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

[Zardnaar]

Well, given the reaction to 4e's approach to monster lore, I would say that there are some who find extensive Monster Manual lore to be EXTREMELY important.

It's good for newer players. Reading the old MM and FF made me very interested in D&D once upon a time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Nobody is asking you to be. You are however, obliged to acknowledge when someone tells you that something is problematic. Even if you aren't personally affected by the problem.

You're apparently confusing me with someone who doesn't think the topic of this thread is problematic. My guess would be this is conflation based on the fact that with the best evidence I have, while Robert Howard and Phillip Lovecraft both had seriously problematic attitudes, one was not as bad as the other, and got somewhat better toward the end of his life, and I'm not going to say that isn't true just because other people disagree; someone went to considerable trouble to show me evidence of it at one time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There is no background or time that didn’t also include people that saw Black folks as moral equals to themselves.

And as long as that was enough of a minority view, it wasn't going to penetrate into most people's view of it.

The fact there are outliers does not change the zeitgeist of a period. If there weren't outliers, nothing would change at all.

That's why you have to ask the following questions: 1. Was (Person X) better or worse than the typical person in his situation, place and time, and 2. Did he become better or worse about it over the course of his life?

If you don't, you're basically insisting that every person in the past is judged by the standard of only the ones who look best to us. and I don't think that's a useful criterion to use.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So... when dealing with --again --basic human decency, we're grading on a curve?

 

[Zardnaar]

So... when dealing with --again --basic human decency, we're grading on a curve?

No but a few posters like to project modern values back into the past. The zeitgeist was very different.

Book came out 33 years ago. 33 years before that it was 1955.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So... when dealing with --again --basic human decency, we're grading on a curve?

When talking about the past, of course we are. Because even what people thought of as basic human decency has hardly been a constant.

 

[Zardnaar]

When talking about the past, of course we are. Because even what people thought of as basic human decency has hardly been a constant.

That to what basic decency is varies by time, location. Not sure what things will be like in 2055 but it will be different.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

No but a few posters like to project modern values back into the past. The zeitgeist was very different.

Book came out 33 years ago. 33 years before that it was 1955.

That doesn't matter. Can you stop saying that like it matters? Because it really doesn't. Context matters, but people knew that this sort of thing was wrong back then. It's always been wrong, and humans have not evolved to have empathy in the past 30 years, so I'm like 90% certain that a non-negligible amount of people were able to point out how wrong this product (and similar ones to this) were at the time of its release. The people publishing it knew who they were mocking, and intended to mock them. Unless they were toddlers that didn't know that making fun of people that have done nothing to you isn't okay, they definitely knew that it was wrong, and just didn't care.

Seriously, can we please stop with being an apologist for this kind of stuff? Can we stop trying to excuse these kinds of viewpoints and actions? They were wrong then, and they're wrong now. They've always been wrong, and people have always known it. Whether or not they could get away with that sort of behavior is what has changed, not the morality of it.

Everyone involved in the publishing of this product was an adult, and they knew better, and shouldn't have published it. Oriental Adventures was more respectful that this product, and it came out about 4 years before this book did.

They knew that they should've been respectful when borrowing cultures for fantasy peoples, but they chose not to. They chose to be racist, and knew it. Can you please stop with this nonsense, because it's getting really tiring and upsetting.

Okay? Are we good? Because this kind of BS (both the product and trying to defend it) is harmful.

 

[Zardnaar]

That doesn't matter. Can you stop saying that like it matters? Because it really doesn't. Context matters, but people knew that this sort of thing was wrong back then. It's always been wrong, and humans have not evolved to have empathy in the past 30 years, so I'm like 90% certain that a non-negligible amount of people were able to point out how wrong this product (and similar ones to this) were at the time of its release. The people publishing it knew who they were mocking, and intended to mock them. Unless they were toddlers that didn't know that making fun of people that have done nothing to you isn't okay, they definitely knew that it was wrong, and just didn't care.

Seriously, can we please stop with being an apologist for this kind of stuff? Can we stop trying to excuse these kinds of viewpoints and actions? They were wrong then, and they're wrong now. They've always been wrong, and people have always known it. Whether or not they could get away with that sort of behavior is what has changed, not the morality of it.

Everyone involved in the publishing of this product was an adult, and they knew better, and shouldn't have published it. Oriental Adventures was more respectful that this product, and it came out about 4 years before this book did.

They knew that they should've been respectful when borrowing cultures for fantasy peoples, but they chose not to. They chose to be racist, and knew it. Can you please stop with this nonsense, because it's getting really tiring and upsetting.

Okay? Are we good? Because this kind of BS (both the product and trying to defend it) is harmful.

I'm not claiming it's right or wrong that's what it was like. I lived through it iirc you're 19 or so you weren't there.

The reason no one cared that much was the cultural zeitgeist was different and the actual bad stuff happening back then was what people focused on. I posted some if the bad stuff but it's to graphic.

You can jump up and down going la la la as much as you want. Why do you think the nihilism of the 90's happened for example?

The 80's kids grew up and it was a collective F you to the olde generations and the 80's (greed is good).

Consider that the stuff I saw with my own eyes, observed and saw the consequences of up to an including people dying is to graphic for these forums.

Look at the movies from that era and what else was happening. That's why. Is Orcs of Thar offensive absolutely. Compared to what else was going on at the time it wasn't that bad.

And the 60's and 70's were worse than that going by my mother's stories along with my friends mother.

They weren't worried about things like that back then it was AIDs, gay rights (not marriage), legal protections for women, crack cocaine, just say no etc.

And a few of those things turned out to be disasters. You weren't even born yet. Orcs of Thar offensive in 88 I was more concerned that year with my parents divorce, the old man's boozing, getting clobbered at school and my sister getting kicked out of home such is a 10 year olds life. That was easy compared to others. That's the PG recap of 1988. Didn't have the privilege of a nice 2010's upbringing and social media.

 

[Hussar]

Dude, I’m about the same age as you.

That stuff was seen as unacceptable at the time. It’s not like it was magically ok. It really wasn’t.

Granted it was a lot less acceptable to call out bigotry at the time. But fortunately we’ve gotten better about that.

But if you thought this was acceptable in the eighties, it really wasn’t and trying to play the oh you weren’t there Is crap.

Heck don’t you live in New Zealand? Wtf do you know about American thinking in the eighties? I grew up about two hours from Detroit. While Canadian I’m pretty sure that I saw a hell of a lot more of America than you did.