Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Lextius on <01-26-12/1712:29>
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Is it really the case that orcs:
1) Give birth in clutches, ranging from between 2-8 (presumably with an average of 4)?
2) Reach full maturity by 12-13 (biologically compared to a human 18-20 year old)?
3) Have a natural lifespan of 35ish years?
I recall reading some of these numbers in various places across various editions and I want to be certain.
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That's fairly right on. SR4A lists most of that in the chapter on metatypes. The only reason they dont overpopulate other metatypes is their high mortality rate, as a disproportionate number of orks are SINless, homeless, lack proper medical care, or are involved in high-risk lifestyles. Someone on the forum once suggested they've got the same amount of life on 'em as humans, but they burn it up faster.
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That's a terrifying prospect, though.
With a full maturity at 13 that suggests sexual maturity somewhat earlier- say 9 or 10. Let's assume that most orks are, as you say, poor a and sinless. Let's further imagine that the ork population acts like poor, inner-city communities do in the real world.
I want to begin by saying that we know what the most hellish nightmares on earth look like today, and they all exist in Africa. Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Angola- these are places where the local zoning commission has "Mass Grave" as one of their options. These places have a mortality rate of 20 to 30 per thousand per year.
I don't have my Seattle book in front of me but if I recall the Seattle metroplex is something like 4 million. 16% of that is orks (or 640,000). Let's further assume that that population is remaining stagnant as a percentage. All we need to do is figure out growth of the other metahuman populations, and the birthrate of orks, and we'll get the mortality rate.
On the conservative side, let's say that there's a 1% annual change in the Seattle metroplex. That's a little under the global average today. It's also trivially small when compared to the Ork community...
The birthrate of orcs is necessarily going to be absurdly high- the same social and societal pressures that affect other, less fecund races are going to be felt by a young ork girl. The odds of her being educated or having access to contraceptives or abortion is going to be considerably low considering we are told the sinless and poor rarely have access to public schooling or free medical care. So a single teenage pregnancy is likely to produce 4 kids. A teenage pregnancy occurs for an ork at 10 years old. By the time a conservative human is just becoming sexually active it is possible that the ork girl who was born next to her in the hospital is a grandmother of 16.
So what does this translate to in terms of birthrate? Because of the short gestation period and early sexual maturity it is an apples to oranges comparison, but regardless it's going to be high. Taking the birth rate of, say, inner-city Baltimore and quadrupling it accounts for the increased "litter", but not the early sexual maturity. Really we should take that number and multiply it by 5 or 6. Baltimore City health suggests about 60 births per 1000 women (or 30 births per thousand people, I suppose) per year. Crank that up by ork standards, and that's between 120 and 180 births per 1000 per year.
The mortality rate among the ork community isn't high. It isn't that they "burn out faster". The mortality rate needs to be somewhere in the 80 to 150 per 1000 per year. The dumpsters and gutters of the slums have to be filled with ork babies, the streets need to be littered with the diseased and rotting corpses of ork children and adults. A meta-human tragedy five times the scale of the ethnic cleansing and civil wars of modern day Africa happen literally every year in the any community with an ork population of any size.
There is no place short of Normandy, circa 1944 that has mortality rates that high. ...actually only 1 in 13 people died charging the beaches at Normandy. You are way more likely to live to 20 if, once a year, you engage in an assault on the shores of France, then if you are born an ork in Shadowrun.
My only point is that these numbers cannot be true, or if they are then all of Shadowrun occurs against a backdrop that requires all of society to ignore a Holocaust-scale tragedy occurring two blocks over and thirty stories down.
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*Cough* Dystopia. Sounds about right to me.
Just live in your AR world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, John Q. Wageslave, everyone is happy. Now, back to your 8-8/6-day a week job.
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In order for there to be a dystopian society there first needs to be a society. What marks all of the nations which have mortality rates upwards of 20 per 1000 is the distinct lack of society. They are places ruled by mobs, violence, illegal activity, and general anarchy. Swaziland, a country with about 1/3 to 1/5 of the mortality rate I've suggested occurs in the ork slums, has about 20 times higher crime than a first world "high" crime rate- the U.S. has an abnormally high murder rate as a country at 5 per 100,000. Swaziland is pushing 100 per 100,000. The same ratio is true for rape, assault, burglary and theft. Bounce that up for Ork numbers and you end up with 500 murders with 100,000. 1 out of every 200 orks dies due to murder (that's not including other forms of homicide).
What is also noteworthy about these nations in Africa is that they are not subject to easy border limits. It isn't possible to say that neighbors of Lesotho or Swaziland can maintain relatively safe lifestyle with neighbors like these. Criminality spreads, and thus it is no surprise that the problems which plague the most violent, corrupt nations on earth infect their neighbors.
Yet we are supposed to believe in Shadowrun that half a million orks are five times more brutal, lawless, and vicious than the worst humanity has to offer, yet they confine themselves to their slums?
Now it may be that Seattle is in fact constantly besieged by its ghettos and slums, with armed perimeters willing to shoot orks on sight as they try to enter the nicer parts of town. I think that's probably something that is farther than Shadowrun has been willing to go in the past. Is it really the case that giant walls separate the poor from...well, not the rich, mind you. If I live like a Squatter there's nothing in the theme suggesting I live in a place 5 times worse than modern day Liberia- there aren't people driving cars with human skulls hanging off the mirrors. Beheadings aren't happening the streets. No, walls (big walls) must be separating poor orks, who live like animals, and the rest of humanity's poor.
It's hard to give these numbers their appropriate weight, really. Five times worse than a place where a 13 year old is more likely to have been raped multiple times than know how to read? Five times worse than a place where ritualistic murder and cannibalism is still practiced? Five times worse than a place where the police extort protection money through torture and murder? What does that place even look like?
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In order for there to be a dystopian society there first needs to be a society. What marks all of the nations which have mortality rates upwards of 20 per 1000 is the distinct lack of society. They are places ruled by mobs, violence, illegal activity, and general anarchy. Swaziland, a country with about 1/3 to 1/5 of the mortality rate I've suggested occurs in the ork slums, has about 20 times higher crime than a first world "high" crime rate- the U.S. has an abnormally high murder rate as a country at 5 per 100,000. Swaziland is pushing 100 per 100,000. The same ratio is true for rape, assault, burglary and theft. Bounce that up for Ork numbers and you end up with 500 murders with 100,000. 1 out of every 200 orks dies due to murder (that's not including other forms of homicide).
What is also noteworthy about these nations in Africa is that they are not subject to easy border limits. It isn't possible to say that neighbors of Lesotho or Swaziland can maintain relatively safe lifestyle with neighbors like these. Criminality spreads, and thus it is no surprise that the problems which plague the most violent, corrupt nations on earth infect their neighbors.
Yet we are supposed to believe in Shadowrun that half a million orks are five times more brutal, lawless, and vicious than the worst humanity has to offer, yet they confine themselves to their slums?
Now it may be that Seattle is in fact constantly besieged by its ghettos and slums, with armed perimeters willing to shoot orks on sight as they try to enter the nicer parts of town. I think that's probably something that is farther than Shadowrun has been willing to go in the past. Is it really the case that giant walls separate the poor from...well, not the rich, mind you. If I live like a Squatter there's nothing in the theme suggesting I live in a place 5 times worse than modern day Liberia- there aren't people driving cars with human skulls hanging off the mirrors. Beheadings aren't happening the streets. No, walls (big walls) must be separating poor orks, who live like animals, and the rest of humanity's poor.
It's hard to give these numbers their appropriate weight, really. Five times worse than a place where a 13 year old is more likely to have been raped multiple times than know how to read? Five times worse than a place where ritualistic murder and cannibalism is still practiced? Five times worse than a place where the police extort protection money through torture and murder? What does that place even look like?
Are you taking into the account that Magic can easily wipe out 10 people with just a flip of the wrist? Or there are predators/Infected that could also decrease the surpluss population. I mean I picture the ghouls of the city "chewing" down quite a bit of the population. Who do they hit? Obviously the poorer people, the easier targets. It really depends on what you think the setting is however. XD
I mean if there are shadowrun's everyday on the scale of some of them innocent bystanders are dying daily. XD
For example, how often my mage has casted a F12 Lightning ball(now F14) that's 24 meter diameter.... which if I shot that into a crowd.... god help them.
I see your general point that the mortality is probably high, though if you look at the gaming system, it's no wonder mortality can be high. Just a simple lucky roll, can kill ya. XD
EDIT: Also curious, the SINless Orks you talk about they have no rights right? I'm wondering if some serial killers don't show up just killing Sinless. <.< I mean they have no rights you can do whatever you want to them right? That's how it was described in the law enforcement part of the book, that you could wind up dead. You also get the feeling that almost everyone packs a gun it seems. Though we are focusing on the criminal world of it so no duh.
So would Raping or killing a Sinless really be a crime? What if it's a past time to some people in the world.... i'm rather unsure of this topic..... obviously they have gangs protecting people in places like this but still, i don't think too many people care about them.
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I've always contended that the percentage of Ork's as a portion of the population would be a lot higher than as listed. But there's a lot of wonkiness in Shadowrun when it comes to population statistics.
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Your external forces should be affecting all races, not just the orks. It doesn't matter how big your lightning ball is, you're going to kill a proportionate number of other races so the population rate is still going to be the problem.
What bugs me is that Orks are definitively tougher, so why do they have a higher mortality rate?
I've seen reports that say that the 'litters' of babies is a lie, propaganda put out by Humanis Policlub.
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It's hard to give these numbers their appropriate weight, really. Five times worse than a place where a 13 year old is more likely to have been raped multiple times than know how to read? Five times worse than a place where ritualistic murder and cannibalism is still practiced? Five times worse than a place where the police extort protection money through torture and murder? What does that place even look like?
OK, a few points you've overlooked.
1) 'Society' doesn't mean that the world suddenly gets nicer to you. In fact, in many ways, it just finds new ways to screw you than just 'survival of the fittest'.
2) Don't forget disease, malnutrition, and wild paracritter attacks in those mortality rates.
3) The orks stay in places like the Barrens or the Underground because at least then the predators they face (both critters and metahuman) don't include the police discriminating against them because of their metatype or lack of SIN.
4) Walls aren't necessary to keep the orks and other SINless in certain areas. When the police catch them, they will typically take their stuff, beat them, and toss them back where they came from, if they're lucky. And walking onto extraterritorial grounds can get you shot.
5) And in the places you mentioned, they don't have a very efficient, wide spread organlegging operation like Tamanous, ghouls and other Infected that have to feed on metahumans in order to survive, rats the size of dobermans, toxic spirits, bug spirits, trees that eat people... I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Yes, being SINless in a sprawl means things are very, very bad for you, and every day could be your last.
EDIT: Also curious, the SINless Orks you talk about they have no rights right? I'm wondering if some serial killers don't show up just killing Sinless. <.< I mean they have no rights you can do whatever you want to them right? That's how it was described in the law enforcement part of the book, that you could wind up dead. You also get the feeling that almost everyone packs a gun it seems. Though we are focusing on the criminal world of it so no duh.
So would Raping or killing a Sinless really be a crime? What if it's a past time to some people in the world.... i'm rather unsure of this topic..... obviously they have gangs protecting people in places like this but still, i don't think too many people care about them.
SINless do have rights, just limited rights. So yes, killing or raping SINless is a crime. It just isn't a crime that the police are going to put a high priority in investigating until a rich person gets involved. Which is why, when Bull's daughter was killed by the copycat Mayan Cutter, he got runners to track the guy down.
What bugs me is that Orks are definitively tougher, so why do they have a higher mortality rate?
Because Orks tend to live in nastier places, with worse medical care, than people of other metatypes.
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You mean like Redmond Barrens where humans outnumber metas 2 to 1 or more? Or even Puyallup where it is an even mix of humans and metas?
The 'fact' that they live in poor conditions is an environmental factor, not a genetic one.
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I just thought of something.
Statistics are made up of SINners, and ignore the SINless.
Which means that he Ork Ages are for the ones that range from good, decent jobs, to the ones on welfare. SINless orks probably live even shorter natural lives!!!
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I just thought of something.
Statistics are made up of SINners, and ignore the SINless.
Which means that he Ork Ages are for the ones that range from good, decent jobs, to the ones on welfare. SINless orks probably live even shorter natural lives!!!
Actually, I don't think so for the stuff in SR4A. IIRC it actually mentions somewhere that the numbers are dragged down by Orks poor living conditions.
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I just thought of something.
Statistics are made up of SINners, and ignore the SINless.
Which means that he Ork Ages are for the ones that range from good, decent jobs, to the ones on welfare. SINless orks probably live even shorter natural lives!!!
Actually, I don't think so for the stuff in SR4A. IIRC it actually mentions somewhere that the numbers are dragged down by Orks poor living conditions.
I've got news for you. 90% of everyone is living in poor living conditions. Why aren't their numbers depressed? What about all the Cascade Orks? Yes, some of them are working mines, but for the most part, their living conditions are way better in the mountains than people living in downtown Seattle. Don't get me started on the valleys and thermal inversions trapping all the pollutants in the industrial part of town.
If you're going to try using economic forces, instead focus on the upper end. The VERY few very wealthy people are living forever, thus dragging their racial average up.
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If you're going to try using economic forces, instead focus on the upper end. The VERY few very wealthy people are living forever, thus dragging their racial average up.
Dude, seriously, have you ever even heard of the phrase "statistically significant factor"? The very, very few Orks rich enough to do such a thing would be too small a number to affect the statistical average by more than a couple days.
Besides, there's the SINless who live in the slums, which is most SINless, and then there's the ones who live in the Barrens. It's the difference between East L.A., where things are a big steaming heap of drek, and a war-torn South American hellhole, where things like sterile medical treatment, antibiotics, vaccinations, or anything approaching proper nutrition are almost unheard of.
Go look at the Runner's Companion, p156, and read the difference between the "Street" and "Squatter" entries, let alone the Barrens entry and the Low entry, which is where the book says the "typical" area of a Sprawl.
In the 19th century, before modern healthcare, rich families had an infant mortality rate of 80-100 per thousand. In the slums infant deaths were closer to 300 per thousand. Given that Barrens families would probably have nearly as little to work with, medically speaking, as 19th century slum-dwellers, 25-30% or more of all Ork deaths being younger than the age of 5 would not be unlikely.
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In the 19th century, before modern healthcare, rich families had an infant mortality rate of 80-100 per thousand. In the slums infant deaths were closer to 300 per thousand. Given that Barrens families would probably have nearly as little to work with, medically speaking, as 19th century slum-dwellers, 25%-30% of all Ork deaths being younger than the age of 5 would not be unlikely.
And that was before things like Ghouls wanted to eat you.
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But the orks are NOT concentrated in the slums. Orks are fairly uniformly distributed amongst the metroplex at around 15 to 20% of the population. Then notable exceptions are Redmond, Snohomish and Everett districts where humans far outnumber metahumans. Actually, Humans far outnumber the metahumans in all of the districts but more so up north. So any environmental impact on orks is going to hit humans even harder.
Of course, the real trick here is that there isn't a problem at all. Look at dogs. The larger breeds don't live as long as the smaller breeds. I'm not saying the orks are dogs, what I'm saying is that Orks are a larger breed of humans and thus follow the same trend that dogs do.
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Just because there are orks in every neighborhood doesn't mean that the orks in those neighborhoods have the same standard of living as others in that neighborhood. While there are orks in the middle class, most of them are poor, at best.
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But the orks are NOT concentrated in the slums. Orks are fairly uniformly distributed amongst the metroplex at around 15 to 20% of the population. Then notable exceptions are Redmond, Snohomish and Everett districts where humans far outnumber metahumans. Actually, Humans far outnumber the metahumans in all of the districts but more so up north. So any environmental impact on orks is going to hit humans even harder.
According to SR4A, p71, Orks and Trolls are statistically more likely to be SINless than other metatypes. That means they're statistically more likely to be living in the slums and barrens.
In the 19th century, before modern healthcare, rich families had an infant mortality rate of 80-100 per thousand. In the slums infant deaths were closer to 300 per thousand. Given that Barrens families would probably have nearly as little to work with, medically speaking, as 19th century slum-dwellers, 25%-30% of all Ork deaths being younger than the age of 5 would not be unlikely.
And that was before things like Ghouls wanted to eat you.
Exactly my point.
I figure any increase in availability in medical care among the truly impoverished since the 19th century (Pediatrician Magician, anyone?), which is not a given in a Dystopia like Shadowrun, is more than offset by the increase in the lethality of other factors.
So, for simplicity, lets say 25%-30% of all Orks die right at age 5, that means that in a population with an average lifespan of 40, that's an extra 11-15 years for the remaining 70%-75% of the population... and that's assuming that if they survive past age 5 they all live until they die of natural causes in their early-to-mid-50s.
The fact that a good portion of that 25%-30% would die well before 5, plus violent death along the way for those that survive to adulthood would probably push the average Ork's actual lifespan up somewhere closer to the late-50s, if not early-60s, if he manages to make it to "Natural Causes".
Still well short of a normal human, who can make it to 90s or better under the same "ideal" conditions, which is appropriate for the fluff.
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Environmental impacts are not a study of racial lifespans, but rather a study of local lifespan. Orks in the Barrens tend to have shorter lifespans than humans in downtown. That's like comparing apples to bicycles. Do orks in the Barrens have shorter life expectancies than Humans in the Barrens? If so, why? Do the Cascade Orks have shorter lives than the Cascade Crow? What about the Sinsearach Elves?
But again, that doesn't matter because there is an existing precedent for larger breeds living shorter lives. I don't have to make up some sort of weirdness to explain it, just look at dogs.
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Environmental impacts are not a study of racial lifespans, but rather a study of local lifespan. Orks in the Barrens tend to have shorter lifespans than humans in downtown. That's like comparing apples to bicycles. Do orks in the Barrens have shorter life expectancies than Humans in the Barrens? If so, why? Do the Cascade Orks have shorter lives than the Cascade Crow? What about the Sinsearach Elves?
But again, that doesn't matter because there is an existing precedent for larger breeds living shorter lives. I don't have to make up some sort of weirdness to explain it, just look at dogs.
So why do Trolls live longer than Orks? Answer: Orks are more prone to doing stupidly dangerous stuff and getting themselves iced at a young age.
And yes, humans in any given situation live longer than Orks. The lifespan for Humans p72 of SR4A are rather low as well. "65" may be the average for Humans, but that includes all the infant deaths, stupid teenagers, and people who get themselves dead in their 30s and 40s. Like I said, the same calculations give a human a "hard" liftspan of 85-90, with a "soft" lifespan of somewhere over 100... which jives quite well with what we know about current human lifespans.
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Here's some hard numbers for you.
There are about 390 thousand orks in the Seattle Metroplex. About 100K are in the Puyallup District, with a large group around Carbonado. Another 100K are in downtown Seattle. These are your sample areas making up over a quarter of the Urban Ork Population. There are 800 thousand Cascade Orks. That means that your statistical average is going to be strongly biased towards the Cascade Ork lifestyle, not your presumption that orks are gutter punks.
As for Trolls living longer than Orks. That may be true, but they still have shorter lifespans than Humans.
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Here's some hard numbers for you.
There are about 390 thousand orks in the Seattle Metroplex. About 100K are in the Puyallup District, with a large group around Carbonado. Another 100K are in downtown Seattle. These are your sample areas making up over a quarter of the Urban Ork Population. There are 800 thousand Cascade Orks. That means that your statistical average is going to be strongly biased towards the Cascade Ork lifestyle, not your presumption that orks are gutter punks.
As for Trolls living longer than Orks. That may be true, but they still have shorter lifespans than Humans.
Where did you get your numbers? Seattle 2072 says way otherwise.
Looking at the numbers, based on percentage of the total ORK population, and not percentage of population per region, and factoring in known things like Orks and Trolls tending to get stuck with crappy, low-paying work compared to "prettier" Metatypes, it seems to me they bloody well are concentrated on the poor end of the spectrum. Now, admittedly I didn't sit down and do a population breakdown graph or anything, but that's what it comes off as when I glance at the "at a glance" charts.
Also, not seeing anything about any Cascade region except a few offhand mentions, but from what I have read it doesn't sound like it's got too much going for it in the way of medical facilities, either.
And, dude, if your theory about "bigger dogs die faster" were true, Trolls would have to have an average of something like a 20-30 year lifespan. They're twice the mass of an Ork but live a decade longer. Your theory is false, regardless of whether Humans live longer than either.
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I got those numbers from a Wiki that says it was current as of 2072. District percentage of orks X district population = number of orks in district. The 800K orks in Cascade Ork comes from the SSC population 8,590,00 with 14% ork but only 11% Cascade Ork. so I bumped that down to 10% to account for the non-orks in the Cascade Orks.
Now lets look at your speculation about jobs. Let's say 20% of the jobs are nice cushy white collar jobs (which aren't as safe as you're making them out to be but whatever) Now lets say that cultural bias gives them all to humans. Now, we'll go to the most Metahuman area, the Puyallup Barrens. That still leaves 29% of the humans with crappy jobs. Which is almost 25% more humans than orks, working those crappy jobs. Why isn't the Human lifespan reduced?
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Well, there's your problem. Wikis aren't canon or encyclopedias.
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I miss my encyclopedias. :'(
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Here's some hard numbers for you.
There are about 390 thousand orks in the Seattle Metroplex. About 100K are in the Puyallup District, with a large group around Carbonado. Another 100K are in downtown Seattle. These are your sample areas making up over a quarter of the Urban Ork Population. There are 800 thousand Cascade Orks. That means that your statistical average is going to be strongly biased towards the Cascade Ork lifestyle, not your presumption that orks are gutter punks.
As for Trolls living longer than Orks. That may be true, but they still have shorter lifespans than Humans.
Where did you get your numbers? Seattle 2072 says way otherwise.
Looking at the numbers, based on percentage of the total ORK population, and not percentage of population per region, and factoring in known things like Orks and Trolls tending to get stuck with crappy, low-paying work compared to "prettier" Metatypes, it seems to me they bloody well are concentrated on the poor end of the spectrum. Now, admittedly I didn't sit down and do a population breakdown graph or anything, but that's what it comes off as when I glance at the "at a glance" charts.
Also, not seeing anything about any Cascade region except a few offhand mentions, but from what I have read it doesn't sound like it's got too much going for it in the way of medical facilities, either.
And, dude, if your theory about "bigger dogs die faster" were true, Trolls would have to have an average of something like a 20-30 year lifespan. They're twice the mass of an Ork but live a decade longer. Your theory is false, regardless of whether Humans live longer than either.
I'd like to offer up that I'm willing to bet while trolls and orks may get into situations that could get them killed, that trolls come out of it more often than Orks, just because of their toughness. :D
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If you don't mind me saying, I think my point got lost somewhere in the discussion.
The question isn't "how" an ork dies- violence, disease, a dingo eating the ork baby- they all contribute to an image of what it means 1) to be an ork, and 2) what it means to live within viewing distance of an ork slum.
My point, and I haven't really heard an explanation that suggests this isn't the case, is that orks, within a few generations of occupying an area, are going to either need to expand (pressing in on the wealthy and moneyed interests), or consume themselves in a conflagration of blood, disease, and horror that has no rival currently on this earth.
The problem is that if we were to describe hell we'd probably use places on earth as starting points. The DNC is something like 8 times less violent than a theoretical ork slum. Liberia is 7 times less violent- and they eat people there.
My point, at its core, is that orks don't live in a blighted dystopian society. They don't like in a violent and diseased hellscape. They live in a place 7 or 8 times worse than a violent and diseased hellscape. I wonder how many of us GMs make a point of that.
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You know, it could simply be a matter that 90% of ork children are human. If you crank out 20 kids but only one is an ork, you don't have the ork population growth problem.
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While the life cycle for orks is shortened by the various factors mentioned, it should be noted that an ork (that didn't goblinize) at age 40 would be the equivalent of a human at age 95 or so today. Their lifespan is simply shorter than that of a human, just like an Elf has a lifespan of several centuries.
If you want to ask why? Magic.
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That, and a tusker just can't catch no break! ;D
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Lex, go back and look at my numbers for per-modern-medicine infant mortality rates, which are very applicable since the idea of "cheap healthcare" is pretty well gone in Shadowrun, and the poor areas are pushing 100,000 people per medical facility even if they could afford it.
The infant death alone cover most of your estimated "80-150 per 1000 per year", with the remainder easily made up for by a few Ghoul and Paracritter attacks and gang warfare.
It may not be anything "currently" on this earth but, historically speaking, it's same old drek, just a different day.
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@justadude
I understand that infant mortality figures. I would counter that it doesn't seem to matter how the death rate reaches such comically high rates. The infant mortality rate in Angola (Africa is just such a useful go to to describe horror) is 180 deaths / 1000 live births. My point, though, is that Angola is a blighted hellhole.
The thing about Angola is that it isn't located next door to my metroplex/shopping mall. I don't buy fro-yo, catch the latest action movie, then cruise home in my BMW within sight of the slums of Luanda. If I did these things then the people who live in those slums would likely stop my BMW with burning tires, pull me out of my car, take my fro-yo, then rape and murder me (with the exception of the fro-yo these all appear to be things that the folks in Angola do a lot of).
Again, I don't really care how you get to the meta-humanitarian crisis that is "Ork life in Seattle". What matters is that the numbers suggested at in theme create a world, and that world is worse than the worst places we have on earth. As a GM I can embrace this- which means that the people of Seattle are willfully blind to living next to a humanitarian crisis the likes of which the world has yet to see, or I can suggest that maybe Orks 1) don't have litters, or 2) don' t mature so fast.
I don't know which is better- maybe there's something to be said about a world where things below the 15th story of your highrise is like Mogadishu from Black Hawk Down (incidentally- Mogadishu as depicted in Black Hawk Down is less violent than the ork slums). For me it is hard to reconcile the civility and functionality of corporate UCAS with this depiction of the slums.
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"Currently" being the First World. You start hitting the Second World and Third World countries and...
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All I can say is: " I can see it."
Yes, the Ork communities in the barrens are hellholes. Death rates are through the roof (thus accounting for the low life span.) They live in crowded conditions sleeping 6 (or more!) to a room, they drink dirty water, and survive on scraps thrown out by others. And along comes a "little" out break of pnemoania... and no medicine to stave off drowning in their own lungs.
So they organize. They set up their roadblocks of burning tires, they jack up those BMW driving wage slaves, and along KE or LS SWAT teams in their heavy armor, and heavy machine guns and "happy smiles"... and mow down those Ork "terrorists" or "gang members" or whatever (not that it matters any, they are SINless after all)
And in the end, cause they have no where else to turn, nothing work against their poverty, nothing to prove that they ( the vast majority) are not gangbanger-anarchist-murdering-raping hoodlums that the media says they are, they slink back to their diseased slums, drink their dirty water, eat the infect soy-paste until the next outbreak comes along...
No one cares. They are orks after all so why should they? They are the mentally stunted, over muscled, degenerate "Tusker", not actually PEOPLE. After all, they could go out and get a job if they weren't so lazy. And those that HAVE jobs? Well they are stupid (probably from the inbreeding you know) so they take longer/cost more to train, so why not pay them less? And then there are all news stories and how "violent" orcs are, and all crimes they are involved in/with....
(starting to see the dystopian worldview now?)
Long story short? It's Hell on earth out there, away from the corporate housing enclaves. Racism is rampant (racism as in troll/Ork/elf/etc). Life is cheap, and body tissue has value. No one cares what is happening to anyone else as long as they are safe and they don't have to see it. (in that regard, it's similar to today)
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*Cough* Dystopia. Sounds about right to me.
Just live in your AR world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, John Q. Wageslave, everyone is happy. Now, back to your 8-8/6-day a week job.
Did I not call it?
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I don't know which is better- maybe there's something to be said about a world where things below the 15th story of your highrise is like Mogadishu from Black Hawk Down (incidentally- Mogadishu as depicted in Black Hawk Down is less violent than the ork slums). For me it is hard to reconcile the civility and functionality of corporate UCAS with this depiction of the slums.
Long story short? It's Hell on earth out there, away from the corporate housing enclaves. Racism is rampant (racism as in troll/Ork/elf/etc). Life is cheap, and body tissue has value. No one cares what is happening to anyone else as long as they are safe and they don't have to see it. (in that regard, it's similar to today)
Welcome to the Sixth World.
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Don't let the dystopia kick you in the reproductive organs on your way in.
Oh, who am I kidding? It's going to do that anyhow! (http://youtu.be/OWDozBLKdJ4)
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Interesting arguments, but I'd like to point out that the this whole Orks have litters thing was just a joke someone on Shadowland cracked that became literal truth in 4th. Who knows why. But the original intent of Shadowrun was not that there are that many Orks around. Orks are described as the fastest growing population in all the metatypes, but that doesn't match the birthrates described here.
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I'm pretty sure that orks producing litters was canon in SR2, but I don't have my books handy to check.
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"within a few generations of occupying an area, orks are going to either need to expand (pressing in on the wealthy and moneyed interests), or consume themselves in a conflagration of blood, disease, and horror that has no rival currently on this earth."
Your calculations might be right.
Although I do think that the Ork race may actually suffer from what you so painfully describe as "comically high death rates", who's to say your prediction won't come true in the next couple of decades?
They've been around for 50 years now; for an Ork that would be ~4 generations. But they started at a pretty low number and first had some catching up to do. Then a lot got killed because of racism when they were new and Night of Rage and well, all that crap and their "expected" growth is stunted by bad/worse/hostile living conditions...
Anyhow, I don't really get the problem or what this thread is about. For all I know you might be spot on and the next big world-wide problem to deal with in SR5 won't be dragon wars, AI's or bugs but Ork Overgrowth. Or all the numbers you're using might be completely and utterly wrong and useless. What's their source, how'd they get their numbers and what's their agenda?
"Lies, damned lies and statistics."
I for one am going to go with my gut feeling on this one and that is: Orks really don't have it easy. And problems caused by the 'too' rapid increase in their population numbers -will- solve themselves through famine, disease and crime of an unprecedented scale. And you know what? 95% of the Wageslave population won't even hear about it on the news. And the 5% that does inform themselves will use that knowledge in just in the same way that we now get to say crap like "Africa is just such a useful go to to describe horror" and then give the estimated infant mortality rate of some far away place. It's a useful statistic to throw around, but as long as it doesn't really have an impact on the way we live our lives bigger than the annual donation to charity to clear our conscience, that's all it is.*
Someone on the forum once suggested they've got the same amount of life on 'em as humans, but they burn it up faster.
I'm slightly amazed people read the things I write... and horrified that they remember it!
* I would just like to add that this may sound/read more harsh or personal than it is intended. It's a sad but simple fact that in modern society people are getting more and more detached from the suffering of others. I'm not without fault here either. Seeing how society has evolved in the Shadowrun universe, I can only see that emotional detachment increase.
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Anyhow, I don't really get the problem or what this thread is about.
This thread is about the population explosion that would occur if the ork birthrate, gestation period, and sexual maturation rate were as they are described in the books. The problem is that, assuming only that orks are as likely as similarly socio-economically situated humans to engage in sexual activity and that ork fertility rates are similar to humans, within a very short time period any region with a statistically significant ork population will see a rapid shift in demographics. In order to offset that shift in demographics there will need to be a normalizing force, which is likely to take the form of massive ork slaughter.
And problems caused by the 'too' rapid increase in their population numbers -will- solve themselves through famine, disease and crime of an unprecedented scale.
I think that the implications of that unprecedented famine, disease, and crime is what we're discussing.
And you know what? 95% of the Wageslave population won't even hear about it on the news. And the 5% that does inform themselves will use that knowledge in just in the same way that we now get to say crap like "Africa is just such a useful go to to describe horror" and then give the estimated infant mortality rate of some far away place
Right, but I get to say that because 1) It's a far away place, and 2) I'm callous. I think I'd be much more engaged with the human suffering in the Congo if mass graves were being dug 2 blocks away. More importantly, my community looks very very different if 2 blocks the worst depravities of Liberia are happening- either I live in a police state with massive walls and barricades keeping those people and their problems away from me (in which case I'm aware of the issue but turn a blind eye to it), or I live in a world in which I'm constantly afraid of the overflow dangers.
The implications for racism, classism, and civil rights are staggering. As storytellers I'm curious whether we treat these numbers seriously, if we use them to further our stories, or if we simply ignore them.
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A quick wiki search turned up this lovely factoid:
"in 2010 7.6 MILLION children under the age of 5 died worldwide, " with starvation as the major cause. Followed by disease.
That's now, SR takes place in a hellhole future so I can see it being really worse off.
As for how I incorporate it into my games? I do and I don't.
My runners REFUSE to lay low in a barrens area just cause they are tired of having their car alarm AR going off every 5 minutes. And you can only gut so many would be car thief gutter punks (and then watch as the others surge forward to strip the corpse bare of clothing!) before you realize it's a wasted effort.
The soulless gun bunny doesn't mind it so much as it gives him a chance to sit on a crappy rooftop and fiddle with his smart link (lots of targets down there you know, and the cops don't care!)
I don't dwell on it, but I add it to the color of the world when they go into the crappy parts of town. It makes them shut up about "low paying jobs" cause they realize that yes, they ARE replaceable as far as the Johnson sees it. (course it remains to be seen if a gutter punk can put off a pro's job, but hey, who knows!)
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Having not explicitly gone over the relevant portions of cannon/RAW SR4 on orc birthrates, I have a suggestion that saves orcness from the horrifying calamities suggested and puts them firmly into the RAW suggestions that Orcs physically mature at 13 before their brains are ready.
Birth-spacing.
In a human woman, one can get pregnant nearly immediately after birthing -- but with the exception that while she is breastfeeding she is likely not to ovulate. So breastfeeding leads to natural birth spacing for a human.
Perhaps orc women either 1) have a higher birthing-death rate given their poor healthcare so the babies may or may not make it, and the mother isn't alive to have another litter... or 2) have a much longer spacing between pregnancies to balance the sub-species out i.e. 3-4 years between or more?
Giving birth to multiple children doesn't mean that 6 months later (approximate orc gestation IIRC) the lady orc is alive, well, and knocked up again.
Sorry, but I studied midwifery....before home-birthing my own kids (with a professional midwife). If they're SINless, living in the lowest poverty levels, and there's no public healthcare to speak of, these ladies are home-birthing, possibly without a midwife. So babies are stillborn, mothers are dying, young children just don't "make it" to adulthood -- in addition to the "teen mortality" of the gangs. If you think that there would be too many bodies laying around in the slums, consider that there's the symbiosis of the ghouls who may be "clean up squads" and help out with that little problem.
To the OP: I agree, it's a hard-knock orc-life. Yes, that should probably be played up more than it is. Certainly kudos to people who work that into an orc character's background. "Lost 10 of his 15 siblings (listing the many gruesome ways...), and mom died birthing the 3rd litter..."
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Don't get me started on the "Murphy" family. ;D
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Metahumans give birth to humans that MIGHT be metahuman. There's no massive population explosion of orks if 80% of their children don't goblinize.
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Ork life cycle: Born, cause early death of parents, join a gang, become a Shadowrunner, get shot after someone geeked the mage because you're the ork with the big gun. :P
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Is it really the case that orcs:
1) Give birth in clutches, ranging from between 2-8 (presumably with an average of 4)?
2) Reach full maturity by 12-13 (biologically compared to a human 18-20 year old)?
3) Have a natural lifespan of 35ish years?
I recall reading some of these numbers in various places across various editions and I want to be certain.
I've always felt that the hyper-aging/maturity of orks was one of the sillier things in SR; I was glad that they left it unsaid in SR4, because I felt better about ignoring it.
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I've always felt that the hyper-aging/maturity of orks was one of the sillier things in SR; I was glad that they left it unsaid in SR4, because I felt better about ignoring it.
Actually, it does list them as having an average lifespan of "35-45", in the table in SR4A that lists off height / weight / lifespan for the Metatypes. Thing is, given that Elves/Dwarves basically have "Unknown; None Have Died Of Old Age Yet" and Humans and Trolls have a single number for their average (65 and 55, respectively), that makes me think the listed info for Orks is highly unreliable and based mostly on their propensity for dying violently long before they fall over from old age.
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Birth-spacing.
That's a nail hit on the head for this topic.
Given all other factors being true; that a successful ork birth results in an average of 4 offspring and that in the 4 or so generations of orks living on the planet they have not out-populized the other metahumans, the birth-spacing is likely a major factor that just hasn't been dealt with/described. The question then gets shifted to how many times can an ork woman give birth? Is there a high rate of infertility in orks? Etc. It's possible that ork women have far fewer eggs than human women, or that their eggs are less viable, or that an ork woman's ovulatory cycle is far greater than 28 days. So to double check the old 1st edition write up on the ork metatype: Nope, all it says is "Their breeding season is unrestricted. Gestation is 187 days." (SR1 softcover, pg 28). So other than a major change in the ovulatory cycle all the above are possible reasons. Unless I've missed some canon statement otherwise.
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Alrighty then... Survivability of newborns.
Infant mortality rates are gathered every year and looking at the past, I see that the US has about 7 per 1000 births dying before 1 year. Twins have about 5 times greater mortality rate and triplets+ are 15 times more at risk.
That's about 10.5% mortality chance for each ork child assuming that they are raised in a modern US level of care. That typically means significant amount of prenatal care. Sewing the mother up (Yes, this is a thing) to keep the children to term. Then C-section birth and finally keeping the infants in ICU for a month.
I am leaning towards the typical ork not having those luxuries. So, if we assume that they are closer to 1950's America level of health care, that's 30.5 deaths per 1000 births, or about 46% mortality rate.
Unassisted birth out in the Barrens? Pfft, ya right. Not gunna happen. Probably a death sentence for the mother as well.
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Alrighty then... Survivability of newborns.
Infant mortality rates are gathered every year and looking at the past, I see that the US has about 7 per 1000 births dying before 1 year. Twins have about 5 times greater mortality rate and triplets+ are 15 times more at risk.
That's about 10.5% mortality chance for each ork child assuming that they are raised in a modern US level of care. That typically means significant amount of prenatal care. Sewing the mother up (Yes, this is a thing) to keep the children to term. Then C-section birth and finally keeping the infants in ICU for a month.
I am leaning towards the typical ork not having those luxuries. So, if we assume that they are closer to 1950's America level of health care, that's 30.5 deaths per 1000 births, or about 46% mortality rate.
Unassisted birth out in the Barrens? Pfft, ya right. Not gunna happen. Probably a death sentence for the mother as well.
While I agree that infant mortality rate should be an issue with orks, keep in mind that the numbers you're citing are for humans, who are biologically quite different.
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Orcz iz tuffer dan dose breederz! ;D
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While I agree that infant mortality rate should be an issue with orks, keep in mind that the numbers you're citing are for humans, who are biologically quite different.
Are they 15 times tougher? Because that's the number they need to beat if they're having more than triplets.
You can bump the mortality down as you like, but those numbers right there explain why there is not a huge population explosion in orks.
If you want to get Squick, you can throw in 'helpful' Humanis sponsored family councilors that give out prophylactics in the low class neighborhoods and also staff abortion clinics. All to give people better lives. Since the vast majority of orks can't afford proper health care, they don't have much choice.
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If you want to get Squick, you can throw in 'helpful' Humanis sponsored family councilors that give out prophylactics in the low class neighborhoods and also staff abortion clinics. All to give people better lives. Since the vast majority of orks can't afford proper health care, they don't have much choice.
Forget Squick, it's been outright said they do that. :(
Go to the wrong free clinic to have a litter, and it'll be your last, even if you survive.
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While I agree that infant mortality rate should be an issue with orks, keep in mind that the numbers you're citing are for humans, who are biologically quite different.
Are they 15 times tougher? Because that's the number they need to beat if they're having more than triplets.
No, it's not just a matter of "tougher." It's a matter of "different." Are dogs or cats 15 times tougher than humans, to be able to give birth in the numbers they do? Or are they just different, and meant to give birth in higher numbers than human beings? Now, yes. Orks being tougher might help them with some of the secondary stuff (like giving birth in bad conditions), and that sort of thing...but I think it's a mistake to automatically assume they get all the same complications of multiple births that humans do.
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Orks are still Homo sapiens, proven by the fact that all the metahumans can interbreed. The ability to average 4 births at a time is a radical change... further supporting those numbers without extra mammary glands pushes the limit even further. I am not one to just blindly accept 'Word of God' explanations. But, let's just assume for a moment that orks ARE capable of supporting 4 infants. That would lead to surrogate mothers and worse, clone incubators.
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The question then gets shifted to how many times can an ork woman give birth? Is there a high rate of infertility in orks?
Are orcs infected with the genophage? *grin*
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I've always felt that the hyper-aging/maturity of orks was one of the sillier things in SR; I was glad that they left it unsaid in SR4, because I felt better about ignoring it.
Actually, it does list them as having an average lifespan of "35-45", in the table in SR4A that lists off height / weight / lifespan for the Metatypes. Thing is, given that Elves/Dwarves basically have "Unknown; None Have Died Of Old Age Yet" and Humans and Trolls have a single number for their average (65 and 55, respectively), that makes me think the listed info for Orks is highly unreliable and based mostly on their propensity for dying violently long before they fall over from old age.
It lists 35-55 as the average lifespan; it also lists humans' average lifespan as 65. There's nothing in SR4A about rapid-aging, or reaching puberty at a different age from humans. The implication, IMO, is that Orks simply die younger than humans do, due to poor living conditions/violent lifestyle.
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It lists 35-55 as the average lifespan; it also lists humans' average lifespan as 65. There's nothing in SR4A about rapid-aging, or reaching puberty at a different age from humans. The implication, IMO, is that Orks simply die younger than humans do, due to poor living conditions/violent lifestyle.
Unless the changed it in a later printing Orks have it listed as 35-45. I'm using the table from SR4A, p72. Where are you getting yours?
As for the rest of it... dude, that's exactly what I just said.
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It lists 35-55 as the average lifespan; it also lists humans' average lifespan as 65. There's nothing in SR4A about rapid-aging, or reaching puberty at a different age from humans. The implication, IMO, is that Orks simply die younger than humans do, due to poor living conditions/violent lifestyle.
All of Shadowrun 4 is compatible with former releases of Shadowrun (c.f. the online FAQ). The early puberty/physical maturity of Orks has been mentioned as being one of the big factors in Ork---uh---self-control issues. It may be in DNA/DOA -- yep:
p. 32 (Welcome to Wilhem Park)
Orks receive much of their bad press from the fact that their adolescent males tend to be more "active." Physically, Orks reach maturity at about age 12, while a human does so at 18 or so. Though an Ork reaches an advanced state of physical development earlier, he still has the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old. (Put a 12-year-old in the body of a body-builder to imagine what happens!) A vernerable, old Ork is one who has reached the ripe age of 35, and he will begin to show signs of aging at about 20 years."
So that's a hint to where some of us may be getting our information -- and it has yet to be refuted by either RAW or canon, to my knowledge.
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It lists 35-55 as the average lifespan; it also lists humans' average lifespan as 65. There's nothing in SR4A about rapid-aging, or reaching puberty at a different age from humans. The implication, IMO, is that Orks simply die younger than humans do, due to poor living conditions/violent lifestyle.
All of Shadowrun 4 is compatible with former releases of Shadowrun (c.f. the online FAQ). The early puberty/physical maturity of Orks has been mentioned as being one of the big factors in Ork---uh---self-control issues. It may be in DNA/DOA -- yep:
p. 32 (Welcome to Wilhem Park)
Orks receive much of their bad press from the fact that their adolescent males tend to be more "active." Physically, Orks reach maturity at about age 12, while a human does so at 18 or so. Though an Ork reaches an advanced state of physical development earlier, he still has the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old. (Put a 12-year-old in the body of a body-builder to imagine what happens!) A vernerable, old Ork is one who has reached the ripe age of 35, and he will begin to show signs of aging at about 20 years."
So that's a hint to where some of us may be getting our information -- and it has yet to be refuted by either RAW or canon, to my knowledge.
I'm not saying that it is - what I said is that the books currently in print do not mention early puberty for orks, so I feel more comfortable ignoring the concept. I'm free to do so at my own table anyway, but as someone who generally prefers to follow canon, the fact that this concept has remained largely untouched and unmentioned for at least an edition or two gives me a bit of extra justification, at least by my own standards.
As to why I would want to ignore it...well, it makes the whole game feel more ridiculous to me. It also makes any human/dwarf/elf who is dating an ork a likely pedophile/pederast, and calls into question how the education system would work, and why Orks have an intelligence penalty when in fact they would be at the prime of their learning abilities at a (relatively) younger age - all Ork children would be geniuses (compared to their human/elven classmates) who gradually flatten out into morons by adulthood, which is kind of silly when you think about it.
Socio-economic explanations for their shorter average lifespan seem much more logical than a physiological explanation.
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...calls into question how the education system would work, and why Orks have an intelligence penalty when in fact they would be at the prime of their learning abilities at a (relatively) younger age - all Ork children would be geniuses (compared to their human/elven classmates) who gradually flatten out into morons by adulthood, which is kind of silly when you think about it.
There's no greater BP or Karma cost to raise Intelligence for Orks compared to humans. No reason for them to become morons just because it's capped at 5 (Genius) instead of 6 (Super-Genius), even if Logic was the same thing as intelligence... which it isn't.
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calls into question how the education system would work, and why Orks have an intelligence penalty when in fact they would be at the prime of their learning abilities at a (relatively) younger age
In earlier editions, the explanation was that Goblinisation caused brain damage, hence worse intellectual performance.
Granted, the majority of orks and trolls now don't Goblinise and are born as orks, which makes the whole notion redundant, but nevertheless...
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calls into question how the education system would work, and why Orks have an intelligence penalty when in fact they would be at the prime of their learning abilities at a (relatively) younger age
In earlier editions, the explanation was that Goblinisation caused brain damage, hence worse intellectual performance.
Granted, the majority of orks and trolls now don't Goblinise and are born as orks, which makes the whole notion redundant, but nevertheless...
The earlier editions also emphasized the radically different life cycle of orks, which is why I brought it up. The whole thing never rmade sense to me, so I've generally ignored it.
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I'll bring this up again. There are FAR more orks in the Cascade Orks tribe than there are in all of the Seattle Metroplex. So any 'legitimate' assessment of orks as a race is going to be biased heavily by that group. The Cascade Orks do mining, goat farming and smuggling. They live in an area largely shielded from the pollution of Seattle. Their diet is likely similar to any other Salish citizen, i.e. fresh crops.
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The earlier editions also emphasized the radically different life cycle of orks, which is why I brought it up. The whole thing never rmade sense to me, so I've generally ignored it.
Go ahead, ignore it! :) However, I think the question on the table was "Where is this information coming from?" since it wasn't explicitly mentioned in SR4A as such (although it might be, I just never looked for it...). Since I had just run DNA/DOA a month or so ago, I remembered at least one place the information comes from. Since I've been playing since SR1, since about 1989, I've got it pretty well ingrained in my "Shadowrun Brain" that this is how it is.
As to why I would want to ignore it...well, it makes the whole game feel more ridiculous to me. It also makes any human/dwarf/elf who is dating an ork a likely pedophile/pederast,
Much more so if a biologically-mature 13-year-old Ork is trying to date a biologically immature 13-year-old Elf or Dwarf.... The information I quoted is "behind the scenes" for GMs. I think one of the points was that law & labor laws had not "caught on" to the fact that a 13 year old Ork was physically (but not necessarily emotionally or mentally) ready to be part of the workforce, not sit still in 7th-8th grade classes. "Bored Ork Syndrome" then leads to many of these excess-testosterone-bearing boys to be in gangs, because trust me gangs will keep idle teens busy. Orks would be more likely to be disenfranchised by schools due to excessive violence against age-mate children much smaller than they are, thus more suspensions, more referrals to reform schools, etc. [An all-Ork school would help take care of some of these issues -- give them more roughhousing in the gym/playground, burn it off, give them weight sets, etc. But it still doesn't stop the problem of only "making it to" 8th grade by the time they're physically mature.... Another thing that might help is either homeschooling, or starting Kindergarten much earlier than other children... They could probably start kindergarten at 3. Unless they're emotionally/intellectually still the equivalent of a human 3-year-old.]
and calls into question how the education system would work, and why Orks have an intelligence penalty when in fact they would be at the prime of their learning abilities at a (relatively) younger age - all Ork children would be geniuses (compared to their human/elven classmates) who gradually flatten out into morons by adulthood, which is kind of silly when you think about it.
Huh? Physically maturing faster doesn't change our education system, or the fact that we're in an Information Age and choose to cram young minds full of near-useless theory before they will actually be taught applications/skills. The amount of information we have to impart on children before we consider them high-school educated doesn't change. However, since 20 years old is "Ork Midlife" according to what I've quoted, we're expecting Orks to wait until the equivalent of 40 years old for a human before they even get their first college degree? (and an Associate's Degree at that....). Early drop-outs probably account for a good bit of the "lack of orkish intelligence" -- which is merely PERCEIVED intelligence due to lack of formal highschool/higher education, in many cases.
This leads to piss-poor education, regardless of whether Orks are biologically capable of "Super-Genius" logic (they are -- give them an aptitude).
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Obviously, anyone that wants to ignore any aspect of all this is free to do so -- but I think you're missing out on part of what makes Orks...well...Orks.
Imagine their frustration, trying to make it in a public school system. Being physically mature, but not quite mentally mature yet, and how dangerous it would be for a middle-school aged Ork to get in a schoolyard tussle with another kid (over metaracial slurs or what-have-you). Imagine trying to keep a grown-man's strength in check all day, crammed into a school uniform, dealing with average human ten year olds, getting fed the same portions as them, expected to sit in the same desks. You struggle through school and your mind catches up to your head; then what, college? A job? It's about time; by the time you've got your foot in the door with an entry-level position, your life is almost half up. Imagine not being allowed to legally vote, or drive, or drink alcohol until you're soundly middle aged. Imagine the resentment towards Humans, Dwarves, and Elves -- society tells you they're all smarter than you, society tells you they're all better looking than you, everyone knows they'll all live longer than you (especially the non-Humans). You know you'll never last long enough to get that middle management position, because that smug Elven bitch you work for is going to be here for hundreds of years, and you feel like you've barely got hundreds of days.
Then your wife gets pregnant. Six kids. Six, and you've got to put food into each and every one of their hungry mouths. They're growing like weeds, just as fast as you did, and they're going through clothes so fast, and food, and breaking their toys...and your bitch of a boss wrote you up for using company electronics for personal use last week, but you had to go to this conference call because Johnny broke some runty Human kid's arm, and between that and him starting to bust out Or'zet like those damned rappers, the executives of the corporate school district want to expel him, and you just lost your vacation for the year over it but they're growing up so fast and you just feel so worn down and old, when will you ever get to see them again?
And on, and on, and on like that. And those are the ones that try to work within the system. The ones lucky enough to have SINs, and the ones who follow the rules. You want to know why the Orkish ganger is a cliche? Because it makes sense. Stronger and tougher than a normal human, growing up faster, maybe not the brightest bulb in the lamp? Breed like crazy, have trouble staying in school, feel frustrated and held up by society's laws (that never seem to take metaspecies into account), so the inner cities are full of them?
Hell yeah, Orkish gangers grow on trees. Look at their alternatives.
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That's just it though: assuming that Orks age rapidly *and* die around 45 (of old age), it simply doesn't make sense for *any* of them to be able to get along in society. They'd be more mature in school, but there's still a limit to how fast anyone can learn something; orks basically have half the time to accomplish the same things. I think there's plenty for orks to be angry at society about without having them undergo male pattern baldness in the time it takes their wives to carry a baby to term.
The problems it causes for reproduction are kind of ridiculous too. Ork women would hit menopause at, what? their mid-20s? 30's? Pretty much any of them that *are* going to have kids would be doing so in Middle school or High school, which means it's effectively impossible for them to complete schooling...it also brings up the question of nearly every PC Ork either having kids already, or being doomed to life as a spinster. There's no room for middle ground, because they have no time to wait to make the decision.
Also, emotional maturity isn't simply a matter of physiology; it's your surroundings. So either every 'Runner team is tooling around with a broken, decrepit 30 year old ork, or they're babysitting a giant 14 year old. The implications seem ridiculous to me, and make Shadowrun Orks even less relatable than D&D Orcs.
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I think there's an excluded middle, and some exaggeration, going on on your part -- but if you think this one thing is your insurmountable hurdle that makes the setting fall apart and not make any sense for you, so be it. Like has already been said, you're certainly free to ignore it.
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Take all of your excuses and apply them to the Cascade Orks. Does it still make sense?
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That's just it though: assuming that Orks age rapidly *and* die around 45 (of old age), it simply doesn't make sense for *any* of them to be able to get along in society. They'd be more mature in school,
Only physically...
but there's still a limit to how fast anyone can learn something; orks basically have half the time to accomplish the same things. I think there's plenty for orks to be angry at society about without having them undergo male pattern baldness in the time it takes their wives to carry a baby to term.
I believe gestation is 6 months. You're right, but that doesn't mean life is fair. That's the point that some folk have been making: This is a point-of-difference that one can actively roleplay (raking in great role-playing karma) if you're playing an Ork character. There's REASONS for the negative qualities that balance out the racial costs....play it up!
Big Regret: only survivor of litter; absolutely determined to "make up for it" by over-achieving. Prejudice: school administrators. Uneducated. "Night School" (as opposed to Day Job) {character is catching up on his High School diploma online, pays 2500¥/3 months on education costs, and must spend 15 hours a week studying (when finished gets rid of the Uneducated quality...can decide whether to attend college as Night School thereafter....). If misses 15 hrs one week, must triple time the following week (45 hrs) to catch up. Must complete 3 more semesters @ 3 months each to complete equivalency diploma. May only take 1 semester off.} (because he's attending Night School, the prejudice is more likely to come into play)
The problems it causes for reproduction are kind of ridiculous too. Ork women would hit menopause at, what? their mid-20s? 30's?
Good point -- the fertility period of ork females would be from about hrm -- assume they start around the earliest human fertility at about 8 years old, and it lasts to about 25 years old.... Most human (women) it's from about 11 or 12 years through nearly 55 (with men all bets are off). So that's another limitation on ork population explosions (referring back to former conversation).
Pretty much any of them that *are* going to have kids would be doing so in Middle school or High school, which means it's effectively impossible for them to complete schooling...
Assuming that a Humanis eugenics clinic didn't offer the "snipping solution" to them at the age of oh -- 7 or 8 or so.
it also brings up the question of nearly every PC Ork either having kids already, or being doomed to life as a spinster. There's no room for middle ground, because they have no time to wait to make the decision.
Or, as has happened in the past in our society -- the men (humans are potentially fertile until death) pair up with younger women (orks, fertile from 8, still fertile at 16-18). If an ork man of any age marries/mates with an 18 year old they have plenty of time to squeeze in some litters (maybe 2 or 3 litters. Who needs more than that?) before she's infertile.... Of course, he may need to be willing to be a stepfather. Assuming he sticks around in the first place...sorry guys, but the Ork male life would leave more unwed (and widowed) mothers than a human slum today, too.
Also, emotional maturity isn't simply a matter of physiology; it's your surroundings. So either every 'Runner team is tooling around with a broken, decrepit 30 year old ork, or they're babysitting a giant 14 year old. The implications seem ridiculous to me, and make Shadowrun Orks even less relatable than D&D Orcs.
So between the ages of 15-29, Orks can't run shadows. :)
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Take all of your excuses and apply them to the Cascade Orks. Does it still make sense?
What "excuses?" You're not challenging me on something and forcing me to backpedal and explain myself, Joe. I'm just sharing what I think makes the Orkish life cycle averages still pretty cool and compelling. It highlights that metahumans aren't entirely human, and adds some reasons for metaracists to hate Orks (and Orks to hate everyone else, right back).
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I think there's an excluded middle, and some exaggeration, going on on your part -- but if you think this one thing is your insurmountable hurdle that makes the setting fall apart and not make any sense for you, so be it. Like has already been said, you're certainly free to ignore it.
...and I certainly do. I disagree with the statement that ignoring it means that I'm missing out on some sort of extra enjoyment built into the ridiculous fluff on orks that hasn't been directly referenced (to my knowledge) since around 2nd Edition.
Orks as a disadvantaged minority that tend to die young are relatable and interesting. Orks as barely viable mutants who age like dogs and are ready for Matlock re-runs by their late 20's just seem like a burden to me. Dealing with the implications it raises creates problems that I don't find interesting as a storyteller (sending the group out to buy Depends for the Ork street sam isn't my idea of fun) and wouldn't feel right hand-waving if I was going to use the hyper-aging fluff.
As for running between 15-29....well, that has the same problems. A 15 year old Ork is about as immature as a 14 year old Ork, and a 29 year old ork is about as decrepit as a 30 year old one. The problem is that they're aging so fast that you could (and should, if you're assuming they age in the manner described) watch them go from young and spritely to denture-wearing codger in the course of a few runs (assuming that the sweet spot is somewhere between 20-22). If your GM is going to age you into uselessness as punishment for picking an Ork, you might as well take Borrowed Time and get some points out of the whole deal.
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Orks as a disadvantaged minority that tend to die young are relatable and interesting. Orks as barely viable mutants who age like dogs and are ready for Matlock re-runs by their late 20's just seem like a burden to me. Dealing with the implications it raises creates problems that I don't find interesting as a storyteller (sending the group out to buy Depends for the Ork street sam isn't my idea of fun) and wouldn't feel right hand-waving if I was going to use the hyper-aging fluff.
As for running between 15-29....well, that has the same problems. A 15 year old Ork is about as immature as a 14 year old Ork, and a 29 year old ork is about as decrepit as a 30 year old one. The problem is that they're aging so fast that you could (and should, if you're assuming they age in the manner described) watch them go from young and spritely to denture-wearing codger in the course of a few runs (assuming that the sweet spot is somewhere between 20-22). If your GM is going to age you into uselessness as punishment for picking an Ork, you might as well take Borrowed Time and get some points out of the whole deal.
And I'll just say again, I think some of you are exaggerating the Orkish life cycle, or you live in some very, very, long-lasting campaigns. An Orkish PC who started running when first edition launched (who started running the shadows as a street-tough punk of 16 years old) is still only 40 years old in the timeline, today, as of the most recent publication. That's hardly decrepit or having been aged into uselessness, or needing other PCs to buy them diapers, etc, etc. Just like plenty of people live well past the average lifespans today, it's not like an Ork is going to suddenly keel over and die at 45 as some sort of hard cap.
And that's if someone has the same character from 20+ years ago real-time, and if they were born rather than goblinized into an Ork (who we know age differently), and if they haven't invested in Leonization in the meantime, which has been an option for a long, long, time.
That said? Sarcasm is difficult to have a civil conversation with, and I've said my piece. You're free to disagree -- like I've said several times already -- and to do whatever you want in your home campaign. We don't have commando teams that kick in doors and force people to pay attention to any particular page of rules, much less background information.
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Orks as a disadvantaged minority that tend to die young are relatable and interesting. Orks as barely viable mutants who age like dogs and are ready for Matlock re-runs by their late 20's just seem like a burden to me. Dealing with the implications it raises creates problems that I don't find interesting as a storyteller (sending the group out to buy Depends for the Ork street sam isn't my idea of fun) and wouldn't feel right hand-waving if I was going to use the hyper-aging fluff.
As for running between 15-29....well, that has the same problems. A 15 year old Ork is about as immature as a 14 year old Ork, and a 29 year old ork is about as decrepit as a 30 year old one. The problem is that they're aging so fast that you could (and should, if you're assuming they age in the manner described) watch them go from young and spritely to denture-wearing codger in the course of a few runs (assuming that the sweet spot is somewhere between 20-22). If your GM is going to age you into uselessness as punishment for picking an Ork, you might as well take Borrowed Time and get some points out of the whole deal.
And I'll just say again, I think some of you are exaggerating the Orkish life cycle, or you live in some very, very, long-lasting campaigns. An Orkish PC who started running when first edition launched (who started running the shadows as a street-tough punk of 16 years old) is still only 40 years old in the timeline, today, as of the most recent publication. That's hardly decrepit or having been aged into uselessness, or needing other PCs to buy them diapers, etc, etc. Just like plenty of people live well past the average lifespans today, it's not like an Ork is going to suddenly keel over and die at 45 as some sort of hard cap.
They will if you assume that they age at an accelerated rate. If, as I do, you assume that the lifetime averages are based on demographic data rather than medical data, then yes, a 40 year old ork would be as hale and strong as he ever was, but perhaps a little wiser.
The setting info makes much more sense that way, IMO: between the Night of Rage, various plagues (to which low-income Orks would be particularly vulnerable), wars, and street violence, it's almost unimaginable that any reliable data on when an Ork drops of "natural causes" is available.
And that's if someone has the same character from 20+ years ago real-time, and if they were born rather than goblinized into an Ork (who we know age differently), and if they haven't invested in Leonization in the meantime, which has been an option for a long, long, time.
The cost of Leonization places it well out of the reach of most PCs, let alone regular street orks.
And without it, your example Ork would have likely died from organ failure sometime around 3rd Edition.
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The Cascade Orks are an entire tribe of orks which exceed the entire population of orks in the Seattle Metroplex. They control their society. ALL their kids grow up with other orks, a human child would be the outsider. While they do mine the Cascades, they also raise goats and assist in smuggling things in. They aren't poor. The fact that they bring in so much money is the only reason that the Salish haven't clamped down on them yet. They also get free electricity for home use just like every other Salish citizen, care of Gaeatronics. Since they are a tribe, having lots of kids isn't a problem, there are plenty of womenfolk to help raise the children.
Note that due to their population, they are NOT the exception, they are the majority of orks. They are wealthy, eat right, stay away from pollution, nobody else is fighting over their territory. Why would they be stupid? Why would they die earlier?
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Why would they be stupid? Why would they die earlier?
I don't know, why would they be stronger? Why would they be tougher? Why are Elves faster, and Trolls more powerful? Why are Dwarves shorter? It's all the same reason: because they are. Because they're not totally human.
It's not just the socio-economics of the setting. It's not just poverty, or Humanis propaganda, or Barrens living (though all those exacerbate the differences, I'm certain, and all of them are perfectly valid doses of handwavium you can use to ignore/explain the canon Orkish life-cycle). But the real issue is that Homo Sapien Sapien is different from Homo Sapien Robustus, which is different from Nobilis, which is different from Ingentis.
Shadowrun isn't just CP:2020, it's also got a healthy does of D&D in its genes. I know "a wizard did it" is a geek joke, but sometimes it's totally true. The different metaraces age and act and look different because they're...well...different metaraces. It's combining that aspect of it with the complexities of a pseudo-modern society (like the justified complaints and frustrations Orks would show, living in a modern city, under modern-type laws) that makes Shadowrun what it is.
Is it goofy pulp-era nonsense, trying to mish mash modern society and cultural understandings with fantasy-era silliness? Absolutely. But that's most of the fun.
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As I said before. Magic. Explains everything.
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The problem with this view is that this isn't D&D. These aren't totally alien species; they goblinized out of regular humans. If you go back a couple of (human) generations, these people were blood cousins of actual humans; furthermore, they display the same "racial" features as humans (there are Asian Orks, African-American Elves, Middle-Eastern Trolls, etc.
That makes it a lot harder to swallow that these guys are as alien as you're suggesting. It just doesn't seem right, and alternate explanations make so much more sense.
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Jonathan, you're forgetting the whole "magic" part of the equation. Magic takes science out behind the woodshed, throws it a beating, and then tells it to go play while the big kids talk. Magic means, in essence, that what you thought you knew no longer applies.
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But it is. It totally is D&D, dude. I mean, okay, technically I guess "it totally is Earthdawn, dude," instead, but the point still stands. The Shadowrun metaraces are, and always have been, just ported-over fantasy species. So why is it this one little thing that's so hard to agree with, out of all the rest of it? The tusks, and the ears and the magical eyes, the innate physical attribute differences...why this as the part that's hard to swallow?
Is it because it hints at real-world racism? Because that, at least, I could wrap my head around. If someone were familiar with "medical reports" from as recently as, say, a century or so ago, they'd see some pretty vile stuff about blacks being not-quite human, being their own species, having certain physical and mental tendencies, etc, etc...does this stuff about Orks just hit that nerve, maybe? Does the breakdown of fantasy races ring a little too close to real-world racism, cause a knee-jerk reaction, or something?
And if "because it's magic, actually" still doesn't fly for you, why not think of the various metaspecies as different breeds of canine? Welsh corgis live a different amount of time than GSDs, who average different than chihuahuas, who are smaller than huskies, who have duller scents of smell than bloodhounds, and on and on. But they can still interbreed, and they share common ancestry.
The problem with this view is that this isn't D&D. These aren't totally alien species; they goblinized out of regular humans. If you go back a couple of (human) generations, these people were blood cousins of actual humans; furthermore, they display the same "racial" features as humans (there are Asian Orks, African-American Elves, Middle-Eastern Trolls, etc.
That makes it a lot harder to swallow that these guys are as alien as you're suggesting. It just doesn't seem right, and alternate explanations make so much more sense.
See, this is the part I don't get. This is the disconnect, for me.
So you're cool with magic being a thing. Humans can evolve into Trolls -- who average 2.8 meters tall and have bony dermal deposits and can see heat signatures -- and that's cool. Elves and Dwarves living for centuries longer is neat. Pixies are a thing. Dragons are back, and Drakes are folks who grow up human and then later can turn into mini-dragons and stuff, but that's reasonable and realistic. Werewolves and weretigers and werewhatevers are all around, and totally plausible as natural creatures that can turn into human form and magically heal. Vampires and ghouls and banshees all make total sense, just from there being a magical virus that gets transmitted by bite or scratch, even when that virus makes them stop aging or needing to eat food. Cyclops are cool despite being basically human like everyone else, Night Ones and Satyrs -- Satyrs -- are kosher, despite similarly being a generation or two removed from bog-standard metahumanity. These metavariants cropping up along regional and cultural lines, almost as if by magic, is okay, though, 'cause that's just demographics. SURGE and all its associated goofiness is okay, because a comet flew close to the planet so it makes perfect sense.
And Orks being stronger is cool. Them being tougher is fine. Them seeing in the dark is okay. They can be innately different so long as it means bonuses to a combat character, I guess? That part's okay, same as a Troll or a Dwarf being absolutely inhumanly strong and durable. That's cool.
But where your suspension of disbelief breaks down is with Orks having a downside? Being "dumber," as you put it? Or with them living a little bit shorter than everyone else (which, I still insist, is a tremendous non-issue in most games, and if your games are really so long that it is an issue I'm impressed)? Or with them -- quietly, in the background, where it's unlikely to directly affect a game unless the player and GM work together on it and agree to make it come up -- having lots of kids at once?
'Cause, brother, I just don't get that. Seriously, I just can't wrap my head around that being where you draw the line in the sand, and refuse to budge.
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And -- again -- if that is where your suspension of disbelief breaks, that's totally cool with me. Like I've said, rock on with your game. That's fine. I'm not out to be a dick here and try to prove anyone is playing "wrong" or viewing the game world wrong, or whatever. It just seems like a really weird last straw, to me, that's all...a really weird place to go "Woah, that part doesn't make any sense," compared to all the rest of the craziness and goofiness that this game has to offer.
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An Orkish PC who started running when first edition launched (who started running the shadows as a street-tough punk of 16 years old) is still only 40 years old in the timeline, today, as of the most recent publication. That's hardly decrepit or having been aged into uselessness, or needing other PCs to buy them diapers, etc, etc. Just like plenty of people live well past the average lifespans today, it's not like an Ork is going to suddenly keel over and die at 45 as some sort of hard cap.
Well, by 40 the Ork may well have "lost their edge" but Shadowrun 4 explicitly says that we're "now dealing with 2nd and even 3rd generation runners" -- heck, if you think 40 is too old, run your character's 16 year old kid through a campaign.
I agree about the cycle of gaming though -- characters can do 1-2 campaigns a month (even more at times), or dawdle while training and summoning and programming for a very long time between campaigns. Assuming an average of 4 runs per quarter (even if they're all back-to-back with a long character downtime hiatus after...) an ork is good for up to 304 runs between ages 16-35. I think that's good enough.
I think the problem isn't the math, or the life cycle, but a player who really really likes orks. :) Ain't got anything against orks.
"It's better to burn out than to fade away..."
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Jonathan, you're forgetting the whole "magic" part of the equation. Magic takes science out behind the woodshed, throws it a beating, and then tells it to go play while the big kids talk. Magic means, in essence, that what you thought you knew no longer applies.
"A wizard did it" doesn't really fly in a setting that goes so far out of its way to explain fantasy tropes scientifically. We've had multiple books addressing questions around metahuman genetics. They even made a specific decision to define orks and trolls as human variants, rather than completely separate species (as is the case for other humanoid fantasy races in Shadowrun). There is no such relation in D&D, and most D&D settings have separate societies for different races so they don't have to deal with the problems created by having such vastly different beings trying to interact in a single society.
Also, Critias, my problem isn't with Orks having a downside; I don't even mind them having a lower limit on intelligence or whatever. I don't even mind them having a higher chance of dying young. The hyper-fast aging thing just creates a ton of headaches, though. Now every ork is either a little kid in a bodybuilder's body, an adult in the body of a decrepit senior citizen, or someone who has maybe a year or so to go before they start losing voluntary control of their bowels. Also, any young person dating an ork that appears to be their own age is a pedophile.
That ork gunslinger in the core book? By your fluff, she's like...8. Fatima, who buys it in Ghost Cartels, would have likely been hobbling through that firefight with a walker, given the super-fast aging fluff. It's just ridiculous. Yes, that's my line. 8 year old bodybuilders with cybernetics are my line. That's not a fantasy game anymore, that's a retarded fantasy game.
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An Orkish PC who started running when first edition launched (who started running the shadows as a street-tough punk of 16 years old) is still only 40 years old in the timeline, today, as of the most recent publication. That's hardly decrepit or having been aged into uselessness, or needing other PCs to buy them diapers, etc, etc. Just like plenty of people live well past the average lifespans today, it's not like an Ork is going to suddenly keel over and die at 45 as some sort of hard cap.
Well, by 40 the Ork may well have "lost their edge" but Shadowrun 4 explicitly says that we're "now dealing with 2nd and even 3rd generation runners" -- heck, if you think 40 is too old, run your character's 16 year old kid through a campaign.
I don't have a problem with anyone running at 40 -- but according to the 2nd edition fluff you guys are quoting, a 40 year old ork would be dealing with end-of-life decisions in hospice care, if he's lucky....otherwise he'd be lying in his own filth waiting to die from organ failure.
For what it's worth, I seldom get to play Shadowrun -- 9 times out of 10 I'm GMing, and balance most of my characters habe been elven/human, so this isn't an ork bias talking.
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I don't have a problem with anyone running at 40 -- but according to the 2nd edition fluff you guys are quoting, a 40 year old ork would be dealing with end-of-life decisions in hospice care, if he's lucky....otherwise he'd be lying in his own filth waiting to die from organ failure.
That's assuming, though, that Orks actually are in severe biological decay at that age, rather than that being the point they begin their decline. You are, once again, ignoring the difference between "average lifespan" and "biological limits".
Based on their 6-Month gestation, 12-14 year maturity it's safe to assume Orks have roughly 2/3rds the lifespan of a Human. Assuming they have the same "decay" curve as humans, which is NOT a given, that makes a 40 year old Ork about equivalent to a 60 year old human; getting old and creaky, yeah, and probably about ready to retire.
If you assume the 35 listed is factoring in the violent deaths, while 45 is more of a true "biological" average, then the "2/3rds Theory" also meshes almost perfectly with Humans' listed lifespan being 65.
However, it's quite possible, given how much of the breakdown of the human body is through wear and tear over time, rather than cellular degradation, that Orks could actually have a much longer window of normal "adult" functionality before falling off into geriatric decay, meaning they could possibly continue normal adult behavior into their 50s, with a much more rapid falloff toward "total system failure" as they approach their mid-60s.
In that analysis, they would get nearly the same amount of "grownup" time as humans at the cost of 1/3rd of their childhood, and be spared most of the lingering indignities of old age.
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Let's turn this on it's head. Forget ork gangers and Shadowrunners and SINless...
Orc SINners.
Congrats, you're full growed at, what, 12? 14? Too bad 21 is the legal age to vote. Or drink. Or have sex with an "adult". 16 is the legal age to drive. 18 is the legal age to join the military.
You're at the peak of your physical abilities, and still in Junior High. Enough to make even a tusker cry.
And how long does Gary Cline have left, even with gene treatments?
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18 is the legal age to join the military.
Actually, at least in UCAS, they let Orks enlist at 14.
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There is no such relation in D&D, and most D&D settings have separate societies for different races so they don't have to deal with the problems created by having such vastly different beings trying to interact in a single society.
I haven't played D&D since 2ndEd, but as I recall, half-elves, half-orcs, etc. were STANDARD. i.e. in D&D they may not have said "Orks are modified humans" but according to D&D humans and orks can interbreed.
Now every ork is either a little kid in a bodybuilder's body, an adult in the body of a decrepit senior citizen, or someone who has maybe a year or so to go before they start losing voluntary control of their bowels. Also, any young person dating an ork that appears to be their own age is a pedophile.
You are still generalizing a whole lot. Bad idea.
"every ork is..." No. A 16 year old ork is probably mentally & emotionally close enough to "mature" to make no difference. A 20 year old ork is in his prime (like an ~30 year old human). A 25 year old ork is in peak mental form (like a 30-40 year old human) and assuming he's been taking great care of his body, he rocks the house on tactics, forethought, etc. Because -1 point of Logic should be bought up by now + mature skills. This is the equivalent of 40 year old human men in real life who are executives at the top of their mental game. Assuming the ork isn't throwing their life away on booze, cheap women, drugs/BTLs, gang warfare, etc. and is playing the corp ladder game, running the shadows, or living a decent life, by 30 he's lived a pretty full life. Yeah, a shorter one. But a 30-yr-old ork runner is still in great shape, still can pulverize a baddie, but now knows when to slot & run rather than try to take bullets just for being bullheaded.
That ork gunslinger in the core book? By your fluff, she's like...8. Fatima, who buys it in Ghost Cartels, would have likely been hobbling through that firefight with a walker, given the super-fast aging fluff. It's just ridiculous. Yes, that's my line. 8 year old bodybuilders with cybernetics are my line. That's not a fantasy game anymore, that's a retarded fantasy game.
You think in black-and-whites, not in continuums. Why is there no middle ground for you? At 8 years old, she wouldn't have 400BP. She might be 15. A little rough around the edges, a tad immature, but not needing a babysitter. Perhaps just a little less street-smart about when to keep her gun in the holster versus when to shoot. If one chooses to play her that way, kudos & karma. But she's capable of whipping your butt, and doesn't need a curfew anymore.
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How's this?
Orks have enlarged pituitary glands (and other growth regulating glands). This causes rapid growth and muscle formation. While some of the aggressive behavior is explained by hormone imbalances, making them difficult to deal with in a social setting, their supposed inferior intelligence stems from them being effectively four years younger than most people at the same age. Orks do not generally degrade past a certain age and then die like most of the metahumans. Because of their pituitary condition, they are constantly growing. At some point their internal organs simply cannot sustain the mass and they suddenly shut down abruptly. This is why their maximum age is so highly variable. Naturally, orks don't get old, they die before that happens. However, a dedicated ork could fight against his condition with essentially a starvation diet and other behaviors that would restrict his growth... but why would anyone want to live that way. Wealthy orks (yes, they do exist) can get organ transplants and upgrades which can support their ever growing bodies, and thus live well past the projected ages.
In the female ork, hormonal effects tend to result in multiple eggs, this tends to accelerate near the end of the predicted natural lifespan. One of the side effects of the wear and tear on internal organs is to make the female ork 'hyper fertile' with many eggs being released during each cycle. While female orks are better suited to handing multiple fetuses, bringing more than twins to full term is very dangerous for both the mother and infants. In spite of their greater fertility, ork infant life expectancy from multiple births is very low. This is why there has been little growth in the ork population over 50 years.
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Orks have enlarged pituitary glands (and other growth regulating glands)... ... ...
Bravo... +1 for a simple and elegant explanation.
I believe you managed to cover all the knowable (aka canonical) facts, so that explanation is as good as any given that this is all fictional and we don't have any real Orks to go poke and prod.
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I might be using non-canonical information here but I think Brackhaven was born an ork but got 'fixed'. That repair could either be a one time shot, i.e. someone harvested another child's pituitary gland and replaced Brackhaven's with it. Or it could be an ongoing treatment, i.e. Brackhaven has to continually get hormonal shots to offset his pituitary gland.
IIRC Brackhaven is also kinda racist (Humanis club member or supporter or something). In that aspect he's racist in that he believes all the metahumans are humans with some sort of defective gene, which can be fixed, but they are too stubborn to allow the fix.
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There is no such relation in D&D, and most D&D settings have separate societies for different races so they don't have to deal with the problems created by having such vastly different beings trying to interact in a single society.
I haven't played D&D since 2ndEd, but as I recall, half-elves, half-orcs, etc. were STANDARD. i.e. in D&D they may not have said "Orks are modified humans" but according to D&D humans and orks can interbreed.
D&D never had any pretense of scientific correctness, though; there are half-dragons, half-demons, and half-ogres too....the ability to interbreed does not imply any sort of shared genetic heritage in D&D.
"every ork is..." No. A 16 year old ork is probably mentally & emotionally close enough to "mature" to make no difference. A 20 year old ork is in his prime (like an ~30 year old human). A 25 year old ork is in peak mental form (like a 30-40 year old human) and assuming he's been taking great care of his body, he rocks the house on tactics, forethought, etc. Because -1 point of Logic should be bought up by now + mature skills. This is the equivalent of 40 year old human men in real life who are executives at the top of their mental game. Assuming the ork isn't throwing their life away on booze, cheap women, drugs/BTLs, gang warfare, etc. and is playing the corp ladder game, running the shadows, or living a decent life, by 30 he's lived a pretty full life. Yeah, a shorter one. But a 30-yr-old ork runner is still in great shape, still can pulverize a baddie, but now knows when to slot & run rather than try to take bullets just for being bullheaded.
No, a 30-year old ork runner, if we're going by your 2nd ed. fluff, has 5 years to live. He's dying. At most he's got 15...he's roughly equivalent to a man in his 70's.
You think in black-and-whites, not in continuums. Why is there no middle ground for you? At 8 years old, she wouldn't have 400BP. She might be 15. A little rough around the edges, a tad immature, but not needing a babysitter. Perhaps just a little less street-smart about when to keep her gun in the holster versus when to shoot. If one chooses to play her that way, kudos & karma. But she's capable of whipping your butt, and doesn't need a curfew anymore.
Why would a 15 year old ork have more BP than an 8 year old ork? Again, going by your 2nd edition fluff, but are in the "adult" stage of an ork's life.
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No, a 30-year old ork runner, if we're going by your 2nd ed. fluff, has 5 years to live. He's dying. At most he's got 15...he's roughly equivalent to a man in his 70's.
Why would a 15 year old ork have more BP than an 8 year old ork? Again, going by your 2nd edition fluff, but are in the "adult" stage of an ork's life.
Take the tude elsewhere. Or I simply won't talk to you anymore.
Life expectancy is NOT the same thing as someone being one foot in the grave. [I love the pituitary gland explanation/theory.]
By the 2/3s theory, a 30 year old Ork would be the equivalent of a 45 year old human. You must know some pretty decrepit 45 yr old humans... or be pretty darned young yourself. I'm 42. And my age isn't going to stop me from kicking butt and taking names if the world crit glitches into an anarchist state.... welcome to the 21st Century, and the baby boomers are unwilling to die decrepit, and more and more elderly are staying in their homes, and us GenXers are going to march in the footsteps of the Baby Boomers who refuse to be marginalized and declared infirm, etc. Check the news, "old age homes" are becoming a thing of the past -- quickly.
An 8 year old ork would be the equivallent of a 12 year old human. Just entering the starting stages of puberty. Why wouldn't they have 400BP? Because they're just barely entering puberty. Average Ork puberty is probably age 9 or so...
For every 2 years an ork lives, they're 1 year ahead of a human (at least physically). At age 2 an ork is ready for preschool games like tag and a tricycle. At age 4 they're gangly like a 6 year old human, and barely able to ride a beginner bike without training wheels. At age 6 they're probably 3x their birth length in height (if I remember my human growth/development correctly...), able to double-dutch and other more sophisticated coordination games (shoot hoops, pitch ball reasonably, ride a dirt bike, etc.) like a 9 year old. And at 8 years old, an ork child is basically a 12 year old human -- gangly, starting to be defiant and rude, starting to bulk up, enormous growth spurts, exceptional awkwardness and even joint pains from rapid growth, more broken bones because of growth plate development, etc.
I look at all this progress in human development as acquiring BP, so I definitely think an 8 year old ork has less BP (see my chart here.... (http://eveslist.crisses.org/ChildRunners/HowTo) I've given growth some actual thought). On their 8th birthday, I figure an ork child has 200BP. My daughter and I are working on child runner-class archetypes based on the growth rates I've published on that page.
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Now every ork is either a little kid in a bodybuilder's body, an adult in the body of a decrepit senior citizen, or someone who has maybe a year or so to go before they start losing voluntary control of their bowels. Also, any young person dating an ork that appears to be their own age is a pedophile.
That ork gunslinger in the core book? By your fluff, she's like...8. Fatima, who buys it in Ghost Cartels, would have likely been hobbling through that firefight with a walker, given the super-fast aging fluff. It's just ridiculous. Yes, that's my line. 8 year old bodybuilders with cybernetics are my line. That's not a fantasy game anymore, that's a retarded fantasy game.
And here is that excluded middle and the exaggeration, again. Why is it you're hell-bent on ignoring Orks who are in their physical prime, somewhere between 15-30 -- which, I daresay, is probably the age of most Shadowrun characters anyways! -- and you keep on insisting they're all on one extreme end of the spectrum or the other? And then, having ignored most of the spectrum, you keep on using terms like "retarded" to explain the spectrum?
You no longer seem to be discussing this in good faith.
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Now every ork is either a little kid in a bodybuilder's body, an adult in the body of a decrepit senior citizen, or someone who has maybe a year or so to go before they start losing voluntary control of their bowels. Also, any young person dating an ork that appears to be their own age is a pedophile.
That ork gunslinger in the core book? By your fluff, she's like...8. Fatima, who buys it in Ghost Cartels, would have likely been hobbling through that firefight with a walker, given the super-fast aging fluff. It's just ridiculous. Yes, that's my line. 8 year old bodybuilders with cybernetics are my line. That's not a fantasy game anymore, that's a retarded fantasy game.
And here is that excluded middle and the exaggeration, again. Why is it you're hell-bent on ignoring Orks who are in their physical prime, somewhere between 15-30 -- which, I daresay, is probably the age of most Shadowrun characters anyways! -- and you keep on insisting they're all on one extreme end of the spectrum or the other? And then, having ignored most of the spectrum, you keep on using terms like "retarded" to explain the spectrum?
You no longer seem to be discussing this in good faith.
If the average Ork dies around 35, then 30 is not their "physical prime". Lets be generous and give them 15-20. That's a pretty small window, and it makes the idea of an Ork hermetic mage nearly impossible, given the time required for hermetic study. By the time they graduated from magic university they'd be eating at hometown buffet and wearing Depends.
I have no interest in arguing this perpetually. We've already agreed to disagree on what we run in our own games. If you want to argue that Orks age rapidly to adulthood, and remain hale and healthy until magically dropping dead without actually aging past their prime, that's your choice.
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If the average Ork dies around 35, then 30 is not their "physical prime". Lets be generous and give them 15-20. That's a pretty small window, and it makes the idea of an Ork hermetic mage nearly impossible, given the time required for hermetic study. By the time they graduated from magic university they'd be eating at hometown buffet and wearing Depends.
This assumes that the ork's lifecycle is bell curve shaped. They might just get better and better until their heart can't take it, at which point it explodes, killing them instantly.
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If the average Ork dies around 35, then 30 is not their "physical prime". Lets be generous and give them 15-20. That's a pretty small window, and it makes the idea of an Ork hermetic mage nearly impossible, given the time required for hermetic study. By the time they graduated from magic university they'd be eating at hometown buffet and wearing Depends.
This assumes that the ork's lifecycle is bell curve shaped. They might just get better and better until their heart can't take it, at which point it explodes, killing them instantly.
The same sources cited for Orks' lifespans being due to rapid aging (2nd edition-era books) also contain examples of 30-ish orks who look look wrinkled and haggard, IIRC.
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In second ed orcs weren't known for their good looks even a young orc probably looked wrinkled and haggard. Good looking orcs have been a disturbing 4th ed phenomenon.
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In second ed orcs weren't known for their good looks even a young orc probably looked wrinkled and haggard. Good looking orcs have been a disturbing 4th ed phenomenon.
There's a difference between lumby and wrinkled, though. Previous editions had orks looking like regular fantasy orcs in modern clothes; 4th edition has orks that look like a human variant species. 4th edition also introduced 'smarter' orcs, as their mental penalties are considerably less crippling than they were in, say, 3rd edition.
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The same sources cited for Orks' lifespans being due to rapid aging (2nd edition-era books) also contain examples of 30-ish orks who look look wrinkled and haggard, IIRC.
Yes, Allan Bronson -- the Ork Underground leader (again, DNA/DOA), who was present during the Night of Rage (had recently goblinized, so about 8-9 years old I think). The adventure says he was 28 years old in DNA/DOA and considered "Middle Aged" (they say he's around a 60 year old human biologically -- I think that is an exaggeration). One of the reasons for Carol Owen's research was to help metahumanity with the "problems" of goblinization.
However, their math is off. If the night of rage is 2022, and Alan was a minimum of 8 when he goblinized in 2021; he was born by 2013, making him at least 36-7, not 28, in 2050 (DNA/DOA). Allan is minimum of 36, could be as old as 38 or 40 -- much more in-line than him being "a 28-year-old wrinkled old man". So make that a typo. The typo is understandable, since the Night of Rage was 28 years ago, they just didn't catch the error and I haven't found an online errata for the older books.
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It's a typo, but it's quite possible that their intent was still for him to be 28 and looking like a 60-year-old.
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It's a typo, but it's quite possible that their intent was still for him to be 28 and looking like a 60-year-old.
Huh? Well, whatever, dude. I agreed with you that it WAS in the book, pulled out a reference, even took out a calculator and checked the math. Yes, if he were 28 and looked 60 it would be troublesome. But he should be 38 and look about 57, if that's any consolation. Maybe the stress of being Mayor has gotten to him. Figure he's in charge of all these people living or dying, security is a nightmare... Lucky for them the hydroponics is working out, or they would be starving.
Now, if you were thinking that Orks were 28 and looked 60, then you were working from reasonably-derived misinformation. People are saying that orks would be viable characters until at-least their mid-to-late-30s. And that's around Mr. Bronson's real age -- not his typo'd age.
If you want to continue to kick all orks over the age of 15 and under the age of 35 out of your campaigns, then you will need to compensate in your version of the Shadowrun Universe such that <15 is mature or >35 is youthful and sprightly.
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So, by all of this logic then, dwarves shouldn't be allowed to run until they reach 30-40 years old and elves shouldn't be out of diapers until they are 15?
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So, by all of this logic then, dwarves shouldn't be allowed to run until they reach 30-40 years old and elves shouldn't be out of diapers until they are 15?
This is precisely why I prefer to assume an even rate of aging among metahumans; they all go through puberty at the same age, they're all in highschool at the same time, etc.
Dwarves and Elves just remain in their prime for a longer period of time, and Orks/Trolls have similar lifeplans to humans, but have greater odds of dying in their 30's and 40's due to lifestyle problems (poor diet, street violence, lack of medical care, etc.)
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So, by all of this logic then, dwarves shouldn't be allowed to run until they reach 30-40 years old and elves shouldn't be out of diapers until they are 15?
Dwarves & Elves probably age within human norms but keep their telomeres longer. In my writeup on Shadowbrats, I did reason that they'd go through puberty on the later-but-still-plausibly-normal-for-human side (i.e. late bloomers, age 15-16). Puberty for orks at 8-9 years old is also not outside of modern human norms.
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So, by all of this logic then, dwarves shouldn't be allowed to run until they reach 30-40 years old and elves shouldn't be out of diapers until they are 15?
This is precisely why I prefer to assume an even rate of aging among metahumans; they all go through puberty at the same age, they're all in highschool at the same time, etc.
Dwarves and Elves just remain in their prime for a longer period of time, and Orks/Trolls have similar lifeplans to humans, but have greater odds of dying in their 30's and 40's due to lifestyle problems (poor diet, street violence, lack of medical care, etc.)
So, the reason that the orks/trolls die off sooner is not genetics, but because they live horrible lives? Then why don't elves born in the barrens die off at such an atrocious rate as well? They are a minority race, after all.
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So, the reason that the orks/trolls die off sooner is not genetics, but because they live horrible lives? Then why don't elves born in the barrens die off at such an atrocious rate as well? They are a minority race, after all.
They do. It's just that they are so annoying that it just SEEMS like they live forever.
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So, by all of this logic then, dwarves shouldn't be allowed to run until they reach 30-40 years old and elves shouldn't be out of diapers until they are 15?
This is precisely why I prefer to assume an even rate of aging among metahumans; they all go through puberty at the same age, they're all in highschool at the same time, etc.
Dwarves and Elves just remain in their prime for a longer period of time, and Orks/Trolls have similar lifeplans to humans, but have greater odds of dying in their 30's and 40's due to lifestyle problems (poor diet, street violence, lack of medical care, etc.)
So, the reason that the orks/trolls die off sooner is not genetics, but because they live horrible lives? Then why don't elves born in the barrens die off at such an atrocious rate as well? They are a minority race, after all.
Demographically, Elves/dwarves tend to be healthier and live in better conditions...the ones living in the Barrens and eating Stuffer Shack all their lives probably do drop from heart disease and strokes in their 40's, same as humans.
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As a thought. the Goblinization process has to take one hell of a toll on the body for the ones who transform....maybe it takes something out of th person, causing a short lifespan
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As a thought. the Goblinization process has to take one hell of a toll on the body for the ones who transform....maybe it takes something out of th person, causing a short lifespan
Just the opposite, actually. Goblinized Orks and Trolls live longer than natural-born ones (they keep their human lifespan, basically).
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As a thought. the Goblinization process has to take one hell of a toll on the body for the ones who transform....maybe it takes something out of th person, causing a short lifespan
Somewhere (possibly another thread: I believe in regards to my Shadowbrat rules saying that Orks and Trolls may "goblinize" at puberty) someone said that orks don't goblinize anymore -- that they're "born that way" now. But the SR4A book says that 95% of an ork mother's children born homo sapiens sapiens express homo sapiens robustus at puberty.... I don't know whether that means that ork babies are usually "born simply human" and then "turn into orks" at puberty -- or if some # of the children are born on either side of the tracks, and those that seem "human" at birth have a 95% chance of becoming "ork anyway" at puberty.
It's like a friggin' Ork lottery.... If you birth 4-8 babies in a litter, MAYBE one will still be homo sapiens sapiens when they reach 20. Assuming the father isn't a human, and perhaps that's an "even if the dad is sapiens..."
Either way, you might be "looking forward" to being "just a human" and then "turn ork" at some point (whether you want to call it goblinizing or something else...). That would ALSO effect a character's demeanor and change the tint on their perspective goggles.
What if your sibling was the 1/20 who "stayed human"? What type of resentment might you have? Would your parents just save up for that one child's college education? Would that human be sending money home to the whole clantastic ork family while working their white-collar job? Does your ork character resent corporate wage slaves because that's where brother Johnny ended up?
A little Steve Martin's The Jerk here -- "I was born the only white kid in a black family." or something like that...
Just the opposite, actually. Goblinized Orks and Trolls live longer than natural-born ones (they keep their human lifespan, basically).
Where'd you see that?
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I might be using non-canonical information here but I think Brackhaven was born an ork but got 'fixed'.
The original Brackhaven was an ork. So his racist motherfragger parents gave him to an orphanage, got a human baby, and carried on like he was the original kid.
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A little Steve Martin's The Jerk here -- "I was born the only white kid in a black family." or something like that...
"I was born a poor black child."
I might be using non-canonical information here but I think Brackhaven was born an ork but got 'fixed'.
The original Brackhaven was an ork. So his racist motherfragger parents gave him to an orphanage, got a human baby, and carried on like he was the original kid.
The original Kenny was murdered by Charles Brackhaven (his father) in the hospital while he was undergoing Goblinization. So they found a new kid in, mentally and physically modified him to be the new Kenny, and "Voila!," now he's Governor of Seattle. As I recall, the canon ending to that run in Super Tuesday is that the truth was revealed during the 2057 campaign and Kenneth Brackhaven spun the Hell out of it to come off as a sympathetic victim.
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The original Kenny was murdered by Charles Brackhaven (his father) in the hospital while he was undergoing Goblinization. So they found a new kid in, mentally and physically modified him to be the new Kenny, and "Voila!," now he's Governor of Seattle. As I recall, the canon ending to that run in Super Tuesday is that the truth was revealed during the 2057 campaign and Kenneth Brackhaven spun the Hell out of it to come off as a sympathetic victim.
That's the way I remember it as well. Smarmy bastard turning the death of a child into voting points.
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Sounds like President James 'The Smiler' Callahan from Transmetropolian
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Just the opposite, actually. Goblinized Orks and Trolls live longer than natural-born ones (they keep their human lifespan, basically).
Where'd you see that?
First or Second ed core IIRC. My older books are in storage or I'd dig it up.
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The fact that Bull is still alive. :P
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The fact that Bull is still alive. :P
He's a little irritating sometimes, he hates elves, and his sense of humor is all messed up, but I hardly see that as a reason for us to kill hi--oh! Oh, wait. You meant the character. Right, right. Carry on.
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The fact that Bull is still alive. :P
He's a little irritating sometimes, he hates elves, and his sense of humor is all messed up, but I hardly see that as a reason for us to kill hi--oh! Oh, wait. You meant the character. Right, right. Carry on.
Yeah, the character Bull is in his 40s, which in orc years is dead, forget still working the shadows, even as a fixer.
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The fact that Bull is still alive. :P
He's a little irritating sometimes, he hates elves, and his sense of humor is all messed up, but I hardly see that as a reason for us to kill hi--oh! Oh, wait. You meant the character. Right, right. Carry on.
Yeah, the character Bull is in his 40s, which in orc years is dead, forget still working the shadows, even as a fixer.
I wouldn't say "dead," but "old," yes. Keep in mind, "average lifespan" is not "absolutely drops dead." It's average lifespan. A 40ish year old ork, even one that was born ork instead of goblinizing -- ignoring the dangers inherent in being a Shadowrunner, for the moment -- is no more automatically dead than a 60ish human. And, again, this is all ignoring leonization (which someone with 20+ years as a shadowrunner, profits and all, would certainly have been able to take advantage of).
Bull, even if he was born ork, isn't automatically dead or even dead weight, any more than, say, Fianchetto is, or FastJack, or Damien Knight. Age, even accelerated age for an ork, does not automatically mean death, or even utter obsolescence.
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I keep being taken back by this idea an ork couldnt fight at 40. Humans in fighting shape at 60-65 are rare, but they certainly exist, especially if they spent their youth staying in ork-like physical condition
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I keep being taken back by this idea an ork couldnt fight at 40. Humans in fighting shape at 60-65 are rare, but they certainly exist, especially if they spent their youth staying in ork-like physical condition
If we assume that most of them die off at 35-45, then 40 isn't the equivalent of a human at 60-65. It's equivalent to 70-75. While it's true that Christopher Lee is pretty sprightly for a guy in his 80's, let's not pretend that he's the average.
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As has been said repeatedly though, that last 5 years of an ork's life is probably akin to the more rapid aging of humans from a fairly spritely 60 to a decrepit 75
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As has been said repeatedly though, that last 5 years of an ork's life is probably akin to the more rapid aging of humans from a fairly spritely 60 to a decrepit 75
There are no canon sources for that assertion. It's a nice thought, but then again, so is having Ork's age at a normal rate, and having their shorter life expectancy be due to a disproportionately dangerous life (poor medical care, poor diet, street violence, etc.)
IMO, it all comes down to what you want orks to be in your game. If you want them to be fecund underground hordes of cannon fodder, then their butterfly lifespan makes perfect sense. If you prefer orks like Bull, the gunslinger adept in the book, etc., then a more humanized view of their lifecycle makes more sense.
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The ork life cycle I get. Trolls bother me because they are just as violent, only have 10 years more lifespan, just as crappy living conditions, and dont have litters. So how do they even sustain their population?
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The ork life cycle I get. Trolls bother me because they are just as violent, only have 10 years more lifespan, just as crappy living conditions, and dont have litters. So how do they even sustain their population?
They also have, barring a few exceptional places (like their "kingdom" in Germany, if it's even still a canon place), a much, much, smaller population to sustain, than any other core metaspecies.
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The Troll Kingdom is still around at least as of Attitude, where it gets mentioned they have an Urban Brawl team.
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The Troll Kingdom is still around at least as of Attitude, where it gets mentioned they have an Urban Brawl team.
Yeah, I just don't keep up with the German books (what with not being able to read German, and all), and I know there've been several released since then, so I wasn't positive.
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I've been debating about getting my German speaking side of the family to translate them for me, I don't think I could afford the amount of beer needed for bribes.
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interesting question: If some orcs goblinize at puberty and some are born with active metagenes do the gobliized orcs have a more human life span and learning curve? are the human children of orc parents recorded as orcs until puberty occurs before declaring them human (some may still consider them tainted orcs anyways)
if some of the litter do not receive their robustus metagenetic state are they the more likely portion of an orc family to die?
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If we assume that most of them die off at 35-45, then 40 isn't the equivalent of a human at 60-65. It's equivalent to 70-75. While it's true that Christopher Lee is pretty sprightly for a guy in his 80's, let's not pretend that he's the average.
Runner-class Orks are also far from average. Even one stat at 5 or higher puts a person in the "Very exceptional" category in terms of overall humanity. If body approximates constitution, Orks probably never get "decrepit". These guys are usually martial artists of some sort, and have all types of genetic & lifestyle advantages over the "average ork". Sure their mom & dad could be long gone by the time they're 45, but that doesn't mean that they have one foot in the grave and need bifocals. In many ways, a human life is full of examples of "use it or lose it" and that includes your life overall. I'd go into gruesome statistical detail but that's not necessary. Point is, overall, the more of their brain, body, instincts, vision, strength, etc. that the Ork uses over their lifespan without "retiring" the more likely they are to go kicking & screaming to their death.
If Average Lifespan of a human is 75, and humans live to 120+ on occasion (that's an additional adult lifetime!), a PC-caliber ork being an exception to every rule should be able to make it to 75 (perhaps even more) and still be an active member of the community.