D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Derren]

And the search for what is actually offensive about orcs continues. Will it ever find something or do we have to do with a general "its racist because someone said it is"?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And the search for what is actually offensive about orcs continues. Will it ever find something or do we have to do with a general "its racist because someone said it is"?

Something is always racist because someone says it is.

 

[Oofta]

Something is always racist because someone says it is.

Really? So the depiction of orcs by Keith Baker is racist depiction of Latinx? Because a lot of people seem to disagree with that. Truth be told I don't even really believe it all that much. On the other hand all races in D&D are described with one standard caricature with easy to grasp traits.

I know I would tweak the orc fluff if I could, that doesn't make your blanket statement true.

 

[Hussar]

Kind of funny how one person's interpretation and association of an orc to one ethnicity is a joke that can be dismissed out of hand, while another's is serious and taken at face value and spawns thousands of posts.

Almost like people can read things into text if they want to whether there's actually a connection or not.

Tell you what @Oofta, come back in twenty or thirty years. If you can make the same argument then and point to numerous sources that agree with your interpretation, then we’ll take you seriously.

So close yet so far.

 

[Hussar]

Considering that they are now attacking your personally shows that you are on to something. Not that it isn't completely obvious to everyone by now.

This from the poster who insists that anyone who has an issue here is inventing reasons to be offended.

Hey @Oofta, doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy to know that that’s the people who agree with you?

 

[Oofta]

Tell you what @Oofta, come back in twenty or thirty years. If you can make the same argument then and point to numerous sources that agree with your interpretation, then we’ll take you seriously.

So close yet so far.

So what part of "I think some of the description of orcs should change" never seems to get through?

 

[Hussar]

So what part of "I think some of the description of orcs should change" never seems to get through?

I’m sorry. I can’t parse this. I do not understand your question.

 

[Hussar]

It’s almost comical. Pretty much everyone agrees that the language is problematic and should be changed, yet even those who agree are still bringing up counter arguments.

It really is bizarre.

 

[Cadence]

And the search for what is actually offensive about orcs continues. Will it ever find something or do we have to do with a general "its racist because someone said it is"?

From multiple posts earlier in this and other threads:

Historic racism often involved othering different groups to justify their subjugation and killing, including into the lifespans of some posting here. Language that closely mirrors that is often used to describe evil humanoids in D&D. That turns off some players and isn't hard to fix.

One set of quotes to compare is:

D&D 5E - WotC's Jeremy Crawford on D&D Races Going Forward

On Twitter, Jeremy Crawford discussed the treatment of orcs, Vistani, drow and others in D&D, and how WotC plans to treat the idea of 'race' in D&D going forward. In recent products (Eberron and Wildemount), the mandatory evil alignment was dropped from orcs, as was the Intelligence penalty...

www.enworld.org

That poster has more at:

D&D General - Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

Excellent point @Dire Bare. And, the laugh was for your first paragraph, which actually did make me giggle. :D Otherwise, yeah, thumbs up to you. That Arcanists Press book looks very interesting. Cool beans. Now, if they would just make a Fantasy Grounds .mod file for it, I'd be all over it.

www.enworld.org

Two blog posts that go into it and got shared a few times were:

Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror — James Mendez Hodes

This is the first installment of a two-article series about the racist origins, nature, and ramifications of orcs, a malevolent humanoid species from English author John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s Middle-earth fantasy setting. I started researching this article with the hypothesis that a collection of n

jamesmendezhodes.com

Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part II: They're Not Human — James Mendez Hodes

This is the complement to my previous article , “Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror.” In the previous article, we learned how racist myths from the British academy and army fueled JRR Tolkien’s creation of orcs as an analogue for Asian people. Today

jamesmendezhodes.com

The ask isn't to not have orcs or not have humanoids that are evil, it's to take things that seem pretty like people (subject to charm-person, can be PCs, make 1/2 human 1/2 x children) and make the default be open. And then show a variety of worlds reflecting the variety of possibility (including from various published settings.

 

[Mercurius]

Well, since that steroetype is "women" I think that is a rather large enough population of the world that WoTC should consider their opinions.

Sure, one trope among many, but why publish it at all? Seriously, is there some "here are the tropes for DnD" book that I'm not aware of?

You seem to think that just making a big list and saying "here are all the tropes of human storytelling, from the innocent, the grand, the racist and the misgynistic, pick what you like" somehow makes things okay. But not only does that still not make the bad tropes okay, we've never once created a book like that for DnD, so why do it now?

If people are interested in the history, they will research the history, we don't need to publish the entire history in every new book.

No, I don't think that (the big list). But it does seem that are people, including yourself, who think we should make a long list of every D&D that is offensive according to a certain ideological framework, and remove them from the game. I disagree with that.

The damsel in distress is a bit of a red herring because it isn't currently the issue; furthermore, damsels are real humans, orcs and drow are fantasy creatures. But the has already been mostly solved through diversifying the depiction of women, but that diversification doesn't erase the damsel. Similarly with what I am suggesting with orcs: broaden the definition, take a big tent approach that supports numerous depictions.

Right, make them people. Make them more complex than just "all orcs in all worlds are X". That is the proposed solution, but people don't want us to take their orcs from some 60 year old magazine away from them. But we aren't, we are changing things going forwards.

I see three options:

1. Keep orcs the same - makes those wanting them to change unhappy.
2. Change orcs, removing traditional orcs from the game - makes those wanting traditional orcs unhappy.
3. Broaden orcs to include a variety of depictions - my guess is that the vast majority will be happy, except for extremists on either side.

I've been advocating for 3, but I'm not sure if you want 2 or 3. It seems "2.2," which doesn't seem the best approach.

As for duergar, well, maybe we shouldn't go there. As you probably guess, I disagree. I see nothing wrong with a fantasy race that takes justified anger too far into evil.