Orc Quest; or, A Critical Examination of Agency Through in Interactive Fiction (Warcraft)
- Thread starter FractiousDay
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Current tally, looks like Important Orc is going to be the choice but I'm not closing voting just yet. I'll see where we are tomorrow morning and if its close let it go on longer, if its got a reasonably clear winner I'll close it earlier.
You've got at least till 1200 GMT for discussions and votes.
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- Missouri
[X] Plan: Adventurer of Azeroth MK 2
-[X] Background: Peons -1CP
-[X] Class Skills: Elemental Connection, Battle Sight, Battle Fury
-[X] Misc Skills: Survivalist, Basic Persuasion
I do rather like this idea, wasn't there a bit of lore where Thrall was wanting to change things up a bit for peons so they dont love in basic slavery? You'd think a while race cast into being slaves would abolish the whole thing altogether.
-[X] Background: Peons -1CP
-[X] Class Skills: Elemental Connection, Battle Sight, Battle Fury
-[X] Misc Skills: Survivalist, Basic Persuasion
I do rather like this idea, wasn't there a bit of lore where Thrall was wanting to change things up a bit for peons so they dont love in basic slavery? You'd think a while race cast into being slaves would abolish the whole thing altogether.
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Thrall is indeed supposedly accepting of peons more than is usual in frostwolf society and that's probably because he was a slave yes. Notably the frostwolves never practiced infanticide like other clans did. At one point blackhand, a black rock orc, notes that draka, thralls mother, wouldn't have survived past birth in the black rock clan
I'm not sure what you mean by the whole race being slaves though. Thrall was, and maybe a limited number of other orcs were, but it wasn't ever a widespread policy of the alliance to enslave the orcs. Thrall accepts slavery even from close acquaintances in the new horde, and orcs didn't really learn as a people (thrall did). They're unrepentant genociders who seem to have little interest in actually improving culturally, with garrosh and the iron horde actually having more of an impact on orcish culture than thrall ever did in the new horde.
Unless you're talking as the demonic corruption which again I wouldn't classify as slavery
Character Creation 2 Results
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Voting is now Closed!
I thought perhaps we might get a flurry of new votes but nope, Important Orc it is.
And now the first Dice rolls of the quest. I'm not entirely sure on my position on rolls, but I feel like I should get more into the swing of this questing lark.
Remember you can choose to reroll some of these at a CP cost. Please post some reactions while I think about the results of the rolls.
Potential Rolls
I am upgrading your 'Physical potential' score to 30 as the minimum for your race, sex and social status. Essentially you 'must' have been at this level otherwise you'd have already been exiled or drowned at birth as the Burning Blade probably still practice infanticide. As previously mentioned there are plenty of ways of enhancing this, that score merely represents your total potential. If you'd chosen the Mok'Nathal option previously you'd have an automatic upgrade to 50 because of the Ogre blood. Comparably your magical potential is exceptionally high for an orc!
Elemental Connection rolls
The elemental connection rolls decides which of the six elements you've got the connections to. Blademasters use Fire and Air mostly. Shamans use water and earth additionally, while there's also 'Life' used by druids and shaman to a lesser extent, and decay used by death knights and some others. I've rolled once for your affinity to each of the 6 elements. These rolls would then have the following scores added to them:
Fire Affinity (87+20)=107
Air Affinity (2+10)=12
Water Affinity (74+5)=79
Earth Affinity (84+5)=89
Life Affinity (72)=72
Decay Affinity (72)=72
You have incredibly little affinity to the air element and will generally have great difficulty connecting to it, or learning new abilities in this area. Comparably you're pretty solid across the board apart from that, with Fire being both the naturally and artificially highest. Fire has a +20 because you're in the 'Burning Blade' after all.
I've then rolled for the strength of your elemental ability, which with a 40 is decent but not amazing, as well as the final elemental connection roll to decide which of the elements you're actually connected to already, this would be the 5th element, the Spirit of the Wilds, also called the Spirit of Life, or 'Chi' by monks.
Current CP
I gave you 1CP for the last update, you added 3CP from the 'Leadership' choice. You then picked 1 additional class skill and 1 additional misc skill at a cost of 2CP each. As such you currently have 0CP. You are in neither debt or credit, and this score is entirely neutral.
As a reminder, negative CP (for example -4CP) will result is more obligations, with these obligations being increased as CP debt increases. Positive CP results is increased agency. In general, you exchange agency for CP. For example, you might pick 'Pet' in the next update for a CP cost. This would increase your agency and thus cost CP. You might also pick 'Existing debt' which would reward CP, because it creates obligations.
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- Location
- Czech Republic
So what does Spiritual score mean ?
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- United Kingdom
Primarily how powerful your spirit is in comparison with various things. For example, your resistance against spiritual contagions, your mental resilience. Elves, being so reliant on magic and being shaped by it, would have very low spiritual scores, while ogres would have quite high scores.
Edit, this is particularly important to you because your clan is full of warlocks ad therefore fel magic that orcs are so famously affected by.
Any rerolls are guaranteed to be higher than the previous roll.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
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- Dancing on wires!
mmm...depending on how much CP rerolling is I think I may end up taking a lot of those.
I also find it funny we are perfectly balanced for life and death
Other reactions, interesting life is the one we ended up rolling for having a connection too, cause life also the one that seems like an easy pick to you know enhance our lowish physical abilities.
Said low abilities also makes for an interesting place in orkish society, and a contrast which I approve of.
@FractiousDay what does Burning Blade report mean?
And the Familial roll? IIRC you said low might be a shamen's cousin, 37 ain't too low, but it is only just over 1/3rd.
damn it blizzard and your inability to come up with a compelling narrative anymore.
I also find it funny we are perfectly balanced for life and death
Other reactions, interesting life is the one we ended up rolling for having a connection too, cause life also the one that seems like an easy pick to you know enhance our lowish physical abilities.
Said low abilities also makes for an interesting place in orkish society, and a contrast which I approve of.
@FractiousDay what does Burning Blade report mean?
And the Familial roll? IIRC you said low might be a shamen's cousin, 37 ain't too low, but it is only just over 1/3rd.
Also god I hope this isn't the case here...
damn it blizzard and your inability to come up with a compelling narrative anymore.
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I think I said 1 point previously, but I might make this more expensive, not sure, I'll draft out a couple of plans myself to see what the effects of the expense are
Indeed! I found that interesting as well and I'm thinking it'll probably come up later
You got 2 reports from the valley of trials, both are sealed, one is your score card for basic training, the other is a report by a burning blade person. Both are sealed, the BB report you suspect is a similar score card but for specifics BB stuff, but as it's sealed you don't know
I'll go into it in the next update, there's a plot that basically writes itself with plenty of conflicts which is cool
I wouldn't call it bad writing necessarily. Some of it sure, but I also think it's a good cultural commentary both on the in universe stuff and also on fantasy tropes. For example the 'kill 20 bears' is bad writing especially when applied to 'kill 20 quillboar' given it reduces a sentient race to a quest objective, but it also remarks on the standard fantasy of regular genocide in relations between species. More complicated fantasy like warhammer averts this, but the idea of 'mobs' or 'creeps' as just something to be killed is sort similar to the discussion so earlier about Alterac. Who if not the syndicate is the legitimate authority there?
In regards to the orcs specifically, an in universe explanation might be that Thrall failed to actually change orcish culture. He nevertheless provided alternate virtues and he deliberately settled in Durotar to assuage his (legit) cultural shame at his peoples' history. Youve got stuff like the Path to Glory paved with Draenei childrens' bones which isn't really ever confronted. Might go more into it another time but I'll leave it here for now own
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So we should probably reroll: Air affinity, physical score and spiritual score.
Familial roll is how important we are in the leadership right ?
Elemental ability roll is: what ability we start with, but doesn't have effect on potential ?
Familial roll is how important we are in the leadership right ?
Elemental ability roll is: what ability we start with, but doesn't have effect on potential ?
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
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- Dancing on wires!
Kinda. High presumably would mean direct links to the chief, which ain't necessarily good either.
As I said IIRC low meant a relatively far relation of a tribe shamen.
Elemental ability too.
What can I say I'm greedy.
mmm...
I'd say 1 is ok. I want to reroll 3-4 ATM, which already gets us close to instantly crossing a CP threshold right off the bat, but increasing it to 2, if we were to spend 3 gets us automatically over it. I'd say 1 gives us incentives to trust the dice again, while basically ensuring we end up shenaniganing.
Will expand on your other points in a mo.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
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- Dancing on wires!
I mean its good "commentary" but likely entirely unintentional
Joking aside going to the Alterac thing whether or not they're legitimate was never in contention they are. Their founder and first leader was the King of Alterac, in fact its more accurate to say that they're the same authority that's been ruling Alterac for ages. The issue is they're also chaos spreading, murderous slave taking bandits.
Regardless to try and explain some of my (very angry) thoughts I have many issues with how the conflict between the alliance and the horde is portrayed not just because I used to play an orc. I don't like that I legitimately want Jania to nuke them off the map. They've been given chance after chance, while continually fucking it up at every single turn despite the efforts of people like Thrall.
As you said its never confronted and I hate that. Does Thrall even mention the Draenai? Does he ever confront the orcs on how they are dishonourable butchers whose only great achievements are built on the back of demon blood and being nonces? Lets not even get onto Garrosh and his freaking bullshit and simply say this. While I know that he placed Orgrimmar under martial law for the siege, the implication is that he was supported by the majority of the orcish population...
What was the fucking point of any of the last few decades? I don't know why the fuck they were ever in charge nor for that matter can I tell how they ever won anything, they're a species that does the same shit as WHF Orks with none of the justification!
And yes I'm aware its been a frustratingly short period of time for any form of cultural change to occur especially in a society as ****ed up as the Orcs, but it doesn't stop me from getting annoyed that they had the opportunity to do something a bit more complex, thoughtful etc. but instead they decided to give the orcs all the introspective capacity of a bag of potato chips despite the freaking conga line of humiliation and failure that dogs them at ever single step, the fact that the crimes they've committed have never been fucking thrust in their faces and the fact that the other members of the horde haven't thrown them to the alliance to finally get them to stop dragging them into their incessant warfare is frankly beyond me (yes I know there's lots of reasons, the point remains.)
Tho the core of my problem is FFS will they stop making them the bad guys. And no I don't mean make them good, I mean make them as bad as each other, but all the major villians of new WoW are from the horde and all the wars too are caused by them when its unneeded.
They have Genn fucking Greymane in the alliance I'd have found it entirely in character for him to have started a war for once. Oh and they killed Vo'jinn, remind me what was the point of making him Warchief if you're going to kill him at the very start of the next fucking expansion!
RAARATN{OGHSO{ETN!
But no, they're green, they've got horns, tusks and the only pretty ones are vampires I guess they gotta be evil.
Sorry I get very fucking annoyed at this. I'm probably missing a lot of stuff due to tiredness etc. but what I know pisses me off on so many levels.
The actions of the orcs as a whole are that of genocidal monsters and they are treated in universe as genocidal monsters, jesus christ on jumping pogo sticks I hate it. It sends an awful message in my eyes and I should not have any part of me that wants to agree with the alliance's treatment of the orcs post war on the basis of how many lives would be saved if they could never do anything, Grom died of a heart attack and Blackhammer got struck with a bolt of divine lightening before either of them could infect Thrall with their poisonous pestilent fetid bull shit!
Edit: Also using the wikia, but I find this in the notes section to be a ****ing riot.
Warcraft is one of the very few fantasy franchises where orcs are put in a positive light. This is still true after two games with the traditional bloodthirsty interpretation.
Yes the species that is the most constant villain of the entire franchise that has merely tried to genocide all non them life on the planet several times and is usually shown as extremely savage is portrayed in a "positively."
Groans.
I want this idea of a positive orcish people, but FFS I can't find it.
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I'll address some of the actual posts tomorrow, for the moment though in regards to rerolling, how does everyone feel about the following options?
1. Reroll cannot be lower than 50
2. Reroll will be higher and cannot be higher than 50
3. Reroll will be higher, no specifics
4. Reroll can be more powerful with greater investment
5. No rerolls
1. Reroll cannot be lower than 50
2. Reroll will be higher and cannot be higher than 50
3. Reroll will be higher, no specifics
4. Reroll can be more powerful with greater investment
5. No rerolls
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
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- Dancing on wires!
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- He/Him
Dang I missed the initial voting phase. Oh well I'm fine with this too.
And I admit that It's pretty cool to not play as a Wizard or Magic-Focused character in these types of Quest.
And I admit that It's pretty cool to not play as a Wizard or Magic-Focused character in these types of Quest.
hapcelion
The Abyss gazed back
- Location
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I would like to suggest: Reroll is allowed, but we have to accept the results, be they lower or not.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
If that's the case, the reroll needs to be cheap.
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See if I was a quester Id find that really annoying. I'm inclined to go with option 2 and guarantee that it'll be worth it, but in general otherwise force you to go finding a better way of doing stuff.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
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- Dancing on wires!
Very much agree. Sucks when its worse etc.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm actually fine with option 2. Gives us a lot of breathing space and chances to not fuck things up badly.
Given that our character is still starting his journey, he will need all the help and perks he can get.
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To an extent these are the sorts of attitudes I want to challenge with than quest.
For the first one, yes it gets a bit silly when the character can do everything, which also means the dice bonuses will be fairly low, rather than the +20s you sometimes see in other quests. There was even another quest oven heard of with a male bretonian wizard which is very unloreful.
For the second, not necessarily. I want to make it very difficult to be entirely prepared in all areas, and relatively expensive in point costs. Remember that you can get training from your people and your clan, but would be expected to either pay for this in money or service
Thoughts on Orcish society
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So I'll probably bookmark this post as an info one about why the orcs are how they are.
Partly its definitely due to bad writing. Blizzard do some stuff well, but in general they aren't able to make the setting sufficiently cohesive to stand up to scrutiny, they focus far more on what's basically soap opera drama than they do on the sort of meaningful historical or at least fantastical authenticity that I think a lot of people want. As such, yes the orcs are genocidal etc because of bad writing, but I'll try and provide an explanation below for why this might be 'in universe'. Firstly, to address
I'll structure the rest of the answer around three points, the ability of cultures to change, to self-reflect, and geopolitical considerations.
This culture of valuing (martial) strength is pushed forward into the classic WoW period, but in general the Old Horde (that is the Orcs mainly) never really reach the stage where they could reasonably be called a state. There's no bureaucracy or professional military, taxation or similar to allow for other forms of power to develop such as institutional or bureaucratic power. As such the 'best', fastest and most sure way of becoming more powerful is through combat, battle and warfare, with a couple of side paths in magic etc.
Then Thrall turns up. Thrall is educated by humans, and then gets a very edited history of orcs and orcish culture from the Frostwolves and from Orgrim Doomhammer, neither of which presumably mentioned the whole 'paving a road using childrens bones' thing. As such Thrall fails to understand a couple of things. Firstly, he tries to map human culture onto the Orcs. This is partly successful because he specialises the clans more than Blackhand did, having the Shattered Hand as a police force and spies, using the Warsong as a military unit, using the Burning Blade as the demon police etc. He also tries to insert his supporters into positions of power, and changes some customs like (poorly) instituting gender equality. However, he never really understands how clans work, the Burning Blade say demon worshippers and there's no institutional inertia. When Garrosh turns up Thrall loses control of the Warsong because they answer to their chief now, just like a king is only able to control their direct vassals, not their vassals vassals.
Thrall isn't really ever taught how Orcish culture works by Drek'thar or Doomhammer, and is instead given a sort of edited version of events, missing out any of the dishonour and so on. He surrounds himself with unrepresentative orcs such as from the Blackrock or Frostwolf clans who clearly aren't able to or have no interest in changing stuff. As such Thrall doesn't really care to confront the Orcs about their past, he just assumes that they were all tricked by Gul'dan. This isn't true, for example when Grom drinks demon blood for the second time he says 'I need this to defeat Cenarius', which wasn't Grom's job, he was meant to get lumber and establish a forward base. However, due to the orcish culture because he's been opposed Grom thinking he 'needs' to be stronger regardless of the source.
Furthermore, there's not really an impetus for Thrall to do so. The orcs aren't doing any genocide at the moment (apart from the Quillboar but no one cares about them) and I'm not even sure he could do anything about them even if he wanted do given as we've established the Horde isn't a proper state, its a patchwork framework of unclear political and constitutional settlements because its development has been disrupted frequently. In the Classic period at least the Horde is beset by enemies and Thrall would have no interest in an internal fight which might endanger his position.
How might this be changed? How might you specifically change it if you wanted to? For one, there has to be a change to how Orcs acquire honour and glory, and progress in society. I'll bring the example of Star Wars in here, where a similar culture, the Mandalorians, has developed from a warlike culture to a bounty-hunting one, using their skills but doing so in a way that's acceptable and even praised by the rest of galactic society. The Horde need resources, specifically things like lumber and food. They get this by pushing into the lands around them, but they could also get it through trading. Now what do they have to trade? Primarily martial ability. The Orcs might become a mercenary state, exchanging soldiers for resources. This would create peace through interdependency between the Alliance and Horde, and would actually resolve some of the problems. It wouldn't necessarily deal with the genocidal impulses the Horde has due to culture, but it would give a release valve, and it would also allow for the greater development of different classes in Orcish society and means of advancement rather than just soldiering.
Partly its definitely due to bad writing. Blizzard do some stuff well, but in general they aren't able to make the setting sufficiently cohesive to stand up to scrutiny, they focus far more on what's basically soap opera drama than they do on the sort of meaningful historical or at least fantastical authenticity that I think a lot of people want. As such, yes the orcs are genocidal etc because of bad writing, but I'll try and provide an explanation below for why this might be 'in universe'. Firstly, to address
To give Blizzard the credit they deserve, since Warcraft II they've given the orcs a far more interesting history, just like they moved the Alliance away from the explicitly Christian iconography and terminology. The Warcraft Orcs are a legitimately interesting culture with their own history and customs, up there with the Orsimer from TES or the Orks from Warhammer. Orcs are frequently portrayed in a positive light, and although some are evil they're portrayed as a legitimate culture and people not just a mob race.
I'll structure the rest of the answer around three points, the ability of cultures to change, to self-reflect, and geopolitical considerations.
The Orcs went from being a fractious and combative culture hiding from larger and stronger opponents on Draenor (Arrakoa, Ogres, Gronn, Draenei), to a decentralised martial empire under Blackhand's Horde. In both cases the Orcs valued strength above all, which usually meant martial strength, but sometimes meant rogue type stuff or magical strength. Due to external pressures they were and are very traditional, probably because clans who tried to experiment weren't very successful and were destroyed. Anything 'weak' including half-breeds, disability or gentleness was looked down on, for example Gul'dan being exiled because he was disabled (looking at his art he has a hunched back and seems to have something going on with his arms).
This culture of valuing (martial) strength is pushed forward into the classic WoW period, but in general the Old Horde (that is the Orcs mainly) never really reach the stage where they could reasonably be called a state. There's no bureaucracy or professional military, taxation or similar to allow for other forms of power to develop such as institutional or bureaucratic power. As such the 'best', fastest and most sure way of becoming more powerful is through combat, battle and warfare, with a couple of side paths in magic etc.
Then Thrall turns up. Thrall is educated by humans, and then gets a very edited history of orcs and orcish culture from the Frostwolves and from Orgrim Doomhammer, neither of which presumably mentioned the whole 'paving a road using childrens bones' thing. As such Thrall fails to understand a couple of things. Firstly, he tries to map human culture onto the Orcs. This is partly successful because he specialises the clans more than Blackhand did, having the Shattered Hand as a police force and spies, using the Warsong as a military unit, using the Burning Blade as the demon police etc. He also tries to insert his supporters into positions of power, and changes some customs like (poorly) instituting gender equality. However, he never really understands how clans work, the Burning Blade say demon worshippers and there's no institutional inertia. When Garrosh turns up Thrall loses control of the Warsong because they answer to their chief now, just like a king is only able to control their direct vassals, not their vassals vassals.
Thrall isn't really ever taught how Orcish culture works by Drek'thar or Doomhammer, and is instead given a sort of edited version of events, missing out any of the dishonour and so on. He surrounds himself with unrepresentative orcs such as from the Blackrock or Frostwolf clans who clearly aren't able to or have no interest in changing stuff. As such Thrall doesn't really care to confront the Orcs about their past, he just assumes that they were all tricked by Gul'dan. This isn't true, for example when Grom drinks demon blood for the second time he says 'I need this to defeat Cenarius', which wasn't Grom's job, he was meant to get lumber and establish a forward base. However, due to the orcish culture because he's been opposed Grom thinking he 'needs' to be stronger regardless of the source.
Furthermore, there's not really an impetus for Thrall to do so. The orcs aren't doing any genocide at the moment (apart from the Quillboar but no one cares about them) and I'm not even sure he could do anything about them even if he wanted do given as we've established the Horde isn't a proper state, its a patchwork framework of unclear political and constitutional settlements because its development has been disrupted frequently. In the Classic period at least the Horde is beset by enemies and Thrall would have no interest in an internal fight which might endanger his position.
How might this be changed? How might you specifically change it if you wanted to? For one, there has to be a change to how Orcs acquire honour and glory, and progress in society. I'll bring the example of Star Wars in here, where a similar culture, the Mandalorians, has developed from a warlike culture to a bounty-hunting one, using their skills but doing so in a way that's acceptable and even praised by the rest of galactic society. The Horde need resources, specifically things like lumber and food. They get this by pushing into the lands around them, but they could also get it through trading. Now what do they have to trade? Primarily martial ability. The Orcs might become a mercenary state, exchanging soldiers for resources. This would create peace through interdependency between the Alliance and Horde, and would actually resolve some of the problems. It wouldn't necessarily deal with the genocidal impulses the Horde has due to culture, but it would give a release valve, and it would also allow for the greater development of different classes in Orcish society and means of advancement rather than just soldiering.
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So feel free to post any other notes etc, I'll put the last part of the character creation up this evening.