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

[doctorbadwolf]

The feeling is mutual. Thanks for the discussion and the respecful disagreement!

Likewise, besides, I’d much rather discuss the actual content of LoTR than the meta concepts surrounding the act of talking about LoTR.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fair enough. I would take out the word "perhaps." And please, just hear me on this. (And I am sure some o fit is my fault. I'm tired. So sorry for the confusion.) But interpretations can be incorrect. You just said you would roll your eyes and laugh at someone for it. If the only disclaimer for you is they don't say that it is "really about" something, then that is where our lines differ I guess.

I hear you. For me what I would consider incorrect is the assertion that this interpretation is what the work is “really” about. That, in my view, is not claiming equal validity to the author, but greater validity. It’s saying, “sure, Poe may say it’s about grieving the death of a loved one, but that’s not what it’s really about. It’s about this thing I figured out about it.” My view is that it can be viewed as being about grief, and it can also be viewed as being about the other thing, even if the author doesn’t view it that way. Both views are valuable to me as granting different insights into the work, but I wouldn’t take seriously any claim that one view or another is the One True Reading of the text.

Agree. But here again, if the author says: "Do not read this as an allegory." They say that because they do not want their work misinterpreted. Yet, if a few people insist on stating the opposite, guess what happens? Their work gets misinterpreted. That is not only unfair to the author, but also sets a bad example for comprehension and understanding.

Yeah, I get you. It seems like you’re coming at it almost from a historian’s perspective, wanting above all to preserve the author’s perspective for posterity. And I can absolutely respect that.

Fair enough. I guess that is where we actually disagree. I believe that if the author says their work is about one thing or is not about this other thing, and then we give equal credibility (legitimacy) to the people who did not write the book for their interpretation, then that more easily erases the author's original claim. You believe that other's can have their interpretation, and it does not lead to an erasing of the author's interpretation.
"What makes the author’s interpretation of a work more legitimate than anyone else’s?"

Understood and admired.

I can see that. Continuing the Tolkien example, I certainly think it would be a shame for his comments on his own work to be disregarded or forgotten. I just don’t see that happening as a result of allegorical interpretations being granted equal validity, and am likewise concerned that such alternative interpretations could be silenced or dismissed if Tolkien’s commentary on his work were to be placed on a pedestal as the One True Reading.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I adore this detail and am absolutely going to use it. This is the best thing to come out of this whole thread.

I basically had the same reaction when I read it.

The other tidbit I grabbed from that thread was the theory of Elves as prey animals in the Feywild, since they carry many traits such as resistance to charm, increased perception, and an inability to sleep which seemed to indicate that. I wrote down the whole post and theory, and then started using it to rewrite my elves backstory.

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They do get fuzzier. Because author's choose words carefully. It is their trade. It is what they think, eat, breathe and sleep. Words. So to claim a greater interpretation than the author's is silly. Again, if you are discussing feelings, like this book gave me the feeling it was about industrialization. Go for it. Travel down the road. Just acknowledge and understand that you are seeking that viewpoint out. And if you claim you are correct, even when the author says no, you are wrong.
If someone says, "I find sexual innuendo and human lust all through the work of Bob Ross." And Bob Ross says, "These are about nature and how scenic nature can be." That someone is wrong. It does not in any way invalidate their feelings. It shows a lack of understanding of the original source material. Again, their feelings are valid. Them explaining a Bob Ross painting to others should be stated as conjecture, not authoritative fact. Which, for the second time, was the spark of this conversation.

There is a general theme in these last few posts, and I'm just pulling this one out to discuss a few points.

Let us take an example here that I think might explain something of the perspective. Robert goes to a psychiatrist. He tells the psychiatrist about the things that have happened, and at the end of the session the psychiatrist tells him that he has anger problems. Robert responds by saying that no, he is just suffering from anxiety attacks.

Who do we believe has the most accurate interpretation? Does Robert not have the most complete insight into his own mind, the most authority about what he is feeling and thinking?


One thing that I struggle with constantly as an author is that I write scenes with "100%" of the context, I know far more about the scene and the reactions than I put down on the page. However, being that close can also blind me to what is actually going on in the scene. If I rewrite a scene, that first draft is still in there, coloring my perception, but it does not get conveyed to the audience.

Think of all those movies that have deleted scenes that explain a key part of the movie. Scenes that make you go "Oh, that would have made much more sense". This is the authorial intent. It is the deleted scene in the movie that can give you context. But it is also not in the movie, it is not the final product, and assuming that the author's unseen opinion is more valid and more correct than an outsider studying what the work actually says, seems incomplete to me.

The author knows what they wanted to say, but that can blind them to what they actually said.


Edit: Seeing how the conversation has evolved, and I pretty much agree with everything @Charlaquin has said on the matter, I want to be clear on my intent here.

I am not saying that Tolkien is wrong about what his work is about. What I am saying is that people can be misled about their own minds. Subconcious bias can seep in, cultural bias is nearly impossible to get rid of.

A simple example? I have to be very very careful in my writing to not say "Oh my God", or to always describe a house of worship as a church. I've grown up in the Bible belt, those assumptions are baked into my psyche. But if I am writing about a world without a God, or with multiple Gods, then saying "Oh my God" breaks the setting.

Another thing? I have "woman in the fridge" syndrome, especially when writing villains. I want to get across viscerally the impact of evil, and show just how terrible these individuals are... so I have them do one of the most evil things I can think of. Which, as a guy who grew up in the Bible belt tends to be attacking women.

And these are just the pitfalls in my writing I am aware of. Is there more that I don't see? Very possible.

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I'm a fellow traditionalist DM. (I avoid the terms "old-school" and "OSR" because reasons, just a personal choice.) And in my experience, at least in the circles I play with, tabletop gamers will do whatever they can to make their characters unique and special. Wanting to buck trends, flout convention, and be a not-normal special snowflake is almost an expected aspect of character creation these days.

Which makes trying to run a humanocentric setting incredibly difficult if any playable demihumans are permitted. You can do whatever you want to the demihumans mechanically—make them clearly mechanically inferior to the humans, slap them with onerous perquisites and restrictions, limit what classes they can take (or just use the Basic D&D race-classes) and limit their maximum experience levels—and you'll still get a table full of elves, dwarves, hobbits, and orcs with nary a human PC in sight.

So, I've found, if you want a human-centric game where the players don't have "I'm an elf! And my personality is—that I'm an elf!" to lean on as a character crutch, you have to make that explicit and just permit human PCs only. You'll get maybe five minutes of grumbling, and then the players will create interesting human characters with actual personalities to differentiate themselves from every other human fighter, magic-user, thief, or cleric, and ten minutes into the actual game, they'll have forgotten that they had initially been meaning to play "loud drunken boorish violent Scottish-accented dwarf #276."

But.

The old truism always applies: "IT DEPENDS ON THE SETTING." Some settings are human fantasy. Some settings are Tolkienesque fantasy, with elves and dwarves in addition to the humans. Some settings are Shining Force style kitchen-sink science fantasy, with centaurs and birdmen and robots running around, and humans aren't any more common or dominant than any other sentient species.

The rules—including any table-rules the DM makes regarding which races are playable in a given campaign—are there to serve the setting first, and it is traditionally the business of the DM to do the worldbuilding and delineate the setting milieu.

The bolded paragraph is something that doesn't make sense to me.

Your player is creative enough to create a human fighter who is interesting and has an actual personality to differentiate themselves from other human fighters, but at the same time is so limited that they can't possibly make an elf fighter who is interesting and has an actual personality to differentiate themselves from other elf fighters.

That seems to be a highly specific niche they find themselves in, and one I've never really found. All of my players seem perfectly capable of making interesting characters with actual personalities.... no matter the race they choose.

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I am sorry, they are not all right. Many are wrong because they're viewing it through the lens of their own ego or problems or desires. Or they read too much into it. Or they don't read enough into it. Sometimes it's hard to accept that the author doesn't want or need another person's words to carry their message.

An author without an audience is not an author.

Sure, maybe some really clever avant-garde people will make art in a place where no one will ever see it. Or write a novel only to burn the only copy to make some sort of statement.

But if there is no one to read and interpret your work, it doesn't exist. And, as I pointed out above, just because the person closest to the work has an interpretation of it, does not mean that that is the only way to see the work, or that other ways are incorrect.

Interpretations that are supported by the text do not need the authorial greenlight to be seen as valid interpretations. They are still there, still possible to be interpreted that way.

 

[Charlaquin]

I basically had the same reaction when I read it.

The other tidbit I grabbed from that thread was the theory of Elves as prey animals in the Feywild, since they carry many traits such as resistance to charm, increased perception, and an inability to sleep which seemed to indicate that. I wrote down the whole post and theory, and then started using it to rewrite my elves backstory.

Oh, cool! That’s something I’d love to read! Reminds me a bit of 4e’s take on gnomes.

 

[Dr Magister]

I have two separate campaigns running for this reason. The first is a relatively low-fantasy, gritty, morally ambiguous setting with a limited number of races (humans, dwarves, haflings, wood elves (the high elves are extinct), half-elves and (reskinned) goliaths). It's a fairly bleak world, with fantasy racism towards most non-humans, especially elves, half-elves and halflings, (that the players were warned about beforehand) and far fewer weird monsters. The party consists of 2 humans, a dwarf and a halfling. I'm also using some optional rules from the DMG to make combat more dangerous.

The other is a much more heroic, colourful, kitchen-sink setting in which any race goes and all the weird and wonderful monsters and creatures exist, and although unusual races will raise eyebrows and get stared at in some places, there's no actual prejudice. The party (the same players as the other campaign) are an aasimar, a halfling, and 2 dragonborn.

I'm enjoying running both equally, and my players are enjoying both campaigns for what they are.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And my experience is not the same as yours. I've seen both of those, and I've also seen where there was some thought about how that nonhuman would see things, and I've seen where there was no thought given to the question/s at all--not even to the point of stereotyping, let alone subversion of same.

I agree, and I would add that I’ve seen exactly the same level of one-note cartoonishness from players playing humans. Fighters whose profession is fighter and who like fighting, clerics who can’t remember their deity’s name, rogues whose main character trait is greedy, etc.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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Agree. But here again, if the author says: "Do not read this as an allegory." They say that because they do not want their work misinterpreted. Yet, if a few people insist on stating the opposite, guess what happens? Their work gets misinterpreted. That is not only unfair to the author, but also sets a bad example for comprehension and understanding.

Fair enough. I guess that is where we actually disagree. I believe that if the author says their work is about one thing or is not about this other thing, and then we give equal credibility (legitimacy) to the people who did not write the book for their interpretation, then that more easily erases the author's original claim. You believe that other's can have their interpretation, and it does not lead to an erasing of the author's interpretation.
"What makes the author’s interpretation of a work more legitimate than anyone else’s?"

If the author’s interpretation is the correct one, then there is an easy place to check- the text.

The issue with your argument (roughly, “The author has spoken, now shut up”) can be listed in a few common examples.

1. Lying. This may or may not surprise you, but everyone lies. The innocent lie because they don't want to be blamed for something they didn't do and the guilty lie because they don't have any other choice. And authors are within the superset of “everyone.” They might be lying because they want people to engage more with their work. Or because authors can be complicated and temperamental. Or because they think it’s funny. Who do you believe- me or your lying eyes?

2. Incompetence. What someone intends is not always what is produced; for evidence of this, I would show you any and all of my drawings from kindergarten through the present day (“That’s not a sun, that’s an octopus.”). If a text does not match up with the o tent ions of the author, then what matter more- the product (the text) or the never-realized intentions?

3. Structural/unconscious issues. No author is an island. For all the work that a lyricist, or a writer, or a director, or any other painter might put into something, there will be meanings within the work that they are not aware of. Do you ever watch something (say, commercials) from a period of time like the 80s and see that there are certain signifiers within them? Beyond just the clothes? Things like the camera shots, editing choices, sound mix, blocking and lighting? When they created it, were they intending to create “an 80s commercial” or did they just create something that reflected aspects of the zeitgeist? Now- think about Tolkien and the time that he was living in. Did he think to himself, “ima fancy that loves the country and the queen and will write some books that will make everyone realize that cars and factories and modernity is the devils work.” No. Well, probably not. . On the other hand, when Tolkien was thinking of a way to portray goodness (hobbits) and evil (sauron, orcs) did he use certain images and thoughts that came naturally to him, and would be different than those of someone who believed in progress through technology? Well, you’ve read the books.

 

[Shardstone]

Charlaquin you are after my own heart, I swear.

 

[Scott Christian]

There is a general theme in these last few posts, and I'm just pulling this one out to discuss a few points.

Let us take an example here that I think might explain something of the perspective. Robert goes to a psychiatrist. He tells the psychiatrist about the things that have happened, and at the end of the session the psychiatrist tells him that he has anger problems. Robert responds by saying that no, he is just suffering from anxiety attacks.

Who do we believe has the most accurate interpretation? Does Robert not have the most complete insight into his own mind, the most authority about what he is feeling and thinking?

This is Robert asking for an opinion from an expert in a specific field designed to analyze actions/patterns and cause/effect. Unless Robert is lying to himself, or does not bother to self-reflect in a deep way, then he is the one who is correct. An author, especially one such as Tolkien, lived his life reflecting on his work. Deep reflection. Same with most author's I have learned about. To dismiss them because an esoteric expert decides a different interpretation doesn't make the new interpretation correct. It might add a new layer - specifically due to the historical context changing - but it should not change what the author says. And therefore, cannot be equal to the author's interpretations.

One thing that I struggle with constantly as an author is that I write scenes with "100%" of the context, I know far more about the scene and the reactions than I put down on the page. However, being that close can also blind me to what is actually going on in the scene. If I rewrite a scene, that first draft is still in there, coloring my perception, but it does not get conveyed to the audience.

Think of all those movies that have deleted scenes that explain a key part of the movie. Scenes that make you go "Oh, that would have made much more sense". This is the authorial intent. It is the deleted scene in the movie that can give you context. But it is also not in the movie, it is not the final product, and assuming that the author's unseen opinion is more valid and more correct than an outsider studying what the work actually says, seems incomplete to me.

The author knows what they wanted to say, but that can blind them to what they actually said.


Edit: Seeing how the conversation has evolved, and I pretty much agree with everything @Charlaquin has said on the matter, I want to be clear on my intent here.

I am not saying that Tolkien is wrong about what his work is about. What I am saying is that people can be misled about their own minds. Subconcious bias can seep in, cultural bias is nearly impossible to get rid of.

A simple example? I have to be very very careful in my writing to not say "Oh my God", or to always describe a house of worship as a church. I've grown up in the Bible belt, those assumptions are baked into my psyche. But if I am writing about a world without a God, or with multiple Gods, then saying "Oh my God" breaks the setting.

Another thing? I have "woman in the fridge" syndrome, especially when writing villains. I want to get across viscerally the impact of evil, and show just how terrible these individuals are... so I have them do one of the most evil things I can think of. Which, as a guy who grew up in the Bible belt tends to be attacking women.

And these are just the pitfalls in my writing I am aware of. Is there more that I don't see? Very possible.

Just wanted to say these are nice examples. (I mean that. No snide comment there. It made me think, so thanks.) Here is what I thought of:
The subconscious is strong - in everyone. That includes other interpreters. They have the same amount of biases as the author, many might have more. They read through their window frame. You, the author, writes, reads, and edits through your window frame and your editors and, even sometimes I bet, your readers. Who then sees the larger picture? The author or the reader?

An author without an audience is not an author.

Sure, maybe some really clever avant-garde people will make art in a place where no one will ever see it. Or write a novel only to burn the only copy to make some sort of statement.

But if there is no one to read and interpret your work, it doesn't exist. And, as I pointed out above, just because the person closest to the work has an interpretation of it, does not mean that that is the only way to see the work, or that other ways are incorrect.

Interpretations that are supported by the text do not need the authorial greenlight to be seen as valid interpretations. They are still there, still possible to be interpreted that way.

Maybe I wasn't the most clear here, so apologies. I am not talking about an audience. Artists don't always need an audience, but it sure helps pay the bills. I am discussing another person interpreting the work and teaching/lecturing/pushing the interpretation out to the general public. No one in the Fayetteville library book club is going to change the interpretation or have the ability to sway a large audience to dismiss the author's perspectives. But a teacher (which is where my argument originated), a book publisher, a critic, a talking head, etc. Those are the people I was referencing.
In other words, an author's message can be carried by the common folks without another person there to interpret the works. Millions of people still read King without having the works interpreted for them. And many come away with their own viewpoint of what he is trying to say.

 

[Shardstone]

@Chaosmancer do you have more ideas like that Elf=prey wild idea? I love this stuff and would love to see more of it.