So I can tell already this is gonna open up a can of worms but let's see what happens.
Heads up: I'm a gay, cis, Christian, white guy from the Rocky Mountains. Take that as you will.
I run a lot of adventures. Most of mine take place in Waterdeep of the Forgotten Realms (arguably the most cosmopolitan, inclusive, and generally safe city in the world) or western Khorvaire of Eberron (including corrupt and ethnically fragmented city of Sharn, Droaam the country of recently stitched together monstrous tribes, and the Shadow Marches with a bunch of tribes and small druidic enclaves that kinda just keep to themselves). I implement racism as a part of worldbuilding.
If my players are in Waterdeep, they almost never encounter any sort of racism. Because that's just how Waterdeep is. If they spent energy worrying about whether you're human, elf, genasi, or tiefling, they'd never have energy left over to do anything. Except for one specific mention in the Dragon Heist book of a serial killer who specifically hates non-drow elves and half elves (ask me how Jarlaxle responded when he learned what one of his lieutenants was doing in his spare time, at least as presented in my campaign), there was never an ounce of racism. One time the two guys who are new to Waterdeep (spent most of their life in the Underdark) walk in to a blacksmith shop on Trollskull alley. They see a water genasi at the front desk working on something, and a fire genasi in the back. The one guy turns to the other and says "Wow, they got one of everything here," meaning something like "Wow I've never seen this much racial diversity before" but definitely it sounded worse. What he didn't know: the two genasi are a gay couple. The water genasi heard the comment and assumed he was talking about sexual orientation, not species. It ended up being funny and the characters (and the players!) suddenly learned a lot about Waterdavian culture - they refuse to be messed with. They won't necessarily become violent, but they definitely won't tolerate any sort of disrespectful behavior like that.
If my players are in Sharn, City of Towers, they're going to encounter lots of racism. Most of the Brelish natives hate warforged in general. That's very canonical. Most of the Brelish natives also hate Cyran refugees, regardless of their species. That's also very canonical. My players encounter anti-Warforged and anti-Cyran graffiti. If any of the characters are Warforged or Cyran, they may face more barriers in trying to get permissions from government offices or trying to purchase good and services from stores. The characters (and the players!) learn a lot about Sharn and Brelish culture - they're fraught with social problems like racism, government corruption, and the like.
So now the issue at hand.
Last night, my players were in a mid-sized town in the countryside of Cormyr (a country in the Forgotten Realms). One of the characters is a 13-year-old 6th-level tiefling urchin boy. He was chilling outside on the sidewalk while one of his party mates was inside a building talking with the local police about some problems the party just helped resolve. Some passersby spat at his feet and kept walking. The tiefling boy stood up for himself by throwing a rock at one of them. They turned around and attacked him. I gave three attackers the stats of commoners, but with the pack tactics trait. The rogue took care of them in about three rounds (longer than I expected - he had some unlucky rolls). The companion who was inside came out and slapped him silly for getting into public violence over that. Urchin boy ran and hid. The local police started looking for him, because he knocked out three local hooligans. Each of the other party members were suddenly involved. One congratulated him for standing up for himself and was impressed that he beat up 3 guys who were bigger than him. One guy counseled him to only use violence in self defense. One girl didn't say anything but just shared a granola bar with the kid.
Suddenly we, a bunch of white people, were seeing via a TTRPG what it might feel like for someone to be racist against you. And how it feels when you can get in trouble for standing up for yourself. Which wasn't the original intent. The original intent was to have a worldbuilding moment, not a learning moment. But then we started seeing "Oh. I kinda see what all this George Floyd protest stuff is about now."
So I want to know. It clearly depends on the group and what everyone is comfortable with. But. People who know more about social justice stuff than I do, is this, like, okay to do? To have racism and discrimination and other sorts of real world problems (poverty, illiteracy, etc.) in my DND games? It's never presented as 'good,' and sometimes explicitly punished. But sometimes people 'get away with it' (e.g. Sharn). Because I want the world to be real, and I know that in the real world, people can 'get away with it.' Along those lines, if I'm going to write something and sell it on the DMs Guild, is this type of thing okay to have as a minor part of an adventure? I mean, Dragon Heist has that racist serial killer, and Eberron: Rising from the Last War's adventure Forgotten Relics has a lot of racism against warforged. At least last night it seemed to be an effective way for us, a bunch of white people, to use group storytelling as a way to learn what it might be like for people who are different from us. What are y'all's thoughts on this?
If you are attempting to use racism to hurt someone IRL, that is not okay. (I am in no way accusing you of this.) If you are using racism to make a world more believable, and is presented in a mature and developed way, then use it in an adventure. However, I would suggest that you have someone else read the adventure before you publish it, and get their opinion on the content within.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I agree with JoeltheWalrus but with one addition: make sure that it's a theme your players are comfortable with before you start making it a theme in your games. That's for anyone who wants to put it into a game, not the OP in particular.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This is a game and it is supposed to be fun for everyone playing. Having said that, I’m running two campaigns where players are playing newer, and rare, races. The one that I home brewed is accepting of anyone on the frontier where survival is hard enough without worrying about the fact that the guy holding the shovel beside you is an Aarakocra but is less accepting in the more civilized areas where survival is easier. I was up front about the differences and why when I created the campaign so the players who picked the more rare races knew in advance what they would face, both good and bad.
It’s working for me and it’s a ton of fun for everyone. The party just did something very heroic and I’m looking forward to seeing how they react to being greeted as heroes instead of strangers when they’re recognized. Bards are great for spreading stories!
Pretty much anything works with friends of course. If you wrote a module that is "hey look at me I'm writing about racism in my game, but its cool, we are against it !" Probably wouldn't publish well.
There is a difference between promoting racism and talking about racism. D&D is a collaborate art form with the DM in charge. I see no problem with involving racism as long as it is presented as evil.
One more thing: don't use racism in your game just to make it seem more serious or edgy. There should be an actual reason for it to exist, not "I want my game to be more adult."
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Depending on the environment, racism can be an issue. My current campaign has a Dwarf/Elf war in deep simmer.
There is nothing wrong with glossing over it. However, it is possible to make a world feel more real if the people react appropriately to something or someone they find strange.
If your starter village and the neighboring towns only have humans, the starter village will probably be fine with any of the PC races. But the neighboring towns might express unease when a Tiefling, a Goblin, and a Tabaxi show up. BUT this can be a great RP moment.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Fear of different races in D&D has much more grounding than in real life, I think as long as its done with thought and not a clutch than tensions between groups (or individuals) can add to the story or feel of an area.
Off the main topic, I love the reactions your players had to their little Tiefling kicking butt, they sound like a lovely group.
Fear of different races in D&D has much more grounding than in real life, I think as long as its done with thought and not a clutch than tensions between groups (or individuals) can add to the story or feel of an area.
Off the main topic, I love the reactions your players had to their little Tiefling kicking butt, they sound like a lovely group.
I disagree. The reason you think that is so is because the you are accepting the stated 'thought' as fact. Basically, you are accepting as 'fact' that Orcs are more violent and stupider than humans. You (a human) may choose to play Orcs that way, but how is that any different than a Japanese racist role-playing a Chinese person with whatever inferior qualities they desire?
The game is fictional and as such there can be NO 'grounding' of the game. Everything comes from the mind of a human being so any racial prejudices against certain races also come from the mind of a human being.
Racism exist both in the minds of humans in the real world and in games created the minds of humans. Justifying it in ANY context should not be done. Nothing wrong with putting it into a game, but you should recognize it as no less evil in the game as out of it.
For many if not most players, they play RPGs to escape the stresses of real life, and so might not be inclined to play a game focused on real world issues.
That being said, racism most certainly exists in fantasy worlds. Just look at how elves and dwarves regard each other for a well known example. Hell, I ran a campaign once where one of the locations the party visited had a war between orcs and high elves, and so the players naturally, out of habit, went to assist the high elves. Except they learned later on that the Orcs were essentially fighting for survival. The high elves, having grown very tired of the endless raiding, became determined to wipe out every single orc on the continent, including females and offspring, and even then started extending this to all non-elven races. This in turn caused all the non-elven races, including the orcs, to band together to rebel against the elven authority. In the end, the 'n*zi' elves were defeated by the party leading a small force through a secret tunnel right into the elven capital to defeat a fallen and mad paladin general.
I rather enjoyed that chapter as it broke player bias. But would I keep that theme throughout an entire campaign? No. It's a sensitive subject and can get preachy fast if all the players encounter are sessions focused on racism game after game. I don't recommend making it a focal point. I also strongly recommend refraining from using the words 'social justice' to describe a campaign setting. Due to the truly toxic cancel culture that has erupted in the last few years, people have become very leery of that term.
Just remember people, that in a game world with more or less immortal elves, wizards hurling fireballs and flying dragons there is, quite literally, no reason why you would *have to* include racism.
Fear of different races in D&D has much more grounding than in real life, I think as long as its done with thought and not a clutch than tensions between groups (or individuals) can add to the story or feel of an area.
Off the main topic, I love the reactions your players had to their little Tiefling kicking butt, they sound like a lovely group.
I disagree. The reason you think that is so is because the you are accepting the stated 'thought' as fact. Basically, you are accepting as 'fact' that Orcs are more violent and stupider than humans. You (a human) may choose to play Orcs that way, but how is that any different than a Japanese racist role-playing a Chinese person with whatever inferior qualities they desire?
The game is fictional and as such there can be NO 'grounding' of the game. Everything comes from the mind of a human being so any racial prejudices against certain races also come from the mind of a human being.
Racism exist both in the minds of humans in the real world and in games created the minds of humans. Justifying it in ANY context should not be done. Nothing wrong with putting it into a game, but you should recognize it as no less evil in the game as out of it.
#NotAllOrcs
Yeah, that's completely incorrect. Take Giants and Dragons, it is stated VERY well that they do not like each other and each feels the other in inferior. There are a lot of other conflicts in different regions of the game between different tribes, races, and species. A lawful good life cleric will absolutely have an issue with a Lich, as he should. Conflict is a major part of the game and saying that every race and creature would get along unless a human intervenes and creates a prejudice is just not correct. Now when it comes to orcs and humans, I have always felt that their feelings toward each other were kind of mirrors. They both hate each other for the same reasons, neither of which were correct.
Yeah, that's completely incorrect. Take Giants and Dragons, it is stated VERY well that they do not like each other and each feels the other in inferior. There are a lot of other conflicts in different regions of the game between different tribes, races, and species. A lawful good life cleric will absolutely have an issue with a Lich, as he should. Conflict is a major part of the game and saying that every race and creature would get along unless a human intervenes and creates a prejudice is just not correct. Now when it comes to orcs and humans, I have always felt that their feelings toward each other were kind of mirrors. They both hate each other for the same reasons, neither of which were correct.
You have completely and entirely missed both my point and SwiftSign's claim. I am not claiming that Giants and Dragons like each other or think they are equal. Swift and I admit that. He is saying that their racism may be 'well grounded' and I say it is no better 'grounded' than real life racism.
Swiftsign is saying that because the game designer's declared X race to be 'evil', it is not 'prejudiced' for other races to hate them and kill them on sight. He and you appear to believe that prejudice only 'counts' if the person is WRONG about the race. I claim that prejudice 'counts' and is itself an evil act even if your beliefs about a race are correct.
What you and Swiftsign appear to think is EXACTLY the same thing that humans racists believe. For example, if you asked Hitler, he would (unintentionally ironically) say that the Jews were bent on world domination and therefore can ethically be rounded up and killed. This inherent belief in the 'truth' of their inherent evil is how he justifies his horrific prejudice. The fact that Jews were not bent on world domination and were mainly bent on surviving does not matter.
Prejudice is all about thinking that someone is inferior or evil as a general quality. I can realize that chimpanzees are stronger and more violent than a human being without declaring them evil and treating them all as 'inferior' to dogs. But merely believing that chimpanzees are not 'inferior' does NOT mean I am stupid enough to keep one as a pet. I recognize that dogs are social creatures that are less violent and better pets WITHOUT thinking of them as 'better' than chimpanzees.
Take your specific example of a Lawful good life cleric having an issue with Lichs. Uhm, who says? The cleric? Yes, that is prejudiced. They are prejudging lichs based on what other liches have done. In my campaign (and in the 1993 published module The Ruins of Myth Drannor ) there are Good Lichs. Yeah, they are rare. So what. The idea itself that no member of a race - whether it is Orcs or Lichs - can possibly be Good, is the racism. Actions taken on that belief are always racist, regardless of what they are.
For many if not most players, they play RPGs to escape the stresses of real life, and so might not be inclined to play a game focused on real world issues.
That being said, racism most certainly exists in fantasy worlds. Just look at how elves and dwarves regard each other for a well known example. Hell, I ran a campaign once where one of the locations the party visited had a war between orcs and high elves, and so the players naturally, out of habit, went to assist the high elves. Except they learned later on that the Orcs were essentially fighting for survival. The high elves, having grown very tired of the endless raiding, became determined to wipe out every single orc on the continent, including females and offspring, and even then started extending this to all non-elven races. This in turn caused all the non-elven races, including the orcs, to band together to rebel against the elven authority. In the end, the 'n*zi' elves were defeated by the party leading a small force through a secret tunnel right into the elven capital to defeat a fallen and mad paladin general.
I rather enjoyed that chapter as it broke player bias. But would I keep that theme throughout an entire campaign? No. It's a sensitive subject and can get preachy fast if all the players encounter are sessions focused on racism game after game. I don't recommend making it a focal point. I also strongly recommend refraining from using the words 'social justice' to describe a campaign setting. Due to the truly toxic cancel culture that has erupted in the last few years, people have become very leery of that term.
Just remember people, that in a game world with more or less immortal elves, wizards hurling fireballs and flying dragons there is, quite literally, no reason why you would *have to* include racism.
Fear of different races in D&D has much more grounding than in real life, I think as long as its done with thought and not a clutch than tensions between groups (or individuals) can add to the story or feel of an area.
Off the main topic, I love the reactions your players had to their little Tiefling kicking butt, they sound like a lovely group.
Yes, they are a delightful group. :) One of my favorites I've ever run adventures for.
Dragons are actually out to kill giants as well as the opposite, that's not racist as they are completely different types of beings. If a bear attacks and eats a fish, is it because the bear is racist against salmon? It's survival of the fittest and in D&D there are beings that want to destroy other beings, that's just the way it is. The game would be really damn boring if everyone got along and hugged each other all day long and talked out their differences. Thankfully that is not the case and thankfully D&D is not racist. If you are a cleric and your deity has charged you with ridding the world of the undead (as your most basic cleric class features are geared toward that) it's not racist to kill a zombie or a lich. That's just insane.
Remember that all of the lore in the game is optional. Just because the Monster Manual says something about a particular creature does not make it immutable fact across all games: many settings don't follow the lore (Eberron being an example of a setting where neither orcs nor drow are always considered evil), and GMs are free to declare something's different if they want to- maybe dragons and giants get along really well, or Mind Flayers are a chaotic good race that like to spend their time stoned out of their gordes and listening to Grateful Dead albums. If you don't want to tackle racism issues in your world, you can freely choose not to implement them and provide other reasons for conflict.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's an interesting question. I agree with the idea that if you have doubts run it by some other people and see what they think. I finished a campaign where one of the characters was a drow cleric, she was awesome but I felt I needed to have some people who didn't like her or were rude to her as it was realistic, however it always made me cringe. I also had the character forced into a place with a group of Lovites (nasty evil cultists) who were engaged in sex trafficking. Some serious stuff is ok I think, and yet the primary purpose of D and D is to have fun and screw around, but some real stuff (not too much) I think is ok too. My person preference is to make sure evil behavior is shown as evil behavior, true evil as represented by say Nazi Germany means people who are ok with murdering children, ****, blatant racism. If racism is shown as evil I am more comfortable with it, I like my evil villains to be obviously horrible. And I like to show that they have made an active choice to be evil.
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So I can tell already this is gonna open up a can of worms but let's see what happens.
Heads up: I'm a gay, cis, Christian, white guy from the Rocky Mountains. Take that as you will.
I run a lot of adventures. Most of mine take place in Waterdeep of the Forgotten Realms (arguably the most cosmopolitan, inclusive, and generally safe city in the world) or western Khorvaire of Eberron (including corrupt and ethnically fragmented city of Sharn, Droaam the country of recently stitched together monstrous tribes, and the Shadow Marches with a bunch of tribes and small druidic enclaves that kinda just keep to themselves). I implement racism as a part of worldbuilding.
If my players are in Waterdeep, they almost never encounter any sort of racism. Because that's just how Waterdeep is. If they spent energy worrying about whether you're human, elf, genasi, or tiefling, they'd never have energy left over to do anything. Except for one specific mention in the Dragon Heist book of a serial killer who specifically hates non-drow elves and half elves (ask me how Jarlaxle responded when he learned what one of his lieutenants was doing in his spare time, at least as presented in my campaign), there was never an ounce of racism. One time the two guys who are new to Waterdeep (spent most of their life in the Underdark) walk in to a blacksmith shop on Trollskull alley. They see a water genasi at the front desk working on something, and a fire genasi in the back. The one guy turns to the other and says "Wow, they got one of everything here," meaning something like "Wow I've never seen this much racial diversity before" but definitely it sounded worse. What he didn't know: the two genasi are a gay couple. The water genasi heard the comment and assumed he was talking about sexual orientation, not species. It ended up being funny and the characters (and the players!) suddenly learned a lot about Waterdavian culture - they refuse to be messed with. They won't necessarily become violent, but they definitely won't tolerate any sort of disrespectful behavior like that.
If my players are in Sharn, City of Towers, they're going to encounter lots of racism. Most of the Brelish natives hate warforged in general. That's very canonical. Most of the Brelish natives also hate Cyran refugees, regardless of their species. That's also very canonical. My players encounter anti-Warforged and anti-Cyran graffiti. If any of the characters are Warforged or Cyran, they may face more barriers in trying to get permissions from government offices or trying to purchase good and services from stores. The characters (and the players!) learn a lot about Sharn and Brelish culture - they're fraught with social problems like racism, government corruption, and the like.
So now the issue at hand.
Last night, my players were in a mid-sized town in the countryside of Cormyr (a country in the Forgotten Realms). One of the characters is a 13-year-old 6th-level tiefling urchin boy. He was chilling outside on the sidewalk while one of his party mates was inside a building talking with the local police about some problems the party just helped resolve. Some passersby spat at his feet and kept walking. The tiefling boy stood up for himself by throwing a rock at one of them. They turned around and attacked him. I gave three attackers the stats of commoners, but with the pack tactics trait. The rogue took care of them in about three rounds (longer than I expected - he had some unlucky rolls). The companion who was inside came out and slapped him silly for getting into public violence over that. Urchin boy ran and hid. The local police started looking for him, because he knocked out three local hooligans. Each of the other party members were suddenly involved. One congratulated him for standing up for himself and was impressed that he beat up 3 guys who were bigger than him. One guy counseled him to only use violence in self defense. One girl didn't say anything but just shared a granola bar with the kid.
Suddenly we, a bunch of white people, were seeing via a TTRPG what it might feel like for someone to be racist against you. And how it feels when you can get in trouble for standing up for yourself. Which wasn't the original intent. The original intent was to have a worldbuilding moment, not a learning moment. But then we started seeing "Oh. I kinda see what all this George Floyd protest stuff is about now."
So I want to know. It clearly depends on the group and what everyone is comfortable with. But. People who know more about social justice stuff than I do, is this, like, okay to do? To have racism and discrimination and other sorts of real world problems (poverty, illiteracy, etc.) in my DND games? It's never presented as 'good,' and sometimes explicitly punished. But sometimes people 'get away with it' (e.g. Sharn). Because I want the world to be real, and I know that in the real world, people can 'get away with it.' Along those lines, if I'm going to write something and sell it on the DMs Guild, is this type of thing okay to have as a minor part of an adventure? I mean, Dragon Heist has that racist serial killer, and Eberron: Rising from the Last War's adventure Forgotten Relics has a lot of racism against warforged. At least last night it seemed to be an effective way for us, a bunch of white people, to use group storytelling as a way to learn what it might be like for people who are different from us. What are y'all's thoughts on this?
If you are attempting to use racism to hurt someone IRL, that is not okay. (I am in no way accusing you of this.) If you are using racism to make a world more believable, and is presented in a mature and developed way, then use it in an adventure. However, I would suggest that you have someone else read the adventure before you publish it, and get their opinion on the content within.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I agree with JoeltheWalrus but with one addition: make sure that it's a theme your players are comfortable with before you start making it a theme in your games. That's for anyone who wants to put it into a game, not the OP in particular.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This is a game and it is supposed to be fun for everyone playing. Having said that, I’m running two campaigns where players are playing newer, and rare, races. The one that I home brewed is accepting of anyone on the frontier where survival is hard enough without worrying about the fact that the guy holding the shovel beside you is an Aarakocra but is less accepting in the more civilized areas where survival is easier. I was up front about the differences and why when I created the campaign so the players who picked the more rare races knew in advance what they would face, both good and bad.
It’s working for me and it’s a ton of fun for everyone. The party just did something very heroic and I’m looking forward to seeing how they react to being greeted as heroes instead of strangers when they’re recognized. Bards are great for spreading stories!
Professional computer geek
Pretty much anything works with friends of course. If you wrote a module that is "hey look at me I'm writing about racism in my game, but its cool, we are against it !" Probably wouldn't publish well.
There is a difference between promoting racism and talking about racism. D&D is a collaborate art form with the DM in charge. I see no problem with involving racism as long as it is presented as evil.
One more thing: don't use racism in your game just to make it seem more serious or edgy. There should be an actual reason for it to exist, not "I want my game to be more adult."
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Depending on the environment, racism can be an issue. My current campaign has a Dwarf/Elf war in deep simmer.
There is nothing wrong with glossing over it. However, it is possible to make a world feel more real if the people react appropriately to something or someone they find strange.
If your starter village and the neighboring towns only have humans, the starter village will probably be fine with any of the PC races. But the neighboring towns might express unease when a Tiefling, a Goblin, and a Tabaxi show up. BUT this can be a great RP moment.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
This has been very helpful feedback, thank you everyone!
Fear of different races in D&D has much more grounding than in real life, I think as long as its done with thought and not a clutch than tensions between groups (or individuals) can add to the story or feel of an area.
Off the main topic, I love the reactions your players had to their little Tiefling kicking butt, they sound like a lovely group.
I disagree. The reason you think that is so is because the you are accepting the stated 'thought' as fact. Basically, you are accepting as 'fact' that Orcs are more violent and stupider than humans. You (a human) may choose to play Orcs that way, but how is that any different than a Japanese racist role-playing a Chinese person with whatever inferior qualities they desire?
The game is fictional and as such there can be NO 'grounding' of the game. Everything comes from the mind of a human being so any racial prejudices against certain races also come from the mind of a human being.
Racism exist both in the minds of humans in the real world and in games created the minds of humans. Justifying it in ANY context should not be done. Nothing wrong with putting it into a game, but you should recognize it as no less evil in the game as out of it.
#NotAllOrcs
For many if not most players, they play RPGs to escape the stresses of real life, and so might not be inclined to play a game focused on real world issues.
That being said, racism most certainly exists in fantasy worlds. Just look at how elves and dwarves regard each other for a well known example. Hell, I ran a campaign once where one of the locations the party visited had a war between orcs and high elves, and so the players naturally, out of habit, went to assist the high elves. Except they learned later on that the Orcs were essentially fighting for survival. The high elves, having grown very tired of the endless raiding, became determined to wipe out every single orc on the continent, including females and offspring, and even then started extending this to all non-elven races. This in turn caused all the non-elven races, including the orcs, to band together to rebel against the elven authority. In the end, the 'n*zi' elves were defeated by the party leading a small force through a secret tunnel right into the elven capital to defeat a fallen and mad paladin general.
I rather enjoyed that chapter as it broke player bias. But would I keep that theme throughout an entire campaign? No. It's a sensitive subject and can get preachy fast if all the players encounter are sessions focused on racism game after game. I don't recommend making it a focal point. I also strongly recommend refraining from using the words 'social justice' to describe a campaign setting. Due to the truly toxic cancel culture that has erupted in the last few years, people have become very leery of that term.
Just remember people, that in a game world with more or less immortal elves, wizards hurling fireballs and flying dragons there is, quite literally, no reason why you would *have to* include racism.
Yeah, that's completely incorrect. Take Giants and Dragons, it is stated VERY well that they do not like each other and each feels the other in inferior. There are a lot of other conflicts in different regions of the game between different tribes, races, and species. A lawful good life cleric will absolutely have an issue with a Lich, as he should. Conflict is a major part of the game and saying that every race and creature would get along unless a human intervenes and creates a prejudice is just not correct. Now when it comes to orcs and humans, I have always felt that their feelings toward each other were kind of mirrors. They both hate each other for the same reasons, neither of which were correct.
You have completely and entirely missed both my point and SwiftSign's claim. I am not claiming that Giants and Dragons like each other or think they are equal. Swift and I admit that. He is saying that their racism may be 'well grounded' and I say it is no better 'grounded' than real life racism.
Swiftsign is saying that because the game designer's declared X race to be 'evil', it is not 'prejudiced' for other races to hate them and kill them on sight. He and you appear to believe that prejudice only 'counts' if the person is WRONG about the race. I claim that prejudice 'counts' and is itself an evil act even if your beliefs about a race are correct.
What you and Swiftsign appear to think is EXACTLY the same thing that humans racists believe. For example, if you asked Hitler, he would (unintentionally ironically) say that the Jews were bent on world domination and therefore can ethically be rounded up and killed. This inherent belief in the 'truth' of their inherent evil is how he justifies his horrific prejudice. The fact that Jews were not bent on world domination and were mainly bent on surviving does not matter.
Prejudice is all about thinking that someone is inferior or evil as a general quality. I can realize that chimpanzees are stronger and more violent than a human being without declaring them evil and treating them all as 'inferior' to dogs. But merely believing that chimpanzees are not 'inferior' does NOT mean I am stupid enough to keep one as a pet. I recognize that dogs are social creatures that are less violent and better pets WITHOUT thinking of them as 'better' than chimpanzees.
Take your specific example of a Lawful good life cleric having an issue with Lichs. Uhm, who says? The cleric? Yes, that is prejudiced. They are prejudging lichs based on what other liches have done. In my campaign (and in the 1993 published module The Ruins of Myth Drannor ) there are Good Lichs. Yeah, they are rare. So what. The idea itself that no member of a race - whether it is Orcs or Lichs - can possibly be Good, is the racism. Actions taken on that belief are always racist, regardless of what they are.
These are my favorite two responses yet.
Yes, they are a delightful group. :) One of my favorites I've ever run adventures for.
Still no.
Dragons are actually out to kill giants as well as the opposite, that's not racist as they are completely different types of beings. If a bear attacks and eats a fish, is it because the bear is racist against salmon? It's survival of the fittest and in D&D there are beings that want to destroy other beings, that's just the way it is. The game would be really damn boring if everyone got along and hugged each other all day long and talked out their differences. Thankfully that is not the case and thankfully D&D is not racist. If you are a cleric and your deity has charged you with ridding the world of the undead (as your most basic cleric class features are geared toward that) it's not racist to kill a zombie or a lich. That's just insane.
Remember that all of the lore in the game is optional. Just because the Monster Manual says something about a particular creature does not make it immutable fact across all games: many settings don't follow the lore (Eberron being an example of a setting where neither orcs nor drow are always considered evil), and GMs are free to declare something's different if they want to- maybe dragons and giants get along really well, or Mind Flayers are a chaotic good race that like to spend their time stoned out of their gordes and listening to Grateful Dead albums. If you don't want to tackle racism issues in your world, you can freely choose not to implement them and provide other reasons for conflict.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's an interesting question. I agree with the idea that if you have doubts run it by some other people and see what they think. I finished a campaign where one of the characters was a drow cleric, she was awesome but I felt I needed to have some people who didn't like her or were rude to her as it was realistic, however it always made me cringe. I also had the character forced into a place with a group of Lovites (nasty evil cultists) who were engaged in sex trafficking. Some serious stuff is ok I think, and yet the primary purpose of D and D is to have fun and screw around, but some real stuff (not too much) I think is ok too. My person preference is to make sure evil behavior is shown as evil behavior, true evil as represented by say Nazi Germany means people who are ok with murdering children, ****, blatant racism. If racism is shown as evil I am more comfortable with it, I like my evil villains to be obviously horrible. And I like to show that they have made an active choice to be evil.