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

[Don Durito]

Art is culture I don't really understand what the argument is.

In the past this sort of argument has not been about whether art affects culture but whether (or rather to what extent) cultural production and representation influences material conditions.

One reading of Marx was that the relationship of culture to material conditions flows one way from material conditions to culture. Now if you had pressed Marx he may have not necessarily stated as such directly, but it can be argued that it is implied.

Of course there has been a lot of push back on that with the argument often made over the twentieth century that art also influences material conditions.

Personally I think the latter is undeniable, but also these days vastly overstated. I tend to think the centre of gravity is way over on the material side, whereas a lot of modern commentary tends to act as if moving things around in the cultural sphere has much more influence in the material sphere than it does.

 

[JEB]

Suppose the idea of fundamentally evil humanoids is indeed removed from D&D entirely, because of its problematic aspects. There are also many monsters in the other creature types that resemble humanoids. Undead and fiends have already been brought up, but I think we can all agree that there's room for those to remain inherently evil. (Ditto celestials being inherently good.) You could also argue that constructs, as artificial creatures, could also have inherent alignment (though they're usually unaligned anyway).

But what about giants, which are basically just big humanoids? Monstrosities, like ettercaps? Fey, like hags? Aberrations, like mind flayers? Elementals, like efreet? Plants, like blights?

And that's just limiting examples to creatures with humanoid shapes, there are plenty of other intelligent creatures in those types. Plus dragons are certainly intelligent creatures... and currently color-coded for alignment convenience. There have historically been intelligent oozes, even.

(I guess beasts are sufficiently inhuman and unintelligent by default to never be a problem, but they tend to be unaligned.)

The question here being, if inherently evil humanoids are a problem - and I acknowledge folks have authentic concerns here - what happens if folks just replace "orc" with "ogre" as their go-to "kill without remorse" monster? Or ettercaps or hags? Is that still a problem? Is there a line beyond which they're inhuman enough it's acceptable? If not, how far would we have to go to actually address the problem at the default level?

Note, BTW, that we already do have playable monstrosities (centaurs and minotaurs) and fey (satyrs), thanks to Theros. (The Theros minotaur is implicitly humanoid, admittedly, but the Theros centaur is still not a humanoid - they're fey.) And per the recent UA, we may have playable constructs and undead on the way as well. So arguing that just "humanoids" should never have fixed alignments won't work, that ship has sailed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Having antagonists who are antagonistic "because they are evil" is lazy story telling. Remove evil from the game and the DM has to come up with a better reason why the PCs are fighting X.

 

[Bagpuss]

Having antagonists who are antagonistic "because they are evil" is lazy story telling. Remove evil from the game and the DM has to come up with a better reason why the PCs are fighting X.

Yeah but in most D&D adventures evil creature do have a reason for doing what they are doing (which is usually invading). In the Essentials kit they have been displaced by a Dragon moving into their territory, in Red Hand of Doom they are are being driven by their worship of Tiamat, etc.

In the Essentials Kit the Orcs make no attempt to negotiate a new home for themselves, they invade and take what they want, because orc culture is very much "might makes right", this is why they are evil.

 

[Minigiant]

Having antagonists who are antagonistic "because they are evil" is lazy story telling. Remove evil from the game and the DM has to come up with a better reason why the PCs are fighting X.

It may be anecdotal but that was my experience with old school gaming. The bad guys did things because evil or had unwavering suicidal support to a flimsy cause. Wandering one might be negotiated with. But Chaotic Stupid was a thing back then.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It may be anecdotal but that was my experience with old school gaming. The bad guys did things because evil or had unwavering suicidal support to a flimsy cause. Wandering one might be negotiated with. But Chaotic Stupid was a thing back then.

Me too. But in my defence I was in my teens.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man...."

 

[Bagpuss]

Me too. But in my defence I was in my teens.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man...."

I counter with CS Lewis...

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Just enjoy the D&D the way you want to enjoy it. Evil orcs are fine you aren't hurting anyone.

 

[Minigiant]

I counter with CS Lewis...

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Just enjoy the D&D the way you want to enjoy it. Evil orcs are fine you aren't hurting anyone.

No one says you can't have evil orcs. Just build a decent story for it and don't be offensive, purposely nor accidentally.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Thing is, this is enough to explain what happens:

In the Essentials Kit the Orcs make no attempt to negotiate a new home for themselves, they invade and take what they want, because orc culture is very much "might makes right",

You don't need this:

this is why they are evil.

All the "they are evil" bit does is say to players "therefore it is fine to kill all of them".

I.e., The takeaway lesson is: "if people are raised in a culture we find morally objectionable it's okay to kill them". A pretty solid justification for Islamophobia.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thing is, this is enough to explain what happens:

You don't need this:


All the "they are evil" bit does is say to players "therefore it is fine to kill all of them".

I.e., The takeaway lesson is: "if people are raised in a culture we find morally objectionable it's okay to kill them". A pretty solid justification for Islamophobia.

D&D needs villains. Let's face it the Orcs and co gonna be generic fodder anyway regardless of WotC jumping through hoops.

It's basically what they're there for. If you move it into another race same problem.