Original D&D Designer Robert J. Kuntz Blasts Wizards Of The Coast's Mishandling Of Orcs In The New Monster Manual 2024 Edition
Fans became upset after an article went viral on Dungeons & Dragons, alerting tabletop RPG players that the new D&D Monster Manual removed orcs. Now, original D&D designer Robert J. Kuntz puts Wizards of the Coast on blast for their mishandling of evil creatures like Orcs.
With the new edition of D&D, Wizards of the Coast has already courted controversy with their changes to the game by adding a diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda on top of their core rulebooks. D&D players, as a result, have been watching their beloved roleplaying game of questing and fighting monsters turned into a political cudgel and social conditioning tool by the Hasbro corporation.
Before the new Monster Manual began being promoted, The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide infamously incorporated BDSM fetish community practices in the game for safe spaces, having players make an X with their arms if they feel triggered by a situation and requiring a DM to stop the game and address the player in question.
The 2024 Player’s Handbook is filled with imagery of BIPOC and female characters at a margin of more than five to one for white male characters, about the direct opposite of the demographics who play the game.
Dungeons & Dragons came under further scrutiny after it was revealed senior designer Jason Tondro penned a forward to a history book on Dungeons & Dragons, calling Gary Gygax misogynistic and accusing him of cultural appropriation.
This prompted Elon Musk to beg the question as to how much Hasbro costs for him to buy the parent company of Wizards of the Coast and save Dungeons & Dragons from all of these woke controversies.
The new 2024 Monster Manual has made a lot of woke changes, including removing orcs but also adding gender ideology elements to creatures like hags, succubus, and sphinxes. Fans have been vocal in complaining about the mistreatment in the game.
Former World of Warcraft lead designer Mark Kern aka Grumzz posted about all of the troubles this edition of D&D is having so far, saying, “Half Elves GONE from new DnD Player's Handbook! DnD 2024 has done so much damage to Dungeons & Dragons thanks to Wizards of the Coast woke designers: - Removes Half-Elves from the game (due to it being somehow racist...what, are they about racial purity now??? How is that not even more racist?). - Removes Half-Orcs (same reason). - Removes Orcs as monsters from the Monster Manual. (Because they think Orcs are black people, but it's okay, they made them Mexican in their new art instead!). None of this was offensive to anyone. Their virus infected brains are out of control and spinning racism where there is none.”
This prompted original D&D designer Robert J. Kuntz to give his impression of orcs from a classic perspective. He stated, “They are now a "species" and in the Players Handbook, from what I understand. Orcs, born of Tolkien, understood to be specially tortured and changed elves and mutated life forms, born for pure evil purposes by wizardry and monstrous in kind, have now been added to civil society as just another "species" occurring in the evolutionary chain; They were just misunderstood all along, you see, and it is now your fault not to recognize that when they are slipping a. blade into you. Utter. Drivel. Creative Hackery at its best. A literary appropriation and postmodern obliteration of Tolkien's work and efforts now made a mockery of on the world stage.”
This is correct. Orcs have always been evil beings dating back to Tolkien, and attempting to treat them as a modern culture of black people or Mexicans is insulting to current modern cultures as well as the legacy of Orcs in fantasy.
He clarified his disdain for what Wizards of the Coast has done with the game in another post, saying, “WotC is in fact the appropriators of once understood and accepted culture--historical and now literary. They have crossed the Rubicon in stepping into Fantasy fictions big wheelhouse. What is next? Will all such sincere and once literary consonant derivations from myth and fiction that TSR used while maintaining a semblance of truth according to the author(s) intent be reinterpreted in kind? If I were a literary estate of a major fantasy fiction author I would go no where near WotC as they would likely remake such works from them in their world view and not as intended by the author.”
It's clear fans are not happy with the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and WotC is likely to lose sales because of that. Players only wonder how long those woke activists will continue to destroy the fantasy RPGs they love.
What do you think of original D&D designer Robert J. Kuntz’s commentary on orcs in Dungeons & Dragons? Leave a comment and let us know.
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For me it is clear that current D&D is a different game altogether from the original editions. Not only because of the changes mentioned in the article, but also due to the overall mechanics/philosophy of the game, favoring player character optimization with several distinct mechanics that play more like a modern action RPG video game (e.g. Diablo III) than traditional D&D. I am
not saying Diablo is bad, only that is a different game from old D&D. Related, but not the same.
I dunno what this Dildos & Dragqueens thing is or why anybody is talking about it. Weird shit exists on the internet.