So are Orcs and Goblins the same in Tolkien's universe? Because I'm used to thinking of them as pretty different.

@ThatDamnCat Different how? The Wiki I'm looking at says they aren't differentiated. It's been a long time since I read The Hobbit though and I never read any of the other books, so I don't remember.

@Sparrow

I suppose I'm thinking about more modern interpretations.

I read all the books and they're the same there because he changed the language, so there was no orc/goblin difference (never see them in the same room together trope) but in modern adaptations they are differentiated.

@ThatDamnCat Yeah that makes sense.

I just ask because I got bored and decided to watch the second Hobbit movie (newish one, not animated) tonight. I saw the first one in theaters and never got around to seeing the other two.

Anyway, the orcs in *this adaptation* are flanked by smaller, more variant-looking creatures and I wondered if they were goblins so looked it up.

Knowing me, I'm going to spend the rest of the night reading up on lore.

@Sparrow @ThatDamnCat In Tolkien's Universe, "goblins" in The Hobbit = "orcs" LoTR.

There's a key line in Jackson's LoRT where someone (Gandalf?) says that Saruman bred "Orcs w/ Goblins" to make his Uruk Hai. However, in the books, the line is "Orcs & Men." So Jackson seems to have decided that in his universe these are different creatures.

Still, in Tolkien's LoTR, Orcs vary widely in size & shape, because they are sub-species bred for different purposes (tunneling, war, labor, for example).

@brooke @ThatDamnCat

Oh awesome, thank you for the clarification!

Yeah, the more I get into D&D, the more I want to go into the lore that inspired it-- aka Tolkien (among others, I'm sure). As always, I have a lot of reading to do.

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@Sparrow @ThatDamnCat D&D is such a wonderful rabbit hole to fall into!

The podcast "The Short Game" (about short video games) recently took a special episode to talk about veteran players' strategies for keeping D&D sessions fast-paced and less prone to drag on at points. It was interesting and I learned a lot. Here's a URL if you like:
theshortgame.net/118-dungeons-

@brooke @ThatDamnCat

That sounds awesome! :3 Podcasts are great because I work as a shelver at a library, so I have long periods of time when I don't really need to pay much attention to the outside world, and can listen away.

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