Transcription:

A picture of a skinny female orc with the side of her head shaved. She wears an armless red dress and a black shawl, as well as matching red bracelets and a black choker with a gold heart at the front.

At the top of the image is the text “You may not like it, but this is what” in large bubble font

At the bottom of the image is a screenshot from the new D&D changelog, reading “• Orcs no longer have the Powerful Build feature.”

And below that, the text “Peak 2024 D&D orc performance looks like” continues the bubble font from the top.

  • loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works
    721·
    3 months ago

    A picture of a skinny female orc …

    If I’d seen the pic without text, I’d have assumed it’s a femboy orc. Which I’d also find funnier since the morphology of female orcs already varies a lot depending on the artist’s tastes and intentions whereas male orcs are more consistently depicted with a strong build.

    • ...m...@ttrpg.network
      161·
      3 months ago

      …well, no: sixth-edition core rules no longer support half-races, something-something-against-racism?..

          • ...m...@ttrpg.network
            3·
            3 months ago

            …to be explicitly clear: i believe that we’re all sarcastically mocking WotC’s editorial choice to eliminate half-breeds from the core rules in order to combat real-world racism…

            (i wouldn’t be surprised to see mixed races included as an advanced option in the new dungeon master’s guide, though)

      • gaael@lemmy.world
        112·
        3 months ago

        Iirc it’s more of a lexical change: until now, half-something automatically assumed the other half was human, making the human race central in the setting. To allow for more liberty, most (all?) humanoid species will become interbreedable and you can choose the traits from one ancestry or the other.

        • SwiggitySwole@lemm.ee
          4·
          3 months ago

          That was how it worked in the playtest. The sidebar saying “pick a race you really are and pretend to be half the other race” is gone from the 2024 PHB. Rules as written, you can only be fully one race, this of course doesn’t actually matter as the whole thing is imaginary bullshit but in organised play it’ll sometimes come up.

          • gaael@lemmy.world
            3·
            3 months ago

            I stand corrected, I didn’t know they changed it that way. Thanks for the update :)

          • TheGreatDarkness@ttrpg.network
            3·
            3 months ago

            In Pathfinder 2e I think Half-Elf, half-Orc, and their equivalent of Tiefling and Aasimar are variants you can apply to other species.

          • gaael@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            I haven’t played enough pathfinder to be able to answer your question, sorry.
            Also, I was wrong, see the other comment for correction.

  • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.worksFrançais
    23·
    3 months ago

    I’ve always been joking about playing an “orc poet” in Shadowrun as a way to do something totally sub optimal :) TIL that you can also play orc in D&D. And cute orcs can definitely change the world building

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
      10·
      3 months ago

      Playing smart or charismatic orcs is totally fine in Shadowrun, it’s not that suboptimal. You have to spend a bit more karma at the start to overcome the lower starting charisma, but it’s not bad at all.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      10·
      3 months ago

      Yeah the PHB for D&D 5th edition only had half-orcs as a playable race, but they added a full orc race with the 2016 Volo’s Guide to Monsters. idk about the 5e remaster though because I haven’t played or been interested in following the news of D&D since about mid 2022. I just found this meme on !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone and thought it belonged here!

      • Skua@kbin.earth
        7·
        3 months ago

        God dammit I really need to finish and polish the mixed heritage homebrew doc I have. Sometimes I want to be a half-orc-half-gnome and the game should let me

        • eerongal@ttrpg.network
          5·
          3 months ago

          the new 2024 rules allow for this. All half races/species have been removed, and instead you get to mix and match any two you want.

          • Skua@kbin.earth
            4·
            3 months ago

            They allow for it, but mechanically you still just pick one. The one I knocked together and mean to refine gives every species for traits, so a three-quarter-drow quarter-dwarf person is actually (slightly) mechanically different to a half-drow half-dwarf one

  • P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br
    19·
    3 months ago

    Um, actually, this is not a “bubble font”. The font used in this meme is called “Impact”, and it’s commonly bundled with MS Office. ☝️🤓

  • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
    16·
    3 months ago

    The spoiler description says the orc is female but it’s dross’ Onyx, it’s a male twink orc not a female

  • Demdaru@lemmy.world
    13·
    3 months ago

    Not a player nor a DM, so correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t it basically photoshop human now? Grab a human, shift colors until skin is green…orc? :|

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
      17·
      3 months ago

      Yes it is. It’s like they wanted to do what PF2.0 did with Ancestries but also do a really shitty job of it. It’s fine though; 3.5e, 5e, PF1.0, and PF2.0 are all still out there for anyone who wants to run better systems that are still “DND.”

      • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
        4·
        3 months ago

        I’m pretty hyped for DC20. I backed the Kickstarter… now I just need life to fuckin’ chill long enough for me to pull a game together to test out the beta rules.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        51·
        3 months ago

        I’m actually a fan of the general change to races and background. It’s more role play friendly because all the tables available to me are run like we’re power gaming. Which of course makes us power game to stay alive. So now I can be whatever I want without worrying too much.

  • TheGreatDarkness@ttrpg.network
    5·
    3 months ago

    Isn’t that twink a Goblin, tho?

    Also, I’m ok with this, helps diffirentiate them from Goliaths. And Orcs were never potrayed as Goliath-sized.

  • StopJoiningWars@discuss.online
    411·
    3 months ago

    That’s no orc that’s a fucking goblin. Orcs are massive. You’re on some delusional shit if you believe otherwise and that there are no species defining traits.

        • TheMarchioness@lemmy.world
          31·
          3 months ago
          • Post 1: You’re delusional if you believe that there are no species defining traits.
          • Post 2: Traits don’t define the characteristics of a species. That’s stupid.

          …

          So… you’re calling yourself both delusional AND stupid?

          • StopJoiningWars@discuss.online
            13·
            3 months ago

            Your reading comprehension defies reality. Clearly rock bottom isn’t the limit anymore. Which part of “as in an ability” tells you I’m talking about species defining traits?

            • TheMarchioness@lemmy.world
              31·
              3 months ago

              Hey, you’re the one who said the opposite thing in subsequent posts…

              • In your first post you said that you’re delusional if you think there aren’t any species defining traits - implying you think there ARE species defining traits.
              • In your second post you said that you’re stupid if you think there are species defining traits.

              …

              The only thing consistent between your posts is that you’re really angry about a joke.

              Additionally, it seems you’re really struggling to find the thing where “powerful build” is a “species defining trait”. So here it is:

              It’s in the same rules block as “you are a humanoid”.

              According to your logic, “you are a humanoid” is also an ability, and not a species defining trait. Do you think it’s teachable? can I train for 90 days to become an abberation?

              • StopJoiningWars@discuss.online
                13·
                3 months ago

                They’re not conflicting. I said there are species defining traits that don’t depend on there being abilities. Because, once again, you’re glossing over what I specified in my second comment about abilities, and not species defining traits.

        • Ahdok@ttrpg.network
          31·
          3 months ago

          5e does use “racial traits” to define most of the characteristics of a species other than age, height and weight though, but… since this is about height and weight, let’s work through what the rules actually say:

          In current 5e, the current orc stats have this text under Height and Weight:

          "Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. "

          There isn’t really anything, anywhere, in the orc kit that suggests they can’t be skinny or lithe. In fact, the key art for the Orc race depicts quite a skinny orc.

          Now, despite this, someone might want to use the rules text to say “orcs are massive” regardless. If you do want to make this argument, the only thing there that supports the statement is a racial trait. Specifically: the Powerful Build feature, which implies that orcs are bulky.

          If you argue “traits don’t define the characteristics of a species” then there’s nothing at all to suggest orcs should be big. If you do accept “traits” as being able to define the characteristics of a species, then you can point to the powerful build trait as evidence, but that’s all there is.

          The joke in this post here is thus: If you were to take that feature out, you’re just left describing human builds.

          Now you can have any mental image you like, run your games how you want, use whatever interpretation you want… You can say “I know what orcs are like from other media experiences, and they’re large.” That’s all fine. You can do whatever you want.

          Just remember that this post is just a joke. It’s saying “look! they removed the only thing that says orcs are big, so here’s what happens.” That’s all.