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D&D Looks To Cut Down On Racial Differences Going Forward
Races and classes have been the central aspects of character creation since the beginning of Dungeons & Dragons – well, not quite the beginning, since Elf used to be a class in original D&D. However, based on a twitter thread by D&D's Jeremy Crawford, it looks like Wizards of the Coast will be moving toward less drastic racial mechanics, especially in regard to races traditionally considered "monster races."
Crawford pointed out the differences between the orcs found in Volo's Guide to Monsters and those found in the Exandria and Eberron settings, saying that the latter reflects the direction that the D&D team is headed in regard to monsters. The Exandria and Eberron orcs lack the -2 penalty to Intelligence and the required evil alignment. This reflects the fact that in these settings orcs are mostly considered another type of people – with all the varieties in personality and temperament that come with that – rather than fodder for player characters to fight.
[...] It is worth noting that this comes on the heels of a Twitter discussion on the racist history of orcs, initially spawned by a screenshot of the description of orcs in Volo's Guide to Monsters. Tolkien initially portrayed orcs as caricatures of Mongolians, and orcs have been racial stereotypes of other races over and over (see World of Warcraft or Bright). Dungeons & Dragons is not immune to this – even outside of the orc issue, races like the Vistani appear as Romani stereotypes.
Diversity and Dungeons & Dragons
Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That's just not right, and it's not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right.
See also: Dungeons & Dragons Designers Clarify How Gnolls Differ From Other D&D Creatures
Related: Gender and Appearance Stereotypes Travel to World of Warcraft
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Saturday June 20 2020, @11:58PM (16 children)
"It is worth noting that this comes on the heels of a Twitter discussion on the racist history of orcs, initially spawned by a screenshot of the description of orcs in Volo's Guide to Monsters. Tolkien initially portrayed orcs as caricatures of Mongolians, and orcs have been racial stereotypes of other races over and over (see World of Warcraft or Bright)"
That's not true. Tolkiens Orcs have nothing to do with Mongols. They are Elves that have been twisted and forced into servitude by Sauron. They aren't human, and they aren't related to humans. They certainly don't represent any human group. They exist to show Sauron's power - even the Eldar, the mighty Elves, are not immune to his power, even they can be corrupted under his influence to be unrecognizable, vicious brutes nothing like the Elves as they were created. And they also contrast in that way with Humans - Humans being so much lower than the Elves, yet we are more flexible, more adaptable. Elves had to be twisted into Orcs before they were proper servants for evil, but he had no need to treat Men similarly. Men can serve both Evil or Good, just as we are. Elves must be thoroughly corrupted.
The predecessors to the Mongols would have been among the Easterlings, the men of Rhûn and/or Khand, if they appear at all. Remember he focuses on Middle Earth (Mediterranea) and lands outside of that aren't filled in too well. There are men to the south as well, and the 'dark' ones are the Haradrim. Those from Near Harad (roughly North Africa today) resembled Arabs, while those from Far Harad (sub-saharan Africa) are black, and also extremely rare in the story due to geography and distance. None of these humans are portrayed as inherently evil or different from the paler Europeans that are his heroes - it's only bad luck, essentially, that Sauron has conquered the east and the south first.
Romani stereotypes? Really? What if I told you Tolkien was modelling the Irish travelers, whose lifestyle bore great resemblance to the British Romani but who were not in any way related to them?
This is tendentious nonsense, the currently fashionable tendency to read current (and anachronistic) notions of "race" into anything and everything one comes across, with no concern for logic, reason, or human decency. This is the mindset that desperately clings to racism and keeps it alive, even while disparaging anyone and anything that disagrees with them as racist. Talk about projection!
"Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated."
There's a huge difference, however. Orcs are an "actual" (though fictional) race. So are Drow. The various human ethnic groups are not; they're all Men. The fundamental mistake we make here is in covering up our caste distinctions with a 'racial' mythology. The world of D&D, before this idiocy took hold, at least, was a wonderful antidote to such nonsense. Having genuine racial differences in the game made it more clear and obvious that there are no racial differences between humans.
But no, throw it all out, rewrite it until it's politically correct.
And then go out of business, because no one wants to buy this crap. Seriously. The people that lobby for this are virtually all people that don't even play it. So great, make them happy, find yourself with no customers, go out of business. The sooner the better. Make room in the market for someone that actually knows what they're doing. WotC lost the plot years ago, and the sooner they disappear the better.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @12:05AM
#hashtagsmattertoo
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sulla on Sunday June 21 2020, @12:11AM
So said 1st edition players about anyone playing 2nd or later
So said 2nd edition players about anyone playing 3rd or later
So said 3rd edition players about anyone playing 3.5 or later
So said 3.5 players about ayone playing 4th or later
Nobody cares what 4th or later players think because fuck them
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @12:16AM
Don't rationalize it. [psychologytoday.com] In reality they're responding to memes used during the European migrant crisis. [pics.me.me] What they don't understand is (that to the limited extent the memes hold true [jihadwatch.org]) they're validating them. We all know the sane and anti-racist response would be to simply point out it's a fictional game but wokesters gonna woke. Just get a load of this blatant xenophobia. [freeforums.net]
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday June 21 2020, @01:00AM (6 children)
First most everything you wrote was correct... except
"Elves had to be twisted into Orcs before they were proper servants for evil"
Have you not read the Silmarillion. Tolkien's elves were NOT the innately 'lawful good' entities that made it into D&D. They were frequently selfish, jealous, murderous bastards. :)
And for what it's worth i have no issue with racial distinctions being removed from D&D. Very little is 'innately evil'. And players can do what they want, always have and always will. If someone want's to play a gentle orc raised by monks... who am i to say they can't?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Sunday June 21 2020, @01:59AM (2 children)
I wasn't saying they were. "Lawful Good" is a D&Dism, but I wasn't referencing it.
Elves are not necessarily always good in the way we would prefer to use the term, and some of them can be downright nasty individuals. But as a race, they're the firstborn of Ilúvatar, they're tied to the essence of /Tolkien/'s idea of Good. They're still individuals, but they are of a higher order. They're more like angels than humans, and of course we have legends of evil angels as well, but if you just ask 'are angels good' most would answer 'yes.'
"Have you not read the Silmarillion."
It only took me a moment to find it again.
On the origin of the Orcs, from the Silmarillon; "[...]all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday June 21 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)
I wasn't disputing the origin of Orcs. I was pointing at the Silmarillion as a source of tales about of Elves who were not "good"; and not isolated individuals who fell from grace. It was more nuanced -- Feanor and his clan declared war on Melkor ("evil") and the Valar ("good") at the same time.
I'm not sure I entirely agree. I definitely partially agree. I think they're closest to some sort of Tolkien sense of clean and pure and light, but not necessarily "good"; although good is associated with that. I think Babylon 5 played on the same idea with the Vorlons vs the Shadows; the Vorlon's were also associated with light and order (and even 'angels')... but they weren't necessarily, in the final anlsysis "good". I think Tolkien's are the same.
That's kind of murky; and really depends on what your definitions are; one might argue that 'angles' are by definition 'good' -- and 'fallen' angles become demons or devils. Ie... an "evil angel" loses it's angelic status, and isn't an "angel" anymore. Satan of course is some time's considered an angel... and sometimes not... for example.
Whereas I'd argue that Elves, as portrayed in the Silmarillion do not cease to be Elves, no matter how evil their actions.
But yes, the notion of angels who aren't good is also a thing that has been played with in film and literature. Walken's Gabriel in the Prophecy; is very much in the spirit of Feanor.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday June 21 2020, @10:59PM
Clearly within the broader category I would say. Just as Melkor does not cease to be a Vala when he rebels, Satan is often referred to as an Angel, albeit one who has "fallen."
"the Vorlons vs the Shadows"
Ok, I don't remember Tolkien ever going very far down that road but I can see the resemblance.
This may be in part influence from the ancient folk tales he was familiar with, in which the deities certainly don't tend to fit neatly into our modern preconceptions of good and evil. The sun gives life, but in a drought it takes it away. The annual flooding of the Nile makes the crops grow - but if it floods too much it can wash them all away. This sort of reality undergirds most of ancient mythology.
"Whereas I'd argue that Elves, as portrayed in the Silmarillion do not cease to be Elves, no matter how evil their actions."
Except for the singular example of the Orcs, which we were discussing.
Of course in that case, it was not merely a result of a bad individual taking evil actions, but a result of Melkor (the closest Tolkien equivalent to Satan himself) capturing them and altering them over a long period of time.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @02:04AM (1 child)
And how about making Westerns where everyone hates guns and instead settle their differences through group therapy?
Look, it's genre role-playing. A genre has assumptions and expectations built in because they let the participant "get into" the game quicker. Frankly, it's also familiar so the audience knows it will be something they will probably like. All genres are built on this.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @04:07PM
Familiar is quick, and popular with the majority, but the familiar world also promoted racial stereotypes, regardless of whether people were conscious of it or not. Today, it's pretty unanimously agreed upon that JRR Tolkien was vehemently xenophobic, and a racist. He was also one of the most popular and influential writers of the 20th century, so his legacy has been taken and reinterpreted in myriad ways. I don't think there's anything wrong with WoC recognizing that aspects of the lore are problematic and taking steps to make their world more complex than good white guys (and/or token black elf) that kill the uncivilized colored monsters who usually stole something or want to steal something, or just because they're over there, too close to our women.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @05:43PM
It'll know kung fu and kick ass. The monks in D&D aren't Catholic monastic tradition pacifists ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @02:09AM
The humans and other races under Sauron /are/ explicitly said to be evil, and there is no characterization that changes that viewpoint at all.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Sunday June 21 2020, @02:57AM (1 child)
You're missing something I think. D&D used to be played with imagination. It started out with physical dice and not random number generators. The Dungeon Master created the world, and they did it according to templates. Meaning, they stuck to the theme of the world. Of course the orcs where evil. It went without question, that Mindflayers were epic level assholes. The greatest distinction was you weren't playing as NPCs, and you couldn't play as the orc. When you're moving around in this imaginary world, the only "people" that can be offended are at the table with you. Everybody is role playing, which is why you had alignments and races. You were very much acting, and agreeing to act within your role. If you came upon orcs it was understood that they were evil.
Take today though. With MMO's it has changed so much. Everybody can be everything or anything they want somewhere. Instead of the orc acting within its original parameters, it can be an actual player. You're not playing with imagination as much as you are socializing with other people in a virtual setting. It's less role playing, and more real world bullshit.
So of course they're going to bring the bullshit from daily life into it. D&D is just a theme, a backdrop, to modern social gatherings. It's not the game it used to be, and hasn't for a long time.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday June 21 2020, @03:25AM
You're missing something. D&D is still played the same way. Yes, MMOs exist, but they're not D&D.
"The Dungeon Master created the world, and they did it according to templates. Meaning, they stuck to the theme of the world. Of course the orcs where evil. It went without question, that Mindflayers were epic level assholes. The greatest distinction was you weren't playing as NPCs, and you couldn't play as the orc."
Well, not with original boxed set you couldn't, that's true. But that was a totally different game too. You got experience points from accomplishing your missions, not from engaging in combat; which was extremely risky and usually resulted in permanent loss of your character.
It was also extremely limited and left a lot that the DM had to fill in. House rules and interpretations exploded, long before AD&D was released, and explicitly sanctioned many of these. And even without explicit sanction, the DM and the players can do whatever they want.
So your template may be the same as that of another campaign. Orcs don't always have to be evil, D&D orcs don't really resemble Tolkiens anyway. "Official" rules from decades ago allowed for half-orc and half-ogre PCs, and house rules would often go further if you had a good story. I had a half-ogre mage for awhile and she was just an awesome character, everyone loved her.
Well, everyone except the NPCs. Villagers with pitchforks got angry a few times, until she had an enormous burka made for adventuring, which mostly solved the problem.
"When you're moving around in this imaginary world, the only "people" that can be offended are at the table with you."
But nowadays people that don't play and haven't even got the books can just look them up online and find something to be offended about.
"With MMO's it has changed so much. Everybody can be everything or anything they want somewhere. Instead of the orc acting within its original parameters, it can be an actual player. You're not playing with imagination as much as you are socializing with other people in a virtual setting. It's less role playing, and more real world bullshit."
Again, MMOs aren't D&D. They very rarely seem to have any element of roleplay at all. That's why I don't play them, and I don't think their market and the market for D&D have much overlap. They're totally different games, from the ground up, despite any surface similarities.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @06:22PM
Better to be honest and accept for what it is. The book and the author are both products of his time.
Accept the good with the bad. Don't try so hard to twist things up just so that you can lie to yourself.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Lagg on Sunday June 21 2020, @09:00PM (1 child)
Firstly I love the talk of the deeper lore and world and a few posts in this thread were pretty fun to read especially when I see people's opinions on Tolkien's inspirations. He strikes me as someone that tried very hard to not model anything overtly on the real world when it made sense, and that's my assumption of his work always. But I find the ideas interesting. Same with the drizzt/D&D lore posts. Prior to this pointless antagonism what parts I did know of the basic LOTR world (one day I'm going to get fully into the silmarillion I swear) struck me as him just pulling things he finds interesting and flavorful to populate his universe and exercise his nerdy tendencies on - you know like authors and artist are wont to do. Like... You might as well say Frank Herbert is racist cause of the names and religions in Dune at this rate. I can kind of see why people think the haradrim and those other far-flung races of men are "bad" because they're the antagonists. But I mean... We established previously that the primordial embodiment of vicious willful self-destruction conquered them. Which might have been better than the alternative in the poo-sandwich they were in.
Secondly, I have angerthas moria (except I overcorrected myself and used the erebor 's'/< rune after rechecking wikipedia + third party cheat sheets and confusing myself, but otherwise moria, and the s rune is basically interchangeable anyway) on my arms which was part of a project I've been wanting to get done since I was a kid. A few months ago I discovered this advisory on one of those ADL-affiliate sites that has a library full of pages upon pages of "hate symbols". Among them the Coors logo and "nordic runes". I didn't know wtf these were until I discovered that advisory. So you know, potential documentary-topic I could have running in the background promptly ruined. I guess other nordic stuff like Thor's blond-generic-hunk ass and very-nordic shit like the hammer aren't racist tho.
I haven't had anyone in real life actually call my runes nordic, or say anything mean to me about it. Being latino and also having tengwar might be relevant. But it's now one of those things that are in the back of my mind now every time I look at them. Then all this... Bizarre shit about Tolkien's alleged racism started up. And I must say this is stupid and weird to me. He may have been a naive catholic in a lot of ways but this is the guy that told a nazi publisher off in one of the best examples of gentlemanly fuck-you letters of all time. I'm not even going to waste time with all this crap about orcs and dwarves because the logic at play with all this is deeply confusing. Trying to tackle it just does disservice to the man that for me is the epitome of the storytelling grandpa.
So now all that stupid baggage is attached to stuff I found cool and grew up loving. I grew up in the southwest with plenty of stupid fucking rednecks, and though they did say some pretty stupid things the worst I ever saw related to D&D is the usual christian-satan stuff. Which made the games of Magic and D&D I've played be counted in spans of low single digits every year. But even then none of them were this dumb to cross wires in such a fashion. I don't even know what to call this besides crossed wires. Like someone else mentioned here I think this crap is some bizarre reflection of the satanic panic. Right down to knee-jerk fear of arcane runes and tabletop nerds & their DM books.
I really don't even get the point with all 3 of these things I just mentioned, collectively or on their own. I can't even reckon any agenda it serves unless I start entertaining vast conspiracies that one look at real life will tell you no one - especially those in upper echelon "leadership" - have the competence to do. Or force of will. The satanic panic had some degree of identifiable agenda because it was rooted in Christian fervor and insanity, it fed into a feedback loop that they already were prone to. But this is allegedly in the name of progressiveness.
So... What the fuck is the ecosystem going on here. Or are we just going to deteriorate to aimless insanity on all fronts. I mean I'm fine with it at this point but it'll be nice to have a definitive "On this day of MM/DD/2020, we finally went full retard" that I can carve into a headstone somewhere. In cirth. Then cry on it.
I wish they were "Our enemies" as it were so I can then draw my axe stoically and roll initiative to take down the bitches on the other side of the door. But man that is just giving them too much credit and lending too much narrative to the world. They're scared children reacting to basic stimuli and trained responses. It keeps going until it starts cascading into nonsensical. How do you call scared children shitting themselves because they ran out of ideas for games to play with their toys "our enemies"? That's the depressing part about all this honestly. I hear the cascade is extending out into other nerd stuff too. My condolences to those affected. Use it as an opportunity to spur new dialog and art.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @09:42PM
It's all over the place and has been going on for years. Anything related to entertainment is extremely susceptible. Just know that you're not alone. It's impossible to sneak in these changes anymore because the intrusion is well recognized and immediately called out.