D&D 5E Fivethirtyeight Article About D&D Race and Class Combos

[Lanefan]

Orcs are non-white. Looking at the Lord of the Ring movies as mentioned above, the good races are consistently portrayed as white; looking at the 2ed Monstrous Manual (the first color Monster Manual), with the exception of a couple gnomes who look sort of Asian, and a one light brown human of several humans, all the PC races are white. For better or worse, most of the giants and most of the other human-like or part human creatures are also white (at least in their human parts). But orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins and goblins are all darker.

Makes sense for Kobolds at least - most versions of them I've ever seen have them as somewhat reptilian, thus snake-like skin (green or brown and somewhat scaly) similar to that of Lizardpeople or Troglodytes isn't a big stretch here. As for the others: Orcs' skin tends to also be greenish and-or brownish in most representations, Goblins do tend to be dark, and I've never really thought about "standard" Hobgoblins as mine are very, very different to anything the original game ever had in mind.

Ugly versus beautiful may be complex racially, but it's not any less problematic to say that ugly people are evil and good people are pretty.

In real life, no; but in the more simplistic "heroic" game setting it's just another not-so-subtle way of hammering home the idea that evil is bad/repulsive/etc.

Lan-"beauty is in the eye of the beholder only until the beholder eats it"-efan

 

[gyor]

Or we could try the only slightly more generous perspective that Tolkien knew his Dante and - as opposed to Milton's representation of a sly, romanticized version of the devil - decided to depict evil as ugly because to him there was nothing in the more unappealing in the world than evil. To Dante, evil wasn't temping, it wasn't seductive, it was vile, repulsive, abhorent, ignorant, and over-confident. Because darkness is one of the traditional symbols of evil, Tolkien decided to paint Mordor and its denizens with heavy brush strokes of grey and dusty brown. You can pull the race card on darkness somehow related to the dark-skinned people of Africa, but I would like to see sources; everything I've ever read links to the natural human fear of the dark (night) and the known without regard to race.

Absolutely, you find it even in African cullures, light vs darkness.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Orcs are non-white. Looking at the Lord of the Ring movies as mentioned above, the good races are consistently portrayed as white; looking at the 2ed Monstrous Manual (the first color Monster Manual), with the exception of a couple gnomes who look sort of Asian, and a one light brown human of several humans, all the PC races are white. For better or worse, most of the giants and most of the other human-like or part human creatures are also white (at least in their human parts). But orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins and goblins are all darker.

The Lord of the Rings is set in prehistoric Europe. It is okay for a particular story to be set in a particular place. The assumption of earlier editions of D&D was that your campaign was set in a similar place. It is less okay for a generic roleplaying game to make that kind of assumption, which is why newer editions of D&D have more diverse humans in their art.

Ugly versus beautiful may be complex racially, but it's not any less problematic to say that ugly people are evil and good people are pretty.

Physical ugliness in mythology and folklore is often used to symbolize inner ugliness. The trope is also subverted and played with, of course -- see "Beauty and the Beast".

Your last point is like saying you didn't draw Bob, because Bob doesn't have horns.

And what you are doing here is telling creators that you understand their intentions in their own creative output better than they do.

Some depictions of the Devil have drawn accusations of anti-Semitism because of facial features similar to that of Eastern European Jews.

You're using the logic I'm arguing against to attempt to rebut my argument. And if you don't like the devil features in the analogy, I could just as easily have used other features that serve in our culture as visual symbols for evil.

It certainly doesn't always go one way, especially as the modern images of horrifying fantasy monsters are built on a previous images of "savages"; in fact, I don't know of any fantasy monsters pre-Tolkien that orcs resemble so much as certain depictions of Africans.

That's odd, because most complaints I've seen about Tolkien's description of orcs is that they resemble racist depictions of East Asians. See wartime anti-Japanese propaganda for an acute example. As for pre-Tolkien fantasy monsters -- well, let's actually go to Japanese folklore and point out the toothy, misshapen-faced features of the oni.

You can't separate things from their associations simply; if people feel like orcs look like stereotypes of Africans, it will make some people uncomfortable and lead others to make racist jokes.

It's not always simple, but I do suspect that fewer people will feel this way if we don't keep repeating that orcs look like Africans(/East Asians) and instead point out that they, well, don't. Especially if there are plenty of humans who do look like Africans(/East Asians) in the game.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

the difference is that racists, even modern ones, call their targets inhuman, ugly and accuse them cannibalism and worse. We have physical documents to prove it.

...you might want to keep reading my post immediately after the point where you cut it off. I discuss this.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Or we could try the only slightly more generous perspective that Tolkien knew his Dante and - as opposed to Milton's representation of a sly, romanticized version of the devil - decided to depict evil as ugly because to him there was nothing in the more unappealing in the world than evil. To Dante, evil wasn't temping, it wasn't seductive, it was vile, repulsive, abhorent, ignorant, and over-confident. Because darkness is one of the traditional symbols of evil, Tolkien decided to paint Mordor and its denizens with heavy brush strokes of grey and dusty brown. You can pull the race card on darkness somehow related to the dark-skinned people of Africa, but I would like to see sources; everything I've ever read links to the natural human fear of the dark (night) and the known without regard to race.

Agreed. It's possible and maybe even likely that racism is, in part, driven by an instinct that "light/beautiful is good and dark/ugly is evil", and not the other way around.

It certainly would make for a different game of D&D if you couldn't guess what side anybody was on based on what they looked like. (Insight would replace Perception as the most important skill.) But I'm not sure it would be more fun if even more precious table time were spent trying to sort out friend from foe, and dealing with the consequences of making that decision incorrectly. That's fun every now and then, but most of the time I want more cues. If I were forced (say, legislatively) to be more open-minded I think I'd rather just play "monsters are the good guys, pretty things are the bad guys" so we could get to the killing and the looting with a reasonable amount of efficiency.

 

[prosfilaes]

Tolkien decided to paint Mordor and its denizens with heavy brush strokes of grey and dusty brown. You can pull the race card on darkness somehow related to the dark-skinned people of Africa, but I would like to see sources; everything I've ever read links to the natural human fear of the dark (night) and the known without regard to race.

Yes, arguing against the use of white skin for the good guys and dark skin for the bad guys requires establishing the intent of a writer dead for almost half a century. No matter what Tolkien intended, his racial patterns are deeply problematic. Arguing it's in Europe doesn't really change anything about that.

 

[cbwjm]

The only thing problematic about his racial patterns are that people are trying so hard to project real world racism onto his writings. Sometimes an orc is just an orc, the footsoldiers of their evil overlords so calm down with your "EVERYTHING IS RACIST" .

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Yes, arguing against the use of white skin for the good guys and dark skin for the bad guys requires establishing the intent of a writer dead for almost half a century. No matter what Tolkien intended, his racial patterns are deeply problematic. Arguing it's in Europe doesn't really change anything about that.

No matter what he intended? Intention absolutely matters. Calling someone's work problematic for some reason that he/she did not intend is significantly more problematic than your so-called offence over the roots of western symbolism, dualism. What you're arguing against isn't Tolkien or LotR, but the Western literary tradition of reoccurring symbolism and allegory.

Personally, I think Dante and Tolkien and hundred of other writers and great think calling evil out as vile and abhorrent rather than seductive and tempting is much more useful and interesting than them worrying about a standard political correctness that did not exist in their era. Expecting them to be racially sensitive is equally ridiculous as it is to expect African mythology to be filled with Anglo-Saxon and East Asia heroes, then after finding out it is not, to call African mythology racially insensitive. It's idiotic on both accounts.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

The only thing problematic about his racial patterns are that people are trying so hard to project real world racism onto his writings. Sometimes an orc is just an orc, the footsoldiers of their evil overlords so calm down with your "EVERYTHING IS RACIST" .

Such is what the world has come to. Real problems are ignored while we all sit around calling each other racist.

 

[prosfilaes]

No matter what he intended? Intention absolutely matters. Calling someone's work problematic for some reason that he/she did not intend is significantly more problematic

So when Ebert called North a "unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experience", he was wrong, because that's not what the author intended? Ebert called out a lot of movies for being problematic for some reason that the authors did not intend; it seems like your statement blows a hole in the whole idea of criticism.

In any case, Tolkien isn't relevant here; Sean Bean was not in Tolkien's Lord of the Ring, he was in a much later cinematic adaptation. Even that was just a visual point for the discussion, which is about D&D, and D&D in 2017.

What you're arguing against isn't Tolkien or LotR, but the Western literary tradition of reoccurring symbolism and allegory.

Do you think my intention matters? Or is that only for Tolkien that intention matters in what he wrote, and not for us peons?

Such is what the world has come to. Real problems are ignored while we all sit around calling each other racist.

If you're worried about real problems being ignored, then go work on them. I'm chatting on a discussion board just like you are.

And I brought this up in the gentlest, lightest way I could; I certainly have not accused anyone here of being racist. Hyperbole certainly doesn't help the discussion.