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

[Raduin711]

The Damsel in Distress is only problematic if females are only depicted as damsels. Nothing wrong with damsels existing; I've known a few in my day. Women, like men, come in limitless variety.

Consider the name of the trope: "Damsel" in distress. Not "Person" in distress. We call it "Damsel" in distress for a reason: because the person in need of rescued is, more often than not, a woman, often of value as a potential romantic partner.

A trope is a repeated motif. So if we say that "The Damsel in Distress is an acceptable trope", we are saying that it is okay to use women in this sort of way, repeatedly.

That's not to say that we can't ever present women as being vulnerable, or requiring help. But the notion of taking a female character and making her -once again- the object of a man's quest to rescue and take as his romantic partner or for some other reward, is a tired and sexist story. If we find ourselves falling into that pattern, or resembling it too much, then maybe we should consider stopping and reversing course.

 

[Mercurius]

I see you didn't read the story template very closely. Or, you find the myths of female disempowerment to be fine in the modern day.

For example, did you note that the end of the adventure involves the princess marrying one of the heroes? She didn't agree to that (implied by the fact it is one sentence which includes us being told she is kidnapped) so she is supposed to be just fine marrying the hero that rescued her?

And, why is it that the monster wants to marry her? In many myths it is simple. She is beautiful, therefore everyone wants to marry her. And she, as a woman, has no agency and will marry the good hero and not the ugly monster.

I'm sure Jung could have a very thorough psychological analysis of what this story says about the human condition. I'm also sure that my sister would call it a load of [insert your favorite expletives here] and not accept the princess being a gilded trophy being passed around.

And things you can do with that story, such as have the princess be unwilling to marry, are generally constructed as twists... but since they are more realistic in our modern society, presenting that as a twist "surprise, this woman doesn't want to marry a dude she literally just met" falls flat.

Now, I'm not saying that no character should ever be kidnapped or disempowered, sure, that can happen. But, taken as a whole, while a myth and story that survived for hundreds of years, it isn't something I think we really want at the table.

Again, nothing wrong with your damsel story if a given group wants to play out a classic fairy tale story. If they want to they can subvert it and make it a dude in distress, who marries the successful warrior woman. The problem only arises when it becomes the default mode, or implies that women must be helpless damsels.

Not sure what your sister has to do with this?

You seem to be missing the point.

Sure, the history is interesting. But if I by a Jazz CD by (googles) Joel Ross I don't really want a dissertation on how his sound was influenced by Billie Holiday. I want to listen to a CD by Joel Ross.

If I want to play DnD with orcs, I don't want to read about how Tolkien took and adapted the idea of ogres into orcs and what he based them on. I want to play DnD with orcs. And, while a "variety of options" sounds good. Options that include racist undertones and implications of sexual violence (with regards to half-orcs) aren't the kind of options I want presented in the game. They've existed for decades, I'm sure it was fun, but lets move on and do something else.

I get your point. We seemingly enjoy different things in a RPG book, maybe along fluff/crunch lines. But there's another aspect that I want to highlight: discussing the history provides context to understand how orcs have been depicted in a variety of ways and can be customized to your game.

As for the second paragraph, this highlights the differences expressed in this thread and drawing a connection between orcs and racism. I can't speak for everyone, but I think the vast majority of those arguing for the inclusion of "traditional orcs" don't agree with that interpretation and want an option for such orcs. The Big Tent honors both sides (if we must use sides). It says: "here are a variety of orcs; orcs are like people, they can be good or bad and everything in-between. We'll give you some options for a bit of each, so you can decide how they are in your world."

 

[Mercurius]

Consider the name of the trope: "Damsel" in distress. Not "Person" in distress. We call it "Damsel" in distress for a reason: because the person in need of rescued is, more often than not, a woman, often of value as a potential romantic partner.

A trope is a repeated motif. So if we say that "The Damsel in Distress is an acceptable trope", we are saying that it is okay to use women in this sort of way, repeatedly.

That's not to say that we can't ever present women as being vulnerable, or requiring help. But the notion of taking a female character and making her -once again- the object of a man's quest to rescue and take as his romantic partner or for some other reward, is a tired and sexist story. If we find ourselves falling into that pattern, or resembling it too much, then maybe we should consider stopping and reversing course.

So we basically agree. Thankfully this isn't often used in D&D adventures, at least to my knowledge.

 

[Mercurius]

I already apologized, and said you may consider it retracted. If that's not enough for you, sorry, I don't have anything else.

But, if you must - in a purely logical sense, yes. If you are presented with a suggestion or posit, and you say, "No..." you are resisting that suggestion or posit. You yourself mentioned finding people intractable. Does that not imply a mutual resistance of ideas?

If artistic freedom is the real concern, what they are thinking should be the central question.

I'm not asking for further apology, I'm clarifying what I said.

What suggestion do you think that I am resisting? And how are you differentiating it from disagreement?

I would suggest that resistance implies not understanding what they are resisting, whereas disagreement implies that one has at least some understanding, but has a different perspective, for whatever reason.

 

[Hussar]

Now I'm seriously confused.

People relate orcs to real world people in a way I don't. Fair enough. If the issue is that orcs are a racist depiction of PoC then change the depiction of orcs.

Pages and pages have been written on not only what is a person, but why having evil humanoids is wrong but evil fiends and aberrations is perfectly okay.

But it all comes back to: I don't just admit that you're right in every way "I just don't get it".

Look who started the "what is a person" sidebar and your confusion should evaporate. No one arguing for changing the definitions of orcs and drow to remove the racist stuff is arguing that having evil humanoids is wrong. That's a straw man that has been invented whole cloth.

So, yeah, you do get it. "Change the depiction of orcs" is all people actually want. All that other stuff that has taken up pages and pages of threads like this? That's the creation of folks that want to stop any changes to the game.

An ancient race of feyish not-human but human-like decadent slaver overlords who wielded magical power, had torture concerts, and worshiped Chaos Lords. Melniboneans do not have to stretch very far to get to Drow. Switch to man-hating spider Lolth as the Chaos Lord, give them the already established elvish black skin from G3, some weird underdark radiation items, and run with it.

I may be influenced from a D&D campaign where the Melniboneans were the fair-skinned Drowesti elves but I see them as fitting well as a prime candidate for a strong influence on the Drow portrayal in D1-3.

Yeah, other than the depraved bit, I'm not really seeing it. And, frankly, if that's all drow were, then there wouldn't be an issue. The color of drow isn't why drow are being changed. Or, at least, that's not the main issue. The main issue for drow is that they are such a caricature of feminism and incredibly misogynistic. It's not even subtle about it. That they are black skinned on top just adds a bit of extra zest to the mess.

 

[Mercurius]

If artistic freedom is the real concern, what they are thinking should be the central question.

I forgot this one. I'm not sure if this is knowable, or at least I don't think it usually boils down to one factor.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What myths and literature do the drow race pull from in D&D?

1. Svartalfar, Norse myth
2. Melniboneans, "Elric of Melnibone" Michael Moorcock
3. Black Martians, "John Carter of Mars" Edgar Rice Burroughs
4. All of the Above!

Margaret St Clair, The Shadow People (1969), cited in Appendix N, is also a possible source. Here it is discussed in the Advanced Readings in D&D series.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Actually, has anyone ever asked the guy who designed the drow race for its inclusion in the Field Folio all those decades ago?

Drow: A listing in the Funk & Wagnall's Unexpurgated Dictionary, and no other source at all. I wanted a most unusual race as the main power in the Underdark, so used the reference to "dark elves" from the dictionary to create the Drow. (And nary a one has crow's feet).

Source

 

[Oofta]

@Oofta , humor me while I share where I've come to with regards to the issue.

I remain unconvinced with the idea that orcs perpetuate racism, or the problematic nature of orcs, hobgoblins and drow. When I started engaging in these discussions, I plead the Fifth on Vistani, because I knew little about them, having never been a huge fan of Ravenloft, but now think there is a more obvious real-world connection that makes sense to address (though I personally have no problem with them as a fantasy race, and as a general rule don't get offended easily, especially not by fantasy ideas).

I remain disturbed by the inability or unwillingness exhibited by some to understand different views, except as an extreme caricature that is "part of the problem." I am also worried about a culture-wide tendency to confuse and conflate issues (e.g. fantasy ideas = real world issues, or ideological vs. instutitional racism), and am quite leery of anything smacking of censorship, even in the subtler guise of de-platforming and cancellation. I have defended, and will continue to defend, artistic freedom, and the idea that fantasy is a venue to explore ideas, even controversial ones. And so forth.

That said, some days ago I started accepting the fact that a lot of this is inevitable. There are a number of people in the gaming community--of unknown percentage, but sizeable enough to have a loud voice--that want these changes, and find some of D&D's depictions to be offensive. I don't agree with their interpretation (for the most part), but I also feel like some acquiesence is called for, which is why I have presented suggestions as to how changes can be made that mostly add to the game, rather than subtract from it. Some folks on the "other side" have agreed with those suggestions, while others have ignored them, seemingly feeling that no compromise or alternate approaches are acceptable. I don't think there is anything I can do about this kind of intractability, but don't lose sleep over it. I can only hope that WotC realizes that the community includes a wide range of ideological and philosophical perspectives, and won't cater to the most extreme voices (on whatever side).

At this point, I feel that even if I don't agree with certain changes, not only is it inevitable, but seemingly enough people want them that it makes sense...to an extent, at least. I can always play the game that I want to play (always have, including non-evil orcs and pale-skinned drow!), and think that even a small number of people feeling that the game is more inclusive is worth what, in the end, will mostly be cosmetic changes.

I am not writing this to try to get you to stop defending your position--I firmly believe that you have every right to do so. I'm just sharing my own experience, and why--even though I agree with a lot of what you are saying in a philosophical sense--I accept the described changes, and have moved on to advocating for a "big tent" D&D.

I don't know how I can be much clearer. I think some of the wording and imagery around orcs (and a few other humanoids) can and should be changed. Period. On the other hand, I think having the option of some black and white, good and evil is important to the game. Also give people the option of everything being morally gray and mushy like the real world or options for in between.

I think certain monsters being evil for supernatural or mythical reasons is better than limiting certain creatures are evil based on a specific culture and religion. If you do the latter it starts sounding a lot like "those [insert religion] from [insert region] are all evil, radical terrorists". Again, if that's what you want it should be an option, I just don't think it should be the only option.

Somebody mentioned Eberron's orcs as an example of a "good" depiction. I looked at it and thought "Just like that stereotype of Latinos. Passionate, dedicated to family and church but not very industrious (e.g. lazy)." Most races in D&D end up starting out with a caricature of some aspect of real world people because we can only describe non human creatures from our frame of reference.

But I also have a bad habit of trying to respond to people who address me or ask questions which means the wheels on the bus go round and round pretty much forever. Have a good one.

 

[Aldarc]

Somebody mentioned Eberron's orcs as an example of a "good" depiction. I looked at it and thought "Just like that stereotype of Latinos. Passionate, dedicated to family and church but not very industrious (e.g. lazy)."

This seems to say more about your own prejudices than it does about Eberron’s orcs. I’m not sure if I have heard Gaming Latinxs point to Eberron’s orcs as an example of racist rhetoric or that they share any cultural resemblances. Some I’m curious how you made the leap to how orcs in Eberron are described and Latinx peoples.