Racial variety

[gin]

I wish to pose another observation, (once again I hope this doesn't start a flame war), concerning Dungeons and Dragons. I am a fan of the Earthdawn game, and recently I started reading over the second edition. As I read through the races section something struck me.
Now bear with me for a minute as I divulge some background information. I am a black gamer who lives on the south side of chicago. Most of my players are also black, though it is an even mixture of men and women. Throughout numerous sessions of Dungeons and Dragons we have had discussios on the lack of anything but white elves, white dwarves, white halflings and white gnomes. I know what some people will say, if you want black elves put them in there, if you want asian dwarves add em.
This way of thinking is all well and good but I guess my question is why after all these years hasn't TSR or Wotc changed this. Before everyone starts claiming thats the way it is with most games I would just like to name a few that have broken this mold.
Earthdawn
Exalted
Midnight campaign setting
Shadowrun
I will not even get on the whole drow=dark skin debate. But I would like to hear other peoples feelings or oppinions about this lack of racial variety in non-human races. I for one feel like it is way past time for WoTC to step forward in time and realize their game is played by people with a multitude of racial backgrounds. The games above have.

 

[Mark]

I will not even get on the whole drow=dark skin debate.

Make sure to come to the Chicago Gameday. As a long time gamer turned publisher, I'd like to hear your opinion on that and also am curious about your feelings on the naming of the female monk iconic D&D character.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think you have to take into account that as the original fantasy RPG, D&D is drawing directly from fantasy literature sources (later RPGs have the luxury of drawing from both literary sources and other game systems). The overwhelming majority of D&D's sources are Western European-style fantasy, which don't reflect the multiethnic natures you discuss.

Over the years, I don't think the various corporate owners have wanted to drift to far from D&D's roots, if only to maintain that link to previous editions to drag along existing fans. Like it or not, D&D is still primarily Western European fantasy at its core.

With d20, it's becoming much more, and I think you'll see a much broader spectrum in the future, which -- much as I detest revisionism purely for political correctness -- is probably a good thing. But you'd likely have a hard time convincing folks that a multicultural fantasy is still D&D, if for example 4th Ed used Western Eurpoean humans, Eastern Eurpoean elves, Asian-cultured gnomes, Arabic halflings, African dwarves, and Native American orcs -- it's too great a departure from the elements that people recognize as D&D.

Edit: Note that I'm discussing WOTC's core D&D -- there's a lot of great variety in 3rd party d20 sources, whether African-styled cultures in Nyambe or Asiatic gnomes in Gnomes: Masters of Illusion. With the D20STL, if you can't find something that fits you, maybe it's time you wrote it!

 

[Kichwas]

Throughout numerous sessions of Dungeons and Dragons we have had discussios on the lack of anything but white elves, white dwarves, white halflings and white gnomes.

I will not even get on the whole drow=dark skin debate.

It's hard not to though.

As a non white myself I've noticed this. Many of the common evil races are modelled off of my ancestors - so it really stands out for me.

There are settings that don't do this in everything. Many settings have wiild and wood elves at brown. Kalamar puts all but high elves as dark in skin, and the most advanced human civilization in the known world is dark brown (the Svimohz).

Greyhawk had a major human race that was dark skinned, the Olman - and two of the others are semi dark.

One of the races of dwarves in FR is brown skinned.

But... it has long bothered me how much I can easily see the similarities between Orcs and the stereotypes of a good portion of my ancestry, and the skin tone of Drow.

Sometimes it really does seem as if DnD is rooted in very negative racial stereotypes - something easily backed by the racial makeup of the players. At other times I can find, as I have above, counter examples.

I primarily DM, and when I look at the table around me sometimes I see people who I wonder if they would give me the time of day if they knew the full makeup of my ancestry*. Sometimes I see people who I know would not - and are vocal about it until they realize who they're speaking to (they don't last), but most of the time I see geeks who I can't put any solid prejudices to - they socialize mostly with other whites because the weight of human culture keeps people to others like them...

A sad but true fact.

So I judge the material I see in fantasy like that as well - some of it is intentionally racist, but most of it stems out of ignorance, and a lot of it is just coincidence.

* I've never met anyone who's accurately pegged me or my race, but most can tell "I'm not one of them". What I am is a good mix of things that leads to easy confusion.

 

[storyguide3]

I think it important to remember that these non-human races are just that, non-human. They have their own kinds of racial diversity that need not have anything to do with human needs to classify people by their skin colour.

Beyond that, to say that all of these non-human races are "white" in all WotC products is incorrect. There may not be African-type dwarves but that does not need to be the case anyway. From the Forgotten Realms, arguably the most important D&D product line outside of the core rules, there comes a spectrum of different coloured racial sub-groups, including but not limited to:
Artic Dwarves - Blue-white skin (not caucasian pink "white")
Gold Dwarves - Brown skin
Moon Elves - Blue-tinged fair skin
Sun Elves - Bronze skin
Wood Elves - Copper skin with green tinge
Forest Gnomes - Bark colured skin
Rock Gnomes - skin of various brown shades

Oriental Adventures also has some races that fill the niches of the standard D&D races, but with an oriental aspect. Beyond WotC, the Nyambe products from Atlas Games feature an entire set of African dwarves, gnomes and halflings (elves as well, but they are furry and have tails).

Personally, I prefer to keep the human racial groups among the humans and have entirely different racial groups for the non-humans. For certain reasons it makes sense for darker skin tones to predominate in groups native to equatorial lands and lighter tones as one gets less sun, no matter what their race, but then again, I think all Vulcans should look more like Tuvak, given the planet they come from.

 

[kirinke]

*skin color and different races

the reason why dungeons and dragons isn't pc as we know it, is because D&D has numerous races. True races, from different biological backgrounds. They have gnomes, dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs, treants, and things even weirder. If that isn't cultural diveristy, I don't know what is...

In such a setting, skin color and slightly different facial features doesn't mean much. To an elf, a dark-skinned human is still human and that elf isn't going to treat you any differently because you're darker than your friend. They have bigger problems, such as fighting off those nasty orcs who think they taste good.

That's the context.

 

[KenM]

In the Kalamar setting, there is a dark skinned human race as well, but I forget the name.

 

[nHammer]

* I've never met anyone who's accurately pegged me or my race

Human?

 

[Umbran]

Hm. Gin brought up Shadowrun. Perhaps that's a bit relevant to the discussion...

In Shadowrun, there's lots of racism. Tons of it, in fact - the setting is rife with it. The vast majority of it, though, is not related to skin color. It's related to what race of "metahumanity" you belong to. Color differenced tend to wither in face of the differences between the cultures and wants of humans, dwarves, elves, and trolls.

D&D has that sort of racism built into it too - the usual emnity between elves and dwarves being the best example. But similarly between humans and goblinoids. That leaves the game open to discuss issues of racism as the DM and players see fit, I think.

 

[storyguide3]

But... it has long bothered me how much I can easily see the similarities between Orcs and the stereotypes of a good portion of my ancestry, and the skin tone of Drow.

You must have some interesting ancestors.

I think that seeing the skin tone of creatures like drow as having anything to do with dark-skinned human ethnicities says more about the beholder than that being beheld. I think that drow (and other evil races) have dark (usually black, actually, of a blackness that no human ever attains) skin has nothing to do with human races at all. It is far older and more primal than insipid racial bigotry. It is the fact that darkness, meaning the darkness of night, is bad. It hides the danger, protects the creatures that killed and ate our primordial forebears when they strayed too far for the protection of the light, the light of the campfire.

The Dark Forces are not dark because they are modelled after anyone's ancestors (unless your ancestors have pig-snouts and tusks, and then I think your family tree must stray across species). They are dark because all humans feared the darkness of the night and what could be out in it.