D&D 5E Humans!?

[Hussar]

Now, to be fair, we do have to show some sensitivity. Well, at least we should. But, again, if we're playing in a real world type RPG (even a futuristic one), again, I don't think it's terribly unreasonable to ask the player to read the wikipedia blurb on the culture he's trying to come from. I'm not looking for Oscar material here. But, if your character is from, Canada, for example, then pronouncing it "lef tenant" rather that "loo tenant" is a good idea for a military style game. Mentioning a Prime Minister instead of a president wouldn't hurt. Just little things that can let everyone else at the table know that hey, this character is from this culture.

I honestly think the one that might be hardest to present might be half elves. It would be very, very easy to play a half elf as just a human that can see in the dark. But, hey, let a bit of emo angst creep in once in a while. You straddle two cultures, so, let people know that.

Everything on your character sheet is important. Class, race, possibly alignment, background, whatever. Those are there to help you build a character that is memorable at the table. Sometimes its pretty easy. The halfling in our Dark Sun game is very, very much a halfling, to the point of keeping separate rations, one for herself with her favourite bits from whomever we've happened to kill and the other stuff that is fine in a pinch and can possibly be shared around the campfire. If you don't want to bother portraying the species of your character, perhaps considering human isn't a bad thing.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not even slightly.

Particularly in the comparison presented between an European citizen and an indigenous Amazonian (who presumably has never seen a cigarette lighter, let alone electricity or a cell phone).

Cultural and behavioral differences and the acceptable norms therein exist, in amazing diversity, all over the world. To acknowledge that those types of difference and accepted norms exist, and expect to have some depiction of those differences in a game of make believe, is in no way racist.

Like SD says, not even remotely.

Yeah, acknowledging that cultural differences exist is not racist.

To all of the above:

Recognition of different values, traditions, etc. is not racist, no. But I don't think your strident responses are quite correct, either. That is, it is entirely possible to "recognize" so-called "differences" that are actually just vicious stereotypes if one is incautious about them. For example, the Volus (from BioWare's Mass Effect series) have been criticized as a racist stereotype. Is everything about them awful? Not hardly. Stuff like how they call Humans "Earth-clan," and presumably other races by "[Homeworld]-clan," is a small but interesting twist of wording. But other stuff...not so great.

For a different (and better, though not a lot better) example, consider the Harry Potter universe's goblins. We get brief windows into the differences of their culture versus human culture. They really aren't vastly different from humans--and, in fact, all the specific stuff I can name that makes them different really could be just a difference in cultural values. Specifically, Bill Weasley tells Harry that goblins have a different philosophy about ownership: something made by someone always belongs to the person who made it, or their designated heirs, forever. If someone else asks a goblin to make something for them, and pays for it, that person has paid to use the item for a particular length of time...but not indefinitely. They expect the item to be returned on the death of the purchaser, because it always still belonged to the creator, who merely allowed its use by the purchaser. Thus, to a goblin, a human passing down a goblin-made artifact to their heirs is theft, and they will act to correct this theft. Obviously, to the human, the goblin taking back an item "fairly paid for" is theft. A cultural difference between two species.

But this kind of disagreement over the nature of ownership, or other fundamental concepts, is not one that has to be based on race--which is more or less my point from above. That is, while physiology should be considered (e.g. a race without eyes probably doesn't have color- or sight-based metaphors), the vast majority of actually interesting cultural differences...are completely possible without having a "totally alien mindset," or whatever the phrasing was--and there's nothing saying other species actually do need to be radically different from humans anyway (because, again, logic is the same, the basal needs are typically the same e.g. food/water/shelter, some kind of seeking companionship, etc.)

Let's see, off the top of my head:

Linguistic differences
dress
religion
reactions to cultural differences

How could that be taken as racist? The idea that two people with such different backgrounds would have so many similarities that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference is a bit off.

I honestly don't see how roleplaying a non-human species is any different than "getting into character" with a human from a fictional culture. You're considering almost all the same things (differences of aesthetics, language, and values), and the only ones that couldn't be mirrored by real or hypothetical human culture are, almost always, physiological ones like having a tail (which is why I mentioned that).

These things also don't need to be dramatic. Really, they can and should be subtle but consistent, unless and until the underlying cultural/philosophical differences get dragged out into the open, like with the goblin ownership thing above. A light dusting of consistent but nonstandard (for English) phrases coupled with some forethought about specific cultural mores (and a willingness to embrace opportunities to find new ones)--that's all you need. And people should be doing that for all characters, regardless of race or cultural background. So...I don't see why non-humans are being held to some higher standard.

Also, I'd like to remind you that I wasn't saying they should be indistinguishable (though I know you weren't replying to me there). What I was responding to seemed to indicate a requirement that they be dramatically distinguishable, e.g. there would never be a doubt that you were talking to a human, even if you filtered out any telltale signs like voice sounds, whereas humans would be sufficiently similar that you wouldn't be able to tell quickly if at all. And that seems like a bizarre standard to me--anyone who comes from a different background should have a few ways in which they're a little different, but also a lot of ways in which they're similar purely because being a bipedal (or quadrupedal), C/O/N/H₂O-based, mortal, bilaterally symmetrical sentient creature means you're going to have a lot of fundamental things in common (and this covers a vast swathe of races, even many that never get written up at all for any given game!)

 

[Tonguez]

Not even slightly.

Particularly in the comparison presented between an European citizen and an indigenous Amazonian (who presumably has never seen a cigarette lighter, let alone electricity or a cell phone)..

So why the presumption that the Amazonian has never seen a cellphone? The stereotype of primitivism is where racism comes in to play.
For instance when the Enders Game movie came out a lot was made of the "Maori Character" (Mazer Rakham) and his full face moko (even more so that the character was being played by a part Indian acter). The character is half-Maori but really his Maori culture has no bearing on his behaviour or the story being told. It is a shorthand for him being different and a military genius but does it matter?
Most Maori who saw the film didn't mind - it was just great to see Maori in space (albeit that Jango Fett was a great start)

Now as to fantasy races I'm lucky enough to be an anthropologist and so I actually start with a structutalist view of races as written and how the fit into the milieu of the world. Starting with Orcs is easy so I asked If Orcs are as intelligent as Humans then why do humans dominate? What are the cultural traits of Orcs that determine their position in the world? How do they relate to other races and creatures and do these reflect the mythic elements I want highlighted in my game? Amongst the mythic elements I wanted in my world was blue gnomes based on smurfs, as such there is only one Smurfette and one Papa Smurf, all other smurfs appear to be young males -> my gnomes are a eusocial species with one breeding female and her brood of neuter-gender gnomelings. How does being small, eusocial and asexual affect gnome society in a human standard world?

Of course as a Folklorist I had a wider range of themes and cultural motifs to draw on in constructing my races pallette, but the process should work fine for all

 

[Li Shenron]

No offense, but isn't that kind of racist? To insist that someone of a different ethnicity must behave differently, and noticeably so, in spite of all the similarities between the various peoples of the world?

D&D races are not "ethnicities", they are different intelligent species altogether, although half-races dilute them (and if fact I generally disapprove the inclusions of half-races also because of this reason).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Now, to be fair, we do have to show some sensitivity. Well, at least we should. But, again, if we're playing in a real world type RPG (even a futuristic one), again, I don't think it's terribly unreasonable to ask the player to read the wikipedia blurb on the culture he's trying to come from.

That seems like a pretty fine line to walk, especially since it's open to interpretation and personal sensitivities. How do you portray a character of a certain culture, and make it obvious to everyone that the character belongs to that culture, without devolving into a walking stereotype? A person from Canada is likely to act like a person from the USA in 95% of situations. Those other things might come up, but not frequently.

Everything on your character sheet is important. Class, race, possibly alignment, background, whatever.

Is it, really? I mean, the character sheet also has room for height and eye color, but those tend to not come up very often. Alignment has steadily degraded in importance, between each edition. Why does race need to matter at all? A half-orc, raised in a fantastic human society that didn't suffer from fantastic racism, would act exactly like a human with darkvision and a bonus to Strength.

D&D races are not "ethnicities", they are different intelligent species altogether, although half-races dilute them (and if fact I generally disapprove the inclusions of half-races also because of this reason).

The most important differences between the traditional fantasy races are all cultural rather than biological. Sometimes those cultural differences might be informed by biological differences, but a dwarf raised by elves is going to behave a lot more like an elf than like a dwarf. Whether or not they can inter-breed is somewhat irrelevant to the topic at hand, although tradition suggests that they are indeed much more like ethnicities than separate species (or perhaps, like different breeds of dog, which can exhibit wildly different physical characteristics in spite of all being the same sub-species of wolf).

My whole point was, when you tell someone to act like a (D&D) race, you're telling them to promote the stereotype of that race. On the one hand, that's not supposed to offend anyone, because there are no real elves or dwarves who could take it personally. On the other hand, it's still suggesting that there are correct ways for a member of a cultural group to act, and if you don't conform to those stereotypes then you're doing it wrong. You don't necessarily want to promote that sort of thing in your fun fantasy game.

 

[Li Shenron]

My whole point was, when you tell someone to act like a (D&D) race, you're telling them to promote the stereotype of that race. On the one hand, that's not supposed to offend anyone, because there are no real elves or dwarves who could take it personally. On the other hand, it's still suggesting that there are correct ways for a member of a cultural group to act, and if you don't conform to those stereotypes then you're doing it wrong. You don't necessarily want to promote that sort of thing in your fun fantasy game.

To tell the whole story, I never tell any player how to RP her elf/dwarf/halfling, and it doesn't bother me whether they choose to stick to a stereotype (including the anti-stereotype in some case) or come up with an oddball.

What instead bothers me a bit, is to constantly see games where the race as a whole is narratively treated pretty much the same as the others. My problem is not the homicidal puddle or the sweet-as-a-bunny rottweiler, but it's seeing puddles and rottweilers mostly undifferentiated.

 

[steeldragons]

I think you mean "poodles." But point taken.

[Note to self: File Heading: New Monsters
Subject: Homicidal Puddles
Detail: ...almost certainly Elemental in nature? Immature water weird? Or Grey Ooze offshoot?]

 

[Hussar]

Saelorn I am not saying there is a single correct way to portray species. But there are wrong ways IMO. Your examples are all outliers, race X raised by race Y. But isn't that the point though. A dwarf raised by elves might act like an elf but a dwarf raised by dwarves would not. Therefore race matters.

Even if two cultures are 95% the same, that still leaves that 5% and a good player will make sure that that 5% comes up at the table at least 5% of the time.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Saelorn I am not saying there is a single correct way to portray species. But there are wrong ways IMO. Your examples are all outliers, race X raised by race Y. But isn't that the point though. A dwarf raised by elves might act like an elf but a dwarf raised by dwarves would not. Therefore race matters.

Even if two cultures are 95% the same, that still leaves that 5% and a good player will make sure that that 5% comes up at the table at least 5% of the time.

Yeah I feel like that is just forcing differences for differences sake--if an opportunity arises and would be actually interesting, then players (ideally) should be naturally inclined to taking it. If there isn't an opportunity or it isn't interesting, making it happen strikes me as unwise, forcing people to do things they aren't actually wanting to do.

And, again, those 5% (or 20% or whatever percent) differences strike me as almost purely cultural, and therefore applicable to all players regardless of whether their characters are human or non-human. Further, those things will be almost always more fully answered by considering the cultural stuff I mentioned (linguistic quirks, divergence of philosophy or values, aesthetics) than physiology, which is actually fairly near uniform for most D&D races as previously mentioned.

To reiterate: I disagree with "Non-humans should be clearly distinguishable from humans." But the differences aren't (meaningfully) more than "Culture X should be clearly distinguishable from culture Y," which should apply just as much to humans as to non-humans. Two characters of different culture, regardless of race, should be distinguishably different. And two characters of the same culture, but different races, should be less easily-distinguished than two characters of the same race but different cultures.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Two characters of different culture, regardless of race, should be distinguishably different. And two characters of the same culture, but different races, should be less easily-distinguished than two characters of the same race but different cultures.

I don't agree. Obviously this is all conjectural because we don't have any real world point of comparison, but in my opinion a different species, with a different biology, could have a very different outlook and attitude from ordinary humans. If I could expect to live for hundreds of years, if I was smaller than most other sentient beings, if my body was especially well-suited to live underground, I think it would definitely have a strong influence on my personality.