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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7727096" data-attributes="member: 6683613">The Lord of the Rings is set in prehistoric Europe. It is okay for a particular story to be set in a particular place. The assumption of earlier editions of D&amp;D was that your campaign was set in a similar place. It is less okay for a generic roleplaying game to make that kind of assumption, which is why newer editions of D&amp;D have more diverse humans in their art.Physical ugliness in mythology and folklore is often used to symbolize inner ugliness. The trope is also subverted and played with, of course -- see &quot;Beauty and the Beast&quot;.And what you are doing here is telling creators that you understand their intentions in their own creative output better than they do.You're using the logic I'm arguing against to attempt to rebut my argument. And if you don't like the devil features in the analogy, I could just as easily have used other features that serve in our culture as visual symbols for evil.That's odd, because most complaints I've seen about Tolkien's description of orcs is that they resemble racist depictions of East Asians. See wartime anti-Japanese propaganda for an acute example. As for pre-Tolkien fantasy monsters -- well, let's actually go to Japanese folklore and point out the toothy, misshapen-faced features of the oni.It's not always simple, but I do suspect that fewer people will feel this way if we don't keep repeating that orcs look like Africans(/East Asians) and instead point out that they, well, don't. Especially if there are plenty of humans who do look like Africans(/East Asians) in the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7727096, member: 6683613"] The Lord of the Rings is set in prehistoric Europe. It is okay for a particular story to be set in a particular place. The assumption of earlier editions of D&D was that your campaign was set in a similar place. It is less okay for a generic roleplaying game to make that kind of assumption, which is why newer editions of D&D have more diverse humans in their art. Physical ugliness in mythology and folklore is often used to symbolize inner ugliness. The trope is also subverted and played with, of course -- see "Beauty and the Beast". And what you are doing here is telling creators that you understand their intentions in their own creative output better than they do. You're using the logic I'm arguing against to attempt to rebut my argument. And if you don't like the devil features in the analogy, I could just as easily have used other features that serve in our culture as visual symbols for evil. That's odd, because most complaints I've seen about Tolkien's description of orcs is that they resemble racist depictions of [I]East Asians[/I]. See wartime anti-Japanese propaganda for an acute example. As for pre-Tolkien fantasy monsters -- well, let's actually go to Japanese folklore and point out the toothy, misshapen-faced features of the [I]oni[/I]. It's not always [I]simple[/I], but I do suspect that fewer people will feel this way if we don't keep repeating that orcs look like Africans(/East Asians) and instead point out that they, well, don't. Especially if there are plenty of humans who [I]do[/I] look like Africans(/East Asians) in the game. [/QUOTE]

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