D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

My experience is that players will 90% of the time portray standard fantasy nonhumans as cartoonish stereotypes of the standard fantasy nonhumans. And the other 10% of the time, it's a shallow, one-note subversion. ("My elf doesn't hug trees/hate dwarves/look down on humans because…")

That's not my experience, whatsoever.

 

[Jack Daniel]

And my experience is not the same as yours.

That's not my experience, whatsoever.

Y'all are lucky.

 

[Umbran]

And that's factually wrong. If the author does something for X reason, that's a fact. It's not subject to interpretations that differ

What you may be missing is that, "I did this for X reason" does not equate to, "This is the only valid meaning to get from the text."

 

[Charlaquin]

This is the conversation. You imply the interpretation of a work should hold the same validity as the author's own interpretation. They should be equal. My response is no.
Do they interpretations change with time? Yes. I said they do.
Are other readings of a work valid? Yes. I said they are.

Let’s put a pin in this part of the conversation for a moment.

But if you read this thread, it starts with someone saying Tolkien wrote his books as an allegory! He did not. Can it be read as an allegory for industrialization? Absolutely. Is it valid? Absolutely! Did he write it as an allegory? NO!

I do not disagree with any of this, nor have I claimed to. In fact, if you’ve been following the conversation, you’ll notice that I took @doctorbadwolf ’s side in that part of the conversation. Tolkien did explicitly say that it was not his intent to write an allegory, so any claims that he did intend to write an allegory are factually incorrect, and I will stand by that assertion. But the conversation has evolved from there. Tolkien’s intent was the springboard this discussion jumped off from, but at this point we’re discussing something pretty far removed from that.

Do you see what happens when someone insists their interpretation is equal to the author's? They go and teach something that is not correct, instead of exploring a topic with open interpretations based on the past/present/future day context.

Forgive me, but I am reticent to take at face value the claim that English lit professors told @zarionofarabel that Tolkien claimed he intended to write an allegory, considering that he explicitly said otherwise, and English lit professors should be well aware of that fact if they are qualified to teach the subject. I find it far more likely that those professors taught @zarionofarabel how to interpret Tolkien’s work allegorically, and @zarionofarabel misinterpreted that as being indicative of his intent, when the professors were in fact merely unconcerned with his intent. Now, I could be wrong about that. Maybe @zarionofarabel just had some really bad English lit professors. Regardless, @zarionofarabel ’s misapprehension of Tolkien’s intent is largely irrelevant to the question of whether or not an allegorical interpretation of Tolkien’s work has merit, or for that matter whether allegory is present in Tolkien’s work regardless of his intent.

If you read all my responses, I have stated there are multiple and valid ways to view something. It doesn't make them correct.

You seem to be using a particular definition of “correct” here. From my reading, it appears that you are using it to mean “consistent with authorial intent,” and my disagreement with you is about whether or not this is a useful definition of “correct.” Sure, if you define “correct” as “consistent with authorial intent,” then any interpretation that is not consistent with authorial intent is incorrect. But that’s pretty circular logic. I assert that, while it it is incorrect to say that Tolkien intended to write an allegory, it is not incorrect to say that allegory is present in Tolkien’s work. An allegorical interpretation of Tolkien’s work is valid, and so long as one does not claim this was the way he intended for it to be interpreted, such an interpretation cannot meaningfully be said to be incorrect. Indeed, unless one claims that this interpretation is the only valid one, a meaningful statement can’t be made about the truth value of such an interpretation.

But the point is, when one completely disregards the author's interpretation, then they are just spreading their own viewpoints using the artist as a shield. A shield they may or may not have wanted. And that, to me, is inherently amoral.

Ok, but there were several comments made pointing out that a comprehensive analysis ought not to completely disregard authorial intent. Several of them by me.

So again, if you choose to teach something (which is what sparked the debate), do it with an exploratory mindset. Let others learn it through the exploratory mindset. But teach the basics: what the author said they meant. Not what person A insists it really means. Show that it can change, but explain the why. This way new interpretations will develop, and maybe even add more layers to an already great piece of writing.

Yeah, absolutely. Authorial intent is one component of critical analysis, and an important one at that. But analysis contrary to authorial intent is valid, and cannot meaningfully be said to be incorrect.

Ok, now back to the pinned portion at the beginning of your comment.

You imply the interpretation of a work should hold the same validity as the author's own interpretation. They should be equal.

I do. The author’s intent should be regarded as one interpretation of the work. One that is important to consider. But not one that has any greater validity than others. Because through any other lens than “how did the author intend for this work to be interpreted?” their intent isn’t particularly relavent.

My response is no. Do they interpretations change with time? Yes. I said they do.
Are other readings of a work valid? Yes. I said they are.

But you also said that other readings of the work are incorrect, and that is what I take issue with. An interpretation of a work is merely a lens through which to view it. No lens can be meaningfully considered correct or incorrect, they are just different ways of looking at it, each of which will provide different insights. As long as we are not making false claims, such as that the author claimed something other than what they said they claimed, we are not making any false statements with our analyses. We are merely thinking about stuff in lots of different ways.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Y'all are lucky.

In my experience, if your players play their characters as goofy caricatures of their race, you can solve the issue by just talking with them about why they're doing that. The majority of the time, they learned it from the DMs depiction of the races. If you play your NPCs of that race as caricatures, your players will do the same.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'll admit I'm an old school D&D player/DM. I've never discounted a player idea in osr or 5e, but I still wonder. Turtle people (tortles) flying people (aarokara), dragon people (dragonborn)... and so on.

Why do people chose these races?

To me, elves and dwarves have a human element. But Turtle people, and cat people and demon people and dragon people seem like the new normal. Do people who play D&D now, feel more comfortable with role-playing animalistic type characters than before?

It is kind of off-putting when your player party is a bunch of bird people, elephant people, demon people, cat people... and so on. I mean are humans even relevant in D&D anymore?

Is it a role-playing thing, or just a ability bonus power-up thing?

is the normal for D&D 5e is ampthormorophic / furry role-playing? I don't think I've ever ran a group that had a single human in it.

Firstly: I don't think they're weird. That's a big part of it.

Secondly: I'm just a huge fan of dragons, so dragon-people are pretty much a shoe-in.

Thirdly: I REALLY liked what 4th edition did with the Dragonborn culture of Arkhosia. Dragonborn are one of the very rare examples of a "proud warrior race" that doesn't automatically couple that with "really dumb and/or ugly." Arkhosia was a center of civilization and learning (though Bahamut was their primary deity, imperial temples always maintained altars to Erathis, Ioun, and Kord--civilization, knowledge, and strength.) Arkhosia comes across as an imperfect but genuine effort toward building a pervasively just society, which fell due to a combination of hubris/vengeance (internal faults) and war/drought (external problems), and carrying on its memory and legacy makes for an interesting background concept for present-day characters. Being tied to dragons makes them charismatic, alluring, persuasive--this is not a brutal and instinctive strength, it is a thoughtful and (ideally) noble strength, one that can leverage words as easily as weapons. That matters a lot to me.

Also, I think you're having a slightly biased perception of what people were (or are) comfortable with: remember that at Gygax's own table, there were people playing a vampire or a balor, and the man himself apparently had no problem with the possibility of a character playing a young dragon, so long as the character had to grow into their power. People running around with rayguns and the like weren't weird--they were just people who had played Barrier Peaks. Etc.

"Weird" races are simply races you aren't familiar with, because in many cases they've been possible in D&D or at least the wider fantasy-game milieu for a long time. Consider the Warcraft universe where you can play as full-on orcs, and later (in WoW) as tauren (minotaurs), trolls, undead, night elves (essentially good-guy drow!), wolf-people, even panda-people now, but can't play as halflings and half-elves (and half-orcs) are REALLY rare and special NPCs. Or the Elder Scrolls universe, which is over 25 years old now, where you have cat-people and lizard-people, but dwarves are explicitly not playable, both dwarves and orcs are types of elf, and nothing even remotely like gnomes or halflings is available to play. Meanwhile FFXIV has roegadyn (essentially orcs), au'ra (vaguely dragon-y people), lalafells (halflings), miqo'te and hrothgar (two different kinds of cat-people--"catboy/catgirl" type and "lion-man" type), and viera (rabbit-people), yet "dwarf" as we would generally understand the term isn't a playable race.

The only reason things outside the "core four" are "weird" is because people have chosen to stay in the bubble of Tolkienesque tradition. And that's a perfectly valid choice to make! I'm not passing judgment by saying that. But if you look to the wider world of fiction, and especially if you include the worlds that video games are set in? You really can't argue that reptilian races or cat-people races or whatever are that "weird." Some of the most important, widely-known fantasy universes have such things commonplace in them.

This is why I have continually called for NOT continuing this pattern of designating some races as "standard" and other races as "exotic." Instead, I think we should identify the KINDS of stories that tend to use certain options. A world with dragonborn as crocodile-people, longtooth and swiftclaw shifters as dog-headed and cat-headed people, and aarakockra as bird-headed people, would make PERFECT sense as a Fantasy Egypt setting! That could be a really interesting direction to take things! Or perhaps a Greek setting where the Spartoi ruling class of Thebes (note: NOT to be confused with Sparta) are dragonborn, while the Myrmidones are thri-kreen, etc. The world is your oyster--drawing on the disparate myths of cultures all over the world, it behooves you to NOT be limited to just what is "traditionally" available, but to consider what things would make for an interesting and rich setting.

Edit:
Good lord, are we really rehashing the entire "death of the author" concept here?

Authorial intent matters, and it should be considered to have some more relevance than simply whatever-the-hell-random-person-A thinks. Works can, however, gain new relevance when contrasted with events that the author did not consider or which they could not have considered because the work happened before those events. Authorial intent matters, but it's a place to begin, not a place to end discussion--and it SHOULD be the case that some interpretations are more valid, or more valuable, than others.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'd be inclined to say that what @Jack Daniel is saying reflects their own experience at gaming tables--whether as GM or player isn't super-relevant. I've seen players who behaved as though their character's race was the least important thing about them (at least in the character's mind) and I've seen players choose race strictly for mechanical advantage (to be fair, in a circumstance where ability scores were rolled in order before choosing race) and I've seen players embrace their characters' race and try to figure what it meant to be a ... whatever. I can imagine that people might have had narrower experiences than mine, or wider.

Yeah, for sure. I’ve definitely seen players portray nonhuman characters whose personalities began and ended with their race. I’ve also seen players portray nonhuman characters with as much depth and nuance as any human character - indeed, with more depth and nuance than some human characters I’ve seen. What I find curious is that many DMs I’ve spoken with online (generally “old school” DMs) dismiss the latter category of characters off-hand as “human with a funny hat.” I find this logic rather circular. Yes, if you consider depth and nuance to be fundamentally human characteristics, then it becomes impossible to portray nonhuman characters with depth and nuance. So... don’t do that.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

When we speak about art, we must remember that there are three works - the work the creator intended, the work that was actually produced, and the work as the audience perceives it.

We tend to speak as if the first work of these three is really paramount. But that's an authoritarian notion - that the artist gets to dictate what the art means. At this point, though, we should note that the audience gets to do what it darned well wants - partaking of the art in no way obligates the audience to the artist's intention. The artist is not entitled to obedience from the audience.

And artists who forget that tend to come across as jerks.

This is the key. It's a big theme in communication studies, but from what I've learned in art history it applies just as much over there as well.

I feel there's a bigger point to be made here. I'll have to dig up my university notes before I can say what it is for certain though. Might be more of a sociology thing than an English literature thing.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think the simplest way to express what I mean:

• Allowing others to interpret a work as though they are equal to the creator opens the possibility for over analysis or misinterpretation.

Equal to the creator in what way? Misinterpretation by what definition?

• Being humble about not knowing something as well as the creator leads to other interpretations that might change the creator's material. But, it also keeps the creator present and in the interpretation, not wiping them away.

Sure. It’s valuable to recognize that the creator of a work has insight into it that you might lack. But if you put the creator’s insights on a pedestal, you close yourself off to potential insights they might lack. It’s worthwhile to study trees in-depth, but it is equally worthwhile to study the forest as a whole. If you treat either as more important, you can end up missing the value of the other.

• Once someone says I am equal to the creator, people can ditch the creator's interpretation. And then the possibility exists of losing it forever.

I disagree. If one says one is greater than the creator, sure. But if one says one is equal to the creator, they are as likely to ditch their own interpretation as the creator’s. Which is to say, not likely.

 

[Charlaquin]

My experience is that players will 90% of the time portray standard fantasy nonhumans as cartoonish stereotypes of the standard fantasy nonhumans. And the other 10% of the time, it's a shallow, one-note subversion. ("My elf doesn't hug trees/hate dwarves/look down on humans because…")

That has definitely not been my experience.