Pondering D&D, race, and violence

So I came across an interesting Twitter thread from Arcanist Press that caused me to think a bit. What it brings up over the length of a dozen tweets is not new, but takes on a bit more immediacy for me at present.

D&D has a race problem.

In @WIRED, @mjgault describes @Wizards_DnD's resistance to changing parts of #DnD lore & rules concerning #race.

They want to retain the game's legacy. Here's why that's a problem:

1/9#DnD5e #TTRPG #TTRPGshttps://t.co/F6fcVd4LJa

— Arcanist Press (@ArcanistPress) January 2, 2021

(The referenced WIRED article is here.)

As someone who’s recently taken back up D&D (and is looking to DM a game soon), this thread is a good reminder of some of the problematic issues in the game’s history that continue to haunt it to the present: racism and its interaction with systematic violence.

Working from the fantasy literature of folk like Tolkien and Howard, who baked racial tropes into their fantasy worlds (yes, they did, though the former did it with likely less intent and a more distant gentility than the latter), it’s way too easy to just throw “Other” races against our heroes (or burden them with “Other” stereotypes themselves) and then commit wanton bloodshed over it.

(Throwing in Half-orcs as a Player Character race doesn’t necessarily improve this: “Half-orcs’ … pigmentation, sloping foreheads, jutting jaws, prominent teeth, and towering builds make their … heritage plain for all to see” is, um, the sort of thing I expect to read white nationalism blog.)

And the Good vs. Evil trope (and its self-righteous assurance of any actions being justified in the fight for Our Side) creates synergies with that racism that lead to even worse ramifications.

“Some kobolds appear in the road and attack you.”

“Yay, we can kill them because they are evil! Which we know because they are clearly labeled as such in the Monster Manual, and also they look like monsters.”

That’s bad story-telling, as well as problematic ethics.

(It’s one thing to say, “Hey, we are being attacked by these people, so we need to defend ourselves.” It’s another thing to add, “But it’s okay, because they are evil and deserve to be killed, so no quarter offered, no prisoners taken.” It’s also one thing to say, “There’s been war with the orcs for generations here” and another to promote, “The only good orc is a dead orc” as a morally defensible position.)

The thread also touches on (under the disturbing Gygax link) the tangle with morality and killing that I just ran up against recently in-game (Lawful Good Paladins and the killing of prisoners). I get it that an intrinsic part of D&D is Killing The Bad Guys, but I personally need a bit more to keep from feeling like a Spree Killer with the Insane Priest whispering in my ear that  It’s Okay, They’re All Bad–Trust Me, I Speak for the Gods.

(We won’t even talk about the “Murder Hobo” tropes of “Hey, let’s raid this dungeon, kill everything, and take their wealth for our personal enrichment” types of scenarios.)

I also get it that D&D missions with a purpose (“You are sent by the king to deal with …” / “You hear rumors of villagers disappearing in the area of …” etc.) can create a violence-is-justified / take-no-prisoners situation. A commando team behind enemy lines (probably the closest analog to the typical Dungeon Crawlers With A Mission Other Than Lining Their Pockets) faces some moral decisions (which they should probably internally settle before the mission starts) that normal front-line soldiers don’t.

That said, trying to dress a necessary evil as a good is … not good.

I’m not saying that every D&D character should be suffering from PTSD and wake up every night in their bedrolls, screaming over what they had to do to that Drow village — but “Okay, we questioned him, now cut his throat” should not be an undisturbing proposition, either. I also understand that when I’m playing D&D as such, I’m looking at a dopamine shot of victory, not seeking a deep, philosophical debate before each encounter. But just as I would cavil at a game that rewarded me for raping all the opposition, or commit systematic genocide against the racially different folk living in the next valley over, I think there’s at least some room for nuance in considering the in-game justification for killing all the opposition, or treating other races as sub-human, intrinsically evil monsters that deserve to be wiped out. I think human history demonstrates how those attitudes, unchallenged and unconsidered, don’t lead to heroic results.

All that said, I don’t have any grand solutions, other than discussing the matter, and efforts from game fans to offer up alternatives (as Arcana Press says they do) to supplement some minor changes from D&D’s publisher itself. But as I go through the module I plan to DM, I do intend to consider what sort of tropes — social and ethical — I’m being handed, and consider whether there’s something I can do in this instance to make them a bit less problematic, at least for my own conscience.