Racially diverse artwork in D&D...does it influence you?

[Philotomy Jurament]

No, racially diverse artwork doesn't have any significant influence on me.

 

[CountPopeula]

One might say that under the hood is more important than superficialities.

Especially if one had seen Sukiyaki Western Django.

 

[mmadsen]

I have zero problems with non-Japanese samurai in a fantasy setting that is not actually attempting to model a pseudo-historical Japan — such as a fantasy setting based on a fusion of samurai and blaxploitation movies, like Afro Samurai...

My point is not that it's wrong to mix genres or to create a reason to have, say, a black samurai -- just that doing so calls attention to itself. If you don't want your game to be about mixing samurai tropes with blaxploitation, then don't drop black samurai into your game.

 

[Quickleaf]

I prefer to see diversity in fantasy artwork, and one of my first thoughts flipping through the core 4e books was "more white fantasy." I mean, a human is associating with elves, dwarves, halflings, tieflings and dragonborn and there's no racial intermarriage happening? In a land of ruined empires I'd expect a healthy amount of mixing, and I'd imagine people of a single ethnicity to be rare.

I'm reminded of the criticism Ursula K. LeGuin had for the SciFi Channel's "Legend of Earthsea" interpretation: http://www.slate.com/id/2111107.

 

[eyebeams]

but what i find the most striking about this whole conversation is the number of people who can say "okay, i can believe that there are goblins, and dragons, and that there are men who can shoot fireballs from their fingertips and fight the gods themselves... But black people? Man, that just ruins the illusion for me."

win

 

[eyebeams]

Is is wrong for a black gamer to love this quote?

It's wrong for any gamer *not* to love this quote.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

It would feel extremely forced to have a rainbow coalition of medieval peasants. It would be quite jarring to have a world resemble medieval England only populated by people from all over the real world. It would demand attention and explanation.

Why? Why is it hard to believe that there could be a fantasy kingdom where the people who made up the population don't all look the same?

As a point of fact, medieval England was made up of different ethnic groups. The fact that they all looked pretty similar to each other (i.e. were all pale-skinned) compared to modern America isn't nearly as relevant as the fact that they all considered themselves English after a certain point in time.

England in 1066 was facing an invasion from Normandy. Yet the "English" over whom William of Normandy hoped to rule were not a single homogenous people. The Anglo-Saxons had invaded over five hundred years earlier, after the Roman Empire withdrew. The Norse had been rocking up for three hundred (cf. the Danelaw).

All I'm asking you to imagine is that not all of these different ethnic groups were white-skinned. We're not talking about Europe, we're talking about a wholly imaginary fantasy setting where certain aspects of medieval Europe are imitated - and in that context, there is absolutely no reason to imagine that everyone is white, unless you're doing a direct historical parallel, cannot imagine that non-white people could have thought of European-style swords and castles, or are uncomfortable with the idea of non-white people in your fantasy.

So what prevents it? What stops you from saying "Well, in this setting the equivalent of the Norse invaders from across the northern straits look a lot like Arabs, and the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxons centuries earlier were really dark-skinned, like Africans, and the inhabitants of the big empire that withdrew from the island right before they showed up were much like the Inca"?

In the context of the fantasy setting, there is absolutely nothing anachronistic about this, because it's not England. It's like England.

Why I think this is a good idea is a separate discussion which has to do with maximum inclusiveness in the gaming hobby and a desire to do away with nonsensical Eurocentrism . . . but the fact is, there is no reason to have an all-white fantasy land unless you're a) doing a direct historical parallel or b) feel uncomfortable with non-exotic non-white characters in your game, which I don't think can ever have a really acceptable justification.

I would go further and say that I understand why some people are objecting to the idea of having a bunch of people of all different real-world skin tones sharing the same pseudo-European, quasi-medieval culture - and that's why I also think it would be a great idea to be a little less faux-historical about our D&D settings. At least, it would be great if Wizards of the Coast would make some more fantastic and less faux-historical settings, and let those who want to produce a traditional analogue of medieval Europe do that for themselves. I want more Planescape and Eberron, less "12th century Germany in fantasy drag".

 

[mhacdebhandia]

CountPopeula, you put it absolutely beautifully.

 

[Orius]

It would feel extremely forced to have a rainbow coalition of medieval peasants. It would be quite jarring to have a world resemble medieval England only populated by people from all over the real world. It would demand attention and explanation. How did members of all these different races travel to this locale? Who let them have land? If they get along so well, why are they still separate races?

That's more or less what I was saying a few pages back. If a setting has a lot of diversity, then it should be explained or make sense, not thrown in just to look diverse or to avoid offending people.

the sort of fantasy that is D&D is very often the kind of American Western story with a new change of trappings. And when you look at actual Westerns, nobody really bats an eye at black, Hispanic, American Indian or Asian characters showing up.

Like someone already said, the Old West had that diversity; the Indians had lived there for generations, Hispanics naturally exist in the Southwest in particular, given that some of that land was originally settled by Spain or belonged to Mexico, Chinese and Japanese immigrants were settling on the West Coast, just as European immigrants were coming in on the East Coast, and black Americans, particularly after the Civil War went West to find opportunity just as white Americans did. These days, since formula Westerns from the early 20th Century have long gone out of style, it's not hard at all to throw in some diversity. OTOH, an attempt to show a realistic Western shouldn't shy away from racism, since that was certainly present in the Old West. The thing here is not to present it as something desirable, or use it to promote any sort of racial superiority.

I've always been annoyed by a diverse bunch of European cultures, and then one culture that blends all of the Middle East, all of East Asia, all of Africa, all of which are just as diverse as Europe, if not more.

I think the reason for that is even as diverse as modern America is, we still have a tendancy to see things from a Western, European view. It's partially the culture, and partially how history has long been taught. For me, world history was largely just Western European history in school. That was 15 years ago and more. IMO, that was inadequate even then and even worse now. Like someone said earlier in this thread, homogenized non-European cultures in a campaign setting are less noticeable when people don't know the difference.

Because of that, I don't often use non-European settings. One reason I don't is because I want to avoid using bad stereotypes. I don't know how much of my perception of other cultures is accurate and how much of it is stereotype.

Anyway, I'm trying beyond the usual psuedo-Eurpoe tropes in my setting, and in part for reasons that have nothing to do with diversity.

First, I find the historical analogues to be creatively stifling. My last setting was composed of these, at first it was ok, but as time went on I felt restricted by them.

Second the psuedo-medieval Europe Tolkien rip-off crap has been done to death. It's beyond stale, it's so stale that even the mold has died from a lack of nutrition.

Exotic settings are interesting, but if they're shunted off to remote parts of the map, then when will they get used? The easiest way to start such a campaign world is to start in the Euro-ripoff land, and chances are the campaigns will tend to stay there.

Finally, there's a more coldly practical reasoning behind it. There's a lot of good material in sourcebooks like Oriental Adventures or Arabian Adventures or the Maztica boxed set or third party d20 stuff that explores non-European cultures, but placing them in their own little corners of the world kind of makes it harder to use the material, especially if the PCs never travel to those other parts of the world. I want to get my money's worth out of the books, so it can be easier to just make something new up that takes bits and pieces of different cultures that are interesting to me and use them together.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

And another vote for CountPopeula. Do people get prizes when they win a thread?

As to the: Mediaeval = White thing. No. It really doesn't. The middle ages is a name given to an approximate range of dates in an approximate area*. So ethnic mix, or lack thereof, depends where you're talking about. Southern Spain (I was watching a doco on Al Andalus last night) was a melting pot of Northern European (Visigoths) and North African (Berber) with significant populations of Jews and Arabs as well. Now if you want your version of pseudo middle ages stuff set in a pseudo England and therefore 99.9% white, go for it. But it isn't a necessary condition of mediaevalness. All of which assumes that a given setting must be analogous to some real world culture, which it doesn't. I think Mhacdebhandia has described a nice cohesive setting in which the whole rainbow of human skin tones can be represented.

All of which is slightly off topic anyway: the question is about art work in a modern 21st century product sold, mostly, in western nations. Should that art work be inclusive of all the ethnicities present in said communities? Hell yes. And I think anyone who hopes to sell a product to as wide a market as possible should have the sense to see this. That they would have the sensitivity as well would be nice.

cheers all.

*Or does it? I doubt there's one, undisputed definition of 'middle ages' anywhere in the world, but I have encountered the term referring to areas well outside of Europe.