D&D 5E D&D Races: Evolution, Fantasy Stereotypes & Escapism

[Hussar]

Taking this back to D&D - Orcs and other evil races are othered in D&D - but for good reason, they are meant to represent some of the most outright evil factions of D&D

But, therein lies the biggest problem. Ok, sure, orcs are meant to be the most outright evil faction. Fair enough. That's not really an issue. The issue is that the language used to describe the "most evil faction" is very, very close (as in often word for word identical) as the language used to describe black people up into the twentieth century.

Orcs are evil isn't really a problem. Lots of things in D&D are evil. We don't worry that red dragons are evil after all.

Orcs are evil because they are just like black people (or at least, that's the language that was very often being used) is a problem.

Drow are evil is perfectly fine.

Drow are evil because they are matriarchal, hate men and mirror stereotypes of feminism as well as being literally white people colored black for their sins, is a problem.

The difficulty in these conversations is that people tend to focus on very narrow elements and not the bigger picture. Oh, well, it's okay because this part is okay doesn't really solve anything. And the conversations go round and round in circles because people refuse to accept the bigger picture.

((Note, @FrogReaver - I am not pointing at you for any of this. I'm using your comment as a jumping off point. I just reread what I wrote and it sounds accusatory and that is totally not what I'm going for here.))

 

[Scars Unseen]

literally white people colored black for their sins

Just as an aside, I'm not familiar with Greyhawk, so it's probably different(I think they follow the old MM high/grey/wood/etc lines), but in Forgotten Realms, at least, sun elves are bronze colored, which is closer to black than white as far as skin tones go. Moon elves are the pale colored elves in that setting. Doesn't entirely take away from your point, except to say that with multiple settings being several decades old at this point, you kind of have to take this matter setting by setting.

Of course, it doesn't help that most of the art from back then depicted all surface elves as being pale skinned. But I blame that more on artists taking inspiration from sources other than the text of the products they were drawing/painting for. Tolkien, largely.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

IMO, there are many bad (savage, barbaric, brutal, etc) 'tribes' out there even today. Certain gangs make an excellent example of such tribes. I bring this up to say this: there are 'others' we legitimately should fear, that behave outright brutally toward those that get in their way and that should be othered for it. So IMO, othering is not simply an outdated psychological defense mechanism - othering serves a real purpose even in modern day society. That said the savage, barbaric and brutal have never been relegated to one race or nationality - all races and nationalities are guilty for all have had factions within them that have done horrific things. I would even go so far as to suggest that any such faction within any group deserves to be othered when it treads too far into the savage, barbaric, brutal territory.

One of the big problems here is that often the "savage" and "brutal" factions in the 20th century are part of the state, or are lead by people fromt he ruling class and/or military/police of the state, and in the latter case, often tacitly supported by the state. If we added up every "brutal" death from "tribes" (even if we include all "gangs"). And beyond the state, particularly earlier in the 20th century (but it still goes on), companies, who exist because of the state, and are protected, legally, by the state, are often behind extremely brutal/savage activities. Indeed all that together probably makes "tribes" and "gangs" look like extremely small potatoes.

That's without even getting into how many savage/brutal crimes are committed by people or groups within communities.

And "othering" obviously is no protection against them. So I think it's rather legitimate to say that broad-spectrum "othering" is indeed outdated.

It's also rather inappropriate for D&D because, for the entire time its existed, D&D has been about groups of people (parties) which consist of extremely diverse individuals (in terms of background, skills, species, experiences, gender, etc. etc.), so heavy use of it as a theme tends to merely lead to situations where "angry peasants" are being wankers towards half the party, and it's not interesting, it's not fun, it's not even "realistic" in 95% of cases (it's also notable that it's very rarely non-humans portrayed as acting this way).

 

[Mind of tempest]

One of the big problems here is that often the "savage" and "brutal" factions in the 20th century are part of the state, or are lead by people fromt he ruling class and/or military/police of the state, and in the latter case, often tacitly supported by the state. If we added up every "brutal" death from "tribes" (even if we include all "gangs"). And beyond the state, particularly earlier in the 20th century (but it still goes on), companies, who exist because of the state, and are protected, legally, by the state, are often behind extremely brutal/savage activities. Indeed all that together probably makes "tribes" and "gangs" look like extremely small potatoes.

That's without even getting into how many savage/brutal crimes are committed by people or groups within communities.

And "othering" obviously is no protection against them. So I think it's rather legitimate to say that broad-spectrum "othering" is indeed outdated.

It's also rather inappropriate for D&D because, for the entire time its existed, D&D has been about groups of people (parties) which consist of extremely diverse individuals (in terms of background, skills, species, experiences, gender, etc. etc.), so heavy use of it as a theme tends to merely lead to situations where "angry peasants" are being wankers towards half the party, and it's not interesting, it's not fun, it's not even "realistic" in 95% of cases (it's also notable that it's very rarely non-humans portrayed as acting this way).

I wonder if we could make monsters out of the modern brutalities?

 

[DarkMantle]

The difficulty in these conversations is that people tend to focus on very narrow elements and not the bigger picture. Oh, well, it's okay because this part is okay doesn't really solve anything. And the conversations go round and round in circles because people refuse to accept the bigger picture.

((Note, @FrogReaver - I am not pointing at you for any of this. I'm using your comment as a jumping off point. I just reread what I wrote and it sounds accusatory and that is totally not what I'm going for here.))

Thanks Hussar. I'm using your comment as a jumping off point (which is to say, nothing below has anything to do with the specific you).

I wanted to say that, for what it's worth, I accept the bigger picture.

I've read the D&D-races-are-racist articles. I listened. I emphasized. Not commenting on that portion of the argument is not intended to be some sort of silent complicity. I just don't want to make it about me: I want to decenter myself from that and let other people, who actually know what they are talking about, do that part of the advocating. Perhaps (?) other people will judge this as a suboptimal approach (?), but I've fended off enough arguing as it is and this is what I feel comfortable with for now.

I may not understand every racial analogy as fully as someone directly hurt by it, but empathy does not wait for 100% understanding of the context. Empathy begins with a willingness to integrate another person's perspectives, trying to feel what it could be like in their shoes, even if there isn't 100% clarity for the person who is trying to empathize.

What I do not accept, or what I've found to difficult to accept, is/was:

• The kind of arguing (presumptions, knee-jerk reactions, etc.) that makes it feel really stressful (at least for me) to be a new contributor on Enworld (we all know if we've done this but maybe we don't, so that I started the poll D&D 5E - Arguing, ideating and solution-seeking on the D&D Enworld forum )
• And my other problem with that kind of arguing is that one will generally be preaching to the choir and not be reaching into the hearts and minds one wanted to reach, so it doesn't even make sense rationally, unless the only goal is to be lashing out and get frustrations off your chest
• A lack of ideation and brainstorming around "ok, so what's next, what does that mean for players, their games, and D&D in-game fiction"? I still have a few interesting posts unanswered (or at least I thought they were interesting). I would have thought they could have lead to interesting conversations? AcererakTriple6's D&D 5E - Goblinoids in D&D 5e: Their Origin, Story, and Tragedy (+) post is an example of something I think is starting to move somewhere on this general topic (and which I wouldn't have made the time to research and write as thoroughly, so much appreciated!) but YMMV?
• My other problem with a lack of ideation and brainstorming is that frankly, it sounds (to me) like a bunch of people complaining so hard they can't see what to do next. I sympathize how people who are in deep emotional pain are not capable of seeing a step ahead to future outcomes. But if you're not in that category of emotional pain, how awesome would it be to do more ideation and creative solutions?

It may very well be that my OP did not reflect any of the above very well. I was not at a point where I thought it all the way through to the end in a way that I could well articulate. I probably still haven't thought it through to completion. I bet there are things people still assume now about the OP based on their own mental maps and not actually my intention. I definitely did not anticipate having to fend off the various reactions that seemed unmindful, including from those with Legendary experience at this sort of thing on Enworld. Overall, not a great initial experience for a newcomer to Enworld but I'm optimistic enough to keep learning to do better and keep trying at least a bit more.

 

[JThursby]

Orcs are evil because they are just like black people (or at least, that's the language that was very often being used) is a problem.

It has been only very recently (the last few years) that I’ve seen this comparison made. The only fantasy property that I’m aware of that makes this comparison deliberately is Bright, and it’s so half assed and awful it’s not worth taking seriously. Tolkien infamously compared his orcs to the Mongols, Warhammer followed in that tradition before they pivoted to British soccer hooligans, Warcraft also has their orcs reflect steepe cultures, and D&D orcs have not deviated signifigantly from that formula. The connection between D&D orcs and African cultures or stereotypes of African descended minorities in other countries seems spurious at best.

 

[Cadence]

It has been only very recently (the last few years) that I’ve seen this comparison made. The only fantasy property that I’m aware of that makes this comparison deliberately is Bright, and it’s so half assed and awful it’s not worth taking seriously. Tolkien infamously compared his orcs to the Mongols, Warhammer followed in that tradition before they pivoted to British soccer hooligans, Warcraft also has their orcs reflect steepe cultures, and D&D orcs have not deviated signifigantly from that formula. The connection between D&D orcs and African cultures or stereotypes of African descended minorities in other countries seems spurious at best.

There have been several posts in different threads here that lay out how the language used to describe Orcs, for example, mimics that used by real life racists and eugenecists to describe real life minority groups. In particular Doug McCrae has posted many - see first two links at:

D&D General - Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

Excellent point @Dire Bare. And, the laugh was for your first paragraph, which actually did make me giggle. :D Otherwise, yeah, thumbs up to you. That Arcanists Press book looks very interesting. Cool beans. Now, if they would just make a Fantasy Grounds .mod file for it, I'd be all over it.

www.enworld.org

Also Google Gygax and Nits, and the origin of the quote.

If that language hadn't been used it might not be much of a problem. Or if the people using it weren't portrayed as the good guys.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wonder if we could make monsters out of the modern brutalities?

Of course we can. The easiest way to do so is to simply use an extant humanoid race or just humans and apply a similar scenario with some fantasy spice.

One of my campaigns the main antagonists were modelled loosely on the East India Company who were essentially a megacorporation with a mercenary army, and the fantasy spice was various things including vampires (not at the top of the tree, they were actually being exploited too), Tiamat (it's a long story), corruption and where that didn't work magical mind-control, ill-advised "archaeology" (i.e. digging up things better left buried) and so on.

Obviously you could do more.

The trouble D&D tends to have is an unfortunate tendency to backslide into centering around countries run by absolute monarchs (or occasionally mysterious councils) who are somehow "good guys", and there the apparatus of power (the aristocracy, bureaucracy and so on) is not significantly bad either (there's the odd "bad apple" somehow not spoiling the barrel), rather than anything more complex or interesting.

Part of the issue is something I've literally never understood, not even since I first started playing back in 1989, which is that some groups are totally happy to slaughter "orcs" or "goblins", but get all, I dunno, pathetic when it comes to slaughtering equally-bad humans or demihumans. My main group has never suffered from this, and indeed most people I haven't played with IRL or even online don't, but it's clear there's some subset of D&D players who do. I think they're probably outdated though - I suspect the current bulk of D&D players is more concerned by what makes them baddies in terms of their actions rather than their origin. Honestly I think Taladas being my first setting just prevented this being even possibly an issue - when the raging horde of civilization-destroying barbarians are elves and half-elves, and minotaurs are running the most calm and orderly state out there (not perhaps the nicest, but toward the better end of the scale), and that's your first exposure to a full setting, it's hard to take the idea that enemies "need" to be orcs or whatever seriously.

 

[FrogReaver]

One of the big problems here is that often the "savage" and "brutal" factions in the 20th century are part of the state, or are lead by people fromt he ruling class and/or military/police of the state, and in the latter case, often tacitly supported by the state. If we added up every "brutal" death from "tribes" (even if we include all "gangs"). And beyond the state, particularly earlier in the 20th century (but it still goes on), companies, who exist because of the state, and are protected, legally, by the state, are often behind extremely brutal/savage activities. Indeed all that together probably makes "tribes" and "gangs" look like extremely small potatoes.

For clarification - when I used tribe it wasn't to disclude states/governments/militaries/religions. I actually chose it as IMO it can reference any of those things.

And "othering" obviously is no protection against them.

I think a good case can be made that without the othering going on that the kinds of bad tribes I described that they would end up being more prevalent.

 

[JThursby]

There have been several posts in different threads here that lay out how the language used to describe Orcs, for example, mimics that used by real life racists and eugenecists to describe real life minority groups.

I'm not convinced as the body evidence is neither particularly deep or broad. If the major point of comparison is a few words used a few times it doesn't strike me as anything other than coincidence. Perhaps more importantly is that it has to wind back the clock a hundred years to find points of comparison to racist sentiment by a long deceased political movement. For finding real life stereotypes in other aspects of the game we don't have to make such giant leaps; Hobgoblins are in Samurai armor, Vistani do card readings in caravan settlements, etc. The amount of scrutiny we have to give to orcs to find references to racist views on black people is far, far greater than any of the other stereotype based fantasy races. It's too spurious for me to take it seriously.