Racial variety

[tarchon]

I think, you can either use morphological or genetical approaches. If you look at face morphology, you will see that Ethiopians don't differ from other Caucasians, it's just a dark skin colour.
The genetical approach is much easier. I think, most researchers agree on the African origin of the human species. Because the African continent has harboured humans for the longest time of all continents, Africans (as a race, i.e. referring to black people) are genetically very diverse. They would qualify as several different race groups. Caucasians on the other hand are genetically nearly identical. This reflects the relatively short time of their development from one single ancestor group. Asians are genetically closely related to Caucasians. The genetical difference between Asians and Caucasians is negligible compared to the large variety among African peoples.
Btw., genetically Ethiopians are about an even mix of Caucasian and Negroid genes. This means, you can place them into both groups, if you so desire.

You're thinking about mitochondrial DNA (and it shows up to a lesser extent in Y chromosomes). That's a whole different animal (possibly in the literal sense as well...), because of the lack of recombination. As you'll see in the article I linked to (and has been widely known for decades), the alleged "racial" correlations in nuclear DNA polymorphisms are negligible compared to individual variations and they really have not turned out to correspond at all well to the clamoring and competing mass of traditional theories of race based on morphology. "Face morphology" is the same sort of fuzzy evidence that Blumenbach used. It was state of the art in the 18th century. We now, 200+ years later, know that morphology doesn't work very well for trying to develop such overarching concepts of human variation. The whole nonsense over Kennewick Man's supposed "Caucasian" features are symptomatic of that.
I agree that you can take some arbitrary set of obscure morphological measurements and say "this type we'll call 'Caucasoid' and this type we'll call 'Negroid'" but all you've done there is to show that you can pick basis vectors to span a vector space. It's just a bit of numerical hocus-pocus to thrill the mathematically naive.

 

[Emiricol]

Ahem. I think they use the term "caucasian" because everyone uses it to mean "white" even if it isn't accurate. I mean hey, I'm not really "white", more of a "light pink with freckles", and I absolutely resemble Nordic types more than people from the Caucasus. But I use the term because it helps communicate a concept to the average reader.

Meanwhile, I still think the druid is green and Lidda looks undead

 

[Turjan]

@tarchon: Actually, I don't think this discussion of race definitions leads to anything worthwhile. Yes, I referred to mitochondrial DNA. For finding migration patterns that's a suitable method. I agree with you that morphological methods are not very reliable in their results and that they are prone to misuse. Genetical methods are much more accurate, although I'm nor really interested whether Ethiopians are Negroid or Caucasian; they dwell at the border, so it's only natural that they are a mix. More interesting are findings like that the inhabitants of the Spanish isle of Ibiza are genetically Lebanese. There you find your old Phoenicians.
But back to the discussion. That's a typical American thing, these race discussions. I think it's the result of some trauma, the sentiment of being always betrayed, may it be real or imaginary. The dismissal of a quota system points into that direction.

 

[Witness]

posted by LGodamus:

Maybe because D&D originated and is produced in American and its' largest audience remains...wait for it.....................America

True. But its also true that most of the people who buy and play D&D are white american males. If the ethnic diversity presented in the books is supposed to reflect the potential market place, america, why not go one step further and just include pictures of white male characters (or scantily clad female characters since that is probably more likely to attact the target audience)? The larger point I was trying to make is not that the pictures should necessarily reflect real world numbers, but rather that using any solid real world numbers is arbitrary because the average black person, or asian, or woman isn't likely to pick up a copy of the PHB.

posted by Turjan:

No, but this is an accurate way to solve the problem. Or do you want a special PHB for each and every RL human race?

I just think that quotas are a wrongheaded solution. Some of this is based on my real world opinions and experience, and I think we agree that something should be done.

 

[Turjan]

Well, my contribution to the topic of non-human races:

Why not make them really look non-human? I think that would be the easiest solution. Let look elves look like elves - i.e. narrow facial features with pointed chin and inclined eyes - so they resemble no human race at all. Same should be true for gnomes, dwarves and halflings. Then this problem came to a proper solution.

 

[Desdichado]

First off, I am in no way trying to troll. I have not attacked anyone's oppinion or degraded anyone personally.

You've also ignored many people who have quoted from the rulebook and shown that your perception of no skin tone variety is not consistent with what's actually in the text. Since you ignore this information and continue to gripe, you come across as a troll.

 

[Belen]

Gin,

I guess I do not see your point. Mialee does not look like a white girl to me. If anything, she has an asian look to her with her dark skin and midnight hair.

Your complaint that elves in the PHB are modeled on whites is just plain wrong.

KB: I tend to like a lot of your arguments. But some of your comments in this thread seem to harbor an intense dislike of...well.... white guys. And you seem to have fallen for the PC propagranda that says that even tolerant white guys are racists (because of society), while non-whites are all loving and tolerant, which is a blatant, bigoted lie.

Personally, I subscribe to the human viewpoint. Everyone is human until they prove otherwise.

Culture

Now, Gin, if you want to debate the culture of DnD, then I will be right on your side. Personally, I have a real problem with the mono-cultural themes presented in the PHB and that of most WOTC worlds.

Most DnD culture is western in nature. Humans, elves etc all seem to behave in a western style and I would love to see differences.

However, I agree that the world really needs to do this rather than the generic rules book. However, it would be nice to see a dicussion on fitting different cultures into a campaign world in the DMG.

Personally, in my campaign world every race adhere to the regional culture. All elves do not have the same culture, instead the elves of one region will be a part of the culture and they just follow built-in instincts. For instance, elves are gypsies in one region and bedouin in the next. They fit into the culture that they belong.

Skin color also depends on a region and that goes for ALL races. In the area where African culture exists, all races are people of color, although the different races do not look human.

 

[Bards R Us]

Being a "non-white" myself, I can sorta see your point, although I think the Phb does a pretty decent job of including all "racial" variations. Definitely agree on the Drow issue, especially in the past. However, I think WotC did modify the drow in the Forgotten Realms Campaign book to say that while most Drow are 'evil', some are good and that many are 'redeemable'.

 

[kirinke]

the question is rather silly like i said b4 in so many ways.
non-humans are not going to nessisarily have the same color-facial features as humans. Because hay, guess what. they ain't human.

 

[jessemock]

I'm glad to see the question here--though it's really one of those cyclical kinds of issues.

I think that Gin's major point is well-taken: the illustrations in the core books don't demonstrate much racial variety and this may turn off some of those introduced to the game through these books.

Perhaps we should include an advertisement for Mongoose's Pocket Player's Guide here.

It's also quite clear that the D&D product line has changed in precisely this regard over the years: efforts have been made to vary the aspect of the people portrayed in D&D illustrations.

Effort has also been made to soften the association of races with alignment.

Has either of these trends gone far enough? I don't think so.

But, for one, I'm encouraged by the development of supplements that offer players the option to play non-standard or 'monster' races. My real hope is that, eventually, we'll see the association of alignment with races completely overturned.

For the other, well, it remains to be seen if these products will take advantage of the options that they offer.

A number of people have pointed out that the core rules would support great variation in the look of particular members of the different races.

Here's hoping that this possibility will someday be realised in the actual illustrations of D&D products.