D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[Oofta]

That's not a scientific fact dude, that's a political opinion that science has failed to validate. Sociopath isn't even a scientific term. Look it up if you don't believe me. I'd link wikipedia but it's not a real term so it's not there.

Good grief. You're going to argue based on technicalities? Okay orcs all have "antisocial personality disorder". Heaven forbid I use the common real world vernacular and not the definition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Point is, some people effectively don't have what we would consider a "conscience". I see no issue with a fictional species like orcs lacking a conscience as we define it.

 

[Oofta]

I think the point RE and other are trying to make is that for them it's too late to make orc a distinct species. Whatever is written in the future about them, since they have been depicted using the terms used to depict people in real life, they will be seen as people, not another species and therefore you can't ascribe a common trait, positive or negative, to a group of people based on their culture or "race".

The fix the verbiage. Don't throw the orc out with the bathwater.

 

[Bohandas]

I know you're probably joking, but it's a coincidence in more in the sense that might say the exact same words as some person on TV you heard 30 years ago, thinking you came up with them, and not realizing that you're actually bringing them out of deep memory. There's really little to no chance the people who wrote this stuff hadn't been exposed, at least briefly, to this kind of extreme racist sentiment.

Even then, it should have been spotted in Volo's and Strahd. They literally paid extra to have someone act as a consult on Strahd, and still, no-one spotted this stuff. The didn't spot stuff that previous editions HAD spotted, and veered away from - for example 4E understood that the Vistani were a pretty racist conceit as they were in the earlier editions, so totally reworked them. But 5E just brought them back. I doubt it was malice, that's serious incompetence.

Ok, I forgot about Ravenloft. I'll grant you that the Vistani ethnicity is based on stereotypes of Romani nomads, but that's the extent of it. The rest of it is just seeing patterns in random noise.

In fact, even the Vistani only come by it second or third hand, they're clearly more about incorporating a stock character type from the old Universal horror films (which are in turn recycled from old fantasy novels) then they are about making any sort of statement about the Romani ethnicity. If anything, steps have clearly been taken to divorce them from the Romani, including - most glaringly - the fact that they gave the stock character a new name without the real world baggage

I think the point RE and other are trying to make is that for them it's too late to make orc a distinct species.

Orcs were ALWAYS a seperate species. They were never depicted as human and neither were the elves, dwarves, or gnomes. In fact, these groups are canonically less related to humans and to each other than you are to a willow tree. As the product of seperate acts of creation they don't share any taxons in common, whereas you and the tree are at least in the same domain

 

[Scribe]

What it's usually used about is this: Antisocial personality disorder - Wikipedia

But those people do NOT match up with your description and some of them are pretty decent.

Many, as this is a bit more in my wheelhouse and personal experience.

This isn't what Orcs are though.

 

[Scribe]

It's too late for that to be Orcs, because since 1E or earlier, they've been established to be "just people" in most major settings, and maybe "usually bad people" but that still makes them people

Sorry but what Major Settings are these? It's not default D&D, and it's not FR.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Ok, I forgot about Ravenloft. I'll grant you that the Vistani ethnicity is based on stereotypes of Romani nomads, but that's the extent of it. The rest of it is just seeing patterns in random noise.

In fact, even the Vistani only come by it second or third hand, they're clearly more about incorporating a stock character type from the old Universal horror films (which are in turn recycled from old fantasy novels) then they are about making any sort of statement about the Romani ethnicity. If anything, steps have clearly been taken to divorce them from the Romani, including - most glaringly - the fact that they gave the stock character a new name without the real world baggage

This is a great example of the problem and how it works: bad tropes and stereotypes are created, and they are normalized and used again over time because people got them from fiction that treated them as normal. This is exactly what we've been talking about this entire time: it's not that it's going to subtly turn you racist, but it's going to normalize the language and the usage so that these things continue to get used by the people who were inspired by these works. Old Universal films inspired Ravenloft, and they used those bad stereotypes there, which got brought to modern day when they wanted to use Ravenloft again.

Does this make sense?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

The fix the verbiage. Don't throw the orc out with the bathwater.

I'm not saying I support the idea that orcs are past the point of being described as a different species. I was just relaying the idea. My fix is rather on the other side: drop races altogether. If every playable race is made of people, then call them people and accept that they are human with very few differences that couldn't just be replicated by a peculiar human culture (and make every characteristics floating, not only ASIs, during character creation). Then, later, introduce the dreaded, inhuman, born-in-vat, always evil Cros to play the part the CR1-2 group of enemies you can actually kill without objectively being a murderer so far held by Orcs.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Good grief. You're going to argue based on technicalities? Okay orcs all have "antisocial personality disorder". Heaven forbid I use the common real world vernacular and not the definition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Point is, some people effectively don't have what we would consider a "conscience". I see no issue with a fictional species like orcs lacking a conscience as we define it.

ARGH.

No.

Read the article. It's not a technicality. People with ASPD do have empathy, cooperation and community, to some extent, there's just difficult stuff going on.

And are you really saying, basing orcs on mentally-ill people, and then slaughtering them because they have mentally-ill characteristics is the right way to? Because if so I have a great career for you in causing massive PR faux-pas for major corporations lolol! Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire! "Okay so they're racist, what if we just made them like mentally-ill people, would it be okay to kill them then?".

I am literally ROFL. I fell out of my chair. I love you man wow never change.

 

[Oofta]

ARGH.

No.

Read the article. It's not a technicality. People with ASPD do have empathy, cooperation and community, to some extent, there's just difficult stuff going on.

And are you really saying, basing orcs on mentally-ill people, and then slaughtering them because they have mentally-ill characteristics is the right way to? Because if so I have a great career for you in causing massive PR faux-pas for major corporations lolol! Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire! "Okay so they're racist, what if we just made them like mentally-ill people, would it be okay to kill them then?".

I am literally ROFL. I fell out of my chair. I love you man wow never change.

No, I'm saying they aren't human. They have no more conscience as we understand it than a tiger if that's your definition of how an orc works.

They are fictional creatures. All we really know is that they are not human. Beyond that? Up to the campaign and the DM.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Many, as this is a bit more in my wheelhouse and personal experience.

This isn't what Orcs are though.

Yeah many is absolutely fairer. I've only met a handful of people with it and they were all pretty okay (I mean, struggling in some cases, but struggling, not giving in). I just didn't want to overstate based on limited experience (first time for everything eh Ruin?)