Races in fantasy settings
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@pyrephox said in Races in fantasy settings:
just lazy.
yes! People don't hate other people for differences, they hate them because someone has painted the different people and their differences as the reason for their problems.
Probably there are settings that bake this kind of propaganda and superstition into the history, but what I see is usually just lazy. Goblins are evil, so everyone hates them.
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#party goblin
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Okay.
I've been roleplaying in one form or another since 1980. I've seen the lows and the highs of the hobby, and I think things are getting better. D&D/AD&D has several built-in flaws from the start. The 'biological determinism' of the Alignment system when applied to whole cultures/species being one of them. The inherent need for there to be 'bad guys' to hack and slash being another.
And the problem goes back even further; Tolkien himself based the portrayal of Orcs on the 'Mongol hordes', as he put it in a letter. There's lots of baggage that is endemic to the fantasy genre. And there's ways of correcting those problems without making the issue worse.
Example: The Elder Scrolls. Orcs in Tamriel are no better or worse than any other race. The High Elven government is problematic in it's persecution of Humans after the Empire was weakened, but individual High Elves can be noble and kind.
Other issues in fantasy are with 'savage' or nomadic cultures, being portrayed as the 'marauding Indian horde' or 'gypsies', respectively. Ugly equals Evil.. 'Dark' features such as skin are 'Evil'. And some of this can be traced back to poor interpretations of the British/Celtic folklore. There are some Fae creatures of the Unseelie Court whose appearance mimics the corruption inside of them. But at the same time, the Irish language doesn't apply the word 'Black' ('dubh') to people of African ancestry (the Irish use 'blue' ('gorm'), instead), because dubh has specific meanings that allude to Evil.
For myself, I try to show that no single group is fully 'Evil' when I run TTRPGs. Marauding bands are made of of humans as well as Orcs and Gnolls. There can be nobility in members of any culture; not just the well-known example of Drizzt, but even in the Illithid (the Spellljammer novels had a Mind Flayer named Estriss who was more on the Neutral side; he aided the series protagonist and would generally perform Good actions, but he still had to eat...Estriss did limit his diet to kobolds and other evil humanoids, but that's another issue entirely.
Yeah, there's lots of baggage with fantasy races. But, I think things are slowly getting better.
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@misadventure said in Races in fantasy settings:
#party goblin
Party goblins are the worst and deserve to be discriminated against... They ruin lives, they ruin relationships, they ruin people... Evil is an understatement.
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@derp Some interesting thoughts.
I am gonna blether 'cause I think it's interesting and think you might also.
There's this theory that the reason we experience the "Uncanny Valley" effect is that 50k years ago and such, we did have contact with other Homo-genus hominins, and most of the time they were dangerous af.
I am much amused by the one about islanders in Oceania having legends of scary little people who would eat you, but who also kidnapped older children, who would easily escape because the scary little people were not clever. The scary little people would try to force them, the kidnapped children, to teach them, the scary little people, how to cook, but were unable to learn the skill. This whole thing is probably made up by cryptid-fans, who say the scary little people were Homo floresiensis.
It sometimes sends people who aren't into taxonomy 'round the twist, because it's contrary with what they teach in basic schoolkid bio, but species is a difficult concept - 'broadest group that can still create fertile offspring' doesn't cut it. Sometimes hybrids that are normally not fertile are fertile, sometimes fertile hybrids are possible but never happen in nature, often fertile hybrids are possible and happen regularly.
"Species complex" is a term for a group of species where the edges are unclear. Canids of the genus Canis are a good example. Domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, golden jackals, Ethiopian wolves, Red wolves, African golden wolves, and dingos are all (usually) classed as different species (sometimes with dogs, wolves and dingoes lumped) but they can all interbreed and create fertile offspring. They don't seem to have much problem communicating with one another, though there are some pretty marked species-specific behavioral differences.
I think the classic D&D "races" make for interesting speculative fiction about what it might be like if humans were part of a species complex. I kinda like to include this notion that one of the morphological differences is in vocal apparatus -- the "goodly races" have type 1, and the "goblinoid races" have another, it's physically impossible for a human to speak orcish or goblin properly and vice versa, (almost) only orcs or half-orcs can do both, much stupidity has resulted.
Also, endless details of culture and cross-cultural relationships. Excessive world-building vs racism, I guess.
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Another observation in regards to Tolkien and Biological Determinism...
Sauron's human armies. The Near and Far Haradrim. Sub-Saharan African and 'Oriental' humans, respectively. Sure, you had instances of some individuals (Grima) and sub-cultures (Black Numenoreans/Corsairs) who turned to evil or were corrupted, but not entire ethnic groups painted as 'evil' in the same way. They weren't 'inherently' Evil in the way the Haradrim were.
Now, The two Haradrim groups were where the 'forgotten' Istari went to, but it's unclear whether those two Istari corrupted the Human groups or whether the Human groups corrupted the two Istari.
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@runescryer said in Races in fantasy settings:
Now, The two Haradrim groups were where the 'forgotten' Istari went to, but it's unclear whether those two Istari corrupted the Human groups or whether the Human groups corrupted the two Istari.
Do we know that the Istari were corrupted at all? I don't remember reading anything about them. You'd think that if they were corrupted or doing the corrupting, they would have fought in the War, but I don't remember them being there.
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@derp said in Races in fantasy settings:
@runescryer said in Races in fantasy settings:
Now, The two Haradrim groups were where the 'forgotten' Istari went to, but it's unclear whether those two Istari corrupted the Human groups or whether the Human groups corrupted the two Istari.
Do we know that the Istari were corrupted at all? I don't remember reading anything about them. You'd think that if they were corrupted or doing the corrupting, they would have fought in the War, but I don't remember them being there.
Tolkien made notes about them, Alatar & Pallando, but didn't publish any stories about them. They show up in timelines and in Notes of Middle Earth stuff.
What Tolkien did say about the Istari in his writings was that Gandalf/Olorin was the only uncorrupted Istari; Sauruman was corrupted by arrogance and ambition, while Radaghast was 'corrupted' by being too concerned with nature over the guiding actions of Men, which was the whole purpose of the Istari to begin with.
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Tolkien's work wasn't intentionally racist and it certainly had a lot of themes pointing in the opposite direction; hobbits for example were treated with extreme kindness, and showed remarkable heroism despite not being Numenorian, notably never even having been in stories at all (which for Middle Earth was a big deal).
But were there 'superhuman' races around? Fuck yeah. Just about anyone in the First Age stomped. Glorfindel and his kind were as close to demigods as it gets. Those from storied bloodlines were simply better than the rest, zero question about that.
But was some gardener from the Shire just as or even more important than the Noldor who had seen the light of the Trees? Hell yeah he was.
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@arkandel Yes, but the Hobbits and The Shire were supposed to be idyllic presentations of the 'green and pleasant' England of of Tolkien's youth. Which is why the Scouring of the Shire is actually an important part of the story because it presents Tolkien's views on industrialization vs. agrarian life.
Like I said, Tolkien himself wrote that he intended the Orcs to represent ethnic groups like the Huns and the Mongols; brutal, savage, pillaging raiders. And I'm sure that this wasn't considered a racist viewpoint in post-WW 1 England. The 'fiendish Oriental Mastermind' trope of Fu Manchu wasn't considered to be racist back in those days, either. Neither were some of the views on races expressed by Conan, John Carter or Doc Savage in those series. It doesn't change the fact that all those presentations were based on institutionalized racism.
Was Tolkien (or Rohmer, Howard, Burroughs, or Dent) deliberately racist? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, no.
Did they spread institutionalized racist stereotypes, even unintentionally? Yes.
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@runescryer Right. And we do need to be wary of judging authors in general based on today's morality; presentism is counter productive, since we can end up condemning even enlightened people for simply not being up to our standards.
An infamous example may be Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. There are legitimate arguments to be made about whether it hit racism hard enough, but to ban the book now because it uses certain words in the text - essentially to accuse the work itself of being racist or promoting racism - is, in my opinion, disingenuous.
But let me ask a gaming question. In terms of RPG materials, would you revise or even not play older versions of manuals that cast certain social or intellectual traits to specific races (or genders)? Or do you handwave the issue? Do you care enough?
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@arkandel I do indeed alter systems with problematic mechanics. Example: AD&D 1 & 2e with female characters having a cap on Exceptional Strength (the old 18/100 scale). This actually leaves the strongest possible female character with a To Hit in melee mod 2 points lower than the strongest possible male character; a 10% lesser chance to hit.
I also disallow negative penalties to Mental stats like Intelligence and Wisdom due to race, although I still keep racial bonuses to such.
With older, published modules, I try to balance out bandits and raiders so they're not all of a single 'bad' race like Orcs or Goblins or Gnolls. I try to present antagonist as not inherently bad due to race, but because of active choices the antagonist has made.
So yeah, I do try to GM according to my professed beliefs. And my players respect and appreciate those efforts