D&D General Demihumans of Color and the Thermian Argument

[Vaalingrade]

I was more thinking of Anansi stories to be honest. That and a host of anthropomorphic animals that are used in many African folk tales. I honestly wasn't really thinking about North American folktales. But, yeah, I could see that too.

Well the migration of Anansi from Africa to the Caribbean to the American South; from Anansi to Aunt Nancy to Baron Saturday could comprise a 1-20 adventure path on its own.

 

[Dausuul]

The part that makes the premodern farm labor dark is that your children basically existed to be part of a Ponzi scheme. You had to have a lot of kods to help out in order to be able to keep the farm running, but eventually they grow up and start eating as much as an adult and they need to have a lot of their own kids to keep their own life and plot of land solvent and so on and so on and correct me if I'm wrong but that's either a ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme

Sure thing. You're wrong.

Ponzi and pyramid schemes rely purely on the transfer of wealth from new participants to older ones. No one is actually producing anything, just passing money around. This is why they are "schemes"--they are inherently unsustainable and must collapse when they run out of new participants.

On a farm, actual productive work is being done, the transfers of wealth go back and forth over time (infants and very young children take; older children and adults give; elderly adults take), and the whole thing can be sustained indefinitely. Modern society works the same way--it's just that the shift from "take" to "give" happens later in life.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

"I want to tell a story involving X" where X is something objectionable is totally valid. "I wanna tell a story set in a Middle Ages Allegory and Monarchies are a trapping of that era." is another perfectly valid reason. No agenda. Just... that's the reason.

The issue comes in when it's "I wanna tell a story about how X thing happens but since X is objectionable I'll instead bend over backwards and sideways to present logic within the narrative itself that makes it okay that I'm telling a story about X" rather than just saying "I recognize X is objectionable, but it's what I wanna tell a story about"

Like having Sue Storm respond to criticisms about her Costume having the number 4 as a Boob Window, thus presenting it as the character's choice rather than authorial or editorial intent.

Or put another way:

You wished to draw a woman so you did.
You wished for her to be nude so you didn't draw clothes.
You wished for her to be beautiful so she is.
You placed a mirror in her hand and said she is Vain.
But you are the one who made her beautiful, nude, and hold the mirror. She is nothing but your desire.

And the more surreal:

Write what you want to write, just don't respond to people's objections with explanations from within the narrative. The answer is "I did it because I wanted XYZ to be a part of the narrative. Here's the way I added it to the narrative in these ways to create a consistent narrative". Never "Because the narrative wanted it"

You had to do it, you just HAD to go and Magritte the whole thread! Sheesh!

 

[Thomas Shey]

This seems to me to be kind of silly. Why do we have an emotional stake in peoples that are imaginary?

"Why" is a probably unanswerable question, but the very power of fiction tells you that people can have a strong emotional stake in people that are imaginary.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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. Often times, their characters were played as "funny looking humans". I use this as an opportunity to spotlight the distinction. NPCs will comment what an unusual elf/dwarf/whatever they are. More often than not, the player takes this as a compliment IME, because it makes them feel unique.

At the end of the day, while I make the setting, it's their character and they can play it as they like. If they want to be the most human-minded elf in the world, that's fine. The world will respond to them as such, and the game will be all the richer for it.

Of course you can question how often a GM can engage with a sufficiently alien mindset well enough to do a competent job here; I'm not going to question your particulars here, but there's no reason to believe GMs as a group are going to automatically do any better than players here.

 

[Steampunkette]

You had to do it, you just HAD to go and Magritte the whole thread! Sheesh!

Why meander towards surreality when you can start there?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Why meander towards surreality when you can start there?

That would of course be one way to subvert potentially iffy content decisions, sheer weirdness and surreality. Not that it is a perfect cure, but if you are portraying a milieu that is illogical, surreal, and perhaps clearly lacks anything corresponding to a 'why', then people will often suspend judgment to a degree.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Of course you can question how often a GM can engage with a sufficiently alien mindset well enough to do a competent job here; I'm not going to question your particulars here, but there's no reason to believe GMs as a group are going to automatically do any better than players here.

I think something that a lot of people lose sight of in these kinds of discussions is what we are doing this for.

I obviously can't speak for your group, but at my table we don't do it to be famous. We don't do it to show off our world renowned acting talents. We don't do it to impress the local historical society, or so that the devs at WotC will take notice.

We do it to have fun. So if everyone is having fun with it (and that's been my personal experience), you're doing a competent job of it. You don't need to "achieve" someone else's hypothetical of competence. Just have fun with it.

 

[Argyle King]

I was more thinking of Anansi stories to be honest. That and a host of anthropomorphic animals that are used in many African folk tales. I honestly wasn't really thinking about North American folktales. But, yeah, I could see that too.

The stories I mentioned are still African folk tales. They were simply modified to reflect the animals seen in North America.

In either case (the original African tales or the African-American versions,) many of the stories were oral traditions and weren't written down in a readily available format for a while. Even so, there most certainly is "non-white" and "non-European" fantasy. It's just usually not well known due to being from what was a suppressed culture.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think something that a lot of people lose sight of in these kinds of discussions is what we are doing this for.

I obviously can't speak for your group, but at my table we don't do it to be famous. We don't do it to show off our world renowned acting talents. We don't do it to impress the local historical society, or so that the devs at WotC will take notice.

We do it to have fun. So if everyone is having fun with it (and that's been my personal experience), you're doing a competent job of it. You don't need to "achieve" someone else's hypothetical of competence. Just have fun with it.

I don't disagree. But if the criterion someone is working on is that nonhumans absolutely have to feel nonhuman to be "done right", I think assuming anyone will do a good job of that, player or GM, is a reach. Some may be better than others at it, but I don't think the majority of people have the combination of talent and werewithal to do so.