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

[Filthy Lucre]

Current understanding is (and has been for a while) that pyramids were not built by slaves. Not that whether they were or not has anything to do with their status as an engineering marvel.

My undergrad education in religous studies suggested that this myth actually started with the Charlton Heston 10 Commandments movie and the biblical reference to jewish slaves in Egypt, (which there probably were), but there's never any mention biblically or in the historical record that slaves build the pyramids.

 

[Voadam]

What do you want me to DO with this knowledge that is not mere self reflection?

Make judgment calls on how you will use the material or not cognizant of the racial issues.

For Orcs of Thar it is a D&D supplement with humanoid BECMI classes, a humanoid setting, part of Mystara, and lots of Mad Magazine style stupid racial caricature.

I would say you then evaluate for yourself whether you want nothing to do with it, whether you want to use parts of it, or you want to use it but with modifications, or use it as is. With a lot of sliding scale in those options.

Your choice of what and how to use parts of this D&D supplement being cognizant of the problematic issues might be the same you would make if you were not cognizant of them, it might be different. It is probably better to make such decisions cognizant of the issues in case they make a difference to you.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

Make judgment calls on how you will use the material or not cognizant of the racial issues.

For Orcs of Thar it is a D&D supplement with humanoid BECMI classes, a humanoid setting, part of Mystara, and lots of Mad Magazine style stupid racial caricature.

I would say you then evaluate for yourself whether you want nothing to do with it, whether you want to use parts of it, or you want to use it but with modifications, or use it as is. With a lot of sliding scale in those options.

Your choice of what and how to use parts of this D&D supplement being cognizant of the problematic issues might be the same you would make if you were not cognizant of them, it might be different. It is probably better to make such decisions cognizant of the issues in case they make a difference to you.

I think the big disconnect here is that I would never, EVER, dream of basically telling someone what they need to do with their own lives/beliefs/etcs. Like... I cannot imagine a more condescending thing than to tell someone to basically "be better".

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I cannot imagine a more condescending thing than to tell someone to basically "be better".

I think the superlative you are looking for is Be Best!

 

[Hexmage-EN]

As far as The Shadow Over Innsmouth is concerned I first read it more as the protagonist being initially repulsed and horrified by the unfamiliar Deep Ones (and his own nature as a Deep One) before learning to not only accept it but actually look forward to leaving behind humanity for the Deep Ones' civilization. It made it out to me like the twist of the story was that being a Deep One was actually an improvement over being human and that the narrator's initial shock and revulsion was entirely superficial.

 

[Voadam]

I think the big disconnect here is that I would never, EVER, dream of basically telling someone what they need to do with their own lives/beliefs/etcs. Like... I cannot imagine a more condescending thing than to tell someone to basically "be better".

Since you quoted me and posted this in response to me it seems this is directed at me.

You asked what should you do with your awareness of problematic issues.

Are you taking my answer that you should take the identified issues into consideration as you make your own judgment calls on what to do with the underlying work, as basically telling you what you need to do with your own life/beliefs/etc. or that I am condescendingly telling you to be better?

 

[Filthy Lucre]

Since you quoted me and posted this in response to me it seems this is directed at me.

You asked what should you do with your awareness of problematic issues.

Are you taking my answer that you should take the identified issues into consideration as you make your own judgment calls on what to do with the underlying work, as basically telling you what you need to do with your own life/beliefs/etc. or that I am condescendingly telling you to be better?

I'm just responding to you because we've been going back and forth. I guess what I'm perplexed by is this entire conversation because it seems to boil down to "Acknowledge that people have done bad stuff" and then nothing else. It seems half trying to teach a moral lesson, and half trying to teach a history lesson.

 

[Mercurius]

Just a bit of correction, but the pyramids were not built by slaves. The Egyptians used skilled laborers for that and payed them well.

Also incorrect.

 

[Mercurius]

The horror in Shadow Over Innsmouth can be read many different ways.

People who are genetically programmed to inescapably change and become physically inhumanly monstrous later in life can be taken as straight up body horror.

The slow taking over of cognition and identity to lose themselves and become alien in thought can be seen as an allegory for the horrors of Alzheimer's and dementia, or if you focus on the inheritance aspect it can be thought of as evoking genetic aspects of mental illness.

It can be a racist fear of breeding with the other - a fear of miscegenation.

It can be about insular inbreeding.

It can be the pact for power that corrupts.

It can be about keeping monstrous secrets.

This is what I would call a "multi-perspectival" approach, which most folks seem to want to shy away from, for some reason. It is sort of like looking at a rainbow and only able to see red, and saying, "Wow, what a thin rainbow."

 

[Mercurius]

A lot of this discussion, and similar discussions, seems to boil down to a series of related questions:

How "problematic" is a work, that is, to what degree is it problematic? And is it ok if different people see it differently? (And can we live with not everyone seeing it the same way as I do?) Also, what to "do" about its problematic nature? And what if others have a different response (or are not responding as much as I am)?

HP Lovecraft and Orcs of Thar are pretty easy, because almost everyone acknowledges the problematic elements (unlike other elements of D&D lore that I won't mention, so as not to dredge up old conversations). But there still seems to a range of responses in terms of how problematic, and what to do about it.

Personally speaking, I just don't see the value in trying to enforce a singular perspective or response, as if there is one correct degree, and anything less than that is abhorrent or, at least, in error. I mean, isn't that a variation on One True Wayism? There's only one, true way to see this? One way to respond?

Now couple that with what i said about multi-perspectivism, and what @Voadam illustrated--that there are many lenses to perceive a work from (or no lens at all, but just pure story). And even if we advocate the "problematic lens," does that negate the others? Or does it so taint a work that the other lenses don't matter?