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The default world of 1e is much more humanocentric than 5e. But the creatures the PCs interact with in 1e are not representative. They’ll mostly encounter monsters, including the evil tribal humanoids with their inferior shamans/witch doctors. In the wider, mostly human, world there are MM...

In the 5e D&D core rules "shaman" and its derivatives don’t appear in the PHB. It’s used in the MM to refer to stone giants, lizardfolk, quaggoths, and NPC druids. In the DMG it refers to lizardfolk shamans. The PHB PC druid is a "priest of the Old Faith" whereas the MM NPC druid is a "tribal...

Some further examples of the discussion - Dimitra Fimi, Tolkien Race and Cultural History (2010) Blog post Tolkien's Racial Theories from 2009 comes at the issue in the context of rpg-ing. Anderson Rearick, Why is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc (2004) Rearick argues against the idea that...

ENWorld thread, Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda? from March 2019. For most of the past year, any thread on the topic got locked. That might be one reason it seemed fine. These two books cover the subject: Roger Echo-Hawk, Tolkien in Pawneeland (1st ed 2013) Helen...

5e uses the word "primitive" six times in the core rules. Five usages are negative, one is neutral. Emphasis mine. PHB: "In these yellowed pages were tales of bold heroes, strange and fierce animals, mighty primitive gods, and a magic that was part and fabric of that distant land."* (This is...

I'd say it's the most important theme of Gloranthan RuneQuest. The game's first two editions were centred on the conflict between the pseudo-Celtic Orlanthi barbarians and the pseudo-Roman Lunar Empire. RQ's sympathies were with the Orlanthis - Greg Stafford considered himself to be a shaman -...

1) Humans with tusks. 2) Very alien, similar to trolls in RuneQuest. 3) Remove all race flavour text.

OD&D Book I Men & Magic: There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e., a player wishing to be a Balrog would have to begin as, let us say, a “young” one and progress upwards in the usual manner...

World of Warcraft was released in 2004. There have been orc PCs in D&D at least as far back as the Complete Book of Humanoids in 1993. EDIT: The Orcs of Thar (1988) has rules for many monstrous humanoids as PCs including orcs. Hey, Wanna Be A Kobold in Dragon #141 (cover date Jan 1989) details...

This is true of its usage in D&D. In 5e, stone giants, lizardfolk, and quaggoths have shamans. The stone giant in the MM wears animal skins and wields a club. They also fight with thrown rocks. Lizardfolk are "primitive reptilian humanoids" with INT 7. They use simple weapons such as clubs...

You might be thinking of Robert E Howard, who did commit suicide. Lovecraft died of cancer.

Unfortunately Lovecraft isn't saying that rape is bad. He's saying that miscegenation is bad. The sex in Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family is consensual. I'm not sure about The Shadow Over Innsmouth but I think it probably is also.

I rewrote my post to try to make it clear that the problem isn't intercourse between different species but the idea that the product of such a union is doomed or defiled. Mr Spock would only be analogous if he committed suicide on discovering what he considered to be shameful Vulcan heritage or...

One aspect of HP Lovecraft's writing I'm uncertain whether to ditch: the progeny of the coupling between humans and non-humans being cursed by their heritage. Examples include The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, and Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family. It's very...

Renaissance Earth, I believe. Think it's going for a Solomon Kane vibe.

We know Gary Gygax read the strip Gookum in Mad magazine #2 (1952). The Tarzan parody Melvin in the same issue features the Ookaballakonga, a tribe of cannibals "on the warpath" depicted with pointed teeth and nose bones. The same tribe are on the warpath again in Melvin of the Apes in #6. An...

I don't think The Lord of the Rings has the trope of civilisation vs barbarism. It has good vs evil but that's not the same thing. Sophisticated, knowledgeable (and thus "civilised") beings such as Saruman can be evil in Tolkien's work. Likewise creatures that lack much in the way of a complex...

All that need concern us is the time in which we currently live. Trying to figure out what those in the future might think of us would be impossible and bizarre. I hope they consider us to be deeply wrong about many things. That means progress will have been made.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with the Cthulhu Mythos and Conan. The writing of HP Lovecraft and RE Howard otoh isn't merely problematic, it's racist.

My impression is that in the US if anything Scottish people are treated a little too positively. I think there may be a certain romanticisation going on, connected with the TV show Outlander and similar media. I think I might end up disappointing Americans if they find out I'm not like the...