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

[BookTenTiger]

Or we could ask their neighbors the Tlaxcala who helped the Spanish, in part, because they were tired of being victimized by those in Tenochtitlan.

I think it's important to remember that Native Americans were not (and are not) Noble Savages... They were nations and peoples who historically acted like other nations and peoples, including war, persecution, politics, and even slavery.

However, none of that is an excuse to publish works that treat them in a racist, mocking way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why not a setting where vampires with French or Brittish accent invade an ersatz of Asian and/or African civiliations?

LOL. You write like that hasn't happened!

You might want to look at stuff like Firebite - Wikipedia

Sheesh indeed in my own setting I have a faction based on the British East India Company - who spoiler alert if you're one of my player, but I know no-one is - have leadership who are secretly vampires (and some of their kill squads and so on are too).

Oh or Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which has Germanic and Central European Vampires ravaging South America, not conquistadors.

It's about white, British or Australian accented vampires being fought by Indigenous vampire hunters, in a war that's been going on for centuries. Trying to use your own ignorance of media is as an arguing tactic is not really very helpful. The only reason we don't see more of it is that vampires are rarely "the bad guys" these days, and vampire legends are so widespread that they tend to use local vampire styles rather than importing Western ones.

Also frankly it's a bit "on the nose" lol.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Do you ask about the people of Tenochtitlan? Then I can answer about how lots of indigineous Americans helped Hernan Cortez against Aztec empire, for example the Tlaxcaltecs, and with this the end of the human sacrifices.

I wonder if you can find a native Northamerican from XIX centure who would rather to live in a English-speaker Indian reversvation than in a mission funded by Catholic Spanish-speakers missionaries?

Don't you understand? For me this is like a walking-dead zombi reporting every full moon the werewolves bite people and eat kitties. I am not who should be ashamed and feeling guilty while we are silent about the actions by others. If you don't allow the Otoman empire to be the antagonist faction but a Catholic bishop or Spanish conquerors can appear like the bad guys of the story, then that is double standar. I am tired. I think others should be ashamed more than me.

And we should to reconsider the romantic image of the pirates from the fiction. They weren't only criminals, they did horrible things with the female prisoners, and most of attacks weren't against the Spanish ships, because these traveled together in convoys to be safer, but against villages in the coast to catch slaves. If today "Gone with the Wind" needs a previous disclaimer, maybe in a future all productions about pirates will need something like this.

* Today the "barbarians" from the fantasy fiction aren't copies of ancient cultures but more like a remix of neopaganism and tribal-punk.

* The trope of the noble savage is not only false, but also dangerous. Those people always were fighting each other for the zones for crops or hunt, and today some intertribal wars continue. And they have to learn to respect the women.

* Any solution? To avoid accusations about racist allegories I suggest to use creatures from the same folklore in the opposite sides. For example if in the story A the bad guys are the onis, then other creature from the Japanese folklore will fight against the onis. If the monsters of the week in the story B are the jian-shi (Chinese vampires) then a Chinese creature will help against the jian-shi.

 

[Mordhau]

Dividing people in history into good and evil is far too simplistic.

Dividing people into oppressors and oppressed (at least in a particular moment rather than essentially*) doesn't have to be, but when we then take those oppressors and make them models for cartoonish evil we are mostly just falling back into the first trap and excusing ourselves because we are distancing their actions from us.

*And of course just because someone is being oppressed doesn't mean they weren't just yesterday oppressing someone else.

 

[Morrus]

I am tired. I think others should be ashamed more than me.

Nobody said you plundered any nations. That's not how this works. Maybe you were unlucky as yours was the last post in the thread when I looked (but your 6 warnings say it was just the likely odds) but you need to leave this thread now, please. You're on your last warning regarding this type of thing.

 

[el-remmen]

Okay, I see what you're getting at Voadam. And I see the relevance.

I just don't want to make scattershot accusations where it's not certain. I try to focus on what is certain. And text is often more straightforward than imagery.

I don't know about that. My training is in literary studies, but as someone who studies comics and other forms of visual culture as well, there are visual rhetorics of racialization and white supremacy that at least two of those images clearly make use of and would fall into the rubric of racist imagery from this scholar's pov. Sure images can be slippery, but so can text - the framing context (as in the relationship of words and images in this product) does a lot of work to provide pretty clear signs.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I don't know about that. My training is in literary studies, but as someone who studies comics and other forms of visual culture as well, there are visual rhetorics of racialization and white supremacy that at least two of those images clearly make use of and would fall into the rubric of racist imagery from this scholar's pov. Sure images can be slippery, but so can text - the framing context (as in the relationship of words and images in this product) does a lot of work to provide pretty clear signs.

Rather than my general pronouncement that text is easier than images, I should rather say: "In the case of GAZ10, I found the text to contain obvious problems; whereas I am personally less certain about how to objectively parse those images."

I'm not denying the possibility of some potentially problematic aspects in those images, as I mentioned above. I believe you're well-equipped for an objective analysis. Would you pinpoint the exact images and motifs?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

If you don't allow the Otoman empire to be the antagonist faction but a Catholic bishop or Spanish conquerors can appear like the bad guys of the story, then that is double standar.

At risk of veering off-topic, there is, in fact, a fantasy allegory of the Ottoman Empire in the D&D Multiverse: namely, the Hagiarchy of Great Hule, in the World of Mystara. And, for better or worse, Hule is mostly presented as an antagonistic faction, as worshippers of the entropic power of Loki.

Furthermore, Hule has Spanish-based neighbors...the Espan peoples of the Savage Baronies. Each barony represents a different aspect of Hispanic culture:

Torreon: Inspired from Spanish conquistadors, mostly swordsmen for hire and mercenaries. Everybody has Torreoners in their pay.
Narvaez: Inspired from the Spanish Inquisition (knights and priests, early 1600's). A place to avoid for "heretics," non-humans, and wizards.
Saragon: Inspired from Moorish Spain. Also a magiocracy.
Gargona: Mid 1600's Spain, a place for artists and diplomats.
Almarron: Spanish California. Los Angeles at the time of Zorro.
Guadalante: Gauchos of the Argentine pampas.

See: "Savage Coast Real World Cultural Inspirations"

But that's not what this thread is about.

 

[MGibster]

I think it's important to remember that Native Americans were not (and are not) Noble Savages... They were nations and peoples who historically acted like other nations and peoples, including war, persecution, politics, and even slavery.

Yeah. I think we're always better off looking at every group of human being as multi-faceted and complex.

However, none of that is an excuse to publish works that treat them in a racist, mocking way.

I can't disagree here. I've defended some publications in the past, Oriental Adventures for example even if I acknowledge it's flawed, but I can't mount such a defense for The Orcs of Thar.

 

[Helldritch]

At some point, it is certainly possible that every cultures have been copied, served as inspiration or parodied (with respect or not) by almost all RPGs and not only D&D. The real problem, is that it was/is not always done with good taste and respect.

I sure hope that future products will be more in line respect and avoid the pitfall some of their predecessors fell into.