Weren't they originally put it to make people have some variety and DIVERSITY in the game?
Full orcs as a PC race is a relatively recent development in the entire scope of TTRPGs. Players had the ability to pick half-orc as a race for a while before they added in the option for full blooded orcs. They weren't really a "diversity" add, per se, but more of a "the players want to play as one of the bad guy races" thing, similar to when Drizz't became the new hot shit in D&D fiction and suddenly they rushed to set up the ability to play as an edgelord Drow.
As someone else stated, the perks and drawbacks of playing a non/demi-human race in D&D are there to balance out the fact that humans are basically the Swiss Army Knives of the setting. Removing racial bonuses is pretty much pulling a Harrison Bergeron on the game as a whole, making one wonder why the hell they'd bother picking a non-human race to begin with.
Full orcs as a PC race is a relatively recent development in the entire scope of TTRPGs. Players had the ability to pick half-orc as a race for a while before they added in the option for full blooded orcs. They weren't really a "diversity" add, per se, but more of a "the players want to play as one of the bad guy races" thing, similar to when Drizz't became the new hot shit in D&D fiction and suddenly they rushed to set up the ability to play as an edgelord Drow.
As someone else stated, the perks and drawbacks of playing a non/demi-human race in D&D are there to balance out the fact that humans are basically the Swiss Army Knives of the setting. Removing racial bonuses is pretty much pulling a Harrison Bergeron on the game as a whole, making one wonder why the hell they'd bother picking a non-human race to begin with.