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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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WOTC making orcs basically humans with an odd skin tone is an unusually poor choice. Really speaks to them missing the fundamental purpose of morally unambiguous enemies in a game.

From a gameplay perspective, if you want a tabletop equivalent of a video game beat-em-up title, it makes sense that you want a race of always chaotic evil antagonist who exist in endless supply and can be mowed down with no moral compunctions. It's the same reason we have zombies, or Nazis. But, from a worldbuilding/roleplaying perspective, that seems both pretty boring and also kinda unrealistic? Not unrealistic in the sense that you cannot build a world where it doesn't make sense; with enough effort, I'm sure you can. Unrealistic in the sense that it doesn't map to anything in the real world.

I get the real point is they don't want a race of dumb savages so they have to change them into human with oddly colored skin. Like an identifiable group of real life humans drawn in fantasty style.

If they are going to turn a monster race into fantasy Mexicans, then I prefer goblins. They are much cuter.