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

[Dungeonosophy]

There is something about "getting defensive" that also gets irrational.

Hi, firmly defending an idea is not always "defensive."
And passion is not always "irrational."
While some posters (such as yourself) have been very supportive, and some have been a mix of supportive and snarky (though I appreciate that some of those have eventually voiced that they do see that GAZ10 is egregious, even if they think nothing should or can be done about it), while some have been rather underhanded, such as Zardnaar's repeated dishonesty earlier in the thread, which I'm glad has abated.

Now, that's life in the forums, and I can wrangle as well as the next guy/gal.
Yet obviously I'm sort of standing out as a "target" since no one has ever presented a detailed analysis of GAZ10 (and the Savage Coast Campaign Book) before.
If tons of people had already done the research, and so were obviously already more or less allied with what I shared, my experience of this forum would be different.
So, my experience of singularity here does evoke passion.

And I will honor the fact that if we were all sitting around in a cozy game room, and we'd just played a fun round of D&D, and then I stood up give a sort of power-point version of the OP which I'd been invited to share to you all in person; and instead of this forum, we were discussing this face to face, the dynamic would be different. I'd still respond sharply to sophistry and shenanigans, but it'd be easier to keep sight of the human vulnerability, even within the repeatedly snarky folks. So, though I'm not sorry for any content I've shared here, I would feel sorrow if I've actually hurt anyone's feelings. (Which I may have.)

 

[Faolyn]

You say "there's so many products." Well, an objective process would determine exactly how many products contain "ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice." There are only so many. Even if it's 300 products, that's only 300. The process would have a beginning, and an end. And, if done well (and I believe that Wizards has the capacity to do it well), an amends process could generate enormous goodwill.

That really depends on what you consider prejudice here, or prejudice of a sufficient amount to warrant an amends process.

For instance: should WotC donate money to an atheist organization for each book that contained the Wall of the Faithless? That wall can be pretty darn insulting to atheists--saying that nonbelievers deserve to suffer in a wall until they dissolve or get plucked out by demons looking to swell their ranks--and it's not even a legacy thing because it was referenced in 5e's SCAG (I believe).

And it's compounded by the Athar of Planescape, who were presented as an organization filled with angry people (one or two NPCs were specifically mentioned as not being bitter) who provide no actual beneficial services in Sigil, basically distribute anti-Chick Tracts all day, and who engage in actual harm against religious organizations and people. While every other faction did something useful--even the faction that says all life is meaningless has soup kitchens, orphanages, and asylums.

Or is it enough that WotC removed the wall from further printings of SCAG and that if Planescape and/or the factions are redone for 5e, the Athar will likely be given a substantial rewrite?

So the question is, where do you draw the line? And who is objective enough to find every piece that actually shows prejudice?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

After a few days, all those Prop 65 signs became invisible. They were still everywhere, but they were just background noise that I filtered out subconsciously. And that's what the disclaimer on legacy D&D products has become. Background noise that nobody pays attention to.

I totally agree with you. They're bland, platitudinous boilerplates, which any right-minded person would ignore, having read it once.

And your warnings will eventually turn into background noise as well.

Well, that's a lack of imagination there.

R.A. Salvatore's frank and amendatory comments in the Polygon interview from back in August were refreshing and beautiful to read. His words inspired me to pick up the Starlight Enclave audiobook. Which I enjoyed. (I'd read several of the Drizzt books a couple years ago, but petered out due to scenes of unnecessarily graphic violence and sexual violation, along with weariness of the eternally evil Menzoberrazan.)

But I really enjoyed Starlight Enclave, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

The DRAGON+ cultural amends articles and interviews would be "prime time" drama in D&D fandom. There's hardly anything more interesting than people being authentic. But it's not that scary...Wizards would of course edit and shape the amendatory articles and legacy designer interviews so that there aren't unnecessary rough edges. Wizards now has the people who are able to do a skillful job of this--to walk the line between rawness/authenticity and beauty/positivity, in a healing way.

But after reading your replies to Snarf I've got to ask, is this really about making amends? Because it seems more about making WotC and the authors' crawl on their bellies begging for forgiveness than it is about correcting any past harms associated with Gaz10.

Well, I got hot with Snarf, but I'm truly grateful that they/she/he appreciated my original research post.

I'm not sure what my being sharp with Snarf has to do with making "WotC and the authors crawl on their bellies begging for forgiveness."

Maybe you haven't yet personally experienced the healing power of giving or receiving amends. An amends process doesn't involve "bowing and scraping" to anyone.

The amends process I've repeatedly outlined is doable, dignified, beautiful, and, I would say, necessary.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

Between Appelcline's review and Heard's writing - the only way to find out what they were thinking in either case is to ask them. Might be worth pursuing.

Appelcline still runs RPG.net. If anyone is likely to have amended their view of this product, it's him.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

That really depends on what you consider prejudice here, or prejudice of a sufficient amount to warrant an amends process.

For instance: should WotC donate money to an atheist organization for each book that contained the Wall of the Faithless? That wall can be pretty darn insulting to atheists--saying that nonbelievers deserve to suffer in a wall until they dissolve or get plucked out by demons looking to swell their ranks--and it's not even a legacy thing because it was referenced in 5e's SCAG (I believe).

Well, maybe. That's what a team of rational, intelligent, experienced cultural consultants are there for. To make nuanced, human judgement calls.
Even though I'm not exactly an atheist, I feel ya there...I always thought that Wall of the Faithless was lame, for the very reasons you stated. Maybe the cultural amends team would bring in a Humanist/Secular consultant for that issue, and gain an objective perspective about the magnitude of the prejudice against nontheism. And Wizards would make commensurate amends.

And it's compounded by the Athar of Planescape, who were presented as an organization filled with angry people (one or two NPCs were specifically mentioned as not being bitter) who provide no actual beneficial services in Sigil, basically distribute anti-Chick Tracts all day, and who engage in actual harm against religious organizations and people. While every other faction did something useful--even the faction that says all life is meaningless has soup kitchens, orphanages, and asylums.

Or is it enough that WotC removed the wall from further printings of SCAG and that if Planescape and/or the factions are redone for 5e, the Athar will likely be given a substantial rewrite?

Having deeply and experientially studied the false dichotomy between "faith-based worldviews" and "secular worldviews", I know there are perennial human commonalities that are insensitively trampled on by TSR/Wizards' hamhandedly theistic Wall of the Faithless. I agree with you. And a team of cultural consultants worth their salt would be able to sift through these concerns, and discern their magnitude.

So yeah, there very well could be a DRAGON+ amends article about the problematic aspects of the Wall of the Faithless and of the Athar Faction. And it would be perpetually linked to all the product pages which feature the Wall and the Athar. And there'd be a Humanist charity which is supported by those products.

So the question is, where do you draw the line? And who is objective enough to find every piece that actually shows prejudice?

A professional Romani cultural consultant is objective enough to find every little piece of text or imagery which shows Romani-based prejudice. Their eyes will see things that laymen won't. They are qualified to objectively weigh the magnitude of those prejudices relative to other Romani-related prejudices they've encountered in their work in many contexts. That's why they're Romani cultural sensitivity consultants.

Of course, they would not be brought in to read any work that does not remotely have Romani-based content. For example, in my readthrough of GAZ10, I didn't notice any Romani motifs whatsoever. (thankfully!)

Wizards knows how to find specialized cultural consultants. There are persons who are able to intelligently and objectively provide consultation for each of the nine cultures I identified in GAZ10.

Even a non-specialized member of the Wizards cultural amends team could put sticky notes on the various issues which may be of concern, and discern which specialists do or don't need to be called to comb through the text. This process would be aided by crowdsourced flagging.

Note: I'm guessing that gender representation may be one of the most common prejudices in the legacy products. So the feminist/gender cultural consultant would probably be present for most of the amends discussions.

 

[Helldritch]

I'm not sure what distinction you're making here. Yes, 1980s TSR was a different context than 2020s Wizards. Yet I honestly don't see what "debate" could be had about whether GAZ10 depicts real world ethnicities...when the book itself says so.

"These names are often found in Yellow Orkian and Hobgobland Tribes. Names with a vaguely Mongol ring will do fine here." -PG, p.41

"Hutai is a middle-aged hobgoblin with Asian features." -DMB, p.12

In GAZ10 are several references to the "red orcs" being similar to the Atruaghin Clans. See the "red orcs" section of my original research post. In GAZ14: The Atruaghin Clans, p.3 states: "Much of the information presented in this book is based on the culture of the various tribes of Indians that lived throughout North and Central America prior to the invasions and exploitations of European colonists."

I focus on the "red orcs" and "yellow orcs" because those terms are based on real-world racial slurs. Yet, to thoroughly respond to your assertion, GAZ10 also states that the humanoids learned "Norse culture" (DMB p.4) and that the Ogremoorians have names which are "vaguely reminiscent of India." (PG p.41)

If TSR explicitly states that those game cultures are inspired by real world ethnicities, how can that be "highly debatable"?



Helldritch, I totally understand the line of thinking that you and Glen are offering. Yet, as another poster said: the in-world fictional context is not the primary concern here.

No matter what in-world justification is "clearly stated," that does not give the designer a carte blanche to use real-world racial epithets, and to then entwine those with buffoonish misappropriations and mischaracterizations. To go back to my example of "Nigoro Black Orcs"; how does it sound if we plug that into your hypothesis?:

"It is clearly stated that the Nigoro Black Orcs (who follow Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben of the chiefly line of Frederick Droolass and Sojourner Doof, and who love chicken, chittlins, and watermelon, and who have the option of taking the Black Minstrel, Mammy, and Gangsta character classes, and who will try to "put a cap in yo be-hind", just like the Red Orcs will try to "scalp" outsiders)...if theses Black Orcs are trying to emulate their most successful and nobler foes—in this case the African-inspired Tanagoro peoples of the Divinarchy of Yavdlom—but the Black Orcs are failing to succeed in that respect...If these Nigoros are trying to emulate the nobler and more successful Tanagoro humans it does not mean that the author was disrespecting the real-world nation the orcs were trying to emulate, in this case, African culture."

This line of argument seems to be strangely unaware that orcs are fictional, and that whatever real-world racial epithets are presented in the book were written by a real-world author. That is the primary context. The in-world fictional context is secondary.


Who's confused here?

I appreciate that we agree on this.

In short, what we have here is second to third degree references. The orcs are emulating a fictional nation that is inspired by a real world culture (or more than one as a mixed bag of references).

Taken as is, at the first degree as you do, these references are distasteful and are some point shocking for some. But taken at the second and third degree as these orcs are supposed to be taken, the distasteful aspect becomes cynical and easily ignored. Here we are seeing a noble nation being inefficively copied by a race. The real world nation being the fantasy nations thus copies are nobles and not depicted in any negative way. These orcs are thus a parody of a fantasy nation and have nothing to relate to a real world culture but to a fantasy nation inspired by a real world culture.

In essence, you are saying that the fantasy cultures should be offended but they do not exist...

Also, a lot of references to pop culture of the time are made, the boom box comes to mind and so are the punk references. At that time, we had a say that Punk's not dead! These orcs are a clear reference to that too...

With a product that is supposed to be taken at second and even sometimes third degree, there are some that will not see what you see. This is what is highly debatable. The parody of an inspiration is not mocking the culture that inspired the nation that is parodied.

Was it well executed? Nope.
Can it be badly interpreted? Of course.
Can it be seen in different light? Definitely.
Could it have been better executed and written? Most definitely yes.

This Gaz, has very little going for it. But I take it for what it is. A badly written book that did not think every aspects of its approach carefully. But I really doubt that bad intentions were in mind in the first place.

I really like to think that this way of writing is past us.

 

[Mordhau]

I see a remarkable faith in consultants.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I see a remarkable faith in consultants.

Gee man, who else should I suggest? The Romani consultant seemed to do a fine job with the Vistani of Revamped Ravenloft.

Would you rather I say:
"Wizards should just bring in random people to make a cultural amends team."
OR
"Wizards should just form an ad hoc cultural amends committee made from its own employees. Grab a M:tG designer here, a D&D marketer there, and the Renton office janitor, and voila: a cultural amends team."

Or is your point simply that: "It's impossible. It shouldn't be done."

 

[Maxperson]

I totally agree with you. They're bland, platitudinous boilerplates, which any right-minded person would ignore, having read it once.

Everyone else will also ignore them after having read them once.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

In short, what we have here is second to third degree references. The orcs are emulating a fictional nation that is inspired by a real world culture (or more than one as a mixed bag of references).

Helldritch, I totally understand what you and Glen have been trying to repeatedly assert. Yet I see your perspective is wrong or confused.

It's ethically wrong to design a game book with this premise: "Oh, the orcs are just copying the African-like human culture which borders Black Orcland, so it's okay to call the black-skinned orcs Nigorz, and to depict them as chicken-and-watermelon-loving gangstas and mammies. The orcs don't know any better!"

I have nothing more to say than what I already said to you in post #405.