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Oh, the Humanity! Exotic Races, Anthropocentrism, Stereotypes & Roleplaying in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 8137979" data-attributes="member: 59082"><p>It is an interesting question, but one I think can be answered in a way that makes sense within the context of a setting.</p><p></p><p>The PC races are the dominant races of the world. Usually elves and dwarves had their peak thousands of years before, and humans are now the dominant species. This is drawn directly from various mythologies, such as the old Irish stories of the migrations of men who pushed out the Tuatha de Danaan, who previously had pushed out the Formorians. Mythology of different cultures is filled with such instances, often in the context of the gods (e.g. Olympians driving out the Titans, and then the Olympians fading from memory and losing their power; the Aesir, Vanir, and giants of Norse myths; the Asura and Deva of Indian myths; etc).</p><p></p><p>And of course we have our own pre-history, with recent cousins like the Denisovans and Neanderthals either killed off or incorporated by Cro-Magnon and other modern Homo Sapiens.</p><p></p><p>Tolkien codified this dynamic with his races, and the overall "lost golden age" vibe, which resonated with the 19th century Romanticism that influenced him, and of course we all know the huge impact had on all modern fantasy from the 1960s on, including D&D (despite what Gygax would have us believe).</p><p></p><p>Anyhow, the way I see it, in most D&D worlds the elves and dwarves have declined, but are still quite powerful, and have learned to live in harmony with humans (for the most part). Humans generally reign supreme. Halflings and gnomes don't have the same civilizational ambition, so they have never been dominant, but they instead have learned to live symbiotically with the "big three." The "monstrous" races have been pushed out and marginalized in various ways, and are the "others" to the dominant species of the world.</p><p></p><p>Different worlds can and do play with this in a variety of ways. In Dragonlance, there are the Irda and ogres who once were more powerful. Others had old Orc or Hobgoblin empires that have since fallen. Some even have Orcs or other humanoids as a coeval major race--like Earthdawn and Warcraft.</p><p></p><p>I think the key is, again, playing with the tools of D&D lore in a variety of ways, and structuring it all in such a way that internal consistency is achieved, and everything makes sense within the logic of the world itself.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 8137979, member: 59082"] It is an interesting question, but one I think can be answered in a way that makes sense within the context of a setting. The PC races are the dominant races of the world. Usually elves and dwarves had their peak thousands of years before, and humans are now the dominant species. This is drawn directly from various mythologies, such as the old Irish stories of the migrations of men who pushed out the Tuatha de Danaan, who previously had pushed out the Formorians. Mythology of different cultures is filled with such instances, often in the context of the gods (e.g. Olympians driving out the Titans, and then the Olympians fading from memory and losing their power; the Aesir, Vanir, and giants of Norse myths; the Asura and Deva of Indian myths; etc). And of course we have our own pre-history, with recent cousins like the Denisovans and Neanderthals either killed off or incorporated by Cro-Magnon and other modern Homo Sapiens. Tolkien codified this dynamic with his races, and the overall "lost golden age" vibe, which resonated with the 19th century Romanticism that influenced him, and of course we all know the huge impact had on all modern fantasy from the 1960s on, including D&D (despite what Gygax would have us believe). Anyhow, the way I see it, in most D&D worlds the elves and dwarves have declined, but are still quite powerful, and have learned to live in harmony with humans (for the most part). Humans generally reign supreme. Halflings and gnomes don't have the same civilizational ambition, so they have never been dominant, but they instead have learned to live symbiotically with the "big three." The "monstrous" races have been pushed out and marginalized in various ways, and are the "others" to the dominant species of the world. Different worlds can and do play with this in a variety of ways. In Dragonlance, there are the Irda and ogres who once were more powerful. Others had old Orc or Hobgoblin empires that have since fallen. Some even have Orcs or other humanoids as a coeval major race--like Earthdawn and Warcraft. I think the key is, again, playing with the tools of D&D lore in a variety of ways, and structuring it all in such a way that internal consistency is achieved, and everything makes sense within the logic of the world itself. [/QUOTE]
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