D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[AnotherGuy]

And that's pretty disturbing, actually, even in-game, to say that ugly things deserve to die. Reminds me of a line from the Discworld novel Lords And Ladies: "If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are.

Ugly things are more likely to be killed - not that they deserve to die. Most monsters are ugly. The only reason orcs and goblins are killed en masse is because many people still follow the original script of that species - spawn of evil etc.

Is it disturbing - this deference to beauty? Not any more so than anything else we experience whether it be in nerd culture (hot superheroes) or in reality.
I remember when the Elizabeth Hurley's evil character got punched out in Passenger 57, Wesley Snipes says "What a waste"
Beauty is disarming - hence the hag trope, succubus, dryads, rusalkas...etc

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Huh doing some research and it seems that the term 'orc' has also been used for a 'sea monster', and has links to the term 'orca'.

Known to a lot of the public as a 'killer whale'

 

[Bedrockgames]

Weird that you didn't use the obvious touchstone that Gary went to with his quote: the American West, which is very much a big touchstone for how adventuring parties work often times in the frontier. But again, there are plenty of aspects in the context of D&D and this style of play that go into why this comes off as colonialism, particularly relating to the people you are killing and why.

Because ai think like a lot of people that aspect of it feels so removed. Westerns were a dead genre by the time I started playing. And I think when it is that derivative from the genre, the connection to colonialism is tenuous. Wuxia also owes a lot to westerns for example. Genres get blended all the time. I don’t think these things are like original sin when it comes to tropes. But also we are now moving into a whole other area of discussion I think

 

[Justice and Rule]

Because ai think like a lot of people that aspect of it feels so removed. Westerns were a dead genre by the time I started playing.

That doesn't matter when it's part of what the game is. It wasn't a dead genre for the guys who made it when they were growing up.

And I think when it is that derivative from the genre, the connection to colonialism is tenuous. Wuxia also owes a lot to westerns for example.

It would then depend on what they get from Westerns. When it's conquering a frontier, killing the savage natives and taking their stuff, it's a bit different than what Wuxia might get out of it. This is just really bad reasoning.

I don’t think these things are like original sin when it comes to tropes. But also we are now moving into a whole other area of discussion I think

Sure, but I largely think it misses the point that what D&D gets from Westerns is the sort of resonant colonialist themes. That's pretty on-topic and why I think it's relevant.

 

[Faolyn]

because humans are trespassers there, and Dryads, Fey and Elves are in their right to deal with trespassers as they see fit.

People like to talk about how racism in games is realistic or at least provides verisimilitude. In the real world, plenty of humans have decided that the natives of a land are the actual trespassers, ungrateful savages keeping the more deserving people from enjoying the land themselves.

So why aren't there more games like that?

Where city-dwelling humans (and dwarfs, dragonborn, tieflings, orcs, etc.) have decided that they want that forest for their own purposes--since wood is necessary for civilization, and those forest folk are just a bunch of uncivilized savages--and so are fighting the elves and dryads and fey for it. Being more innately magical, the forest folk have some particularly nasty ways of fighting back. They turn the human (etc.) POWs into mindless animals or plants (be careful when you go hunting in the forest; that deer you kill may once have been a person). They have no problems torturing humans, because humans are mere mortals so it's no worse to them then pulling the legs off a spider is to some humans. They turn normal animals into beasts of war or into spies, so the humans can never tell if that cat or dog or cow is pet/livestock or an enemy. Worse yet, they enchant people, either stealing them away forever and turning them into charmed servants, or returning them with subliminal programming. As the humans encroach further and further into the forest, the forest folk get more and more vicious and vengeful. After several decades or centuries of this the elves have become kill on sight monsters.

It's plenty realistic, for those who care about realism. Neither side is blameless, even if one side started it, and it's been so long since then that who started it barely even matters anymore. It may have its roots in colonialism, but it's a case where the indigenous peoples have equal levels of technology (magic) and so weren't just bowled over by the invaders. The forest folk do horrible things to the good people of the cities and plains, which makes it even mythologically realistic. And the good people of the cities can, in fact, be actually good-aligned, not just evil colonists who are doing mean things to those poor helpless faeries, because even if humans decided to stop logging and never stepped foot in the forest again, the forest-folk have long memories and hold grudges.

It is incredibly easy to make a setting where orcs and goblins aren't the default ugly, always-evil, kill-on-sight monsters.

 

[MGibster]

Sure. And why aren't elves the one raiding and pillaging? Because they're not pretty. Because, ages ago, some people arbitrarily decided that orcs were ugly and stupid and evil and deserve to die, and because, even now, some people don't want to put in the effort to figure out other bad guys.

And the fact that one is pretty and the other is not is important because, why?

 

[Faolyn]

I think you've got it backwards. Someone made a 'bad guy monster', and then as part of that made them look horrifying and scary. They didn't pick the horrifying and scary thing and then turn them into the 'bad guy monster'. The ancient roots of the word 'orc' all refer to evil devils and spirits. Over time the depictions of orcs changed until in modern DnD, they are no longer 'evil spirits' but green people.

The ancient roots for faeries, elves, dwarfs, etc., were also horrible monsters in mythology. Take this bit from Wikipedia:

The word elf is found throughout the Germanic languages and seems originally to have meant 'white being'. However, reconstructing the early concept of an elf depends largely on texts written by Christians, in Old and Middle English, medieval German, and Old Norse. These associate elves variously with the gods of Norse mythology, with causing illness, with magic, and with beauty and seduction.

After the medieval period, the word elf tended to become less common throughout the Germanic languages, losing out to alternative native terms like Zwerg ('dwarf') in German and huldra ('hidden being') in North Germanic languages, and to loan-words like fairy (borrowed from French into most of the Germanic languages). Still, beliefs in elves persisted in the early modern period, particularly in Scotland and Scandinavia, where elves were thought of as magically powerful people living, usually invisibly, alongside everyday human communities. They continued to be associated with causing illnesses and with sexual threats. For example, several early modern ballads in the British Isles and Scandinavia, originating in the medieval period, describe elves attempting to seduce or abduct human characters.

(emphasis mine)

But elves and fairies were pretty and got bowdlerized into cutesy characters for children's books, while orcs were picked up by Tolkien to be the evil minions of the BBEG.

 

[Faolyn]

I remember when the evil Elizabeth Hurley got punched out in Passenger 57, Wesley Snipes says "What a waste"

Wow, that's both disturbing and sexist.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That doesn't matter when it's part of what the game is. It wasn't a dead genre for the guys who made it when they were growing up.



It would then depend on what they get from Westerns. When it's conquering a frontier, killing the savage natives and taking their stuff, it's a bit different than what Wuxia might get out of it. This is just really bad reasoning.

Westerns are about all kinds of things. That is a very reductive description of the genre. I mean yes it was set during a time of American expansion, but westerns tend to follow a much similar pattern to wuxia, of a hero wandering into a frontier town beset by bandits or local bullies and has to confront them. It is also important to remember that China had a frontier too. There is also the whole cowboys versus indians you can sometimes get in the genre. But I think part of the problem with these types of arguments is they have to take something like westerns and reduce them to three things that match what colonialism was about. And again, most people playing D&D, even if they are aware of the western themes, are not making a connection to that and colonialism. Like I said, it is so removed. Just like some of the adventure stories that come from genres that were influenced by colonialist narratives, are so removed it doesn't really matter any more.

Obviously you can connect westerns to colonialism. And there is this idea of going into a frontier and confronting what is there that can come from stories about the New World (or from things like the Aeneid, classic sagas, etc). Wherever the ideas are being drawn from they are so removed from the conflicts they were part, and they are only just an influence. If the game were doing something like actually advocating for some form of Neo-colonialism. I could understand the upset. But to me it registers the same as when people complain about violent movies.

Sure, but I largely think it misses the point that what D&D gets from Westerns is the sort of resonant colonialist themes. That's pretty on-topic and why I think it's relevant.

Again, I don't think anyone is really making this connection anymore, and I think it is a fairly simplistic take to be honest. But again, even if you are right, the colonialist themes are so many times removed, it just doesn't matter. Really what you should be worried about, if you are concerned about the influences of media, isn't the esoteric and invisible residue that might somehow be polluting us, but what actual messages and propaganda is being advanced. I know I have seen revenge movies that drew on westerns in order to be militaristic propaganda pieces. I can still enjoy those movies but I am a lot more worried about the militaristic propaganda (often propaganda that distorts history) than I am about the colonialist residue from western media

 

[Bedrockgames]

And anyway, even if orcs aren't kill on sight, killing things and taking their stuff is still the bread & butter of D&D game play.

True, we got into that tangent somehow. But killing things and taking their stuff is the bread and butter. Kill on sight orcs are just a feature of some types of campaigns.