The problem with Evil races is not what you think

[Hussar]

I've often wondered why the whole "Well, my table doesn't have this problem, so this problem must not exist" thing plays such a strong role in people's arguments. It really doesn't matter what your or my table thinks or does. That's not the point. We're talking about the larger presentation, not narrowly focusing on those five or six people who, because they are longtime friends, never talk about these issues. The whole issue in the first place is because people didn't ask questions back in the day. They just accepted these things as "the way things are".

Which is the entire problem in a nutshell. If this garbage was sorted out forty years ago, when it was first presented, then we wouldn't be having these conversations. That a given group isn't having these conversations and isn't asking these questions, really doesn't prove anything. Some people ARE asking these questions. And the answers are revealed to be pretty damning.

Has anyone's answer to, "Why are orcs being described using language pulled straight from incredibly racist sources?" ever been one that in any way justifies this use? I've seen, "Oh, well, that's just your interpretation, I don't see it" style answers. I've seen, "Well, it's not a problem at my table" style answers, and I've seen tons of Thermian Argument style answers which try to justify these decisions through in-game fiction.

But never once have I seen anyone try to even suggest that using 19th century pseudo-scientific race language is a good thing that adds anything positive to the game. Since it adds nothing positive to the game, and it actively harms people who want to enjoy the game, why on earth would we keep it?

 

[Monadology]

My point is that I don't see a risk of reproducing harmful concepts. I only game with adults, and their opinions are already formed.

Its a group of friends around a table. How perilous can it be?

EDIT: I should probably note, before drama ensues, that I'm not white. My players (at the moment) are. This probably has a great deal to do with my estimate of how perilous this sort of gaming would be.

Hussar has already touched on this, but I want to emphasize that the concerns about impact are not constrained to the level of individual tables. Though there can be table-level impacts, it's also very much a question of the larger scale social impact of these tropes continuing to be embedded in the hobby.

Also, this is a hobby that is not just enjoyed by adults. Even on the assumption that adults' biases and outlook (conscious and unconscious) are more or less set in stone and won't be impacted either way by the presence of these tropes, there are certainly plenty of teenagers and even pre-teens that play D&D.

 

[Hussar]

I remember years ago, back in my uni age days (so, FAR too many years ago, ) playing with a DM who depicted his orcs as First Nations (well back then, that wasn't the term we would use) people defending themselves from the colonial forces. It was a real eye opener and not something I'd ever even considered before. Just wasn't part of anything I'd read in fantasy or any of the D&D books or anything. I was playing a paladin in the game and it became are fascinating game of how I could reconcile this character who was created using the more or less bog standard tropes of the game with this very on target depiction. It's a game that ended far too early and it's something that I've always remembered.

It really did open my eyes, all the way back then, and this would have been in the early ish 90's, to just how ingrained the racism of the game really is. Once you've seen it, it's practically impossible not to see it throughout so much of the game.

 

[Lanefan]

My feeling on things like 'primitive' and 'decadent' is they are simply lazy writing anyway. The golden rule in writing that I was always taught (and I admit I've little hard practical experience outside tech writing, so just my opinion) is that you SHOW don't TELL.

So if you want to depict a society in a way that might fit with usual understandings of the trope 'primitive', you should instead describe the actual condition of things. Describe the architecture as small single-room homes of mud and sticks grouped into hamlets of 4 or 5 houses each, or something like that. Likewise with other aspects.

Which is fine if page space and-or word count allow room for such expansion, and you're intended readership can be counted on to read through it; but brevity is a virtue and sometimes you need to boil all that description down to just one word so you can get on with whatever else you're trying to say.

And eventually, those single cover-it-all words inevitably end up becoming tropes. So be it.

 

[pemerton]

Which is fine if page space and-or word count allow room for such expansion, and you're intended readership can be counted on to read through it; but brevity is a virtue and sometimes you need to boil all that description down to just one word so you can get on with whatever else you're trying to say.

And eventually, those single cover-it-all words inevitably end up becoming tropes. So be it.

Would anyone use this argument to defend the use of the single-word, trope-ish "slut" as a descriptor in a contemporary RPG text?

 

[Lanefan]

Circling back to the OP's theme, I think the other side of the coin from [viewing non-European-coded cultures as inferior and/or evil] is [viewing western/colonial points of view as superior/good]. The 5E alignment system, aside from being pretty juvenile from an ethical philosophy standpoint generally, states that "Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society."

And the question then becomes, as expected by which society? The 21st-century real-world society that includes the players at the table, or the society in the game world in which the characters are operating and-or living?

Personally, I lean heavily toward the in-game society being the determinant and - for the most part - try to avoid overlaying too much modern-day thinking on to it. This leads to arguments whenever a player tries, for example, to insert the modern legal system into the game - unless it's being done as a joke in which case full steam ahead!

Underline mine. Needless to say, what a society expects of its constituents can be reframed as horrendously evil with some change in perspective. Knights didn't follow chivalry and conquistadors were not at all Christ-like, but even if they did follow the explicit morays of their cultures, they still would have been rather evil by modern standards.

Indeed, which is why for game purposes I'd rather use the contemporary standards - or a vague facsimile, anyway - where I can.

 

[Hussar]

The problem with trying to use "in game society" being the determinant is that the "in game society" is likely very much a modern society anyway. Unless you have no problems with that player's paladin killing an inn keeper for failing to be properly deferential. Most games are not based on anything even approximating medieval laws.

 

[Lanefan]

Would anyone use this argument to defend the use of the single-word, trope-ish "slut" as a descriptor in a contemporary RPG text?

Highly unlikely, in that - in the sad event one needs such - in this case there's far too many other single words that say-imply-mean exactly the same thing.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Hussar has already touched on this, but I want to emphasize that the concerns about impact are not constrained to the level of individual tables. Though there can be table-level impacts, it's also very much a question of the larger scale social impact of these tropes continuing to be embedded in the hobby.

You mean the tropes that have been present in the hobby since the 1970s?

Anyway, I put in my two cents. I'm done.

 

[Lanefan]

The problem with trying to use "in game society" being the determinant is that the "in game society" is likely very much a modern society anyway. Unless you have no problems with that player's paladin killing an inn keeper for failing to be properly deferential.

If that's how that society rolls then so be it - off with 'is 'ead. That said, it's more likely a noble than a Paladin would do this, as a Pally still has to answer to her code of honour which is likely to include words to the effect of the weak are to be protected rather than slain.

Most games are not based on anything even approximating medieval laws.

True; in that many settings are trying to incorporate and-or quasi-replicate elements of many real-world eras, ranging from ancient Egypt through to the Renaissance, and so the laws and-or morals are likely to vary quite widely from place to place.

That said, it's very highly likely that the one type of law that won't be encountered is the tentacled horror known as the 21st-century western legal system.