D&D 5E On Representation and Roleplaying

[Malmuria]

Well this is a complicated topic! A couple things
- on appropriation: I am of south Asian descent, grew up in the US. When I was growing up, representations of India in American popular culture were things like Temple of Doom, Apu, and Ben Kingsley playing (and winning an academy award for playing) Gandhi. It was a set of highly successful caricatures and stereotypes, and otherwise there was not much at all. Point is, not only can white people in hollywood write and produce films and tv about non-western cultures, they have predominantly been the ones doing so and profiting off of it. This is still the case today (witness Disney, which exists mostly to turn the world's cultures into profit machines for itself (and to ruin star wars)). The concerns about appropriation, while long standing, have only reached a critical mass in the past decade or so, and only because an increasingly diverse audience wants some say as to how they are represented.

- exoticization and derogation are two sides of the same coin (or token). For example, the "East" being depicted of a land of Spirituality and Mystery is still marginalizing even if the intended connotations are positive. Historically, this kind of romantic view of the "orient" has been the result of people in the west being tired of their "same old" culture and wanting to inject something new and exciting into their life. It's true that often the choice, at best, has been between that kind of orientalist representation or not being represented at all, but that doesn't mean we have to be satisfied with that.

But the above has to do with media production, and less with playing characters in an rpg. I don't have a problem with anyone playing characters that are coded as non-western in an rpg, as long as, obviously, their character is not a stereotype. But this is often hard in fantasy, which is a genre that relies so much on tropes.

Related: here are some kickstarters from rpg creators from the global south. Please support if you are interested!

REACH OF THE ROACH GOD - Part of A Thousand Thousand Islands

A system-neutral tabletop RPG campaign inspired by the vast caves of Southeast Asia.

www.kickstarter.com

LATAM Breakout

Five new games from emerging creators in Latin America, brought to print with support from SoulMuppet Publishing

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Oofta]

I just read the article. I don’t see the judgement that you see.

The title of the article is "As Critical Role has grown, my love for the show has died". Since they haven't watched a single episode I don't see how much more judgmental they could get.

 

[Oofta]

That was kind of my point about my Briton campaign. It was set in a fantasy version of a place and time of considerable difference; I don't see that I have a special understanding of that place and time just because I'm part Scots.

I think it gets a little more complicated when you have more modern settings where there are still living people who experienced the time (20's Harlem for example) and can at least have talked about it to family members and the like, so there's some immediacy.

But if you're using locations and events from more than about a century ago, you've either done your research or not, and your ethnicity and national origin doesn't seem to do more than put a thumb on the scale there that I can see (it does the latter because maybe you'd have been more inclined to absorb information about it when you were young--but there's no assurance that information would have been any more correct than anyone else's.)

There are absolutely experiences I would not attempt to portray because of my understanding. It's more that saying that because I'm caucasian it would be okay for me to be inspired by The Witcher and include a lot of Slovakian lore because Slovenians are now considered caucasian. It's problematic to me if only a person of African American descent can author a book about not-Africa because that's lumping together many, many different cultures based solely on physical appearance.

But I think this whole topic is full of landmines. For example in my first 3.x campaign I had an NPC "Big Mamma"*. A transvestite half-orc with a Cajun accent her biggest wish was to get a belt that changed her gender physically (which the PCs eventually acquired). I never made fun of the PC, I played her completely straight. But if streaming games live had been a thing back then and I had that NPC? No matter how I portrayed her I think I would have been buried in hate mail.

I don't think that it's a good thing that I would hesitate having that NPC now no matter how I presented them. I'm so afraid to step on toes that it limits what I can present. Do I need to be careful to not make fun of people? Sure. But there are only so many tropes, ideas and accents that I can mine for inspiration.

*The name came from the fact that she ran a restaurant and helped a lot of people, especially poor people and orphans while also being well over 6 feet tall.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think one important thing to remember is that all of this is in context. In the history of publishing (especially in the US), not only was cultural appropriation the norm, it was basically rewarded. There was also heavy censorship of non-white voices. In film and television, white actors would be hired to play non-white roles.

So when you read a critique of, say, Critical Role Season 3, it's happening within this context. Matthew Mercer is doing his due diligence, but his use of other cultures is going to draw critiques because for so long it wouldn't have! And the all Caucasian cast is going to draw critiques because for so long it wouldn't have!

But you know what? Matt Mercer and Critical Role are doing fine! It's not like that one article critiquing Season 3 is going to tank the show, or critiques of an all Caucasian cast are threatening their lives.

So I think it's useful when looking at critiques of D&D and RPG media to remember to not ignore the history and context.

 

[Irlo]

The title of the article is "As Critical Role has grown, my love for the show has died". Since they haven't watched a single episode I don't see how much more judgmental they could get.

They’ve watched two seasons of episodes. I read the concluding paragraph and don’t see the judgement that you do.

“I don’t know whether I’m going to watch Campaign 3 of Critical Role. It feels like I’m no longer the target audience of the show. It’s great that Critical Role is hopefully getting more people than ever into tabletop roleplaying games and I’m excited for those people discovering this world through the show. But I feel like Critical Role has finally passed me by.”

 

[Bolares]

They’ve watched two seasons of episodes. I read the concluding paragraph and don’t see the judgement that you do.

“I don’t know whether I’m going to watch Campaign 3 of Critical Role. It feels like I’m no longer the target audience of the show. It’s great that Critical Role is hopefully getting more people than ever into tabletop roleplaying games and I’m excited for those people discovering this world through the show. But I feel like Critical Role has finally passed me by.”

Yeah, I've read the article when it came out. It is clickbaity, the author seems to be a little whiny and treats some possibilities as certain, but from that to say it's stating that Mercer isn't allowed to write Marquet is a reach.

 

[BookTenTiger]

There are absolutely experiences I would not attempt to portray because of my understanding. It's more that saying that because I'm caucasian it would be okay for me to be inspired by The Witcher and include a lot of Slovakian lore because Slovenians are now considered caucasian. It's problematic to me if only a person of African American descent can author a book about not-Africa because that's lumping together many, many different cultures based solely on physical appearance.

But remember that historically this hasn't been true at all. In fact, people of African American descent were basically barred from authoring anything! So when someone is writing or producing something about a culture they don't identify with, I think it's okay to take a critical look because of the history.

But I think this whole topic is full of landmines. For example in my first 3.x campaign I had an NPC "Big Mamma"*. A transvestite half-orc with a Cajun accent her biggest wish was to get a belt that changed her gender physically (which the PCs eventually acquired). I never made fun of the PC, I played her completely straight. But if streaming games live had been a thing back then and I had that NPC? No matter how I portrayed her I think I would have been buried in hate mail.

I don't think that it's a good thing that I would hesitate having that NPC now no matter how I presented them. I'm so afraid to step on toes that it limits what I can present. Do I need to be careful to not make fun of people? Sure. But there are only so many tropes, ideas and accents that I can mine for inspiration.

*The name came from the fact that she ran a restaurant and helped a lot of people, especially poor people and orphans while also being well over 6 feet tall.

Again, remember that historically the opposite is true. Mickey Rooney played a terrible Asian stereotype in Breakfast at Tiffany's and that movie won multiple rewards and accolades.

So again, when someone in media is portraying someone of a different cultural identity, it's worth taking a critical look because of the history.

 

[Ixal]

I think one important thing to remember is that all of this is in context. In the history of publishing (especially in the US), not only was cultural appropriation the norm, it was basically rewarded. There was also heavy censorship of non-white voices. In film and television, white actors would be hired to play non-white roles.

So when you read a critique of, say, Critical Role Season 3, it's happening within this context. Matthew Mercer is doing his due diligence, but his use of other cultures is going to draw critiques because for so long it wouldn't have! And the all Caucasian cast is going to draw critiques because for so long it wouldn't have!

But you know what? Matt Mercer and Critical Role are doing fine! It's not like that one article critiquing Season 3 is going to tank the show, or critiques of an all Caucasian cast are threatening their lives.

So I think it's useful when looking at critiques of D&D and RPG media to remember to not ignore the history and context.

A lot of those representation issues are, sadly, about appearances.

No one would ever question a team of black writer creating an Africa inspired setting, even when the writers and their parents were all born in the USA and have not even visited Africa apart from maybe a small tourist visit.
Yet a white team of writers with the same background would be questioned and criticized for appropriating.

The "but in some points in the past they were repressed" is imo not a good explanation or excuse for why person A today gets criticized while person B gets a free pass.

 

[Oofta]

But remember that historically this hasn't been true at all. In fact, people of African American descent were basically barred from authoring anything! So when someone is writing or producing something about a culture they don't identify with, I think it's okay to take a critical look because of the history.

Again, remember that historically the opposite is true. Mickey Rooney played a terrible Asian stereotype in Breakfast at Tiffany's and that movie won multiple rewards and accolades.

So again, when someone in media is portraying someone of a different cultural identity, it's worth taking a critical look because of the history.

Well, first, I agree that there has been many issues particularly with Hollywood on representation. Why did it take so long to have a Marvel movie with a martial arts expert portrayed by someone of Chinese descent?

I recognize and acknowledge that there are very real issues here. I think it goes too far when people that do not have the "correct" ancestry, ethnicity or skin color are dismissed out of hand as unable to represent a fantasy culture that represents some culture other than the one people identify them with.

There is a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma here, but killing all the chickens so they can't lay the wrong type of egg doesn't seem like a solution either. Or something. There's an analogy that works in there somewhere.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is there really a team of black writers making a poorly researched, stereotype heavy Africa setting that's not getting scrutiny and thus somehow proving this point, or do people just keep saying this because that's how they think (hope?) it works?