D&D 5E (2014) Thoughts on this article about Black Culture & the D&D team dropping the ball?

[TheCosmicKid]

They do exist as a small but VERY vocal percentage of the overall population.

Depends how you define what you're looking for. That impulse is in all of us to some degree. Righteous anger feels good. At the time, anyway, even if many of us afterwards look back on the things we said and did with unease or regret. After all, we contain multitudes. We ought to be able to acknowledge that some people, some days, are just spoiling for something to fight about, without talking about this behavior as if it were a defining characteristic of some subset of humans distinct from the rest of us.

And yes, when people do this, they do tend to make themselves more... visible than the people who currently aren't.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

In terms of speech, I sometimes throw curveballs: one of my players awakened a giant lizard- it talked like Elvis.

Well, according to the internet, he was a shapeshifting lizard alien.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The basics are simple enough, but doing them at speed and consistently- and using the correct KINDS of clicks- is a true challenge.

Exactly. And Xhosa only has three clicks. On the click-consonant scene, it and all its Bantu cousins are mere posers. Some of the Khoisan languages have dozens.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Depends how you define what you're looking for. That impulse is in all of us to some degree. Righteous anger feels good. At the time, anyway, even if many of us afterwards look back on the things we said and did with unease or regret. After all, we contain multitudes. We ought to be able to acknowledge that some people, some days, are just spoiling for something to fight about, without talking about this behavior as if it were a defining characteristic of some subset of humans distinct from the rest of us.

And yes, when people do this, they do tend to make themselves more... visible than the people who currently aren't.

Agreed, 100%. It's always easier to see the flaws in others, especially since we so rarely look as intensely in the mirror at ourselves. Introspection is hard.

 

[Hussar]

Exactly. And Xhosa only has three clicks. On the click-consonant scene, it and all its Bantu cousins are mere posers. Some of the Khoisan languages have dozens.

Fair enough. But, by the same token, it is a way to clearly engage the players and show them that this isn't standard D&D land. Sure, I'm pretty sure that I'd be butchering it, but, probably not to the incredibly offensive level that I would butcher an actual accent.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Fair enough. But, by the same token, it is a way to clearly engage the players and show them that this isn't standard D&D land. Sure, I'm pretty sure that I'd be butchering it, but, probably not to the incredibly offensive level that I would butcher an actual accent.

I dunno. It'd be pretty much like indicating a Hebrew-speaking setting by throwing random velar fricatives into your lines. Not the worst thing in the world, but not exactly something I could in good conscience recommend to a culturally cautious DM.

 

[Lylandra]

Fun fact: You don't have to do the clicks if you want to portray a "semi-correct" accent. When I heard a woman whose native language was Zulu speak my language, she naturally only used the consonants my own language had. The resulting accent only elongated some of the vowels. And you'd either use comprehend language (so that you'd all speak accent-less anyway) or all talk common (aka whatever your mother tongue is) where your characters or the NPC can show accents depending on their native (regional) language.

For the setting of Chult... besides the fact that asking a person with african ancestry would have been the obvious choice, I'd maybe used a comprehensive region and expanded an remixed existing myths for a start. I remember that, for example, Somalia, has legends of a great queen and there are many examples of terrific magical beasts and spirits. I also remember one of my childhood favorites, Gargoyles, visiting mythological beings of numerous regions all over the world which was done (in my opinion) very sensibly in the case of the african spider spirit of Anansi and the were-panthers (But they couldn't do that wrong as the titular heroes are outsiders everywhere and the heroine is half-native american, half-african american).

 

[Alexemplar]

I don't think D&D dropped the ball. I don't think it ever really tried to pick up the ball to begin with. I only know of a handful fantasy games that have produced pre-colonial sub-Saharan African analogues with anything approaching the breadth/depth that European/Asian settings usually get. Neither one omits the often seen seen African tropes, but they are put into a more nuanced context and not treated as representative of the continent as a whole, or the defining aspects of it.

Nyambe, A 3e supplement.

Spears of the Dawn, an OSR game.

I highly recommend both for anyone interested in introducing some sub-Saharan African elements into their game.

I don't really blame games (or D&D in particular) for not doing more. It's more of a symptom of the ignorance people have about sub-Saharan Africa in general. They don't do much exploring because they don't think there's that much worth exploring that isn't full of uncomfortable stuff like slavery, disease/famine, and violent civil conflict. The opposite tendency is to- whenever referring to the region- get preachy and/or paint an idealized depiction of noble savages/high-tech ancients that's not really any more founded in reality. In either case, the reality, the complexity, the context, etc remains unrecognized.

I wouldn't call it offensive, but it can be a bit disheartening to see a setting clearly went through a bunch of references books when they detailed the dozen(s) of Europe or Asia-inspired land distinguished by a wide variety of landscapes, ethnic groups, nations, traditions, religions, weapons, etc, only to get to African-inspired land and kind of just threw in the towel in favor of a mono-culture.

That said, I'm so starved for content that I'll take whatever I can get. Chult, Gulg, Mwangi expanse, Harborhead, Khinasi? Gimme gimme gimme! I just hope want more (content and quality).

 

[Alexemplar]

I'd never heard of Chult until Tomb of Annihilation. When I think of jungles and Lost Continents the first thing that pops into my head is either Central/South America or Southeast Asia, not Africa. Jurassic Park is set in Central America. The movie actually called The Lost Continent is set in the South Pacific and Skull Island from King Kong is in Southeast Asia.

American media has been moving towards putting such stories in the Pacific for a while, as you can still have brown tribesmen in jungles, but the US's Pacific Islander population is small enough that you don't worry about offending them as much as you would people of African or Central/South American descent.

 

[gyor]

Tethyrians are Celts: Sword Coast is German(Iluskans)-Celt(Tethyrians)-Romance melting pot (i.e, Western Europe).

Ffolk are Celts, I think Tethytians are more Spaniards.

Durpuri are South Asian, Imaskari are South Asians that branched off from South Asians.

The Mulan get pegged as Egyptians, but it's more complex then that, you have Ayssrian, Babylonian, Sumnerian, Egyptian, Sudanese, Caanite, and possibly Libyans all mixed together (unlike other FR races where the earth link is merely similarities, the Mulan's none Imaskari ancestors cone from earth), then they interbred with Imaskari a South Asian proxi culture, and in practice resemble South Asian cultures (incarnating deities), then Egyptian.