D&D General Fantasy Racism in D&D

[Imaculata]

I keep any racism out of my campaigns, even if it is fantasy. But some nationalities in my campaign may be mistrusted, due to wars and/or piracy. But that is not based on their race or the color of their skin, but on politics and crime.

 

[Ancalagon]

If you want an interesting take on racial relations, perhaps look up the Ultra Violet Grasslands. Dwarves, humans, half orcs... are all "human" and use the same stats.

If you actually want to be different "stat wise" (vs just cultural details and superficial cosmetic differences), you have to be something like a Porcelain Prince, who are poly-bodied....

 

[MGibster]

I have my own setting I'm working on where Tieflings are distrusted by the general populace. Years ago, the elites of the nearby big bad evil empire made a pact with some new gods and were transformed into tieflings as part of the process. As a result, most of the nations surrounding the evil empire are distrustful of all tieflings.

The drow in my setting are extreme isolationist but they're not evil. They allow foreigners into their country by designated roads and to certain cities and those who stray from the path tend to disappear. But, still, they have a robust trade network as their silks are durable, beautiful, and a real bargain for the price.

 

[Azzy]

There are two definitions of "racist". One is, saying something about an entire race that is untrue (is racism). The other is, saying anything that implies that every race isn't exactly the same ("equal") is racism. For the latter, a simple description like "exotic" is a racist description.

No, not at all. Those are neither the common nor the academic definition of racism.

To understand what racism actually is, I'd point you to this cirriculum on racism, and this article.

 

[dmgorgon]

In my current FR campaign, I've modeled the Zhents around the Nazi's. I also have one NPC faction modeled on ISIS/Taliban.

Of course I don't require a history book to create a great fantasy campaign. Even modeling your game world around the fantasy of Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) novels work well. Which means, topics such as child labour, cannibalism, racism, slavery, sexism, animal cruelty etc.. are all on the table.

With that said, there isn't the need to describe all these things in great detail. Most of the time it's just a matter of implying such things happen and let the players imaginations take over. For example, if the PCs arrive at a burning hamlet to catch the tail end of a Rwandan styled Genocide... I don't need to go into all the grotesque details of what happened to the inhabitants.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Heh, yeah. Old Testament God isn't the nicest guy, he gets pretty vindictive.

Really, there are no "good" or "evil" gods in real world mythology, not like we have in D&D. Essentially, the gods my people follow are "good" and the gods other peoples follow are "evil". In fact, most of the named Christian demons are adapted from pagan gods who were not evil (any more or less than any other cultural god). These pagan gods, and the religions/cultures surrounding them, were literally demonized in order to show non-Christian faiths as evil and wrong.

I've always felt it would be interesting to tell new stories of the evil gods of D&D in such a manner. They are not really evil, but are just simply the cultural gods of peoples dehumanized by the "good" or "demihuman" races. Gruumsh an evil, savage war god who drives the orcs to slaughter innocents? Nah, he's a war god similar to Thor, who wields authority over justified war and the elements. And he takes second place to Luthic, an earth mother goddess who teaches the orcs the importance of family and home.

EDIT: For some reason I forgot "The Adversary", the god or demon whose sole purpose is to be the source of evil and misfortune. These figures are rarely objects of worship, as they might be in D&D, but serve as opposites to highlight why "god is good" and to tempt mortals into making bad choices.

Or they went the other way and said that the gods were really Christian saints.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I keep any racism out of my campaigns, even if it is fantasy. But some nationalities in my campaign may be mistrusted, due to wars and/or piracy. But that is not based on their race or the color of their skin, but on politics and crime.

One of my son's characters is a dwarf that is pretty racist against drows. Both of my daughter's characters are drows. While his racist character slowly comes to accept them, the rest of the party (including his other character, a dwarf that accepts everybody) plays a lot of peace keeping. We are working on turning it into a Gimli/Legolas type of character arc.

I okayed it being used as a gimmick to get them all to join the party (he stalked them for days until they ran to our party for help, then stayed, just to keep an eye on them -- and go after cultists) but told him that tensions would have to be resolved soon so that everybody was a unit.

 

[Mercule]

Honestly, isn't a lot of real-world racism primarily cultural and less about skin tone, even in the US? As in a lot of objections on minorities boil down to "they aren't like us (culturally)"?

I'm beginning to wonder more and more if most racism really is some form of xenophobia actually.

For the most part, it is. Humans are hardwired to protect "us" from "them". It's not going away any time in the near (or far) future. That's why anything that focuses on how different groups of people are, no matter how well intentioned, generally tends to inflame racism and other schism. The only solution for racism is to make race not part of the definition of "us" or "them". Which is a lot easier said than done.

 

[Azzy]

I once played a human character that was racist against non-hum races. Throughout the campaign, though, she learned to overcome her prejudice with through the actions of another PC who was an elf. Unfortunately, I never thought to run the idea by my friends—especially the ethnicly Jewish (who played the elf) and the Filipino players. They never said anything about it, but I'll never know if it affected them in any way.

 

[Richards]

In the last campaign where I was a player, I ran a human fighter named Syngaard who was a big-time racist against halflings. Another player ran a halfling rogue, which played right into Syngaard's stereotypes as he believed all halflings were out-and-out thieves who couldn't be trusted. It made for some interesting dynamics between the PCs over the course of the campaign. By the end, though, they had decided to go into business together so Syngaard had eventually gotten over his halfling bigotry. (But the time the halfling switched out one of his potions of cure light wounds with a potion of reduce person so Syngaard could see what it was like being halfling-sized is still a sore spot for him....)

Johnathan