D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Ruin Explorer]

I didn't think anyone would take these pictures as just depictions of general silliness without racial or ethno-national connotations.

Quite. It's extremely hard to read some of that art as anything but heavily racially-coded. I'm sure the artist thought it was "just good fun", but it's fun at the expense of specific ethnicities (ones which were not having a great time and still aren't). I think the out-and-out racial animus in the text is probably a lot more obvious, possible to research and easy-to-demonstrate though, what with the "Red" and "Yellow" Orcs being racist from the name down.

There's arguably more things going on with the art - the breakdancing one for example has elements of punk and hiphop cultures jammed together, but that doesn't really make it better when it's clearly trying to imply they're all literal morons (likewise the central American one is clearly shoving basketball and Central American culture together - but the fact that most basketball players are black is not lost on the viewer). Showing people the pictures, most people of today (including pretty much everyone in this thread) is going "Oh my god!" because it's obviously racist, but to break down and detail why it's racist on paper (as opposed to just knowing it) kind of takes a different skill-set to what the OP has, so I think it might be unfair for us to require him to do that too. You'd really want an art historian with a speciality in racial propaganda and stereotypes in the 20th century.

 

[Helldritch]

One of the main problems with judging the past with our own present day point of view is that this view reflects our own, and not that of that particular period in time. Heck, what we consider quite evidently fine today might be seen as an utter aberration in 30 years!

Also, what we often view, as offensive because it might look like a culture we know and relate to might just be a coincidence. Biology and the theory of evolution shown us that to same problems, same solutions will apply. Be it biological problems, or societal problems, the solutions will look a lot like the solution found or used by others.

Take the orcs of Thar, yes you can relate them to Native American societies. But at that time, I was more relating them (and the art) as a joke vs to the Warhammer 40k orcs where color was important enough to justify applying it to their vehicles and weapons. We all know that that red vehicles are faster don't we? And a tank should always be painted green or black.

Remember that this was made by gamers influenced by other gamers. Yes, some aspect might come from a real society and others from an other and some entirely made up. But is it possible that the main influence was another game? WH 40K was quite popular at the time, and having a poke at it was inevitable.

Not that I do not believe your research, far from that. But there are other explanations, if you care enough to look for them.

 

[Umbran]

Some people did care but it wasn't exactly mainstream is what I'm saying.

I can't really go into to much detail due to board rules. Things were different.

Mod Note:
And you shouldn't have gone there. The 1984 election doesn't actually support your position well, but the weakness hides behind how others cannot discuss it in detail without breaking the rules.

You could have spoken about tendencies of society, without making reductive references to one election.

 

[Umbran]

Yes, but were any Kobolds offended that they were portrayed as Sons of Italy? That's what I'd like to know!

Mod note:
You seem to have missed, or not taken seriously, how Danny warned that using the "since they are imaginary, they cannot be offended" logic, was grounds for the banhammer.

Please don't apply that logic again, even in jest, if you want to continue in this discussion.

 

[Umbran]

One of the main problems with judging the past with our own present day point of view is that this view reflects our own, and not that of that particular period in time. Heck, what we consider quite evidently fine today might be seen as an utter aberration in 30 years!

Which is one reason why probably why you should not just look at "offense" as an indicator of whether an action was appropriate.

You should also be looking at harmful impacts, which is often independent of point of view.

 

[Helldritch]

Which is one reason why probably why you should not just look at "offense" as an indicator of whether an action was appropriate.

You should also be looking at harmful impacts, which is often independent of point of view.

Same thing goes for appropriate or not. Standards changes over time and references might get lost so that the judgment we have on things from the past might not be as accurate as we think it is. Better keep that past as is, show it and learn from it than simply change it to reflect our own current standards. Give a stern warning that such things are unacceptable now but never erase or modify the past; lest future generations repeat the same patterns.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Take the orcs of Thar, yes you can relate them to Native American societies. But at that time, I was more relating them (and the art) as a joke vs to the Warhammer 40k orcs where color was important enough to justify applying it to their vehicles and weapons. We all know that that red vehicles are faster don't we? And a tank should always be painted green or black.

Not that I do not believe your research, far from that. But there are other explanations, if you care enough to look for them.

Two things can be true at once.

It's perhaps possible that The Orcs of Thar was to some extent a response to Warhammer. Personally I think you're incorrect, because the timing doesn't work. The first Warhammer book which really separated out Orcs into strongly-themed tribes was a 40K book (actually, technically, a looseleaf that you had to put in a binder - I know because I had it). Thing is - that came out in 1989, alongside the plastic Ork boxed set (which was super-cool). WHFB mentioned tribes but didn't strongly characterize them in the way you're describing. "Red Wunz Go Fasta" originates with the looseleaf "book" I'm describing from 1989.

So I don't see how a 1988 product could be a reaction to a 1989 product.

Even if it was, if there was a product I missed (I don't think so but who knows), there's still a huge problem, because the "explanation" doesn't make it any less bad. If the writers react to the Evil Sunz or the Goffs with "Red Orcs" and "Yellow Orcs", dude, they're still absolutely doing something terrible, even if you think it's funny. Because they chose to use massive racism to "joke" about another product.

I get that as a kid the racism of this product slipped by you, and I don't blame you for that. But there's no "explanation" that doesn't make the people who made these product incredibly ignorant nor that makes it not hurtful and inappropriate.

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to OP.

Yeah, Gazetteer 10 is really bad.

A few months back, I started working on a Mystara campaign for when my current Dark Sun campaign ends. Up until I hit GAZ10, whatever issues I had with the respective regions were two or three things that could easily be switched around, without really changing the overall historical theme.

In general, I like the Mystara gazetteers. They’re not perfect, but most of them (from my own limited perspective) treated the real world cultures they were trying to emulate with at least some level of respect.

Sadly, Orcs of Thar was where I had to eventually just throw everything out and reimagine it as “Fallout with orcs”.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sadly, Orcs of Thar was where I had to eventually just throw everything out and reimagine it as “Fallout with orcs”.

That actually sounds pretty awesome.

 

[Bitbrain]

That actually sounds pretty awesome.

I think it is. I mean, it’s even consistent with what Orcs of Thar says created the Broken Lands: someone basically pushed the button on a futuristic nuclear device of some kind!