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

[Scribe]

In DC comics, until fairly recently, Diana (Wonder Woman) was formed from clay with the power of goddesses. Does that mean that in the DC universe it’s racist to say that dirt is not people? Obviously not.

D&D fiends are elementals. Their elements are types of evil.

Is it OK to kill Warforged on sight?

I'm not asking this to be flippant, but what you are saying is fundamental to discussion around AI/Robots that has been under moral discussion for decades.

 

[TheSword]

Take a moment to read the description of succubus/incubus in the 5e MM. Then read the gnoll entry. One is a humanoid the other a fiend. One is spawned by feasting on demon flesh, one is born of sexual union with it's own kind. One has an average int of 6, the other 15. One can make long term plans and keep up elaborate ruses, the other are barely controlled instruments of destruction nobody willingly associates with.

One of them can be any alignment, the other is nearly uniformally evil. Which is which and why?

Because one is usually found in a tribal society in a desert/badlands setting, and easily be seen as analogous with desert raiders.

The other is a force of nature, created whole cloth by the abyss to lure mortal souls back to the abyss by corrupting them with lust to feed on their energy and increase evil in the universe. They achieve promotion to a more powerful and evil form by doing so. When they die they return to the abyss and reform... and most importantly bears no relation to a real world analogy.

 

[TheSword]

If you knew much about certain Cultures, you would see that the description of Tieflings could actually be seen as EXTREMELY racist, especially once people draw the similarities between certain minority groups in the world today and the Tiefling description.

Including things such as being swindlers, thieves, etc...and being minorities among minorities or living in the slums is actually very similar in the type of phrasing that people look back on Orcs as being representative of racism today.

I am not going into detail here, but you could see direct parallels between how people look at how Orcs were portrayed in prior editions and how Tieflings are being portrayed today, even in 5e.

Read the PHB Tiefling description. It is actually quite comparable to the Vistani's older descriptions, even if the "appearance" is slightly different in description.

I might be wrong here but as I understand it Tiefling are absolutely picked out as any alignment in the PHB. So from a default to evil point of view it’s moot.

However I do agree that the suspicion and prejudice element is distateful. Kind of similar to the half orc and half elf.

That’s not to say prejudice and suspicion is a bad thing to have in an RPG game. I just don’t like the fact that it defaults to it for a creature purely based on its bloodline.

 

[Haffrung]

You don't have to be a bible-thumper to be religious, and these things reached the mainstream. But however it filtered down, the Satanic Panic itself is what started it and the wilder claims are what started getting the coverage of D&D and such. That it filtered down in different ways to different people doesn't really negate what it was about in the first place.

Not true. The public alarm around D&D (and the first time most people had even heard of the game) started with the James Egbert disappearance and the book and movie about it, Mazes and Monsters. That case wasn’t about religion or satanism. It was about a college kid who was allegedly obsessed with D&D suffering from a mental breakdown and going missing. That’s the kind of thing well-meaning educators and mental health authorities in my part of the world worried about. Not satanism.

How old are you? Did you witness the cultural treatment of D&D in the early 80s? I did. It isn’t just something I read about on the internet.

 

[Scribe]

If you knew much about certain Cultures, you would see that the description of Tieflings could actually be seen as EXTREMELY racist, especially once people draw the similarities between certain minority groups in the world today and the Tiefling description.

Including things such as being swindlers, thieves, etc...and being minorities among minorities or living in the slums is actually very similar in the type of phrasing that people look back on Orcs as being representative of racism today.

I am not going into detail here, but you could see direct parallels between how people look at how Orcs were portrayed in prior editions and how Tieflings are being portrayed today, even in 5e.

Read the PHB Tiefling description. It is actually quite comparable to the Vistani's older descriptions, even if the "appearance" is slightly different in description.

I'm actually amazed anyone accepted Tiefling as presented today. I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of the post 4e implementation.

Because one is usually found in a tribal society in a desert/badlands setting, and easily be seen as analogous with desert raiders.

See this is where the wheels fall off to me. There is no analogy to tie Gnolls to real peoples, at all.

 

[Remathilis]

Because one is usually found in a tribal society in a desert/badlands setting, and easily be seen as analogous with desert raiders.

The other is a force of nature, created whole cloth by the abyss to lure mortal souls back to the abyss by corrupting them with lust to feed on their energy and increase evil in the universe. They achieve promotion to a more powerful and evil form by doing so. When they die they return to the abyss and reform... and most importantly bears no relation to a real world analogy.

Or...

One is a humanoid version of hyenas, adopting the negative stereotypes about those animals and extrapolating them into a stronger, meaner humanoid opponent. They are Scar's hyenas from the Lion King except on two legs and carrying weapons.

While the other is a morality tale about how beautiful, sexually forward women (and sometimes men) will turn you from virtuous living though temptation by "draining" your vitality while leading you to greater and greater acts of evil and depravity until you are consumed.

Also, succubi aren't Abyssal anymore. They are their own type of fiend and work for both sides. FYI.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Not true. The public alarm around D&D (and the first time most people had even heard of the game) started with the James Egbert disappearance and the book and movie about it, Mazes and Monsters. That case wasn’t about religion or satanism. It was about a college kid who was obsessed with D&D suffering from a mental breakdown and going missing. That’s the kind of thing well-meaning educators and mental health authorities in my part of the world worried about. Not satanism.

It was absolutely absorbed into the greater fixation on Satanism at the time. It's not hard to find, but if you want to try and keep distracting from the actual argument to just try and dismiss it with a bad comparison, I'm not sure what else we can talk about.

How old are you? Did you witness the cultural treatment of D&D in the early 80s? I did. It isn’t just something I read about on the internet.

No, I was a bit too young for it. But it's not hard to find sources on how it was used by the greater social movement, hence why people talk about it as an influence to Satanism.

 

[Oofta]

I'm actually amazed anyone accepted Tiefling as presented today. I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of the post 4e implementation.



See this is where the wheels fall off to me. There is no analogy to tie Gnolls to real peoples, at all.

Are you sure?

 

[Wishbone]

Also Daelkyr creations like Mindflayers & Beholders are so deep into starfish alien territory that they are literally cited on the tvtropes page for starfish aliens

Spoiler

Dungeons & Dragons:

• The 3.5 Edition supplement "Lords of Madness" describes aliens of forms various and sundry. These include: the Aboleth, hermaphrodite catfish/eel/squid spawn of the Far Realm with Genetic Memory; Illithidae, a genus of creatures related to the iconic mind flayers, a group that includes gigantic, pulsing, psionic brains and the deceptively innocuous mind flayer larvae; Tsochari, a parasitic lifeform from a cold and distant planet who enter and control the bodies and minds of spellcasters for some sinister purpose; the Silthilar, an ancient race of wizard-scientists who have transformed themselves into hive-minded swarms in response to a particularly virulent magical plague; and the Beholderkin, insane levitating spheres with many eyes in disturbing places.

Oh the silthilar, what a cool concept that didn't last through the edition changes.

 

[Scribe]

Not going there @Oofta