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

[ezo]

Man, another thread going in the wrong direction.

I thought these sorts of "discussions" were not supposed to happen here?

 

[TiQuinn]

I do, but I don't believe those other objections, because literally anything negative you can say about a race will have been done to some group(probably many groups) of people in the real world some time in the past. Correlation does not equal causation. Nothing has been shown(other than that one really old product on orcs that I forget the name of) that proves or even strongly indicates that the orc language is really associated with any real life group of people.

So instead you pivot to an argument that people are actually not making because that’s more conducive to your point? All based on your dismissal of their actual arguments?

I think this is why some folks are dismissing your world experience in this case.

But thank you for being honest about your actual perspective here.

 

[Remathilis]

200+ consecutive people who aren't like that. So what percentage of folks do you think have this issue? 1 in 6? 1 in 10? 1 in 20? And the odds of my hitting 200+ people in a row without running into even 1 in 20 are very low. The chances hit 99% at a mere 90 people.

This is not a common problem. People don't run around treating people in real life like they're orcs just because of orc lore in a game they play. They don't look at orc lore and draw inspiration for how to treat people from it. They don't look at orc lore and fantasize about treating people like orcs. Well, there might be a few out there who want to dress someone up like an orc, but that's their business.

You have it backwards. People don't mistreat people like they are orcs, they treat orcs as people they don't like.

Look at the terms used to classically describe orcs. Primitive, savage, stupid, aggressive, lazy, violent, antisocial, inhumane. Those words didn't exist to describe orcs, they described a lot of people's who used them to justify mistreatment and worse. People take the same words, the same notions, they used to describe various minorities and use them to describe orcs and goblins because even if they aren't 1:1 stand-ins for specific groups (and sometimes they are, Orcs of Thar) you get to apply the and emotional response to them that you could to a minority group.

And that's actually where the problem lies. It's not that the average D&D player fought orcs and said "wow, this feels like I'm beating up minorities", it's that it normalizes the idea that it's ok to hate people who are viewed as primitive and evil. You can't reason with them, you only put them to the sword. The game literally justifies killing orcs on site by saying they are unredeemable monsters. And once you forge a link between a group of people being unredeemable and violence, you are much more willing to accept (even in you aren't actively engaged in) violence against them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Primitive, savage, stupid, aggressive, lazy, violent, antisocial, inhumane.

I don't associate any of these with minorities

 

[Umbran]

So the "Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons" crew had a point then?

40+ years of D&D play. Hundreds of people played with, and I have yet to see anyone normalize bad behavior in the real world because of D&D lore, or be inspired by D&D lore to engage in bad behavior in the real world.

Normalizing behavior doesn't work in the ways BADD claimed. Nor would it show as specific to D&D lore.

Normalizing behavior tends to work in generalizations. Like, if the folks and media around us all depict men telling jokes that amount to sexual harassment or racial stereotyping as something funny/acceptable, we'll tend to find those things more acceptable, if we are not the butt of the jokes or behavior.

So, in a world that is rife with minorities being stereotyped so they may be treated badly, even violently, there's a valid question to ask about how much game publishers really want to play into that trope.

This doesn't seem like a common or even uncommon problem.

Look at how brown people are treated in media, and real life. Find an African-American friend or two, or maybe some Hispanic immigrants, and tell them, to their faces, that media depictions of people like them are not a problem. See how they react.

It isn't like D&D is the trend-setter in this regard. Sure, there are bigger fish in the media pond. But one principle of right action is to not be throwing stones from the comfort of your glass house.

I am not saying that I give a hoot about what happens at your table. I do not. But publishers are in a different position, and it should be okay for them to make some choices of how they want to present themselves and their game.

 

[Umbran]

And that's actually where the problem lies. It's not that the average D&D player fought orcs and said "wow, this feels like I'm beating up minorities", it's that it normalizes the idea that it's ok to hate people who are viewed as primitive and evil. You can't reason with them, you only put them to the sword. The game literally justifies killing orcs on site by saying they are unredeemable monsters. And once you forge a link between a group of people being unredeemable and violence, you are much more willing to accept (even in you aren't actively engaged in) violence against them.

Well said.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't associate any of these with minorities

Congratulations on reaching enlightenment. Now work to get your fellow countrymen to the same level.

 

[ezo]

I'd like to hear your comments on this.

Just remove all humanoids from the monster manual. Maybe go back to the Complete Book of Humanoids so anything can be a playable race. Then add generic stat blocks such as Guard, Merchant, or whatever with "humanoid templates" to slap on whatever race or whatever you want to that generic creature.

And while you're at it, remove all "evil" creatures, because anything should be capable of redemption. Of course, this just means you're enforcing your view of what that means, or what morals even are...

In fact, just remove alignment completely (few people bother with it it seems) and fight / battle for all the things that have been fought over in the past (like these are any less objectionable to someone somewhere...) such as food, land, wealth, power, and so on.

Don't make any culture or creature type inherently violent or greedy or anything negative. Just individuals can be that way.

 

[Scribe]

Just remove all humanoids from the monster manual. Maybe go back to the Complete Book of Humanoids so anything can be a playable race. Then add generic stat blocks such as Guard, Merchant, or whatever with "humanoid templates" to slap on whatever race or whatever you want to that generic creature.

And while you're at it, remove all "evil" creatures, because anything should be capable of redemption. Of course, this just means your enforcing your view of what that means, or what morals even are...

In fact, just remove alignment completely (few people bother with it it seems) and fight / battle for all the things that have been fought over in the past (like these are any less objectionable to someone somewhere...) such as food, land, wealth, power, and so on.

Don't make any culture or creature type inherently violent or greedy or anything negative. Just individuals can be that way.

 

[Umbran]

I don't associate any of these with minorities

Great. But this isn't about you.

It is about publishers, and the context into which they publish, and the choices that ought to be okay for them make when we consider that context.