D&D and Racial Essentialism

[howandwhy99]

I see no reason why that should be embarrassing. Just because we've, in recent years, saddled the concept of race with a bunch of localized baggage doesn't mean that Gygax's use of the term has any relevence to the political landscape in America right now, or that it's not completely correct.

Thinking about it I do agree with you on both your points. I guess I find it embarrassing as the phenotype distinction is rarely made anymore. It's all creature type now. That and it is very hard to ignore the lack of racial diversity in the hobby. At least from my experience.

 

[Celebrim]

That and it is very hard to ignore the lack of racial diversity in the hobby. At least from my experience.

Well, its not like Wisconsin has large numbers of non-Scandanavian ethnic groups.

However, in my experience, when a minority ethnic group gets large enough to fracture into non-insular groups, you end up with nerds of every different skin color and ethnic group.

 

[billd91]

Well, its not like Wisconsin has large numbers of non-Scandanavian ethnic groups.

Man, only one Scandanavian ethnic group breaks the top 5 in Wisconsin demographics. Northern European, yes. Scandinavians, that's the next state over's claim to fame.

 

[pemerton]

My opinion is that your view is quite wrong. There weren't any cultural processes, there were literary processes that led him to make that one claim that he made in that one letter, which has since been blown completely out of proportion and taken completely out of context by people on the internet, including you, for years now.

What letter? I'm basing my inference on the text of the LoTR, plus a general knowledge of Tolkien's political and social views, plus a general knowledge of English cultural history over the past 200 or so years.

 

[pemerton]

... nothing follows, any more than anything follows from the particulars of the Vietnam War to David Drake's Lord of the Isles. Orcs were not stand-ins for the Central Powers, because LotR was not a polemic on the politics of the 1914-18 war.

You seem to have misunderstood my claim. I agree that LoTR is a not a polemic on the Great War or any other war.

My point is that, when a need to represent barbarity in fantasy arises, it is a failry standard European representation of a particular category of non-Europeans to which Tolkien turns.

 

[S'mon]

Thinking about it I do agree with you on both your points. I guess I find it embarrassing as the phenotype distinction is rarely made anymore. It's all creature type now. That and it is very hard to ignore the lack of racial diversity in the hobby. At least from my experience.

I'm struck more by the wide racial and ethnic diversity in the hobby, at least here in London! Even just looking at gamers from the USA, who are a small minority themselves, there are lots of white, east-Asian and Latino ones. Or if I narrow it further to Californians, who make up a sizable proportion of US gamers in London, the ones I've gamed with have been around 1/3 white, 1/3 east-Asian, 1/3 Latino. In the UK there also seem to be a good number of gamers of south-Asian (Indian) origin. There may not be many gamers of African or partly African origin proportionally, but I've seen a fair number at least on ENW.

 

[S'mon]

My point is that, when a need to represent barbarity in fantasy arises, it is a failry standard European representation of a particular category of non-Europeans to which Tolkien turns.

There's very little Turkish(?!) or Mongol about Tolkien's orcs, if anything they seem more based on his fear of the British urban proletariat. The minimal connection is that groups like Huns who actually did threaten Europe provide a little bit of influence, but nothing like the Turkish and Arabian influences on CS Lewis' human Calormen. The equivalent of those is of course Tolkien's Easterlings and Southrons.

Anyway if you don't like it, don't play in a Tolkienesque universe. There are plenty of other possibilities, even within D&D style kill-things fantasy, before we even start getting all Star Trekkie touchy-feely let's-all-get-along.

 

[Hussar]

It's funny you bring up Trek. A lot of RPG's follow the Trek style of races. You have the Fighty Race, the Smarty Race, the Funny Race and then you have the humans who come in every stripe.

I think this is what the blog post was referring to, albeit in a rather highbrow, longwinded fashion.

Mono-culture races in SF and fantasy are pretty much a staple of the genre. To the point where the exceptions are notable simply for being exceptions. Sure, as the game of D&D expands, you get different takes on races. But, never (or at least very rarely) within the same setting.

Yet, in almost every setting, humans are the dominant race, and almost universally the most diverse.

 

[Desdichado]

What letter? I'm basing my inference on the text of the LoTR, plus a general knowledge of Tolkien's political and social views, plus a general knowledge of English cultural history over the past 200 or so years.

Well, if you're not using the letter, where he refers to orcs as a caricature of the Hun archetype from Germanic and Roman historical (and other) literature, I'm even more confused as to where you developed this bizarre interpretation of Tolkien. At least the letter provides a link, even if it's a tenuous one that only really holds true if that one phrase is taken out of context.

 

[pacdidj]

How I hate Tolkien discussions.

^ This.

The interesting question is not what the ingame reality says about race, culture etc. The question is what the game, as a literary/dramatic creation, says about race, culture etc.

humans get this rich, diverse cultural background and everyone else gets one god, and one way of living.

I think this is the most troubling aspect of racial essentialism in many RPGs: all races, besides humans, are conflated one-to-one with a single culture, and many races are conflated with some notion of absolute evil. This is troubling to my mind, in that it suggests that, despite having the capacity for free and rational thought, a whole 'people', 'race', 'species', or whatever you want to call it, can nonetheless be evil by design/nature. It suggests that individuals of that type, despite having a more-or-less equal conciousness to that of humans, are unable to reason their way to a sound moral position, and are therefore (in the case of many 'monstrous' races) deserving of extermination wherever they take up residence.

I think though that this type of racial portrayal is much more common to the source material for many games than it is to the way these races are actually roleplayed in many peoples' games. After all, many players create 'monstrous' characters and play against the type, and many DMs tweak their settings with multiple cultures for other races, or throw curveballs at their players, such as the "what do you do with the goblin babies now that you've slaughtered their parents" scenario. I find this refreshing as it suggests that many players of FRPGs are moving away from the Tolkienian other-people-as-monocultures legacy. To my mind this makes for both more interesting and less philosophically troublesome game worlds.