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

[prabe]

Nigh on impossible? I‘d hazard that the great majority of people who have played D&D over the years have never made that connection. Most people don’t even know what the Curse of Ham is (I had to look it up).

I am happy to have furthered your education.

Also, I'll point out that's no longer what the LDS teaches--the teachings of the founders reflected the time.

I think people who travel in a very particular American cultural and political milieu vastly over-estimate how many others see the world through the same lens.

I agree, and I think that's a wonderful explanation for how so many people fail to see the racism in D&D, worse in older, yes, but still a festering low-grade infection that should be dealt with to improve the overall health of the game.

 

[prabe]

Do you feel the portrayal of monstrous humanoids in RPGs has had an actual affect on the way real life minorities are/have been treated? I'm with you up until that point.

I think the portrayal of minorities in popular culture has frequently been ... dehumanizing. I think it's plausible that portrayals of monstrous humanoids in D&D--especially when those portrayals have referenced real-world cultures--have contributed to that.

As a white dude, I'm not really in a position to say, but I see no reason to doubt those who see hurtful things, here, and I see no reason to perpetuate that hurt.

As you suggest in the bits I snipped out, I make an effort to be clear that any stereotypical thinking in-world is likely to be at least occasionally wrong. I even have NPCs presume things or make jokes that are if anything at the PCs' expense--and they're pretty conventional Fantasy races, like, elves and dwarves.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Fair enough, does that make FR Canadian?

If you were looking at Ed Greenwood's original, sure. Then again, you would only take an American lens that was about 15 years out-of-date.

Ahem.

On the other hand, given the vast majority of FR was edited, written, and sold in America, by Americans, I don't know that it's helpful. And, again this is assuming your question was in good faith ... which, you know. After all, "Look, it's just metal rock hair," did not exactly make me hopeful that you were interested in the intricacies of the conversation.

 

[Scribe]

Also, I'll point out that's no longer what the LDS teaches--the teachings of the founders reflected the time.

This was actually one of the primary issues between my father and I as I grew up. I doubt we need to debate this here however.

 

[Haffrung]

Uhhhh sometimes they have been. The reason they're dark-skinned varies from edition to edition and setting to setting. In quite a few cases, a "curse" turned them that colour, in which case there is a direct link between them being evil and dark-skinned, which is obviously messed-up.

It absolutely looks like the artist is trying to combine "black person" and "elf" to me. Notice the hair, which is absolutely nothing like typical elven hair, particularly. That's a bad example to pick if you're trying to say that wasn't intentional.

I guess that just goes to show how two people can see something completely different in a picture. That illustration looks nothing like racial caricatures of Black people historically found in American culture. If you showed it to 100 people walking down the street in Akron, Ohio and asked them what it brings to mind, how many do you think would respond ”African-American stereotypes”?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Giants and dragons should be free to be any alignment, yes, as should many others. Devils in D&D are not a race, they aren’t in any way comparable to people. They come into existence evil because they are evil spirits turned into powerful creatures made of hell by being rinsed of any personality and molded into lemures and then eventually into specific type of devil.

It’s fun sometimes to subvert all that and have a devil be more than that, possess genuine free will..

So you get to define what is acceptable to justify calling followers of a religion evil?

If a religion practices murder and summoning cosmic evil into the world, yep. Actions determine morality.

So, these cultists who join your Doomsday cult all do so of their own free will, of sound mind and body, fully aware of the evil nature of the power they serve? None of them have been brainwashed, lied to, raised by the cult, loners looking for acceptance, love or family, or forced or coerced to serve the cult against thier will?

Just making sure these nameless cultists are true believers before I cut down swaths of them with steel and spell...

Doesn’t matter. There were brainwashed losers in the SS. Their origin story doesn’t erase their crimes or the crimes of their fellows that they ignored actively supported.

Oh so like some Christian groups seeking the end times?

Violent Armeggedon cultists are pretty rare IRL. If a cult wants to “hasten the end of days” by having a lot of kids, they can have fun with that. If they started murdering people to bring about the end of days, they get no sympathy nor mercy from me.

There will always be people on the Death Star.

So what? They’re Nazis, in the middle of the war. If they die in the process of stopping the Death Star, the responsibility for that goes firmly to the people who commissioned and deployed the Death Star in an endless war of genocidal conquest.

Right. Which is why you go into an area overrun with orcs (killing orcs as you go) because you need to stop the BBEG that's behind their latest rampage.

Sure. Orcs, humans, some dwarves, some monstrosities and aberrations created by or summoned by the BBEG.
And my Orc PC feels not the least remorse at killing other Orcs in the process. Not because Orcs are bad or anything, but because even basic tribalism doesn’t tie him to them, they aren’t of his people. His people would never join a force of darkness like this in any meaningful numbers. Also because these Orcs are evil, as shown by their decision to join a force that seeks to overrun the free peoples of the world and force them to bow to a dark lord who eats souls for power.

Just like my actual current Gnome PC doesn’t hesitate to kill fiend-worshipping necromancer cultists who are trying to end the world in fire. When circumstance allows he tries to talk individuals out of their insane ideas, but otherwise...they’re fantasy nazis.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I agree, and I think that's a wonderful explanation for how so many people fail to see the racism in D&D, worse in older, yes, but still a festering low-grade infection that should be dealt with to improve the overall health of the game.

To me, it's not an issue of not seeing it.

What gets me is the reaction against it. As in, "HOW DARE YOU POINT OUT SOMETHING I ENJOYED COULD HAVE PARTS IN IT THAT REFLECTED THE TIMES!!!!! ARE YOU SAYING THAT THE 70s AND 80s CONTAINED ANY KINDS OF RACISM OR SEXISM? HOW DARE YOU, SIR!!!!!!"

I get it. It's uncomfortable. Times change. It's hard to think about things that we might remember fondly and realize that parts of it could be objectionable to others. But that's life. The problem really isn't back then; it's how people acknowledge it now. Because if you can't even admit that there was ever an issue, how can you make things better?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Do you feel the portrayal of monstrous humanoids in RPGs has had an actual affect on the way real life minorities are/have been treated? I'm with you up until that point.

I've met literal neo-nazis who played D&D, and talked to one of them for quite a while (well, "berated" might be more of an accurate description, but I did listen to what he was saying), and it was abundantly clear from what he was saying that the "kill the inferior monster races" aspect of D&D was extremely appealing to them, as was the whole general vibe of "justified slaughter" - including of Drow.

I've also come across people who were very anti-inclusive, and in favour of "it's medieval so only white people should be in it" (and other weird-ass attitudes), who were extremely keen on that sort of "slaughter baddies on sight" stuff, and I don't think it's just a coincidence.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I guess that just goes to show how two people can see something completely different in a picture. That illustration looks nothing like racial caricatures of Black people historically found in American culture. If you showed it to 100 people walking down the street in Akron, Ohio and asked them what it brings to mind, how many do you think would respond ”African-American stereotypes”?

Look at the hair. I feel like you're dodging the issue.

 

[Scribe]

If you were looking at Ed Greenwood's original, sure. Then again, you would only take an American lens that was about 15 years out-of-date.

Ahem.

On the other hand, given the vast majority of FR was edited, written, and sold in America, by Americans, I don't know that it's helpful. And, again this is assuming your question was in good faith ... which, you know. After all, "Look, it's just metal rock hair," did not exactly make me hopeful that you were interested in the intricacies of the conversation.

No, I really don't. I no more look at a piece of art from the 80s and declare the issue clear and settled, as I say that it's only through an American lens that we can view the game.

I'll view it from my own perspective, unsaddled with the American history of racism. An orc is no more a black person, than I am.

(Note: if there was a module that was based on the residential school system, I'd have some issue there clearly)