Racially diverse artwork in D&D...does it influence you?

[Doug McCrae]

There's something a bit weird about diversity of skin colour in D&D. You already have all these fantasy races - elves, orcs, etc - which don't exist in our world. To say that in addition there are black halflings, asian dwarves and so forth is too much. I feel that the fantasy races of D&D worlds can serve as a stand in for whatever you want to say about race in our own. Or do away with the pointy-eared folks. But then it wouldn't be D&D so you can't.

Admittedly races in Tolkien = class divide. Elves are the landed gentry, orcs are the working classes. Dwarves are a possible exception, they're Jewish or Scottish. Or maybe they represent the professional classes, artisans.

 

[Celebrim]

I think I can bottom line this. Today, in 2008, we, in the western world, live in a multi-ethnic world. Our popular culture should reflect this. If it doesn't, then there's a problem.

If you look at modern science fiction, it is incredibly diverse.

But there are few writers that are really diverse. As I said, mostly they write about what they know. That's not at all a bad thing considering the alternative. This is true of something as trivial as ethnicity and the skin tone of characters. But it is also true of actual diversity of thought and opinion. Some of the writers have agendas. You can be pretty sure that thier characters will act as voices for particular points of view or ways of looking at the world, whether religious or irreligious or antireligious, whether libertarian or statist, hard science or mystical fiction, free market or socialist, culturalist or multiculturalist, or whatever. This is also not surprising. It's pretty hard to hold a diversity of opinions within one mind, and its not a standard we should demand.

But despite the fact that no particular author is necessarily diverse, there is alot of diversity within science fiction literature as a whole.

Diversity is an attribute of science fiction, but it is not something created by science fiction. You couldn't go and create true diversity in science fiction by trying to create it. Diversity is an attribute of having diverse creators which naturally arise without any need for conscious acts of creating diversity in a multiethnic society. You can't artificially create it, and in fact, the act of artificially selecting for something destroys the intended goal.

I really don't care if the setting is pseudo-european or not. It's being written in 2008, and it should reflect our current value system.

Wouldn't that actually be the opposite of diversity?

 

[Imaro]

There's something a bit weird about diversity of skin colour in D&D. You already have all these fantasy races - elves, orcs, etc - which don't exist in our world. To say that in addition there are black halflings, asian dwarves and so forth is too much. I feel that the fantasy races of D&D worlds can serve as a stand in for whatever you want to say about race in our own. Or do away with the pointy-eared folks. But then it wouldn't be D&D so you can't.

Admittedly races in Tolkien = class divide. Elves are the landed gentry, orcs are the working classes. Dwarves are a possible exception, they're Jewish or Scottish. Or maybe they represent the professional classes, artisans.

Do you find it weird because you can relate to them with caucasian features better? Do you have a problem with drow being different colored than other elves...or the subraces of elves, dwarves, etc. that have a different described appearance? Just curious

Indeed.

Uhm, what's funny about it if it's a joke? Because I don't really get it and I want to understand it.

 

[Imaro]

If you look at modern science fiction, it is incredibly diverse.

But there are few writers that are really diverse. As I said, mostly they write about what they know. That's not at all a bad thing considering the alternative. This is true of something as trivial as ethnicity and the skin tone of characters. But it is also true of actual diversity of thought and opinion. Some of the writers have agendas. You can be pretty sure that thier characters will act as voices for particular points of view or ways of looking at the world, whether religious or irreligious or antireligious, whether libertarian or statist, hard science or mystical fiction, free market or socialist, culturalist or multiculturalist, or whatever. This is also not surprising. It's pretty hard to hold a diversity of opinions within one mind, and its not a standard we should demand.

But despite the fact that no particular author is necessarily diverse, there is alot of diversity within science fiction literature as a whole.

Diversity is an attribute of science fiction, but it is not something created by science fiction. You couldn't go and create true diversity in science fiction by trying to create it. Diversity is an attribute of having diverse creators which naturally arise without any need for conscious acts of creating diversity in a multiethnic society. You can't artificially create it, and in fact, the act of artificially selecting for something destroys the intended goal.

You realize Todd Lockwood, the artist was pushing for diversity...R&D was pushing for a euro-centric look, so actually...yeah, the creator was pushing for diversity and was artificially hindered by marketing decisions. This has nothing to do with the creator being forced to insert diversity and everything to do with diversity arising from a creators desires and being looked at as a negative by the corporation's marketing. Now to me that is totally artificial.

 

[Snoweel]

I'm inclined to agree.

I very much dislike fantasy settings where you can point at the map and go, "That's Egypt. That's Africa. That's France. That's Greece. That's the Italian city states. That's pre-unification Germany. That's Arabia.", and what not.

Sometimes you see a quasi-European setting where the individual nations have no direct European analogue, and then surrounding it are stock 'Egyptian', 'African', 'Chinese', 'Japanese', 'Arabian' nations. That's annoying to.

I can see why you'd do it. It's very hard to create a body of material as compelling as a real world culture. It's very hard to imagine something that has little or no real world analogue. Also, its alot hard to invent novel permetations of a culture you pretty much know only through one or two stories, than one which you yourself are steeped in from a wide variaty of sources.

But it would be nice to see.

I used to try and create my own fantasy cultures. It's a lot of hard work for little reward - unless your players want to read your hundreds of pages of notes.

In the end I found the easiest thing is to take our modern liberal democratic ideals, throw some real-world window dressing on them and call it a fantasy culture.

So you've got the western liberal nation that lives in the jungle and dresses like the Aztecs, the western liberal nation that lives on an island and dresses like the Samurai, the western liberal nation that lives in the desert and builds pyramids for their Pharoah, and the western liberal nation that lives in temperate climates and dresses like medieval Europeans.

Obviously the extent to which you can diversify depends on your players' understanding of real-world historical cultures, so if you're a bunch of Asian history majors you can make the distinction between Han Chinese, Japanese feudal and Srivijaya-era Sumatran cultures.

But if your players don't know the difference then what's the point? Save time and just throw them into the gameworld region your players understand as 'Ancient Asia' and get on with it. If your players have a better understanding of the difference between ancient European cultures (eg. Vikings, Celts, Angles, etc) then detail those instead.

But really, in my experience, going into too much cultural detail detracts from gameplay at worst, and at best is lost on all but the most curious and immersive of players.

Not to mention the fact that real-world historical cultures developed over thousands of years, and even my own has changed considerably since the time period on which I loosely model my game. To think I could ever have enough of a grasp of even one of these cultures to be able to portray every significant element for my players is the height of hubris.

And that's just for existing cultures. How could I hope to create one wholecloth?

I'm a busy person. I don't want to spend all my time creating elements of the gameworld that I can just plagiarise from history.

 

[Snoweel]

Uhm, what's funny about it if it's a joke? Because I don't really get it and I want to understand it.

As is generally the case with humour, an explanation might increase your understanding but will almost certainly not lead to enhanced comedy.

And really, let's not kid ourselves..

I put it to you that you understand the joke just fine.

 

[Celebrim]

In the end I found the easiest thing is to take our modern liberal democratic ideals, throw some real-world window dressing on them and call it a fantasy culture.

Heh.

It works for Terry Pratchett.

No, I do empathize. I have much the same problem. My own homebrew setting as both the eastern and western Roman empires, a nation loosely based off medieval poland, a nation based of medieval sweden, a nation loosely based of Egypt, a nation loosely based of Arthurian England, a nation which is loosely based of 17th century Holland, and any number of other historical riffs. Heck, I even have a nation which is more or less, "What if the Zulus and the Boer settlers had got along like peas and carrots?"

But in actual play, anachronisms always abound. After all, even if I had enough learning to meet my ambitions, it's not just my story. You can either fret about it or push on and have fun. The latter seems to work better.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

I always try to include some racial diversity whenever appropriate. For instance, the first adventure I illustrated was Fiery Dragon's The Giant's Skull. I had to come up with iconics:

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Since I already knew of the 3e stance of having more diverse ethnicities, I was bummed from the lack of such variety in 4e art (I can remember a female halfling in the Races section, a bald female human in the NPC section and the half-elf paladin in the Classes section). Even the Elves, described as being usually tan or brown in complexion are pretty much all pale-skinned.

Good work, as usual. Brazil has a great deal of diversity so I am not surprised that you would include it in your work.

 

[eyebeams]

Admittedly races in Tolkien = class divide. Elves are the landed gentry, orcs are the working classes. Dwarves are a possible exception, they're Jewish or Scottish. Or maybe they represent the professional classes, artisans.

Tolkien actually said that dwarves were inspired by the Jews and semitic peoples and languages, as well as medieval literature about the Jews. (Yeah, that means that some things about dwarves are rather insensitive when viewed through that light.) The idea that they're Scottish-like is a fan invention. Same thing with Celtic elves, as Tolkien wanted to specifically *exclude* Celtic influence from Middle-Earth. Symbolically speaking, elves are supposed to be people without Catholic original sin.

Orcs? Well, he said some things that indicate they probably come from a combination of wordplay and some unfortunate, wholly unconscious attitudes which he certainly consciously repudiated, but still exist.

 

[hong]

I find the notion that Dwarves are based on Jews to be rather bizarre, seeing as how they're straight from Norse sagas: runes, names and all.