Aaron Berkowitz
Villager
Considering how good AL adventures have been with including gender and sexual diversity (as mentioned on another thread in this forum), I was really disheartened to see the antagonists of the first AL adventure for Season 4 to be stereotypical "thieving gypsies". Spoilers below.
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The players are confronted by a group of Gur, a nomadic people native to the Forgotten Realms who are clearly based on the real-life ethnicity known as the Romani (or Roma) people, commonly referred to with the ethnic slur "gypsies". The DM is told, up front, on p. 5 of the adventure, that the Gur "committed a host of crimes" "as befits their reputation". So in this module, the Romani-surrogates are not just treated like criminals, but they are presented as explicitly living up to the stereotype against their people. Similarly, on p. 6, the author states that the Gur "proved to be as treacherous as their reputations suggested". If it wasn't already problematic to present slightly veiled versions of human ethnicities as if they were negative, racist stereotypes, for those stereotypes to turn out to be true is just awful.
I'm also made uncomfortable by the language used to describe the Gur on p. 6, where they are called a "human race infamous for in the Realms for their nomadic lifestyle". The use of the word "race" here is very troubling. Presumably the author intends the term to be read as "ethnicity", but the idea that different ethnic groups consist of different "races" of people is something that was popular among 19th century eugenicists, not something that is acceptable in the 21st century. Moreover, if the author intended the term to refer to "races" in the traditional D&D sense, then this is even worse, because it implies that the Gur (and thus the Romani) are a separate *species* from the rest of humanity, on par with elves, or dwarves or halflings.
I kept hoping that at the end of the adventure, the Gur would prove to be innocents who were misunderstood by the other characters in the adventure. But no. Hricu really was sent to steal someone else's magic wand, Rilynin really did steal the gems, Kehkim really did steal the weapons and, while Ozzcar didn't actually curse the cook, he did drug him... All of this is supposedly done for purposes of self-preservation, but it still hews to closely to traditional racist stereotypes to be comfortable.
[sarcasm]Reading this adventure makes me wonder if future AL scenarios will send the players to "deepest-darkest" Chult to parley with ignorant natives, or head over to Maztica to barter the local's land for beads and "fire water".[/sarcasm]
Seriously, this sort of thing would not be acceptable if it was written about proxies of other real-life ethnicities or cultures. It's not OK to do with the Gur/Vistani/Romani either.
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The players are confronted by a group of Gur, a nomadic people native to the Forgotten Realms who are clearly based on the real-life ethnicity known as the Romani (or Roma) people, commonly referred to with the ethnic slur "gypsies". The DM is told, up front, on p. 5 of the adventure, that the Gur "committed a host of crimes" "as befits their reputation". So in this module, the Romani-surrogates are not just treated like criminals, but they are presented as explicitly living up to the stereotype against their people. Similarly, on p. 6, the author states that the Gur "proved to be as treacherous as their reputations suggested". If it wasn't already problematic to present slightly veiled versions of human ethnicities as if they were negative, racist stereotypes, for those stereotypes to turn out to be true is just awful.
I'm also made uncomfortable by the language used to describe the Gur on p. 6, where they are called a "human race infamous for in the Realms for their nomadic lifestyle". The use of the word "race" here is very troubling. Presumably the author intends the term to be read as "ethnicity", but the idea that different ethnic groups consist of different "races" of people is something that was popular among 19th century eugenicists, not something that is acceptable in the 21st century. Moreover, if the author intended the term to refer to "races" in the traditional D&D sense, then this is even worse, because it implies that the Gur (and thus the Romani) are a separate *species* from the rest of humanity, on par with elves, or dwarves or halflings.
I kept hoping that at the end of the adventure, the Gur would prove to be innocents who were misunderstood by the other characters in the adventure. But no. Hricu really was sent to steal someone else's magic wand, Rilynin really did steal the gems, Kehkim really did steal the weapons and, while Ozzcar didn't actually curse the cook, he did drug him... All of this is supposedly done for purposes of self-preservation, but it still hews to closely to traditional racist stereotypes to be comfortable.
[sarcasm]Reading this adventure makes me wonder if future AL scenarios will send the players to "deepest-darkest" Chult to parley with ignorant natives, or head over to Maztica to barter the local's land for beads and "fire water".[/sarcasm]
Seriously, this sort of thing would not be acceptable if it was written about proxies of other real-life ethnicities or cultures. It's not OK to do with the Gur/Vistani/Romani either.
