Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 8024231" data-attributes="member: 18182"><p>I think having different cultures for each racial option for players to choose from is one of the best ways to combat the racist tropes embedded in the game.</p><p></p><p>However, the "dark skin equates to evil" issue the drow have won't be solved by essentially letting them choose their skin color. In fact, it makes it worse. One of the problems IRL related to dark skin is within dark-skinned minority communities (hell, even majority communities in certain parts of the world) themselves equate lighter skin with beauty or worth. In America, there is prejudice within black and Hispanic communities based on the relative lightness of skin, this happens in India as well and probably other places as well. There are skin-lightening products marketing towards ethnic groups with traditionally dark skin, and this is yet another issue rising to our collective attention due to the BLM protests this year (but it's a long-standing issue).</p><p></p><p>One of the relatively cringe-worthy events in the Forgotten Realms series was as the end of the War of the Spider Queen/Lady Penitent series of drow-focused stories. A subset of the drow were redeemed, and as a result their skin-color changed! Apparently, before they were cursed by Corellon way back during the Crown Wars, the pre-drow were a dark-skinned elven race . . . but when cursed their skin color darkened even further to the now classic jet black. When redeemed in recent Realms history, these former drow regained their dark-but-not-quite-as-dark skin color.</p><p></p><p>The "dark skin equates to evil" trope needs to be broken entirely. Non-drow elves need some darker-skinned ethnicities/cultures, and drow elves need some non-evil cultures, and maybe some diversity in skin color as well. I've never developed anything fully myself, but I've always wanted to add a non-evil drow society to my campaign world totally divorced from the Lolth/Corellon curse story. The evil drow living in the Underdark below the main campaign area would still be a messed up society, but not quite as messed up as is traditional and individual drow would not be auto-evil. Then the adventurers discover a distant culture of above-ground drow who are like, "Lolth who?" and have a functioning, "normal" society.</p><p></p><p>Again Eberron . . . the treatment of drow in Eberron is AMAZING. They are exotic, dark, maintain a classic feel, but are new, different, and not evil. Dark and often antagonistic, but not evil. We've got scorpion-god worshipping drow who practice scorpion-acid scarification tatoos, we've got fire-magic focused drow with bright red hair living in a volcano, and the Umbragen, an underdark (Khyber) dwelling culture of drow focused on shadow-magic . . . and it's implied there are more drow cultures waiting to be discovered . . . LOVE IT.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dire Bare, post: 8024231, member: 18182"] I think having different cultures for each racial option for players to choose from is one of the best ways to combat the racist tropes embedded in the game. However, the "dark skin equates to evil" issue the drow have won't be solved by essentially letting them choose their skin color. In fact, it makes it worse. One of the problems IRL related to dark skin is within dark-skinned minority communities (hell, even majority communities in certain parts of the world) themselves equate lighter skin with beauty or worth. In America, there is prejudice within black and Hispanic communities based on the relative lightness of skin, this happens in India as well and probably other places as well. There are skin-lightening products marketing towards ethnic groups with traditionally dark skin, and this is yet another issue rising to our collective attention due to the BLM protests this year (but it's a long-standing issue). One of the relatively cringe-worthy events in the Forgotten Realms series was as the end of the War of the Spider Queen/Lady Penitent series of drow-focused stories. A subset of the drow were redeemed, and as a result their skin-color changed! Apparently, before they were cursed by Corellon way back during the Crown Wars, the pre-drow were a dark-skinned elven race . . . but when cursed their skin color darkened even further to the now classic jet black. When redeemed in recent Realms history, these former drow regained their dark-but-not-quite-as-dark skin color. The "dark skin equates to evil" trope needs to be broken entirely. Non-drow elves need some darker-skinned ethnicities/cultures, and drow elves need some non-evil cultures, and maybe some diversity in skin color as well. I've never developed anything fully myself, but I've always wanted to add a non-evil drow society to my campaign world totally divorced from the Lolth/Corellon curse story. The evil drow living in the Underdark below the main campaign area would still be a messed up society, but not quite as messed up as is traditional and individual drow would not be auto-evil. Then the adventurers discover a distant culture of above-ground drow who are like, "Lolth who?" and have a functioning, "normal" society. Again Eberron . . . the treatment of drow in Eberron is AMAZING. They are exotic, dark, maintain a classic feel, but are new, different, and not evil. Dark and often antagonistic, but not evil. We've got scorpion-god worshipping drow who practice scorpion-acid scarification tatoos, we've got fire-magic focused drow with bright red hair living in a volcano, and the Umbragen, an underdark (Khyber) dwelling culture of drow focused on shadow-magic . . . and it's implied there are more drow cultures waiting to be discovered . . . LOVE IT. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity
Top