D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[ezo]

People don't like being told their hobby is built on colonialist tropes.

Full of all sorts of tropes, really.

It's the same reason why we don't teach history as it happened but as we wanted it to happen. We can't stand to look in the mirror and realize we too enjoy things that when viewed though an objective lens and be seen as harmful because that reflects on who we think we are.

Hmm... there is an awful lot of "we's" here.

Many people do teach history as it happened, from multiple perspectives as well, because history is truly a matter of perspective and most often we cannot know truly what really happened. True, it isn't as wide-spread as I would like, personally, but not everyone refuses to face the atrocities of the past committed by their past generations.

I recently watched "Into the West" which shows the trials and betrayals of the Lakota and other nations by the "White Father" in Washington and the U.S. armies, agencies, etc. in the 1800's as the U.S. expanded into the West.

The people of Rome probably felt they were a civilized, peaceful people as they went to the Colosseum to watch men be torn apart.

Most probably throught they were civilized, some thought they were peaceful, others probably felt violence was a good solution to problems and enjoyed the games. I'm sure there were all sorts then as there are now.

Look at the class Barbarian. The very name is offensive as it basical claims the "barbarian" is uncivilized. Civilized compared to whom? Whites called the native Americans barbarian and savage, after all. Romans called just about everyone barbarian I would imagine. The Barbarian would more appropriately be called Berserker due to Rage, but even that term could be offensive to some...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, yeah. People don't like being told their hobby is built on colonialist tropes. It's the same reason why we don't teach history as it happened but as we wanted it to happen. We can't stand to look in the mirror and realize we too enjoy things that when viewed though an objective lens and be seen as harmful because that reflects on who we think we are. The people of Rome probably felt they were a civilized, peaceful people as they went to the Colosseum to watch men be torn apart.

That said, enjoy your game. Clearly, WotC is bending over backwards to allow you to kill goblins without too much n moral dilemma. I understand that is fun; I play this game too ya know. But I don't harbor any illusions that D&D is absolutely not modeling a healthy way to handle conflict between peoples, and even my noblest paladin is as soaked in blood as the most brutal despot. And if it helps people to rationalize that by making goblins less human, so be it.

Is D&D supposed to be modeling a healthy way to handle conflict between peoples? I don't recall that in the brochure. To me its about creating and interacting with fun, coherent imaginary worlds. Like fiction, but more hands-on and less about telling a story (I know there are other schools of gaming).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Interesting that you avoided the examples I gave, and instead went for another fantasy/SF movie with little connection to reality. I think it's a little more complicated than you're saying, and not at all about "triggering" anything.

24 Was about the war on terror, which is why I mentioned that one though. I didn't mention the two movies you did because I don't know if he has seen them (but he has certainly seen movies like those). I wasn't trying to avoid your examples. I just thought it best to stick to films I know he has seen

how is it complicated. If you believe in pacifism. Don't commit or endorse violence, but you can sit back and watch a film about violence. I really don't see the problem

 

[Remathilis]

Basically, they've adopted just enough of a more sensitive approach to make me really uncomfortable with ever coming back to the game.

This is why it's a compromise. WotC could go to one of two extremes.

* Treat every monster as a person with equal capacity for good and evil, free will and ability to live in harmony. Essentially making every creature act as humans on Earth act and treat them with the same kind of moral considerations.

* Treat monsters and legions of monolithic Evil designed to be challenged to be overcome. No reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. Designed to be slaughtered like a video game enemy is.

Obviously, both extremes are undesirable. But how do you square them, especially when the shift in media is to the first? I don't know, and maybe neither does WotC but I don't blame them for trying to square the circle.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Interesting that you avoided the examples I gave, and instead went for another fantasy/SF movie with little connection to reality. I think it's a little more complicated than you're saying, and not at all about "triggering" anything.

Also just a point about predator. It may be about an alien and science fiction. But those arnold films were definitely movies that glorified the military and it didn't take a huge leap to connect predator to things that were going on at the time. I love a good arnold movie, just like I love a good dirty harry movie. But my politics are quite opposite of an Arnold film, Dirty Harry or Rambo

 

[Remathilis]

Because being a pacifist is about being a pacifist, not about what media you consume. If your beliefs in non-violence are genuine, watching predator isn't going to trigger a desire to harm people in you

It may not trigger you to go commit violence (and I am NOT saying it does) but if you say believe in pacifism and your favorite movie IS Predator, I do question how you square a believe that violence isn't the answer with enjoying a movie that says violence isn't the answer, it's the question and the answer is Yes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Think out it this way: orcs, over the years, have evolved into "people" RPG-wise (thanks WoW!).

See, from my perspective, as someone born in 1978, they didn't "evolve" to that, they innately appeared to be "people" in the way they were describe. People living in a culture that was violent and nasty, sure, but people. Nothing about orcs in D&D seemed to me - or most people I played D&D with in the 1989-1995 period, to be "not people". One DM did absolutely see them that way, but the rest of us didn't. Nothing in the Monstrous Compendium made them seem like not people - on the contrary, they very clearly seemed to be people.

So blaming WoW seems definitely wrong, if I and many others had come by this belief by 1989/1990. I mean, one of my strongest early D&D memories, probably from 1990, 1991 at the latest, and when we fought some orcs, and then went into their cave to take their stuff, and found baby orcs, who the DM had acting like children - perhaps somewhat feral children, but children, not demons or something. The expected us to murder them. When we didn't, he brought in a GMPC to tell us to, and tell us we were "Evil" if we didn't murder them. We rejected them and said we'd fight the GMPC (even though he'd kill us all for sure) if he tried to harm them. Anyway, I've told the story before, and it ended up with the DM basically having to go with it and us handing the orc kids over to be raised by monks of Illmater (it was an FR game) rather than become child murderers!

For orcs to be "like xenomorphs", you need to commit to the bit. You can't half-arse it! You can't dally with even apparent child-murder, for god's sake! Have orc young be terrifying inhuman monsters if they have young at all or better yet have them come out of a cloning vat as adults, like Tolkien considered. No-one sane wants to do anything that even looks like murdering civilians, let alone kids. So why set it up that way? There's no necessity. It's fantasy, so lean into that!

The reality is, as far as we can tell, Gary Gygax absolutely approved of race war and ultra-racists, even if he did so in maybe a "Well it would be wrong now, but in 1860 it was okay!" way (which used to be kind of a common attitude, a sort of time-based moral relativism). So to him it was fine to have people kill orc babies or whatever - "nits make lice" as he approvingly quoted from Colonel Chivington (a man so racist even 1860s white Americans were like "this dude is WAY too racist!!!").

Currently, there are a few games and other media with skeletons and zombies with personhood. If that catches on, culturally, undead will be off the "stock enemies" list too.

I think you're mistaken about the mechanism.

It's not pure personhood alone that does it. It's being a whole-ass living species, which can think and grow and learn. It's not like there are baby skeletons who grow up to be adult skeletons and so on, and indeed, if there were, that might well be "off the table" for casual genocide lol. Because who wants to be involved with that?

But undead as a whole tend to be a "violation of nature's order", and kind of incapable of growth in about 99% of cases.

I mean, if that was going to happen, it'd have already have happened with vampires, but whilst they're often protagonists, they're still stock enemies too.

 

[Remathilis]

Is D&D supposed to be modeling a healthy way to handle conflict between peoples? I don't recall that in the brochure. To me its about creating and interacting with fun, coherent imaginary worlds. Like fiction, but more hands-on and less about telling a story (I know there are other schools of gaming).

I'm saying the fact we enjoy D&D doesn't excuse it from it's unhealthy parts, nor should we ignore those parts because we like it and if we like something unhealthy that is a reflection on us.

 

[delericho]

I don't know, and maybe neither does WotC but I don't blame them for trying to square the circle.

I don't blame them for trying, either. Unfortunately, I consider their efforts to be an abject failure, worse than if they'd done nothing at all.

 

[Reynard]

See, from my perspective, as someone born in 1978, they didn't "evolve" to that, they innately appeared to be "people" in the way they were describe. People living in a culture that was violent and nasty, sure, but people. Nothing about orcs in D&D seemed to me - or most people I played D&D with in the 1989-1995 period, to be "not people". One DM did absolutely see them that way, but the rest of us didn't. Nothing in the Monstrous Compendium made them seem like not people - on the contrary, they very clearly seemed to be people.

So blaming WoW seems definitely wrong, if I and many others had come by this belief by 1989/1990. I mean, one of my strongest early D&D memories, probably from 1990, 1991 at the latest, and when we fought some orcs, and then went into their cave to take their stuff, and found baby orcs, who the DM had acting like children - perhaps somewhat feral children, but children, not demons or something. The expected us to murder them. When we didn't, he brought in a GMPC to tell us to, and tell us we were "Evil" if we didn't murder them. We rejected them and said we'd fight the GMPC (even though he'd kill us all for sure) if he tried to harm them. Anyway, I've told the story before, and it ended up with the DM basically having to go with it and us handing the orc kids over to be raised by monks of Illmater (it was an FR game) rather than become child murderers!

For orcs to be "like xenomorphs", you need to commit to the bit. You can't half-arse it! You can't dally with even apparent child-murder, for god's sake! Have orc young be terrifying inhuman monsters if they have young at all or better yet have them come out of a cloning vat as adults, like Tolkien considered. No-one sane wants to do anything that even looks like murdering civilians, let alone kids. So why set it up that way? There's no necessity. It's fantasy, so lean into that!

The reality is, as far as we can tell, Gary Gygax absolutely approved of race war and ultra-racists, even if he did so in maybe a "Well it would be wrong now, but in 1860 it was okay!" way (which used to be kind of a common attitude, a sort of time-based moral relativism). So to him it was fine to have people kill orc babies or whatever - "nits make lice" as he approvingly quoted from Colonel Chivington (a man so racist even 1860s white Americans were like "this dude is WAY too racist!!!").


I think you're mistaken about the mechanism.

It's not pure personhood alone that does it. It's being a whole-ass living species, which can think and grow and learn. It's not like there are baby skeletons who grow up to be adult skeletons and so on, and indeed, if there were, that might well be "off the table" for casual genocide lol. Because who wants to be involved with that?

But undead as a whole tend to be a "violation of nature's order", and kind of incapable of growth in about 99% of cases.

I mean, if that was going to happen, it'd have already have happened with vampires, but whilst they're often protagonists, they're still stock enemies too.

I'm not going to deny your experience, but orcs were standard stick enemies -- like bandits and Nazis -- throught my entire gaming experience. There were exceptions here and there, of course, but "Zug zug" really started the trend toward humanizing the "green skins" IME.

(As an aside, my gaming circle turned gnolls into full on "people" long before we did orcs.)

But I don't think the specifics matter. I think what matters is whether one cares about that representation in their fantasy play. I don't. I don't feel bad when I kill wave after wave of monsters in video games, and I don't care in D&D either. The experience is no meant to be a commentary on how I feel about marginalized groups in the real world.