Zak Arntson wrote: Tying into the third category, you have races representing an exaggerated aspect of humanity. Does this ties into the suspension of disbelief? Can players can more readily accept a violent barbarian if he's a half-orc? Or an aloof mage if he's an elf? Does it help the social contract if the player constantly stealing from the party is a kender, and expected to do so, rather than a human thief?

Fantasy races often also serve as masks for old sterotypes. Many people remarked, in fact, that you can see some of this in the design work and direction of the recent Lord of the Rings movies, and I think fantasy roleplaying offers even more exaggerated examples.

-- the role of the "primitive" is pretty common. Strong, not as culturally advance, in touch with nature, noble savage stuff, etc.

-- often times you have half-human species that don't fit into any culture, mirroring the situation of mixed-race people in previous times.

-- elves or other high races often take on a feel that is a mixture of celtic (faerie roots) and Asian. I think the Asian part comes from viewing them as a "once powerful race who's time has passed," which is the classic Colonialist view of the East.

-- from Orcs to Klingons, I don't think there's any doubt why brutish & violent races are often depicted with dark skin. Whether subconsciously or not, there is a not-so-subtle racism against people of African descent that influences the invention of fantasy humanoids.

-- in general, it's interesting that we have this obsession with other intelligent, humanoid species and that we choose to call them "races." Definitely comes from earlier ideology that depicted other races as non-human or of a differenct species.

So, I guess I just want to point out that there's a lot of ugliness inbedded in many of these ideas, something that we can't really ignore. Personally, I have a hard time with a lot of D&D-esque fantasy gaming for exactly this reason.

Jonathan Walton wrote:
-- from Orcs to Klingons, I don't think there's any doubt why brutish & violent races are often depicted with dark skin. Whether subconsciously or not, there is a not-so-subtle racism against people of African descent that influences the invention of fantasy humanoids.

AFAICR, Tolkienian orcs are rather more akin to the industrialised British proletariat of the early 20th century... also note how in conventional fantasy, orcish speech is usually rendered in working class british dialect, with the only visible variation being whether it's Northen English (Yorkshire)or Southern English (cockney).

But in conventional fantasy, since "orc" stands in for "bad race", they inveitably bring comparison with how literature has treated any number of ethnic or racial groups as the "bad race", be they Africans, Hispanics, Jews, Gypsies, or whatever.

Ulitmately, in role play this boils down to the intention and communicaiton of the writer of the game world and the intentions of the players.

Ben... you seem to be talking about Orcs in one particular setting, but I can't for the life of me think what it is... I'm sure I've seen orcs based on african tribalism in the past, as well as orcs based on the sicillian mafia, wolf packs and the British army, so any "Orcs are..." statement seems doomed without the qualifier "In this game world."

Frex, my great undeveloped game world is a conventional fantasy version of the American Civil War (of freedom, between the states, etc etc), with african-orc slaves, native american elves, etc. etc. as a tool to talk about the implied racism of fantasy. And also to play an ACW game without getting overwhelmed by grognards...

And is it me, or did D&D gnomes become very Jewish some time in the late 70's? They're small, big nosed, work with jewellery a lot, famed for their sense of humour in the face of adversity...

But lets hold our horses and look at this from the other end of the telescope: many of these works, fantasy & SF, are written as morality plays, or at least with "in-your-face" premise. To write a premise large, one tool is to use characters that embody values, or virtues or flaws. The blesing and curse of fantasy & SF is we can do this wholesale with entire sentient species, without getting the ACLU, NAACP and every decent human being in the world taking us off their kwanzaa lists. So we get the honourable warrior race, the dour miner race, the noble ancient race, the foul barbarian race, the scheming politician race, the wily merchant race. And, to the writer, they are all us, or part of us, or what we want to be, or what we fear we may be. Never mind that, as presented, their societies would collapse. In literature, film & TV, they're rhetorical devices, not studies in realistic sociology.

Ben Lehman wrote:
Conclusion: Orcs are not Africans. Rather, Orcs are Northern Europeans, or some echo of the cultural memory of northern European raiding parties. Vikings, in other words.

Hello,

Some previous Forge discussions about this issue include:

Races and "races" in fantasy literature and RPGs (this one didn't take off)
[Arrowflight] Pixes, poisons, and duty
Shadow World keywords - races?
Mike's standard rant #2: species/race/culture
Race in heroic fantasy
The class issue (I think this is kind of important for the current thread)

Best,
Ron

I've enjoyed all the speculations apropos orcs.

Orcs have been used so often in fantasy (they're not really known in folklore by that name, and Tolkien's orcs are more a cross between goblins and the dark elves/dwarves of Norse mythology) that there is really no definitive definition of them. So I find the speculation fascinating.

However, I started this thread in part because I'm interested in why we use races in FRPGs (and maybe SFRGPs) the way we do.

I think it's far more than simply a legacy of racism. (Let's not forget that historically most European racism was not pigmentation coded so much as simply hatred of anyone different -- an essentialized xenophobia.)

I think Zak was correct in that it also helps people deal with suspension of disbelief.

I think there's a part of us which enjoys essentializing. (This is all supposition on my part, not something I've learned in getting my grad degrees.) I suspect we enjoy saying, "Oh, how German of you!" or "You are ~so~ Lutheran!"

I've known a number of players who enjoy designing their own races so that they can have cultural/racial explanations for the personalities they intend for their player-characters!

I wonder why we do that -- and whether understanding this tendency can help us design better games.

For example, I've noticed that it makes little difference whether I write

"In Generica, the race of Elves all love art and magic, the race of Dwarves all think only of gold, and the race of Orcs all hate learning and desire only conquest, but no one understands the race of Faeries, and the Faeries understand none of the other races."

"In Generica, the human tribe the Elvites all love art and magic, the human tribe the Dwarfese all think only of gold, and the human tribe the Orcurians all hate learning and desire only conquest, but no one understands the magical race of Faeries, and they understand none of the human tribes."

That seems to be one good way to look at fantasy races, Doc. Only thing you've missed is that fantasy races wear their natures on the outsides of their skin. Elves are ethereal and magical looking, dwarves are small, earthy and hairy, orcs are ugly and violent looking, and faeries are incomprensible.

Wolfen wrote: That seems to be one good way to look at fantasy races, Doc. Only thing you've missed is that fantasy races wear their natures on the outsides of their skin. Elves are ethereal and magical looking, dwarves are small, earthy and hairy, orcs are ugly and violent looking, and faeries are incomprensible.

I always saw the orcs as being analagous to the way other societies viewed the Mongols and Huns. Hordes of bloodthirsty barbarians with no respect for anything at all. I also think there's some Native American infuence on a lot of the modern fantasy elves, particularly the wood elf variety. Once again, a great empire now in decline fits the way Native Americans are viewed in the mass media. Usually it seems that the fantasy races that are similar culturally to Africans (or African stereotypes, anyway) are the more "primitive" ones, like lizard men or the sexy cat-people all fantasy heartbreakers have to have.

Speaking of fantasy heartbreakers, I found one in the discount section of a game store today that had several different human races, all similar to real-world cultures (although with different names for all their kingdoms). The African-type people had higher strength bonuses (as well as the Viking-type people), the Asians had higher intelligence, etc. I thought that was interesting in a disturbing way. I wonder if the racism in it was intentional.

Doctor Xero wrote: Orcs have been used so often in fantasy (they're not really known in folklore by that name, and Tolkien's orcs are more a cross between goblins and the dark elves/dwarves of Norse mythology) that there is really no definitive definition of them. So I find the speculation fascinating.

I do know of a medieval sea monster called an orc, but it doesn't really bear much resemblance to the Tolkein/D&D orcs. This is where the term Orca to describe killer whales comes from.

I think the reason for orcs, as well as klingons or other "evil" races is to have some irredeemably bad bad guys that the PCs can feel free to slaughter without mercy with no moral consequences of any kind. They are evil, by killing them you save the innocent lives they would have taken, the only good orc is a dead orc. I think there has been a big shift in this kind of approach to the influx of zombie games (Dead Meat, All Flesh Must be Eaten, etc.). I remember always pissing off my gamist players by introducing these kinds of moral questions in the middle of an orc slaughter. After they loot the orc camp, they find the children they were protecting, or they find these orcs were peaceful farmers or refugees. Different creative agenda. They wanted an assurance that orcs were there only to be harvested for gold and experience.

John Kirk wrote:

I think that the trend in modern fantasy games always depicting orcs as evil and "in need of being killed" is a shame. It is so ingrained that most first-time players of my game Legendary Quest who encounter an orc on the road will naturally just attack him without thinking twice about it.

I agree with Itse in almost all particulars bar one, but from a slightly different angle I guess.

Yes I agree, pathos for Orcs is misplaced if the purpose of Orcs is to be signpost badguys. But I disagree that such a "ritual enemy" has been used in a an interesting way, as far as I know. Because all too often the same works that have totemically evil orcs to be slaughtered without moral consequence also have bizarre modern capitalist economies, high levels of integration among the totemically good (and almost all pale skinned) races, and a surprising proportion of proto-democracies and women in positions of power (Yes Forgotten Realms, I'm looking at you).

If the purpose is to explore, highlight, the kinds and forms of society in which the death of the alien Other does not constitute homicide per se but a public service, then these games fail by being too twee and kitch elsewhere, and I cannot think of any to my mind which succeed (arguably the best I know would be the fascinating Kafer from 2300AD). If the game is going to explore these things, then they need to be engaged with as a central subject, not relegated to walk-on parts for extras as so many orcs are. I can see a game written that seeks to explore the practice of Celtic head-hunting and the place of such public homicide displays, but then this would have to be The issues the game explores, not just a bit of backdrop. There would need to be mechanics addressing it directly; frex, in Medieval Total War, your generals can have a Dread rating that influences the loyalty of provinces they govern. If you kill 1000+ prisoners on the field, the general can acquire the 'Butcher' vice that substantially increases Dread).

So yes, realism and distasteful subjects in the name of exploration, by all means. But stock villains identified by birth and who appear as non-human for no reason other than they can be killed without moral consequence, no.

The one thing that I disagree with is that it is "refreshing" to encounter such balck and white morality in fiction... becuase it is so common. Who's Good and who's Evil in the following pairups? Spiderman and Dr Octopus? The Fantastic Four and the Krull? Battlestar Galactica and the Cylons? The Rebellion and Empire? The Federation and the Klingons? Simplisitic ethnically based or allegiance based morality is so endemic in our media that it broes me to tears, and I find it refresshing to get away from it for a change and do something more interesting.

I think that the "purpose" of having fatasy races in fantasy is that they enable the designer to focus on specific themes more readily. That is, by creating races that embody certain themes and ideas, it is easier to make points about those themes.
To take LoTR (the books not the movie) as an example:
Orcs embody the notion that progress for the sake of progress is bad.
Elves bring life to old and noble traditions which inevitably fade away.
Dwarves live the tension between honor and greed.
Ents embody the power of nature and of living things beyond our ken.
Hobbits show the virtues of simple life, courage, and frienship.

I simplify, of course, for the sake of expediency.

The point is that in Middle Earth, all of the races that Tolkien included served a purpose thematically. Each existed as an expression of some theme or premise.

The problem with a lot of modern fantasy (in RPGs and in fiction--they have become muddled) is that the writer adds races because he thinks that doing so is a requirement. An artifical race is just that: it adds nothing to the setting, confuses premise, and generally adds ambiguity to the game.

That doesn't mean that I don't like non-human races. But I do think that they should serve some thematic purpose in the game. Just as with magic, coolness isn't a good enough reason to include non-humans in your campaign world. There needs to be someting more. IMHO anyway.

Itse wrote: To me, the idea of treating orcs as more than the enemy or potential cannon fodder is somewhat anachronistic.

contracycle wrote: So yes, realism and distasteful subjects in the name of exploration, by all means. But stock villains identified by birth and who appear as non-human for no reason other than they can be killed without moral consequence, no.

Itse wrote: Medieval fantasy is very appealing among other things because it has "simpler" morals.

coxcomb wrote: I think that the "purpose" of having fantasy races in fantasy is that they enable the designer to focus on specific themes more readily.

coxcomb wrote: That doesn't mean that I don't like non-human races. But I do think that they should serve some thematic purpose in the game. Just as with magic, coolness isn't a good enough reason to include non-humans in your campaign world. There needs to be someting more. IMHO anyway.

John Kirk wrote: I would be very interested in hearing from those of you that have different folklorish sources concerning orcs and their kindred.

M. J. Young wrote: Has anyone considered that the connection between evil and dark skin comes not from "primitive Africa" but from the Middle East? The wars of the middle ages between Islamic efforts to conquer the world and European efforts to install Christian monarchs would certainly have contributed to this fear of dark-skinned peoples. In this connection, Islam swept through northern Africa and across Gibralter into Spain, leading to the Moorish domination there (and the Moors were darker than their eastern brethren, because they were more drawn from Africa), but that created a two-pronged assault on Europe as Middle Eastern powers pushed through Turkey (Asia Minor) toward Greece. Just because the villains are described as "dark skinned" doesn't mean that they're about Africans.

I've been pondering this reply for quite some time, a couple weeks, in fact. I finally feel confident enough to post it, as I believe I've managed to get to the heart of the ideas I've raised or commented on elsewhere regarding these issues.

Jonathan Walton wrote: -- from Orcs to Klingons, I don't think there's any doubt why brutish & violent races are often depicted with dark skin. Whether subconsciously or not, there is a not-so-subtle racism against people of African descent that influences the invention of fantasy humanoids.

So, I guess I just want to point out that there's a lot of ugliness inbedded in many of these ideas, something that we can't really ignore. Personally, I have a hard time with a lot of D&D-esque fantasy gaming for exactly this reason.

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up:
Anti-Racists Say Lord of the Rings too Eurocentric
By Sam Francis

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a self-appointed "watchdog" organization in Montgomery, Alabama that purports to keep a sharp eye out for "racism" and "hate."

The SPLC's website, tolerance.org, last week reprinted an op-ed from Pacific News Service by Andrea Lewis, a San Francisco based writer who has discovered that at least the current film in Peter Jackson's stunning cinematic version of the three-volume novel by J.R.R. Tolkien should really have been named "The Return of the Patriarchy."

There just aren't enough fighting females in the movie for Miss Lewis, but she also doesn't like it because "Almost all of the heroes of the series are manly men who are whiter than white" and "exude a heavenly aura of all that is Eurocentric and good. Who but these courageous Anglo-Saxon souls can save Middle Earth from the dark and evil forces of the world?"

...What Miss Lewis and the SPLC boys who chose to reprint her article like is not "tolerance" and what they oppose is not "hate."

What they oppose is any positive portrayal of white people.

What they like is any production that writes whites out of the picture.

Well, not entirely. Another reason Miss Lewis likes "The Matrix" is that it depicts whites as villains.

"Most of the really bad guys in 'The Matrix'," she gloats, "are Euro," including a Frenchman, two British albino twins and "a rather stuffy and pompous white guy with white beard and white suit who reeks of imperialism."

What she really approves of is any production that not only demotes whites from heroic roles but serves to demonize them in new anti-white stereotypes. Nothing more clearly exposes the SPLC's real anti-white agenda than Miss Lewis' silly article. The "multiculturalism" that obsesses her and the SPLC is just as steeped in hate of whites as any of the goof balls they "investigate" (and maybe a good deal more). It's just hate of a different hue.

The fact is that "Lord of the Rings" is an important, beautiful and entirely healthy movie, more or less faithfully based on an important, beautiful and entirely healthy book, which itself draws from some of the deepest springs of Western culture, the myths and folklore of Northern Europe, and tells an important, beautiful and entirely healthy story that white Western men need to hear.

Doctor Xero wrote: Could this interest in fantasy races also come, then, from the part of us that wants to be able to judge a book by its cover?

There is a tendency in children of all races to be somewhat lighter in hair and complexion when very young. It is obviously more prevalent in "toe-head" caucasian kids, and of course there are many, many glaring exceptions, but this is a general tendency. As a result, light hair and complexion is associated with youth and harmlessness, while darker tones are seen as more mature. This can be an attraction, such as the "tall, dark, and handsome" stereotype. You want a big mature strong protector. And statistical studies have shown that women prefer dark-haired men in general. (Oddly, men are the opposite...they prefer light-haired, youthful, harmless women. But that's a different post on a different forum). But if it's a stranger, someone different, darkness is seen as dangerous and scary. People feel more threatened by males with darker hair and skin, even if the same race.

Of course, there's also lots of social, political, and economic causes that contribute. But we really don't need to get into all that here. But I think a lot of politics is the result of people trying to rationalize misplaced instincts.

greyorm wrote:
I'm probably going to be labelled a racist for saying this, but, "damn straight."

I think there's some measure of racism in the full article (I've quoted only the relevant portions), but that last bit is nothing less than right on.

And you can also see from the above why I grow less and less sympathetic to the cries of the "discriminated"? All these folks ever seem to do is tear down; they never build up. They focus on the negative for political, self-empowerment reasons which have nothing to do with the betterment of society, and more to do with finding "bad guys" to lynch, or at least holler about the "terrible, awful, wickedness" of.

That's why I bring it up as well...no matter how you look at these sorts of criticisms, there's no fix which doesn't leave someone discriminated against. It's all negative. There's nothing positive in "pointing out" supposed hidden racism in works of literature and film. The only viable solution is to act as though the racism doesn't exist...and viola, as the Tao even predicts, it's gone.

So, when Gareth states he is bored by depictions of good vs. evil, I can only shrug and say, "Sure, real life isn't like that, but we're not talking about real life...we're talking about stories, which are symbols on top of the actual meaning. Allegorical representations of events and beliefs."

In this sense, orcs do exist to be slaughtered without pause by the heroes, because they are representations of sadism, cruelty, crudeness, and wickedness -- they are a creature spiritually corrupted by dark forces seeking to dominate all under a reign of fire, blood, and enslavement of the will.

Itse wrote:

To me, the idea of treating orcs as more than the enemy or potential cannon fodder is somewhat anachronistic.

Doctor Xero wrote:

I disagree with your baseline assumption that anachronisms are intrinsically bad.

greyorm wrote: I've been pondering this reply for quite some time, a couple weeks, in fact. I finally feel confident enough to post it, as I believe I've managed to get to the heart of the ideas I've raised or commented on elsewhere regarding these issues.
---snip!--
in the medium of a game through their character, must fight and overcome in themselves in order to become a hero.

greyorm wrote: I mean, seriously, gnomes as Jews? Um...ok? I never saw that one coming. Folks writing this stuff are generally unaware of much of these items as issues (mostly because they're all semi-educated midwestern white males), and are just trying to create interesting "stuff" without ulterior meaning.

greyorm wrote: that's what I'm seeing a great deal of -- conincidental evidence of racism being decried as "the real thing," followed both by lots of expressed disappointment at its existance by some and distressed scowling and criticism by others, and lots of hand-wringing about what to do about it.

greyorm wrote: In this sense, orcs do exist to be slaughtered without pause by the heroes, because they are representations of sadism, cruelty, crudeness, and wickedness -- they are a creature spiritually corrupted by dark forces seeking to dominate all under a reign of fire, blood, and enslavement of the will.

Itse wrote: Political correctness can be seriously damaging to any art form, and personally, I don't give a shit about it.

pete_darby wrote:
Frex, my great undeveloped game world is a conventional fantasy version of the American Civil War (of freedom, between the states, etc etc), with african-orc slaves, native american elves, etc. etc. as a tool to talk about the implied racism of fantasy.
.

Henri wrote: actually I believe race is a social construct,

Henri wrote: but lets not go there

Henri wrote: I would find it interesting to explore being an oppressed minority by playing a member of an oppressed fantasy race in a fantasy rpg and I would feel comfortable doing so. However, I would feel significantly less comfortable playing an African American character in modern setting rpg. I think that if I were to attempt the latter, the result would come off as racist, despite my best intentions. But in the former I feel safe, because orcs aren't real.

I have no idea how to bring half of this back to the subject of gaming...but I'll try.

contracycle wrote: Some? As is, it was NOT a relentless spewing of racist bile?

So, how is this different from yuour own criticism? Here they are identifying where things are done according to racist convention, and where not,. and approving the latter. I say they are building up... but your argument is that they should stop, that you fail to sympathise... where are YOU building up, rather than venting about the terrible, awful wickedness of it?

I'm afraid that rreall;y is totally, utterly ridiculous. If you act as if racism doesn't exist.... it CARRIES ON. You have given your tacit approval that theres nothing wrong, nothing to see here, you're perfectly cool with it.

While YOU may know that orcs are symbols of the working class, does that necessarily occur to a racist reader?

Doctor Xero wrote: It may not affect the majority of us who post on these fora, but we are also discussing designing games which might appeal to a far broader audience, and sometimes current responsibility trumps historical roots.

Xero...about orcs: Damn right! You've written exactly what I typed out this morning as my response to Gareth about the difference between Alien and the Orc, but I'll post my wording of the same nonetheless.

contracycle wrote: Discussion of Tolkien snipped as irrlevant;

Actually, we are talking about games.

Fine. Much the same could be said of the Alien... but the Alien fills its role as monster much more completely, much less ambiguously. What is it that the Alien cannot do that the Orc can?

I appreciate everyone's input in this thread which I had begun.

I would like to ask people to leave the question of whether or not there is an overt or unconscious racism in fantastical races alone for a while (or begin a new thread).

I'm more interested in why so many of us enjoy having culturally-monolithic fantastical races in our gaming experiences -- what functions the inclusion of races fulfill in terms of narrative, player identification, thematic/metaphoric concern, suspension of disbelief, fidelity to the fantastical genres in literature and/or film, the inclinations of human nature in general, etc.

Might we focus more on the why than on the whether in this thread? (There's another thread on fantastical races which is more involved in whether they ought be included at all.)

Doctor Xero

In the portions I quoted? Well, sure, there's plenty of racist bile in those bits, but it's all directed towards caucasians.

Really? Where? Or do you mean, any failure to recognise the inherent majesty of caucasians is to be racist toward them? I see, in the bolded quotes, some really very mild commentary indeed. The first contains implicit disapproval of the heroic stature given to our heroes, indeed, is that racism? I can’t see how, because Lewis central allegation is that race is part of the symbology of the film.

In none of the quoted, bolded sections does Lewis actually provide an opinion, you’ll note. In the quoted section where she details the ethnicity of the villains in the Matrix, the term ‘gloating’ is introduced by VDARE as a description of her position. Is that valid? Seems to me VDARE are finding what they want to find. What Lewis does is merely recount… and presumably, they quote this bit because the spiciest and most ‘hate-filled’ they could find (lol).

VDARES thesis that Lewis disapproves of white people, or the representation of white people in a positive light, is wholly baseless. And what they spectacularly omit is any remark by Lewis that would undermine the facetious claim they advance: they do not acknowledge that Lewis says: The "Rings" films are like promotional ads for those tired old race and gender paradigms that were all the rage back in author J.R.R. Tolkien's day.”, and then go on to castigate her for failing to recognise the historical context in which LOTR was written. After all, she’s just a silly woman, can’t be expected to understand what she’s blathering on about.

VDARE go on to suggest that the reader “catch her drift” when she recounts the multiethnic composition of the Matrix cast, and claim that: “What they oppose is any positive portrayal of white people. What they like is any production that writes whites out of the picture.” While what Lewis SAID was: “Say what you will about the convoluted storyline of the "Matrix" trilogy — at least those films give women and people of color some characters they can relate to.”

Thus, keep in mind that I'm quoting bits of the article, not the philosophy of the site it was hosted on, or the political agenda it was written to support. Facts are simply facts.

I'm guessing you would label her a racist as well, because she agrees with the overall content of the article?

I do note that you are completely unshocked and unfazed by the statements made in the article about caucasians depicted as heroes, or rather how these "anti-racists" believe white men deserve to be depicted as villians.

Are you saying that you agree with Miss Lewis, then? That caucasians are a villianous, imperious people fit only for the role of villians in film and literature, and should never be portrayed as the hero because (for some unexplainable reason) that's just wrong and terrible? That white people suck? That their culture has nothing of value?

I'm sorry, but that's racist, too, Gareth.

Where's all the ranting and incensed howling, the endless words devoted to racism that doesn't involve white men? I don't see one of these "watchdog" places complaining about how there's not enough white men in a Spike Lee movie, or in popular asian films like "Crouching Tiger."

Because the undercurrent to all the "pointing out of bigotry" is that white men can never be the hero or the focus, because that's "racist" or not "multicultural" in every single instance it occurs.

And I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that multiculturalism meant "Everyone else's culture but mine." Folks will boo and decry that all they want, but it's nothing more and nothing less than the truth.

Gareth, how is gleeful enjoyment of the tearing apart and degredation of anyone white not racist?

How is dissecting a classic piece of heroic literature, "…" not racist? How is that, in any way, "building up"?

Perhaps, Gareth, you'd like me to make Odin or Thor dark-skinned? Just change the whole mythology because it isn't "multicultural" enough? How about we make Jesus not a Jew any longer, since him being a white guy is not PC enough? Or him being a Jew is too controversial?

As I said, if color doesn't matter, if what we look like doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter. You can't have it both ways. You can proclaim the evils of depictions based on skin color, and simply reinforce the prevalent attitudes that race actually does matter, or you can ignore race as irrelevant and treat it as such, thus making it so. You've obviously decided that it does matter, and are reacting to situations as though it does. That, to me, is the height of racism.

After all, if you act as though racism doesn't exist, how can it?

Yeah, naive of me. But frankly, never having been immersed in a home culture where a person's skin color was important, I never paid it any mind. Call me racist if you want, Gareth, but I'm the one who doesn't see skin color. I don't see racism in the Phantom Menace, in drow and orcs, in gnomes, and so forth.

Like I said, the Tao supports this idea fully -- that problems are often created and sustained by their regulation. Consider the situation of sex crimes...if sex isn't considered a dirty thing, the number of sex crimes which actually occur (according to our definition of such) in that culture goes down considerably. Not "they aren't reported" or "they aren't considered such" but "they don't happen," literally. Ignoring the issue (not the problem) causes it to vanish.

Exactly. If orcs are X, but not to a racist reader, it must all be perception, meaning that orcs don't mean anything, and the true responsibility for "racism" lies solely in the lap of the individual, not in the film, literature, or other media in which it is supposedly portrayed or reinforced.

To avoid this unintentionally, the author or game group must know what they are doing, avoiding this conflict and settling on whether perception is meant as-is, or perception is just a cloak over the real thing.

The author or game group can do nothing about this, n o t h i n g, though countless words and criticisms will be expended in chastizing them for "doing it." So what's the author, whether of fiction or game setting, to do when there's nothing he can do?

No, there's a huge difference between ignoring race, and racism. Because your internal attitude is the only thing you have control over, and over whether or not you're being racist -- so you have to do what you're going to do, and if other people accuse you of racism despite this, all you can do is shrug and say, "I'm sorry you see it that way."

Gareth, while I'd love to continue this debate with you, Xero has asked that these matters be moved elsewhere, and I believe we should respect that -- You failed your courtesy roll, man.

Xero, in answer to why -- I'm guessing I was going about more "how" in my responses -- but I think my "why" is lurking in there too, amidst the material about allegory and myth.

So, why do I like other races, why do I want to play them?
For reasons of the Inner Allegory, or the Myth. If I just want to play someone with another personality, I can choose a human any day. But races get used to make thematic statements about the inner world...they're a mythological anchor representing a part in a myth as something other than self.

It's a chance to examine human society, in all its complexity, from the outside. That may explain why I like my non-human races...non-human. When human social issues or traits get ported onto them, or when they aren't anything but humans of a different sort, I become uninterested.

For example, "Native American" elves, or racism between elven groups...big whoop. What can I do there that I can't with...a tribal human? Nothing. Elves have to be more than long-lived and pointy-eared, or long-lived, pointy-eared and evil to gain my interest.

They're immortal, they're spirits of "faerie" and nature, whatever that might mean. Dwarves aren't just grumpy craftsmen or warriors, they're representational of tools, or the art of craft itself. That's way more interesting, and it makes statements that you can't get with just men.

What I'm thinking now is that this doesn't work for some people because of the confusion of allegory for simulation, or even the desire for simulation instead of allegory. Folks who want detailed non-human cultures and psychological profiles on their elves and dwarves, more importantly, who want to be able to experience "what it's like to be an elf." They want to be immersed in the "inhuman's culture."

That doesn't mesh with what I'm talking about, though, because "what it's like to be an elf" doesn't matter at all.

I don't know if that is making sense to anyone but me?

Well, Rev, it's making sense to me.

In reading these posts over the last few days, I had a somewhat shocking realization about all this.

I have never thought of orcs as being dark skinned. Ever.

I've read Tolkien's books several times, and although I've imagined them as brutish, dark was not part of the vision. I thought the pictures in the OAD&D Monster Manual were goofy, but they don't seem dark-skinned there, either. I realize in retrospect that they were dark-skinned (or at least many of them were) in the movie, but it didn't catch my attention at the time.

What makes this the more odd is that I developed a "post fantasy" setting, and ran it several times, in which the orcs were clearly being used as a means of addressing racism, and one that cut close to home. They lived in jungles. They were tribal-based hunter-gatherers. Their technology was primitive. Their religions and morals were very foreign to modern conceptions. They warred among themselves. Humans, elves, and dwarfs were enslaving them. I knew when I put this together that I was using the orcs to address slavery and racism quite directly, and that my players were going to be faced with it rather head on.

Yet never once in all that did I envision orcs as dark skinned or having negroid characteristics. In my mind, they are related to elves, and thus are generally pale. Humans can be dark skinned; none of the other races in that game world have that possibility.

I never described them as such; it didn't occur to me that anyone would picture orcs as dark-skinned. Probably I should address that before it goes to print.

--M. J. Young

Doctor Xero wrote: I'm more interested in why so many of us enjoy having culturally-monolithic fantastical races in our gaming experiences -- what functions the inclusion of races fulfill in terms of narrative, player identification, thematic/metaphoric concern, suspension of disbelief, fidelity to the fantastical genres in literature and/or film, the inclinations of human nature in general, etc.

M. J. Young wrote: Well, Rev, it's making sense to me.

In reading these posts over the last few days, I had a somewhat shocking realization about all this.

I have never thought of orcs as being dark skinned. Ever.

I've read Tolkien's books several times, and although I've imagined them as brutish, dark was not part of the vision. I thought the pictures in the OAD&D Monster Manual were goofy, but they don't seem dark-skinned there, either. I realize in retrospect that they were dark-skinned (or at least many of them were) in the movie, but it didn't catch my attention at the time.

I realize now I overlooked another possibility, and one which I think influences a lot of players who enjoy playing members of other "races": playing pretend.

There is a joy in being a different creature than human. In real life, I can be a human all I want, and a strong human is not that different from me, really. But there's an automatic playing pretend feel to playing a sentient fox, a pookah, an elf, a walking tree, or any other such creature.

I think it's too easy for us to underestimate the sheer power of the joy of playing pretend in one of the few hobbies in which someone over the age of ten years old can play pretend without feeling ridiculous! (This may be true not only for RPGs but for medieval faire/renaissance faire, amateur theatre, Mardi Gras/New Year's Eve/Hallowe'en costume extravaganzas, and even amateur drag shows! And you will notice the more flamboyant performances in all of these generally come from the same age groups.)

Doctor Xero

Scourge108 wrote:
Actually, I think orcs are usually depicted as being green, at least in D&D. So this is very bigoted against green people, IMO.

Well, they were all green in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon series. When I first saw their picture in the old b&w Monster Manual, I pictured them as being pink like a pig (since they had a pig head).

Scourge108 wrote: Well, they were all green in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon series. When I first saw their picture in the old b&w Monster Manual, I pictured them as being pink like a pig (since they had a pig head).

Just a thought:
This has become a very heated discussion about racism in fantasy games. I find this sort of ironic, since I tend to like "real world settings"-old west, victorian, prohibition era, interwar years, etc. Race, ethnicity, gender, class, orientation, all that stuff, is an integral part of the settings. Yet, strangely, I don't see gamers who game in these settings having quite the same trauma over the issues that fantasy gamers do. Why is that?

komradebob wrote: Just a thought:
This has become a very heated discussion about racism in fantasy games. I find this sort of ironic, since I tend to like "real world settings"-old west, victorian, prohibition era, interwar years, etc. Race, ethnicity, gender, class, orientation, all that stuff, is an integral part of the settings. Yet, strangely, I don't see gamers who game in these settings having quite the same trauma over the issues that fantasy gamers do. Why is that?

Argetlamh wrote:

komradebob wrote: This has become a very heated discussion about racism in fantasy games. I find this sort of ironic, since I tend to like "real world settings"-old west, victorian, prohibition era, interwar years, etc. Race, ethnicity, gender, class, orientation, all that stuff, is an integral part of the settings. Yet, strangely, I don't see gamers who game in these settings having quite the same trauma over the issues that fantasy gamers do. Why is that?

Seriously though, I'd imagine (no statistics to back this up mind you) that those who game in those historical settings have, for the most part, resolved how they're going to address the race issues of the time in question well before play starts. Historical racism is plainly visible to the early 21st century audience (know-nothings and italian immigrants, for example). In a fantasy setting, it's a little more likely to sneak up on people.

komradebob wrote: Just a thought:
This has become a very heated discussion about racism in fantasy games. I find this sort of ironic, since I tend to like "real world settings"-old west, victorian, prohibition era, interwar years, etc. Race, ethnicity, gender, class, orientation, all that stuff, is an integral part of the settings. Yet, strangely, I don't see gamers who game in these settings having quite the same trauma over the issues that fantasy gamers do. Why is that?

For myself, I've got multiple reasons for including non-human races in my game.

One is purely for the fun of it. I like little short people, and big tall strong people, and stocky wide people with bad tempers (especially the latter as they most resemble me).
Fantasy races give a certain message, I think. I could do a fantasy game with only humans (or one with no humans for that matter) but it would not be the same game. So inclusion of Halflings and Elves and Dwarves, and Giants...says "Hey, here's a game about Halflings and Elves and Dwarves and Giants. Naturally if you don't like those races, you won't want to play it. But if you do like them, then here's something you might like to check out.

A second reason is actually to be a little experimental. I have the delusion that I can take old, tired, cliched fantasy races and do something just a little bit different than usual. So my inclusion of fantasy races is something of an experiment in humanizing them. To make them more "realistic" reflections of different human cultures.

I'm also frankly using them as protective camoflage. With a fantasy race, I can paint in broad strokes, using sterotype as inspiration to define racial, cultural, and societal factors. I can use them to parody reality without (hopefully) being as offensive as I would trying to recreate actual cultures. It is rather difficult to define a culture or society without either using stereotype, or writing a much longer book than I intend to. If I were to try and represent human cultures using sterotype, then I know very well I would be accused of racism. There isn't a doubt in my mind. I could write up my own culture and I'd be called a racist. I strongly expect, in the tense politically correct climate existing these days, that I may be accused anyway, but at least I'll have a defense. Sadly intent is not an adequate defense for such accusations, as it seems that a person can be labeled a racist in the eyes of the beholder regardless of any personal racist tendencies.

But the biggest reason? I just like them.

One more point regarding komradebob's question:

Portraying blacks (or substitute any real-world racial or ethnic minority) as persecuted or discriminated against in a fantasy world: racist! It's like saying the persecution or discrimination is inevitable -- or worse, that it's in some sense correct. (Such a portrayal might be justifiable, though, if the purpose is explicitly to explore issues of racial equality.)

Portraying blacks as treated with full equality in a fantasy world: racist! It's a way of pretending racism doesn't exist, which is what allows real-world racism to continue.

Not portraying blacks at all in a fantasy world: racist! It's tantamount to claiming that the ethnic groups that are portrayed in the fantasy world are representative of all humans. Or worse, revealing a secret wish that the unrepresented group(s) didn't exist.

The same bind isn't so tight for historical settings, in which the first complaint is nullified as Argetlamh described. Nor for futuristic settings, in which the second complaint is nullified because one can claim to be projecting an optimistic (in that one regard, at least) future.

Note that if one buys into these arguments, the only possible non-racist fantasy RPG play is play that explicitly focuses on issues of race.

As I don't particularly enjoy RPG play that explicitly focuses on issues of race, my choices are to not play or design fantasy games, or play or design them in a manner that some people are going to perceive as racist. So, tough shit.

- Walt

Walt, well freaking said.

John Kim wrote:
First of all, welcome to the Forge, Argetlamh!! The local etiquette is to sign with your first name, by the way, though that is a request rather than a requirement.

madelf wrote: I'm also frankly using them as protective camoflage. With a fantasy race, I can paint in broad strokes, using sterotype as inspiration to define racial, cultural, and societal factors. I can use them to parody reality without (hopefully) being as offensive as I would trying to recreate actual cultures. It is rather difficult to define a culture or society without either using stereotype, or writing a much longer book than I intend to. If I were to try and represent human cultures using sterotype, then I know very well I would be accused of racism. There isn't a doubt in my mind. I could write up my own culture and I'd be called a racist.

madelf wrote: I strongly expect, in the tense politically correct climate existing these days, that I may be accused anyway, but at least I'll have a defense. Sadly intent is not an adequate defense for such accusations, as it seems that a person can be labeled a racist in the eyes of the beholder regardless of any personal racist tendencies.

My 2 cents:

Do straight, working class, white boys ( like myself) actually benefit from defending the ugly "isms" of the world? Seriously. I don't see where I've ever gotten ahead by any of them existing. Rich white boys, sure; the people with their hands on the levers of power, get hell loads of benefits. Blue collar guys get nothing but misery from one side and empty, bullshit promises and the privilege to be used as thugs and catspaws from the other.

I'd like to see some design that takes that into account.

Ironically, the people who jump into these debates on the "non-oppressed" side are generally those people that might actually question whether they really do agree with the premises behind the "ism" in question. Inevitably, they end up with a sort of "seige mentality" from which it is imfamously hard to extricate themselves.

The folks that actually do benefit from realworld racism/sexism/etc. must laugh like hell to see people who probably would thrive as allies tearing each other apart.

Robert

John Kim wrote:
OK, here's the key. You define this as "protective camouflage" -- but I think at least a significant fraction of people here don't consider this to be the blanket protection you claim. i.e. They see having dumb, evil orcs as being no different in principle than having dumb, evil whites or dumb, evil asians. None of these three are a priori bad -- but they all raise issues of race and make statements about race. The issue is, what statement are they making? In my opinion, that isn't deterministic from simple facts like skin color of the dumb, evil race.

I see a lot of frustration with this concept. You would like to have a simple approach -- requiring little effort or rethinking -- such that then you are "safe" from accusations of racism, so you can get on with your game. Unfortunately, I can't offer that. Regardless of whether your race has black skin, or pointed ears, or pig noses -- your approach, as you yourself defined it, is stereotypes based on race. This inherently has a message about real-world racial issues. What that message is depends on how you handle the material.

So no, I don't accept that simply typing in the words "I'm not a racist" means that there is no racism in that person's work, even if he genuinely believes that he isn't racist.

Ultimately, I would say don't worry about what some random person would say about your game. However, you should think at least a bit about the issue for yourself. What do you think about race, and what do you think your game says about race? Do you think that substituting in real-world races for fantasy races would change the message of your game? If so, why?

madelf wrote: What I'm hoping to do by the protective camouflage (probably not the best term for it, but accurate enough for now) is have something to point to and say to these people "Look folks, this is inspired by a stereotype of a culture or race. It is not the race, a representation of the race, or a reflection on the race. It is simply a plot device, a basis for creating a fictional group of beings. So get a life."

To clarify, I'll give an example. (and one that's from a part of my own, mixed, ancestry) There's a race in my setting that is based on a stereotype of the Irish people....

madelf wrote:

John Kim wrote: I see a lot of frustration with this concept. You would like to have a simple approach -- requiring little effort or rethinking -- such that then you are "safe" from accusations of racism, so you can get on with your game. Unfortunately, I can't offer that. Regardless of whether your race has black skin, or pointed ears, or pig noses -- your approach, as you yourself defined it, is stereotypes based on race. This inherently has a message about real-world racial issues. What that message is depends on how you handle the material.

It's not about a simple approach, it's about being realistic. I maintain that it is impossible to define a culture within the limited scope of a game book, in any manner other than as a stereotype. Any "purely fictional" culture is going to be influenced by the writer's understanding of real world culture whether intentional or not. It can't be helped, it's the only world we know. I'm just facing that fact with complete honesty and accepting that my fictional world is a parody of our own.
But the important thing to remember is that it is a work of fiction. It's not the real world. There's no deep meaningful statement about our times, or any other.

madelf wrote: What I think about race?
I think it is over-rated. It's a collection of physical traits dependent on region of ancestral origin. Certainly there are physical differences between races. The differences are minimal, but they are there. Skin color, average height & build, hair and eye color...can all be affected by race. Lots of different races mean there are lots of different people, simple as that. If all race was used for is a descriptive reference, wouldn't that be nice? But people being what they are have to make it more than it is. They get proud of it, and defensive about it, and start fights over it. It's almost as bad as religion.
If my game says anything at all about race, I hope that's the message.

Walt Freitag wrote:
Note that if one buys into these arguments, the only possible non-racist fantasy RPG play is play that explicitly focuses on issues of race.

madelf wrote: There's a race in my setting that is based on a stereotype of the Irish people.

They're a basically good-natured and friendly folk, tending toward red hair and short stature, with hot tempers, and a love of fighting.

I am comfortable with arguing that I am not racist in my depiction of halflings. If I was using this stereotype to actually portray the real people of Ireland, I would not be at all comfortable with making that same claim.

It's not about a simple approach, it's about being realistic. I maintain that it is impossible to define a culture within the limited scope of a game book, in any manner other than as a stereotype.

Any "purely fictional" culture is going to be influenced by the writer's understanding of real world culture whether intentional or not.

If people want to read something else into it, then there's very little I can do about it.

Another person cannot determine whether or not I am racist. My own, personal feelings in regards to people of other races is the only valid measurement of my racism.

This is why I really don't like the concept of "politically correct".

No. Intent should be the defining issue of racism. If I intend to racially demean or insult you by something I do or say, then I am a racist. If I do not intend to do such a thing then I am not a racist.

You cannot make a person a racist by believing that they are one.

If my game says anything at all about race, I hope that's the message. That there are all kinds of people. Some short, some tall, some with pointed ears...in the end, they're all people. Even if not everyone realizes it yet.

Unless you are claiming that it is an accurate portrayal, I understand it to be allegory rather than attempt at fact.

Are you saying that fiction by definition cannot have deep meaningful statements, because it isn't real??? If so I completely disagree. Fiction does have meaning -- just that it's meaning is in theme and allegory and metaphor, rather than presentation of facts. What I am saying is that a token change of the name or color of a race does little to change the allegory.

OK, here we start to get down to brass tacks. You would like to convey this message. Do you think your approach of taking real-world racial stereotypes as the basis for fantasy races helps convey this message? I'm having a little trouble connecting the approach you describe and the message you would like to convey. Do you really want it to be a parody, to show how silly racial stereotypes are? If so, doesn't the "protective camouflage" weaken the force of the point?

But you are clearly expecting your audience to get the comparison, to realise the stereotype. Its a stereotype, which you know and openly admit. you are consciously reproducingh that stereiotype, thus perpetuating it in the material culture we inhabit. So I'm afraid you don't have a leg to stand on, really,

Well then, why do it at all?

If you freely admit that you cannot acheive a real cultural description, and that to fit it in you have to botch the job, then why use them at all? Why not just (horror!) use humans and skip the whole problem of trying to define multiple cultures, concentrating more finely?

It is your decision to introduce this idea, this trope, of the direct relationship between descent and personality characteristics or modes of behaviour. You are going out of your way to draw this distinction through a particular dramatic device. And, as an artist is always responsible for their own weak, appeals to ignorance or innocence are pretty much futile.

There is no particular reason you HAVE to have fantasy races. Thus you CHOSE to have them, and anything your work says or implies about them is your cross to bear. If the audience does not like what it sees, that is your problem, not theirs.

Indeed so. But then again, your work is not "purely fictional" if it is consiously reproducing a hostile stereotype of the Irish, and relies on the audiences familiarity with that stereotype. Why not go all the way and call 'em bog-trotters? This is NOT a wholly fictional construction at all, and so to appeal to artistic license is invalid.

Nope, it would seem to me that I'm criticising exactly what you consciously set out to produce, and are subsequently defending.

Nope, your "feelings" are unmeasurable, the only MEASURABLE thing is your behaviour. Whic is exactly why appeals to wehat your intent was when you did X or Y are at best of very low value and at worst counterproductive. At best, your self-declared intent probably cannot be conveyed to the bulk of your buyers, who will draw their own concousions from the actual product that ships.

The old straw man rides again...

Bollocks, I'm afraid. Because equally, people can quite firmly believe that people are inherently different, of different degrees of perfection, and should live separately and not inter-marry, WITHOUT that implying that they also hate and violate. It's just rare. But your self-diagnosed intent is basically valueless special pleading.

And you cannot excuse racism by failing to recognise it, if that is what it is.

Ah, but we also know that if the person is hort and red-headed, they'll be up for a fight and a whiskey afterward, don't we?

madelf wrote:
Clear or not, I'm not expecting my audience to get anything.

If people can't make the leap of understanding that my creation is not supposed to be an accurate reproduction of an actual people, then there's very little I can do to force them to understand it.

'Cause I want to, durn it.

And what's all this about apologetics? I'm not apologizing for anything. I'm just throwing out my reasoning for public dismemberment.

'Cause I'm trying to portray a fictional world, with fictional interaction between fictional nations, over fiction things. If I wanted to write a book about a game centered on a small Irish fishing village I could do it and do it well.

I mean, come on...I'm not qualified to write about every culture in the world accurately and meaningfully. Do you really expect that should be a requirement for writing something inspired by them? I certainly don't.

Not really. If the audience doesn't like what it sees, it can look elsewhere. My writing is not done with the purpose to offend. If someone chooses to be offended anyway, that is their problem, not mine.

What's hostile? Friendly? Short, red-headed? Hot tempered? Maybe. The drinking too much? Alright, I'll give you that one. Still, I think the Irish-inspired halflings come across as some pretty cool people in my game.

But even so, it's still not being presented as an accurate depiction of the Irish. It's not even necessarily an accurate depiction of all halflings. It's a device. A means to define a fictional people in a way that people can quickly grasp. That's all it is.

Nope. You're criticizing exactly what you believe I consciously set out to produce.

I'll agree with that much. Which is why I am prepared to be misinterpreted. The problem is that I have issues with the concept of racism itself. I believe a person can offend through well-meaning lack of understanding or unfamiliarity. I don't believe a person should be able to be considered a racist through accidental action. It happens all the time, of course. I just don't think it should. It would be nice if a person had to go out of their way to be a racist, but sadly we don't live in an ideal world.

But seriously, I don't like it. Not because I want to be offensive and get away with it, but because the PC expectation means I have to worry about accidentally offending someone of another race, who I don't know, rather than simply being able to treat them as I would anyone I met.

I think we're closer to agreement than you think. I would agree that thinking other races are less perfect and that we shouldn't mix with them is racist. If I believed that I would be a racist. Racism is not restricted to hatred, I think disdain would certainly qualify. I'm referring to an inner belief in racial equality, yet being labeled a racist simply because of a misunderstanding, or difference in interpretation. It happens all the time. It shouldn't.

Only if they're a halfling.
...The defining stereotype is only the way he'll be expected to be by people who don't know him and are ignorant enough to assume that all halflings are identical. Like the stereotype itself, it's a reflection of the real world.

The important thing to remember is that it's not the real world.

As a suggestion, maybe the specific approach of "pick real-world stereotypes and use them for fantasy races" should be split out into its own thread? Doctor Xero, what do you think?

Also, a meta comment to both contracycle and madelf here: contracycle's last two posts had 15 and 11 quotes, respectively, of one or two sentences each; and madelf's last post had 11 quotes. The official Etiquette at The Forge is that "line-by-line" replies are discouraged and considered flaming if used often. I'm not the judge of what a "line-by-line" reply is or when "too often" is, but it seems like we are at least getting close to flaming here.

Hello,

This is to everyone: Review all of John Kim's posts on this thread, take his advice and exhibit your commitment to it, or the thread will be closed.

To Gareth (contracycle): I think you know better than to start treating people like you're doing here. Shape it up, now.

Best,
Ron

You are; you sare anticipating they will recognise the cluster of identifying features you have represented. You demonstrate this by saying that it is an Irish sterotype.

Thats a red herring though; clearly, you are not engaged in autobiographical or ethnological work, but equally you are communicating with your audience. If your communication with your audience repeats stereotypes the audience experience as offensive, you will have offended your audience, and appealing to 'fiction' does not help your case. That only underlines the fact that this sterotype is your deliberate, chosen metaphor when you could have chosen anything.

Why? What is it that you get with this technique that you do not get with an all human cast of dramatis personae? Thats a serious question by the way.

Apologetics as in the sense of explaining something sympathetically.

Then I suggest your goals are contradictory and incoherent and arguably conceived in the wrong order. First question, WHY is this a fictional world? That is not a starting presumption; what is the particular need to create a world that is fictional? To construct setting and situation such that they address a premise? Fictional worlds are a method to get to your goal, they are not the goal themselves.

No, I don't either; but why choose to be inspired by a stereotype? There are many things that could be easily drawn from Irish or any culture that do not depend on negative stereotyping at all.

Yes, it can. But whether your purpose was to offend or not makes little difference. The fact is, it was printed and shipped and exists as a product in circulation, and if as such it propagates a stereotype people can and will take umbrage. You are merely trying to offload responsibility for your own creation. Chris Offili made a painting of the Madonna in elephant dung, without any intent to offend, and yet he was roundly denounced for being offensive anyway.

That may be only because you are not familiar with the way in which the tropes of red-headed people being dishonest thieves, and the Irish being uncultured barbaric drunks, have been and are still in use to justify the English occupation of Ireland, on the basis that they simply could not be trusted to govern themselves.

Sure, but seeing as you have gone out of your way to reproduce a real world stereotype, rather than just a thumbnail generalistion of a really wholly fictional people, you cannot escape responsibility for the deliberate perpetuation of this stereotype.

Not at all. You said you intended to reproduce the sterotype for easy recognition, and I completely agree that you succeeded.

I think its a false dichotomy. Whether you intend to offend is irrelevant. But equally, identifying a particular behaviour as racist need not imply a moral criticism of the person. "I didn't realise, I'll fix it" is a perfectly suitable response.

And equally, to many readers this halfling steroetype will trigger the response "same old bullshit" regardless of your intent, because your intent doesn't matter at all by comparison to the historical existance of that stereotype.

It seems to me its much more politically correct these days to whine about political correctness than anything else.

The point I'm trying to make is that even an innocent reproduction of an existing racist trope is going to cause offence, point blank. Thats not necessarily your fault in a moral sense; but equally, the fact that it is not your fault in a moral sense does not excuse it from criticism. And the responsibility for anything your produce still lies with you.

Let us say you did a thing like WW's clans, each noting the opinion of a faction as to the others. If at that point you said, it is a common stereotype among humans that halflings are red-headed fighting drunks, then you would have identified it as stereotype, and that would be explicit to all readers who could take a position on that. If instead you give it as the description of halflings when discussing halflings, then you are making the sterotype true in the game world, and it is to that description that the reader will take a position.

Irrelevant. The product was produced in the real world, and will be read in the real world. You aknowledge that some effort should be made not to be an asshat; the problem is, that your anonymous buyers may well look at it and think that you spefically went out of your way to be an asshat.

Oops.
I didn't see John's post until I had already posted. Must have come on while I was typing.

Sorry.

I'll try and remember for next time.

Reading all the posts, I've noticed a few things.

Yes, this is a difficult topic to discuss. For one thing, we know simultaneously that the term "racist" has been used as a cheap slander/libel tactic frequently enough to render it suspect yet also that racists nevertheless do exist and often do not recognize (or acknowledge) their own racist behavior. If you tell me something I've done smacks of racism, does it come from the overuse of that term or from the human blindspots in my own self-perception about racist habits I may have picked up from my culture in innocence? This confusion makes any discussion which touches on racism semantically complicated and sometimes emotionally/socially painful, IMHO.

Personally, I think that it's erroneous to suggest that fictional races never translate in the reader's/viewer's/player's mind over to real world parallels -- or analogy and allegory (and satire!) would be impossible. The past twenty years have produced fictional races which reflected anti-Semitism, for example. I would suggest that oversensitivity and undersensitivity are equally distracting in trying to recognize possible real world parallels.

Why attribute malice where cluelessness explains? Why attribute racism where cultural coding explains? But why ignore cruel habits merely because one has never intended the cruelty? But why ignore racist habits merely because one is not a racist?

An easy real world example : a critic once pointed out that he knew instantly who committed the murder in the film *American Beauty* the moment he noticed that a military man had a thick Southern accent. In films, a certain type of Southern accent has become code for uncompromising unself-aware bigotry. Does this mean that everyone who uses that accent means to insult Southerners? No, it means that people often forget the origin of the code, in this case forgetting the origin of this code for bigot. I had used this code myself without thinking, and no one was insulted, until I ended up game-mastering a few Southerners -- who understandably took offense. I realized then that, although I am not a bigot, I had picked up a bigoted code from my culture. Now that I was aware, I had the choice of continuing that code or not. I chose not to use it any more, for I consider the loss of an easy marker for bigotry to be minor compared to the unkindness of insulting my Southern players.

John Kim wrote: As a suggestion, maybe the specific approach of "pick real-world stereotypes and use them for fantasy races" should be split out into its own thread? Doctor Xero, what do you think?

I think that one simple reason people enjoy having different races in their fantasy roleplaying games is the interest in having a "patriotic" membership that is one's unconditional birthright.

Someone once stated that the family (or kin) is the only club from which no one can be excluded. Admittedly, modern life has demonstrated the naivete of that sentiment (how many parents have abandoned their child for loving someone of an ethnicity/sexuality/religion they dislike?), but the emphasis upon inviolable birthright remains.

In a fantasy world, however, even my membership in a specific creed and/or ethical stance and/or worldview might be my birthright -- I don't belong to the Republican party, I am born a pookah and pookahs always vote Republican and I know all pookahs (and therefore all Republicans) will feel instant kinship with me and I know I can recognize all Republicans on sight because they will all be pookahs. Or I don't try to find a storm-chasers club which might or might not oust me for petty politics and I don't spend time wondering every time I date whether my potential love interest is a storm-chaser as well -- I simply am born a dwarf and all dwarves are storm-chasers (and therefore I need not justify being a storm-chaser because it is my ontological destiny) and so long as I date only dwarves I will date only storm-chasers.

It's all tribalism, which often comes from the notion that my birth determines for me from whom I can expect loyalty and to whom I am to give loyalty. This is probably why miscegeneration is a taboo in many FPRGs -- not as a reflection of real world racism but a reflection of the idea that Republicans and Democrats should not intermarry or that geeks and jocks should not date (even though many real world couples have differing political views or differing hobby interests). I've met many people who are not at all racists who still feel uncomfortable with the thought of their children marrying someone of a different political party!

So I suspect that many FRPG races exist not as parallels with real world races/ethnicities at all but rather as parallels with real world clubs and subcultures.

Doctor Xero wrote: I suspect this socially contracted suspension of disbelief comes from our tendency towards tribalism.
---snip!--
Also, psychologists have noticed that adolescents go through a stage known informally as the gang stage (I apologize that I can not recall the official term!).
---snip!--
This groupthink norming mixed with the tribalist/clique mentality would make it easier for players to accept certain behaviors when those behaviors are justified through membership in the clique which is characterized by them. Thus, a player with a thief character or a kender character will get away with thieving (without creating player resentment) than will a player with a paladin character or a high elf character.

There is no easy answer to the question of the origin and importance of the non-human character in RPGs, but we’ve seen any number of hypotheses (from social-mirror theory to mythology theory) posted. I think FRPGs follow the model for three reasons:

1) Non-human races suspend disbelief from the very beginning, the point of character generation. If it’s possible to be the seventy-third generation descendent of an Angel or a Vanilla Elf (pointy ears, preference for woods, etc), then player horizons are immediately opened wider at the game’s start. More fantastic events or circumstances seem possible from the very start, thus aiding in the ‘fantastic’ feel of an FRPG

2) Non-human races appeal to common mythic and social stereotypes and roles, aiding in the creation of a ‘socially contracted’ party and giving players a guide to imagery, culture, and personality which doesn’t need to be made explicit. When five people sit down to play a game together, and they all choose to be vaguely disreputable humans with a tendency towards thievery, the social contract is very difficult to draft – but when you can ‘plug in’ broad assumptions and roles (‘the Dwarf is going to be gruff but honorable’) it becomes easier for players to establish foil relationships and a productive party-style relationship. Thus, they facilitate easy play, especially in ‘vanilla’ forms.

3) Non-human races allow the narrator or GM to engineer situations in a way easily recognizable to players, and gives them extra circumstances and pre-set relationships to use. R-maps are hard to do well, let’s face it, and having a pre-made ‘Dwarves and Elves don’t get along’ line in there can help greatly. These relationships are more easily explained and often more colourful because of their feel of being inherent or basic than human relationships, which most people are rather too prosaically familiar with. Thus, they facilitate colorful world and adventure creation by creating new R-web possibilities.

I don’t pretend to think I've covered all the bases here, but this is why any FRPG should and usually does include playable non-human races. Now, to anticipate some objections:

To 1) Yes, magic and myth and archetypes also play an important part in establishing a world in fantastic – Pendragon is a good example. But without playable non-humans, the feel inevitably becomes slightly more ‘adventures in social history’ or ‘what if the fantastic stories of yore were true’ than that of an entirely separate and fantastic world.

To 2) Yes, this does also serve to limit player creativity to some degree. But it has been ackowledged in this thread that playing to or directly against a stereotype can be almost as much fun as creating a subtle, deeply-layered brooding personality, and so can playing against a stereotype. Moreover, that objection fails to realize that stereotypes can serve as a basis for far more fertile character growth than over-complicated or ambitious characters that mirror ‘real’ personalities.

To 3) A similar objection can be made here, that when things about the world are pre-set or exagerrated in this way, the possibilities for creative narration are limited. In this case it is more true than in the objection to 2), because the GM can’t destroy the players basic assumptions about the world. However, I don’t think this objection carries much weight against the use of fantasty-race tropes because it fails to take into account how helpful such restrictions can be as starting points for non-creative genius GMs or time-limited groups of players.

I apologize if I have too closely mirrored other posts, this is a long thread and it's been some time since I read all but the most recent post.

Best,

-Brother Adso

“He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.”
-Moby-Dick

Calvin W. 'madelf' Camp wrote: What's hostile? Friendly? Short, red-headed? Hot tempered? Maybe. The drinking too much?

M. J. Young wrote:

Calvin W. 'madelf' Camp wrote: What's hostile? Friendly? Short, red-headed? Hot tempered? Maybe. The drinking too much?

Technically, legally--If you say or clearly imply something about an individual which is not true about that individual and that individual finds offensive, that's hostile.
-remainder snipped-

Well, to get back on track :

We've discussed verisimiltude through real world parallels (though not in those words) working through nonhuman races.

We've discussed suspension of disbelief made easier through the exotic effect of nonhuman races.

We've discussed the fantastical effect, both in tradition and as living spiritual/ethical similes (and in mythology/folklore), of the use of nonhuman races.

We've discussed social commentary through nonhuman races.

We've discussed replication of the Medieval conflation of race and culture and international niche through nonhuman races.

We've discussed "playing pretend" through nonhuman races.

Are there any other reasons for nonhuman races in FRPGs (and SFRPGs) that we haven't discussed???

Doctor Xero

Doctor Xero wrote:
Are there any other reasons for nonhuman races in FRPGs (and SFRPGs) that we haven't discussed???

madelf wrote:
Of course I wouldn't be surprised if it still offended somebody, even after further clarifications, as there are people who simply will be offended at any opportunity.

[posted to wrong thread]

I recommend if you want to critique Tolkien, start with his own philosophy, behavior, and commentary on his books. Unlike the Volksfront, Aryan Nations or other white supremacist distortions of Tolkien, unlike the the far-right Zionist "Southern Law Poverty Center's" views on Tolkien, Orcs were not _designed_* as a racist metaphor for any ethnic group. Nor were Dwarves _designed_ to be Jews. Dwarvish culture and history was coupled with a criticism of greed and mineral possessions (the Dwarves of Moria, in their greed, mined too deep).

I have read that Tolkien acknowledged regret at not giving Orcs the freedom of choice and they were influenced by Nazi Germany. (No sources on this one, sorry. Sure, you can file that under rumor.)

What I can give sources on was the use of Orcs as drone soldiers of progress and Tolkiens neo-Luddite philosophy and practice.

His technophiliac detractors say, "And Tolkien wasn't using this manipulation-of-nature theme merely to advance a plot. A kind of twentieth century William Blake, Tolkien despised and distrusted technology in most, if not all, of its forms. He gave up driving and refused to own a television, or use a washing machine. In a letter, he expressed his disgust with the modern world as follows: "There is only one bright spot ... and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations ... But it won't do any good, if it is not universal." It's no defamation to say that Tolkien was a full-fledged Luddite.1.

His neo-luddite admirers say, "In an enlightening letter written to his son, Christopher, in 1943, Tolkien vented his frustration with government and the industrial age, “My political opinions lean more and more to anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)… There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power stations.”

. . .“If there is any contemporary reference in my story at all, it is to what seems to me the most widespread assumption of our time: that if a thing can be done, it must be done. This seems to me wholly false.”

"Tolkien loved trees, and he was upset with their destruction most of all: “The savage sound of the electric saw is never silent wherever trees are still found growing. Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate. In all my works, I take the part of trees as against all their enemies.”

All this stuff is mainly concerned with the fall, mortality and the machine. By the machine, I intend all use of external devices or even the use of inherent inner powers, with the corrupted motive of dominating and bulldozing the real world. The machine is our more obvious modern form. The enemy in successive forms is always concerned with sheer domination, and so the Lord of Machines… As the servants of the machines are becoming a privileged class, the machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?”

1. Source, "The Free Republic" (Agenda: far-right conservative) Attack of the Clones meets the Lord of the Luddites.

2. Source, "The Earth First! Journal" (Agenda: Neo-luddite; Author is a pagan) http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/efj/feature.cfm?ID=159&issue=v22n6

* Certainly the choice of skin color can be debated, esp. the ornamental depictions in _the film_. However, I will leave that discussion for other forums.

Further sources on Tolkien's neo-Ludditism:
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/05/tolkien2/index.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2076507

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So the question remains, why create fantasy races?

Fairies originate from a an animistic spiritual viewpoint.

Monsters, however, have very different meanings from culture to culture. One uniting factor is that they serve as a warning. "Monsters, like the dragons that inhabit the vague and unpeopled borders of old maps, do not exist for the purpose of rending and terrifying. They are there to warn us about the unnameable corrosive chaos just over the horizon; their purpose is to turn us back."

I could give an essay on my particular philosophy of why fantasy races are created in mythology and why Tolkien created Orcs in particular which is probably quite controversial.

I'll give a short sample of one of the reasons why monsters are hairy in European mythology- Roman influence. The Romans considered nature to be barbaric (outside of Rome), savage (forest realm/dweller) uncivilized (not citied) and something to be conquered and subdued. The Romans shaved and considered the unshaven uncultured. As they created towns and cities, the outside became the wilderness, which became increasingly feared which was coupled with Celtic psychological warfare. Nature, along with the wild and dynamics (chaos), was feared. The city, law and order became the security of the "citizen" class (city dweller). Nature threatened to reverse this course, nature was an uncontrollable force that threatened to take over. . .

Of course that's a crude representation of mythological studies. I would recommend reading Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Bruno Bettelheim, and Parabola, Chaos and Order, Fall 2003.

In LOTR, however, as in much animistic mythologies, monsters (Orcs) are their to warn us that we are turning against nature. The elves and the Ents serve as ancient wisdom and guardians of the forest. . .

Also, Tom Bombadill has a particular importance that was left out of the movies altogether. . .

You can agree with me on Tolkien or not, you can agree with Tolkien or not. However, it is generally understood by mythologists that monsters serve as cautionary tales.

Unfortunately, fantasy races have not been effectively introduced in most FRPGs.

I've read much discussion on ineffective introduction of fantasy races into FRPGs. Perhaps a discussion is needed of the FRPGs in which _effective_ introduction of fantasy races have occurred. With all of its flaws, the WOD springs to mind although I have not played in it in many years.

Interesting stuff on Tolkien.

I suppose we could apply the same analysis of the Gloranthan races, though to a lesser extent that in that case.

Orcs may have had their ego and superego crippled or excised through the degeneration of their race by Morgoth. The dwarves seem to emphasise the ego over their id and superego. I wouldn't push this so far with the elvish races, plenty of elves seem to have healthy egos although their animal passions and needs seem to be well under controll.

So in Tolkien I'd suggest that orcs are very much creatures of the Id, but not to such an extreme extent as the Trolls of Glorantha. The mostali of Glorantha have no Id or Superego, while Tolkient's dwarves merely emphasize the Ego.

From a theological point of view, which is perhaps more relevent, the Elves seem to exist in an unfallen state. As a species they do not seem to suffer from Orriginal Sin, while the Orcs are at the other extreme of having been utterly corrupted.

There's a theory that, when Satan precipitated the war in heaven that resulted in his fall, the faeries were those angels that took neither side. They were expelled from Heaven, but not banished to Hell and some Maia such as Melian and perhaps Tom Bombadil seem to fit that mould.


Simon Hibbs