D&D General Drow in early D&D

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think they went wrong with elves when they stopped being those whimsical fairies with a sense of irony that lived in tree houses. Imho only.

Also, why did they stop baking cookies?

 

[billd91]

The "racist" part is the sentence quoted earlier from the 3e FR Campaign Setting:

"Sun Elves ... are seen as the most civilized and haughty elves, preferring to remain separate from humankind and other nonelven races."

The Sun Elves are literally racist separatists, and racist supremacists, elevating the "Elf race" and being "haughty" against every other race.



The being "Good" is a fair question. But there is a sense that all Elves are Chaotic Good, except for Drow who are Chaotic Evil.

I wouldn't necessarily read our history of racism into Sun Elf racism. They may be haughty and prefer separation, but do they oppress everyone (anyone?) else? Do they have racist social structures in areas where they aren't or cannot remain separate? Even in the real world, there are very different sorts of racism ranging from withdrawing into enclaves to enslaving those who are different and these are very different in moral perspectives.

 

[Yaarel]

I wouldn't necessarily read our history of racism into Sun Elf racism.

I wouldnt necessarily not.

I have seen FR Elves being roleplayed with (American Hollywood versions of) the accents of affected British aristocracy. (Heh, I guess mainly inspired by Monty Python.)

At the time, they were indulging the trope, having fun buying into it.

But it is a small drift from that kind of pretense, to Anti-Western stereotypes, to serving as a vehicle for racism against Europeans.

 

[Sithlord]

The "racist" part is the sentence quoted earlier from the 3e FR Campaign Setting:

"Sun Elves ... are seen as the most civilized and haughty elves, preferring to remain separate from humankind and other nonelven races."

The Sun Elves are literally racist separatists, and racist supremacists, elevating the "Elf race" and being "haughty" against every other race.



The being "Good" is a fair question. Generally, according to the 3e Players Handbook, all Elves are Chaotic Good, except for Drow who are Chaotic Evil.

3e PH: "Elves. Alignment. ... Elves love freedom, ... and are more often Good than not."

In FR too, "Sun Elves have all the elven racial traits listed on page 16 of the Players Handbook, except as follows. +2 Intelligence," etcetera.

Thus Sun Elves associate with the same Elf that loves freedom and is assumed to be Good.



Wow! Even the 3e Players Handbook says all Elves are "haughty". "Elves. Relations. Elves ... look on Half-Elves with some degree of pity. ... While haughty, ... they are generally pleasant."



So, according to 3e Greyhawk core and 3e Forgotten Realms, the Elf is officially a polite racist supremacist ... and is Good.

Unbelievable!

No wonder the Elf got so messed up.

Being isolationist does not make one racist.

 

[Alzrius]

Wow! Even the 3e Players Handbook says all Elves are "haughty". "Elves. Relations. Elves ... look on Half-Elves with some degree of pity. ... While haughty, ... they are generally pleasant."

Don't forget that the 3E descriptions also attribute (typical) skin colors for each race. For elves: "They tend to be pale-skinned and dark-haired, with deep green eyes."

 

[the Jester]

The 2E Complete Book of Elves definitely radiates the "if you're not playing an elf, what are you even doing playing D&D" vibe. It's a widely despised book, but it was also wildly popular during that era.

Ah yes, the first D&D book that I just flat-out banned everything from after allowing one item in. Learnt that lesson!

 

[Yaarel]

@billd91

Also the 3e FR Sun Elf are factually smarter and viewed as more "civilized" than other races. How could one not read reallife European racist traditions into that worldview?

 

[Yaarel]

Being isolationist does not make one racist.

Being "haughty" and feeling "pity" for inferior races, does make one racist.

 

[Blue Orange]

I'd argue that most preindustrial civilizations (ie any D&D civilization in most settings) had at least some degree of what we would consider prejudice, though they defined ingroup and outgroup differently--you had barbarians defined as 'people who didn't speak Greek', for instance; Romans talked about tribal people outside of the empire the same way, and in China again it was groups outside of the empire. (They categorized them by the cardinal directions.) A lot of history revolves around inter-ethnic conflicts, and often you have one group that sits on top of the other as a ruling class--look at the Manchu Qing dynasty in China, or Normans in England after 1066 (that's why our 'common' words sound like German and our 'fancy' words sound like French-look at 'cow' (Kuh) and 'beef' (boeuf) for instance). Ancestry's very often a big factor though.

How much of that you want to put into your game is another story. A lot of your players may have had real-life traumatic experiences with some of this stuff.

 

[Yaarel]

I am happy to say, 4e backed away from this kind of "haughty" roleplay.

In the description of the Eladrin (= Sun/Moon Elf), there is no hint of racism. The flavor is they like magic and the Plane of the Feywild more than the Elf (= Wild/Wood Elf) do. The personality of the Eladrin is, their long life span gives them a long term perspective that makes it difficult for them to take any particular event in history too seriously.

5e is continuing this more empathic approach to roleplay, and is currently excising any traces of problematic tropes within the D&D legacy.

The thing is, these seemingly-innocuous but inherently-prejudiced tropes can blindside any of us when we are not looking.