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

[Sepulchrave II]

Oooh, you missed the dwarves of Eberron. They have the mark of Warding.

Ooh. Is it אות‎ or 𐤕 ?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

To a lot of people, capitalism is synonymous with Jews.

But isn't that kinda the core of the issue with the Ferengi? If a lot of people think that, how do you satirise capitalism without coming across as anti-Semitic?

In Star Trek the Federation has evolved past most of our current societal issues, so to highlight those issues other civilisations are used. I have no doubt that with the Ferengi the intent of TNG writers was to satirise the greed of modern day humans in general and American capitalism in particular. Comparison to 'Yankee traders' is even spoken out loud in the show. Now this of course doesn't mean it couldn't come across as anti-Semitic despite them not intending that. But how could have that been avoided?

 

[Maxperson]

My point stands that it doesn't matter if the orc is born inherently Evil, is choosing to do evil, or is simply causing evil in the process of doing their job (the banality of evil), we are still using mortality to justify violence.

No. You're using their acts to justify violence. The orcs attacked a village and killed villagers, so violence is justified. Those orcs could be neutral or evil and it wouldn't matter. Many orcs are evil, because they do evil things. Not to justify the violence.

If we take away that morality, we just have a group of people with conflicting interests, and the question of killing them and stealing their possessions becomes murky enough that it makes the PCs no better than the monster's they fight.

Take away the morality and you still have orcs that attacked a village and killed villagers, so there's nothing murky about hunting them down and making them pay for those actions.

Personally, I prefer to keep realpolitik out of my gaming exactly because the real-world is full of conflicts and combatants that can't cleanly be labeled as Evil and the world is messed up place because of it. I'd rather my escapist fiction be an escape from such heavy thinking.

I think that more than anything else is why you end up with people incorrectly thinking that all orcs(and other monsters) are evil. Most people only use them as evil because the game is an escape from the real world, even though the game itself says that they are not all evil.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My point stands that it doesn't matter if the orc is born inherently Evil, is choosing to do evil, or is simply causing evil in the process of doing their job (the banality of evil), we are still using mortality to justify violence.

If we take away that morality, we just have a group of people with conflicting interests, and the question of killing them and stealing their possessions becomes murky enough that it makes the PCs no better than the monster's they fight. Nitchie might be amused, but it makes for an unsatisfying game session.

Personally, I prefer to keep realpolitik out of my gaming exactly because the real-world is full of conflicts and combatants that can't cleanly be labeled as Evil and the world is messed up place because of it. I'd rather my escapist fiction be an escape from such heavy thinking.

Unfortunately, it seems we are no longer allowed to keep realpolitik out of our fiction at all. I really want to know what all the people who are making these accusations want out of D&D, or out of escapist fiction of any kind.

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree about Harry Potter and the Ferangi. The Ferangi as originally introduced could have been taken straight from early 20th century anti-Semitic cartoons (though they were redeemed later on by being given more depth in DS9), and while I think the goblins in the Harry Potter books are a very arguable case, their depiction in the movies is really specifically, unavoidably a Jewish caricature.

I'm curious why you think the movie goblins were unavoidably a Jewish caricature. The imagery is from how goblins have been depicted all over the place. Google goblin images and you come up with big noses and pointed ears like that. The banking aspect is from the books.

Absent the explanations the books give, which is a failing of all movies that are made from books, I can see how they would more easily be mistaken for Jews, but since we have the books that the movie goblins are based on, we have context with which to interpret the movie goblins.

 

[Helldritch]

To a lot of people, capitalism is synonymous with Jews. (And to an entirely different group of people, socialism is synonymous with Jews. Anti-Semitism is weird.)

I disagree about Harry Potter and the Ferangi. The Ferangi as originally introduced could have been taken straight from early 20th century anti-Semitic cartoons (though they were redeemed later on by being given more depth in DS9), and while I think the goblins in the Harry Potter books are a very arguable case, their depiction in the movies is really specifically, unavoidably a Jewish caricature.

Well... Not in my little corner of the world.
The few Jews I ever knew were an F-18 pilot following a certificate in administration at our university and a woman in psychology studies teaching us. Both were caring and generous individuals. In Quebec, capitalism is much more associated with the "elite" English speaking Canadians corporates than it is with Jews. Again, this is in the eye of the beholder. Our experiences differ and though I am quite well aware of the Nazi propaganda, it would never cross my mind to think of Jews in such a way. But on this matter, you must know a lot more than me. So I will defer to your judgment in that matter.

 

[Voadam]

Jabba's palace is ripe with the same imagery: desert sands, scantly clad slave girls, rotund barbaric guards, a scheming majordomo, etc. The whole thing was a love letter to the old serials that inspired George, right down to Flash vs Ming the Merciless.

I doubt George was attempting in either situation to be racist against certain peoples, but rather to use the story tropes he grew up on in a new way.

Jabba was lightly visually evocative of a fat Pasha reclining on a sofa, but he was more predominately alien in looks and sound IMO.

Wato is very much more directly Semitic in personal looks and how he sounds.

I think Lucas was putting Wato in a more directly pulp Indiana Jones Arab street merchant type of setup with stronger associated traits as one aspect of what he was trying to evoke.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Jabba was lightly visually evocative of a fat Pasha reclining on a sofa, but he was more predominately alien in looks and sound IMO.

Wato is very much more directly Semitic in personal looks and how he sounds.

I think Lucas was putting Wato in a more directly pulp Indiana Jones Arab street merchant type of setup with stronger associated traits as one aspect of what he was trying to evoke.

I mean the same film has explicitly Asian-coded Neimodians that speak with east-Asian accents, so I really don't think Watto is any sort of a subconscious mistake.

 

[Gradine]

I wonder when people say "I want D&D races to be more like Eberron" if they mean the jewish dwarves, the Mongol elves, the headhunter drow, and the First World halflings, or do they just mean the non-evil orcs?

It's mostly that last one, though I think Eberron deserves a bit more credit than you're giving it here. The halflings of the Plains don't draw from any specific indigenous cultures but instead incorporate many tropes (not stereotypes) from around the world, which is to say nothing of the Daask. Tairnadal elves may be horseback marauders with little care for administration, but their imagery largely invokes the Middle East/North Africa, and their religion differs vastly from both historical sources.

And as mentioned, these are cultural traits, not racial. And no individual culture draws distinctly from any single set of stereotypes (except the Lhazaar Principalities I guess), so while each distinct culture has its own sources of real world inspiration, there seems to be to make each a unique blend of synthesis beyond "these elves are mongols". Which is a fair sight better then the "all orcs are evil mongols" approach of many other settings.

It's certainly not perfect by any stretch, but it's head and shoulders above the rest of multiverse when it comes to racial presentation

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which is why my ultimate takeaway from any sort of real-world morality grafted onto gaming is that you accept the premise your foes actually are evil and thus you can participate in the violence OR you believe all conflict comes from a place of conflicting interests and mediation and resolution should be the primary method of resolution, with violence as a sad last resort.

Or you take the latter premise, but also accept that it is a brutal world without modern concepts of law and morality and the PCs are not perfect people. And whilst you don't need to weep for every slain kobold, perhaps killing thinking and feeling creatures shouldn't be completely sanitised for guilt-free feel-good entertainment?