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

[Aldarc]

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.

Your posting history on this topic makes me skeptical that you are arguing any of this in good faith though. I have seen what you have written in this thread and others, as well as the comments that you chose to like, a number of whom come from posters were banned from threads and the forum for anti-inclusive and offensive comments who had less than savory things to say on this matter. So pardon me for professing that I would be more willing to engage your post with greater attention if your thoughts on this matter evidenced sincerity and good will. But I do think that @Chaosmancer responded adequately enough with an apt comparison to Hobbits.

 

[Derren]

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.

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.

 

[Aldarc]

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.

And just precisely what, in your own words, do you think is that something that he is on to?

Do you honestly believe that the orcs of Eberron are based on or share significant enough cultural affinities with Latinxs while also utilizing racially problematic rhetoric? I would point out that no one really argued that orcs in D&D represented a particular ethnicity. What people did argue is that the language used to discuss orcs shares affinities with the dehumanizing language of white supremacists.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The Baker quotation looks a lot closer to the noble savage trope than to stereotypes of latinx people. Baker's orcs are like Conan - "barbarians by nature", passionate, non-urban, individualistic, reject authority and large organisations. Or the aliens in Avatar - non-Christian but this is seen in a positive light as "spiritual".

Latinx people otoh are stereotyped as dangerous criminals, illegal immigrants, simultaneously hard working and lazy. Latinx women are sexualised. There is a fear that Latinx, and other dark-skinned people, are outbreeding and therefore replacing white people.

Latinx people are considered to be mostly Roman Catholic so this part doesn't fit at all:

This may seem at odds with the idea of strong faith, but they’re equally distrustful of monolithic organized religions. The Ghaash’kala are one of the oldest sects of the Silver Flame, but they operate in small clans and have never formed the sort of political hierarchy that you see in the Church of the Silver Flame.

This is part of the American national identity:

they aren’t good with faceless authority, blind obedience, or being part of a huge infrastructure... quick to distrust massive, faceless forces and invisible authority

Latinx stereotypes are mostly about fear and threat - criminality, stealing jobs, replacement. Baker's account of orcs presents them in a fairly positive way. They are uncivilised, non-urban, close-to-nature, emotional, but basically good people - spiritual, free spirited and independent. That's the noble savage.

 

[Mercurius]

Because she is the one at the table, not Jung, not a cultural anthropologist dissecting old stories. A woman who would find this story farcical at best.

So don't play it at your table. Simple enough. But should you and your table determine what WotC produces? What other groups use in their games?

You again seem to be missing the point. You asked, "why should we not keep every trope and story DnD has ever told" (summarizing innaccurately, I know) and my response was to point out that some of those tropes and stories are just bad and hold no value beyond historical or scholarly value.

And historical and scholarly value is not what we are at the table to play.

We can't erase the history, or remove these stories from every library on the planet, all we are talking about is not writing them down in the books released for the game. You could still go to your local library, get a copy of Sleeping Beauty, and put it in your game as an adventure, but why should the game present it to you as a possible trope?

I get your point, I just see it differently. I'll say it again: There is nothing wrong with the damsel in distress if it is within a larger context of a variety of tropes, "one trope among many."

Sure discussing the history is great. But I'd rather it be in a history book than my rulebook.

And, since I am proposing we make orcs people, that they could be good or bad or anything in-between, I'm curious why you think the side who is proposing we change nothing because it is fine would accept that.

There are extremists on both sides who won't budge one bit from their "my way or the highway" approach, but you're speaking with someone who doesn't buy the "orcs are racist" thing, and I've made suggestions just to that effect: broaden the scope of orcs so that they include a variety of possible depictions.

I mean, we didn't need examples or options for evil human organizations, did we? We've had evil dwarven groups before and we didn't need examples to explain how and why dwarves can be evil.

Duergar? Should we get rid of those, too?

I think the very fact you feel that we need to explain that orcs are people, and give examples of good and bad orcs, shows the problem in stark relief. Because we've never needed to do that for any of the "civilized races".

Yes, because orcs weren't originally conceived of as a civilized race.

Do you have evil organizations of humans in your game? Anywhere? Thieve's Guild, Death Cult, Iron Legions of a Tyranical King, any of it?

If you do, how is making orcs people wit moral complexity going to prevent you from having evil orcs? It didn't prevent you from having evil humans.

And, since the game has half-orcs, the game has to acknowldge orcs as people. Otherwise, the themes of sexual violence are far too strong and problematic, especially with the language around orcs being problematic as is.

I get you want your mindless, black and white morality, just kill them all games. I want those too. Since I've done it with humans, I see no reason I can't do it with orcs.

All of which I agree with and have suggested as much. Again (and again): broaden orcs to include a variety of depictions.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

It's like you can't read quotes, or do anything except cut-paste half of the story. Most of the words you emboldened were followed or preceded by words to put them in context.

Also, most of the words you did embolden don't point to hispanic stereotypes, they fit Americans in general better than hispanics, IMO, but I don't think Keith Baker based his orcs on any existing culture, but instead took all the good stereotypes of Orcs in Forgotten Realms and the other settings, and threw out the bad ones, like the evilness and Gruumsh cults.

Americans stereotypically are:

• extremely passionate and emotional that can often manifest as rage or aggression
• Strength is important to them
• Loyalty, affection and faith are important to them
• Aren't good at faceless authority, blind obedience, or being part of a large infrastructure.
• Quick to anger and celebration
• Very spiritual.

And this fits the Eberron orcs better than latinos, IMO.

 

[Oofta]

My point is that people read into text what they want to see. The Eberron orcs are still caricatures of a certain personality and quite monolithic in how they act and think. Just like pretty much all non-human races in D&D.

It's funny - I do have some issues with the descriptions of orcs. But to me it's more indigenous peoples than black people. Probably because of all those old westerns my dad used to watch when Apaches were always murderous thugs.

That's all. Oh, and heaven forbid anyone have a different opinion on what the issue is and how to fix it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

My point is that people read into text what they want to see. The Eberron orcs are still caricatures of a certain personality and quite monolithic in how they act and think. Just like pretty much all non-human races in D&D.

It's funny - I do have some issues with the descriptions of orcs. But to me it's more indigenous peoples than black people. Probably because of all those old westerns my dad used to watch when Apaches were always murderous thugs.

That's all. Oh, and heaven forbid anyone have a different opinion on what the issue is and how to fix it.

We don't know what exactly caused WotC to change their depictions of orcs in upcoming books, but they've already made up their mind, and will be changing it. Arguing against the root of the change is arguing against the change, and minimizing how people feel about their depictions in other settings by saying Eberron Orcs can be seen as racist, too, isn't going to help.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So don't play it at your table. Simple enough. But should you and your table determine what WotC produces? What other groups use in their games?

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

I get your point, I just see it differently. I'll say it again: There is nothing wrong with the damsel in distress if it is within a larger context of a variety of tropes, "one trope among many."

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.

There are extremists on both sides who won't budge one bit from their "my way or the highway" approach, but you're speaking with someone who doesn't buy the "orcs are racist" thing, and I've made suggestions just to that effect: broaden the scope of orcs so that they include a variety of possible 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.

Duergar? Should we get rid of those, too?

Yes but for entirely different reasons.

The story of the Duergar is that they were dwarves who were tricked into mental slavery, but since they didn't worship Moradin on his holy day (because, you know, the slave masters who controlled their brains wouldn't let them) Moradin abandoned them as unfaithful and cast them out. And, they ended up having to save themselves, their new god being the hero who freed them from slavery

They are evil for hating and attacking the dwarves... which seems completely justified since the dwarves and Moradin essentially abadoned them to slavery and torment for centuries and are blaming the Duergar for what happened to them.


So yeah, I'm all for excising the Duergar entirely.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's funny - I do have some issues with the descriptions of orcs. But to me it's more indigenous peoples than black people. Probably because of all those old westerns my dad used to watch when Apaches were always murderous thugs.

I agree with this, though I'd extend the comparison to all the evil, tribal, primitive humanoids in D&D.

It's been said many times that D&D is the "Wild West with swords". In fact a Google search on 'd&d "wild west with swords"' gives 2750 results. If that's true, then who are the "Red Indians"?