Fantasy Racism
Despite the message in today’s comic, I happen to think that fantasy racism is actually a good thing. Like we talked about back in Cultural Exchange, elf-dwarf sniping is a tradition in high fantasy. In my home game for example, the resident dwarf invented the term “bunny” as a slur for elves (they’ve got long ears, eat vegetables, etc.). There was much giggling at the table. One of my favorite podcasts features a module called Battle of Bloodmarch Hill, and that module contains a lot of human-orc conflict. When the PCs prevent an innocent half-orc from getting lynched, one of the defeated vigilantes shouts at the half-orc PC, “I hate your music and everything!” (in context, a pretty clear allusion to racially charged sentiments like, “I like all kinds of music, except rap.”). Again, there was much giggling at the table.
It’s the giggling that’s most interesting for me. Why the laughter? Why do we find terms like knife-ear (elves), fail dragon (dragonborn), or stunty (dwarves) amusing? I’ve got a theory here, and it draws on history’s greatest psionicist.
Sigmund Freud has quite a bit to say on the subject of humor. This wiki article has a (very) brief explanation, but for our purposes this is the important bit: laughter happens “when the conscious allows the expression of thoughts that society usually suppresses or forbids.” Out in the real world, racism is taboo. It is not talked about outside the realms of earnest culture studies seminars and fraught political message boards (looking at you, Uncle Phil’s Facebook page). By transferring all that angst to the safe space of the RPG (you aren’t going to risk offending the ethnically orcish guy at the table after all) you can explore these topics unburdened by real world repercussions. The laughter comes out because it’s a release of psychic energy: you’re venting all that societal angst, and you can begin to explore themes of race and prejudice without “real” cultural hangups getting in the way. For my money, this seems like a healthy sort of activity.
What about the rest of you guys? Have you ever called those dirty savage humanoids “greenskins” or referred to humans as “dire halflings?” Did it ever elicit a laugh? Do you think that bears any relation to real world racism?
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Well I certainly find those things funny. Then again the fantasy racism is actually more humorous than irl racist words and phrases. Knife-ears is a description of something for example. The irl equivalent is either just some word which only means “offensive word for this kind of person” or is a REALLY offensive way to refer to anything. Nothing is particularly offensive about knives or ears on the other hand. So part of the humor is… actual regular humor since the fantasy racism is being played for laughs from the ground up.
So…I tried to look up humorous descriptive derogatory terms. I stumbled across this site:
http://www.rsdb.org/
That’s an uncomfortably extensive website. However, I will say that I find it amusing that (apparently) some Asian cultures throw “big nose” as a slur when referring to westerners because of their larger noses.
Anywho, I’m not sure that I agree with the idea that “fantasy racism is being played for laughs from the ground up.” Not 100% anyway. When you insult somebody, it’s an attempt to exert power. To belittle them and to raise one’s own position in comparison. No doubt that “knife-ears” is a funny phrase. But when your elven rogue misses the pit trap and the dwarf responds with, “Nice going, knife-ears,” I think it’s fair to say that there are some power dynamics at play within the party.
In one game I’m in we’re fighting some mindflayers who, being mindflayers, are an incredible pain to deal with. My character, an 8 charisma cn gnome wizard who insists he isn’t racist because he hates everyone equally, has taken to referring to them as “squid-faces.” Of course he’s also quite rude to everyone else, insisting on referring to the cleric’s deity as her sugar daddy and our new githzerai allies as “cone heads.”
One thing I find interesting though is that in D&D, unlike the real world, racism is much quite justified. Take mindflayers for example: all of them are not only much smarter than most other races, but are all evil mind-controlling xenophobes that rely on eating sentient brains and implanting sentients with a mind-consuming parasite to reproduce. Racism against them is pretty darn justified. Same goes for beholders, neogi, red dragons, aboleths, redcaps, etc.
It’s also true to a lesser extent of player races as well. While not so easy to say “all humans are evil” like monstrous races and exceptions can be built, on average elves simply are smarter than orcs, who simply are stronger than elves. It would be racist for an elf to say something like that, but also completely accurate because, again unlike reality, different races in D&D really are physically better and worse at some things than other races.
The flipside is that sexism isn’t easy to justify in D&D at all, since in modern editions at least there are no factually no statistical differences between males and females; they truly are equal to each other. Curiously I haven’t found any stats for treating pregnant females any differently than non-pregnant ones, which I prefer to read as pregnancy being way easier there than in our world. “Morning sickness? I don’t have time for morning sickness when there’s a vampire lord’s fortress to infiltrate. You should let me scout ahead too; as the rogue I’m by far the stealthiest and most agile person here. No, being pregnant doesn’t change that. Why would it?”
You’ve never seen rules for pregnancy? Hoo boy. Well here’s some awful homebrew for you:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pregnancy_(3.5e_Disease)
More serious answer: Is racism against brain-eating collectives justified? What about the “good ones” that get away from the awful hive mind (read: culture) of their elder brain and begin thinking for themselves? There are still metaphors at play here that have a bearing on the real world.
They listed pregnancy under diseases?! Acts under a suggestion spell when looking at their kid?!? Ugh, that is just painful to read. Now I’m really glad I’ve never seen official pregnancy rules.
Regarding racism against monsters, here’s my personal opinion. In some settings like Eberron, it’s made emphatic and quite clear that monsters are not inherently good or evil; each is an individual and can have a different alignment, maybe influenced by culture but not by race. In most though, like Faerun or Greyhawk, some monsters simply are evil and you can murderhobo through them without much guilt.
To your second point, Illithids are a particularly interesting example because, in my opinion at least, they aren’t truly good or evil because of their Blue and Orange morality. Unlike your friendly neighborhood vampire who might feel guilty about having to live on blood, I have yet to see an illithid anywhere show any regret aboit eating brains because, unlike vampires who were once humanoids and are relatable, illithids simply aren’t. It’s not that they are malicious, their minds are simply so alien and so much stronger than others that their whole worldview is completely different. Even the ones who get away from their collectives usually do so to selfishly pursue undeath, becoming an alhoon or something. They see no more wrong in eating a species they are as far above as we are above sheep than we see in, well, eating sheep. Though now I really want to have a game with Illithid PETA in it (perhaps IfEMCS: Illithids for Ethical Mental Consumption Selection).
IMHO, most D&D worlds (again, with some exceptions) are built so that humanoids and some monstrous humanoids (read: the races PCs are most likely to be) have much more moral agency and are much more, well, mentally relatable than other monsters. Asking whether it is just to hate goblins or about good drow that broke from their CE society are quite valid metaphors with real world bearing. On the other hand, the inherently and literally made of evil devils and demons or utterly alien and incomprehensible aberrations and fey don’t really have a good real world analogy by their very nature.
Just my 2 cp.
Thanks for taking the time, Bill. That’s a well-informed response.
I certainly don’t dwell on this stuff in my own games, but the English Lit. guy in me finds it fascinating. Tolkien struggled with the humanity of his disposable enemies (orcs), and that struggle seems to follow orcs through all of their iterations.
Neat article on the subject over here: http://www.academia.edu/448342/Let_Us_Now_Praise_Famous_Orcs
Every group i’ve been in has been a bit shy about the fantasy racism. I even picked a Half-Elf in a campaign setting that had a LOT of racial animosity between Elves and other civilized races, knowing and acknowledging that this would open my character up to a lot of fantasy racism, but my DM *never* made a point of it. One of the other PCs did though, and frankly I think his character added the most enjoyment in the game for me. Our rivalry was constant and ugly, but we eventually gained respect for one another.
I was hoping somebody would bring up this point, because I think that is exactly what these games do in terms of racial animosity. In game after game, we tell the story of a group of disparate weirdos and outcasts who come together, put aside their differences, and become a band of fast friends. I think that narrative is baked into the hobby, which is a pretty pro-social exercise IMHO.
Our half-elf druid can’t seem to help but be accidentally racist to our drow warlock. Its become a meme in and of itself, and now any time he says something the rest of the group immediately turn it into a racial thing, which at this point is still funny every time.
Ima need examples. 😀
Oh, I have a fun anecdote on this one too.
First 5e game, the one where my War Cleric and company escaped from a gladiatorial arena, our Elven Wizard foolishly rushed into melee combat with some Goblins. Not quite dropping them with Burning Hands and leaving himself surrounded, he goes down in a rush of goblin steel.
Forgetting that we hadn’t introduced our characters, but knowing the character’s name myself, I called out “Theren!”
The halfling Rogue turns toward me. “How do you know his name is Theren?”
Me: “I, uhh… he looks like a Theren.”
Rogue: “Looks like a Theren, does he? Just looks like the most common Elven name in the book? Racist.”
Me: *Sheepishly heals Wizard in silence.*
And that’s how my War Cleric became an accidental racist.
Now see, this is why I think that tabletop has a bearing on real world issues. This joke works because you metaphorically shouted, “Hey, Tyrone!” at a black dude. It’s a fantasy world, but the game is played by real people. That mess comes through in game.
How did your relationship to Theren develop from there? I’m guessing “we eventually gained respect for one another…?”
Nah, Theren was as eternally chill as his player. He found it amusing after he woke up. I still didn’t live it down for half the campaign.
Often, it actually isn’t funny. If you threaten my sister (which I did so much growing up), she will giggle. She still does it to this day. It’s not that she finds you unintimidating, or doesn’t think you’ll do it. It’s that she’s offended, hurt, wants to cry, run away, or any number of other negative reactions. She doesn’t LIKE thos options, though. She doesn’t want to cry. She won’t run, she likes where she is. She isn’t about to fight you though. So instead, she takes this turmoil of emotion, and attempts to stifle it with an opposite one. So she laughs, right in your intimidating face.
I would do this too. Instead of being sad, which I didn’t like, I would find myself with anger problems. My depressive friend doesn’t like being angry at others, so he turns it on himself, and is instead sad.
Racism is one of those things that has two reactions, much like exceedingly vulgar humor. You can either laugh, or be offended. No one wants to be that guy who can’t take a joke, so they laugh, even if they secretly find it super offensive. Just a thought.
Sounds like you’ve given this some thought. I certainly don’t want to be the guy at the table that turns dwarven short jokes into actually-offensive material. Do you find that you mostly ignore the baked-in racial aspects of the game (e.g. nobody trusts tieflings or half-orcs)?
Me and my group often explore it. I had one player in particular who wanted to play a half-orc. I had let my party know ahead of time that my world would explore themes I considered adult, such as sex, violence, and racism. He was new to the game but not the group, and agreed with the terms of my campaign. In real life, he is a white middle class male. In the game, however, he learned that it really sucks to be mocked, belittled, or sometimes paid less JUST because of race. However he came to me after about our fourth session and told me two things.
Firstly, he thanked me for allowing him to experience something he had never really thought about, let alone felt. He had a whole new view on what he termed “friendly joking”.
Second, the part I find interesting, is that he actually became disttusting of people who *weren’t* racist towards him. He said that both in and out of character he had this gut feeling they were just “playing nice”, something I’ve never even considered as a byproduct of casual racism.
That is a really cool story. Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
That being said, my personal favorites have all been directed at a particularly annoying gnomeish druid. Her player was a complete “that guy” and it was one of our GSF2’s way of passive-aggressively getting back at him. Ironically, the in-game banter eventually led to some barely-disguised-as-in-character confessions from both players, and helped them to deal with it and grow as people. This is why we play, right? 🙂
I’ve posted this on the Pathfinder_RPG subreddit before, and on some other places, but a few years ago I was playing a Quarter-Dragon (half-dragon template minus a few things). The Dragon grandparent in particular was a chromatic-dragon-hunter of the Copper variety. So being raised by a dragon that hates the evil-variants, you end up being very prejudiced towards the Chromatics.
So anyway, I was a Quarter-Copper on my mom’s side, and one of the other PCs was playing a Dragon Rider, and despite the protests of others at the table (for fear of conflict), he chose to ride a Black Dragon. Just meeting this guy, I didn’t like him, since he willingly worked with a Chromatic Dragon.
So anyway, this Dragon Rider hosts a breakfast along with the mayor (the mayor is strong-armed into this arrangement). He invites the rest of the party to it so we can get public backing for our quest. When my character arrived at the breakfast, he hadn’t met the Dragon Rider, he’d just heard about the guy from another party member.
At the first look at the Black Dragon, the Quarter-Dragon refused the meal and made a big deal about it. The Dragon Rider doesn’t quite follow why I don’t want to go with his plan. So I announce (and this is verbatim what I said) “I won’t work with one of those damned colored dragons”.
The rest of the table had mixed responses to that statement, but overall it was a well-liked statement, and it made sense that having been raised by a Copper Dragon, I’d have some racial slurs to use against the Chromatics. My character also absolutely loved Metallic Dragons, and the one Half-Gold dragon we met, I treated like a goddess.
The “colored dragon” thing became a running joke at the table, and it only went over well with the nay-sayers after I called a Blue Dragon a “colored dragon” as well.
So the humor from the initial joke stems from the frisson of seeing a real-world racist phrase (one of those damned coloreds!) enter into a fantasy setting. Interesting stuff!
How did you wind up handling it? Aside from the running gag, did your PC ever learn to get along with the black dragon or its rider?
Nah, it was a large group of 9 of us. It ended up splitting into two groups of 5 and 4. The Dragon Rider was a bit too conniving and he ended up eating his own words. With the mayor’s funding came some Mayoral oversight. They were stuck dealing with politics and rebellion-hunting.
Me and my group decided to ditch that city for a while and go into the wilderness to research this “Tainted lands” kinda thing going on. There were dragons and evil druids all over the place. It was great.
To be honest, the whole racial slur against Chromatic Dragons makes sense in a world where an entire race is hard-coded to be evil. The GM of that game later went on to make an insult for the Chromatics to throw at the Metallics (“Tarnish” and “dull”).
Good stuff. I think it’s especially interesting that you guys came up with “tarnish.” That was actually a term from the old “Dragon’s Revisited” book describing what happens when metallic dragons turn evil and begins to transform into their chromatic counterpart.
I’m in a game with some folks I don’t know in real life for once over Skype, as a Tengu Inquisitor. He joined with a Tiefling Paladin, Gnome Rogue/Wizard, Drow Swashbuckler, and Dwarven Cleric. Welcome to the realms of the humans, here’s your Monster Party. We’re mostly Good aligned, except for myself who’s LN and the Drow is CN.
If you’ve played the module, you might recognize it. If you haven’t, I won’t spoil things.
I joined a couple levels in, so there was some party interplay before I got there, but the dwarf cleric was minding an insane dwarf convict who enjoyed dissection. He seemed to be defending him fairly often, when he wandered off and tried to play stabsies with things that ought not be stabsied.
Conversely, he (the dwarf character, not the player) had -real- problems with the “Darkie” swashbuckler. All the things that could be interpreted as an evil act were focused on…’Let’s look in some of these abandoned houses for survivors or problems that might be trying to flank us’ became ‘Let’s loot this place in the chaos,’ flirting up with all the lady NPCs he saw became making an adulterous play for married women (though it’s still somewhat scoundrel behavior and the paladin did slap his swashbuckling wrist) and so on. My tengu, being the least humanoid out of all the options, had a sitdown with the cleric IC to discuss why he was seeing all out of sorts while the rest of the party only had mild ‘oh, you…’ reactions, or at most ‘Hey, knock it off, we’re trying to be serious for a second.’
Eventually, the player realized that his dwarf was just way too entrenched in the racism to offer a chance for party cohesion, so he had his cleric (and the insanity-cured though still criminal) convict leave for the mountain strongholds at the break of dawn without telling the rest of the party, honorably without taking anything that wasn’t his due, and the rest of us got issued a new Ora-din to help share our paladin’s workload of Das Smitins.
The drow player was -super- concerned that he’d driven the dwarf out, it took us about a week of him expressing this concern before we got the point across that it wasn’t the fault of the drow that the dwarf felt the way he did. It’s an interesting piece of mental fat to chew on.
Must have been a heavy session. A game that features a character so entrenched in the racism that they can’t even function within the group sounds more like survival horror than high fantasy. I’m picturing “of the dead” movies with squabling protagonists and a high body count. That sort of thing could be interesting in the right campaign, but no so much in a typical D&D game. Good on the player for recognizing an un-fun dynamic and getting out of it.
I’ve been STing Exalted off and on for close to 7 years now, and obviously the Celestial Exalted are hunted down by the Scarlet Empire and the Wyld Hunt, but I think the time were prejudice was shown the strongest was when the PCs went to Yu-Shan.
Why you ask? Well, one of the PCs had recently died and the player’s new character was a Dragon-Blooded, and those are /not/ popular in Heaven for a variety of reason, though chief among them is “You are less than a beggar child because at least the kid could potentially turn into a Solar”.
I was quite harsh, I guess, but I felt that was in line with how Gods would act around some Terrestrial Exalt. Oh well, maybe that is why the PC eventually went and played Russian Roulette with a God (and lost…).
Ouch. Even with the Bronze Faction calling the shots?
Yeah, even if the Bronze Faction were in power, it wouldn’t stop Gods from being assholes in private to a lowly Terrestrial Exalt with the temerity to run around in Heaven.
I’m actually waiting for a NPC to call one of the Elves or 1/2 Elves in our party “knife-ear”. Just so I can turn around & go, “HEY! You don’t use that word! That’s OUR word!”
My buddy the human bard was just reincarnated as a half-elf. Dude loves playing the race card now. Cultural appropriating so-and-so….
It’s even better for Tieflings.
“What is up, my fellow demon-spawns? I certainly do love the fresh beats of Spin Master B. Alor, don’t you?”
I can’t say I’ve experienced it in the game, but Fighter up there is about to be kicked in the head by Monk for insulting her boyfriend.
Monk? You mean Handbook monk? He’s a gnome, not a half-orc!
Sorry, I meant my Monk. The half-elf. Her boyfriend is my half-orc.
Rap music sucks for reals, though.
PokeRap would beg to differ. 😛
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMk8wuw7nek
Fantasy racism is interesting in my group, because of who we are. We’re a pretty liberal bunch, all going to a liberal arts college. There’s also a lot of racial diversity in our group. Fantasy racism exists, and sometimes plays into humor. But we definitely take it as seriously as any other part of role play. A dwarf may say knife-ear casually, but the elf takes it as a major insult. Same when the dragonborn calls the mammalian races “hairless monkeys”
Does it tend to play out between PCs, or is it a racially-charged environment full of antagonistic NPCs that the party has to work through?
A kind of low-key racism was featured in the backstory for a character I created (for a game which, sadly, fell apart before it began). She was the half-elven, illegitimate daughter of the king of a predominantly human kingdom.
The king, the king’s wife, and my character’s mother were all good friends, and part of a retired adventuring party. The king had fallen in love with the elf, but was aware that his kingdom would never accept a half-elven heir. The human he married instead was asexual, but really wanted to see her two friends be able get together, and so proposed that she take the official place as queen and bear the needed heirs, while allowing the king and the elf to keep a not-very-well hidden relationship on the side.
The king was popular and well-liked, so the fact that the elf he and the queen were so chummy with had kids with a suspicious resemblance to him was something that the people tended to gloss over. It worked out well for the queen, too, as she discovered that she greatly enjoyed motherhood.
Neat relationship drama. Also nice to see ace characters working their way into a line of succession. That’s some interesting territory to explore.