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

[Guest 85555]

Who are they killing in those movies? Do you often have a "heroic bloodshed" movie about a white man going to africa, and mowing down black men by the dozens in a redemptive spree of violence? Do you think in a culture where white people killing black people is such a contentious issue, a movie that made "art" of that would deserve to be well-received?

It is a Hong Kong action genre so I haven't seen anything like that. There is one where they go to Vietnam from Hong Kong.

Obviously though, for the audience to get behind the main characters usually the violence will either need to be justified or humorous if isn't justified. In Heroic Bloodshed usually the main characters have a good reason for wanting revenge or wanting to wipe out a kingpin, but they also often aren't great people themselves.

I am not advocating for making a movie about a white racist fantasy of killing black people, so please let's at least focus on what I am saying. I am saying violence can be artful, and that content of a movie doesn't equal message (a movie might show a white character killing a black character, but that isn't necessarily glorifying it). It all depends on what the movie is trying to do. Take the violence in the Hateful Eight. That is pretty grim violence, but it also is riddled with humor and all the characters are despicable to some extent. Yet you find characters to root for in it.

Now if someone makes a movie that is essentially a racist diatribe, of course reacting to that is fair. I am saying let's be charitable and fair though in interpreting each work. Instead of "if it doesn't do it this way" or "If it does this" then "its bad" lets take each movie and work on its own and try to decipher what the creator's were seeking to accomplish. Again, as with Piss Christ. You could easily say as a rule artists should never show a sacred figure desecrated by human extrement. That is an argument that would probably be easy to make and people would be reluctant to speak against it. But if artists don't have the freedom to explore things in the way the piece demands, you don't end up with stuff like the Piss Christ.

And the thing is, these movies never go on repeat. John Wick spent the first movie killing a Russian Mob, but he didn't go and kill another Russian mob in the second movie, and then kill a third russian mob in the third movie. In fact, during the events of the Third movie, he is almost entirely "punching up" at the High Table. And the second movie involves him being manipulated by figures more powerful than him. The "redemptive violence" is used against those with more power, more wealth, more influence, those who are untouchable. That's why we enjoy them to a degree, that is why they can be carthatic, because the "right" people are finally getting it. The powerful who abuse their power.

Sure the needs of a movie are different than a game. RPGs benefit from a core activity because you need to have something to do each week at the table. Being able to throw orcs at the party is useful. Mixing it up is also useful.

I don't think action movies need to punch up. The first John Wick movie was barely doing that at all and it is my favorite. And he was killing people over a dog, so the rationale for his righteous anger was a little thin in my opinion. Also his quest for revenge resulted in the deaths of people who had nothing to do with the dog, and his continued escalation of things in the later movies resulted in people being killed who didn't need to be. Also he is a murderer. I think if you examine John Wick like he was a real person, the is a lot there to say his actions aren't justified, no matter how much punching up he is doing (he is still killing people). But that doesn't matter because it isn't real life, it is art. And John Wick is an example of how you can make violence beautiful and create a whole criminal underworld that feels deep and interesting around that violence.

Now compare that to DnD. Are the orc tribes that get wiped out the powerful social elite who are untouchable? No. No they aren't. In fact, many versions of their depictions show them as raiding to survive, living in filth, ect. You wouldn't make a film with them as the target for the redemptive violence, because they aren't the right type of villain for that.

Why not? I've seen plenty of movies about revenge against bandits that worked wonderfully. Lady Hermit is all about the quest for revenge against Black Claw Demon who murdered one of the protagonists friends and exploits the local population. Any group should be able to serve as villains in a movie, even the downtrodden.

You are correct to a degree. I want to have an experience outside of my normal experience.

Every single day I hear stories of racism, of violence committed against the "other". I want experiences outside of that. Not to have someone lecture me about how I need to be careful in how I ask for that, because otherwise I might ruin art, make it bland, and become just like those terrible people from the past, because we have to be "realistic" instead of "idealistic".

You are absolutely free to say what you want about this stuff. But people are also free to call into question any criticisms you make. And if these kinds of criticisms start gaining traction in the culture and it leads to things beyond the critique that people don't like, they have a right to complain about it if they want to (particularly if it starts becoming about asking for products to be taken down, demanding certain things not appear in a setting, etc)

Good. It should have an effect. Having an effect is the point. If we were discussing all of this, and we weren't making a difference, then that would be incredibly disheartening.

Okay fair, but this gives weight to my point

Free Expression is alive and well. One of the bigges games on Steam from 2023 (#67 at its peak) was Postal 2, a game about going around and murdering people whose biggest tag is violence. Kind of hard to find a top-rated game that throws out a lot of racist slurs.... because it turns out we don't particularly want that.

Again, half elf isn't a racist slur. Sure some extreme content is still being made. In fact extreme content seems kind of easier to make than stuff that is nuanced and complex but veers into dangerous territory because the extreme releases will find an audience with people who are part of a backlash against the trend. But I would not say free expression is alive and well at all. I've seen different levels of it over my life and this is not a period I would describe as a good one for art and free expression.

And, actually, let's go with your version here for a second, and say that "half" is actually deeply deeply contested on whether or not it is a slur. I personally would rather prefer the company to take steps to avoid the slur, rather than say "well, not everyone agrees that this one is a problem, so we'll just keep doing it." Because by removing it, they are saying that they are trying. And maybe it isn't perfect, but I don't expect them to be perfect.

And this is a much more fair position in my opinion. I don't necessarily agree, but I think at least it approaches the idea that we can reasonably disagree about how offensive or not offensive the term "half" is. I don't think this is the way to go personally but I at least feel this is more like a conversation

And no, I don't think this will lead to a hyper-santized world where nothing negative can ever be said and all art is gruel for the soul. I think that is fear mongering.

I think it is leading us there. This is somewhat subjective. But I find it hard to look at how things are in the RPG community how they are for media in general, and not say we are at least closer to something like we had in the 80s when parents groups and the religious right were outraged over media content they didn't like. Granted it isn't coming from those groups anymore, but I mean there hasn't been a shortage of controversy over movies people thought were awful, RPGs, etc. It is practically part of the marketing for these things now.

 

[Incenjucar]

I am 10,000% putting together a team of heroic illithids after this conversation.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I am 10,000% putting together a team of heroic illithids after this conversation.

I hope they have enough sapient brains stocked up to feed on...

 

[Incenjucar]

I hope they have enough sapient brains stocked up to feed on...

Ring of Sustenance, Goodberry, etc. Plenty of options. Worst case scenario they munch on some truly vile, unrepentant villains.

 

[Minigiant]

If I was to design that kind of enemy I'd probably give it the following criteria:

• No free will. It can't be a PC as it's essentially following a programmed directive, even if it can be smart enough to use tools and make traps while it's doing so.
• Doesn't have children. Either reproduces via parasitism like a 5e gnoll or mind flayer. Or is created through magic rituals fully formed.

Though in my homebrew setting I have no enemies like that. No 'evil' species at all. As that goes against the entire idea of the setting. (lots of evil individuals though).

My primary and secondary settings have a couple.

There's the Purple just kill everything not-puple in sight. Their dismembered limbs morph into purple young who eat the dead to quickly growth into adults. Then there is the cursed Wildhorns who are just Warhammer Beastmen. The last are Warforged from a rogue factory aiming to steal resources to make more of their kind, The Warcasted.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well, I do for one. I think a large number of people would care.

And drow may not be ugly, but they're black.

I feel this is a very reductionist way of thinking.
Don't focus on the "ugly" - thats not what makes these enemy humanoids interesting or awesome.

Orcs are ferociously strong, and that is reflected in their viscious swings of their weapons, even when they miss. They breathe heavily and loudly, perhaps even shove their enemies or force movement to avoid their blows. Their cries are guttural and violent. Their skin reflects many cuts, scrapes and past wounds reflecting the harsh environment of their upbringing. Rarely does one see an orc with perfect front tusks, usually they're chipped or broken, at least amongst their veteran fighters. They relish battle and their enjoyment of it bleeds into their accelerated movement when pursuing a foe on the battlefield. Each kill is an offering to their god and a badge of honour for their clan and family.

Rather worry less about "ugly" or "black" and take a deep dive into the wonderfully supernatural world of fantasy and echo that into your game. You're likely to enjoy it a lot more.

 

[Faolyn]

I feel this is a very reductionist way of thinking.
Don't focus on the "ugly" - thats not what makes these enemy humanoids interesting or awesome.

Orcs are ferociously strong, and that is reflected in their viscious swings of their weapons, even when they miss. They breathe heavily and loudly, perhaps even shove their enemies or force movement to avoid their blows. Their cries are guttural and violent. Their skin reflects many cuts, scrapes and past wounds reflecting the harsh environment of their upbringing. Rarely does one see an orc with perfect front tusks, usually they're chipped or broken, at least amongst their veteran fighters. They relish battle and their enjoyment of it bleeds into their accelerated movement when pursuing a foe on the battlefield. Each kill is an offering to their god and a badge of honour for their clan and family.

Rather worry less about "ugly" or "black" and take a deep dive into the wonderfully supernatural world of fantasy and echo that into your game. You're likely to enjoy it a lot more.

Of course that's what makes the enemies interesting. But the problem is that people treat every one of them as enemies. As @Chaosmancer mentioned before, if the party is attacked by a group of human bandits, the party usually kills them and continues on their way (unless the plot hook was about a greater bandit threat to the area). If the party is attacked by a group of orc bandits, the party will often kill them, track down their home, and kill all the other orcs there, even if there's no reason to assume that any other orcs in the area are hostile. Obviously not always, but frequently, because the purpose of the orcs is to be killed.

Why not have orc bandits, with a notice about a reward for their death or capture, and have the people who were offering the reward also be orcs?

Edit: to answer @MGibster's question (I saw their post after I finished this, and it won't let me add another quote after I've already pressed save):

But my reason for focusing on the term "ugly" is that orcs have been othered. It's been made OK to kill them in a way that's rarely acceptable for the "prettier" races. Even your description of them makes them ugly: heavy breathing, guttural cries, horrible scars, damaged teeth, a love of battle. You just used words other than ugly. Imagine describing elf warriors like that: too-smooth skin; unnaturally large ears, pointed like a wolf's; mithril armor reflecting the flickering fires; moving like a snake about to strike; long blades wielded with inhuman cunning; gleaming eyes filled with disdain and mouth twisted into a sneer at the sight of the humans before them. This sort of description automatically makes elves into potential monsters--which is why, for the most part, elves are not described in this fashion.

 

[Maxperson]

That just makes them a variation on vampires, which have whole genres devoted to finding the good in them.

And quite often failing at some point and falling into the darkness. Since the early days of D&D you could have an exception to the rule. Those very rare exceptions don't invalidate the rule. You aren't going to stop and try to discuss morality with 9,999 vampires just because 1 in 10,000 might have some good in it. You're simply going to kill that 10,000th vampire without ever knowing that it had some good.

 

[AnotherGuy]

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.

I don't think you'll find anyone objecting to ideas such as these being introduced in new settings. In fact they'd welcome these flipped-script situations. I'm seriously thinking of incorporating your idea in my Mystara game as a rumor for the isolated Alfheim elves (which could or could not be true).

But your question "why aren't there more games like that?" is something for WotC right and game designers? Surely you aren't demanding everyone switch their homebrew games to play your ideal version of D&D?

 

[Faolyn]

I think it is leading us there. This is somewhat subjective. But I find it hard to look at how things are in the RPG community how they are for media in general, and not say we are at least closer to something like we had in the 80s when parents groups and the religious right were outraged over media content they didn't like. Granted it isn't coming from those groups anymore, but I mean there hasn't been a shortage of controversy over movies people thought were awful, RPGs, etc. It is practically part of the marketing for these things now.

But look at who the complainers are: it's people who are actually gamers, not people who know nothing about RPGs and who are just reacting to whatever conspiracy theory that was presented to them.

If people who are actually gamers are complaining about things in the community, then maybe they should be listened to, because they actually know what they're talking about.