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Black August posted:extremely racist and loving weird pitch-black skin... 
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Sep 6, 2020 21:59
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Love this poo poo  
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Sep 6, 2020 22:07
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Just having a fantasy race with literal black skin isn't racist. Having an all-evil fantasy race with literal black skin is racist because even though it's not human-tone Black/Brown (and human skin can get very dark!) it falls into the same trap of black = bad light = good and is also pretty lazy. I actually like a lot of what can be done with drow, but I also am not going to claim there's not weird racial implications in a lot of DnD, even if WOtC have been more willing to change it and adjust things these days. There's also the fact that for drow in specific, they used to be just like any elves in the lore until Lolth did her whole coup thing against her god-husband, and the elves that sided with her had their skin darkened in punishment or something. That's messed up!
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Sep 6, 2020 22:07
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I mean a large portion of fantasy is already advanced race science with creatures always evil just by virtue of their race and that's really hosed up but I wouldn't put drow in very close to the front of that particular line.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:13
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I'm not gonna loving pretend some fatass white nerd in the 80s didn't mean exactly what it looks like when he designed "elves with black skin are ALL naturally evil"
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Sep 6, 2020 22:18
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I read I think the first 6 Drizzt books and in retrospect the special ultra talented at fighting rebel with two fancy swords, a magical cat friend and unusually coloured eyes who ran away from his terrible society and won over people in other places by being so cool and good is maybe more towards the Mary Sue end of the spectrum than I first realized. But it was also a good read for awkward early teenager me, that was what I really was after. I remember reading Pern books and the only thing I remember from the origin book was one lady getting her foot partly severed and dumping out a boot full of blood.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:21
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Jokes on him, all the other nerds thought that was cool and want to play edgy drow
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Sep 6, 2020 22:22
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Colonel Cancer posted:I mean a large portion of fantasy is already advanced race science with creatures always evil just by virtue of their race and that's really hosed up but I wouldn't put drow in very close to the front of that particular line. Made even worse by people who don't realize Tolkien's elves proper were almost all huge dicks, too.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:22
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Those snake head whips are a nightmare in combat to go against as they bite for 1d4 each with poison so you can get hosed up in single round.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:25
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PetraCore posted:Look, a lot of it in Tabletop is bc people went, well, we have to have trash mobs to fight. Which is just now starting to get broken down I feel like. But it can be traced back to Tolkien where Uruks (orcs) were corrupted elves so they were All Inherently Evil, and even he regretted that in the end because the theme he was trying to work in was that there's value in showing compassion to everyone, thus everything with Gollum. It's all a bit of a problematic swamp. Yeah I can totally agree with that. Apparently modern incarnations of D&D have been tiptoeing away from some of the more problematic aspects of it and I can only imagine how that makes some dorks feel lmao. I think I've read only one Salvatore book but as a basic concept of a nation/culture of people driven almost entirely mad and evil by their overactive patron god is not such a bad concept for a fantasy world imo.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:37
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Colonel Cancer posted:I think reimagining Lolth as a santa claus like deity has some merit. She knows if you've been bad or good, so be bad for goodness sake.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:40
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I do think salvatore at least made it pretty clear that drow were not genetically evil but they were part of an evil death cult, and could be totally fine people if able to escape it, which I think is a lot better than "haha dark skin elf evil" Its more like theyre mormon or something
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Sep 6, 2020 22:41
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A random bit from Gods and Pantheons book (which is an amazing, small font fluff book for FR 2nd Ed) about Cyric was the priests' daily activities include "throwing stones at people in crowded streets". What a madlad.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:42
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Colonel Cancer posted:Yeah I can totally agree with that. Apparently modern incarnations of D&D have been tiptoeing away from some of the more problematic aspects of it and I can only imagine how that makes some dorks feel lmao. Note I'm not an expert on this at all, I've just gotten into 5e some and this is stuff that stood out to me on reading the sourcebook.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:44
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Bismuth posted:I do think salvatore at least made it pretty clear that drow were not genetically evil but they were part of an evil death cult, and could be totally fine people if able to escape it, which I think is a lot better than "haha dark skin elf evil"
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Sep 6, 2020 22:46
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I think most depictions of orcs after Tolkien are much worse thinly veiled racial caricatures, generally speaking. Not to mention the amazing implication that nearly every half orc is a product of rape that's been around for as long as D&D existed.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:47
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Colonel Cancer posted:I think most depictions of orcs after Tolkien are much worse thinly veiled racial caricatures, generally speaking. Not to mention the amazing implication that nearly every half orc is a product of rape that's been around for as long as D&D existed. It's really amazing how completely racist the 5e stuff came off, though. Especially when I went in not expecting it.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:51
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PetraCore posted:Yes, and even in 5e there was a LOT of stuff about how half-orcs (never orcs, because who would have an orc pc??) were all fighting with an inner savagery and it was understandable for people to avoid them and not let them in shops and stuff. It was loving trash, and it's bad enough I honestly support throwing out basically all the old dnd lore and just starting over with orcs because the lore writers are, optimistically, trying to polish? Is sort of just a turd. Yeah I never really cared for the whole "so you got humans and also these several other types of humans with slightly different physical traits who all act exactly the same" approach to world building a lot of D&D adjacent fantasy has always been. A lot of it is cultural inertia that's too completely mixed in with the brand so you might be better off just moving on to different settings or just grabbing whatever part of rules/setting you like and throwing out the rest.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:56
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Colonel Cancer posted:I think most depictions of orcs after Tolkien are much worse thinly veiled racial caricatures, generally speaking. Not to mention the amazing implication that nearly every half orc is a product of rape that's been around for as long as D&D existed. Even in Tolkien there's a lot of racial elements to how they're described, with swarthy men and ugly half-breeds being untrustworthy savages.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:58
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Colonel Cancer posted:Yeah I never really cared for the whole "so you got humans and also these several other types of humans with slightly different physical traits who all act exactly the same" approach to world building a lot of D&D adjacent fantasy has always been.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:59
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sassassin posted:Even in Tolkien there's a lot of racial elements to how they're described, with swarthy men and ugly half-breeds being untrustworthy savages. Ya that's just being British. At least he's had an underlying message of compassion in Lord of the Rings even if it didn't really show through for the orcs outside of his letters. Pretty much every other fantasy setting using orcs just goes straight for the racist whistle of "dumb violent lazy brute" that has been applied to any number of minorities over the centuries and ignores all the rest.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:01
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I always thought it was confusing and poor form to call them "races" when theyre more like "species" especially when you get into the furries and orcs
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Sep 6, 2020 23:01
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PetraCore posted:Yes, and even in 5e there was a LOT of stuff about how half-orcs (never orcs, because who would have an orc pc??) were all fighting with an inner savagery and it was understandable for people to avoid them and not let them in shops and stuff. It was loving trash, and it's bad enough I honestly support throwing out basically all the old dnd lore and just starting over with orcs because the lore writers are, optimistically, trying to polish? Is sort of just a turd. The way I've always DMed it, the Monster Manual was written by the D&D equivalent of a wealthy British explorer in a pith helmet traveling to "darkest Africa" and publishing his unedited, terrible notes. The experiences of people who live next to an orcish stronghold and have a solid trading relationship with them are going to be vastly different than the one by the guy who went, "What ho, a greenskin! Look at its savage, beady little eyes! Surely this creature's Strength score must be no less than 16!" This has also reminded me of the fact that, somewhere in my Bookshelf of Shame, I own the Baldur's Gate 2 novelization. I remember absolutely nothing about it other than the fact that I own it.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:01
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I spent my D&D time in 2e, and am only vaguely familiar with 5e. My memories of 2e are that there were some things that were vaguely racist, but for the most part it was such a complicated mess that it wasn't that in-your-face. Maybe it was easier to be more oblivious to it, and I was admittedly younger and dumber. The Drow were there, but I think I thought of them more like the Borgias of the elf world. Some of the races didn't seem to hew to the more strict alignments, at least in my memory. Lizardmen I remember being pretty much interested in doing their own thing, and as I recall Gnolls didn't have quite the whole bad-for-badness-sake vibe that goblinoids and Orks had. And Kobolds always seemed like a throwaway - like what do you even use a Kobold for? In 2e the gods just seemed like really high-level monsters. I guess some of my view might also be influenced that I never consumed any D&D-related media. I never read any novels, and never got involved with the more involved settings like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or the other detailed universes. I just had the base 2e books and a collection of modules, nothing from the big settings with their own lore.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:05
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one way you can portray orcs and why they're so difficult to deal with is that they come from a linguistic, cultural, and evolutionary ancestry that just didn't allow the concept of bullshit they're direct and they really hate how humans and elves always speak in ways that are evasive and looking for lies or wiggle room, and they get exasperated about it- but I am seeing 'orcs' as 'boar people' in this idea and that's already massively deviant from the current culturally dominant ideas of them
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Sep 6, 2020 23:14
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I grew up on GURPS and with 25 years of it I guess I got a really different idea of how races could be done and designed
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Sep 6, 2020 23:14
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Black August posted:one way you can portray orcs and why they're so difficult to deal with is that they come from a linguistic, cultural, and evolutionary ancestry that just didn't allow the concept of bullshit
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Sep 6, 2020 23:18
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Black August posted:one way you can portray orcs and why they're so difficult to deal with is that they come from a linguistic, cultural, and evolutionary ancestry that just didn't allow the concept of bullshit That was another thing about 2e - because of the Monster Manual picture and a lot of the pictures of half-Orcs I always pictured the Orcs as having pig heads. Like being pink, cartoony-looking things with pig snouts. I never really connected D&D Orcs with Tolkein Orks.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:18
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I think FR tried to have a smart (even by human standards!) orc as in Obould of Many-Arrows. He pretty much formed a kingdom and wasn't in forever war with Dwarves or other races. According to Wikipedia, he ascended to godhood for being a bad enough dude to peacefully die in his bed and his kingdom becomes a major player in the later editions. In NWN 1 he is like a random rear end demi-boss you Stun Fist lock into coma, tho.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:19
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Personally I'm not a fan of just murdering and looting hordes of sentient races. If you want always evil bad guys who don't surrender you have demons and undead for a good reason
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Sep 6, 2020 23:20
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CaptainSarcastic posted:That was another thing about 2e - because of the Monster Manual picture and a lot of the pictures of half-Orcs I always pictured the Orcs as having pig heads. Like being pink, cartoony-looking things with pig snouts. I never really connected D&D Orcs with Tolkein Orks. I internalized orcs as pig people early from managing to assume from Zelda 1 that Link is an Elf, and Ganon was an Orc... because in GURPS Fantasy Folk, a book of fantasy racial templates and setting ideas, the art shows them as piggish people
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Sep 6, 2020 23:24
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Also, reposting this for it's relevance to the ongoing conversation:
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Sep 6, 2020 23:25
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Colonel Cancer posted:Personally I'm not a fan of just murdering and looting hordes of sentient races. If you want always evil bad guys who don't surrender you have demons and undead for a good reason
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Sep 6, 2020 23:25
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Colonel Cancer posted:Personally I'm not a fan of just murdering and looting hordes of sentient races. If you want always evil bad guys who don't surrender you have demons and undead for a good reason I like a mix of non-AI robots, mindless undead or willfully-turned intelligent ones, demons, Mythos beings, corrupted animals, hiveminds, plants, and nightmare time-displaced unthings for any quick fix of a kill-em-all threat
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Sep 6, 2020 23:29
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Galewolf posted:Also, reposting this for it's relevance to the ongoing conversation: Lol. If that's not just mocked up for the joke, what's it from?
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Sep 6, 2020 23:33
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Black August posted:I like a mix of non-AI robots, mindless undead or willfully-turned intelligent ones, demons, Mythos beings, corrupted animals, hiveminds, plants, and nightmare time-displaced unthings for any quick fix of a kill-em-all threat Yeah that works. It has always irked me that many DMs run their games like a glorified videogame where all you do is murder random people and take poo poo off their bodies and they don't even behave like people. The associates of ye Olde cliche thief's guild aren't going to keep marching at your heroic adventurers in droves when they see the previous two waves get butchered.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:35
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Deptfordx posted:Lol. If that's not just mocked up for the joke, what's it from? I think that might be one of the 5e core books
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Sep 6, 2020 23:35
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PetraCore posted:Yes I even feel a little weird chewing through like, criminal operations, but at least that's not species-based. I don't want to be a fantasy cop! Call me when the smugglers are summoning demons. nah nah that's easy it's all about what kind of game you're running, you get an example like one I was in where there was this fantasy city filled to the brim because of how dangerous the outside lands were, 10 different species working together with tensions brought down by elite exploiting the situation and controlling jobs unfairly there was a gnoll, she owned an unrelated mining team, little operation she ran, and a dryad labor rep, who took a rebuilt displaced cycle into the woods at night to a mine, that had been stolen from the owners by a rival company, resulting in the labor dispute seeing the kobold replacement team being taken hostage by some gnolls and dwarves of the original owners, and the gnoll was there to thrash 'em up and chase them out since she was loving huge as christ she did just that and grabbed a really small kobold to come join her company on the way out because she liked her style
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Sep 6, 2020 23:38
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Deptfordx posted:Lol. If that's not just mocked up for the joke, what's it from? 5th Ed. Players Handbook iirc. -I think the Sphere of Annihilation in the north-west side can be made bigger to include taller -or wider!- beings. The slaves in the mines can have organic gruel but one thing at a time, Grobnark!
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Sep 7, 2020 00:03
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Bismuth posted:I do think salvatore at least made it pretty clear that drow were not genetically evil but they were part of an evil death cult, and could be totally fine people if able to escape it, which I think is a lot better than "haha dark skin elf evil" They're BDSM feminist nazis.
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Sep 7, 2020 00:42
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