You need to know the setting and why there would be tensions between groups. The lore of the areas you are adventuring should tell you whom is welcome and who isn't. One area may welcome elves while another is very suspicious and another outright hates them, same with orcs, etc. In those cases, yes it is a good idea.
If you are creating tension just to create tension, then no.
I would agree with MetagamingPigeon based on my personal measures. Racial tension or any bigotry as a gimmick would be, to me, in poor taste. I also find DPD/DID, abuse, addiction, chronic or fatal illness, and other real-world misery as a gimmick to be in poor taste. That's just me, though.
Sometimes, there are ways to represent similar situations without resorting to real-world references - usually involving magic such as a curse with caveats to separate it from actual DPD, but I'm stretched too far to think of any alternate version of bigotry. That's for someone with far more creativity than I can muster.
So for me, there has to be purpose to the story for its inclusion.
There is the caveat that D&D is not just one writer, though. A foundation can be laid that is never touched in a campaign. It happens. It doesn't mean it was a bad idea, and it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't necessary. It just means that it didn't come to fruition that time. "Something something best laid plans of people and rodents or some such..."
EDIT: There is a new D&D TTG video series out there where one of the characters is an addict. I'm giving it a fair shake for something meaningful to happen regarding it, but if it turns out just to be for "funzies", I will probably not watch it further once that point is made.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I think this is one of a number of issues where there should be at least implicit agreement, and possibly explicit as well depending on the particular group/game. For example, I'm lucky enough to play in a group where there is an unspoken understanding that if one or more players are uncomfortable with something, we as a group choose to move on to other areas. There is a level of trust, respect and awareness that (thus far) each of the group members have as players. We even have a safe word (although it hasn't been needed yet in the year or so since I joined the group). We also use a session zero to explicitly discuss any known concerns ahead of time, usually starting with the DM stating if there are certain themes that could arise and might be of concern, especially since all of our games thus far have been homebrew.
In the 2 campaigns I've played in with this group, each DM brought up one or two things to check it out before the start of the campaign. We just did a session zero for a campaign that I'm set to DM, and I brought up some of the darker possible aspects that might arise just to check in with the players. If someone expressed hesitation with what I was planning, I would tone it way down or remove it entirely. There are so many wonderful/exciting/intersting/fun/funny/epic stories to tell, I'd hate for one of my friends to not be enjoying it together because they didn't feel included, seen, heard or safe.
I agree with the last several posts about a session zero. It's critical to get some agreement about how your group is going operate in the day to day, as well as touchy subjects. Having said that, my group doesn't usually do it, despite my insistence.
As an example, we had some new players. An NPC was being punished by it's master. I just said it was being tortured. I didn't offer details until I was asked. My group has very dark humor, so most things would pass, but it's always good to check. Big difference between something happening to a NPC and a PC.
I don't know if we'll ever get to the campaign I'm working on, but there's a lot of potential dark subjects to both make the world a scarier place and to introduce more moral dilemmas. Plus, it could be very deadly early on. So a session zero will be important this time.
You know that episode of Spongebob where Spongebob becomes an insult comedian and he makes squirrel jokes for cheap laughs? D&D fantasy racism has about as much dignity as that, and if you're trying to tell a serious, dramatic story using D&D fantasy racism then holy guacamole
I think it's definitely the kind of thing you want to talk about in a session zero, because it certainly makes sense for certain towns to have racial tension-- whether it be your classic fantasy 'elves and dwarves don't get along', or a settlement where elves, dwarves, and humans alike are distrustful/afraid of yuan-ti/warforged/half-orcs. While fantasy races don't line up with real world ones, the issues themselves affect different people differently. Some want or even need to escape all that when they play, others think it's something worth exploring through fiction, and playing a character who experiences prejudice you don't experience in the real world can build empathy. Ultimately there's no pat answer for every table. While a world where no such tensions exist might feel less real, a player who deals with them every day might not enjoy a game where that's an element even if they're playing a human, or might not trust everyone at the table to handle the subject with sensitivity if they're playing with a new group, and I'd have to respect that. I might know, when I sit down at a new gaming table, that I'm someone who tries to be sensitive and respectful about other people's experiences with prejudice, and that my experience with one kind of prejudice doesn't mean I know about what other kinds are really like, but no one who sits down across the table from me can be expected to guess that. So if anyone said they would rather it not exist, I'd bow to that, as a player or as a DM.
Part of the point of any art form is that it can and should provoke people to think, sometimes critically, about the world in which we live. A story doesn’t need to be Shakespeare to be art. A story written by committee, such as an RPG campaign, is just as valid an art form as any other story. Saying that themes such as discrimination have no place in D&D is akin to saying they have no place in a story such as 12 Years a Slave. As soon as we start censoring those stories, the next step is banning books in schools and libraries, next after that is book burning.
Should players have the option to opt-out of a campaign that they are uncomfortable with? Absolutely. If people decide to self-censor, that is their choice.
Should a DM be villainized for including those themes, or told that they can not include those themes in their story? Absolutely not. That takes away the DM’schoice.
Why? In the kingdom in which the campaign I DM is set, there is a history of a 1,000 race war against the Gnolls. In that kingdom they actually have an annual festival (national/religious holiday) where captured gnolls are paraded through the streets in chains before being butchered by Bards re-enacting the kingdom’s cultural heroes defeating the gnolls and saving the kingdom 10 centuries ago. Children laugh and eat candy as they watch the streets run red with gnoll blood. All “beastpeople” are illegal in that nation (including lizardfolk, Kenku, Tabaxi, Aarakokra, Dragonborn, etc.) In that same kingdom, half-elves/orcs/dwarves/gnomes/goblins/hobgoblins (all of those exist in that world and are available as PC races), even Ogrillon (half ogres, also a PC race) are treated as essentially human by everyone.
There are legitimate story-driven reasons for those attitudes going back more than 6,000 years into the world’s history. If the PCs choose to explore the underlying reasons for those attitudes, they might uncover interesting things about the divinity and cosmology of the world and the greater multiverse in which that world exists. If they don’t, then it remains a curiosity.
What makes it silly? Is it the fact that there is a depth of story and history that goes back thousands of years? Is it the social commentary on discrimination that draws parallels to our real world? Is it the fact that the campaign world in question allows for stories with genuine moral/ethical ramifications? Or is it just silly because you don’t want it in your story?
IMHO, it’s no sillier than the blatant discrimination portrayed against fantasy races in such popular franchises as Harry Potter, Carnival Row, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings....
An exploration of a real life issue using a fantasy roleplaying game metaphor can be as serious as any other narrative medium. Homophobia and racism as illustrated by anti-mutant bigotry in the X-Men? Classism via farm animal politics in Animal Farm? Censorship and oppression using fictional dystopian societies in Fahrenheit 451?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Counterpoint: It isn't. It is more silly to ignore the racial tensions that exist in a world just because you don't want to include racial tension.
Like Sposta said, it makes no sense for a race or culture of people to just ignore the fact that members of a certain race/culture were/are enemies of them. In real world, if any small percentage of a race or culture is bad, the whole race is discriminated against. It is silly, lazy, and bad DMing to assume that no one has bias against Drow in the Forgotten Realms, when there is a whole culture and society of Drow that live underground and attack, kill, and enslave humans and other races.
It is lazy and silly to ignore these themes. If you have any rebuttal against this argument, please make it more than 3 words.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
An exploration of a real life issue using a fantasy roleplaying game metaphor can be as serious as any other narrative medium. Homophobia and racism as illustrated by anti-mutant bigotry in the X-Men? Classism via farm animal politics in Animal Farm? Censorship and oppression using fictional dystopian societies in Fahrenheit 451?
In fact, one could argue (and I have repeatedly) that Mr. Lee & co. did more to raise awareness about the issue civil rights for an entire generation, than many recognized civil rights activist. To this day, almost 60 years later, the thinly-veiled analogue between the real world civil rights movement, and persecution of “muties” in the Marvel universe is widely recognized and cited worldwide.
In more recent publications, Marvel has helped shape the thoughts of younger generations on such topics as gender inequality, non-heteronormative lifestyles, politics, religious extremism, ideas of so-called “racial supremacy”.... The list goes on. Why should a story that my friends and I craft in our living rooms be any less poignant if we so choose.
If anyone, including you, chooses to omit any or all of those themes from their/your own game, that is their/your choice, and as far as I am concerned, your right. No one should have any ability to take that choice away from you. I would exercise my 1st-Amendment right to defend your choice as aggressively is I defend my own.
The instant that someone, anyone, takes that choice, that right, away from someone else... that is the first step towards all of us losing our right to choose for ourselves about anything, because, where does it stop...?
The minute we stop being able to discuss themes that are meaningful to our society through expressive media such as music, art, stories.... That’s when things like “work camps” become potential realities again. I will never belittle your right to your opinion. Express your opinions in any manner you want, with as many (or few) words as you want so long as they don’t incite violence, and don’t violate the terms of service under which our gracious hosts (DDB) are allowing us to have this conversation.
Frankly, this goes to my point. The individual choices, or who makes which ones for themselves, those are irrelevant. As far as I am concerned, defending our rights to make those decisions for ourselves is the important part. I don’t have to agree with your decision, I don’t have to like it at all. But I am ecstatic that you don’t have to like mine either and that’s okay too.
Part of having tolerance for others is also having tolerance for those who don't agree with your beliefs of tolerances. To not respect this is to demonstrate the same distaste or hate that those groups may also exhibit.
I believe the only restriction upon a game's narrative should be found within those playing it. If a group of individuals have agreed to and want to explore serious, ethical dilemmas, more power to them. If other groups only want to raid dungeons and kill goblins, that's ok too.
Part of having tolerance for others is also having tolerance for those who don't agree with your beliefs of tolerances. To not respect this is to demonstrate the same distaste or hate that those groups may also exhibit.
I believe the only restriction upon a game's narrative should be found within those playing it. If a group of individuals have agreed to and want to explore serious, ethical dilemmas, more power to them. If other groups only want to raid dungeons and kill goblins, that's ok too.
You're right. We shouldn't be making pat judgments about everyone's table like "It's silly" when it's only subjectively silly for some people, not everyone.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Exactly. It’s about personal choice, and not taking it away from DMs or players. The right to choose what kind of game they want is important. No DM should feel guilted out of exploring those themes any more than a player should feel guilted into it.
You know that episode of Spongebob where Spongebob becomes an insult comedian and he makes squirrel jokes for cheap laughs? D&D fantasy racism has about as much dignity as that, and if you're trying to tell a serious, dramatic story using D&D fantasy racism then holy guacamole
Don't yuck my yum.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
If the setting and story has a reason for racial tension, then a DM should include it in their game. Not every world will be rainbows and butterflies. The term "racist" is being overused and applied with a broad brush these days.
Not sure why you have to bring up racism, racial tension in a fantasy world does not have to have anything to do with real-world racism.
That said, racial tension does not have to mean "racism". Racism is, when boiled down to the core, the prejudiced belief certain people have certain negative traits simply because of their (real or percieved) race. In a world where all dwarves actually do eat and kill every human they come across, it's not really racist to say that dwarves are dangerous to human. And it will certainly cause a but of racial tension.
That said, saying that there *must* be racial tension in a fantasy world is like saying that there *must* be sexism in fantasy world; stupid and pointless. Also quite unimaginative. I mean, it's a *fantasy* world, you can literally have anything you want in it and you can't think of a world that doesn't have those things? That's pretty boring. There's literally no need to add those things to a game.
However, if your gaming group feels like racial tension is a way to build an interesting world and develop a better story, who's to stop you? The Gimli/Legolas arc that someone mentioned is a good example of when it works, the Spongebob example is a example of when it doesn't work. :)
If the setting and story has a reason for racial tension, then a DM should include it in their game. Not every world will be rainbows and butterflies. The term "racist" is being overused and applied with a broad brush these days.
Not sure why you have to bring up racism, racial tension in a fantasy world does not have to have anything to do with real-world racism.
The OP mentioned being painted as a racist for including themes of racial tension/prejudice in their campaign world. That’s kind of how all this got started. People were attempting to guilt/shame them to not include such themes in their game.
How many parties stop to evaluate the moral stance of every goblin and orc they slay? I'm willing to wager that there's a little bit of racism in everyone when they come across any "enemy race". If one is predisposed to believe that all goblins are inherently bad, how are the fantasy humans any better for slaying without cause or prevocation? #showerthoughts #whostherealmonster
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Yes and no.
You need to know the setting and why there would be tensions between groups. The lore of the areas you are adventuring should tell you whom is welcome and who isn't. One area may welcome elves while another is very suspicious and another outright hates them, same with orcs, etc. In those cases, yes it is a good idea.
If you are creating tension just to create tension, then no.
I would agree with MetagamingPigeon based on my personal measures. Racial tension or any bigotry as a gimmick would be, to me, in poor taste. I also find DPD/DID, abuse, addiction, chronic or fatal illness, and other real-world misery as a gimmick to be in poor taste. That's just me, though.
Sometimes, there are ways to represent similar situations without resorting to real-world references - usually involving magic such as a curse with caveats to separate it from actual DPD, but I'm stretched too far to think of any alternate version of bigotry. That's for someone with far more creativity than I can muster.
So for me, there has to be purpose to the story for its inclusion.
There is the caveat that D&D is not just one writer, though. A foundation can be laid that is never touched in a campaign. It happens. It doesn't mean it was a bad idea, and it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't necessary. It just means that it didn't come to fruition that time. "Something something best laid plans of people and rodents or some such..."
EDIT: There is a new D&D TTG video series out there where one of the characters is an addict. I'm giving it a fair shake for something meaningful to happen regarding it, but if it turns out just to be for "funzies", I will probably not watch it further once that point is made.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I think this is one of a number of issues where there should be at least implicit agreement, and possibly explicit as well depending on the particular group/game. For example, I'm lucky enough to play in a group where there is an unspoken understanding that if one or more players are uncomfortable with something, we as a group choose to move on to other areas. There is a level of trust, respect and awareness that (thus far) each of the group members have as players. We even have a safe word (although it hasn't been needed yet in the year or so since I joined the group). We also use a session zero to explicitly discuss any known concerns ahead of time, usually starting with the DM stating if there are certain themes that could arise and might be of concern, especially since all of our games thus far have been homebrew.
In the 2 campaigns I've played in with this group, each DM brought up one or two things to check it out before the start of the campaign. We just did a session zero for a campaign that I'm set to DM, and I brought up some of the darker possible aspects that might arise just to check in with the players. If someone expressed hesitation with what I was planning, I would tone it way down or remove it entirely. There are so many wonderful/exciting/intersting/fun/funny/epic stories to tell, I'd hate for one of my friends to not be enjoying it together because they didn't feel included, seen, heard or safe.
I agree with the last several posts about a session zero. It's critical to get some agreement about how your group is going operate in the day to day, as well as touchy subjects. Having said that, my group doesn't usually do it, despite my insistence.
As an example, we had some new players. An NPC was being punished by it's master. I just said it was being tortured. I didn't offer details until I was asked. My group has very dark humor, so most things would pass, but it's always good to check. Big difference between something happening to a NPC and a PC.
I don't know if we'll ever get to the campaign I'm working on, but there's a lot of potential dark subjects to both make the world a scarier place and to introduce more moral dilemmas. Plus, it could be very deadly early on. So a session zero will be important this time.
From my experience, the GMs who push for Fantasy racism the hardest are often the ones who hate when their players play anything but a core race.
Dont lean on tired bordering on too real fantasy tropes just to discourage player choice.
You know that episode of Spongebob where Spongebob becomes an insult comedian and he makes squirrel jokes for cheap laughs? D&D fantasy racism has about as much dignity as that, and if you're trying to tell a serious, dramatic story using D&D fantasy racism then holy guacamole
I think it's definitely the kind of thing you want to talk about in a session zero, because it certainly makes sense for certain towns to have racial tension-- whether it be your classic fantasy 'elves and dwarves don't get along', or a settlement where elves, dwarves, and humans alike are distrustful/afraid of yuan-ti/warforged/half-orcs. While fantasy races don't line up with real world ones, the issues themselves affect different people differently. Some want or even need to escape all that when they play, others think it's something worth exploring through fiction, and playing a character who experiences prejudice you don't experience in the real world can build empathy. Ultimately there's no pat answer for every table. While a world where no such tensions exist might feel less real, a player who deals with them every day might not enjoy a game where that's an element even if they're playing a human, or might not trust everyone at the table to handle the subject with sensitivity if they're playing with a new group, and I'd have to respect that. I might know, when I sit down at a new gaming table, that I'm someone who tries to be sensitive and respectful about other people's experiences with prejudice, and that my experience with one kind of prejudice doesn't mean I know about what other kinds are really like, but no one who sits down across the table from me can be expected to guess that. So if anyone said they would rather it not exist, I'd bow to that, as a player or as a DM.
Part of the point of any art form is that it can and should provoke people to think, sometimes critically, about the world in which we live. A story doesn’t need to be Shakespeare to be art. A story written by committee, such as an RPG campaign, is just as valid an art form as any other story. Saying that themes such as discrimination have no place in D&D is akin to saying they have no place in a story such as 12 Years a Slave. As soon as we start censoring those stories, the next step is banning books in schools and libraries, next after that is book burning.
Should players have the option to opt-out of a campaign that they are uncomfortable with? Absolutely. If people decide to self-censor, that is their choice.
Should a DM be villainized for including those themes, or told that they can not include those themes in their story? Absolutely not. That takes away the DM’s choice.
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Counterpoint: It's silly.
Why? In the kingdom in which the campaign I DM is set, there is a history of a 1,000 race war against the Gnolls. In that kingdom they actually have an annual festival (national/religious holiday) where captured gnolls are paraded through the streets in chains before being butchered by Bards re-enacting the kingdom’s cultural heroes defeating the gnolls and saving the kingdom 10 centuries ago. Children laugh and eat candy as they watch the streets run red with gnoll blood. All “beastpeople” are illegal in that nation (including lizardfolk, Kenku, Tabaxi, Aarakokra, Dragonborn, etc.) In that same kingdom, half-elves/orcs/dwarves/gnomes/goblins/hobgoblins (all of those exist in that world and are available as PC races), even Ogrillon (half ogres, also a PC race) are treated as essentially human by everyone.
There are legitimate story-driven reasons for those attitudes going back more than 6,000 years into the world’s history. If the PCs choose to explore the underlying reasons for those attitudes, they might uncover interesting things about the divinity and cosmology of the world and the greater multiverse in which that world exists. If they don’t, then it remains a curiosity.
What makes it silly? Is it the fact that there is a depth of story and history that goes back thousands of years? Is it the social commentary on discrimination that draws parallels to our real world? Is it the fact that the campaign world in question allows for stories with genuine moral/ethical ramifications? Or is it just silly because you don’t want it in your story?
IMHO, it’s no sillier than the blatant discrimination portrayed against fantasy races in such popular franchises as Harry Potter, Carnival Row, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings....
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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An exploration of a real life issue using a fantasy roleplaying game metaphor can be as serious as any other narrative medium. Homophobia and racism as illustrated by anti-mutant bigotry in the X-Men? Classism via farm animal politics in Animal Farm? Censorship and oppression using fictional dystopian societies in Fahrenheit 451?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Counterpoint: It isn't. It is more silly to ignore the racial tensions that exist in a world just because you don't want to include racial tension.
Like Sposta said, it makes no sense for a race or culture of people to just ignore the fact that members of a certain race/culture were/are enemies of them. In real world, if any small percentage of a race or culture is bad, the whole race is discriminated against. It is silly, lazy, and bad DMing to assume that no one has bias against Drow in the Forgotten Realms, when there is a whole culture and society of Drow that live underground and attack, kill, and enslave humans and other races.
It is lazy and silly to ignore these themes. If you have any rebuttal against this argument, please make it more than 3 words.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
In fact, one could argue (and I have repeatedly) that Mr. Lee & co. did more to raise awareness about the issue civil rights for an entire generation, than many recognized civil rights activist. To this day, almost 60 years later, the thinly-veiled analogue between the real world civil rights movement, and persecution of “muties” in the Marvel universe is widely recognized and cited worldwide.
In more recent publications, Marvel has helped shape the thoughts of younger generations on such topics as gender inequality, non-heteronormative lifestyles, politics, religious extremism, ideas of so-called “racial supremacy”.... The list goes on. Why should a story that my friends and I craft in our living rooms be any less poignant if we so choose.
If anyone, including you, chooses to omit any or all of those themes from their/your own game, that is their/your choice, and as far as I am concerned, your right. No one should have any ability to take that choice away from you. I would exercise my 1st-Amendment right to defend your choice as aggressively is I defend my own.
The instant that someone, anyone, takes that choice, that right, away from someone else... that is the first step towards all of us losing our right to choose for ourselves about anything, because, where does it stop...?
The minute we stop being able to discuss themes that are meaningful to our society through expressive media such as music, art, stories.... That’s when things like “work camps” become potential realities again. I will never belittle your right to your opinion. Express your opinions in any manner you want, with as many (or few) words as you want so long as they don’t incite violence, and don’t violate the terms of service under which our gracious hosts (DDB) are allowing us to have this conversation.
Frankly, this goes to my point. The individual choices, or who makes which ones for themselves, those are irrelevant. As far as I am concerned, defending our rights to make those decisions for ourselves is the important part. I don’t have to agree with your decision, I don’t have to like it at all. But I am ecstatic that you don’t have to like mine either and that’s okay too.
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Part of having tolerance for others is also having tolerance for those who don't agree with your beliefs of tolerances. To not respect this is to demonstrate the same distaste or hate that those groups may also exhibit.
I believe the only restriction upon a game's narrative should be found within those playing it. If a group of individuals have agreed to and want to explore serious, ethical dilemmas, more power to them. If other groups only want to raid dungeons and kill goblins, that's ok too.
You're right. We shouldn't be making pat judgments about everyone's table like "It's silly" when it's only subjectively silly for some people, not everyone.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Exactly. It’s about personal choice, and not taking it away from DMs or players. The right to choose what kind of game they want is important. No DM should feel guilted out of exploring those themes any more than a player should feel guilted into it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Don't yuck my yum.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Not sure why you have to bring up racism, racial tension in a fantasy world does not have to have anything to do with real-world racism.
That said, racial tension does not have to mean "racism". Racism is, when boiled down to the core, the prejudiced belief certain people have certain negative traits simply because of their (real or percieved) race. In a world where all dwarves actually do eat and kill every human they come across, it's not really racist to say that dwarves are dangerous to human. And it will certainly cause a but of racial tension.
That said, saying that there *must* be racial tension in a fantasy world is like saying that there *must* be sexism in fantasy world; stupid and pointless. Also quite unimaginative. I mean, it's a *fantasy* world, you can literally have anything you want in it and you can't think of a world that doesn't have those things? That's pretty boring. There's literally no need to add those things to a game.
However, if your gaming group feels like racial tension is a way to build an interesting world and develop a better story, who's to stop you? The Gimli/Legolas arc that someone mentioned is a good example of when it works, the Spongebob example is a example of when it doesn't work. :)
The OP mentioned being painted as a racist for including themes of racial tension/prejudice in their campaign world. That’s kind of how all this got started. People were attempting to guilt/shame them to not include such themes in their game.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
How many parties stop to evaluate the moral stance of every goblin and orc they slay? I'm willing to wager that there's a little bit of racism in everyone when they come across any "enemy race". If one is predisposed to believe that all goblins are inherently bad, how are the fantasy humans any better for slaying without cause or prevocation? #showerthoughts #whostherealmonster