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

[Umbran]

Ferengi? Well, let us complicate matters - let's hear from Armin Shimerman, who is of Jewish descent and who played Quark, and got asked the question of whether the Ferengi were Jews:

At Star Trek: Mission New York, Armin Shimerman — Quark himself — addressed the question head-on. Asked by moderator Jordan Hoffman (of the official Star Trek Engage podcast) for the strangest readings or interpretations they’ve heard from fans, Shimerman revealed the universal prejudices that he sees as underlying how we view Ferengi.

“In America, people ask ‘Do the Ferengi represent Jews?’ In England, they ask ‘Do the Ferengi represent the Irish?’ In Australia, they ask if the Ferengi represent the Chinese,” Shimerman said. “The Ferengi represent the outcast… it’s the person who lives among us that we don’t fully understand.”

While the Ferengi may have started out as Space Jew stereotyping, Star Trek found a better path, tackling stereotypes (apparently universal ones) through relentless, compassionate, empathic humanism. Star Trek doesn’t always get it right at first, but its institutional optimism always leaves hope that they’ll get it right in the future. And, by extension, maybe we will too.

“Our program was about investigating the essence of people, not the outside. They forgave me though I stole,” Shimerman said of his character.

He pointed to Dorn, “They forgave him, though he killed.”

Then he looked to Nana Visitor, who played the first officer and former Bajoran freedom fighter, Kira Nerys, “They forgave her though she was a terrorist.”

“Starships do not make Star Trek, hope makes Star Trek,” Shimerman concluded.

Which I think gives us a point we have to consider - not just whether a stereotype is present, but ultimately, what did they do with it?

Star Trek took it, and used it as a jumping off point to explore and create Quark and Rom, who become perhaps the most relatable characters on DS9. In the D&D product that started off this thread... not so much.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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

Ditto any group of humans you can point at. Blacks, First Nations people, women…even Klansmen will not be in mental lockstep 100% of the time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Which I think gives us a point we have to consider - not just whether a stereotype is present, but ultimately, what did they do with it?

You can’t subvert the stereotype without serving it up in some way first.

 

[Hussar]

And, really, that's the answer to @Micah Sweet's issue with the books having no flavor text. You CAN use all sorts of cultures as a jumping off point. That's not the problem. The problem is when you use a cultu re as a jumping off point that paints that culture negatively.

Star Trek is actually a pretty good example of how to do it right - Klingons, Ferengi, reformed terrorists, so on and so forth. Nuanced depictions lead to better stories.

It's utterly baffling to me that people think that this will somehow lead to less creativity. That somehow adding depth and nuance to descriptions of various game elements will mean losing something. The only thing we're losing is the lazy racism inherent in many of these elements. Just like how we lost the lazy racism of Ferengi or Klingons.

 

[Umbran]

You can’t subvert the stereotype without serving it up in some way first.

Exactly. And we can admit that until DS9, maybe they didn't have so much intent to subvert it, but eventually developed it.

 

[Hussar]

Here's a question for folks.

If you were to travel back in time to 1968 and show someone a picture of a Klingon from 1988, 1998 or 2018, and ask them what that was, none of them would call that a picture of a Klingon. Klingons have been completely reinterpreted - physically and their history - from their introduction in TOS.

So, for those who think that changing a concept leads to a loss of creativity, do you think that Klingons should have remained as stand ins for Communist Russia? That they should never have been changed? That we lost something in Star Trek when they were changed?

 

[David Howery]

And I'd argue that dark skinned elves being the evil ones (and to be cursed with black skin!) or the language used regarding evilness of the orcs as recently as in Volo's are pretty blatant too.

the Drow is the one that, in hindsight, had incredibly bad optics. And yet, no one seemed to connect the dots on that way back in the day. I certainly didn't, and I don't recall anyone in my gaming circle pointing it out. I wonder sometimes if the fact that D&D was invented and played by 'white males who were interested in Conan and LOTR" almost 100% in the early days led to the problematic stuff being overlooked so much....

 

[Micah Sweet]

Here's a question for folks.

If you were to travel back in time to 1968 and show someone a picture of a Klingon from 1988, 1998 or 2018, and ask them what that was, none of them would call that a picture of a Klingon. Klingons have been completely reinterpreted - physically and their history - from their introduction in TOS.

So, for those who think that changing a concept leads to a loss of creativity, do you think that Klingons should have remained as stand ins for Communist Russia? That they should never have been changed? That we lost something in Star Trek when they were changed?

Well to be fair, Star Trek history is mostly additive. The past is explained, not ignored or, worse, rewritten. I would prefer a similar attitude from D&D, as much as is possible.
But yes, the Klingons of the 90s were better, imo, than those of the 60s.

 

[Mordhau]

the Drow is the one that, in hindsight, had incredibly bad optics. And yet, no one seemed to connect the dots on that way back in the day. I certainly didn't, and I don't recall anyone in my gaming circle pointing it out. I wonder sometimes if the fact that D&D was invented and played by 'white males who were interested in Conan and LOTR" almost 100% in the early days led to the problematic stuff being overlooked so much....

I thought it was extremely icky back in the early 90s. It was one of the things that embarrased me about D&D even then.

 

[Irlo]

So here is my greatest fear...

In the last two years, D&D has embraced the multiverse in earnest. At the same time, they have been responding to the notion that "lore" isn't important, and indeed both of their major deep-dive "lore" books (Volo and Tome of Foes) are rife with problematic lore. It would be easy then to scrap much of the lore altogether and only have vague, generalized info and mechanics rather than any sort of depth or detailed lore.

The current method of doing Races post-Tasha shows that; how much lore info do you have about haregons or fairies? What they look like, how they act, what they eat, what kind of societies they live in, who are their allies and enemies, etc.? We aren't even given height, weight, or lifespans anymore. It's the minimum amount of info possible to explain the concept, and the rest is either left to the settings to define them or the DM to figure out. It will be a thumbnail sketch and nothing more.

I suspect we will be seeing something that is between the current 5e write-ups in the PHB/MM (a handful of paragraphs, at most) and the SRD. A little flavor text and a general description, but don't expect things like origins, societies, or other lore like that anymore.

I just read the sections about haregons, fairies, and owlins for the first time. Yes, that's all bland and uninspiring. There's nothing there. I hope they cut text for space rather than an aversion to deep lore. If the PHB had been written that sparsely, I wouldn't have taken up 5E. I know there is potential for engaging lore that fires the imagination without relying on harmful tropes or thoughtless negative associations.