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

[Scribe]

If it does meet your goals. The questions I posed are real ones, not rhetorical.

What do those words mean to you (the general you)? What are you intending to convey? What blanks are you counting on your audience to fill in for themselves?

Totally fair questions.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I try to answer honestly what I understand by word "primitive." It is relative, and mostly about technological or scientific sophistication. I'd imagine that a typical way to use word "primitive" to describe something in the game, would probably be about denoting tech-level lower than what the characters are accustomed to. To a medieval adventurer accustomed to steel halberds, stone axes might seem "primitive." Similarly a space trader landing on an alien planet might note "the primitive armours" of the locals (actually medieval full plate.) This doesn't seem terribly offensive to me at a glance, but I can understand why published material might want to steer away from it regardless.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Same as Crimson Longinus. Lower-tech than we're used to. A phone with a dial is primitive compared to a cellphone, an alien would comment on our primitive fission-powered plant and be surprised by our primitive effort at keeping fusion working for more than a few minutes. I'd say that flag signals and light signals were a primitive form of long distance communication (despite being top notch organization for the Byzantine Empire) and I don't think I'd be insulting them. I wouldn't also be insulting Flemish painters from the 15th and early 16th century.

 

[Scott Christian]

Rewrite it completely.

A question: is it that you want orcs to be an Always Evil Kill On Sight monster, or just that you want there to to be an AEKOS monster in your game.

Just to be clear, as per my post - I do not want them to be kill on sight. If I did, I as a DM would create an elaborate setting full of logical reasoning and motives, and then still have some grey area. My motive for writing was to work on a solution to the debate going on in this thread and the other hundred like it.

If it's the latter, why not use fiends? Maybe in "an age before history," some relatively low-level fiends (which don't have to have anything to do with Blood War politics and have no connection to more powerful fiends, unless you want there to be one) got loose on the Prime and have been reproducing. It doesn't have to be through making babies the old fashioned way, if you don't want that. It could be spontaneous generation, through fission or budding, implanting larvae into victims, stealing and transforming souls, or any number of other things.

Or it could be that, in that age before history, certain places or substances became corrupted (fiendish or Far Realms touch, or something else entirely), and beings who are exposed to the place or substance become corrupted as well, transforming into AEKOS beings, and there's no known cure beyond certain very high-level magics.

These examples are great. So would it be okay to you if a table used them to show the orcs as being corrupted and can only be cured by some high-level magic?

Switching back to your idea for a moment. Even if you, the DM, have decided that the true identity of the Unknown Evil is, in fact, unknown, other people in the world aren't going to be satisfied by that. They're going to decide that some evil god or demon in the pantheon is responsible--or some not-evil god did it, as a punishment for something humans did at the time. Or decide that it was actually wizards or elves.

Just seems worthy of repeating - I, as DM, need no such thing. But there is a side of the debate (supposably, I haven't seen them speak up) that wants things to be inherently evil. Even something that has a culture. There is another side that wants everyone, regardless of race or culture, to be treated as an individual in every interaction. The two seem pretty far apart. So the goal was to have all of us write a description that allowed validity of inherent evil without being called out as racist or bigotry.

And as I also stated in the same post - if you just can't ever get behind the idea of inherent evil, then state that specifically.

I think culture- and society-forming humanoid groups ought to be presented as complex and with free will. These orcs hunt, forage, make arts and crafts (and possibly trade), have a way of relating socially (even through violence), and raise young. They should have all the detail in a setting that groups of humans have. This is especially true if this is a playable race; players will want their characters to have free will in order to shape their characters backgrounds (beyond just being another Drizzt). They will probably want their orc character to be able to accompany the party into town without constantly roleplaying hostile interactions.

From a roleplaying aspect, I completely agree. It does offer the whole disguise or disguise self or Drizzt mask to come into play. But even then, that can get tiresome.

There is a strong implied setting in the above description, namely a Keep on the Borderlands-style frontier. First, the frontier setting is strongly reminiscent of the American frontier (vast stretches of "free" land, militarized border towns and "homesteads," cash economy, and of course the Others who threaten "civilization"). But it's also very handwavy: there's civilization and then a generic expanse "out there" where orcs, goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins, etc all live. There's no sense of who controls what territory, whose allied with whom, etc. They are simultaneously described as only forming "loose knit" groups and being powerful enough to threaten entire kingdoms. In other words, the king has an orc problem, and somehow 4-6 adventurers are the best way to deal with that problem, and everything else is shunted offscreen.

I agree. So how would you change it?

re: inherent evil: if creatures are formed by demon ichor on the 83rd layer of the abyss and are entering the material plane through a portal opened by a wizard, then sure. I suppose that's covered by the "long forgotten" evil in the description, but again feels handwavy, an excuse to create an inherently evil group without providing any texture to the lore. The effect is to constrain the way PCs might interact with this group of creatures.

The above might not be problems when in the context of a specific setting. For example, a points of light setting in which there are not vague "realms" but just this one realm, and not orcs inhabiting a featureless wild, but this one specific group of orcs that occupies the forest to the NE. To be clear, it is likely that this setting would still be at least implicitly colonialist, but it would work from a world building perspective. But when you generalize culture-forming humanoid groups in this way, you sort of get the worst of both worlds: both generic, texture-less world building and creatures that grotesquely resemble colonial fantasies of the "other."

No doubt. Generic is terrible. I would push back a little that rewriting something for a D&D "setting" implies being generic. Generic is the baseline.

 

[Irlo]

I try to answer honestly what I understand by word "primitive." It is relative, and mostly about technological or scientific sophistication. I'd imagine that a typical way to use word "primitive" to describe something in the game, would probably be about denoting tech-level lower than what the characters are accustomed to. To a medieval adventurer accustomed to steel halberds, stone axes might seem "primitive." Similarly a space trader landing on an alien planet might note "the primitive armours" of the locals (actually medieval full plate.) This doesn't seem terribly offensive to me at a glance, but I can understand why published material might want to steer away from it regardless.

Same as Crimson Longinus. Lower-tech than we're used to. A phone with a dial is primitive compared to a cellphone, an alien would comment on our primitive fission-powered plant and be surprised by our primitive effort at keeping fusion working for more than a few minutes. I'd say that flag signals and light signals were a primitive form of long distance communication (despite being top notch organization for the Byzantine Empire) and I don't think I'd be insulting them. I wouldn't also be insulting Flemish painters from the 15th and early 16th century.

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Tools, weapons, fission reactors, communications systems, and my phone. Primitive relative to other technologies.

Does anything change for you if we talk about primitive people instead of primative tools?

 

[Scott Christian]

Let’s suppose that the terms primative and savage a
useful and have “real descriptive and explanatory power” (in contrast to the ASA’s assertion about primitive).

What do those words mean to you (the general you)? What are you intending to convey? What blanks are you counting on your audience to fill in for themselves?

As an exercise, imagine a lizard folk culture that you’re inclined to describe as primitive and savage. Identify three to five specific aspects of the culture that you feel are covered by those descriptors.

Here’s one list:
1) They use but do not forge weapons. Crafting is limited to simple weapons, typically spears and clubs. They are scavengers, though, and some among them earn respect by using forged weapons taken from fallen prey.
2) They appease ancient and withered gods of foul intention with bloody sacrifices, not to gain power but to convince the old Unnamed Ones from interfering in lizard folk affairs.
3) They communicate via spoken language and have a limited array of symbols (usually etched into trees or painted on stones) but with no alphabet or complex written language.
4) Property is held communally. Useful objects are distributed based on need and and on benefit to the village as a whole. Lizard folk do not recognize the value of coins, and so far no outsiders have successfully conveyed the benefits of trade.
5) Lizard folk have no conception of an afterlife. They make use of the bodies of fallen community members — the hides, bones, and teeth — and eat the flesh.

In just a few minutes, you can have a useful, specific, descriptive summary of a culture that means a lot more to any DM than just primitive and savage.

[Excuse typos please. I’m using a phone with a primitively small screen.]

I would like to say something here about structure. When writing a race, D&D uses a format. It has for a very long time. Every other RPG does as well. Other types of writers use this also. It is also the same format that authors of dissertations use. It is the same format that science writers use. It is literally in every chapter of any non-fiction book out there.
The writer starts with a summary. This summary tries to encapsulate what they are about to explain. That is where the writer would use savage or primitive. Then they could explain those other things in organized descriptions, such as sacrificing would go under religion and property would be under communities.
If everything was just a list, and not in a more narrative form, then I doubt there would ever be a problem.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Tools, weapons, fission reactors, communications systems, and my phone. Primitive relative to other technologies.

Does anything change for you if we talk about primitive people instead of primative tools?

Logically that could denote people using primitive tools, but it certainly instantly sounds way more questionable!

Hmm... "Our interstellar survey drones report that the primitive humanoids on Arctos IV have recently mastered metalworking." I guess there could be contexts in which it would not sound utterly terrible (still rather patronising), but most of the time it probably would.

Though "primitive humans" tends to refer to earlier evolutionary stages or offshoots of the humans, so I guess "primitive elves" would be some sort of distinct species of proto-elves, and not just elves that use primitive tools...

 

[Faolyn]

These examples are great. So would it be okay to you if a table used them to show the orcs as being corrupted and can only be cured by some high-level magic?

I have no problems about or control over what tables other than mine do. I wouldn't want it or anything similar to that to be the default depiction of orcs or any other humanoid.

Just seems worthy of repeating - I, as DM, need no such thing. But there is a side of the debate (supposably, I haven't seen them speak up) that wants things to be inherently evil. Even something that has a culture. There is another side that wants everyone, regardless of race or culture, to be treated as an individual in every interaction. The two seem pretty far apart. So the goal was to have all of us write a description that allowed validity of inherent evil without being called out as racist or bigotry.

I don't think you quite get the second side. It's not that they have to be treated as an individual in every interaction, it's that people (or monsters, or creatures) need to have an actual motivation for what they're doing. "Because some entity made them be evil" isn't a motivation. It's an excuse for killing them without the player feeling bad or the PC having your alignment changed--which was a serious deal the AD&D and earlier days.

And as I also stated in the same post - if you just can't ever get behind the idea of inherent evil, then state that specifically.

For an entire race of humanoids or other mortal creatures? No, I can't get behind the idea of inherent evil. I have no problem with supernatural beings being inherently evil, though.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, having took a step back and a deep breath, let me see if I can make my point without getting up on a soapbox and making everyone feel defensive. I'm trying here. Whether I succeed or not remains to be seen and, since this is going to be a bit lengthy and personal, I beg your indulgence.

I totally get the response over things like "savage" or "primitive". It's a perfectly reasonable response. "I don't mean it in a racist way at all and I'm using the word properly, what's the problem here?" is a 100% understandable and reasonable position to take. I get that. And getting annoyed when someone accuses you, even obliquely, of being culturally insensitive or even outright racist, is, again, perfectly understandable. I really don't think anyone was being racist when they coined "Savage Sword of Conan" even in the slightest.

But, and here's the but, it really doesn't matter what the intent is. When you've been on the receiving end of poor treatment for years and years and years (or generations even), whether someone intends to be racist or not doesn't really look any different. If people continuously tread on your toes, after a while, whether it's an accident or not doesn't change the fact that it bloody well hurts.

Bear with me a moment and see if I can make this really clear with a personal annecdote. I've lived in Asia most of my adult life. Many years ago, I lived in South Korea for about five years. While I lived there, it was a very common occurrence that, upon seeing a foreigner (and, at over six feet tall and ... built for comfort shall we say... I do stand out in a crowd) people would begin screaming "Hello" at you at the top of their lungs. I'm not talking about children mind you. These were 20 and 30 something individuals who thought it was the height of humor to shout hello at me. Repeatedly. From across the street sometimes. Until you were out of sight.

Now, the first time it happened, it was kinda funny. I laughed, said hello back and moved on. The third time it happened it was less funny. The three hundredth time it happened it was about as funny as a kidney punch and I had to constantly (and unsuccessfully sometimes) rein myself in and not begin screaming back in their faces. It soured me so much on the country to the point that I started dreading leaving my apartment because I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would have to run the gauntlet of screaming people EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Were these people racists? Nope. They weren't doing it to hurt me. They weren't malicious. They were completely oblivious to my feelings, frankly. When I asked my adult students about this, they were shocked that it bothered me. Why should it bother me? They were just being friendly. I should just sack up and not complain. I was the problem.

THAT'S what othering is. That's why these sorts of things, like the language used in the game are so important. It's not about you. It's not about intentions. It's about the fact that for far, far too long, people were completely oblivious to the harm they were doing. Not maliciously. Not intentionally. But, again, when you're on the receiving end, over and over and over again, intent stops mattering very much. You just want it to stop.

Now, I've waffled on far too long, but, hopefully folks can read this and maybe understand why this is important. It's not about punishment or calling out bad behavior. It really doesn't matter. It's about making it stop. It's about stopping hurting people. And that's what things like the orc descriptions and all the other largely until very recently, unexamined elements of the genre are all about. It's about wanting to be a part of the community while at the same time wanting that community to stop hurting me.

 

[Scott Christian]

"Because some entity made them be evil" isn't a motivation. It's an excuse for killing them without the player feeling bad or the PC having your alignment changed--which was a serious deal the AD&D and earlier days.

If an entity made them evil, then that means they commit evil acts. Therefore, there is a motive to kill them. Evil = Evil, not Evil = Sometimes Good, Sometimes Evil. If a campaign is setup for a lot of grey area, great. No problem. But an entity making something evil means they are evil, no?