D&D (2024) Does the concept of subspecies of Elves come across as racist to you

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The Curse of Ham is racist because it was developed into an ideology to justify racist oppression and is clearly and patently not the actual cause of differences in skin pigmentation.

Do you not think you’re being a bit hyperbolic here? I think we should be more cautious when ascribing racism to something simply for sharing similarities else to something when it doesn’t share the actual racist elements that causes that thing to be racist.

Some fairly fringe depictions of the biblical story of the curse of ham are racist - ergo all fictional curses that change someone’s skin colour are racist. That seems a stretch to me.

There is of course a solution if you feel that is the case… the curse of The drow is racist propaganda told by sun elves to justify the banishment of the drow after the fact, and the pigmentation elements are a magical response to the semi-magical elves not getting enough sunlight/exposure to the radiation of the underdark.

Or just ignore the whole curse thing altogether

Do I think it's hyperbolic to say that "D&D having official lore be that the most prominent dark skinned race in the game has black skin because they were cursed by a good god for being evil is racist"? No, absolutely not. I think it's hyperbolic to read my post and come to the conclusion that I think any kind of skin-color changing curse is racist. If a pixie got offended by a party member and temporarily turned their skin purple, that would not be racist. Scanlan turning Vex'ahlia's skin green while she rode the Broom of Flying in Critical Role wasn't racist, it was an obvious reference to the Wizard of Oz. But having a good god curse a group of people with dark skin because they're evil, that obviously is eerily similar to real world justifications for the enslavement and discrimination of African Americans.

The "drow have black skin because they're cursed for being evil" is basically just the Curse of Ham. This group of people has black skin because they're evil. That is an indefensible part of D&D lore that came from the fact that D&D has misused subspecies in its past.

The point of my post is that you have to be careful when writing about stuff like this. Not that it's racist to make a reference to the Wicked Witch of the West. It's utterly ridiculous that that is somehow the point you got from my post.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Source? That’s a very interesting idea, and I’d love to see how it squares with the presence of Neanderthal DNA in many modern humans, and the most recent theory I read as being generally accepted as the most plausible for why they aren’t aren’t being that they didn’t reproduce as much as us, and we simply mated with them to the point where they disappeared in our populations.

Well, you’d just have multiple types of human, just like elves and dwarves.

Totally possible!

Frustratingly there is multiple different and conflicting theories about the viability. And even those aren't fully accepted, as the answer may still be that viability was at or near 100%, but the pairings were just super rare.

Lack of Neanderthal Y-chromosome suggests that the male offspring of the pairings couldn't reproduce. While lack of any Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA suggests that the pairing had to be sapiens female and neanderthal male.

The Divergence of Neandertal and Modern Human Y Chromosomes - PMC

Sequencing the genomes of extinct hominids has reshaped our understanding of modern human origins. Here, we analyze ∼120 kb of exome-captured Y-chromosome DNA from a Neandertal individual from El Sidrón, Spain. We investigate its divergence from ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

It's pretty unclear what they would could as for a DnD playable. If they're a human subspecies, it would make sense to put them into 'human'. While if they're a separate species they could be their own playable species like elf and dwarf.

 

[Weiley31]

I have a sneaking suspicion this isn't an issue at all for the vast majority of D&D players. It's mostly just a problem online.

It's always a problem online.

And Twitter.

 

[Weiley31]

One of the issues though, is that many heritages are primarily defined by their cultures. You need a cultural component to character creation to use that (and it ain't background, let's get that out of the way), and WotC is far too frightened of the public to make use of culture in a mechanical way. Hence the garbage "explanation" that was the Giff.

If only there was a version of 5e that had culture built in as an origin component...

Tales of the Valiant

Three new base classes including the Vanguard, dozens of subclasses, new lineages, hundreds of new spells, and more for TOV and 5E D&D. Explore ToV The Tales of the Valiant RPG is a Black Flag Roleplaying Game from Kobold Press. Gather your friends and journey together across a labyrinth of...

www.talesofthevaliant.com

 

[Clint_L]

Yeah I hope they change the entry for each one which is something like "Typical Alignment" instead of just "Alignment".

Wish granted! The new terminology is "any alignment," "typically [alignment]," or "unaligned."

Edit: Except in the case of some singular entities, which are still given a specific alignment (e.g. Baphomet).

I'd like to see alignment excised completely, of course, but this seems like a good compromise for those who still want it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Frustratingly there is multiple different and conflicting theories about the viability. And even those aren't fully accepted, as the answer may still be that viability was at or near 100%, but the pairings were just super rare.

Lack of Neanderthal Y-chromosome suggests that the male offspring of the pairings couldn't reproduce. While lack of any Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA suggests that the pairing had to be sapiens female and neanderthal male.

The Divergence of Neandertal and Modern Human Y Chromosomes - PMC

Sequencing the genomes of extinct hominids has reshaped our understanding of modern human origins. Here, we analyze ∼120 kb of exome-captured Y-chromosome DNA from a Neandertal individual from El Sidrón, Spain. We investigate its divergence from ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Yeah tbh we know they’re close generic relatives, and that some of their offspring with us had offspring, in enough numbers to lead to percentages above 0 of the modern population with their dna. That’s more than enough information to make a call in a fantasy game.

It's pretty unclear what they would could as for a DnD playable. If they're a human subspecies, it would make sense to put them into 'human'. While if they're a separate species they could be their own playable species like elf and dwarf.

Eh I think it’s pretty clear they’d be a separate species of human, with at least one different trait and some different descriptive text.

 

[Mistwell]

Wish granted! The new terminology is "any alignment," "typically [alignment]," or "unaligned."

Edit: Except in the case of some singular entities, which are still given a specific alignment (e.g. Baphomet).

I'd like to see alignment excised completely, of course, but this seems like a good compromise for those who still want it.

I have a use for alignment, most frequently for specific entities in adventures. If an NPC is intended to be good, but they're a Demon, please tell me in the statline their alignment is Good. That's a useful shorthand for me to look further in the description if this happens to be an unexpected encounter that the party is engaging in that I hadn't prepared for that week. And that appears to have been a common occurrence with one of the more recent adventure books where they removed alignment from the book though had not told the authors of those adventures they were editing out alignment. Alignment isn't an entire personality but it is a useful shorthand sometimes for a clue about the personality of a singular individual.

 

[Tonguez]

I have a use for alignment, most frequently for specific entities in adventures. If an NPC is intended to be good, but they're a Demon, please tell me in the statline their alignment is Good. That's a useful shorthand for me to look further in the description if this happens to be an unexpected encounter that the party is engaging in that I hadn't prepared for that week.

but why good? Why not friendly or benevolent or ‘despite being a demon, Kozhpashuz! Enjoys the company of mortals and is a productive resident of the town’. Good is meaningless really

 

[Mistwell]

but why good? Why not friendly or benevolent or ‘despite being a demon, Kozhpashuz! Enjoys the company of mortals and a productive resident of the town’. Good is meaningless really

Because D&D is D&D based on a shared language and set of common well known traditions surrounding it. If traditional alignment can accomplish the simple indicator task with very few characters (and it can) then it's best to use it. I agree, you could use those descriptors. But if you need to read the description anyway, and you're chewing up word count with your method (which you are - it's one reason that adventure had issues, as a lot was edited out to reduce word count) a traditional alignment listing is as effective (or more) but accomplishes more for the lasting popularity of D&D than another method.

Good isn't meaningless for me, and a lot of other DMs who have voiced that they find utility in it. If the creature presents as a typically evil creature and you list their alignment as good, that's a super useful short way of communicating "You need to read this description for sure before continuing with this encounter." It's just a simple indicator for DMs, which often takes up a total of two characters (like "LG" or whatever).

 

[Zardnaar]

More stupid and overdone eg Elf for every occasion.