The D&D thread

Arden said:

I must have missed where Tolkien "admitted" orcs were a racist creation. Anyone care to point me in the direction of the admission, or is this Chris person just full of shit?

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well... she/her, they/them put her goddamn pronouns in her twitter handle... so what do YOU think?

WoTC fucked up when they started admitting to wrong doing, they should have just ignored the "climate" and kept making shit.

I think a big chunk of it is that wotc see themselves as allies of the cause. And they are, sort of. DND has always been progressive in certain ways, like gender not having any impact on gameplay. A female can be just as competent of a fighter as a guy can.

So in theory, they are on the same side. They just haven't figured out that those people don't want things to be better. They just want you to suffer.

Regime said:

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Where is he getting that from? idk. If you read this: Racism in Tolkien's Works - Tolkien Gateway it says what I had already understood, that he "warned against allegory"

I've read stuff about them, that I agree with, that question the way Tolkien handled orcs, specifically digging into the idea that orcs are born of tortured, mutulated elves but are used in the books and movies as fodder for the heroes to tear through without considering the moral issues at play. An unquestionable "evil", an "other", that the heroes can genocide without worry about the social impacts of their heroics. If you dig into that you find, or I found, that Tolkien didn't write all this shit at the same time. It's an evolution, one in which he reworked orcs a few times, so clearly he had an issue with them as well. And it's made it easy for untold numbers of authors and other creators to make the same mistake. You have to give Tolkien some leeway, he was kind of inventing a genre.

But, it isn't racist, just bad writing. and it isn't "woke" to expand on the culture and make them more full and rich, especially as games like this expand and more things become possible. I played in middle school so what, 3rd edition? I don't even remember. And just the list of classes and races has expanded since then so much as to be unrecognizable. Sure, flesh our orcs and give them more culture, don't pull an Aunt Jemima and do dumb changes no one asked for to appease racism, which you literally cannot do.

First of all, to my knowledge, Tolkien certainly never "admitted" that orcs were a "racist" creation. I haven't read every word the guy ever wrote though, so if I'm wrong, I challenge anyone to provide proof. Otherwise, let's assume no such thing ever happened.

My understanding is that Tolkien acknowledged that he based the idea of certain aspects of orcs on the Mongols (among other groups): a tribal, largely nomadic and warlike people who were greatly feared in their time. He basically took certain elements of an historical "real world" culture of humans and applied them to a "make believe" fantasy culture of humanoids... In other words, he did what any author does when creating a fictional race of humanoids.

Now, if you want to claim that basing certain aspects of make-believe humanoid cultures on certain aspects of real historical human cultures is axiomatically "racist," fine-- but by that rationale, every single make-believe culture is inherently racist, because they are ALL at least partially based on the creator's understanding of human culture. Even the most bizarre, alien humanoid race in a SciFi world is going to be based in some way on author's understanding of human culture.

I think that's a very, very ridiculous concept of the idea of "racism," and one that would quickly lead to the elimination of any fictional work if taken to its natural conclusion. But I also think that most of those who buy into the whole "racist orcs" theory (at least the smart ones) would argue, "Hey, it's not just that Tolkien attributed elements of a real-world culture to a fantasy group of humanoids, it's that he drew a clear parallel between a real-world culture and an evil fantasy culture." The implication here being that orcs are simply a thinly-veiled disguise for the "Mongols of Middle Earth." And orcs, as we all know, are dim-witted, lazy, and irredeemably evil creatures.

This is where nuance comes in, so it get's a little tricky (because people on either side of any issue seem to struggle with nuance these days). Suppose Tolkien had said, "Sure, orcs and Mongols are the exact same thing." Well, at that point I'm afraid Mr. Tolkien is being quite the racist. Necessarily so, because orcs are (by his own definition) INHERENTLY evil, lazy, stupid creatures. The word "inherently" is super important here, because it's not just that orc culture tends to emphasize laziness, savagery, and stupidity, it's that orcs were intentionally created that way. Those pejoratives (lazy, savage, stupid), aren't just descriptions of typical orc culture, they are irrevocable attributes of the orc race itself. Taking a baby orc and putting it in a Skinner box to try and create a refined artist would never work (according to everything we know about Tolkien-lore), because a member of the orc "race" would be incapable of denying it's naturally barbaric and stupid nature to embrace refinement.

So, sure, if Tolkien believed the same thing about Mongols- that they were created by some deity to be a naturally and irredeemably savage, violent, barbaric race of people- and he created orcs based on those beliefs about Mongols, well, then I think you have a pretty good argument that orcs are a racist creation, because you'd have a pretty good argument that Tolkien himself was racist. But I have yet to see any evidence that Tolkien believed that about the Mongols or any other race of people. Taking certain recognizable aspects of an historical culture (any historical culture) and applying those aspects to a fantasy culture in and of itself isn't close to crossing the "racism" bridge in my book, no matter how evil the fantasy culture is.

So unless you can demonstrate to me that Tolkien believed those arguably negative qualities of the Mongol people to be inherent elements of the Mongol "race" rather than simply hallmarks of the Mongol "culture," well then I'm going to have to decline to buy into the whole "racist orc" theory.

Derail....

My group is trying Foundry VTT and it's really good. If anyone is looking to play virtually and has a group it's way more modern than Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20.

Ambient light, in game music and sound, connects to DnDBeyond, browser based.

Dashel said:

Derail....

My group is trying Foundry VTT and it's really good. If anyone is looking to play virtually and has a group it's way more modern than Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20.

Ambient light, in game music and sound, connects to DnDBeyond, browser based.

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Can you easily play games that aren't DnD in it? Also is it free and readily available?

Arden said:

Can you easily play games that aren't DnD in it? Also is it free and readily available?

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50 USD for the GM, players can connect for free.

You can also download community made modules with Foundry VTT.

My homebrew group uses the Plutonium Mod. It has pretty much all of the 5e books in it and the quality of life changes it adds are... insane.

As for what other games/editions it supports... Lots.

Arden said:

Can you easily play games that aren't DnD in it? Also is it free and readily available?

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Yeah depends on which game but Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk etc

It's a bit more work than the FG/Roll 20 to set up but the ceiling is a lot higher.

Dashel said:

Yeah depends on which game but Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk etc

Game Systems | Foundry Virtual Tabletop

Browse available Packages which can be installed in Foundry Virtual Tabletop

foundryvtt.com

It's a bit more work than the FG/Roll 20 to set up but the ceiling is a lot higher.

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I've been using roll20 to test a game that I've designed. I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to do that with Foundry?

I haven't used Roll20 myself, just saw the videos. Foundry is like a more advanced Roll 20 but has had way less time to implement everything. I'd say Roll20 is the more fleshed out platform on much older architecture if that makes sense.
If you want to "home brew" off DnD you could, but developing a whole new system I don't know if it can do that. Can jump on their discord and ask there if Roll 20 isn't doing it for you.

Dashel said:

I haven't used Roll20 myself, just saw the videos. Foundry is like a more advanced Roll 20 but has had way less time to implement everything. I'd say Roll20 is the more fleshed out platform on much older architecture if that makes sense.
If you want to "home brew" off DnD you could, but developing a whole new system I don't know if it can do that. Can jump on their discord and ask there if Roll 20 isn't doing it for you.

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Roll20 is sufficient, but if there was a better system out there I'm not wedded to it. I'll check if they have a trial period for Foundry. I'll be able to tell very quickly if it will work for a custom system

Yup definitely a free 2 week demo:

Locnar said:

Actually not true. If you look at the min/max allowed for stats in the players handbook, you will see across the board the females of the various races all have a lower maximum strength than their male counterparts.

Expect WotC to drop to their knees, beg forgiveness and start burning AD&D players handbooks in 3,2,1

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What edition is that? I don't think I've ever seen that