attacking each other instead of
the enemy. A clumsy Giant ally could trip and fall,
flattening your troops. Your shaman's head could explode.
On the one hand, all this chaos means that winning
a battle with an Orc army is quite a challenge. On
the other, playing to your troops' strengths means
throwing caution to the wind and running a bold, fast,
exciting game in true Orcish spirit.
"Me
am Ork! Me am kill you!": Ork! The Roleplaying
Game
Fantasy
gamers who are interested in a more direct style of
roleplaying than that offered by the Orc army of Warhammer
but don't want to sacrifice any of its chaos might
want to consider Ork! from Green Ronin Publishing.
This slim, irreverent book embraces the rude and aggressive
side of the classic orc and turns it into, to use
the authors' words, "blood-soaked merriment."
|
|
|
How
irreverent is this game? Orks can eat anything
- except broccoli. If they eat broccoli, they
explode. How blood-soaked the game? Ork shamans,
the oldest, wiliest, and most powerful Orks
around, will sometimes use Orks as test subjects
in Dangerous Experiments that often involve
broccoli. How merry is it? Come on, they explode
when they eat broccoli!
Orks
inhabit a cruel and capricious world. Magic,
for example, is not something that characters
need concern themselves with except in the
most basic of forms; higher magic is the province
of shamans and they're not sharing any of
the secrets (summed up in instructions to
gamemasters that shamans can do pretty much
anything they like). The Ork god, Krom, is
a vicious being fond of blood sacrifice and
turning people who offend him into pine cones
(there's that irreverence again!). Orks must
contend with such foes as trolls, who like
to see how many Orks they can stuff in their
mouths at once, and giant squids, slippery
creatures that could be lurking in any body
of water - including wading pools.
|
Ork!
is, quite frankly, one of the goofiest, most fun games
I've ever read. I snickered my way through it and
then went back and read the choice bits again. Underlying
the clever writing is a remarkably simple system that
works well with the brutal nature of the game and
can be summed up in four words: every roll is opposed.
If you're fighting another Ork or a troll or a Squishy
Man (the Ork term for halflings), you roll your dice
and hope that the sum beats the other guy's. If you're
not acting directly against some other creature, though,
your roll is opposed by Krom himself - and don't expect
him to be particularly helpful. Good roleplaying (i.e.
behaving like a proper Ork) nets you bonus points
that can help you survive in a world that's basically
out to get you.
Fast and furious, Ork! is an indulgence in
the hack and slash that lurks on the dark side of
every roleplaying game. Want a night off from playing
that goody-two-shoes paladin or repressed wizard?
Reach for Ork!
Noble
Savage: Orkworld
While
both Ork! and Warhammer orcs are fun
because they give free rein to the nastier impulses
of the green brotherhood, they are still rather two-dimensional.
Orcs are vicious, crude, and fun, but they aren't
much more than this (though for these games they don't
really need to be). Orkworld from John Wick,
creator of such rich RPGs as Legend of the Five
Rings and 7th Sea, has a far different,
much more introspective approach, looking beyond the
green skin and tusks to take the orcish point of view.
|
The
orks (no capitals here) of Orkworld have
much in common with their relatives. They enjoy
simple, earthy pleasures. They're fierce warriors
who don't get along with anybody. They can and
do eat anything, including their own dead. The
difference, however, lies in the context Wick
has created, starting from such basic characteristics
and building a workable society around them.
Yes, orcs can be crude and relatively primitive,
but they're not stupid or brutish. They're fierce,
but at the same time intensely honourable. They
fight with other races because the other races
fight with them. Cannibalism is an important
and respected ritual tied to the passing of
memory and honour.
Orkworld
does a stunning job of building a living, breathing
world (well over three-quarters of the book
is setting and background information). Unfortunately,
it's not a happy world. Where many fantasy worlds
show orcs as constantly fighting to expand their
territory, the orks of Orkworld are struggling
for survival in the face of aggressive human
expansion. The other standard fantasy races
get turned upside-down as well. Dwarves are
disgusting, obsessive creatures who live for
perfection while halfings are a peaceful, gentle
race - or were until they were exterminated
by gold-crazed humans six hundred years ago.
I'm particularly fond of the treatment of elves,
however. "Ahlvsees" are brutal, inhuman slavers
armed with unstoppable magic. Quite a twist
on the typical charming elf!
|
|
|
This
is a complete roleplaying game in every way. The setting
is lavished with fantastic locations to explore, dramatic
conflicts to unravel, and even hints of an epic storyline.
Ork society is well drawn, with everything from social
power (ork tribes are matriarchies, very well constructed
by Wick) to social roles to seasonal activities (the
resources available to your tribe depend on them)
carefully but fluidly incorporated into game play.
Game mechanics are also wonderfully fluid. Rules for
ork magic, for example, are unstructured, reflecting
a kind of mythic wonder. A character's skill set is
created through the player describing what the character
is good at (there are no skill lists to pick from).
The whole atmosphere of Orkworld is carefully
incorporated into the game mechanics using the ork
concept of Trouble, a force something akin to destiny.
While accumulating Trouble may sound like a bad thing,
it isn't necessarily so awful - when you've got Trouble,
you've also got the opportunity for adventure.
Although
alternate suggestions are provided for those who don't
want to play out the rather grim "doomed struggle"
scenario that dominates Orkworld, gamers may
be cheating themselves if they try to turn it to the
same kind of mayhem inherent in Ork! These
are very different games. Orkworld shines brightest
in dramatic, campaign-style play and with players
who want to go beyond the blood and guts stereotype
of orcs to emphasize the hero in anti-hero.
Return
to Word - Black Gate #2 Reviews
|
![[SFF Net Member]](http://www.sff.net/gfx/misc/sffnetmb.gif)