D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[CreamCloud0]

I also said there are myriad examples of dwarven and elven cultures in fiction, so there is something to go on. I think examples matter.

I was referring to elves and dwarves AS those ‘familiar’ species who’s unrelatability thus gets overlooked

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't just think it's just Tolkien, I think it's the fact that they are not humans with one physical difference (pointed ears, short legs, big noses, etc). I honestly think there is a an unconscious bias that says they look like a human, therefore relatable while a cat or lizard man looks animal/monstrous and is not.

Sure, that certainly contributes. I still think the Tolkien angle is the single biggest factor. That's why we have halflings, even though those have essentially zero representation in fiction outside of Tolkien-influenced media.

If Tolkien had had a race of noble, gregarious, but isolated dragon-people in the legendarium (perhaps some/many corrupted to Sauron's side with the promise of receiving their own Rings of Power?), with one of them getting a spot on the Fellowship, dragonborn would be a locked-in, guaranteed fantasy race in D&D. I don't think that's even remotely debatable. We'd have the..."fab five" instead of "core four."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Their point shows that it isn't actually relatability, as in the inherent nature of the creature being described. It is, instead, purely within the heart and mind of the speaker: this is unfamiliar, so I can't relate; this is not long-established, so I can't relate; this is too monstrous, so I can't relate; etc.

Which is precisely what creates the infuriating catch-22 that Hussar, myself, and others have described: anything novel is "unrelatable," that is, unfamiliar so it won't ever get the chance to be displayed, so it can't develop new tradition, so it can't become familiar(=relatable). And thus we are stuck with damn near every setting being massively humanocentric. Folks mentioned BG3 earlier, and frankly, it's goddamn hilarious anyone thinks that such a setting isn't humanocentric. The vast majority of characters you deal with are human, elf/half-elf, dwarf, or halfling, other than the tiefling refugees...and the fact that they're tiefling refugees is very specifically used against them by racist buttholes in-game. (While the writers do make it pretty clear that this is an immoral and bigoted thing to do, many such racist jerks get away with it without any repercussions whatsoever.) Faerûn is absolutely a humanocentric setting, it's just soft humanocentrism rather than the much harder and active, overt humanocentrism of Greyhawk.

You see both of these things, the conflation of inherent nature with personal response and the catch-22 effect, applied to all sorts of things in the D&D space. It's deeply infuriating.

Just because it's subjective doesn't mean it's not a relatability issue. It's just not a relatability issue for you.

Also, is there some reason that people in games have to pay the consequences when they do bad things? Sometimes bad actors get away with it in stories and settings. Just like real life. The real world isn't running on morality, where good is rewarded and evil is punished. There's no reason are games have to either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was referring to elves and dwarves AS those ‘familiar’ species who’s unrelatability thus gets overlooked

That's the world we live in. Relatability is, as I said above, subjective, and subjective doesn't suddenly mean not a thing if it happens to not apply to you.

I agree it would be better if the more familiar species were treated the same as the less. We are all welcome to do this at our own tables.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Sure, that certainly contributes. I still think the Tolkien angle is the single biggest factor. That's why we have halflings, even though those have essentially zero representation in fiction outside of Tolkien-influenced media.

If Tolkien had had a race of noble, gregarious, but isolated dragon-people in the legendarium (perhaps some/many corrupted to Sauron's side with the promise of receiving their own Rings of Power?), with one of them getting a spot on the Fellowship, dragonborn would be a locked-in, guaranteed fantasy race in D&D. I don't think that's even remotely debatable. We'd have the..."fab five" instead of "core four."

you'd have people saying "what do you mean, you're NOT going to include the dragon people in your fantasy setting? dragons are classic in fantasy,"

 

[Micah Sweet]

And lizardfolk or other reptilian humanoids are both literally and figuratively ancient, as well as showing up in all sorts of places in modern work (e.g. EQ's iksar, TES's argonians). Heck, draconians from Dragonlance even got multiple semi-heroic characters and complex presentations in the novels.

It's not the existence of examples. It's the fact that the examples aren't Tolkien or (to a much more limited extent) other writers who published their work at least 70 years ago but no more than ~110 years ago.

Is there something stopping you from putting these groups in your world for your game at your table? Or is this more of your desire for someone else to run the game you want for you? Unfortunately I just don't think the situation has changed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I was referring to elves and dwarves AS those ‘familiar’ species who’s unrelatability thus gets overlooked

Exactly. That which has exposure/history will see people downplay, ignore, or deny anything unrelatable. That which does not have exposure/history will see people amplify, inflate, or sometimes invent unrelatable things.

For the converse, actually building up interesting aspects worthy of talking about...that really don't make THAT dramatic an impact on culture, I can reference my own writing and ideas.

• Dragonborn frequently (perhaps always) have breath weapons, most of which could be used to weaken metal prison bars. As a result, you'd expect most dragonborn prisons to either be made with magically-treated metal so that dragon breath can't weaken it, or (more likely) to use inert sandstone or other materials that are unlikely to be affected meaningfully by such effects.
• Dragonborn colonies would be comparatively slightly more productive than human ones, for several reasons. Labor can be more evenly distributed between men and women, because women don't need to spend so much time handling pregnancy. While their infants do suckle, they do so for a shorter period of time, and "infant" dragonborn are walking within hours of hatching. Between this and their accelerated development period, dragonborn colonies could definitely establish themselves more quickly and would grow (very slightly) more quickly.
• Conversely, dragonborn have greater food concerns than humans, because they require a higher ratio of protein, which implies the need for more domesticated animals and better animal-feed arrangements. It's harder to forage when you have to eat more meat. This also means that dragonborn could be more susceptible to plague, because plagues (in a medieval context) arise from high concentrations of large domesticated animals living near people.
• Dragonborn (in 4e) explicitly heal faster than other humanoids (+Con to healing surge value, +2 Con as an option instead of +2 Strength), likely related to their need to consume more protein. This implies they just generally have better health than humans, which can have enormous impacts. Coupled with laying eggs (and thus having lower risk of death in childbirth), dragonborn are likely to have an easier time of things that were a real struggle for IRL humans for basically all of human history prior to the modern era.

These things do matter on sociocultural scales, They shape where and how these peoples would settle, and why. They shape how empires form and how wars are won and lost. But at the individual, day-to-day level? Most of this stuff really IS confined to "this would influence literary style and metaphors" stuff. The average life of the average dragonborn is going to be pretty similar to the average life of the average human, especially once they're both in their mid-20s or so. They mostly worry about the same things for the same reasons. They mostly eat the same foods (albeit more protein, as noted) and require the same living conditions. As far as we can tell, they mostly taste the same flavors, see the same colors, and hear the same harmonies--and they'll live about as many years, so their immediate family context is going to be very similar.

Hence: There are ways in which their physiology influences their society. But these ways are a hell of a lot more subtle than "most of us live to be 700+."

Just because it's subjective doesn't mean it's not a relatability issue. It's just not a relatability issue for you.

Except that when someone says something is unrelatable, they are describing its inherent nature, not their experience of it. It is an attempt to pass off something wholly subjective--"I found it difficult to relate to this thing"--as though it were fundamentally objective--"this thing is just hard for anyone to relate to." That's the problem. That's the substitution occurring here. It's bloody everywhere in D&D discussions.

Also, is there some reason that people in games have to pay the consequences when they do bad things? Sometimes bad actors get away with it in stories and settings. Just like real life. The real world isn't running on morality, where good is rewarded and evil is punished. There's no reason are games have to either.

The point about the getting-away-with-it was to reinforce that this is a setting dominated by human perspectives. If tieflings were anything like a plurality or almost-plurality, do you think humans could get away with treating them like poop? I'm pretty inclined to think otherwise. Likewise, dragonborn are (explicitly!) treated as an exotic and eye-catching thing. Dragonborn guards are hired to be Big Scary Threats because of their exoticization. It's an explicitly "special" and noteworthy thing that a merchant in BG3 has a young dragonborn woman as his shopkeep/receptionist while he works the forge. Etc. And it's not just dragonborn; we very rarely see tieflings who aren't refugees from Elturel, and any type of gith, despite being a playable option, is essentially unknown. You can't even try to be an aasimar, and the one you meet in story (who is really a demigod, given her mother is literally a goddess) is Extremely Special And Unique.

Or, as I argued above and as that point showed, it's still a vastly humanocentric setting. To pretend that Faerûn is somehow--to quote the fundamentally pejorative and exclusionary phrase--"the Mos Eisley cantina" is frankly blindness, likely accidental, but in some cases fully intentional.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Is there something stopping you from putting these groups in your world for your game at your table?

Nope. Dragonborn are a widespread minority in the main area my game is set. They're much more common in Yuxia, far to the west, where dragons live. Whether this is a direct connection or not hsa never been examined (and I see no reason to have a firm answer regardless.)

Or is this more of your desire for someone else to run the game you want for you? Unfortunately I just don't think the situation has changed.

Nothing to do with any game I would like to see run. It is a criticism of the dull uniformity and inflexibility of FAR too many D&D settings. ENWorld's Zeitgeist and Baker's Eberron are beautiful examples of what you can do when you reject merely doing things for staid conformity and instead actively pursue creative stuff. Other options that have not been taken, to the best of my knowledge, but which could be extremely interesting:

1. Greco-Roman sword-and-sandal setting. Tieflings could be re-interpreted as resurrected people marked by Hades, the dimanes (a play on the actual dii manes, the immortal dead). Dragonborn have several plausible mythic counterparts, such as the Spartoi ("sown ones", nothing to do with Sparta) that a couple different Greek heroes produced by sowing dragons' teeth, or as children of drakaina, the she-drakes who mythically sired lineages of kings or entire peoples through unions with heroes (e.g. the Scythians were held, in some myths, to be the offspring of Herakles and a drakaina), or as descendants of an Athens-like city because of figures like Erichthonios, who is often depicted as having a reptilian lower half.
2. Science-fantasy. This one's got a bazillion precedents. If we go far-future, just a reptilian race is extremely common in science fiction. If we go modern-fantasy, the "reptilian conspiracy" provides one angle, but for a kinder one, they could be the result of genetic manipulation. Tieflings fit naturally as the descendants of spirit-altered individuals or as a race that had contact with humanity in the distant past, leading to the myths about devils and demons. Etc.
3. Wuxia. TONS of stuff you can do here, there's so many East Asian or Southeast Asian myths and tropes you can draw on I couldn't even begin. Just off the top of my head, oni cover tieflings pretty much perfectly, and Journey to the West has a near-unending stream of animal-people, dragons that have or can assume human form (most benevolent, but some are antagonists!)

Instead, what do we get? The same damn tropes regurgitated over and over, flattened and flanderized from Tolkien without any real thought into what they actually do or are like. Hence why I take stuff about elves and dwarves to task. Elves and dwarves should be really weird. They aren't. In most cases, they're in exactly the same sorts of positions as humans, in exactly the same proportions, with no meaningful difference other than the occasional offhand comment about remembering a friend who's been dead for two centuries or meeting someone's great-granddaughter and commenting that they have their great-grandfather's eyes.

 

[Remathilis]

Also, is there some reason that people in games have to pay the consequences when they do bad things? Sometimes bad actors get away with it in stories and settings. Just like real life. The real world isn't running on morality, where good is rewarded and evil is punished. There's no reason are games have to either.

I'm pretty sure any debates about this point would butt up against the mods policies on politics and religion, so I'll leave this with "...in your subjective opinion." And move on.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly. That which has exposure/history will see people downplay, ignore, or deny anything unrelatable. That which does not have exposure/history will see people amplify, inflate, or sometimes invent unrelatable things.

For the converse, actually building up interesting aspects worthy of talking about...that really don't make THAT dramatic an impact on culture, I can reference my own writing and ideas.

• Dragonborn frequently (perhaps always) have breath weapons, most of which could be used to weaken metal prison bars. As a result, you'd expect most dragonborn prisons to either be made with magically-treated metal so that dragon breath can't weaken it, or (more likely) to use inert sandstone or other materials that are unlikely to be affected meaningfully by such effects.
• Dragonborn colonies would be comparatively slightly more productive than human ones, for several reasons. Labor can be more evenly distributed between men and women, because women don't need to spend so much time handling pregnancy. While their infants do suckle, they do so for a shorter period of time, and "infant" dragonborn are walking within hours of hatching. Between this and their accelerated development period, dragonborn colonies could definitely establish themselves more quickly and would grow (very slightly) more quickly.
• Conversely, dragonborn have greater food concerns than humans, because they require a higher ratio of protein, which implies the need for more domesticated animals and better animal-feed arrangements. It's harder to forage when you have to eat more meat. This also means that dragonborn could be more susceptible to plague, because plagues (in a medieval context) arise from high concentrations of large domesticated animals living near people.
• Dragonborn (in 4e) explicitly heal faster than other humanoids (+Con to healing surge value, +2 Con as an option instead of +2 Strength), likely related to their need to consume more protein. This implies they just generally have better health than humans, which can have enormous impacts. Coupled with laying eggs (and thus having lower risk of death in childbirth), dragonborn are likely to have an easier time of things that were a real struggle for IRL humans for basically all of human history prior to the modern era.

These things do matter on sociocultural scales, They shape where and how these peoples would settle, and why. They shape how empires form and how wars are won and lost. But at the individual, day-to-day level? Most of this stuff really IS confined to "this would influence literary style and metaphors" stuff. The average life of the average dragonborn is going to be pretty similar to the average life of the average human, especially once they're both in their mid-20s or so. They mostly worry about the same things for the same reasons. They mostly eat the same foods (albeit more protein, as noted) and require the same living conditions. As far as we can tell, they mostly taste the same flavors, see the same colors, and hear the same harmonies--and they'll live about as many years, so their immediate family context is going to be very similar.

Hence: There are ways in which their physiology influences their society. But these ways are a hell of a lot more subtle than "most of us live to be 700+."


Except that when someone says something is unrelatable, they are describing its inherent nature, not their experience of it. It is an attempt to pass off something wholly subjective--"I found it difficult to relate to this thing"--as though it were fundamentally objective--"this thing is just hard for anyone to relate to." That's the problem. That's the substitution occurring here. It's bloody everywhere in D&D discussions.

Well, I at least am speaking for my own part (that's what the "I think" and "IMO" are for). I can understand how people might feel that way, however. You are making assumptions that I feel are unwarranted because you feel your subjective options on the matter are under attack. I can relate.