RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

shidaku said:

For someone who claims to not like to attack people, you're certainly doing a lot of it. Because I'm pretty sure the word "stupid" or "you are stupid" was never included in my posts.

There is an incredible ability to talk to people without attacking them.

And I never accused you of saying I could not post, nor did I accuse you of making personal attacks against me. So please stop projecting.

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" "

I presented two examples of what you were claiming I did vs. what I actually did. In quotes.

I have not said others cannot post. I have not attacked anyone personally.

Next straw man?

Kuba GÅ‚adysz said:

I logged in only to say goodbay, with that article you crossed the line, amount of stupidity, hypocrisy, self delight is just astounding. I know that loosing one reader will not change anything, but i want you to know that you lost one.

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Hmmm, you "logged in" to an account that was created within the past few days and only used to post this one post.

Yeah, you won't be missed. We hardly knew ya.

Myrdin Potter said:

" "

I presented two examples of what you were claiming I did vs. what I actually did. In quotes.

I have not said others cannot post. I have not attacked anyone personally.

Next straw man?

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Ya know what? /ignored.

Aldarc said:

Again, I would disagree that it is this a clear cut issue or that D&D uses this term accurately because while "races" in D&D and other FRPGs may be biologically/magically distinct from each other, D&D often draws inspiration from the culture of real life human peoples for flavoring the culture of these different FRPG "races."

<snip>

The problem is not just an issue of whether the term "race" is accurate to describe distinct and significant biological differences between peoples or species. It's also how distinct human cultures - that were often historically relegated into a hierarchical racial schema of inferiority and superiority - are frequently mapped onto FRPG "races" to varying degrees in a wide assortment of FRPG settings. And you can most definitely see this in a variety of stereotypes that people impose on their "D&D races" and even the cultures of the "monster races" of D&D.

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I want to add to what you've said here. I've composed this post a few different ways in my mind, and I'm not sure what is the best way of doing it, but I'm going to try this one:

Aristotle, in his Politics, articulates the idea of "natural slavery": certain people are, by nature, inferior (in intellect, culture, general capacities) and hence subordinate to other naturally free people. The Greeks are among the naturally free people, and they have a moral permission and even perhaps a moral obligation to enslave those who are slaves by nature.

Now most contemporary people would regard this as silly at best, and malicious at worst. But let's suppose someone writes a RPG fantasy story in which one of the "races" of the world is, in the fiction, naturally inferior and hence the members of that race are slaves by nature. Would it make sense to say that that story is harmless, because it "accurately" applies Aristotle's concept? Or would it be more appropriate to regard that fiction as pernicious?

To generalise the point: is the problem with race theorists, and natural slave theorists, that they made empirical errors? (There really are no human biological differences of the sort the theorists posited. There really are no human who are natural slaves.) In which case we can imagine fantasy worlds in which those theorists were correct.

Or is the problem with these theories that they are intellectual dressings up of rather vicious political programs? If so, then (i) it wouldn't make any sense to say that a fantasy story uses the words and concepts "accurately", and (ii) fantasy stories that deploy these concepts are, in various ways and to various degrees, carrying on an (at best) unhappy political project.

I think that your post points to one of the main unhappy features of the project, even if divorced from the idea of racial hierarchies: namely, the positing of these essential connections between "biology" (whatever exactly that means in a fantasy world) and cultural/social forms. That said, D&D doesn't really divorce the idea from one of hierarchy - orcs (and half-orcs, among the standard playable races) are clearly "lower" in some sense than elves. And the idea of biological "purity" and related essentialist ideas is also strongly reinforced - as has come out in this thread in the discussion of the mechanics of half-elves and half-orcs.

Myrdin Potter said:

I am slowly despairing at the way that people miss the warnings of 1984 and Animal Farm

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We are discussing the words and concepts that are worth using in a commercially produced cultural artefact. Animal Farm has no bearing on this. Nor does 1984 - the only Newspeak going on in this thread is the notion of "accurate" uses of the word "race". (The Newspeak consisting in the suggestion that the real problem with race theory is scientific - ie it's core hypothesis is wrong - rather than political - it's core goals are vicious.)

Myrdin Potter said:

I think this is a false struggle and topic. There is real racism that matters that can be fought. I have done it in the best way I know, which is hiring well as senior management based on talent, not where people are from or their gender, and in raising my children to reject racism (I seem to have spawned 3 left leaning fighters for social justice, but I struggle to see why that is a bad thing even if I am more conservative). I do know that illogical leaps and conclusions are dangerous. If other games get it wrong, the game that got it right does not have to change.

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I also have children. I don't know anything about your children other than what you've told me: for my children the nature of race, racial identify, racial essentialism, the connection between "race", culture and value, are not issues of mere theoretical concern.

The reason I wouldn't want them reading REH or HPL isn't to do with moral education - it's to do with protecting them from vicious attacks.

D&D isn't vicious in the same way. But nevertheless it is carrying a lot of the same baggage.

EDIT: I read some more posts that seem relevant to this point.

james501 said:

To determine something is offensive you must see evidence of people actually getting offended.

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I haven't said that the problem is one of offence. That's not stated or implied in any of my posts on this topic.

Myrdin Potter said:

There are a ton of reasons why the game skews much more "white" than the population and much more male than the population (this skew is enormous even today). The question raised in the original post is not the reason, not a reason, and is a distraction and logical error. The time spent discussing such irrelevant trivia is much better spent addressing the real barriers. This is the type of band-aid, feel good to a few changes that hold back progress because of the false sense of accomplishment.

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Dannyalcatraz said:

Some- not all- minority gamers have an issue with this term; percentages are unknown. Saying “it isn’t a problem” is, at the very least, bad optics. At worst, it’s a barrier.

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As I already posted, I am not attempting to make "progress" in some abstract sense.

I have an actual issue with my actual RPG books - namely, they contain and evoke tropes and concepts that at the worst may be harmful, and in any event are redolent of things that are harmful, to my family and friends. (They may or may not be harmful to other people. I leave that for others to judge. I am only talking about the people I am close to and the experiences that I and they have had.)

And there's no reason I can see why that couldn't be different. And I don't see what anyone else would lose except, perhaps, a bit of gamer nostalgia.

Jay Verkuilen said:

I agree about REH. I think he's much more an example of "product of his times." He might even be somewhat more open-minded than many of his background and era given that Conan "had black friends"

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TheCosmicKid said:

In addition, there's a pretty obvious divide in the REH canon between stories he wrote for a quick paycheck and stories he wrote because he wanted to, and the former deal in cheap stereotypes and flat female characters while the latter show some interest in asking questions about race and culture and gender. Much like Tolkien, nobody is gonna accuse Howard of being a 21st-Century progressive, but he had an active mind and an interest in the subject, when he had the freedom to exercise it.

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The Scarlet Citadel. The Queen of the Black Coast. The Vale of Lost Women. Shadows in Zamboula.

That's off the top of my head, and the only REH I've read are the Conan and Kull stories.

These don't "ask questions" about race and culture. They're just virulent racism. (The third and fourth are also pretty mediocre stories. The first and second are good stories, although personally I think Queen of the Black Coast is a bit overrated; but they're good despite the racism, not because they offer any insight into race and culture.)

Jay Verkuilen said:

By the 1960s, the X-Men had a pretty clear agenda to anyone paying attention.

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If D&D handled issues of oppression and liberation in the same way that the X-Men does, I don't think we'd be having this particular conversation.

Why I don't care if they use the term Race:

It literally refers to a type of person that is different based on many factors, descent, heredity, ancestry, shared culture, etc...

For example Humans and Dwarves have different DNA, different culture, different ancestors, hereditary genes.

This is present in all or most of the D&D Races.

Species would of been too broad of a word, as many of the classic D&D Races can breed with each other, they are of similar specie (Humanoid in the D&D realm).

Ancestor or Ancestry seems like a good alternative, but is it an alternative just to be an alternative? Like is it there just to not use the word Race?

Now that I think about it, I picture Ancestry as a sub-race type of thing.

For example:

Person 1 is of the European race, Dutch ancestry, a part of the human species.

or in D&D terms

Character 1 is of the Dwarven race, Mountain Dwarf ancestry, a part of the humanoid species.

pemerton said:

I want to add to what you've said here. I've composed this post a few different ways in my mind, and I'm not sure what is the best way of doing it, but I'm going to try this one:

Aristotle, in his Politics, articulates the idea of "natural slavery": certain people are, by nature, inferior (in intellect, culture, general capacities) and hence subordinate to other naturally free people. The Greeks are among the naturally free people, and they have a moral permission and even perhaps a moral obligation to enslave those who are slaves by nature.

Now most contemporary people would regard this as silly at best, and malicious at worst. But let's suppose someone writes a RPG fantasy story in which one of the "races" of the world is, in the fiction, naturally inferior and hence the members of that race are slaves by nature. Would it make sense to say that that story is harmless, because it "accurately" applies Aristotle's concept? Or would it be more appropriate to regard that fiction as pernicious?

To generalise the point: is the problem with race theorists, and natural slave theorists, that they made empirical errors? (There really are no human biological differences of the sort the theorists posited. There really are no human who are natural slaves.) In which case we can imagine fantasy worlds in which those theorists were correct.

Or is the problem with these theories that they are intellectual dressings up of rather vicious political programs? If so, then (i) it wouldn't make any sense to say that a fantasy story uses the words and concepts "accurately", and (ii) fantasy stories that deploy these concepts are, in various ways and to various degrees, carrying on an (at best) unhappy political project.

I think that your post points to one of the main unhappy features of the project, even if divorced from the idea of racial hierarchies: namely, the positing of these essential connections between "biology" (whatever exactly that means in a fantasy world) and cultural/social forms. That said, D&D doesn't really divorce the idea from one of hierarchy - orcs (and half-orcs, among the standard playable races) are clearly "lower" in some sense than elves. And the idea of biological "purity" and related essentialist ideas is also strongly reinforced - as has come out in this thread in the discussion of the mechanics of half-elves and half-orcs.

We are discussing the words and concepts that are worth using in a commercially produced cultural artefact. Animal Farm has no bearing on this. Nor does 1984 - the only Newspeak going on in this thread is the notion of "accurate" uses of the word "race". (The Newspeak consisting in the suggestion that the real problem with race theory is scientific - ie it's core hypothesis is wrong - rather than political - it's core goals are vicious.)

I also have children. I don't know anything about your children other than what you've told me: for my children the nature of race, racial identify, racial essentialism, the connection between "race", culture and value, are not issues of mere theoretical concern.

The reason I wouldn't want them reading REH or HPL isn't to do with moral education - it's to do with protecting them from vicious attacks.

D&D isn't vicious in the same way. But nevertheless it is carrying a lot of the same baggage.

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I agree with you that race theory that there are different human races is evil and I already have said that.

I disagree that race theory as applies to humans is the meaning in the rules.

Every dictionary and definition I can find says "The human race" as an example of the word. Some make the point that it is the only current acceptable way to use race and human. That would follow that elven race, dwarven race, etc. are correct.

So your long definition and history lesson on the wrong race theory is not correct when the definition of the word race is used and human race is right there in the three dictionaries I looked up. You are redefining a simple word with clear definitions to match your ideology and that is the road to the books I cited.

As for REH and HPL, I will leave it to you to decide. REH I have on audible.com, and I played it with my daughters (now 21 and 15) and we had a good discussion on the casual racism and how what is acceptable changed over time. If you made another choice, I can only respect that. Your choice, your family.

Slit518 said:

Ancestor or Ancestry seems like a good alternative, but is it an alternative just to be an alternative? Like is it there just to not use the word Race?

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To cut to the chase and what has perhaps been lost over the last dozen pages, the short story is this: race carries unnecessary social, cultural, political implications and baggage that we can do without in D&D (and other games). For some people, it may be seen as a roadblock to enjoying the game.

Using an alternative term "Ancestry" or "Species" or "Kind" or some such can eliminate that baggage and remove a roadblock for people.

shidaku said:

To cut to the chase and what has perhaps been lost over the last dozen pages, the short story is this: race carries unnecessary social, cultural, political implications and baggage that we can do without in D&D (and other games). For some people, it may be seen as a roadblock to enjoying the game.

Using an alternative term "Ancestry" or "Species" or "Kind" or some such can eliminate that baggage and remove a roadblock for people.

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I really don't see how or why. This just seems odd to me.

I personally would see Kind as more offensive. Like in the context of, "We don't like your kind around here!" You usually see that in movies or TV shows where the racist redneck troupe is interacting with the out of town non-white person troupe.

Slit518 said:

I really don't see how or why. This just seems odd to me.

I personally would see Kind as more offensive. Like in the context of, "We don't like your kind around here!" You usually see that in movies or TV shows where the racist redneck troupe is interacting with the out of town non-white person troupe.

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There are very in-depth explanations of the how and why throughout the thread. I don't have the energy to repeat them again (and I've posted my own already).

Whether or not you like one possible replacement word over another is part of what this discussion is for, to find a suitable replacement, or I suppose, to demonstrate why the word is worth keeping.

Personally, I don't have any attachment to the word and only see gain in its exchange for another term.