D&D General Demihumans of Color and the Thermian Argument

[Charlaquin]

I am not sure I follow your systematic and general rejection of Thermian arguments expressed in this thread as if the fact that it was a Thermian argument was enough to make it invalid. Let's take another example: unless the PCs are systematically outlaws, there is a strong possibility that they will support, at least nominally, at some point, a monarchy, despite democracy being a better form of government. Players are probably using Thermian arguments to explain their support : "our characters were raised in that kingdom and didn't conceive other forms of government", "the king is rather benevolent" or "it's the setting that put kingdoms there." It is possible that they are supporting oppressive regimes in real life as well, but I suspect they are just considering that Thermian arguments are OK to justify in-universe behaviour.

Using in-fiction reasoning to explain in-fiction actions is not a Thermian Argument. "our characters were raised in that kingdom and didn't conceive other forms of government" and “this king is benevolent” are perfectly valid answers to the question “why do your characters support the monarchy?” It is not a valid answer to the question “why does this setting present monarchy as a positive?” It’s a Thermian Argument.

“It’s the setting that put kingdoms there” isn’t even an in-fiction argument, and if slightly expanded to “monarchy is a central aspect of most fantasy fiction,” it becomes a perfectly valid answer to the question “why does this setting present monarchy as a positive?” Though we could debate whether or not it’s a good answer. I think a better answer might be something like “quasi-medieval aesthetics are a defining trait of most fantasy fiction, and monarchism is a key component of that aesthetic.” But, ultimately, I would say that fails to satisfyingly answer the question of why the fiction is so pro Monarchy. You could present a fantasy setting where Monarchism was prevalent, but presented as inherently immoral, and the protagonists opposed it.

Same with the habit of killing criminals and taking their stuff. OK, it's an evil wizard, he killed people for his demon-summoning ritual, that's naughty and we're law enforcement and therefore... we kill it and loot his treasure? Err, of course very few people will support police force to kill and plunder in real life, but the arguments is often made using Thermian arguments that it is totally OK to behave like that. Outside of Thermian arguments, what would be the answer to "why do adventurers think it's OK to loot the enemy's treasure after killing?"

So, again, what question are we asking here? If it’s “why do the characters believe it’s ok to kill criminals and take their stuff?” those answers are not Thermian Arguments. They’re in-fiction answers to a question about the fiction. If the question is “why does the setting treat it as ok to kill criminals and take their stuff?” they would be Thermian Answers. A more appropriate answer might be something like “I expect looting enemies to be a common part of the game and I don’t want to force the players to change their characters’ alignments because of it, and the enemies being criminals is a convenient excuse not to.” Again, we can debate whether that’s a good answer, but it is certainly a valid answer.

 

[Zardnaar]

And there's a great example of people wanting representation in the other direction.

In a game set in an Egyptian Allegory a dude wanted to play an allegorical Norse European. And you let him, which is great!

And the reason you didn't allow Elves isn't "They're White and shouldn't be here", otherwise the Norse European Allegory wouldn't have been allowed, but instead "Elves are ridiculously rare and this isn't a campaign where elves will be present" which is 100% Cool Beans.

Reason was the theme was Egyptian and I didn't want a heap of whatever turning up. The not Vikings weren't that far away in the grand scheme of things.

Generally I will allow demihumans of the same tones as the humans.

If I'm running an Aztec game for example I wouldn't allow non Americans in the game though unless the campaign was about early contact etc.

So geography is the main restriction. No Samurai in Rome or Romans in not Japan unless my world the geography is a lot different eg not Japan is a lot closer or post apocalyptic Earth.

Somewhat plausible is fine, highly unlikely or impossible not do much.

 

[Oofta]

Whether it is justified depends on what you're doing with it.

If you have included highly patriarchal society in your game - what are you doing with them? Are you using them as a backdrop to show how sexism is wrong? Or are you using them as a way to protray sexist ideas without addressing the harm they do? The former can be okay. The latter... isn't a good justification for having them be highly patriarchal.

But where's the room to have a patriarchal society where the DM has no moral agenda whatsoever? If I have a tradition-seeped culture that I'm loosely basing on a real world culture? I don't play D&D to have Philosophy 101 discussions, sometimes I just want a specific society to have a different feel. There are only so many tools in the box.

Or take monarchies for example. Monarchies may not be the best form of government, but they were quite common in many cultures. Today we believe that democracy is better, but it certainly isn't perfect. Saying one is better than the other is largely a judgement call.

So where I have an issue is it's not up to the DM to justify the morality of their campaign setting. That and I get the impression that people are using this to tell people they're playing wrong. As in "If you do that, it's bad and any justification is just a Thermian argument." It's not informative.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Using in-fiction reasoning to explain in-fiction actions is not a Thermian Argument. "our characters were raised in that kingdom and didn't conceive other forms of government" and “this king is benevolent” are perfectly valid answers to the question “why are do your characters support the monarchy?” It is not a valid answer to the question “why does this setting present monarchy as a positive?” It’s a Thermian Argument.

“It’s the setting that put kingdoms there” isn’t even an in-fiction argument, and if slightly expanded to “monarchy is a central aspect of most fantasy fiction,” it becomes a perfectly valid answer to the question “why does this setting present monarchy as a positive?” Though we could debate whether or not it’s a good answer. I think a better answer might be something like “quasi-medieval aesthetics are a defining trait of most fantasy fiction, and monarchism is a key component of that aesthetic.” But, ultimately, I would say that fails to satisfyingly answer the question of why the fiction is so pro Monarchy. You could present a fantasy setting where Monarchism was prevalent, but presented as inherently immoral, and the protagonists opposed it.

So, again, what question are we asking here? If it’s “why do the characters believe it’s ok to kill criminals and take their stuff?” those answers are not Thermian Arguments. They’re in-fiction answers to a question about the fiction. If the question is “why does the setting treat it as ok to kill criminals and take their stuff?” they would not be Thermian Answers. More appropriate answers might be something like “I expect looting enemies to be a common part of the game and I don’t want to force the players to change their characters’ alignments because of it, and the enemies being criminals is a convenient excuse not to.” Again, we can debate whether that’s a good answer, but it is certainly a valid answer.

So, if I understand correctly, if the question is "why are elves white with blue eyes and blond hair except the evil ones who are black?" and is asked IN SETTING, then "Because their god created them as such and he cursed the drow" is a valid answer, but not an answer to the same question asked OUTSIDE SETTING as "Why does the setting's author chose to have the elven god curse evil drows to be black?" To which a valid answers (but not necessarily good or true) would be "because he was thinking of the story about Apollo cursing crows and replicating it in his fiction, with both Corellon and Apollo being portrayed as dickish gods" or "because he thinks the audience will want to play Legolas from the LotR film, so all his elves are Legolas knock-off, even when Elrond had black hair" or even "because he's a racist and doesn't want black people in his fantasy".

Which would answers @Oofta's question in the post above about patriarchal societies in game: the answer to "why are you having a patriarchal society in your setting?" could be, without being a Thermian argument "because I am modeling said society to be like Romans, to convey both some familiarity among the players (and because it's easier to roleplay thinking "what would Horatius do?" than a going from a total blank slate) and a yet sense of strangeness that an ancient culture is to us?"

 

[Charlaquin]

So, if I understand correctly, if the question is "why are elves white with blue eyes and blond hair except the evil ones who are black?" and is asked IN SETTING, then "Because their god created them as such and he cursed the drow" is a valid answer, but not an answer to the same question asked OUTSIDE SETTING as "Why does the setting's author chose to have the elven god curse evil drows to be black?" To which a valid answers (but not necessarily good or true) would be "because he was thinking of the story about Apollo cursing crows and replicating it in his fiction, with both Corellon and Apollo being portrayed as dickish gods" or "because he thinks the audience will want to play Legolas from the LotR film, so all his elves are Legolas knock-off, even when Elrond had black hair" or even "because he's a racist and doesn't want black people in his fantasy".

Which would answers @Oofta's question in the post above about patriarchal societies in game: the answer to "why are you having a patriarchal society in your setting?" could be, without being a Thermian argument "because I am modeling said society to be like Romans, to convey both some familiarity among the players (and because it's easier to roleplay thinking "what would Horatius do?" than a going from a total blank slate) and a yet sense of strangeness that an ancient culture is to us?"

Yeah, I would agree with all of that.

 

[Steampunkette]

But where's the room to have a patriarchal society where the DM has no moral agenda whatsoever? If I have a tradition-seeped culture that I'm loosely basing on a real world culture? I don't play D&D to have Philosophy 101 discussions, sometimes I just want a specific society to have a different feel. There are only so many tools in the box.

Or take monarchies for example. Monarchies may not be the best form of government, but they were quite common in many cultures. Today we believe that democracy is better, but it certainly isn't perfect. Saying one is better than the other is largely a judgement call.

So where I have an issue is it's not up to the DM to justify the morality of their campaign setting. That and I get the impression that people are using this to tell people they're playing wrong. As in "If you do that, it's bad and any justification is just a Thermian argument." It's not informative.

"I want to tell a story involving X" where X is something objectionable is totally valid. "I wanna tell a story set in a Middle Ages Allegory and Monarchies are a trapping of that era." is another perfectly valid reason. No agenda. Just... that's the reason.

The issue comes in when it's "I wanna tell a story about how X thing happens but since X is objectionable I'll instead bend over backwards and sideways to present logic within the narrative itself that makes it okay that I'm telling a story about X" rather than just saying "I recognize X is objectionable, but it's what I wanna tell a story about"

Like having Sue Storm respond to criticisms about her Costume having the number 4 as a Boob Window, thus presenting it as the character's choice rather than authorial or editorial intent.

Or put another way:

You wished to draw a woman so you did.
You wished for her to be nude so you didn't draw clothes.
You wished for her to be beautiful so she is.
You placed a mirror in her hand and said she is Vain.
But you are the one who made her beautiful, nude, and hold the mirror. She is nothing but your desire.

And the more surreal:

Write what you want to write, just don't respond to people's objections with explanations from within the narrative. The answer is "I did it because I wanted XYZ to be a part of the narrative. Here's the way I added it to the narrative in these ways to create a consistent narrative". Never "Because the narrative wanted it"

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Pointless nit-picking: monarchy and democracy are not opposites. Most monarchies in the real world are democracies. Sure, medieval kingdom probably wouldn't, but not because it's a monarchy, but because it's an autocracy or an oligarchy as well.

 

[Zardnaar]

I have dwarves in my current homebrew campaign that have a mediterranean tinted skin and no beard. Diversity was never on my mind. The setting and its cultures were. Having dwarves in your setting that don't look like the standard Tolkien dwarves, keeps things fresh.

Pretty much gold dwarves have been brown for years.
Social experiment ban Caucasian skin tones from your game lol. Makes sense for some ideas imho.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day... if you choose to include ideas and actions in your game that some people will think are morally objectionable, you are perfectly allowed to do so. But if you are going to do it and people call you out on it, at least have the gumption to embrace it rather than trying to worm your way out of it by giving "explanations" for why it's happening (as though it was through no fault of your own) or even worse... trying to gaslight people into thinking "No, it's not actually objectionable, you're wrong for thinking that!"

People believe what they believe regarding morals. Some beliefs are held by a small numbers of people, some by exceedingly large. The smaller the number, the easier it is to ignore their comments or just not think about / consider them. But the more people begin thinking about them and coming to the same moral conclusions... the more society evolves to embrace those moral beliefs on a larger scale... the harder time you will have living with your status quo if you're trying to avoid getting called out.

If any of us don't want to be thought of as dickheads... we have two choices: Either stop doing the thing that makes people think we are dickheads... or go off and hide our dickheadishness so that people don't know it. Personally though... I think the latter is cowardly. At least have the guts to embrace being thought of as a dickhead so the rest of us can learn from your example of what being a dickhead looks like.

 

[turnip_farmer]

So, in my head canon, I do usually have skin colours in mind for the demihumans. In the current one I'm working on, wood elves tend to come in greens and browns since they're magically attuned with the nature around them. Halflings are all over the place and vary in skin colour much like humans do. Dwarves tend to be pale-skinned, on account of the fact that they live underground.

Honestly, a player has never asked me about skin colours. If some one did ask 'can my dwarf be black' it seems a silly thing for me to make a fuss about. 'Some dwarves have darker skin' requires far less reimagining of my medieval fantasy setting than the actual issues I have to deal with to make players happy. Like 'oh, and there are giant, anthropomorphic tortoises wandering around.'