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

[Doctor Futurity]

First, I am pleasantly surprised to skip to page 81 of this and discover it is not threadlocked.

Second, I would be really interested in what the OP has to say about the Atruaghin Clans, a book which was 100% indisputably about representing Amerinds in D&D through five caricatures of culture and society. From a historical perspective this stuff is really interesting, but as an example with Orcs of Thar (which I never owned back in the 80's) one can see what is today identified as racist intonation, but the really concerning question I might have is whether, when intending to specifically bring actual Native American culture and belief in some form into D&D, did they succeed, fail, catastrophically fail, or fall in somewhere between? Maztica and Cities of Gold are two other products that come to mind.

EDIT: I have some opinions on these books, of course, but only have my studied background in anthropology and that is aging a bit. I did use City of Gold as a resource for running my own Chaco Canyon cultural campaign at one point, which was fun, but I am not Native American myself, and would not presume to reflect one's opinion on the subject. I can say I really thought these books, in total, reflected a lot of missed opportunity in terms of their content, blending real-world cultural and religious representations with fictional analogues in to the Forgotten Realms or Mystara was less interesting to me than if they had tried to do an historically accurate book....but at least for the time I assumed my interest was in a minority on that (barring GURPS and its historical setting books). Today I think there's an unfortunate shift away from using RPGs as a basis for experiencing historical content of any meaningful variety, which is unfortunate. It could be a valuable tool to teach in a fun way, and could help greatly to sensitize people to cultural differences and experiences if done well. The problem being, of course, everyone would disagree on what doing it well means and how to do it.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

It's quite easy to see it in Herbert West but not nearly so easy in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward or The Colour Out of Space. It's fairly easy to miss in The Shadows Over Innsmouth.


I don't know who has refused to acknowledge the issue. There seems to be near universal agreement that Lovecraft was a racist and it permeates his work. The disagreement seems to be over whether or not it's okay to continue enjoying Lovecraft's work or whether or not his name should be consigned to the dustbin of history. In a way it's a very Lovecraftian situation. In ignorant bliss we can enjoy his stories. But once we understand the truth behind their origins, we enter into a crisis conscience as we see the universe as it is and not how we thought it was.

I don't know how any author can be experienced from the past without seeing through the lens of their time. Lovecraft was racist, yes, but he was a product of his time and his authorial voice, which is often merely the same as his protagonists, reflect the conundrum of the unreliable narrator....at least in retrospect. I'm not letting him off the hook; he's already dead. It's okay to appreciate a work for what it did well, while recognizing what it did poorly. Ultimately, Lovecraft is contentious precisely because there are enough positive elements to his contribution to horror as a genre in fiction (and gaming) that the unpleasant racism in his writing remains visible and fixed because of this attention. This is in contrast to an enormous number of his contemporaries, who had far fewer redeeming traits and have by and large almost all been cast to the dustbin of history. Lovecraft is to pulp era fiction what The Bangles' "Walk Like and Egyptian" is to 80's pop music....ew, and cringe, but still a fun listen that influenced a lot of pop music over the subsequent decades. And having made that comparison I will let myself out the door.... 0.o

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Almost as a rule, I try not to use the word 'should' in any sentence that doesn't also contain the word 'if' later.
The reason for that is, in teaching, reading, and grading papers anytime someone says "should" I demand that they explain "why".

"If you don't want to inadvertently end up perpetuating stereotypes and mockery of marginalized people, you should acknowledge that the works of HP Lovecraft, the Orcs of Thar product, many early Disney movies, and so on contain those problematic content and do your best to avoid using the same content that perpetuates them."

If you want to use something similar to the Fish People from the Shadow Over Innsmouth in a book/tv series/movie/campaign that you write, do your best to remove the content that made them be stand-ins for real world people. If you want to run a campaign in Mystara that includes the Orcs of Thar, you should probably (definitely) remove the content that made them a problem. If a writer wants to make the 17th Live Action Remake of an old Disney Movie, they should probably not include the problematic stuff that the original had (like the Siamese Cats from Lady and the Tramp and Aristocats).

Are we done with the semantic, "how you said it was condescending" tangent?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

he was a product of his time

No he wasn't. HP Lovecraft was more racist than most people of his time. The dude had a phobia of basically everything that he didn't grow up with/didn't comprehend (colors that we can't see, people of color, other cultures, AC units, etc).

People of his time thought that his racism was extreme.

He also supported Hitler. I don't think that anyone would/should call Hitler or any Nazi a "product of their time".

 

[Doctor Futurity]

No he wasn't. HP Lovecraft was more racist than most people of his time. The dude had a phobia of basically everything that he didn't grow up with/didn't comprehend (colors that we can't see, people of color, other cultures, AC units, etc).

People of his time thought that his racism was extreme.

He also supported Hitler. I don't think that anyone would/should call Hitler or any Nazi a "product of their time".

If you think he was unique I have to give you kudos for having much, much rosier colored glasses looking on that era of The Greatest Generation than I do. Lovecraft was a pulp writer with some serious phobias, a borderline shut-in who died before WWII fully kicked in to gear. Entire countries of people collectively did far, far worse than he ever could have actually imagined. Your hyperbole on this diminishes the reality of what was really going on back then, and who was actually murdering in the name of their nationalist racism.

EDIT: Also, and no defense intended here, I just get the feeling your thoughts are based on a slew of selective clickbait articles, so I leave this:

Is it valid or true? M'eh. Again, a dead guy from a different age who, surprise, didn't have contemporary progressive beliefs. Bowl me over with a feather. The interesting thing to me is, what would HLP have written on the matter had he lived to see 1946?

 

[Doctor Futurity]

This is what I would call a "multi-perspectival" approach, which most folks seem to want to shy away from, for some reason. It is sort of like looking at a rainbow and only able to see red, and saying, "Wow, what a thin rainbow."

That kind of summarizes the vast majority of the conversations on the internet.

 

[Zardnaar]

Just a bit of correction, but the pyramids were not built by slaves. The Egyptians used skilled laborers for that and payed them well.

No he wasn't. HP Lovecraft was more racist than most people of his time. The dude had a phobia of basically everything that he didn't grow up with/didn't comprehend (colors that we can't see, people of color, other cultures, AC units, etc).

People of his time thought that his racism was extreme.

He also supported Hitler. I don't think that anyone would/should call Hitler or any Nazi a "product of their time".

My country was one of the first to declare war on Nazi Germany in Sep 1939. One month later the German American Bund paraded through NYC.

If I'm reading older. Material I don't expect it to confirm to modern ideals and values and I think I'm intelligent benough to recognize that without a disclaimer. That apies to Herodotus, Suetonius, the bible, Koran, HP Lovecraft or whatever else in reading. Or trying to read in some cases eg Mein Kampf god awful book.

 

[Vaalingrade]

My country was the first to host a yearly hotdog eating contest.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If you think he was unique I have to give you kudos for having much, much rosier colored glasses looking on that era of The Greatest Generation than I do. Lovecraft was a pulp writer with some serious phobias, a borderline shut-in who died before WWII fully kicked in to gear. Entire countries of people collectively did far, far worse than he ever could have actually imagined. Your hyperbole on this diminishes the reality of what was really going on back then, and who was actually murdering in the name of their nationalist racism.

I don't think that he was unique in his viewpoints, and never said that. There were obviously other people as racist/more racist than him in that day and age, and they were more common than they are in the modern day, but there were people of his time that called his racism extreme. As you pointed in, he was a borderline shut-in, and that helped fuel his writing. He was afraid of basically everything, so he could write horror about basically anything (the ocean, space, colors that we can't see, air conditioners, gods of other cultures, etc). It's actually a pretty good formula for being a great horror author. If you're scared of everything, everything is horrific to you, and you can write it in a "fantastic" spin that others can relate to.

EDIT: Also, and no defense intended here, I just get the feeling your thoughts are based on a slew of selective clickbait articles, so I leave this:

Is it valid or true? M'eh. Again, a dead guy from a different age who, surprise, didn't have contemporary progressive beliefs. Bowl me over with a feather. The interesting thing to me is, what would HLP have written on the matter had he lived to see 1946?

I don't see how that letter really refutes anything I say. He supported Hitler. He said so in that passage you quoted. Sure, he had his disagreements with him, but he still supported him. Whether or not he thought he was the "lesser of two evils" he still supported him.

Wikipedia elaborates a bit more (barely) here, saying that towards the end of his life he may have started to disagree more with him, but there's not much evidence either way.

Edit: Grammar

 

[MGibster]

If you want to use something similar to the Fish People from the Shadow Over Innsmouth in a book/tv series/movie/campaign that you write, do your best to remove the content that made them be stand-ins for real world people. If you want to run a campaign in Mystara that includes the Orcs of Thar, you should probably (definitely) remove the content that made them a problem.

That seems easy. I've never used Deep Ones as stand ins for real world people. Over the last forty years, I don't think Chaosium has ever used Deep Ones as stand ins for real world people in any Call of Cthulhu scenario. This seems like a trivially easy task.

No he wasn't. HP Lovecraft was more racist than most people of his time. The dude had a phobia of basically everything that he didn't grow up with/didn't comprehend (colors that we can't see, people of color, other cultures, AC units, etc).

Lovecraft lived in an era where nativism, white supremacy, and eugenics were part of the mainstream ideology. He would have fit in just fine with millions of other Americans. And no, I'm not saying that to excuse him.

He also supported Hitler. I don't think that anyone would/should call Hitler or any Nazi a "product of their time".

I don't know if I've ever heard any accusations about Lovecraft supporting the Nazis. What's your source on this?

Fair enough. But a lot of people supported Hitler because he was fighting the commies. Charles Lindberg was a Nazi supporter who had nice things to say about Hitler to the point where the White House prevented him from joining the military when WWII broke out.