You guys, D&D might be a little racist. Just…just a little. Just a little. And not against any real people. It’s all fictional races. There’s nobody getting oppressed. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s not fine. Because this is not an isolated thing. D&D just an especially egregious example of
a thing that happens across fiction, especially in fantasy, but also it's an epidemic in sci-fi. And it’s bad writing. It’s lazy. It’s not interesting. It’s probably not great for real life society. It’s just not good. So let’s talk about it. First off, let’s read an example of a race
done well, also straight from the D&D player's handbook. Which, that’s interesting, because it proves
they know how to do it. They can write good races. They just didn’t, for most of their races. Here’s what it says. This is from the human section on page 29. Quote: There is no typical human. Hmm. Now paraphrasing: it says humans can be large
or small, dark or pale, with all kinds of hairdos. Humans can have traits from other fantasy
races splashed in. It flat out says, they have more cultural
variety than other races, different from region to region. But of course we need specifics. This is a game. It can’t just say, “do whatever”. So then it gives some specific examples of
regions and cultures and ethnic groups, with plenty of interesting specifics. Oh. What a deep, complex, well written race you
can pick. It’s almost as if this passage was written
by a human. Now let’s contrast that with elves. Elves, it says, each live for hundreds of
years in these small secluded villages in the woods, rarely meeting outsiders. Boy what fertile ground for variety. It seems like every village would develop
its own culture. If they’re all so isolated elves must be
even more varied than humans. Nope. There’s three kinds: high, wood, dark. But actually they’re almost all the same. They all like magic, poetry, and nature. They all have this prideful aloofness. They use the same weapons, the same tactics,
the same names. These elves are clearly inspired by the Tolkein
elves, but gone are the many languages and sublanguages of the great linguist. Instead all elves uniformly speak the same
language called – now wait let me check my notes here oh – elvish. I mean come on. Do they also live in elfland, and worship
the elvic gods? Oh wait, plus…plus they speak common: the
language that is clearly the human language, but it’s not called “humish” is it? And why do they all speak common? Well because the humans need to talk to them,
and you can’t expect the humans to all speak elvish. That would be crazy. Sigh. Oh and there are half elves too. What’s the other half? Well human, obviously. The default people. The normal people. Who speak the default language, but have infinite
internal complexity (apparently unlike the elves). Like, just for a moment, let’s imagine what
it would feel like if humans were described the way elves are. Humans love to drink ale and forge at their
blacksmithies. They are generally skilled at the crossbow
and farming. They are a belligerent and hearty folk, quick
to anger, but quick to laugh. Also they are mostly named John. Like, do you see the problem? This reads like it was written by someone
who met one elf, and couldn’t remember the name of the elf’s language. And I want to stress, this is not just D&D. This is across the board when it comes to
fiction. The main characters and player characters
always have all this depth and complexity, each coming from a different culture. But not completely conforming to that cultures. But everyone else, the aliens, the orcs, the
ghosts, the house elves, the vampires, whatever there is: they all have exactly one culture. Usually science fiction is better than fantasy
at thinking things through, but aliens are among the worst offenders. If you’ve met one, you’ve met them all. They’re nearly always a monolith. Maybe you got the sexy alien race, the warrior
alien race. Speaking of, a moment ago when I was listing
fantasy races, I was going to mention the klingons, ah but then I realized I covered
them already when I said aliens and orcs. Not great. No good. But wait, what if that’s just how it’s
supposed to be. Like maybe the point is that variety is exclusively
a human trait. And sure, if that’s explicit, then fine. If you come out and say, the aliens are a
hivemind, they literally can’t think for themselves. Or they’re so wildly different from humans
that they don’t have culture. Like the concept of culture doesn’t apply
them. Fine fine fine. If you’ve got that going on then you get
a pass. But for the rest, I’m not buying it. Oh they’re supposed to be all the same. The story you wrote is that there’s no story. That’s not a cool reveal, that’s lazy
backpedaling. Plus it’s contradicted by the other super
common trope: the rebel. Because there’s always one who’s different
from the rest. Just one, or maybe two. Coincidentally, it’s always the one who
joins the party, or at least interacts the most with the main characters. It’s Dobby. It’s Spock and Seven Of Nine. It’s half the cast from Dragon Age and Mass
Effect. It’s every time someone plays an elf or
an orc in D&D. They’re always exceptions, not like the
rest of their race. And these are beloved characters all, I’m
not saying the characters are bad, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. True story, I wrote this part of the rant,
and then afterward discovered there’s a special paragraph about this exactly in the
elf section of the player’s handbook. It literally says “Were it not for one renowned
exception, the race of drow would be universally reviled”. And then it goes on to talk about the one
individual. Like, I mean at least they know their genre. And why is this? Why is there always one? Because as a player, or an author, or game
master, the minute you start trying to play one of these races, or write them in a compelling
way, you immediately realize that of course your character needs some variety. They need to be able to think for themselves
a little bit. They can’t just be a cookie cutter stamp
of the rest. The instant you start trying to think of them
as a person, instead of a race, you instinctively realize the racial boundaries are too tight. And if you thought just a little harder, you
might realize that if such a two dimensional oversimplified concept of race can’t even
contain a single compelling character, if the first thing you do when you try to imagine
yourself in that space is buck against boundaries, then maybe that’s actually how everyone
would be. You know, to some degree. Maybe that’s just how people are. And that’s all I’m saying. When you’re making a fantasy race, try just
try to imagine what that race might be like if there were some people in it. Just just some. You know, extra credit, if the cultures change
over time. But, you know, baby steps. And look it’s not that hard. We’ll do it together, right now: make a
new fantasy race without being quite so close minded. Say there’s a people with wings. Not bird people, not angel people, those ideas
are fine but they have a lot of baggage, and we’re trying to make something new. This is just people, plus they have wings,
and can fly. What would they call themselves? Wingfolk perhaps? No! No that’s what a groundling might name them. We’re not going to write them like some
ignorant dirt walker. People don’t name themselves from others’
point of view. No to them, they’re the normal ones and
everybody else has a disability: poor ground crawlers, with their petty lowborn squabbles. They’re not to be blamed, of course. It’s not their fault they were born barely
high enough to see over their own noses. We should be humbly grateful we have such
an elevated perspective, such vision. There we go. That’s the name. They’re the Visians. Now where do the Visians live? Atop high mountains perhaps? No. I mean, well sure some of them live up there. The crazy ones. But it takes just as much energy to fly up
a mountain as it does to hike up it. More, actually. It’s like sprinting up a mountain, but you
can’t stop to rest or you’ll fall and lose progress. Also it sucks on top of mountains. It’s cold. There’s no food. No for the same reasons as everyone else,
Visians live in houses, perhaps on hilltops, but always near food and water. It takes a lot of calories to power those
wings, so food is very important. The entrances to their homes are usually on
the roof of course, so mud people like us might need to bring a ladder if they want
to visit. Visians don’t keep ladders around, why would
they? They can travel easily, so geographically,
they live everywhere, scattered too far and wide for any centralized country or empire. Culturally, though, it’s more of a melting
pot situation. Visians generally adopt some culture from
the local groundfolk where they live, but they also travel a lot, maybe even migrate
twice a year. That gives them a chance to catch up with
other Visians and form a semi-unified racial identity. Of course there’s clans and trends and religions
and movements, all changing constantly with time and distance. Basically, you can’t tell what a Visian
is going to be like just by knowing they are a Visian. Obviously. But what about their language? Do they all speak “Visian”. No no no. Races are not languages. Does everyone in Asia speak Asian? That’s how it sounds when a fantasy race
is also a language. Ah, but what if we really want a common language? It’s so convenient for games. No problem. Just don’t make it about race. Look we’ll make one right now, not just
for the Visians, but the whole world they live in. So Visians can fly, right, that means they’re
probably pretty good messengers. Then who better to set up the first world
wide postal service. Maybe it’s even a cult, this secretive intense
subgroup among the Visians who worship the mail. It makes sense to me that such a tight knit
but far flung group would develop a special language of their own: spoken and written,
because they’re running the postal service. Of course they’re going to use it themselves. Let’s call this secret postal language Scriptic. But of course useful secrets rarely stay secret. And nothing gets people’s attention like
knowing there’s something they don’t know. So the language gets leaked. People defect from the cult, and they teach
others. And well shucks. A secret language isn’t useful for its secrets
once it’s leaked. But it might be useful for something else. So eventually the cult just lets it be the
official language of the mail, which is super useful because now people can send letters
anywhere in the world confident that someone there will speak and read Scriptic. World communication explodes. The postal service is more popular than ever. They accrue wealth and power. More time passes. Scriptic becomes the official language of
diplomacy, and then ultimately the most common language of the world. Bam: common language achieved, with a much
cooler name and backstory than “Common”. Steal as much of that as you like by the way. That got more ranty than I expected. If you like my stuff, check out my board game. It’s called minions and madness. You play as an evil genius, trying to squeeze
your poor minions for all they’re worth. It’s got strategy, negotiation, and a lot
of dark humor. Sadly the minions rarely live long enough
to develop much cultural diversity. Also, I’ve got a discord channel. It’s been a little dead for a while, but
now is back to life thanks to several of ya’ll who have been showing up. So thank you. If you want to talk to me about stories or
games or whatever, that’s where you can reach me best. Link below. And until next time, Toodles.
