I need some advice!
First some history of our group. We've completed one module so far which took our group from level one to level three. We learned the basic rules and concepts and decided to reroll a new AP. I picked RotR (because it looks awesome) and they created their group of five.
Four of them are human (two of which are Shoanti) and one is a half-orc alchemist. Before we started the campaign I told the half-orc player that I wanted him to be prepared for an uphill adversarial approach from town folk and his party members due to the conflict in race and ethnicity. He wants half-orc for the bonuses and doesn't really seem to consider or care about possible roleplay conflict as he is more into rollplay vs roleplay, which is fine I have no issues with.
The population of Sandpoint is listed as 1,240, 12 of which are half-orcs. The PG for RotR talks about how the half-orcs essentially rape, raze and pillage Shoanti people.
He says since he grew up in the town in an orphanage (with another party member) that it should be fine and treated OK by the people since he is one of them. He points out that it it also states in the PG that they are "A welcoming, largely unprejudiced community of colorful locals".
My thought is that he is less than 1% of the population, so he is already different. Being as his "people" have a bad reputation that would make his childhood even more difficult. Growing up he would have been subjected to teasing, violence, etc.
I'm NOT trying to talk him out of his choices, I'll let they play whatever they want - I just want him to recognize that I'm not going to let him go skipping through the streets without some angst teens throwing rocks at him or maybe a refugee from the north who lost his wife attempting to kill him.
Like I said I'm new to this, can someone tell me if I'm taking it too far? Advice in this situation? How should I proceed?
My advice, for what it's worth, would be to dial it back a little bit. There is at least one half-orc in town (Gorvi) who is prominent enough that his shack appears on the town's map. Even though he is a bit of a rabble-rousing drunk, the response so far has been finger-shaking from the mayor.
If you took Gorvi as a model, then the half-orc might get a lack of social acceptance, etc., but consider that the townsfolk would likely feel more threatened by a fellow trying to kill undesirables in the street than by those undesirables.
From the GM material for Sandpoint, half-orcs are not seriously discriminated against, and if they are productive members of the town are accepted. While some townsfolk will undoubtedly look down upon the half-orc player, after the goblin attack he'll be considered a hero. If he doesn't squander that initial goodwill then his racial heritage will really not matter to anyone.
In my own game I had the half-orc player not encounter any discrimination at all... and even did the twist where the half-orc's orcish mother fell in love with a human and moved to Sandpoint. She's now a grey-haired blunt old lady who gleefully says what she wants and shocks people verbally... and is also a level 5 Barbarian and able to hold her own (when she met the other players she gruffly teased her son about the halfling cleric being a snack and having recipes for halfling... and suggested if he had sex with the sylph, she'd snap in two).
So don't consider his half-orc heritage to be just a source of pain and suffering for him. Look at the gaming hooks available to expand on it. Maybe his mother ran off with the orcs because she was mistreated at home... and died in childbirth. The shaman claimed the child was destined for greatness and the chief decided to have the baby killed out of fear of his position in the future... but the father (or the shaman), instead of killing the infant as ordered, took the child instead to the orphanage.
The greatness destined for this child is to be part of the quest to face Karzoug.
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Half-Orc are not Drow. While there might be individuals, who wouldn't like him because of his race, I am certain that most citizens would base their opinion of him on his actions and how he interacts with people.
Certainly the opening scenes of the AP would paint him in a favorable light, while a certain encounter might sour certain people's perception depending on his level of involvement and the outcome.