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Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity
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<blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8024334" data-attributes="member: 7023840"><p>To lightly tread on what I've observed over the last few hundred posts ....</p><p></p><p>1. I don't think that there is much debate about whether there has been racist rhetoric / imagery associated with, for example, orcs and drow.</p><p><em>Of course, some people will debate anything, but I don't think there is any serious good-faith debate about this.</em></p><p></p><p>2. I think that there is some, marginal, question as to whether or not those historical issues continue into the present, and to what extent.</p><p><em>This is the "yes, Tolkien might have said some bad things, and there might be some use of racist language and imagery regarding orcs today, and there might be questionable issues about some drow artwork and why underground dwellers are black, but we mostly avoid those racist tropes today." I don't think that's a great argument, but I can understand it.</em></p><p></p><p>3. From there, we get what a lot of people are discussing and/or arguing about. The specific issue of racist stereotypes (from Orcs, to Drow, to Hobgoblins, to Vistani, and so on) is generalized to a "no evil humanoids, they are all people."</p><p></p><p>It's the leap from (2) to (3) that is confusing to some people. I think I've sussed out the following positions:</p><p></p><p>A. Definitional. If it says humanoid, that means you are a person. Fin.</p><p></p><p>B. Aspirtational. Like real life, or Star Trek, personhood is just a matter of intelligence, and it's wrong to label anything intelligent as evil. Just because something wants to eat your brain doesn't make it evil, it just means it had a different, brains-are-yummy, society than you do. Maybe you're the evil one for not offering up your yummy, yummy brain?</p><p></p><p>C. Fantastical. This is not real life, and orcs, goblins, and mind flayers are not real. For that matter, demons, devils, and absolute alignments aren't real. It makes just as much sense to have an "evil but sentient race" like an orc as it does to have mind flayers and magic and spells, because of deities, or magic, or fantasy reasons.</p><p></p><p>Weirdly, even though (A) and (C) probably generate the most heat fighting, they are the most closely alike in that they are both just defining the problem away. (A) by saying D&D can arbitrarily define what creatures matter and don't matter by slapping a "humanoid" label on them, and (C) by saying that it's all fantasy, and therefore since alignments don't really exist, it doesn't really matter if some things are just eeeee-vil. </p><p></p><p>(B) seems like the most realistic one, but would also require ditching a fair amount of traditional D&D tropes (I would think).</p><p></p><p>This has given me a lot to think about, but it would seem that the issue goes far beyond merely racist rhetoric around orcs. As far as I know, there has never been a tradition of racist rhetoric around kobolds, or xvarts, or any of the other traditional evil-aligned humanoids monsters, and yet they are all part of the change.</p><p></p><p>But maybe I am misunderstanding the nature of the problem?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Snarf Zagyg, post: 8024334, member: 7023840"] To lightly tread on what I've observed over the last few hundred posts .... 1. I don't think that there is much debate about whether there has been racist rhetoric / imagery associated with, for example, orcs and drow. [I]Of course, some people will debate anything, but I don't think there is any serious good-faith debate about this.[/I] 2. I think that there is some, marginal, question as to whether or not those historical issues continue into the present, and to what extent. [I]This is the "yes, Tolkien might have said some bad things, and there might be some use of racist language and imagery regarding orcs today, and there might be questionable issues about some drow artwork and why underground dwellers are black, but we mostly avoid those racist tropes today." I don't think that's a great argument, but I can understand it.[/I] 3. From there, we get what a lot of people are discussing and/or arguing about. The specific issue of racist stereotypes (from Orcs, to Drow, to Hobgoblins, to Vistani, and so on) is generalized to a "no evil humanoids, they are all people." It's the leap from (2) to (3) that is confusing to some people. I think I've sussed out the following positions: A. Definitional. If it says humanoid, that means you are a person. Fin. B. Aspirtational. Like real life, or Star Trek, personhood is just a matter of intelligence, and it's wrong to label anything intelligent as evil. Just because something wants to eat your brain doesn't make it evil, it just means it had a different, brains-are-yummy, society than you do. Maybe you're the evil one for not offering up your yummy, yummy brain? C. Fantastical. This is not real life, and orcs, goblins, and mind flayers are not real. For that matter, demons, devils, and absolute alignments aren't real. It makes just as much sense to have an "evil but sentient race" like an orc as it does to have mind flayers and magic and spells, because of deities, or magic, or fantasy reasons. Weirdly, even though (A) and (C) probably generate the most heat fighting, they are the most closely alike in that they are both just defining the problem away. (A) by saying D&D can arbitrarily define what creatures matter and don't matter by slapping a "humanoid" label on them, and (C) by saying that it's all fantasy, and therefore since alignments don't really exist, it doesn't really matter if some things are just eeeee-vil. (B) seems like the most realistic one, but would also require ditching a fair amount of traditional D&D tropes (I would think). This has given me a lot to think about, but it would seem that the issue goes far beyond merely racist rhetoric around orcs. As far as I know, there has never been a tradition of racist rhetoric around kobolds, or xvarts, or any of the other traditional evil-aligned humanoids monsters, and yet they are all part of the change. But maybe I am misunderstanding the nature of the problem? [/QUOTE]
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