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

[Cadence]

It is only improved by the garbage can.

You can be a complete monster and still be LG using alignment. Most 3e Paladins were.

It feels like kindly would prevent a lot of Gygaxian Paladin behavior.

And not to detail the hyperbole train, but it feels like there were bad things the paladin wouldn't do that the CE might, so I'm not sure the bad paladins were "complete".in their badness. They wouldn't kill the good folks who obeyed the rules. (How's that for damning with faint praise?)

 

[Faolyn]

I'm going to push back hard here. That an individual cares for their young or works together with other individuals in groups doesn't preclude that individual from being evil. An evil creature isn't a one whose every act must be deemed evil.

I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about a society comprised of Always Evil individuals.

 

[Cadence]

Illithids aren't humanoids. They don't reproduce like humanoids either--they're basically eldritch parasites that take over a humanoid body.

But for bugbears--how do they function if there's no goblins? All this does is shift their attention to another race: instead of "lording over" humans, they "lord over" goblins, which isn't any actually better.

I was just giving examples of how a society of evil creatures might sustain themselves without being off the rails like the forces of chaos in Elric.

Illithids and bugbears we're just examples. It's pretty easy to imagine set ups like those with just different groups of people. Unfortunately.

 

[Scribe]

But is the society evil, or is the race evil?

In the end, the society would likely splinter off into factions and sub-factions and die off, as unusual individuals rose to power and more typical individuals decided to follow the unusual ones.

For most, likely the society, that which is most commonly encountered. Few people push for a specific race to ALWAYS FULL STOP NEVER DEVIATE be EVIL.

 

[FrogReaver]

Only if it's plausible that you could actually be hurt in the sense being discussed here. Which, in this case, it is not. So 'no' is my answer.

IMO dismissing a claim based on implausability without explaining what makes it implausible isn't a very strong position. It's not even a position I can engage with. Maybe that was the point?

Your response was very reductionist.

Actually it was very truthful and maybe you will understand why by the end of this post.

You can claim that me saying "I like ice cream" hurts you. You could claim it about anything. We are not obliged to take every claim seriously. Saying that taking certain claims seriously is bad because then we'd have to take all claims seriously is a slippery slope argument, and therefore an invalid one.

Sure I mostly agree here, but I'd add that we should have some principled way of picking which claims we take seriously. It has to be more than simply calling something implausible IMO.

Equating you being singled out for your specific behaviour to groups of people who are demonstrably marginalized with language is a false equivalence, and therefore an invalid argument.

What specific behavior? 'Daring to question whether one specific thing is actually racist, bad or hurtful?' And for raising that question and asking for a discussion on it I've been called a racist, compared to the nazis, told i don't care about others hurt and talked to like i'm a child - 'just don't do it' repeatedly and non-stop. That's demeaning and dehumanizing. It's painting me as an evil monster. It's the exact kind of thing people talk about when they talk about othering being bad.

IMO. That's nothing like saying 'ice cream hurts me'.

But really this isn't about me. I don't really care if you or anyone acknowledges my hurt or believe it's real or justified. I only bring my hurt into it because emotional appeal is enough to really make some people stop and listen, even if for but a moment. I just want to be able to have a discussion about whether this one particular thing - whether the particular language around orcs is legitimately hurtful.

 

[Malmuria]

IMO dismissing a claim based on implausability without explaining what makes it implausible isn't a very strong position. It's not even a position I can engage with. Maybe that was the point?


Actually it was very truthful and maybe you will understand why by the end of this post.


Sure I mostly agree here, but I'd add that we should have some principled way of picking which claims we take seriously. It has to be more than simply calling something implausible IMO.


What specific behavior? 'Daring to question whether one specific thing is actually racist, bad or hurtful?' And for raising that question and asking for a discussion on it I've been called a racist, compared to the nazis, told i don't care about others hurt and talked to like i'm a child - 'just don't do it' repeatedly and non-stop. That's demeaning and dehumanizing. It's painting me as an evil monster. It's the exact kind of thing people talk about when they talk about othering being bad.

IMO. That's nothing like saying 'ice cream hurts me'.

But really this isn't about me. I don't really care if you or anyone acknowledges my hurt or believe it's real or justified. I only bring my hurt into it because emotional appeal is enough to really make some people stop and listen, even if for but a moment. I just want to be able to have a discussion about whether this one particular thing - whether the particular language around orcs is legitimately hurtful.

For most of my life, whenever I've remarked that some media representation (usually in a popular film or tv show) was racist or derogatory in some way, the most common reaction, especially among my white friends, was to dismiss the concern as not relevant--"it's just a movie"--or to get defensive about any kind of critique (I'm a person of color in the US, fwiw). In each instance, it was sort of annoying, but yes I would say cumulatively, it was hurtful, as it made me feel like an outsider even among friends (and I never considered them racist, just uncaring in that moment). The sentiment was along the lines of "how are you not seeing this?" On the other hand, I could engage in similar discussions with friends who were poc, and there was often more immediate recognition and understanding.

Anyway, would I say colonialist language in dnd is hurtful or harmful? In each instance, no. I would describe it as tiresome and annoying for me personally. I like dnd, and I have a group where we can make a comment about how something is colonialist or racist or sexist, roll our eyes while remembering OA or Kara Tur or Al Qadim or the 1e dmg, and then get on it with playing a game that doesn't replicate the things we don't like about it. Because I find those aspects of dnd representation tiresome and annoying, however, I wouldn't join a group that used them, or at least used them with no recognition or irony. And I am not going to buy an rpg product that contains that sort of material (I did buy Volo's, then read it, promptly sold it on ebay, and that was the last wotc book I purchased).

 

[Mordhau]

Threads like this really just end up emphasising how childish the whole notion of alignment is.

Edit: You can can keep the planes and heavens and hells and the like, but most cultures that judge character in a metaphysical way tend to wait until the person being judged is dead.

I'm reminded of a certain story from Herodotus.

"Call no man [evil*] until he is dead."

*In an absolute metaphysical sense.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

(I did buy Volo's, then read it, promptly sold it on ebay, and that was the last wotc book I purchased).

WotC isn't progressive enough for you?

 

[Scribe]

WotC isn't progressive enough for you?

I cannot speak for them, but the Orc entry in Volo's is pretty on the nose for multiple stereotypes that have been leveled at multiple targets of persecution over the decades, especially with a colonial leaning.

Its not like 'a word' was used, but they went and grabbed all the words, phrases, or terms which have been the topic of this thread for (looking) over 20 pages.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

Equating you being singled out for your specific behavior to groups of people who are demonstrably marginalized with language is a false equivalence, and therefore an invalid argument.

That would bare on the soundness of his argument, not its validity.

When you're judging the validity of an argument, you assume all the premises are true. Because a false equivalency has to do with whether or not something actually IS equivalent, that bares to it's soundness. As far as validity is concerned, if an argument says that X = Y, it just does because you're assuming every premise is true anyway.

1.) Group X's pain is legitimate
2.) My pain is exactly like group X's pain
C.) My pain is legitimate

That argument is valid.