I am currently DM'ing a campaign for the very first time with my friends. Right now, they are in a side-quest involving working as guards for a feudal manor that has a bunch of issues like tension between the tenants and the Lord due to over-taxation and mysterious deaths. Anyway, the way that I describe the NPC's my players interact with tends not to include skin color. I just describe their age, posture, what they're wearing, their body-language, etc. However, one of my players recently jokingly roasted me over not having any PoC NPC's in my campaign so far. I have not really made an emphasis on race, other than indicating different fantasy races like whether or not the NPC's are human, but I have indicated that this setting is based on a stereotypical European manor.
I want to create a compelling story/adventure for my players that has a diverse group of NPC's to interact with but I don't want to be disrespectful. I don't want to shoe-horn in PoC characters or engage in tokenism, but I don't want to act like non-white people don't exist in my world either. I especially don't want to act like being non-white makes a character some sort of "other" being. I was thinking the best thing I could do is just include their skin color in their description when my players first meet them like I would with their gender or age. Idk though, I suppose part of the reason why it seems odd to me is because fantasy worlds work on different terms regarding race (i.e. skin color differences between different humans isn't a big deal like a human vs. a halfling). But then at the same time I think to myself that, as a woman, I would feel pretty weird/unseen if a male DM didn't include any female NPC's. Either way, I want to be a good writer and a good DM while still being respectful.
TL;DR : I'm a white DM who wants to RP non-white NPC's in a respectful way. I don't want them to be defined by their skin-color but I don't want to be colorblind in my world-building/writing either. Advice?
Honestly, if you have described the environment as a stereotypical European manor, there is absolutely no reason for you to include PoCs in the setting. Why would you, in a fantasy game, submit to social pressure like this? While not dismissing local claims of discrimination in some areas of the world, the amount of révisionnism imposed by some minorities is absolutely ridiculous.
IMHO it would be much better to mention other areas of the world where there are PoCs in majority and allow the characters to visit them. I did that for example when running ToA in Chult and the PoC in my players was absolutely happy with this. And the same when we ran the Jade Emperor campaign in Pathfinder with "Asian" characters.
And especially if the player that started this did this jokingly. Are you sure that you are not treating too seriously something that was only a joke?
in any case, I will never run a vikings game with PoC in there anymore that I would run a Japanese game with white characters. The silly overreaction of WotC about races is already to much when you are a public company IMHO, but it's way way too much when running a simple game with friends.
Edit: I just wanted to add that, in my book, you are doing an excellent job of not insisting on ethnic characteristics in your NPCs. That being said, on official settings there are things like this when an NPC is described as Chultan or Thayan in the FR. This is not even fantastical racism, there is not even one bit of discrimination and if players cannot live with this, I would be extremely disappointed in such friends.
Yeah, my player did say it jokingly but I still want to include a storyline with a diverse set of experiences. I like what you said about including different areas of the world inspired by different cultures that they can explore. That way it's not this awkward thing of me saying something like "yeah this NPC is black" and then just leaving it at that lol. Besides, I never said any of my current NPC's were white, I just described the setting and culture as being inspired by medieval Europe.
First off screw the colorblind concerns. Morals and outlook are formed by culture and in the life lessons learned by the individual (the stories told and the songs sung). So people of a given society, social structure, and religious background will all have the same basic outlook. Are there differences between casts and socioeconomic situations of course. That doesn't mean it has to reflect current times. So any RP for non-standard NPCs only needs to conform to the culture they originate from. So just keep in mind for that a Chinese people won't speak in the same manner that a Greek people speak and that the poor will not speak in the same fashion that the wealthy speak with.
You may need to remind people that the current location is a stereotypical European either medieval or renaissance period. So people are going to have the same general appearance and it's going to take a diplomatic mission from a faraway country or well-traveled seaport for them to find more physical and racial flavor.
And for your joker PC remind them that it takes a rather large area for human cultures deviate. And that the real changes are found between the different races of the world instead of the difference is between sub races/cultures.
If you've never mentioned the race or skin color of any of your npcs, how would they know you haven't included any PoC?
Lol that was my first thought when the session was over! It was one of those moments where I was like "ugh, why didn't I say that in response right away??" It's alright though, I know my player was just joking with me; I just tend to analyze things a lot haha
lol! this reminds me of George R.R. Martin's response to an interviewer asking him how he wrote women so well. Martin said, "You know I've always considered women to be people." There is sort of an ironic twist that can come with unsuccessfully trying to include diversity where it just ends up watering people down and defining them by their different identities to the point where they aren't even discernibly individuals with their own compelling set of characteristics.
First off screw the colorblind concerns. Morals and outlook are formed by culture and in the life lessons learned by the individual (the stories told and the songs sung). So people of a given society, social structure, and religious background will all have the same basic outlook. Are there differences between casts and socioeconomic situations of course. That doesn't mean it has to reflect current times. So any RP for non-standard NPCs only needs to conform to the culture they originate from. So just keep in mind for that a Chinese people won't speak in the same manner that a Greek people speak and that the poor will not speak in the same fashion that the wealthy speak with.
You may need to remind people that the current location is a stereotypical European either medieval or renaissance period. So people are going to have the same general appearance and it's going to take a diplomatic mission from a faraway country or well-traveled seaport for them to find more physical and racial flavor.
And for your joker PC remind them that it takes a rather large area for human cultures deviate. And that the real changes are found between the different races of the world instead of the difference is between sub races/cultures.
Yeah I have fore sure focused on socio-economic differences as well as religion. I think it is also a thing where my player might have forgotten that this is just a side-quest and that there is an entire world out there to explore with all kinds of people lol. Also, it is definitely a thing of me over-analyzing and worrying too much about a joke.
Honestly, if you have described the environment as a stereotypical European manor, there is absolutely no reason for you to include PoCs in the setting.
Medieval Europe was actually a very ethnically diverse place, with people not only from different regions in Europe traveling around, but also people from more exotic lands like Egypt, Asia Minor, and sometimes even India The idea that it wasn't comes mostly from Hollywood's strong tendency toward monochrome casting in movies throughout the 20th Century.
Beyond that, the Forgotten Realms and other D&D campaign settings are not Earth and have even more ethnic diversity in most regions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
people here are acting like there weren't any poc in europe which is blatantly wrong, lol. i think honestly just make them like any other human character and do what you said; if you're going to include their skin color in descriptions though, id include it for your white characters too, otherwise its really othering. if you treat them like any other person without relying on stereotypes, its probably not necessary to go deep into human race dynamics because like you said, its d&d and as far as we know, colorism isnt really a thing in the d&d world among humans.
Honestly, if you have described the environment as a stereotypical European manor, there is absolutely no reason for you to include PoCs in the setting.
Medieval Europe was actually a very ethnically diverse place, with people not only from different regions in Europe traveling around, but also people from more exotic lands like Egypt, Asia Minor, and sometimes even India The idea that it wasn't comes mostly from Hollywood's strong tendency toward monochrome casting in movies throughout the 20th Century.
Beyond that, the Forgotten Realms and other D&D campaign settings are not Earth and have even more ethnic diversity in most regions.
I like the idea of including a lot of trade in my world! That way the players can be easily exposed to different characters with different backgrounds.
Maybe have a villain who is black, very cool and a bad ass that slaps the party around. Like in Hobbs & Shaw.
I'll be honest, I don't think I feel confident in my ability to write and role play a black villain. I have a feeling if I did, I would have had to already introduce other black characters who weren't villainous just so it wouldn't come off strange. I think Hobbs and Shaw is a bit different because the black character was being played by a black actor and one of the protagonists is Samoan (versus me, a white woman, playing a black villain while most of the protagonists are white). I haven't seen the movie though, so I'm not fully informed within this context.
people here are acting like there weren't any poc in europe which is blatantly wrong, lol. i think honestly just make them like any other human character and do what you said; if you're going to include their skin color in descriptions though, id include it for your white characters too, otherwise its really othering. if you treat them like any other person without relying on stereotypes, its probably not necessary to go deep into human race dynamics because like you said, its d&d and as far as we know, colorism isnt really a thing in the d&d world among humans.
Thanks for your advice! I will definitely include descriptions for white characters too if I choose include skin color descriptions.
Thanks everybody for all the advice! I found an informative article online (https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/2/14/may-i-play-a-character-from-another-race) regarding this topic as well. I think I feel more comfortable with how I will DM in the future now, but I'll continue to refine my skills and make sure the experiences I create for my players are positive ones! :)
Don't define them by being part of something different. Treat them like they belong there. Don't segregate. Throw diversity even within your different groups but emphasize their being a person rather than making it an issue about race.
Even though I'll get flamed for saying it, don't treat all dark-skinned races and subraces as evil. D&D has a nasty habit of painting the Dark skinned races and subraces evil while the light skinned subraces are typically good. Elf, good! Drow, Evil. Dwarves, good! Duergar, evil. Orcs, evil. Half orcs can be good as long as they don't take after those orcs! Even WotC is ditching these tropes and if you really want to make an ethnically inclusive game, you should too.
If you've never mentioned the race or skin color of any of your npcs, how would they know you haven't included any PoC?
This is a good point. What is there to say that doesn't include PoC? In our world there has always been trading going on which meant that Europe was far from monochrome. There's a wonderful painting from the 1500s called the King's Fountain showing the multitude of different people living in Lisbon at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Fountain In a fantasy setting there is also no reason why trade routes and exploration hasn't created a society where people of all different kinds of origin live pretty much all over the world.
First off screw the colorblind concerns. Morals and outlook are formed by culture and in the life lessons learned by the individual (the stories told and the songs sung). So people of a given society, social structure, and religious background will all have the same basic outlook. Are there differences between casts and socioeconomic situations of course. That doesn't mean it has to reflect current times. So any RP for non-standard NPCs only needs to conform to the culture they originate from. So just keep in mind for that a Chinese people won't speak in the same manner that a Greek people speak and that the poor will not speak in the same fashion that the wealthy speak with.
You may need to remind people that the current location is a stereotypical European either medieval or renaissance period. So people are going to have the same general appearance and it's going to take a diplomatic mission from a faraway country or well-traveled seaport for them to find more physical and racial flavor.
And for your joker PC remind them that it takes a rather large area for human cultures deviate. And that the real changes are found between the different races of the world instead of the difference is between sub races/cultures.
Well, you're kind of wrong. First of all, unless the setting actually includes a country called "China" there would be no "Chinese" people. In a fantasy setting there is nothing that prevents people of all different kinds of origins living in the same area even if the society itself is influenced by some part of medieval Europe. Especially in a game where instant world-wide teleportation is available in many different forms.
Step 1. don't give a shit about that kind of stuff to begin with Step 2. make a character's personality, interest, traits as you normally would Step 3. describe the character however you want
People are too hung up on shallow bullshit that doesn't matter. By putting the emphasize on race, religion you get really crappy characters. Just look at all the books and movies that have been released in the past few years. They're horrible in every way. Not because of the representation. But because that was the main priority. And not paying attention to the stuff that actually matters. Such as creating a good story, good and interesting characters.... and after you done those two things. You can slap on any color, religion, race or whatever on the created world and characters. That is how you do representation properly.
**** america and their childish dumb idiocies in general though.
On top of that. I'd rather just focus on looking into cultures and take elements of those. If my adventure goes to some jungle it is nice to look at the old Aztec's and incorporate elements of their society in the game. Build a village with similar way of doing stuff without saying what it is based on. Have the players run around in it and done.
Also color in D&D is meaningless. Elves alone have multiple types of skin color. Wood Elves are bronze/brownish, Dwarves can be anywhere from pale/bronze/golden. Characters in D&D have all types of colors embedded in their own culture and race to begin with.
Just a reminder that discussions of political opinions and/or debates are considered not a topic suitable for these forums, per the site and forum rules.
The OP has requested help on portraying BIPOC characters in a respectful and tactful way and the focus of this thread should be on helping them answer that question, not debating real world issues surrounding or tangental to that.
Don't define them by being part of something different. Treat them like they belong there. Don't segregate. Throw diversity even within your different groups but emphasize their being a person rather than making it an issue about race.
Even though I'll get flamed for saying it, don't treat all dark-skinned races and subraces as evil. D&D has a nasty habit of painting the Dark skinned races and subraces evil while the light skinned subraces are typically good. Elf, good! Drow, Evil. Dwarves, good! Duergar, evil. Orcs, evil. Half orcs can be good as long as they don't take after those orcs! Even WotC is ditching these tropes and if you really want to make an ethnically inclusive game, you should too.
I have always found it not very fun to paint entire races/subraces as evil or good tbh (unless maybe we are talking about infernal vs. celestial beings which tend to exist as embodiments of evil vs. good like a god might). My first character was a Drow who experienced a shift from chaotic neutral to chaotic good. Just because a certain race is normally associated with an evil god like Lolth doesn't mean they all have to be evil! The good thing about D&D is we get to create our worlds; we don't have to do everything exactly like Gygax did lol.
Thanks for your input!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey everyone,I am currently DM'ing a campaign for the very first time with my friends. Right now, they are in a side-quest involving working as guards for a feudal manor that has a bunch of issues like tension between the tenants and the Lord due to over-taxation and mysterious deaths. Anyway, the way that I describe the NPC's my players interact with tends not to include skin color. I just describe their age, posture, what they're wearing, their body-language, etc. However, one of my players recently jokingly roasted me over not having any PoC NPC's in my campaign so far. I have not really made an emphasis on race, other than indicating different fantasy races like whether or not the NPC's are human, but I have indicated that this setting is based on a stereotypical European manor.
I want to create a compelling story/adventure for my players that has a diverse group of NPC's to interact with but I don't want to be disrespectful. I don't want to shoe-horn in PoC characters or engage in tokenism, but I don't want to act like non-white people don't exist in my world either. I especially don't want to act like being non-white makes a character some sort of "other" being. I was thinking the best thing I could do is just include their skin color in their description when my players first meet them like I would with their gender or age. Idk though, I suppose part of the reason why it seems odd to me is because fantasy worlds work on different terms regarding race (i.e. skin color differences between different humans isn't a big deal like a human vs. a halfling). But then at the same time I think to myself that, as a woman, I would feel pretty weird/unseen if a male DM didn't include any female NPC's. Either way, I want to be a good writer and a good DM while still being respectful.
TL;DR : I'm a white DM who wants to RP non-white NPC's in a respectful way. I don't want them to be defined by their skin-color but I don't want to be colorblind in my world-building/writing either. Advice?
Thanks and please be respectful if you reply,
Lady of Shahawt
If you've never mentioned the race or skin color of any of your npcs, how would they know you haven't included any PoC?
Yeah, my player did say it jokingly but I still want to include a storyline with a diverse set of experiences. I like what you said about including different areas of the world inspired by different cultures that they can explore. That way it's not this awkward thing of me saying something like "yeah this NPC is black" and then just leaving it at that lol. Besides, I never said any of my current NPC's were white, I just described the setting and culture as being inspired by medieval Europe.
Thanks for your perspective!
First off screw the colorblind concerns. Morals and outlook are formed by culture and in the life lessons learned by the individual (the stories told and the songs sung). So people of a given society, social structure, and religious background will all have the same basic outlook. Are there differences between casts and socioeconomic situations of course. That doesn't mean it has to reflect current times. So any RP for non-standard NPCs only needs to conform to the culture they originate from. So just keep in mind for that a Chinese people won't speak in the same manner that a Greek people speak and that the poor will not speak in the same fashion that the wealthy speak with.
You may need to remind people that the current location is a stereotypical European either medieval or renaissance period. So people are going to have the same general appearance and it's going to take a diplomatic mission from a faraway country or well-traveled seaport for them to find more physical and racial flavor.
And for your joker PC remind them that it takes a rather large area for human cultures deviate. And that the real changes are found between the different races of the world instead of the difference is between sub races/cultures.
Lol that was my first thought when the session was over! It was one of those moments where I was like "ugh, why didn't I say that in response right away??" It's alright though, I know my player was just joking with me; I just tend to analyze things a lot haha
Write them as
whiteminoritypeople.lol! this reminds me of George R.R. Martin's response to an interviewer asking him how he wrote women so well. Martin said, "You know I've always considered women to be people." There is sort of an ironic twist that can come with unsuccessfully trying to include diversity where it just ends up watering people down and defining them by their different identities to the point where they aren't even discernibly individuals with their own compelling set of characteristics.
Yeah I have fore sure focused on socio-economic differences as well as religion. I think it is also a thing where my player might have forgotten that this is just a side-quest and that there is an entire world out there to explore with all kinds of people lol. Also, it is definitely a thing of me over-analyzing and worrying too much about a joke.
Medieval Europe was actually a very ethnically diverse place, with people not only from different regions in Europe traveling around, but also people from more exotic lands like Egypt, Asia Minor, and sometimes even India The idea that it wasn't comes mostly from Hollywood's strong tendency toward monochrome casting in movies throughout the 20th Century.
Beyond that, the Forgotten Realms and other D&D campaign settings are not Earth and have even more ethnic diversity in most regions.
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.
Maybe have a villain who is black, very cool and a bad ass that slaps the party around. Like in Hobbs & Shaw.
people here are acting like there weren't any poc in europe which is blatantly wrong, lol. i think honestly just make them like any other human character and do what you said; if you're going to include their skin color in descriptions though, id include it for your white characters too, otherwise its really othering. if you treat them like any other person without relying on stereotypes, its probably not necessary to go deep into human race dynamics because like you said, its d&d and as far as we know, colorism isnt really a thing in the d&d world among humans.
I like the idea of including a lot of trade in my world! That way the players can be easily exposed to different characters with different backgrounds.
Thanks for your input!
I'll be honest, I don't think I feel confident in my ability to write and role play a black villain. I have a feeling if I did, I would have had to already introduce other black characters who weren't villainous just so it wouldn't come off strange. I think Hobbs and Shaw is a bit different because the black character was being played by a black actor and one of the protagonists is Samoan (versus me, a white woman, playing a black villain while most of the protagonists are white). I haven't seen the movie though, so I'm not fully informed within this context.
Thanks for your input!
Thanks for your advice! I will definitely include descriptions for white characters too if I choose include skin color descriptions.
Thanks everybody for all the advice! I found an informative article online (https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/2/14/may-i-play-a-character-from-another-race) regarding this topic as well. I think I feel more comfortable with how I will DM in the future now, but I'll continue to refine my skills and make sure the experiences I create for my players are positive ones! :)
Don't define them by being part of something different. Treat them like they belong there. Don't segregate. Throw diversity even within your different groups but emphasize their being a person rather than making it an issue about race.
Even though I'll get flamed for saying it, don't treat all dark-skinned races and subraces as evil. D&D has a nasty habit of painting the Dark skinned races and subraces evil while the light skinned subraces are typically good. Elf, good! Drow, Evil. Dwarves, good! Duergar, evil. Orcs, evil. Half orcs can be good as long as they don't take after those orcs! Even WotC is ditching these tropes and if you really want to make an ethnically inclusive game, you should too.
This is a good point. What is there to say that doesn't include PoC? In our world there has always been trading going on which meant that Europe was far from monochrome. There's a wonderful painting from the 1500s called the King's Fountain showing the multitude of different people living in Lisbon at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Fountain
In a fantasy setting there is also no reason why trade routes and exploration hasn't created a society where people of all different kinds of origin live pretty much all over the world.
Well, you're kind of wrong. First of all, unless the setting actually includes a country called "China" there would be no "Chinese" people. In a fantasy setting there is nothing that prevents people of all different kinds of origins living in the same area even if the society itself is influenced by some part of medieval Europe. Especially in a game where instant world-wide teleportation is available in many different forms.
Step 1. don't give a shit about that kind of stuff to begin with
Step 2. make a character's personality, interest, traits as you normally would
Step 3. describe the character however you want
People are too hung up on shallow bullshit that doesn't matter. By putting the emphasize on race, religion you get really crappy characters. Just look at all the books and movies that have been released in the past few years. They're horrible in every way. Not because of the representation. But because that was the main priority. And not paying attention to the stuff that actually matters. Such as creating a good story, good and interesting characters.... and after you done those two things. You can slap on any color, religion, race or whatever on the created world and characters. That is how you do representation properly.
**** america and their childish dumb idiocies in general though.
On top of that. I'd rather just focus on looking into cultures and take elements of those. If my adventure goes to some jungle it is nice to look at the old Aztec's and incorporate elements of their society in the game. Build a village with similar way of doing stuff without saying what it is based on. Have the players run around in it and done.
Also color in D&D is meaningless. Elves alone have multiple types of skin color. Wood Elves are bronze/brownish, Dwarves can be anywhere from pale/bronze/golden. Characters in D&D have all types of colors embedded in their own culture and race to begin with.
Just a reminder that discussions of political opinions and/or debates are considered not a topic suitable for these forums, per the site and forum rules.
The OP has requested help on portraying BIPOC characters in a respectful and tactful way and the focus of this thread should be on helping them answer that question, not debating real world issues surrounding or tangental to that.
Thanks all
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I have always found it not very fun to paint entire races/subraces as evil or good tbh (unless maybe we are talking about infernal vs. celestial beings which tend to exist as embodiments of evil vs. good like a god might). My first character was a Drow who experienced a shift from chaotic neutral to chaotic good. Just because a certain race is normally associated with an evil god like Lolth doesn't mean they all have to be evil! The good thing about D&D is we get to create our worlds; we don't have to do everything exactly like Gygax did lol.
Thanks for your input!