What’s remarkable to me is how many people that rather obvious solution still eludes. Like, I agree that it’s as simple as having orcs just be some guys and because that’s how the world works sometimes people will end up at war with each other. But it’s not all orcs, because orcs are not a monolith, and even if it’s as simple as two different sides in a war we are, ultimately, playing a game descended from a fantasy wargame.

So like, I agree with you, that is a somewhat elegant solution to the issue, but the thing that is strange to me is how many people will still want to do “okay, so there must be nuance. But also orcs must be evil so that I can use them as guilt-free antagonists” which is where the most dissonance lies.

Ultimately a lot of this is downstream from many of the assumptions built into D&D, like alignment, and it’s part of what I keep saying: you either need to accept nuance and realize that the average D&D party probably isn’t Good Guys (which actually goes against some of the text unless you’re playing one of the older editions) or lean into the fact that D&D wants the characters to be Good Guys and thus accept the Manichean worldbuilding of Good vs Evil as part of the buy-in. There really is no good way to split the difference, because trying to play for a Nuanced option in between will introduce dissonance at some level.