Thank you everyone for your replies and thoughts. Thank you Kromm for the detailed clarification.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
The key difference is this: Odious Racial Habit: Here's something awful that each member of this race demonstrably does, and does sufficiently often that it generates negative reactions most of the time. It reflects being genuinely foul, crude, rude, annoying, or scary.
Social Stigma: Here's how this race is treated by the game world's dominant race(s), simply for being who they are, independent of anything they might actually do. It indicates prejudice on the part of other races, which may or may not have its origins in an unpleasant truth. - A race with ORH but not SS is tolerated in civilization for some reason – most likely because they're so physically similar to the dominant sapient races and/or are so useful to the economy that they usually "pass" and their foibles are ignored – but individuals periodically do something that results in rejection in that specific moment.
- A race with SS but not ORH is treated badly in civilization for some reason, most likely unfounded prejudice. This is a general dislike, not linked to the actions of specific individuals at particular moments.
- A race with ORH and SS faces full-time ostracism founded in the reality that its members periodically do something awful, and this conduct is well-known. This rejection grows extra-strong when a given individual justifies it by actually engaging in the troublesome behavior.
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So my understanding of this is that a SS (Monster) would be for creatures who are dangerous by nature and cannot really be trusted to live by society's rules because of something about them (sapient or not). A vampire has to drink blood and might lose control at any time even if it did not want to. A Medusa (in
Banestorm) has SS (Monster) because they might accidentally turn people to stone even if they do not want to.
On the other hand, Odious Racial Habit (Eats other Sapients) is reserved for sapient creatures who choose to eat other sapients. They may not be monsters but, for whatever reason, they think it is okay to eat sapient creatures.
In this case, I think Tolkien esqu orcs that are sapient and choose to eat other sapients because they like to would have ORH (Eats other Sapients) [-15] and Social Stigma (Barbarian) [-10] for a total reaction penalty of -5 (meaning most civilized people will fight them or flee on sight). They are not "monsters" because they can choose rationally not to attack, but they are violent, untrustworthy, and destructive and therefore are regarded as "Barbarians" who are extra odious because they eat sapient beings.
Does this interpretation seem to track with how ORH and SS are designed?