D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[BookTenTiger]

I think simplicity is a virtue. It's a game. I want easily identifiable good guys and bad guys. My group doesn't have to worry if they run across orcs that they're just an indigenous peoples defending their homeland.

When they fight humans, it is because they belong to a specific group but sometimes I also want "generic bad guys". Sometimes the generic bad guys are ghouls, sometimes they're aberrations, sometimes fire/frost giants, sometimes orcs.

As far as the word "race", I never said D&D was perfect. I prefer "species" because orcs are not human. I just don't have a problem with them not being human. If they are not human than any assumptions we make about how they think is up to the fiction of the campaign.

But how do your players know the humans they are fighting can be killed, compared to other humans?

I'm assuming it's because you have communicated their motivation. "This human is wearing the symbol of the organization that wants to prevent you from reaching your goals." "This human is demanding money in order to cross this bridge." "These humans are standing over the corpse of a merchant they killed."

Shouldn't the same apply to orcs, or drow, or really any villain?

 

[Alzrius]

The way race is used, though, I find distinctly American.

So what specifically about D&D's presentation of orcs, compared to how they're presented in LotR, do you find to be distinctly American?

 

[Oofta]

But how do your players know the humans they are fighting can be killed, compared to other humans?

I'm assuming it's because you have communicated their motivation. "This human is wearing the symbol of the organization that wants to prevent you from reaching your goals." "This human is demanding money in order to cross this bridge." "These humans are standing over the corpse of a merchant they killed."

Shouldn't the same apply to orcs, or drow, or really any villain?

I've already explained it. Sometimes I want generic bad guys because even though the over-arching campaign theme may be "save the city from Evil Inc" I also want side tangents where the group can fight generic bad guys.

Run your campaign the way you want, don't bother asking me the same question repeatedly expecting a different reply.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

D&D is not going to have a major cultural impact. The tail is not going to wag the dog.

The assumption over and over is that biological essentialism or whatever it is in D&D will actually influence people to believe this concept applies to real humans (I.e. that if orcs we encounter are almost always evil, people will think they can assume that about groups of people in the real world).

I think that is utter nonsense. There is not one piece of evidence of this.

if this is the case, should we worry about alien invasion movies where the sentient aliens are trying to conquer earth? I mean is the alien invasion movie making me generalize about people on the earth?

again, not buying it. As a result, if a person plays D&D with the standard assumptions I also don’t buy that it makes them become racist or whatever. If it did, I would not let my kids play it. I would not play it. I would question friends who were playing it.

WOTC is in control of what gets published. If it’s good I will buy it. If not I won’t. And neither decision will make me hate people from any other group. This video and their hypotheses are not convincing.

if you survey baseball fans we will find some racists. So should we say baseball and baseball fans are racists? Absurd.

 

[BookTenTiger]

So what specifically about D&D's presentation of orcs, compared to how they're presented in LotR, do you find to be distinctly American?

So keep in mind I didn't say Orcs are distinctly American, but "race."

This includes the way elves, halflings, humans, etc are portrayed.

In my own understanding of race, the whole idea of race really became Americanized at the beginning of the slave trade. Those in power in the Americas had to figure out who it was okay to enslave, and who it was not. They needed a legal definition, so they decided to use something called "race" (rather than wealth, or gender, or other factors that had been used to justify owning other humans in the past).

Legally now, people of one "race" could own people of another "race," but not the other way around.

In order to morally justify this, each race was given characteristics. People of X race were such-and-such, which is why they could own other human beings. People of Y race were such-and-such, which is why they deserved to be enslaved. Oh, and let's go ahead and say People of Z race are all this, and people of that race are all like that, as long as it continues the idea that Y race should be in power.

Even after slavery was abolished, this fictitious idea of race influenced laws regarding segregation, lynchings, housing, justice, voting... Every aspect of American culture.

We now know, scientifically, that this is all bull-puckey. It was all made up to justify slavery and keep people who defined themselves as "white" in power.

So where does this show up in D&D?

Humans are the "default race," and all the other races are defined by how they vary from humans. Sometimes this is physical (pointy ears, wings, etc).

Often though, other "races" vary from humans culturally. Dwarves are traditional, halflings are plucky, orcs are savage.

And if you are half of one of those races? You still carry those stereotypes. You are defined as a half-orc, a half-elf.

This, then, is what I find very American about race in D&D. It's used as an othering tool. It's used to conflate physical differences and cultural differences. And it's used to define how player characters get to treat others. And it's tied inexorably to skin color!

You can kill a drow because they are evil. How do you know they are evil? They are cursed with black skin!

Of course, this is not universal. But it is systemic. The very existence of Drizzt shows that in order for a Drow to be anything but evil, they have to turn against their whole society.

To me, race in D&D is very Americanized because it echoes so many ways race was used to enslave, kill, discriminate against, and segregate people based only on their ancestry or skin color. Race in D&D is Americanized because it conflates "dark" with "evil." And Race in D&D is Americanized because it's obsessed with bloodlines and ancestry.

 

[BookTenTiger]

The assumption over and over is that biological essentialism or whatever it is in D&D will actually influence people to believe this concept applies to real humans (I.e. that if orcs we encounter are almost always evil, people will think they can assume that about groups of people in the real world).

I think that is utter nonsense. There is not one piece of evidence of this.

if this is the case, should we worry about alien invasion movies where the sentient aliens are trying to conquer earth? I mean is the alien invasion movie making me generalize about people on the earth?

again, not buying it. As a result, if a person plays D&D with the standard assumptions I also don’t buy that it makes them become racist or whatever. If it did, I would not let my kids play it. I would not play it. I would question friends who were playing it.

WOTC is in control of what gets published. If it’s good I will buy it. If not I won’t. And neither decision will make me hate people from any other group. This video and their hypotheses are not convincing.

if you survey baseball fans we will find some racists. So should we say baseball and baseball fans are racists? Absurd.

How about this:

It is unkind to be racist.

If a storytelling game is structured in such a way that it carries forward racist ideology, the kind thing to do is change.

Whether the people who play the game will be racist or not is irrelevant.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I've already explained it. Sometimes I want generic bad guys because even though the over-arching campaign theme may be "save the city from Evil Inc" I also want side tangents where the group can fight generic bad guys.

Run your campaign the way you want, don't bother asking me the same question repeatedly expecting a different reply.

Forgive me if I am failing at reading comprehension, but I literally cannot find where you explain how your players know it's okay to kill X human but not Y human. I've read through your posts a few times.

I'm not trying to bully you Oofta or force you to play D&D one way or the other. I'm just saying that if you find it easy to communicate that players can kill a human opponent because of something other than their race, then it should be as easy to do the same for an orc opponent. Race doesn't have to be the reason characters can kill an orc.

"Your goal is to get the treasure chest. That orc is guarding it."

"We attack."

There we go.

 

[Remathilis]

All a villain needs is motivation. As long as a villain has a realistic motivation, it doesn't matter what race, religion, or culture they are.

If an adventure expects you to kill an orc just because it's an orc, that's racist.

If an adventure expects you to kill an orc because it's been raiding local farms, because it's sacrificing people to Gruumsh, because it wants to prevent the characters from achieving their goals... That's motivation.

How do your players know it's okay to kill the humans you put in their path?

It's not just motivation that matters, its representation.

So, we say, "you can't kill an orc because it's an orc" (the grosses oversimplification you can make). We'll accept that at bare minimum.

You place a group of orcs as the villains of your adventure. They are raiders coming from the mountains who are lashing out at the farmlands because they want to feast on the bread and hogs the farmers produce, steal thier treasures and tools, and sacrifice the farmers to thier depraved god of battle and slaughter (those who aren't kept at slaves or breeding stock that is, those half-orc adventures need an origin...)

Classic fantasy right, but also the very excuses that has been used to justify genocide, racism, and other forms of oppression.

So, we say, "Ok these orcs are bad for whatever reason, but not ALL orcs are!" There are good orcs and bad orcs, and not orcs are like this. We remove the "CE" alignment off the generic orc statblock, remove the alignment section out of the orc race. Maybe we move Gruumsh from "God of Orcs" to "God of Slaughter" and make him worshipped by all manner of sentient beings from elves to ogres. Mission accomplished, pop the elven wine, right?

... Where are those good orcs?

Where are peaceful orc tribes? The orcs who have settled and built towns and villages? The orc blacksmiths, guards and scholars living in working the major cities? The orc merchants who hire adventurers to guard their caravans against halfling bandits and raiders? The orc high priests and archmages? The orc nobles and royalty?

It doesn't do any good to say "orcs CAN be any alignment" but continue to use classic "raiders and pillagers" trope because that is an easy motivation that allows PCs to put the orcs to the sword.

Let's take another example, maybe those orc raiders were driven out of thier ancestral homelands by human settlers who turned their sacred lands into farms. Hiding in the mountains with little resources and on the verge of starvation, the orcs mount an attack to claim their ancient homeland back as well as claim reciprocity for the theft and murder of thier ancestors. Except the townsfolk, fearing the orcs who they were told were savage raiders by thier elders to justify the taking of their lands, hire the PCs to go and stop the orcs from lashing out at thier farmlands...

Still ready to slay orcs and take thier pie?

As D&D approaches a more nuanced perspective, the rationale of their actions because harder and harder to justify. Is the Keep on the Borderlands the last bastion of order against the forces of Evil and Chaos that seek to snuff it out, or is it the tip of the spear from conquering forces who seek to reap the riches of marginalized native peoples and ostracized religions? What if it's both?

 

[BookTenTiger]

It's not just motivation that matters, its representation.

So, we say, "you can't kill an orc because it's an orc" (the grosses oversimplification you can make). We'll accept that at bare minimum.

You place a group of orcs as the villains of your adventure. They are raiders coming from the mountains who are lashing out at the farmlands because they want to feast on the bread and hogs the farmers produce, steal thier treasures and tools, and sacrifice the farmers to thier depraved god of battle and slaughter (those who aren't kept at slaves or breeding stock that is, those half-orc adventures need an origin...)

Classic fantasy right, but also the very excuses that has been used to justify genocide, racism, and other forms of oppression.

So, we say, "Ok these orcs are bad for whatever reason, but not ALL orcs are!" There are good orcs and bad orcs, and not orcs are like this. We remove the "CE" alignment off the generic orc statblock, remove the alignment section out of the orc race. Maybe we move Gruumsh from "God of Orcs" to "God of Slaughter" and make him worshipped by all manner of sentient beings from elves to ogres. Mission accomplished, pop the elven wine, right?

... Where are those good orcs?

Where are peaceful orc tribes? The orcs who have settled and built towns and villages? The orc blacksmiths, guards and scholars living in working the major cities? The orc merchants who hire adventurers to guard their caravans against halfling bandits and raiders? The orc high priests and archmages? The orc nobles and royalty?

It doesn't do any good to say "orcs CAN be any alignment" but continue to use classic "raiders and pillagers" trope because that is an easy motivation that allows PCs to put the orcs to the sword.

Let's take another example, maybe those orc raiders were driven out of thier ancestral homelands by human settlers who turned their sacred lands into farms. Hiding in the mountains with little resources and on the verge of starvation, the orcs mount an attack to claim their ancient homeland back as well as claim reciprocity for the theft and murder of thier ancestors. Except the townsfolk, fearing the orcs who they were told were savage raiders by thier elders to justify the taking of their lands, hire the PCs to go and stop the orcs from lashing out at thier farmlands...

Still ready to slay orcs and take thier pie?

As D&D approaches a more nuanced perspective, the rationale of their actions because harder and harder to justify. Is the Keep on the Borderlands the last bastion of order against the forces of Evil and Chaos that seek to snuff it out, or is it the tip of the spear from conquering forces who seek to reap the riches of marginalized native peoples and ostracized religions? What if it's both?

It would be fun to have an adventure that is played twice: once as the knights protecting the Keep from the raiders, and once as the raiders trying to get past the knights to all the treasure and food that the keep is protecting!

 

[Oofta]

Forgive me if I am failing at reading comprehension, but I literally cannot find where you explain how your players know it's okay to kill X human but not Y human. I've read through your posts a few times.

I'm not trying to bully you Oofta or force you to play D&D one way or the other. I'm just saying that if you find it easy to communicate that players can kill a human opponent because of something other than their race, then it should be as easy to do the same for an orc opponent. Race doesn't have to be the reason characters can kill an orc.

"Your goal is to get the treasure chest. That orc is guarding it."

"We attack."

There we go.

The human (or dwarf or elf or gnome) that is evil will have a big indicator. They're the serial killer they've been tracking or they're part of the Red Blade gang or whatever else.

What I don't do is have sessions where the group is killing a human just to take their stuff.