When Fantasy Racism gets stupid

[Sunseeker]

Woah folks, the level of straw men in this thread are just getting ridiculous.

First off, asking for some shades of grey in sentient races is not asking for every face to be misunderstood and Drizzt-like. It's asking for a little diversity.
Second, Drow have long since grown beyond their "evil black people" history. If folks are seriously offended by the fact that this major evil faction is dark skinned, they need to get a grip. Most evil factions in D&D are white humans, how about that for some racism? The portrayal of orcs has nothing to do with Native Americans, the Europeans who had myths of orcs had them long before the New World, and Tolkein's orcs were more a representation of how the modern when had corrupted the people of Europe. NOTHING to do with Native Americans.
Thirdly, this is one of the inherent issues with integrating an alignment system into the game, it forces everything to fall into ridiculously black and white boxes. Leave the alignmemts at the table, you want escapism with evil orcs? You want to made your game as deep as A Game of Thrones? Go for it! Whatever you choose, keep it at the table and don't force those of us who don't want to play that way to play your game.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Yeah, right. Maybe it shouldn't, but it is. You can't honestly tell me that black people playing D&D and being uncomfortable with the story of the drow is just a made up issue.

I can and I am, because I have never heard of a genuine black-skinned geek complaining about this issue-- I have only ever heard of it coming from rich white college kids trying to expiate the shame of their privileged upbringing.

Or that Native American players (and other folks from hunter/gatherer cultural traditions) being uncomfortable with the typical D&D portrayal of savage cultures (orcs, gnolls, even human barbarians, etc) is them being over-sensitive.

Considering that 'human barbarians' are primarily based on Roman stereotypes about the Celtic and Germanic tribes that they were busy opp-- civilizing-- yes, I can say that they're being over-sensitive. Assuming that they really do exist, because once again, this is not an issue I have ever heard coming from real Native Americans, and not something any Native American I have ever played with has seen fit to mention to me.

Denying it is foolish, acknowledging it and trying to change is admirable.

I will give you that it is better to be aware of the racist attitudes that produced some of our most endearing fantasy tropes-- the better to separate the fantasies from the realities-- but there's absolutely nothing to be gained from censoring those attitudes from our fiction. It doesn't make our fantasies more interesting or more appealing, and it doesn't make the specter of racism any less real for the people who have to deal with it in their real lives.

 

[Gold Roger]

Curse on that sexy playtest material from distracting me, when there's posts I wanted to answer.

Different places for different campaigns. In most games, demons and devils are probably irredeemably "made of evil." But that's not the case in Planescape, which traffics in tropes of cosmic morality and where demons and devils are both just extremes of a particular philosophy. Not everyone thinks that is fun or awesome, so that needn't be true in every campaign, but it can be true in PS.

The flip side of "monsters are people too," is, of course, "people are monsters, too." The implication being that any person has in them the capacity to be eeeeevil, and so those elves can be slavers and colonists and bigots, and those dwarves can be terrorists and war-mongers, and those halflings can be greedy, petty, and cruel...

It jives more with a greyer morality in the setting, which can create a lot of interesting conflict, and helps mitigate the heavy-handed morality of D&D's alignment system: Alignment becomes less about what you are and more about how you act.

That's not always desirable, of course, but for a lot of games, that's stuff they like to play with. For some games, the question of "what can we kill? under what circumstances?" is something they want to explore. Not all games, but certainly some!

I think there's no disagreement between us here. The collective of PC races and plenty other creatures provide numerous shades of grey and I like my shades of gray.

I just don't think adding absolute good and absolute evil creatures diminishes the element of shades of grey.

If you've seen numerous time what absolute evil creatures gnolls are, what do you do when you meet a group of gnoll mercenaries just minds their own business. What if a tribe of gnolls hails the PC's as profecised bringers of good omen and treats them like kings?

If you know an order of knights is secretly enthralled to Pazuzu, do you deny theyr freely granted help?

What about those hound archons guarding that one room in the dungeon. They are objectively good. But they deny you passage and it wouldn't actually be killing them to attack.

That's a perfectly reasonable desire, but consider that by making the 'monsters are people too' approach universal you will inevitably end up with both. This is because the PCs' culture, assuming it's not highly sophisticated, will almost certainly regard some sentient beings as monsters. Also, beings who attack the PCs, or threaten them, are very likely to become regarded as monsters to be killed, at least in that moment. It's kill or be killed.

Our own world contains only people. But at many times and in many situations, ordinary human people have treated other ordinary human people as monsters to be shunned, denied basic human rights, ethnically cleansed, or killed. If that can happen in our world, how much more easily could it happen (even without alignment) in a D&D-style world, where physical and cultural differences are greater?

Killing creatures in game because you think they are evil monsters is different from creatures actually being evil monsters though.

To take an example from my homebrew, some orcs in certain places are extreme racists. Other people in certain places are very racist against orcs. Being or not being an orc will get you killed or enslaved. But in other places both orcs and humans hold noble titles and stand side by side. Because neither is always evil and the differences can be overcome.

Gnolls on the other hand, might be thinking bipeds, but still absolutely evil. When you hear a fallen empire used gnoll troops in large number, it propably wasn't very nice.

I hope I got your point and brought mine across.

I think there's two separate things here:

One is the difference between hostile and evil. A Drow might want to capture me, sell me into slavery, and then sacrifice my heart to Lloth - that makes the drow hostile, but does it make the drow inherently evil? After all, plenty of human cultures with good, evil, and neutral people in them practiced slavery and human sacrifice. Was every Aztec evil, or every Gaul or Carthaginian?

This is why I don't believe saying a creature is inherently evil makes it less interesting. If drow just do bad things, they are just like bad humans. If drow do evil things because they have a deep inborn sadism or similar, that has a larger effect on the game.

The other is the difference between what we might call moral evil and what we might call metaphysical evil. A human psychopath we might describe as morally evil, as someone who's doing bad things because they want to, because they can. Whereas a demon or zombie is an aberration of the natural order by its very nature, something that should not exist but is being brought into the world by some perversion of the laws of nature.

Definitely. If we say a creature is always evil, there must be some metaphysical element to them and a good setting reason. Considering how many creatures in D&D are products of magic, one might say some creatures need a reason to be free in their moral choices!

One fantasy system that I think has a really good handle on this is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. A Chaos demon or the Undead are metaphysically evil - they are matter twisted by a force outside of the physical realm into something otherwise impossible. A Chaos cultist by the contrast made the moral choice to sell their soul for power.

I love the Warhammer settings (fantasy and 40k) for their use of moral. Almost everything is in shades of grey, but then there are beings of absolute evil (and law and chaos) as well. The only thing lacking is pure good, which is admittedly hard to do, but would serve to reduce the grimmdark a bit. Also they meld chaos and evil a bit to much for my taste.

I would actually take your distinction WFRP even further. Demons are beings of pure evil manifest. Cultists are people who made the moral choice to be and act evil. But in between those are the children of chaos and the undead.

The children of chaos (beastmen, skaven, harpies etc) are my favorites, creatures that originate and exist in the natural world, but are corrupted behind the point of no return. These creatures are in every way distinct from demons, yet there is no denying that they are "always evil". Humanoids and with various characteristics to boot!

These are very much my model for inherently evil humanoids in my games.

 

[Mercule]

Oh, for Pete's sake. It's a story device. Tolkien's orcs were inherently corrupted because of their origin. It's part of the foundation for his stuff, and an epic fantasy convention. Other settings benefit from some gray. Neither one is necessarily right or wrong, though there are some obvious advantages to having inherently unredeemable foes in a game largely about killing critters and taking their stuff.

Personally, I like having a mix, so I can pick and choose.

 

[Dire Bare]

You know, I'm getting really sick of the kneejerk politically correct nonsense that's being thrown around here.

Um, okay.

But you know what? Using these tropes in fantasy fiction is not a racist act. It does not promote the racist ideals they're based on.

I'd have to go back and re-read the thread, but I don't think anyone claimed that. Doesn't mean we can't be troubled by embedded racism in the game and work to change it.

The only thing this incessant drive for censorship accomplishes is shaming people for having innocent fun with their friends and patronizing the people you're setting out to protect. It's insulting.

Censorship? I do not think the word means what you think it means. Insulting? Sheesh.

As far as giving the 'monsters' nuanced motivations... that's all well and good. I do that in my own games. But the thing about playing in a morally nuanced world is that they are, by definition, populated by morally nuanced characters. A lot of the conflict I see between 'nuanced' players and 'black and white' players arises from DMs treating the monsters and NPCs with sympathy... and then holding the PCs to black and white standards. Usually with a walloping dose of Good Is Dumb on the side.

I'll agree with you here, and even made the point upthread. Black-and-white vs nuanced isn't so much the problem, it's when they aren't used consistently and the players get confused.

I can and I am, because I have never heard of a genuine black-skinned geek complaining about this issue-- I have only ever heard of it coming from rich white college kids trying to expiate the shame of their privileged upbringing.

I've heard it from rich white college kids too, well, strike the "rich". I've also heard it from black gamers. I'm white, it bothers me, and well, that's good enough for me!

Considering that 'human barbarians' are primarily based on Roman stereotypes about the Celtic and Germanic tribes that they were busy opp-- civilizing-- yes, I can say that they're being over-sensitive. Assuming that they really do exist, because once again, this is not an issue I have ever heard coming from real Native Americans, and not something any Native American I have ever played with has seen fit to mention to me.

Sorry, but some barbarian tribes in D&D and fantasy literature are based on Roman stereotypes, but others are based on European stereotypes of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. Over-sensitive? For someone who is "insulted" by all this "PC talk", you sure throw around a lot of insulting language. You haven't heard it from "real" Native Americans? Go back and read the whole thread.

I will give you that it is better to be aware of the racist attitudes that produced some of our most endearing fantasy tropes-- the better to separate the fantasies from the realities-- but there's absolutely nothing to be gained from censoring those attitudes from our fiction. It doesn't make our fantasies more interesting or more appealing, and it doesn't make the specter of racism any less real for the people who have to deal with it in their real lives.

Involving yourself in fantasy literature and/or gaming can be a way to deal with real world issues. In the game, you have power that you may not feel you have in the real world. I wouldn't judge anyone who acknowledged the embedded racism in D&D, and then decided they were fine with it as is, and/or decided not to do anything about it. As I pointed out upthread, it's often subtle and very engrained in our culture. But for those of us who do care, it's very worthwhile.

So there.

 

[Dire Bare]

Oh, for Pete's sake. It's a story device. Tolkien's orcs were inherently corrupted because of their origin. It's part of the foundation for his stuff, and an epic fantasy convention.

You are certainly right about how Tolkien portrayed his orcs. But D&D orcs, while based on Tolkien's stories, are not the same thing, and have been portrayed in many different ways over the decades of D&D games and books.

Heck, if you get into Tolkien scholarship at all, you'll find plenty of academics who do find elements of racism in Tolkien's portrayal of orcs, and other fantasy creatures.

If you don't see it, or see it and aren't bothered by it, that's fine. Doesn't mean it isn't there.

 

[Ainamacar]

I wonder if there might be a way for us to have our cake at eat it to, so that the narrative presented in the game works smoothly with a stark black-and-white moral universe or one with many shades of gray. The presentation of setting information and lore is often taken as a "God's-eye-view" of the setting's reality, and usually not a very nuanced one. What if, instead, the game presented materials more commonly from perspectives within the setting, or maybe even something akin to the unreliable narrator?

A DM could run with the grayness by accepting that many perspectives have merit, or the DM (and probably many within the setting) can dispense with "the lies of the monsters." Even lies add color. In short, spend less time writing about the inherent moral status of drow and more time telling or showing us what actors within the setting think about the drow.

Sometimes D&D already does this in a wishy-washy way by acknowledging that "some say this" and "others say that" in order not to lock the lore of game down. That does keep things open, but at least for me it also doesn't engage very consistently. A strong perspective, even a false one, is often more engaging.

Take your temperature on this concept with the following specific example: How would you feel about the non-mechanical part of the goblin monster entry consisting primarily or partly of what a bugbear warlord tells his young bugbear warlordlings about the goblins he rules? Even if the bugbear generalizes too broadly about goblins this is perhaps less objectionable than if the game presents these as objective (and universal) facts about goblins. Furthermore, other specific "lore snippets" might suggest a different source.

Or perhaps the elven entry is presented as the eyewitness record of a wood elf diplomat at the coronation of a new high elf king. Written well it could reflect that traditional elven pride (and some differences between the two subcultures), but also enough self-awareness to not entirely embrace the hagiographic paean to elf culture and history recited during the coronation itself.