D&D General Demihumans of Color and the Thermian Argument

[Steampunkette]

Ya, you're right, I garbled my point there.

I meant point 1.) as the thermian argument--people making arguments based within the fiction of received pop cultural ideas--versus point 2.) as the ethics/politics--specifically representation--argument.


Mea culpa. That was also poorly stated.

I didn't mean for this to be a dismissive thread.

Please note that the next bit after what you quoted is:

And I see the first half of that dichotomy as totally valid and reasonable.

Elves -are- symbolic of people, though.

They're a participant-insert character, symbolizing the player at the table in the game world and their desires and understanding of what elves are, or their elf at the least "Should Be".

The Thermian Argument is bad. It presumes that the world is set and unique and created outside authorial intent with no reflection on the author. This is wrong. "Sisters of Mercy are the only Warhammer 40k female unit and you can't make a Female Space Marine because they're not strong enough and also not allowed because of the God Emperor's edict!" is not a reason. It's a deflection built around a sexist bias instilled in the game by it's designers.

A cop out, in short.

And when a Designer decides to apply that to race it's a racist cop out.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This is The Doctor erasure and I will not be having it.

Tuvok, the Doctor, and Seven of Nine should've had their own show.

Agreed. I just like Tuvok a little bit more than the Doctor. Mostly for line delivery.

 

[the Jester]

Sometimes I wonder if dolphins and whales are this, an intelligent species that is alien to human ways of thinking. They dont have hands, so they are less ... manipulative. But they are surprisingly intelligent.

In my campaign, dolphins are a pc race option when I run aquatic games.

 

[Shardstone]

I don't mean this as an insult to anyone.

But there's something truly odd in people of the majority (in this case, white) telling people in the minority that their desire for representation doesn't matter, and that we shouldn't be asking for it whatsoever.

I'm mixed. Half black, half white. White-passing too, except for my hair and facial features. I have a unique look. My siblings have unique looks. My father, who is black, has a unique look. And growing up, I never saw anyone like me, my siblings, or my father in anything fantasy related.

It was blond white people with blue eyes and pointy ears and shaped like Adonis. It was black haired white people with straight hair and Euro-centric beauty standards. And to those of you on this forum who are white and think "Representation doesn't matter," you're telling us who are not white that if we want to see what a black elf would be like, or an elf with braids, or an elf with kinky hair that what we look like is so profoundly alien to you that you can't even comprehend why we want to see more of it.

And the argument that Fantasy doesn't need to adhere to real-world standards of diversity is beyond childish. It is shortsighted. Nothing has to adhere to anything. Fantasy is made up. Fantasy isn't real. And above all, Fantasy is made for an audience in mind, to be sold, to be packaged, to be given to consumers in America, because we ingest our Fantasy from novels and video games and tabletop and from artists who are trying to build their portfolios and from artists who imagine amazing things and from artists who sell their skills to paint the image of fantasy that we so enjoy.

Why is it though that Fantasy can be made up and created, yet can't adhere to diversity? What is it about Fantasy that makes it so troublesome to show that elves aren't always white, or dwarves or halflings? What is it that people cannot understand when someone of color says "I want to see people like me?"

I find it deeply troubling that so many people try to mask this as "symbollic" or what have you, that elves are white. I find it deeply troubling that people consider the idea of representation a cry for attention, or an unreasonable demand.

Children seeing people like them do amazing and fantastic things is important.

And let's not forget there are racists in their hobby. I've seen them, talked to them, and gamed with them. I've had them criticize my projects for having queer, black, or trans NPCs in them. I've seen them use slurs at minorities and at the LGBT+ crowd, and I've seen them use the indifference so many people have on this forum (which is held by a sizable faction of the TTRPG audience) as fuel for their racist agendas.

So, really, what I'm getting at is this.

Minorities need representation. It normalizes them, broadens worldview, and inspires them to see heroes that look like them, even if the race is different.

Racists use indifference to representation as a weapon. If you haven't seen this, its probably because you're not the target of it. Its real, and you need to believe us when we tell you that its real.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sometimes I wonder if dolphins and whales are this, an intelligent species that is alien to human ways of thinking. They dont have hands, so they are less ... manipulative. But they are surprisingly intelligent.

Yeah, we don’t need to look beyond Earth to find examples of non-human intelligence. Plenty of animals are extremely intelligent, just in different ways than we are. The problem is, we tend to conceive of, define, and measure intelligence in a very anthropo-centric way. There’s no reason to assume alien life would be any more intellectually similar to us than dolphins, or or crows, or octopodes. In fact, there’s good reason to assume they would be even less similar to us.

That’s one part (among many) of why the “make fantasy races less human” position falls flat for me. They’re clearly human with only small exceptions, in both appearance and psychology. As they should be! That’s what makes them useful storytelling tools. All stories are human stories, so if fantasy races weren’t ultimately human, they wouldn’t really be suitable protagonists.

 

[Steampunkette]

Ask yourselves why you're defending the idea that Fantasy shouldn't have or shouldn't "Need" diversity and variety of peoples while also thinking it needs to have a bunch of Elves and Dwarves and Dragons and stuff in it.

Like... is that the limit of your fantasy? Flying giant firebreathing monsters that hoard gold is goodd, but the idea of a black halfling is just a border "Too Far" and it has to be relentlessly questioned and challenged?

'Cause -that's- what's happening, here. You're challenging members of minorities to argue why they should be represented in a Fantasy game, saying it's childish/foolish/wrong to try, and arguing from a presumed position of Authority about it all... While -not- arguing about whether Dragons or Beholders or Mind Flayers have any place in fantasy.

Dragons? Cool. Black People? WE NEED TO TALK.

This does not paint your position in a positive light... not by a longshot.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here's another example that takes race out of the equation. I have run games for deaf players in the past. Frequently, some of them ask, "Can my character be deaf?"

They are not asking this because they want to take a disadvantage for extra points, or because they want me to make in-game communication hard for them (they certainly face that enough in real life). They are asking, "Can my character be like me?"

If you're a white/cis/straight/non-disabled person, the answer to that question is always "yeah, sure." But if you belong to a group that doesn't fit in with that mold, some people want to throw up barriers for whatever reason.

And yes, I let them play deaf characters. If they want to envision the mysterious guy in the tavern corner signing instead of speaking when he offers them a treasure map, what difference does it really make?

Yup, my partner who has a bad leg almost always plays characters who are physically disabled in some way. Interestingly, they do want their character’s disability reflected mechanically though - not any particularly harsh penalty, but they want to have something to work around, because that’s their life experience and having their character share that experience helps them feel like theirs.

 

[Faolyn]

As someone who likes to give their demihumans an inhuman mindset, I don't really see this as a problem. Only a fraction of my players over the years have deeply engaged with the lore to such a level.

I think that right there is the problem. You can create as inhuman a mindset as you can think up, and most players will either ignore that mindset or not play the race at all. So there needs to be a happy medium where the race is alien enough to be different but not so alien that it can't be understood and played.

I'm not saying it's not possible. Just that it's difficult.

 

[Oofta]

I'm probably not as sensitive to it as I could be, but I also think we have made progress. It wasn't that long ago that someone threw a hissy fit at a game day because there was a mention of a lesbian couple. His reaction was that "it was supposed to be a family friendly game". In addition, some of the art is starting to show diversity, even if it isn't enough.

However, I do have an issue with every depiction of anything negative in a campaign being justified because of the type of creature, the culture or other aspects of in game universe as "a Thermian argument". In other words, sexist chainmail bikinis are IMHO stupid. But a campaign world that says "in this region women are treated poorly, it's a very patriarchal society", while not something I would do in my campaign is legitimate. Saying that a non-human creature does not think like a human, even if intelligent, is justifiable.

So I think it's two separate things. Some things can be justified by the setting. Having little differentiation in skin color, hair, facial features or chainmail bikinis is not on that list. Some of the things people would put on the Thermian list, I would not.

 

[Shardstone]

I'm probably not as sensitive to it as I could be, but I also think we have made progress. It wasn't that long ago that someone threw a hissy fit at a game day because there was a mention of a lesbian couple. His reaction was that "it was supposed to be a family friendly game". In addition, some of the art is starting to show diversity, even if it isn't enough.

However, I do have an issue with every depiction of anything negative in a campaign being justified because of the type of creature, the culture or other aspects of in game universe as "a Thermian argument". In other words, sexist chainmail bikinis are IMHO stupid. But a campaign world that says "in this region women are treated poorly, it's a very patriarchal society", while not something I would do in my campaign is legitimate. Saying that a non-human creature does not think like a human, even if intelligent, is justifiable.

So I think it's two separate things. Some things can be justified by the setting. Having little differentiation in skin color, hair, facial features or chainmail bikinis is not on that list. Some of the things people would put on the Thermian list, I would not.

You're right that we have made progress! A lot, actually. I'm pretty happy with most Fantasy art coming out these days. There's lots of ethnicities and identities put on display.

I also agree that a setting can have "problematic" elements to it and be fine. Its all about execution. Its all about internal logic, consistency, and above all, theme. This comes together to make the setting's aesthetics. Most people handle this very well. I find it only a very vocal minority who is against any of this stuff; most other people just say "I prefer not to have this in my game!" and that's it and it isn't in their game at their table, or they say "I'm ok with this!" and likewise all are good.

But yeah, it's two separate things I would say.