Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
Regarding the orc babies thing, it should be noted that Orcs are not an "always evil" race or even "usually evil". Their alignment tendency is merely "often chaotic evil"
That's not the current edition lore. They're Chaotic Evil, with their God whispering in their mind encouraging them to evil. Technically free willed, but limited and unlikely to be anything except Chaotic Evil due to divine influence. They also are describe are pillaging raiders, including the term 'Tribes like Plagues'.

If we're going to bring in dead edition lore, all editions Classic through 4e are on the table. Including gygaxian naturalism, which is where we get Orc and other humanoid babies (whelps) in Lairs & Modules from in the first place. Including infamously in B2, which was the first D&D experience for a generation of players.

I recently ran B2 adapted to 5e, and left the whelps in, with mixed results. It made things a pain for the players. It added and "interesting" element. But ultimately, they didn't want to have to deal with morality of accidentally fireballing a bunch of Gnoll whelps, which is what happened in the final run into the caves, in their Friday night fun of "eat pizza, throw dice, and murderhero orcs and other humanoids" game. I promised them no more whelps BS after that.

There's a reason Orcs and other monsters are structured to be the bad guys, and Alignment exists to create a basic Us vs Them structure. It's exactly what many players and tables want.