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

[Maxperson]

The extent to which one decides to parade one’s ethnic and religious inheritance is entirely a matter of personal choice: I prefer to keep mine removed from most interactions, as I find it does little to illuminate the subject at hand.

The point of adding the qualifier “identity as” is to illustrate the fact that who qualifies as “Jewish” - whether by maternal inheritance, conversion, cultural affiliation or religious induction - is dependent on tradition (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or Liberal) and is not as clear-cut as some might have you believe.

My observation is that @Maxperson has recently been using the ethnoreligious appelative of “Jewish” to assert primacy in arguments in an attempt to quash dissent.

YMMV, of course.

No. Not to quash dissent. To point out that claims of objective offensiveness or antisemitism on behalf of Jews are not appropriate. If you want to voice an opinion as an opinion, that's fine. Saying something IS X(antisemitism here) is not appropriate when it's just opinion based.

If you want to call for something(general you) to be removed, changed or not used over an opinion of antisemitism, perhaps defer to the Jews at that point. We're plenty capable of calling for things like that if we feel something warrants it.

 

[Remathilis]

The extent to which one decides to parade one’s ethnic and religious inheritance is entirely a matter of personal choice: I prefer to keep mine removed from most interactions, as I find it does little to illuminate the subject at hand.

The point of adding the qualifier “identity as” is to illustrate the fact that who qualifies as “Jewish” - whether by maternal inheritance, conversion, cultural affiliation or religious induction - is dependent on tradition (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or Liberal) and is not as clear-cut as some might have you believe.

My observation is that @Maxperson has recently been using the ethnoreligious appelative of “Jewish” to assert primacy in arguments in an attempt to quash dissent.

YMMV, of course.

What do you want from him, his stance on the modern Israeli state? Man says he's Jewish and not offended. You don't have the right to be offended for him. Allies who aren't a member of a minority community are not entitled to tell the minority community they should or shouldn't be offended by something. You're acting in the role of paternalizing them (You don't know what's good/bad for you) which isn't much help to the cause.

I recommend dropping this line of attack, you are harming your own position worse than any opposition argument can.

 

[Irlo]

If you want to call for something(general you) to be removed, changed or not used over an opinion of antisemitism, perhaps defer to the Jews at that point. We're plenty capable of calling for things like that if we feel something warrants it.

One will find that we Jewish people do not share a monolithic opinion to defer to, on this (or any other) matter.

 

[Irlo]

Yeah. This debate came up a few months ago and @Greg K and I were saying how neither of of was offended by a lich's phylactery and how in all the years we've been playing(very long time players each), we'd gamed with many other Jewish players and none of them had ever been offended by it, either. There were a lot of non-Jews in the discussion telling us how it needed to be changed, because it was offensive to Jews.

It's not always about being offended. I One can advocate for change without offensiveness even entering the conversation.

 

[Maxperson]

One will find that we Jewish people do not share a monolithic opinion to defer to, on this (or any other) matter.

That is true. I don't mind if someone wants to join in with Jews who find something offensive, even if I disagree. Or side with me even if other Jews disagree. I find it distasteful when non-Jews try to tell us what is antisemitic and offensive.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not always about being offended. I One can advocate for change without offensiveness even entering the conversation.

It didn't, though. It was about phylactery being offensive to Jews and appropriation, even though I've never in my life heard the Tefillin referred to as a phylactery by anyone Jewish.

 

[Irlo]

It didn't, though. It was about phylactery being offensive to Jews and appropriation, even though I've never in my life heard the Tefillin referred to as a phylactery by anyone Jewish.

Paizo's statement regarding the change in terminology had nothing to do with offense.

EDIT: But I don't want to start that conversation again, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Oooh, you missed the dwarves of Eberron. They have the mark of Warding, which makes them ideal bankers who control the whole of banking. They have all the classic dwarf traits (greedy, dour, warlike) plus the newest Eberron book says they are infatuated with the daelkyr, a long buried race of inhuman flesh-crafters and cosmic horrors.

I wonder when people say "I want D&D races to be more like Eberron" if they mean the jewish dwarves, the Mongol elves, the headhunter drow, and the First World halflings, or do they just mean the non-evil orcs?

It's mostly that last one, though I think Eberron deserves a bit more credit than you're giving it here. The halflings of the Plains don't draw from any specific indigenous cultures but instead incorporate many tropes (not stereotypes) from around the world, which is to say nothing of the Daask. Tairnadal elves may be horseback marauders with little care for administration, but their imagery largely invokes the Middle East/North Africa, and their religion differs vastly from both historical sources.

And as mentioned, these are cultural traits, not racial. And no individual culture draws distinctly from any single set of stereotypes (except the Lhazaar Principalities I guess), so while each distinct culture has its own sources of real world inspiration, there seems to be to make each a unique blend of synthesis beyond "these elves are mongols". Which is a fair sight better then the "all orcs are evil mongols" approach of many other settings.

It's certainly not perfect by any stretch, but it's head and shoulders above the rest of multiverse when it comes to racial presentation

I've mentioned before that Eberron is one of my favorite official D&D world, and I stand by that claim. It has its problems. Less problems than most other settings (the list of issues with Mystara and the Forgotten Realms could go on for pages), but that isn't any excuse for these links.

The problems with House Kundarak (Mark of Warding Dwarves) mostly come from Tolkien explicitly building Jewish stereotypes into his dwarves, which D&D as a whole has taken and incorporated into its different settings. I personally don't see what the problem with their connection to the Daelkyr in 5e has to do with antisemetic stereotypes (but would gladly hear an explanation for the perceived issue), but there are issues, and it's largely the fault of base D&D and Tolkien's Dwarven stereotypes borrowing heavily from Jewish stereotypes. And Eberron is at fault for not changing up Dwarves from the D&D baseline until D&D 5e, which doesn't change them all that much anyway. (See the Our Dwarves Are All the Same trope for more information on this.)

Drow are an especially big issue, and I always change them in my Eberron games, but they could use some reworking. I do believe that some more recent articles by Keith Baker on his blog-site have added more culturally distinct types of Drow that aren't as connected with the "Exotic Tribal Jungle People of Color" stereotype, but they're still a problem. I don't really see most of the issues with Tairnadal Elves and Talenta Halflings, because while they do borrow some imagery from real-world existing cultures, their most defining features are extremely fantastical and don't really echo any real world cultures all that much, at least, not the ones that they already borrowed imagery from. (Tairnadal Elves use Double-Bladed Scimitars, worship patron ancestral spirits, are mercenaries, and ride on fairy horses, while Talenta Halflings domesticate Dinosaurs and seem to evoke more "primal caveman" vibes to me than First World peoples.)

And to address the question at the end of @Remathilis's post, yes, I do think that most of what people are talking about when they say "I want D&D races to be more like Eberron races" that they do mean the non-Always-Evil Orcs, Goblinoids, Drow, Yuan-Ti, Gnolls, and similar races, and how a Dwarf doesn't have to know Dwarven if it wasn't raised in the Mror Holds. Which I do think is a good idea. If there's a race that is playable, its base mechanics should probably be setting-agnostic, otherwise it will be too restrictive on the possible worlds that can exist. They don't mean the racial stereotypes that are attached to Eberron's various races and monsters (don't get me started on the Carrion Tribes, which are an entirely different problem, because they evoke the cultural stereotypes of the people that the monster came from in the real-world, which is a big issue that basically all D&D worlds have).

 

[Sepulchrave II]

What do you want from him, his stance on the modern Israeli state?

Just stop and dial back the rhetoric. This has nothing to do with the contemporary politics of the Middle-East.

Man says he's Jewish and not offended. You don't have the right to be offended for him.

My mother is Jewish - by traditional accounts, that makes me Jewish (whether I embrace that ethnicity, or not) - yet I don't identify as Jewish, and neither does she. But I could emigrate to Israel tomorrow. Yet, somehow, I don't assert any particular privilege in my opinion.

Allies who aren't a member of a minority community are not entitled to tell the minority community they should or shouldn't be offended by something.

I have never demanded - or even requested - that anyone be offended. I have tried to demonstrate that racial stereotypes are very deeply embedded in culture, and their - generational - expression, takes time to resolve and be brought to light.

You're acting in the role of paternalizing them (You don't know what's good/bad for you) which isn't much help to the cause.

If "them" doesn't include me, of course - the point being that the qualifiers for "Jewish" are rather ambiguous.

I recommend dropping this line of attack, you are harming your own position worse than any opposition argument can.

I appreciate the sentiment. But my ethnos is not relevant to my observations.

 

[Remathilis]

I personally don't see what the problem with their connection to the Daelkyr in 5e has to do with antisemetic stereotypes (but would gladly hear an explanation for the perceived issue)

The banker race is involved in sinister cults and strange rituals? That is textbook Illuminati/NWO/Zion Elders conspiracy-level stuff.