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

[PsyzhranV2]

I mean, by this logic, literally ANY house rule, any deviation of lore, any single word changed from RAW in any available book for the edition you play makes it Not D&D and not relevant to the discussion. If the book doesnt specifically say you can, you can't.

For this specific discussion, which involves doing a critical analysis of the text of D&D 5e as released by WotC and Hasbro, then yes, absolutely. What people do in their home games is tangential to the central question of "Does the text of D&D 5e contain harmful ideas concerning race, and if so how are those textual elements best addressed?" To say "just homebrew it" would be a diversion from the central topic, which concerns the default, unmodified text of the books.

Which again, is making me see a lot of parallels between this thread and the "system (doesn't) matter" thread. Saying that you can do whatever in your home game does not absolve the text itself from analysis and criticism, whether it be on matters of game design or on representation and inclusion.

 

[Zardnaar]

View attachment 133281



Like, what made Worf and Klingons interesting were when they filled in things beyond the monoculture. Like, one of the best movies was Star Trek VI, where you have a leader who wants reconciliation and a general who enjoys cultured things and actively quotes Shakespeare.



I mean, I don't understand how any other Orc is more bland or boring than the current one. Like, it's one of the dullest monster races in the book.



I mean, that's not a mark of quality, that's just a mark of familiarity. Warhammer has been changing their Orks for years and they're arguably the most identifiable Orks out there, alongside Warcraft.

That familiarity is what people like and makes it good for newer players.

Can a new or average DM make their race as interesting as the Drow or Githyanki or the Klingons?

Then can they repeat that over and over for every race they allow? Or just default to humans in funny suit.

That's where the monoculture comes in.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Look, I don’t give a hoot what @Oofta ’s orcs’ creation story is, or anyone else’s for that matter. Do whatever the hell you want in your own games. I just want to understand why so many people seem to so vehemently believe that non-human humanoids need immutable ethnocultures to count as anything other than “human with a mask.”

I don't think anyone is arguing for immutable monocultures. I can't think of anyone who's argued that individuals can't deviate form the racial norms.

But there has to be a culture, or possibly two. You can't just take away the culture that exists and leave nothing in it's place - then you do get funny-looking humans rather than meaningful races.

And for those with a more literary bend, the races should have a theme or narrative place. They need to fit in the whole, not just exist for the sake of filling in the alphabet in the MM.

(The argument against two cultures per race is that the books barely do a job describing one culture - certainly not a good job. Getting more than one culture in the MM, while still having enough rules to make the game replayable, would require a much bigger book.)

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not the existence of overlap -- though I won't speak for Oofta -- it's the total overlap.

So, are you assuming that expanding the range of cultures and roles for various humanoids will inevitably result in total overlap with humans? That seems like a dubious assumption to me.

What is the point in saying "you meet an orc" or "you meet an elf" when orcs, elves and humans all are culturally diverse, mechanically indistinct? What information does it convey? You can't deduce anything about his culture, his expected behaviour, just that he's a biped with some degree of intelligence.

I mean, I would consider that a positive, but again, I’m trying to set aside what you or I would prefer so I can understand why diverse humanoid cultures translates to humans with masks to you. I get that you wouldn’t like for a character’s race not to communicate anything about their culture or expected behavior, but if that were the case, how would that make them human?

How does "orc", "elves" distinguish themselves once you've removed monoculture and mechanical differences? What makes "orcs" and "elves" anything other than "humans-with-masks"? With elves, at least, I could see the extremely long lifespan affecting their viewpoint more than just cultural differences could, but it's not something I've really seen really played up.

The difference in lifespans is certainly a thing. Elves can see really far and dwarves can see in the dark, which is bound to shape their experience differently from human experience. Physical characteristics. It’s a fantasy setting, so maybe innate magical aptitude of some sort. Different native environments. There are all sorts of ways characters of different races are different besides culture. Heck, their cultures may even be different, if there isn’t 100% overlap between all races’ range of cultures.

At some point there is a point when "orc" isn't a meaningful descriptor, except for some mild physical variations. And this is the point where every race is the same race.

Those physical variations aren’t always mild, nor are they always the only differences.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, by this logic, literally ANY house rule, any deviation of lore, any single word changed from RAW in any available book for the edition you play makes it Not D&D and not relevant to the discussion. If the book doesnt specifically say you can, you can't.

This is a very peculiar argument. It is a very unhelpful argument. It, in my view, is a very erroneous argument.

Time travel in some form or another has played a part in a great many games I have played...for better and worse. Time travel can be hokey, it can be hard to do well.

My example was that in the campaign, using the D&D ruleset, the plot was that the antagonists were the PCs from the future and they had perfect knowledge of what was to happen. Nothing in the D&D core ruleset prohibits this in any way.

And certainly, if you slaughter the prince or whatever you are gonna get flack for it. Thats part of the story! It is what makes what you do an actual sacrifice! It's very easy to do good when there is no cost. It is when you pay a price for doing what you feel is right that it matters. When only you will know that you did right and whilst everyone else believes you are bad it really doesnt matter what anyone else believes because what matters is the consequence of what you did.

This is all a stupid smokescreen for the fact that the character you're describing, is still, in D&D terms, an Evil character. Because once again, alignment measures personal morality on an objective scale. This isn't the Good Place. You can spit out nonsense like "erroneous" and pretend I said stuff I didn't like "all deviations are disallowed", but you're never going to get around the fact that the character you're describing is Evil.

Now he may feel he does a lot of "good", but it's small-g good, he is capital-E Evil, because he is totally amoral and ruthless, and has absolute faith in his personal ability to change the future and always make it "better".

This is a classic villain.

 

[Zardnaar]

This is all a stupid smokescreen for the fact that the character you're describing, is still, in D&D terms, an Evil character. Because once again, alignment measures personal morality on an objective scale. This isn't the Good Place. You can spit out nonsense like "erroneous" and pretend I said stuff I didn't like "all deviations are disallowed", but you're never going to get around the fact that the character you're describing is Evil.

Now he may feel he does a lot of "good", but it's small-g good, he is capital-E Evil, because he is totally amoral and ruthless, and has absolute faith in his personal ability to change the future and always make it "better".

This is a classic villain.

Sometimes the villain is even right. Crappy dictator who's thing is "support me I ifffe stability he's ha ha" gets overthrown and the replacement is even worse and/or civil war breaks out/economic collapse.

Good old days looked good if you lived through the 90s in the former USSR.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't think anyone is arguing for immutable monocultures. I can't think of anyone who's argued that individuals can't deviate form the racial norms.

But there has to be a culture, or possibly two. You can't just take away the culture that exists and leave nothing in it's place - then you do get funny-looking humans rather than meaningful races.

And for those with a more literary bend, the races should have a theme or narrative place. They need to fit in the whole, not just exist for the sake of filling in the alphabet in the MM.

(The argument against two cultures per race is that the books barely do a job describing one culture - certainly not a good job. Getting more than one culture in the MM, while still having enough rules to make the game replayable, would require a much bigger book.)

Maybe “immutable” was hyperbolic. Still, this reads to me as an explanation of why you prefer ethnocultures rather than why you think cultural diversity makes humanoid races fundamentally human.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe “immutable” was hyperbolic. Still, this reads to me as an explanation of why you prefer ethnocultures rather than why you think cultural diversity makes humanoid races fundamentally human.

As I said mini cultures making explaining things to newer players easier.

There's pros and cons much like anything else.

 

[Bagpuss]

That’s exactly the problem. The setting makes people who judge all orcs based on the actions of a few right. And that’s messed up.

No it doesn't because if all orcs are that way and it is established in the setting to be a fact, then they aren't judging on the actions of a few.

Because they’re so far removed from anything we could reasonably recognize as people. They’re alien parasites controlled by giant fascist brains in jars. Nothing about them being inherently evil reinforces or validates any real-world attitudes.

And orcs aren't effectively alien? They aren't human that's a certain. So psychological make up doesn't need to be human, so what's the issue with them having a warlike nature, just a Mind Flayer needs brains to survive? The seems to me only difference between Mind Flayers and Orcs is how far away from human you consider them to be.

 

[Mecheon]

I think WoW orcs are aliens? Like literally from a different planet. I dunno, WoW is not to my taste.

From another planet but technically share the same sort of origin as humans.

There's a long version to this but basically they're descendents of a giant of earth and fire created to stop an endless plant monster from devouring all life from their home-world. They ended up becoming fleshy due to said plant having so much life energy that when it finally died, it turned creatures of rock and stone into actual living things

Humans, meanwhile, are descdents of half-giants of lightning and metal after Lovecraftian nightmares cursed them with the Gift of Flesh, making them organic, and eventually said half-giants stopped being so giant. Which lead to humans

Said giants they're descended from have the same origins