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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 1306130" data-attributes="member: 891">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.</blockquote>

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