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

[Mordhau]

The whole idea that a campaign setting needs to have real world cultural analogs is lazy. I excuse Mystara for doing this because it sort of did it first before it was a tired trope, but I would be 10000% open to a hypothetical resurrection of Mystara moving these cultures away from their real world influences toward more original, fantastical presentations.

There's a few things going on here in terms of practicality.

Real world cultural analogs are basically easier for most people to use and get a handle on. There's less to remember. Numenera has "The Steading" for it's far future setting, and for some reason the Steading has about 10 different nations. Damned if I know what the major cultural differences are or how to get a handle on them. Now in a fantasy game if one was fantasy France, fantasy Italy etc then it would be a whole lot easier.

Real world analogs basically allow our real world knowledge to do a lot of the work for us. Sauridyya is fantasy Arabia. I need to make up some stuff quickly for a game session - so I fill it in with oasis, cities with bazaars, bedouin tribes, a magical cave, camels etc. It's much easier in terms of content creation both for developers and for individual GMs who have to make something up when the players decide to go to the blank part of the map.

Of course, the tension here is that it's easier because we draw on real world knowledge, but the problem is that our real world knowledge might be full of cultural stereotypes which then manifest in the game*. Even if the developers have done their research on Arabian history, have individual GMs? And what about their players?

*And of course there is also the problem that if you remove these things, you might lose some of your appeal, because D&D fans (even the progressive ones) are primarily fans of pop culture and pulp and not of say, serious history.. If I'm making a game set in mythic 9th century China, players will probably want to have magical Kung Fu powers and will complain if the game does not in fact, include such. So rpg design has a real minefield to navigate (and this is one reason I don't have much faith in sensitivity readers.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

in a framework where torturing a creature until it's good is good

Says who? Also who says such a thing is even possible?

In other threads on alignment, racial ASI, and the like, I see people say they want elves and dwarves and the like to be truly alien (not sure how ASI accomplishes that, but that's neither here not there). Of all the creatures in the game, ilithid and beholders are set to actually have alien mindsets. Why would they operate under the same morality? Pigs are fairly intelligent, and yet humans raise and kill 1 billion of them every year, often in awful factory farm conditions. Perhaps the mind flayers similarly view humanoids as somewhat intelligent but more importantly delicious?

I mean, the modern meat industry is evil from nearly any perspective except one of ignorance, so…I don’t know if that really changes the landscape any.

Man, I should NOT have used the word evil in my description there, should have known that would set off another round of the Alignment Wars (patent pending).

I've writing and re-written my feelings on the matter at least ten times now. But honestly. It's pointless to get riled up about what WotC does with Mindflayers. It's a single fragment of an IP owned by a corporation that will never directly impact what happens at my table. If they want to make the lovecraftian brain-eating horrors into more mass-consumer-friendly versions, that's not going negatively affect my life or the lives of other people one iota. I think it cheapens the concept, but it's not my IP, and I have zero stake in the game outside philosophical pondering.

Yeah I prefer all aberrations to be alien and specifically malevolent, but I don’t have a big interest in how evil the books specify they are.

If Large Luigi is neutral, okay. I’m happy with that as a wild oddity out in space somewhere. In my own Eberron games Fred The Mindflayer lives in the Jorasco Ward of Stormreach, and helps people with recovery from mental attacks, and if severe enough trauma is continuously harming someone he will, reluctantly, erase them. But he is extremely strange, and lives in some fear of coming in contact with an Elder Brain or other very powerful aberration, or a Daelkyr, because he knows how strange he is and how likely it is that such contact would erase his sanity and free will.

And "Speak with Plants" becomes a much more interesting spell...

Yeah it’s already got a certain “flowers for algernon” vibe. Of course, in my games, all things have a Will and spirit, and thus consciousness of a sort, so speak with plants just allows you to understand the way plants communicate with eachother, and for them to “speak” to you in a way that is sensible.

 

[Faolyn]

No. No it doesn't apply to those arguments. You cannot say, "My issue is that every last one of this race is evil and the books don't allow for individual exceptions." and then cry, "The exception proves the rule!" when you are shown that your argument is in error.

I've never said that was the issue. I have repeatedly said that wasn't the issue.

And I have shown you repeatedly where the bolded portion hasn't been true since 3e came out. You of course try to brush that aside with some sort of, "but the published books don't show that." followed by me showing that in published books and you making some other excuse.

You haven't shown me the info. You keep claiming you've shown me multiple places, but you never actually have--you've shown me a grand total of one town with some orcs in it who aren't evil (presumably), but who were mercenaries, associated with and employed by other evil people, and who remained evil until they moved in with non-evil humans. When I have asked for the other examples, you just say "I've already shown them, look it up." But I have looked it up and found bupkis.

 

[Faolyn]

Just read the spell and there is no torture or pain involved.

Here's the description of the spell, as far as I can tell (pulling from online, not the book):

One evil creature you target must make a WIS save or have their corrupted soul torn from their body and trapped in a diamond receptacle worth at least 10,000 gp. The creature’s body crumbles to ash. Trapped in the gem, the evil soul undergoes a gradual transformation. The soul reflects on past evils and slowly finds within itself a spark of goodness. Over time, this spark grows into a burning fire. After one year, the trapped creature’s soul adopts the alignment of the spell’s caster (lawful good, chaotic good, or neutral good). Once the soul’s penitence is complete, shattering the diamond reforms the creature’s original body, and returns the creature’s soul to it. If the diamond is shattered before the soul has found penitence, the evil creature’s body and soul are fully restored; the creature’s state is just as it was before the spell was cast. The creature retains the memory of having been trapped in the gem, and it regards the spell’s caster as a hated enemy who must be destroyed at all costs. The diamond has 1 hit point but has a damage threshold of 25

So what causes the soul to start to reflect on its past evils instead of, say, spending the year planning revenge? And why, if the spell ends early, the creature's state is exactly as it was before the spell was cast, and why would it view the caster as an enemy? You break the diamond 364 days into the spell, the creature is as evil as ever. But if they were spending their time reflecting on their past evils, then by this point--heck, by about halfway or three-quarters into the spell, they should be good "enough" to not want horrible revenge.

There may be no physical torture, but the whole spell smacks of mind-rape.

 

[CleverNickName]

Here's the description of the spell, as far as I can tell (pulling from online, not the book):

Gross. Where the heck did that spell come from?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Here's the description of the spell, as far as I can tell (pulling from online, not the book):


So what causes the soul to start to reflect on its past evils instead of, say, spending the year planning revenge? And why, if the spell ends early, the creature's state is exactly as it was before the spell was cast, and why would it view the caster as an enemy? You break the diamond 364 days into the spell, the creature is as evil as ever. But if they were spending their time reflecting on their past evils, then by this point--heck, by about halfway or three-quarters into the spell, they should be good "enough" to not want horrible revenge.

There may be no physical torture, but the whole spell smacks of mind-rape.

Obviously the creature would consider the caster to be an enemy, even if the creature had turned good, because, this is obviously an evil spell, thus the spell caster must be evil to use it, and thus be the enemy of the now good creature!

 

[Hussar]

But, therein lies the point. If you are making a game set in mythic 9th century China, as is your example @Mordhau, you, as the writer, need to explain the setting, because you cannot assume that the reader knows 9th century Chinese history. So, when presenting the game, you need to understand where the audience is coming from, make a few assumptions about what your audience will likely know, and then present the game/setting based on that.

Which means you need some feedback from folks during the writing process probably, in order to head this sort of thing off.

Now, if your setting was just "mythic China", then it's not unreasonable to expect magical Kung Fu powers. But, if your magical Kung Fu powers are Karate, Judo and Aikido, and your swords people practice Iado, then it's going to be a very, very big problem.

And that's where the sensitivity readers come in. It's their job to catch that sort of stuff. Is it going to be perfect? Nope. There will always be mistakes along the way and there's no avoiding that. Look at the recent hoopla over Candlekeep Mysteries and one of the authors being very angry that his adventure was heavily edited and the word primitive used. But, we learn and next time around, hopefully it will be better.

The main problem in the past was that these lessons were largely ignored and then repeated time and time again. So, we get a litany of works in the hobby from pretty much day one that are problematic. All works? Nope, of course not. But, we could easily find something from pretty much every year. Which means that the lessons of the past were always ignored.

 

[Mordhau]

Now, if your setting was just "mythic China", then it's not unreasonable to expect magical Kung Fu powers. But, if your magical Kung Fu powers are Karate, Judo and Aikido, and your swords people practice Iado, then it's going to be a very, very big problem.

Is it reasonable? Will it always be reasonable? Is it not possible to see the ubiquitousness of China as the land where magic Kung Fu powers are just assumed to be problematic? Might it be a bit tiresome to see your history constantly treated as a "genre"?

This is quite the situation where I can imagine a sensitivty reader looking at it, seeing that the martial arts are proper Chinese ones and influenced by genuine Chinese Wuxia films giving it a pass, and for the thing to then become subject to outside criticism.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Book of Exalted Deeds.

And don't try to say 'well that's a past edition' because this is a General thread.

If you’re using that book, of all things, to judge your entire view of alignment, even in the editions that don’t have anything like it, then you’re being quite ridiculous.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you’re using that book, of all things, to judge your entire view of alignment, even in the editions that don’t have anything like it, then you’re being quite ridiculous.

It's the ultimate expression of the disease, honestly.

The whole point of labeling things 'evil' is to make hurting justified. The BoXD's just abandon all pretense and revel in the garbage soup that is the history of alignment with Paladins detecting evil and attaching everything that pings, the aligned damage spells that waste neutral people just because they're not wearing the right gang colors, Gary's advice to kill any redeemed villains so they can't backslide, and much, much more.