One of the Dragontalk podcast episodes dug into Tasha’s and race... and it was very much the usual take. That DnD wants to tell stories with identifiable iconic races. Dwarves are tough, resilient, and dour. Elves are thin and tall and stuck up. I get that. https://twitter.com/ArcanistPress/status/1354116899311919104

But that is the root of the problem: typecasting groups of peoples. It becomes more apparent when we talk about drow, or we read how the Dragonlance novels describe gully dwarves.

It’s a stance that says: ‘Your character can be anything, but the people they come from? They are iconic. They have known characteristics. Drow? Let me tell you what all but a few are like.’

And it also applies to geographic lineages. The Vistani. The Thayans. This is a lot like saying “The Colombians. The Italians.” DnD isn’t yet ready to address that. But I think it’s moving toward where it will have to do so.

And that’s because we the audience have begun to address that in our own lives. When I moved to the US, it was rare to meet a kid that didn’t just assume I was a drug dealer. It was a lot of fun for them to make that assumption. They felt smart, “knowing me” before they met me.

But it’s gotten a lot better. I have fewer and fewer exchanges like that. And DnD will inexorably be drawn to improve its stance.

Those of us who write, we can work on this as well. Because we provide the sandbox in which people play. We get to decide if we use stereotypes and how we explain them.

For all the talk about orcs, I’m still not satisfied with how they appear in recent adventures. And it’s at the core a hard and dissatisfying task. It’s hard work. And if we get orcs down, what about goblins? And so on.

Because it’s hard to do what we actually need to do: address the history and motives of peoples. Orcs aren’t genetically evil and murderous. Their history, their story, deserves to be told well, so we grasp its context.

A difficult task, especially in these challenging days, is to avoid just sweeping our hand across humanity or all humanoids and blaming them. It’s a popular thing to do.

“Humanity is to blame for orcs.” Or, “Institutions have failed.” Hollywood loves that message. Despair with us, for all is pain! But that’s the same problem shifted to humans or everyone. Humans create beauty and fight for causes all the time. Nuance is needed.

The story of what orcs have been through doesn’t have to be told at the grand level every time. It can be told at the graspable adventure level. These orcs. These elves. These dwarves. Here is the why of it. What will you do, PC, in the face of that?

And, in that spirit, as authors we can also show the the strength and value of institutions/organizations. The orc council, the elven inner circle... these are integral to progress. Because institutions help correct problems long-term.

I had a comment come up that I, personally, think is understandable. Its something like, “look, I just want to roll dice and play. I want evil orcs and grumpy dwarves.” I totally get that. BUT, we are responsible for understanding our entertainment impacts.

We can look at old Mickey Mouse cartoons that are now painfully racist. And yet, many people back then thought it was just humor. It was on TV! Times change. We improve. We look upon entertainment’s impacts.

DnD can be just dice rolled. It can be a board game. But it seldom is. It’s usually telling a story that’s evocative of our world, and places us in it in a fantasy pseudo version of us. Because of that, how we portray the world matters.

Building a better DnD is part of how we are making a better real world. Especially because DnD is solace for so many, across all types of people. And that takes us to privilege.

When we have the fortune of privilege, we can handle a lot. But when we carry burdens society puts upon us, then the game is never just rolling dice. It can’t be that for us. So it greatly matters if the world is fair. Only then can we just roll dice and relax.

I want to add that I want to welcome people to discuss these issues when I write about them. If you comment on a comment, please be respectful even if that viewpoint is one with which you disagree. We are all learning.