D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Azzy]

Regular M&Ms are the sad lie provided to gullible children who have never experienced the joy of real candy.


...like NECCO WAFERS.

Hey, as long as you keep your nuts out of my chocolate we're good.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hey, as long as you keep your nuts out of my chocolate we're good.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Can we at least all agree that the pure chocolate M&Ms are terrible and the only edible sort are the M&Ms with peanuts?

Given that I'm deathly allergic to Peanuts (and practically all Tree-Nuts, as well as Coconut), no, we cannot all agree that Peanut M&Ms are the only edible type of M&Ms.

Anyways, what was the topic of this thread, again? Oh, yeah, racism in old D&D products. Very weird tangent.

 

[Mirtek]

Anyways, what was the topic of this thread, again? Oh, yeah, racism in old D&D products. Very weird tangent.

Can't we just keep discussing M&M's? How many flavors do you guys have in the US?

In Germany for most of my life there was only chocolate or peanut. Nowadays it's still those two with crispy having succesfully joined the former duo and salted caramel seemingly also making the cut from limited edition to permanent fixture

But beyond that we're just shown glimpses of what else might exist somewhere as some limited edition sold for a week or two before being taken off the shelves.

I remember being shocked when I saw the "wall of M&M's" when I first entered a Wallmart in the US. Didn't know that there were so many kinds of M&M's

 

[Zardnaar]

Peanut M&Ms have been my M&M of choice since 1976. I especially like frozen chocolate, so I put a bag in the freezer and eat them that way.

They're the best ones. Still not great here because they're competing against NZ and European chocolate.

Whittaker's Peanut slab takes them out back and may as well put them down.

Peanut

Lindt isn't to bad either.

 

[MGibster]

It seems to me that the question of whether or not Dnd was inspired by westerns is irrelevant. The question is whether it reflects particularly American ideals of heroism, which also happen to be exemplified by westerns.

There's a very strong streak of egalitarianism and freedom that's very American built right into the bones of D&D. In "good" societies, people are free to worship who and how they see fit, people of all backgrounds (elves, halflings, humans, dwarves, etc., etc.) are free to participate in society as equals, and player characters are in charge of their own destinies and are not beholden to lords or other authority figures. Oh, and they're typically interested in making money had over fist! American society is very individualistic and I think that shows in D&D.

 

[MGibster]

Considering how badly D&D does any of those types of stories, perhaps you think that Gygax and Arneson failed to understand the source material?

Honestly, I think they were just used as inspiration for their game. It's rare that I find an RPG good at emulating the source material that inspired it. Though I re-read a Conan story by R. Howard in 2019, and I was intrigued by just how much the titular barbarian behaved like a D&D character. He gets to a room and immediately starts searching for secret doors in a scene reminiscent of many, many gaming sessions from my youth.

The one game I can think of that does a fantastic job emulating its source material is Pendragon. Games like Call of Cthulhu and Cyberpunk 2020 were obviously influenced by literary works, but neither one of them were particularly good and emulating most of the stories by Lovecraft or Gibson.

*There may be other games great at emulating the genre that influenced them. It's just that I could only think of Pendragon off the top of my head.

 

[pemerton]

I find @Mordhau's thesis - that the structure of D&D, the way setting supports adventure, is drawn heavily from the western genre - very plausible. It's not a claim about tropes, which are typically pseudo-mediaeval. It's about story structure.

What is most striking for me is the role of vigilante violence in D&D. D&D characters don't inflict violence in the name of a cause, or based on some claim to authority or justified retribution, but because they can, and they take themselves to be entitled to impose their own values and desires onto the world. To me that is reminiscent of westerns, and also super-hero comics (another quintessentially American genre?). It also resonates strongly, and unsurprisingly, with REH's Conan.

I think that D&D resembles JRRT/LotR in only the most superficial ways. In Tolkien, social status reflects a character's nature, which is often closely connected to their birth/heritage. In Sam's case, him becoming Mayor isn't a sign of his social mobility, but rather his true nature being externalised in his social situation. It compares interestingly to Pippin and Merry's roles as the "nobility" of the The Shire who maintain connections to the monarchies of Rohan and Gondor.

It's possible to have RPGs that will produce fiction that emulates LotR, or Arthurian stories, but they need to depart pretty thoroughly from D&D's structure.

 

[pemerton]

The Silmarillion is full of men who by their own hand gained fame and power. Arthur became king because Knights(lower nobility) in Europe have been made due to the acts of heroism of commoners.

The point about Arthur has already been made.

The Silmarillion is not a tale of self-made heroes. It's about heritage, nature, providence and tragedy. Those who try to step outside those constraints - in different ways, this is the case for Turin and for Maeglin - end up bringing ruin upon themselves and everyone else!

 

[MGibster]

What is most striking for me is the role of vigilante violence in D&D. D&D characters don't inflict violence in the name of a cause, or based on some claim to authority or justified retribution, but because they can, and they take themselves to be entitled to impose their own values and desires onto the world. To me that is reminiscent of westerns, and also super-hero comics (another quintessentially American genre?). It also resonates strongly, and unsurprisingly, with REH's Conan.

I did once hear someone argue that superheroes are fascist for those reasons you list.