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

[MGibster]

Keep on the Borderlands?

Not quite.

The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populace, rape its riches, and steal its treasures.

The forces of Chaos being represented by the various creatures in the Caves of Chaos.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Orcs do not meet that bar for me at all.

Doesn't matter. It does for a lot of gamers of color. Because the description literally uses the wording of people like Custer, when describing people that were going to be genocided or enslaved, a lot of said wording still being used against said people today.

Look, I don't know what you want anymore. We can't undo the changes that have been made (even if we wanted to, which not all of us do), and we can't discuss other potential pitfalls that could arise because that's doomsaying and whataboutism. Either WotC's fixes have corrected the issue or there is more work to be done, but it can't be both simultaneously. So which is it?

I've no idea what the hell you're talking about, here.

Obviously we should not reverse the recent changes to the game. I've never suggested anything remotely related to something like that.

There is certainly more work to be done. Gnolls are a great example. The seemingly inhereted racial distrust between dwarves and lots of other races. Possibly some aspects of how Tieflings are described in the PHB. Decreasing racial mono-cultures in the core books. Elf art is still pretty much all either white or supernatural skin tones, as is halfling and dwarf art. And most races like genasi that always have unnatural skin tones pretty much always have European facial features unless they're in some sort of RL culture specific depiction that isn't European.

Kvetching about how next thing they're gonna make orcus a good guy isn't on any rational list. Nor is "well if orcs can't default to evil then demons can't either".

Becuase those specific ideas are absurd nonsense that can only distract from an actual, genuine, discussion about racism in dnd.

 

[Charlaquin]

They've been fixed. Going forward, orcs are not defaulting to Evil alignments in the Stat block. Races no longer have cultural elements baked in or ability scores predeterminism. Vistani are being modified. The battle is won, everyone can go home now.

You know, I’d love to, but apparently because some dudes posted a video on YouTube complaining about what they imagined a Wired article was saying, that apparently merits a 50-page retread of the exact same talking points.

 

[Morrus]

I have to disagree with this. Some people believe that playing games that depict demons/devils is harmful. It doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. That is what they believe. This is what conservatives complain about liberals... things that a conservative christian believes can be dismissed as non-relevant and not worthy of inclusion.

Y'know, if your post contains the words "conservatives", "liberals", and "christians" in it, the chances that you're breaking the no religion/politics rule is pretty much 100%. Please refrain from posting about politics and religion.

 

[Charlaquin]

So, Flayers indeed confirmed, not Evil, just hungry.

As I said before, we can’t even really get to answering the moral question of if mind flayers are evil without first running up against the pragmatic issue of their existence being antithetical to the continued life and bodily autonomy of all other sentient beings.

That said, a campaign where you kill the elder brains to free the Illithid from their control and then tackle the question of if the liberated Illithid can coexist peacefully with other races? That sounds pretty dope to me.

 

[Scribe]

Becuase those specific ideas are absurd nonsense that can only distract from an actual, genuine, discussion about racism in dnd.

Incorrect.

If you want to clean up language in Volo's pertaining to the description of Orcs as it has ties to real life language that was used in the past to make HUMANS into an 'other'. Please, by all means lets do that.

If we want to discuss the merits of Orcs being Evil, then we absolutely must discuss the merits of Gnolls, or any other historically Evil race, including Fiends, and including 'Always Good' Outsiders and its going to include thinking Constructs.

That is not absurd. That is a logical extension of what we are going to have as acceptable behavior toward sapient beings.

Clean up Vistani.
Clean up Orcs description in Volo's.
Clean up Tiefling PHB.

Seriously, by all means.

But if we are going to go down the road of Orcs != Evil, then neither can anything else.

 

[Argyle King]

What on earth are you talking about?

We agree so far.

It’s not even that. A being made of elemental evil isn’t even alive in a sense that is vaguely comparable to a mortal animal. An orc is. The two aren’t even remotely in the same category of items.

I honestly just find this very...navel-gazey and not useful.

We are discussing racist elements in D&D because D&D has elements that make many marginalized people uncomfortable in a way that we all generally recognize as experiencing racism. Demons aren’t part of that discussion. Orcs are.
Because orcs make significant numbers of people feel that way and demons don’t.

Probably because demons aren’t written in a way that reminds anyone of how racists have written about their people, but also partly because demons are so obviously not a people in any rational sense of the word.

Tieflings contain demonic blood.

It's still frowned upon by many to say townsfolk would view them suspiciously. So, it would appear that there is some question concerning where nature ends and nurture begins.

Likewise, depending upon setting, orcs are said to be the progeny of an inherently evil divine being.

Which isn't to say that I don't see racism in how they're sometimes portrayed. I do. At the same time, it also means evaluating where the real world ends and where the fiction begins.

There are, in my opinion, a lot of valid world building questions which come out of that.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure. I just get really tired of them being used to make the discussion inherently absurd.

It's a weird mix of whataboutism and egregiously fallacious slippery slope arguments that serves no purpose in this discussion. The line is, "what makes marginalised people feel like the game is asking to touch their hair or expressing surprise at how articulate they are?" It's not complicated.

Yeah. I’d just rather say “sure, you can have good succubi if I can have good gnolls” and move on than continue to let this line of discussion distract from the actual topic.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah. I’d just rather say “sure, you can have good succubi if I can have good gnolls” and move on than continue to let this line of discussion distract from the actual topic.

There we go, its agreed. Off to Sigil!

 

[Charlaquin]

Not quite.


The forces of Chaos being represented by the various creatures in the Caves of Chaos.

Something tells me the civilians and children in every monster den were not pressing upon any borders, seeking to enslave any populaces, rape any riches, or steal any treasures.