D&D 5E The word ‘Race’

[Remathilis]

Why?

We don't need to use race to differentiate Giants or demons or aberrations. Why do we need race to differentiate humanoids?

"The races of genies, including djinn and efreet, form the most important civilizations on the elemental planes."

"The Wind Dukes of Aaqa come from a race of elemental beings called the vaati, which once ruled many worlds."

"Metallic dragons seek to preserve and protect, viewing themselves as one powerful race among the many races that have a place in the world.

"The elves remember when the fomorians were among the most handsome of races, possessed of brilliant minds and unrivaled magical ability."

"Efreet don't see themselves in this light, naturally, and regard their race as fair and orderly, even as they admit to an enlightened sense of self-interest."

"Each of the main giant races- the cloud, fire, frost, hill, stone, and storm giants- are related by common elements of history, religion, and culture."

"Although they begin as creations of the Horned King, minotaurs can breed true with one another, giving rise to an independent race of Baphomet's savage children in the world."

"Nagas have a long-standing enmity with the yuan-ti, with each race seeing itself as the epitome of serpentine evolution."

"Turning instead to strike against the salamanders, the efreet had better luck in establishing a slave race..."

"They [Death Slaadi] propagate their race by dragooning mobs of red and blue slaadi and invading other planes."

"Monstrous serpents with burly humanoid torsos and arms, abominations form the highest caste of yuan-ti society, and they most closely resemble the race as the serpent gods intended it."

All of those quotes come straight from the Monster Manual and refer to non-humanoids as "races".

 

[MoonSong]

So...yes, as I said, I can understand why people might feel uncomfortable with the term "race" used in D&D. But as far as continuing prejudice goes, D&D and other RPGs really aren't the greatest place to start raising battle standards. 5e's inclusion of a trans* deity, for example, seems like a pretty good reason to say "hey, these guys are really trying." That doesn't erase the uncomfortableness some people will feel, but at this point, I really don't see any "solution" for that. Few people have any new terms they really like for the concept, the concept is clearly meaningful within the game, and the game as a whole is clearly trying to address these issues frankly and openly rather than ignoring them.

I guess all I'm really trying to say is, "I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I don't really think it's going to change, at least not any time soon."

I suggested kin at the begining of the thread but nobody paid attention to me... in the end it could be any word. I still don't get what deity you talk about.

As for the stats... Reality itself is racist. Different ethnicities have different average levels of ability in various regimes. Society isn't wiping that out. Educational testing shows notable trends - trends which can be countered by ethnicly adapted instruction - which is something unlawful to do in the US, except for aboriginal peoples.

I'm not sure I follow this, is it the ethnicity? or something in the way different ethnicities are forced to live? is there ethnocentrism in the testing methods? is it just that some other factor like poverty, occupational typecasting or something else that causes children to grow in less than ideal conditions? Reality isn't racist, people is.

Yeah, fair enough. A name I chose when I was 18 would not be the name I'd choose for myself today.

Will miss the old name though. Why not just KM as a compromise?

I did actually post the level of harm earlier - the fact that D&D fandom is, despite decades of play, overwhelmingly white. With millions of players to draw from, racial lines should be reasonably representative. But, as I posted earlier, if you look at pictures from conventions, it certainly isn't. ((Note, somehow this also got tied into gender issues, and i'm not sure why))

If race and depictions of race is not a problem in D&D, then how do you explain that D&D, is an overwhelmingly white hobby? Why isn't it appealing to other ethnicities? I mean, I see Magic the Gathering played here in Japan all the time. I've never seen a single D&D product in any hobby shop. Perhaps in Tokyo or Osaka, but, where I live? Not a single one. All sorts of board games and CCG's, but, not a single RPG.

Are you saying race plays absolutely no role here?



Well, the argument does hinge on the honesty of the person doing the complaining. But, I think you nicely highlight why this issue has so much pushback. It really looks like many of the posters here are arguing based on the idea that since they, personally, don't see a problem, any problem that may exist only exists in the other person's mind. It's not a real issue. I think, through your "satire" you've actually perfectly encapsulated your side of the issue's mindset. "I don't see a problem, and I'm not racist, so, nothing I like could possibly carry racist connotations. Any complaints must only exist in the complainer's mind".

I mean, good grief, EN World has a shopping list of behaviours that we are not allowed to engage in and a nice little button on the bottom of every post to report behaviour. By your logic, those shouldn't exist.

Different countries have different sensibilities, and the stuff isn't uniform even within a single country. In my country we don't consider ourselves racists, yet we do things that by proxy end up looking as if we were. Or maybe I should say in my city. The state of birth and the money you have are strong sources of discrimination among the lay people, only the richest are actually racist. And skin color dpesn't really figure into it -until you go into the upper crust of society- myself I am basically white, but ethnically I'm not, and I never felt the need to classify myself by race, skin color, height and build in my family alone vary from very dark to very light. We tend to "discriminate" people who are poor, homeless or with bad skin that shows "this kid grew up poor", some groups are hit with it more often than others, but any member of those groups who shows he or she has money, education, and money gets a lot of respect and no discrimination at all. Again this all from laypeople, rich people discriminate people not coming from their shared family pool, which in turn is racist by proxy, like for example the richest man in the country is discriminated by rich people poorer than him, because he is an outsider to their society, he being of middle East ancestry doesn't really makes it worse. But my point is kind of lost.

Oh yeah, basically different societies think of race and ethnicity on different ways, and hot button issues are different between them. Barely nobody on my country is ethnically anything -not until we go out of country and get labeled with a race name, that curiously groups us together with people from different ethnic groups inside our own country and people we consider very different from other countries-. Growing up when watching TV I never felt excluded thinking "my racial group isn't represented in these shows", I was just "These people are people". Only later when characters that were specifically meant to represent "my people" showed up I got to think "oh so they represent Caucasians only, and now they are singling me out as an outsider by expecting me to identify with a caricature." Funnily pop culture was more inclusive for me when it was less inclusive and "enlightened."

I'm still not sure why D&D containing the word "race" makes the game inherently, irrevocably racist until it's removed, but D&D containing the word "class" doesn't make it inherently, irrevocably classist until it's removed.

I find wizards the very embodiment of classism... that's why I prefer sorcerers, the idea of sorcerers is more democratic and less classist.

I have not, so I googled it. After a brief review, from the perspective of both a political scientist and a writer, I disagree with the premise.

So do I

The actual level of racism is irrelevant to the discussion. Your point was that if it is fantasy then one should be able to say "this is fantasy, real life is[should] not be like this". My point was that your argument was equally applicable regardless of the level of racism, or how overt or covert it is in the writing. So attempting to argue that your original comments are more applicable to D&D because it is "less racist" than say, Lovecraft, doesn't mean squat.


I do really believe that. But my belief that I can't change your mind does not preclude you from changing your mind. Nor is it to say minds can't be changed.


Argument of convenience. You're saying the books can affect how people think except when they can't and that only happens when it fits your argument. Either the books can change the way people think or they can't. If changing the artwork can change the way people think, then so can changing the language.

No. I'm not playing this game. I'll quote something, you'll tell me it's not really racist and tell me to quote something else ad infinitum.

D&D isn't promoting racism on purpose. I've said this in EVERY SINGLE POST I've made in this thread. It does it unintentionally through artifacts retained from the source material.

I give the same example from above, checking the 1e PHB, all I see is people, cartoon people in black and white lineart doesn't tell me about a particular ethnicity, I just see a blank slate. Browsing Pathfinder and the 5e PHB makes me feel more excluded ethnically than good old AD&D PHB. I just can't find any light-skinned member of my ethnic group that is traditionally depicted as brown skinned, all light-skinned people in there are caucasian on purpose, how is that not exclusionary? From my cultural point of view D&D has gotten more and more racist with every edition! <true, yet I don't make a big fuss>

The same would happen if they removed the word race from the book. So remove the word race in order to remove the implication of ethnic bigotry. Wait so D&D races are stand ins for real life ethnic groups! and mine isn't being represented! HOw barbaric conflating skin color with ethnicity!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I only went to college for one year, and am a product of the Texas education system, I have no idea what that is, and that's after googling it and reading about the theory. Could you explain it like I am five please.

Okay, if you were five I'd say, "Some people think that the words you know change the way you think. Like, do you remember before you knew how to count to ten? These people might think that because you didn't know the words 'six' and 'eight', that you couldn't have told the difference between six cookies and eight cookies--but now that you know the word, you know the difference, and that changes how you think. Or maybe they'd say that if you don't know the word 'love', you don't really have a good way to think about love, and so learning the word makes you better able to love. You don't have to agree with those people, but that's what they'd say. Do you think those people are correct? If so you believe in what we call the Sapir-Wharf Hypothesis."

Any questions?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Examples have been given. They've been denied as "not really racist" and just the poster "reading it wrong". So I stand by my prior statement that I have no intention to play that game.

Not that it matters, I'm done with this thread.

Can you link the post, then? I must have missed where this happened.

Why are these games, movies and whatnot popular but d&d itself has zero presence?

I agree. RPGs are popular here. Magic is huge. Crpgs are huge. D&D is virtually absent.

Why?

I don't know. And, it appears, neither do you. That is not a good reason to jump to the conclusion that it's inherent racism, or even to strongly conjecture that. There's a lack of information.

But, as a corollary, I will ask why there are watermelon and green tea flavored oreo cookies in China, but not here in the US? Would you suggest racism as a cause?

 

[Dire Bare]

Couldn't read the whole thread since I last posted, because *gak* that's a lot of words for those getting offended that some of us are uncomfortable with the way D&D sometimes treats race. If you personally don't have an issue with how race is treated in the game, that's fine. If you can see how it's problematic for some folks, but it doesn't rate high on your priority meter, that's fine. But please don't be condescending and try to explain how some of us are too "PC" or are "SJWs" or how you'd be glad if we left the hobby in a huff, or worse yet, that we are imagining the whole thing. Just because *you* don't see it (or don't care), doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Oh, and at the risk of seeming condescending myself to some posting here, it isn't the use of one word, "race", that's the issue for some of us. It's how the concept of race is used in the game. Race as a stereotype, and often a negative one. And, of course, it's larger than the D&D game itself as this same issue crops up not only in other fantasy/sci-fi media (games, books, comics, etc), but in real world usage of the term also.

For me, the way D&D has treated race has shifted somewhat over the years, but often is problematic for me as I've posted upthread. But I haven't put the thought energy into how best to "fix" the problem, as it isn't high on my priority list either. Maybe someday.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't believe that folks who claim to take offense at the use of the word or its connotation are lying...and it's not so much that I'm indifferent...I'd much prefer people not be offended generally speaking.

I think for me it's just that this specific complaint just seems so trivial. I have understood some of the points made about some of the source material that D&D largely draws from having some racist undertones, and how race is used in the game to kind of pigeonhole a member of a race into a certain type, usually "good" or "bad"....

But those points are kind of tangential to the topic, no? If we removed the word race from the book and replaced it with species, nothing changes. Except we've gotten rid of a word that has certain connotations. But the sources of fantasy fiction remain unchanged...the broad generalizations found in the genre remain (even if they're changing, the old examples remain).

And I think that's why I just don't get the point. We can discuss those other issues and I think they are worth discussing. But summing all of that up as the word race being an issue trivializes the real points. It's just a label, changing it does nothing.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But those points are kind of tangential to the topic, no? If we removed the word race from the book and replaced it with species, nothing changes. Except we've gotten rid of a word that has certain connotations. But the sources of fantasy fiction remain unchanged...the broad generalizations found in the genre remain (even if they're changing, the old examples remain).

And I think that's why I just don't get the point. We can discuss those other issues and I think they are worth discussing. But summing all of that up as the word race being an issue trivializes the real points. It's just a label, changing it does nothing.

I suppose you could call it "families." In real life, some families are different than other families. Some are smarter, or faster, or stronger than other families--sometimes all three. You could theoretically do a version of D&D where some people play elves ("Awesome Elf Family") who get +4 to all attributes, immunity to charm, no need for sleep, and can multiclass freely. Other people can be members of the Runty Goblin family with -2 to all attributes, no multiclassing, and a 50% penalty to experience--but a 100% bonus to fecundity to make it easy to generate replacement PCs when one dies! You can bill the former as "easy mode" and the latter as "hard mode"/"ironman mode". People will still get offended by the implications, but at least they'll be more personally offended at the implications that easy mode is badwrongfun instead of politically offended.

Eh, who am I kidding. Some people will still get politically offended at the suggestion that heredity is real and that tabula rasa is not a real thing. They won't be happy until you make a game where all differences are 100% nurture and 0% nature. But it might be a fun game style anyway.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't believe that folks who claim to take offense at the use of the word or its connotation are lying...and it's not so much that I'm indifferent...I'd much prefer people not be offended generally speaking.

I think for me it's just that this specific complaint just seems so trivial. I have understood some of the points made about some of the source material that D&D largely draws from having some racist undertones, and how race is used in the game to kind of pigeonhole a member of a race into a certain type, usually "good" or "bad"....

But those points are kind of tangential to the topic, no? If we removed the word race from the book and replaced it with species, nothing changes. Except we've gotten rid of a word that has certain connotations. But the sources of fantasy fiction remain unchanged...the broad generalizations found in the genre remain (even if they're changing, the old examples remain).

And I think that's why I just don't get the point. We can discuss those other issues and I think they are worth discussing. But summing all of that up as the word race being an issue trivializes the real points. It's just a label, changing it does nothing.

Well, sorry some of our concerns are "trivial". I guess it just doesn't matter at all, if it doesn't matter to you. Sorry (truly) if I'm getting a bit hot, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. It isn't important to *you*. Okay. Don't dismiss it's importance to *me*. And you're right, if you replace the word "race" with "species" it doesn't change anything. Missing the point. It's not the word, this isn't a semantics battle. It's the concept of race, regardless of what word you use to describe it.

Eh, who am I kidding. Some people will still get politically offended at the suggestion that heredity is real and that tabula rasa is not a real thing. They won't be happy until you make a game where all differences are 100% nurture and 0% nature. But it might be a fun game style anyway.

What the frak does politics have to do with it? If you think we're talking about heredity rather than the flawed social concept of race, go read a textbook. This isn't a "nature vs. nurture" debate.

When the "heroes" have a green light to kill a sentient being (like, say, an orc) simply because it is EVIL (inherently), that's problematic to me, and to some others who otherwise LOVE D&D. If it doesn't bother you, super! Why the pushback on even discussing how D&D treats race?

 

[Remathilis]

Oh, and at the risk of seeming condescending myself to some posting here, it isn't the use of one word, "race", that's the issue for some of us. It's how the concept of race is used in the game. Race as a stereotype, and often a negative one. And, of course, it's larger than the D&D game itself as this same issue crops up not only in other fantasy/sci-fi media (games, books, comics, etc), but in real world usage of the term also..

Therein lies the rub.

Lots of things use "race" as a concept to denote creatures that are not human. Klingon is a race. Wookiee is a race. Elf is a race. Asari is a race. Tauren is a race. Dalek is a race. Kryptonian is a race. The term is common parlance in nearly any form of science fiction and fantasy. You can't call out D&D for its use of the use of the word when lots of SF&F does it. So if we're cool with damning every sci-fi, superhero, and fantasy novel, movie, game, comic or TV show from the last 50 years for being racist, lets continue.

The second part is the notion that all racial stereotypes are negative. This patently false, but especially false when it comes to nonhuman races. Take elves for example; ask anyone to describe an elf and you will get stereotypes: haughty, graceful, magical, aloof. Because that's what makes an elf an elf. Take that away and at most you have a human with pointy ears. The things that make elves elven (elvish?) are those stereotypes. And that's what draws people to them. Of course people can break the stereotype (and some of the most memorable ones do, Drizzt is a classic example of a drow who breaks the dark elf stereotype) but without that stereotype, you don't have a story of a man rebelling against his people, you have a guy who leaves a really bad city and moves somewhere else.

It might be possible to untangle race from speculative fiction, but it would be poorer for it. We'd lose the evil of the Dalek race (who is literally programmed to hate), the noble code of the Klingons (both as friend and enemy) or the stubborn tenacity of the dwarves. They'd just be humans in funny costumes, and that is worse than anything.

 

[MG.0]

History says otherwise. Indeed, your county is host to the famous example of minority revolution in modern times. That's something you should be proud of. More recently, your county has amended its position on same sex marriage. Again, a minority. Again, the right decision, and something to be proud of. Is China's human rights record more right than America's because it has numbers on its side? Of course not. I disagree with the thread's premise. But not because of numbers. If numbers made right, we'd all be living very different lives.

(Side note: I'm not sure China is a great example of numbers because it is a privileged few who actually make the descisions there.) I think this is drifting off topic, but I only mostly agree. Numbers are still important. A democracy is a delicate balancing act that is obliged to protect the minority from the majority to some extent. Unadulterated majority rule is just mob rule. While it is usually possible to protect a minority of significant size (say 20-40%) from being steamrolled by the beliefs of the majority, it becomes much more problematic to protect say 2% from an overwhelming majority of 98%. At some point, the majority can just ignore efforts to curtail their desired outcome.