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

[TheSword]

So if a mind flayer is sentient enough to know that it's survival must come at the cost of other sentient life, the moral choice is then starvation and extinction?

I think you’re neglecting to consider the domination, slavery, and malign plotting that is generally ascribed to mindflayers.
And the psychic experimentation on their slaves. Oh and the implanting of tadpoles to erase the hosts thought and free will... and the giant engines to extinguish suns to ensure that only the mindflayers can rule!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

In my world, there's a group of mind flayers that has fled from the hive mind that resides in Wildspace, refugees from their own people. They live on the main world, hidden from other peoples to avoid persecution for their nature, and grow brain matter using alchemy and magic to make it so they don't have to harm other creatures in order to survive.

If you want good mind flayers, it's more than possible. I'm certainly not advocating for making them all good, as that would be ridiculous, but outliers that fight against their parasitic nature are interesting characters and plot devices.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Warcraft sucks. Whole fight right there.

jokes aside, you have a point about what people recognize as orcs now is less like what many of use have enjoyed before. You do have to know your audience.

as to associations with being called bad there are too many to list points on this site and others where people are in fact called racists for liking the game a certain way. Where it is not straight up said anyone can get the gist of what is being said. It’s not uncommon at all.

but you’re right. If more people want Warcraft orcs, give it to them.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I know I totally enjoy problematic media and while I can't always change it, it's always good to try to when you can. With how we've talked today, I don't consider you a racist or anything, and I promise you that, barring some drastic change in the conversation, I will continue to not call you a racist. While we obviously have our disagreements and clearly this thread has gotten heated at different times, I'm glad for the conversation.

Heh we want to get into things, why is it OK to state an entire lineage flat out is not only evil but one of their primary hooks is various levels of mental illness?

(Note, I love the Derro, I played one in a homebrew for Out of the Abyss as mental illness is a very big issue in my family so if there is a lineage that I identify with, this is it.)

Ah yes, the mental illness thing has always been cringey and I don't play with it. I play with them as a counterpart to svirfneblin, as a sect that was so into magical experimentation that they broke away and, over time and with their proximity to magic, have become something of a different race.

But I fully admit, I don't have many great ideas for them. Possibly a shadow-touched fey? Or fey-touched shadowfellers? Should start a "Make this race better" thread...

Not only are there billions of people who believe evil spirits exist, there are probably more people who actually believe evil monsters live in the forest than people who are upset when you call a monster "evil." They can be really upset by this topic, a lot more so than I've ever seen anyone get upset over the idea of a monster being evil.

I mean, I'm fairly sure they'd not be happy with you describing things as "evil spirits", but if it comes up I'm not really interested in fighting it. Wanna go back to Baatezu? Sure. <shrug>

This doesn't sound much different than, "Well maybe somebody could be inspired to worship demons or do drugs because of this some day. And there's no reason to keep these pagan gods or miraculous clerics around when we could just change them." I just don't think it's compelling to change something because somebody else imagines that a hypothetical third person might be corrupted by it. It's not even worth a Parental Advisory label.

Oh hey, cool, we're minimizing minority coding. Awesome. This is totally the healthiest way to have this debate.

No one talked about "corrupting" people, but rather continuing on bad tropes and stereotypes. That's a real thing that happens in media, where certain things are tossed around flippantly without realizing where they come from. Continuing to have them around just encourages people to keep using them. We should move away from those.

You're arguing that imagining a ravenous hyena-demon whose feast of death spawns psychotic, human-eating, sentient hyena-folk in its wake is morally wrong.

I mean, I didn't and I'm not, but if you want to have an argument with that strawman, you do you. We'll still be here talking about stuff when you come back.

More seriously, I think Gnolls have an amazing look and there are too few races that have a unique look that doesn't feel like it's just "European Fantasy". Having an interesting humanoid race that feels like it could inhabit the Serengeti? Sounds cool. Also I've thought hyenas were cool since I was a child, so I always hated most of their fluff. Their 5E fluff is awful.

Because Eberron is more complex and challenging. And this may be frustrating to sophisticated gamers like us, but most people don't want complex and challenging in their light entertainment. They want accessible and straightforward. They want snooty elves and ale-swilling dwarves.

I suppose I get this, but I think Eberron Orcs aren't so unique that they are completely unplayable anywhere else, and it's easy as all hell to simplify them down. Again, we're in an age where most kids who come into contact with Orcs probably did so at a more complex level than we did as kids.

One of D&D's great strengths has always been its genericism. Anyone who's familiar with baseline fantasy novels and videogames can hit the ground running in D&D. Tekumel, on the other hand, is rich and complex, and created by an incredibly creative linguist and cultural historian. But no matter how much promotion and resources Tekumel had behind it, the setting will never have more than cult, fringe appeal. It's just too weird and alien, lacking familiar tropes and symbols.

I have never actually engaged with Tekumel beyond occasionally browsing the material. And yeah, I get not wanting to get that deep into things.

Eberron is somewhere in the middle. And though I'm glad WotC re-released it for 5th edition, there's no chance WotC were going to make it the default D&D setting (and I suspect sales numbers for the book have validated that choice).

Now I don't think Eberron need by the default setting: it's a cool place, but I don't think it fits the classic idea of D&D. At the same time, I think we could probably take a few ideas away from it. Certainly changelings and Warforged are already a thing, right? Gotta keep evolving, and why not nab a few good pieces from your other settings?

 

[Haffrung]

So, WotC seems to be headed in the general direction of decoupling race from culture at least somewhat. They seem to have been asking relevant numbers of gamers what they want, through UA and the like. But... we here know what gamers want better than they do?

I was addressing a comment about why D&D's default setting isn't more like Eberron by pointing out the popular appeal of familiar, generic fantasy.

As for WotC's basis for making their recent changes, they wouldn't be the first company to mistake a few hundred people complaining about something on twitter or an online forum as a groundswell of popular opinion. Maybe they have other means of carrying out market research, but I think a poll or study that reached tens of thousands of tabletop gamers would have been noticed. Never lose sight of the fact that people who are extremely active online are not anything close to being representative of the wider public - not when it comes to RPGs, politics, or anything else.

 

[HJFudge]

I think you’re neglecting to consider the domination, slavery, and malign plotting that is generally ascribed to mindflayers.
And the psychic experimentation on their slaves. Oh and the implanting of tadpoles to erase the hosts thought and free will... and the giant engines to extinguish suns to ensure that only the mindflayers can rule!

Well sure but thats part of the problem, innit? That a whole race does this as default seems to be just as problematic as portraying all gnolls/orcs/drow/oozes as violent killing machines that go around eating people and enslaving them.

Monocultures in the default lore are, it is being argued, bad. Yes this goes for mindflayers too, in my opinion.

I mean can we think of a real life culture that is often sickeningly and racistly portrayed as malign plotters that infect a group from the shadows, engineering a plot for world domination ensuring that they rule? One immediately comes to MY mind rather quickly and famously.

 

[Haffrung]

Nothing much... except for the misrepresentation of mental illness that supports current stigmas...

Do we have any evidence that the presentation of mental illness in a fantasy wargame has any effect on people's real-world beliefs and behaviours? Any more than the relentless violence conjured up in a fantasy wargame affects people's real-world beliefs and behaviour?

The fact something could, theoretically, have a negative impact on peoples' beliefs is not enough to justify excising it from art and entertainment. Because if that's the bar we set, we'll have to strip down much of our culture to anodyne pablum.

 

[HJFudge]

I was addressing a comment about why D&D's default setting isn't more like Eberron by pointing out the popular appeal of familiar, generic fantasy.

As for WotC's basis for making their recent changes, they wouldn't be the first company to mistake a few hundred people complaining about something on twitter or an online forum as a groundswell of popular opinion. Maybe they have other means of carrying out market research, but I think a poll or study that reached tens of thousands of tabletop gamers would have been noticed. Never lose sight of the fact that people who are extremely active online are not anything close to being representative of the wider public.

As well, another poster earlier quite rightly game-theoried out their options, they chose the correct one.

The risks of NOT changing, especially in todays environment, are grave and the rewards for not changing are...well, there *aren't really any concrete rewards.

The secondary sanctions that are going on in todays climate are large. No one wants to be on the receiving end of that especially when there are no material upsides for resisting it.

WotC did the correct thing for themselves as a company.

 

[Voadam]

I've always seen hobgoblins as the most "human" of the base goblinoid races. Their noses are more normal, their ears are less pointed, their teeth are cleaner, they're closer in height and weight to humans than goblins and bugbears.

That has changed over time.

From the 1e MM "The hairy hides of hobgoblins range from dark reddish-brown to gray black. Their faces are bright red-orange to red. Large males will have blue-red noses. Eyes are either yellowish or dark brown. Teeth are yellowed white to dirty yellow."

 

[Justice and Rule]

1. Ya'll keep saying that 'nobody is arguing that' but we have a lot of posters saying 'these types of imagery are causing harm' and I think we can all agree that harming others is morally wrong, no? So that is literally what you are arguing. This comes off as dishonest when you deny it. And, even if it is not your intent, there are more than a few of us who are telling you 'Yes, you ARE' and then the question becomes: If enough people feel that this is what you are doing, does what you are intending to do matter?

No, most of us are arguing for more interesting races, rather than just dull and uncomplicated monsters. My biggest problem with 5E Gnolls is that they are boring as all get out, as making them demonic feels like it limits what you could do with them as a society. They have such a cool look, but it's just wasted.

2. It 100% is boring to have monocultures...but a 'generic enemy you can just kill' does serve a good purpose. That can be put into the game via bandits or, how I do it, is I have a group called the Warped which is basically any living race, sentient or not, that has been overexposed to magic that warps them into mindless killing machines. So Warped can be any race, any species, anyONE really. Bandits are...well, they are also boring to me for reasons that aren't relevant to the discussion.

I mean, that sounds cool, adds something to the setting (the hazards of overexposure to magical energy), and creates drama and tension since anyone can potentially be "warped". This would be a way better solution than just a race that's like this, and you could easily put a template in a book that allows for it.

Also its a bit odd how mind-flayers seem to be okay, you hand-wave any arguments against this without addressing the issue. They do not resemble humans enough? I don't think orcs resemble humans enough and it strikes me as...well, it strikes me as a bit odd how one can read about big tusked, green skinned creatures who kill and eat people and think 'minority race' but okay. I recognize that I am not the sole judge of how a thing looks...the problem is you are acting as if you are the sole judge.

Mind-flayers are interesting. I mean, gotta eat to live right? Is doing what one needs to exist evil? Maybe they only eat the 'bad sentient brains' or what have you. LOTS of different ways to do it that wouldn't paste them as entirely evil as they are portrayed in the books.

Mindflayers are meant to deliberately evoke Lovecraft, and thus having them be sort of inscrutable, beyond-our-keen monsters who use us as sustenance is just an interesting concept. Are they evil? Well, are we evil to a cow? It's an amazing sort of perspective shifter when you encounter something that's mentally beyond your capacity in the same way you might be to your dog.

Now do they always get played that way? No, definitely not. But conceptually it's pretty rad.

I think one of the reasons questions like this are so hard to answer (and you really can't handwave it away, it is a serious consideration that must be made) is because evil and good as concepts are very weak ones. I don't like alignment for that reason and I ignore it in my games entirely. But I am not asking the default to be catered to my tastes and implying that anyone who continues with the default is immoral (or propping up systemic immorality?).

That's fair, and hell, WOTC almost did it with 4E. And also, let's not talk about "systemic immorality" because it doesn't exist and I feel like it kind of trivializes systemic racism, which does exist.

Making the default lore to never cause harm to others (harm as loosely defined by those arguing that having orcs all be bad in the default lore does) is a sisyphean task. It is not going to ever be accomplished. We can't even pin them down on an endstate. When will it be finished? When will the books be morally clean and free from sin? Ask 10 of them you'll get 10 different answers. Or one semi-vague, inconsistent answer that changes a bit moment to moment.

I mean, change them to the Eberron ones. Or we can use my suggestion of making them a more complex raiding culture akin to the Vikings. Or we could take my other suggestion and make the MM more of an idea manual, with multiple short ideas as to how to make your Orcs. Say what you will, those are all endstates. Acting like "When will it end!" doesn't work when we keep telling you "Well, just do this."

The best way, the ONLY real way to make sure everyone at the table is comfortable is for the individual DMs and GMs to take the needs wants and desires of their players and run their game world accordingly.

I get the desire to make changes in the world for the better. But all these changes? There will be no effect. The time it takes ya'll to argue with us about this, ya'll could be writing your congressperson to end the war on drugs, something that will actually help the people you profess to care about. But thats not as sexy nor does it feel as good to take a noble stand against the injustice of how orcs are portrayed.

Nah. You change the world where you can, when you can. If you have problematic media and can change it, why not? What's the problem? Like, no, I'm not ending world hunger or stopping systemic racism or anything. But I'm making something I like better and less problematic. I don't need much more motivation than that.

BUT seriously, do write them. It takes 5 minutes. Way less time than it takes to post here. I did.

Always good advice.

 

[Azzy]

Do we have any evidence that the presentation of mental illness in a fantasy wargame has any effect on people's real-world beliefs and behaviours? Any more than the relentless violence conjured up in a fantasy wargame affects people's real-world beliefs and behaviour?

No, we don't. But, as someone that suffers from a real mental illness, I do find it rather gross.