Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Anonymus Fluhre]

I just started playing games on roll20 and it really reminds me of years ago where you really only found games with old friends or your local game store. You usually start out with some pick up game with a random group and it's clear by the second session who you want to play with and who you don't. Those games tend to collapse on the weight of their own retards pretty quick, which is when you message the people you like and just start a game on your own.

I used to game on their site until they were hacked and took them months to tell people and months more tell people what was taken.

 

[Fictional Character]

I'm not gonna lie, this reminds me of the old days of trying to few new people and new groups. It sucked back then and it sucks now, but at least with the internet there's a good chance you'll find enough people whose sperging is agreeable.

That's true. My ultimate issue is something most people here won't have in that I'm from a small, non-English speaking country which skews the demographics a lot. Once you filter out the people who are only willing to play DnD and similar (and most of them aren't willing to play the old local DnD clone which, while janky as fuck in some regards, was incredibly inventive and made high-level characters figures of awe in a way I never saw anywhere else), 90% of the people that are left won't touch a system that doesn't have translated rules even if they understand English. Which I understand, because not everyone wants to deal with a foreign language in their leisure time, but it's still a disappointing barrier.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Same with Oriental Adventures, which was Wizard's attempt to sneak into the L5R market.

Oriental Adventures has been around since long before L5R.

So far my game has been going all right. They like their rule changes. The new girl is digging through everything like a kid in a candy store. Racialized ghettos? OK! Racist city guards? OK! Sexist fraternities and sororities? OK! Assholes with their own motives? OK! Anti-race bigoted political and street violence groups? YAY! Riots and firebombs and blockaded streets? YAY!

I mean, I flat out ripped off the Humanis from Shadowrun and plunked it down and she's fine with it.

We had already decided that the impetuous for the PC's heading out into the frontier from the City State would be the riots and instability. I'd prepared a little for the journey from the City State to the frontier (lots of hard tales, a couple nests of CR1 creatures to defeat/drive away), some allies to be made, and a crossroads to decide what kind of terrain they wanted to explore.

And now they don't want to leave the city. (My two long time players told me it's my fault for making the city so interesting)

I swear to fucking God, sometimes its EXACTLY like spending 3 days building a cat house and then watching the fucking cat sit in the box and eat packing peanuts.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Oriental Adventures has been around since long before L5R.

So far my game has been going all right. They like their rule changes. The new girl is digging through everything like a kid in a candy store. Racialized ghettos? OK! Racist city guards? OK! Sexist fraternities and sororities? OK! Assholes with their own motives? OK! Anti-race bigoted political and street violence groups? YAY! Riots and firebombs and blockaded streets? YAY!

I mean, I flat out ripped off the Humanis from Shadowrun and plunked it down and she's fine with it.

We had already decided that the impetuous for the PC's heading out into the frontier from the City State would be the riots and instability. I'd prepared a little for the journey from the City State to the frontier (lots of hard tales, a couple nests of CR1 creatures to defeat/drive away), some allies to be made, and a crossroads to decide what kind of terrain they wanted to explore.

And now they don't want to leave the city. (My two long time players told me it's my fault for making the city so interesting)

I swear to fucking God, sometimes its EXACTLY like spending 3 days building a cat house and then watching the fucking cat sit in the box and eat packing peanuts.

Oriental Adventure for AD&D was a different campaign setting than the one in 3,0 (It would be used for Kara-tur). Funny enough though, it had the same races and classes Even things like Honor was in the game, so the L5R game could have gotten their ideas from that book.

I wish I could get my girl into tabletop games. After all this time I can only get her into board games, miniature games and MtG. I've told her that AD&D is just miniature wargame rules with acting but nope, she ain't having none of that crazy shit.

I tend to give my player's "the box" first and tell them about all of these interesting things going on elsewhere elsewhere as time progresses. It works for my cats as I give them their beds later on when it just appears out of nowhere. I figured it would work with players.

That's true. My ultimate issue is something most people here won't have in that I'm from a small, non-English speaking country which skews the demographics a lot. Once you filter out the people who are only willing to play DnD and similar (and most of them aren't willing to play the old local DnD clone which, while janky as fuck in some regards, was incredibly inventive and made high-level characters figures of awe in a way I never saw anywhere else), 90% of the people that are left won't touch a system that doesn't have translated rules even if they understand English. Which I understand, because not everyone wants to deal with a foreign language in their leisure time, but it's still a disappointing barrier.

Sometimes, but I'm sure there's people like me out there that collect foreign language books just in case the book in their language is easier to understand than it is in English.

 

[Snekposter]

My GM is a very patient guy. Comes with the territory, he's been herding cats for close to 25 years now. The kind of player who goes "I'm just playing my character!" is one of the few things that stretch his patience to the breaking point. As he likes to say (usually shortly before kicking out a moron), being part of a RPG group is being part of a relationship. It's not a romantic relationship, it might not even be a friendship insofar as you don't have to know anything about the other players' lives beyond what snacks they like and what beer to bring. But it's a relationship nonetheless, and healthy, stable relationships are based on compromise. If the player can't compromise their "character" for the sake of not annoying everybody else at the table (including the GM), then they have no business being at the table in the first place.

Zany, silly or backstab-happy characters can be lots of fun to have at the table, but everybody involved has to be cool with it. Want to play a prankster? A character who gets on the other characters' nerves? Sure, talk to the GM, talk to the others. Not every prank needs to be described in detail or roleplayed (just like not every romantic conquest by the bard needs to be roleplayed by the increasingly uncomfortable-looking GM). A lot of it can and should just be left to those "the journey to meet Captain Balros in Darkwater Cove will take a couple of weeks' journey along a well-traveled road. What will you be doing every night when you stop at the inns and travel lodges along the way?" moments. Maybe roll stealth vs perception to see if the Dwarf Paladin notices the stopper on his flask if deepmountain whisky was coated in slippery oil before trying to pull it. That's it. Quick and simple. When the players are at the table and ready to roll dice, whatever happens at the table should be important to the plot or to the characters.

A prankster or a thief (or a womanizer) is defined just as much by what they do off-camera as they do on-camera, so to speak.

I've had a character that came, very very close to crossing over that line with the other players. I was also much less experienced with RPG stuff so trying to talk to the other players was only sort of helping. Autism is a major impediment to that sort of close-to-the-edge RP. Fortunately I managed to talk with the GM and help to get that sorted out. That and some in-character actions that showed he was more than just a two-dimensional ZANY ROGUE really saved my bacon.

Now, to make it less about me, a good way to set something like that up is to establish the character as an equal-opportunity asshole who nonetheless has some boundaries. Not just with the other player characters, but NPC's he won't fuck over because he doesn't have the brains of a kender, or he just realizes they're a poor subject. Nobody likes a prankster who's thinks its funny to steal a blind orphan's peg leg from him. Not unless you're playing an evil party, that is. On the other hand, stealing some shit from under the nose of an unreasonable taskmaster of a sergeant of the city watch everyone hates so he gets some of his own medicine is something everyone can laugh at, even said evil party.

 

[Seven Devil Wolf]

Oriental Adventures has been around since long before L5R.

So far my game has been going all right. They like their rule changes. The new girl is digging through everything like a kid in a candy store. Racialized ghettos? OK! Racist city guards? OK! Sexist fraternities and sororities? OK! Assholes with their own motives? OK! Anti-race bigoted political and street violence groups? YAY! Riots and firebombs and blockaded streets? YAY!

I mean, I flat out ripped off the Humanis from Shadowrun and plunked it down and she's fine with it.

We had already decided that the impetuous for the PC's heading out into the frontier from the City State would be the riots and instability. I'd prepared a little for the journey from the City State to the frontier (lots of hard tales, a couple nests of CR1 creatures to defeat/drive away), some allies to be made, and a crossroads to decide what kind of terrain they wanted to explore.

And now they don't want to leave the city. (My two long time players told me it's my fault for making the city so interesting)

I swear to fucking God, sometimes its EXACTLY like spending 3 days building a cat house and then watching the fucking cat sit in the box and eat packing peanuts.

Oriental Adventures as a concept was around before L5R. But 3.0 Oriental Adventures was straight up Rokugan - it references the world, the races and even the prestige classes are taken straight from the game (Kakita Duelist, Lion Bushi, etc.)

It was part of Wizards trying to sneak into the 7th Sea and L5R market, which both used the same system and were quite popular at the time.

Oriental Adventure for AD&D was a different campaign setting than the one in 3,0 (It would be used for Kara-tur). Funny enough though, it had the same races and classes Even things like Honor was in the game, so the L5R game could have gotten their ideas from that book.

I wish I could get my girl into tabletop games. After all this time I can only get her into board games, miniature games and MtG. I've told her that AD&D is just miniature wargame rules with acting but nope, she ain't having none of that crazy shit.

I tend to give my player's "the box" first and tell them about all of these interesting things going on elsewhere elsewhere as time progresses. It works for my cats as I give them their beds later on when it just appears out of nowhere. I figured it would work with players.

Sometimes, but I'm sure there's people like me out there that collect foreign language books just in case the book in their language is easier to understand than it is in English.

L5R predates Oriental Adventures by four years. The reason it had the same races and concepts is because they were literally just making a d20 conversion of most of the game series. They did the same with Swashbuckler Adventures, which was a d20 conversion of 7th Sea, AEG's other Roll and Keep game which was quite popular at the time.

 

[Techpriest]

Oriental Adventures as a concept was around before L5R. But 3.0 Oriental Adventures was straight up Rokugan - it references the world, the races and even the prestige classes are taken straight from the game (Kakita Duelist, Lion Bushi, etc.)

It was part of Wizards trying to sneak into the 7th Sea and L5R market, which both used the same system and were quite popular at the time.

L5R predates Oriental Adventures by four years. The reason it had the same races and concepts is because they were literally just making a d20 conversion of most of the game series. They did the same with Swashbuckler Adventures, which was a d20 conversion of 7th Sea, AEG's other Roll and Keep game which was quite popular at the time.

Oriental Adventures 3.0 was a tie in. It is set in Rokugan. Straight up, no dancing around, no playing around. Its also the best way to play a fighter - the Samurai class is not terrible and allows you to swap weapons on the fly and make them magic weapons. Even going Samurai 1, then Fighter 19 is better than straight up Fighter 20. The older Oriental Adventures? I don't know 100%.

EDIT:

Also if you play a Kender, what you should steal should be only unimportant things from the party - "I borrowed a spoon," or a canteen. Things that while minorly annoying and very kender like, aren't going to fuck someone over. That's the only acceptable way to play a Kender. Ever.

 

[Seven Devil Wolf]

Oriental Adventures 3.0 was a tie in. It is set in Rokugan. Straight up, no dancing around, no playing around. Its also the best way to play a fighter - the Samurai class is not terrible and allows you to swap weapons on the fly and make them magic weapons. Even going Samurai 1, then Fighter 19 is better than straight up Fighter 20. The older Oriental Adventures? I don't know 100%.

EDIT:

Also if you play a Kender, what you should steal should be only unimportant things from the party - "I borrowed a spoon," or a canteen. Things that while minorly annoying and very kender like, aren't going to fuck someone over. That's the only acceptable way to play a Kender. Ever.

Yeah, older Oriental Adventures was a mish-mash general Asian world, like Tian-Xia in Pathfinder. And a lot of the classes in it were redonk, yeah; I remember Kakita Duelist specifically was used a lot in CharOp and major exploiting of the Iaijutsu Focus skill it introduced. It was the only way to use a katana with Dexterity, if I recall, which some people were obsessed with around that time.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Oriental Adventures as a concept was around before L5R. But 3.0 Oriental Adventures was straight up Rokugan - it references the world, the races and even the prestige classes are taken straight from the game (Kakita Duelist, Lion Bushi, etc.)

It was part of Wizards trying to sneak into the 7th Sea and L5R market, which both used the same system and were quite popular at the time.

L5R predates Oriental Adventures by four years. The reason it had the same races and concepts is because they were literally just making a d20 conversion of most of the game series. They did the same with Swashbuckler Adventures, which was a d20 conversion of 7th Sea, AEG's other Roll and Keep game which was quite popular at the time.

Actually Oriental Adventures predates L5R by a decade. The TSR RPG was released 1985 while the L5R game started in 1995 as a card game and then proceeded to have an RPG in 1997. If you look at the Oriental Adventures book you'll see the L5R game took a lot of ideas from that.

 

[Seven Devil Wolf]

Actually Oriental Adventures predates L5R by a decade. The TSR RPG was released 1985 while the L5R game started in 1995 as a card game and then proceeded to have an RPG in 1997. If you look at the Oriental Adventures book you'll see the L5R game took a lot of ideas from that.

I get that, but I'm specifically referring to 3.0 Oriental Adventures - which is specifically based on Rokugan. It was part of their offer to AEG to put that out alongside Swashbuckler Adventures, which was also 3.0 and based on their other property, 7th Sea.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Also if you play a Kender, what you should steal should be only unimportant things from the party - "I borrowed a spoon," or a canteen. Things that while minorly annoying and very kender like, aren't going to fuck someone over. That's the only acceptable way to play a Kender. Ever.

You really don't have a say in what you steal. Kender's always had the McGuffin in their pocket that the story needed. Basically anything that could fit into their pockets was fair game. It makes them fine as an NPC to further a story, but as a PC? It really doesn't work. A smart party would just shake the Kender upside down to see what fell out of their pockets (its what my group always did). After which I would experiment on them with various spells because they're too stupid to say no.

 

[Tour of Italy]

I don't know where this goes, so its going here. Tracy Hickman reposted a meme.
View attachment 1911857

It got people mad
https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/critical-role-dungeons-and-dragons-dragonlance-tracy-hickman/

Spoiler: Hoes mad

The growth and future of Dungeons & Dragons' player base is better defined by the rise of Critical Role than a fixation on past campaign settings and projects. Earlier this year, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis announced a new trilogy of Dragonlance novels, marking the revitalization of one of Dungeons & Dragons' most popular worlds. While the Dragonlance fans celebrated the news, Hickman seemingly framed the announcement as a pushback against modern D&D trends, sharing a meme on Facebook that unfavorably framed the characters of Critical Role compared to the "tradition" of Dragonlance. He eventually removed his post after clarifying that he found the meme amusing and that "he likes both" Dragonlance and Critical Role, but his post still drew heavy criticism from fans both old and new.


Putting aside the most problematic aspects of the meme ("Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition" stems from Umberto Eco's Eternal Fascism, which uses both phrases as criteria for a fascist regime), it's still disappointing to see Hickman share an attack on a popular D&D franchise. In many ways, Critical Role mirrors the path that Dragonlance took towards stardom. Both started off as home games and grew to become extremely popular franchises sanctioned by the owners of D&D, and both franchises thrive on inter-character drama more than strict adherence to the plot. Both franchises also have passionate fanbases, which have contributed greatly to their wider relevance outside of the world of tabletop roleplaying games. However, the meme does unwittingly point out how representative Critical Role is to Dungeons & Dragons and its continued relevance in modern society.

The meme shared by Hickman directly compares the characters of Critical Role to the protagonists of the Dragonlance series. The Dragonlance characters are a mix of "traditional" fantasy races that include half-elves, humans, elves, dwarves, and a kender, a fantasy race unique to the Dragonlance series. These were and remain standard character options in Dungeons & Dragons. However, one of the major shifts to occur in the game between the debut of Dragonlance and today is the embrace of non-traditional character races. That's reflected in the cast of Critical Role, whose characters include a tiefling, a half-orc, an aasimar, a halfling who until recently was a goblin, and a firbolg. All of those races have roots in older versions of the game, but have become increasingly more common and popular for players to use in recent years. While humans are still a popular Dungeons & Dragons choice, you'll see just as many bullywugs, tortle, and tabaxi when sitting down at a D&D table.


More importantly, the characters of Critical Role aren't defined by their race nor do they conform to popular fantasy tropes. While the characters of Dragonlance mostly conform to the traditional heroic roles (save for the immensely popular anti-hero Raistlin), the characters of Critical Role are unique and informed mostly by the choices of their players rather than their class, background, or fantasy race. While Critical Role shouldn't be seen as an absolute or standard for a modern D&D game, it does better reflect what you see at more tables than a thick fantasy novel featuring homogeneous characters.


Of course, there's not really a competition between Dragonlance and Critical Role. Tabletop gaming is certainly big enough for both franchises, and there's no reason why both worlds can't co-exist. But it's important to remember why the makers of Dungeons & Dragons have embraced Critical Role so wholeheartedly - the show represents a more inclusive and open take on both fantasy and tabletop gaming, one defined by player choice and shared storytelling limited only by the imagination of the players rather than adherence to tradition and reliance on nostalgia and the past.

Hoes always mad.

Although this makes me laugh:

Critical Role characters are defined by their script, as played by paid actors, whose main goal is to entertain the audience as opposed to actually play the game. While zany shit happening at the table is common in D&D games, I hate that these assholes keep trying to pretend Critical Role is a spontaneous, true-to-life RPG experience when it's in fact worse than any "reality show" you see out there.

Yeah, that's the thing; Critical Role is in ordinarily scripted, and the only times they go off script is when the dice really decide to make them work at actually playing a game by going screwy with the results.

As for the rage, it's probably because they couldn't nuke the Dragonlance writers like they wanted to do.

Holy shit this thread moves way faster than I thought it did. Sorry for dredging this up again, but it needs to be repeated.

Critical Role is overproduced inauthentic garbage and anyone who models their own play sessions after it is doing themselves a huge disservice. Dice Camera Action is just as unwatchable but at least it’s a little more player/character driven. Even if the players/characters suck.

Acquisitions Incorporated is and will always be the only decent D&D podcast, both the original campaigns (which predate the streamed tabletop craze by at least half a fucking decade) and the C Team (at least the first two seasons). Actual real fucking people, minimal modern politically correct bullshit beyond the background radiation you’d expect from a table consisting of nerdy professional artist shut-ins based in Seattle.

I stopped listening around the time my graduate program ramped up and I got my first big boy job, but I fondly remember Jerry Holkins being able to spin a quality fucking yarn and a fun cast of players.

So yeah. Just putting that out there. Now I gotta write the last 2-3 sessions of a 3 year long campaign and try not to get emotional.

 

[The Rockafire Explosion]

That's not what I meant, though. I said to replace all instances of "race" with "species" in the rules text. I know everybody will just keep saying "race". We all know. Hell, I'll be the first to keep calling it "race".

But the dangerhairs trying to call it "racist" don't get an opening. Because "actually, they're not 'races', they're full-blown species, with their own biological traits unrelated to humanity." Basically, the sci-fi solution. The only sacrifices to be made there are the mutts. No more half-orcs. Fine, replace them with full-blooded orcs. Savage and bestial, as Gygax intended, and a lot more interesting. And no more half-elves. Good riddance, we don't need 'em.

That would almost work, but the Church of the Woke will always just throw back at you that it's the stereotypes which are based in racism, and because Orcs get an Intelligence penalty, black people are stupid. I learned this when I tried pointing out that Gruumsh, an evil god, made evil orcs in his image, and then was told this was just an example of Dan 'Massive Faggot' Olsen's Thermian Argument, and that nearly 40 decades of lore should be changed because some bored troons on Twitter discovered D&D during the lockdown. Like someone upthread said, you can't win with them, so the best thing to do is laugh and say "my orcs are badass and metal as fuck, guess that makes me racist."

But on the other hand, PbtA has become the shitty, SJW OGL of gaming. Every single game you find is generally the same premise, with the descriptions changed 'When you want to go aggro' becomes 'When you want to do a cringeworthy assault that leaves your enemies in the dust...') but is also picked up by the mainstream Twitter circle jerks for self-promotion. I've seen OSR making little footnotes, but even then, the few I see which really get pushed are immensely ruleslite (Mork Borg) which are picked up by mainstream media because 'Swedish roleplaying game'.

Even the games which are pretty good (Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World I'm not a fan of, but it's kinda' cute design-wise) are not the issue themselves, but these major OGLs are now the gatekeepers to gaming. Blades in the Dark never touched the 'muh gender' stuff directly, or ever mentioned it, but you won't find a single Forged in the Dark game (Scum and Villainy, which I'm pretty sure is written by a troon), Girl by Moonlight (multiple games about being magical girls. Based around 'who you are, what you believe and the power of relationships and community against an oppress society) which doesn't contain this stuff to the hilt.

Twitter is how these things are going to advertise. These are then picked up by CritRoles, which have to toe the line to not get removed, which then become the advertisement, while other indie games will get left in the dirt. Writing a Kickstarter game about troons in PbtA fighting penguins will not only be signal boosted within the community (as they all fund each other), but if you're lucky, picked up by Twitter and pushed further and with the low effort artwork needed? All you need is some basic writing, some rules made by copy-pasting OGL and you're sorted.

The thing about all the PbtA games is that they're flashes in the pan. I played Apocalypse World way back in like, 2012, it was alright, but characters run out of shit to do really quick, and the replayability is almost nil; once you've seen all the classes, that's about it. Haven't played Blades, but while the heist flashback gimmick is neat, again, I can't imagine it really does anything other than the same gameplay loop, except even worse because stuff like exploration is discouraged. These games can go on for a month or two, tops, and that's it. The Twitter troons jerk themselves off over them, and they get a ton of visibility right now, but no one else plays shit like Thirsty Sword Lesbians because they're barely games. The CR crowd are kind of annoying, but they want to play actual, honest-to-Gygax games and not have some improv theater handbook where they act some troon's power fantasy of owning the chuds.

You really don't have a say in what you steal. Kender's always had the McGuffin in their pocket that the story needed. Basically anything that could fit into their pockets was fair game. It makes them fine as an NPC to further a story, but as a PC? It really doesn't work. A smart party would just shake the Kender upside down to see what fell out of their pockets (its what my group always did). After which I would experiment on them with various spells because they're too stupid to say no.

The 1e Dragonlance Kender had a racial ability called something like "reach into my pouch" and there was a percentile chart with all sorts of crazy and useless stuff they could whip out, but a clever player could do something with; I vaguely recall someone pulling out a set of chess pieces and using them like caltrops in a game I played in once. It was kind of neat, and if someone were actually possible of playing a kender (or a GM with nostalgia goggles on because of the new books coming out wanted to rework them as a viable race to not be so annoying), something like that would be better than "I steal everyone else's shit."

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

The 1e Dragonlance Kender had a racial ability called something like "reach into my pouch" and there was a percentile chart with all sorts of crazy and useless stuff they could whip out, but a clever player could do something with; I vaguely recall someone pulling out a set of chess pieces and using them like caltrops in a game I played in once. It was kind of neat, and if someone were actually possible of playing a kender (or a GM with nostalgia goggles on because of the new books coming out wanted to rework them as a viable race to not be so annoying), something like that would be better than "I steal everyone else's shit."

Kencyclopedia has tried to make Kender likeable and even a viable race. Still hasn't worked out.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

That would almost work, but the Church of the Woke will always just throw back at you that it's the stereotypes which are based in racism, and because Orcs get an Intelligence penalty, black people are stupid. I learned this when I tried pointing out that Gruumsh, an evil god, made evil orcs in his image, and then was told this was just an example of Dan 'Massive Faggot' Olsen's Thermian Argument, and that nearly 40 decades of lore should be changed because some bored troons on Twitter discovered D&D during the lockdown. Like someone upthread said, you can't win with them, so the best thing to do is laugh and say "my orcs are badass and metal as fuck, guess that makes me racist."

Making half-elves and half-orcs badass seem to piss them off too.

I had half-elves be all militant and warrior culture, they were a product of elves attempts to breed loyal jannisaries to protect them from the human war machine and after the war they founded their own nation and the elves couldn't do shit about it. They breed true, with each other, elves, or humans. Think the Half-Elves of Sparta, with Roman late-era armor.

Of course, we had a proto-SJW bitch that they were 'power fantasy' (No shit, bitch, we're playing D&D) and half-elves aren't supposed to be warlike.

My half-orcs are always LE. (None of this chaotic evil bullshit) Brutal tyranny governments, highly militant, honor societies where accomplishment is prized and entire family lineages are based on their accomplishments.

"You know orcs are just black people, right?"
>GTFO

 

[Kabuki Actor]

Kencyclopedia has tried to make Kender likeable and even a viable race. Still hasn't worked out.

And it sounds like an autobiography of some lolcow named Ken.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

"You know orcs are just black people, right?"
>GTFO

Don't get me started on that, it's bad enough there are people who think Tolkien was racist with how he described orcs.
Like this article which reads as if they never actually read any Tolkien work.

Dear Tolkien Fans: Black People Exist | The Public Medievalist

Tolkien fan communities can be hostile places for Black fans. Just because Tolkien's work has white supremacy embedded in it does not mean that fans should embrace or replicate it.

www.publicmedievalist.com

 

[Corn Flakes]

That would almost work, but the Church of the Woke will always just throw back at you that it's the stereotypes which are based in racism, and because Orcs get an Intelligence penalty, black people are stupid. I learned this when I tried pointing out that Gruumsh, an evil god, made evil orcs in his image, and then was told this was just an example of Dan 'Massive Faggot' Olsen's Thermian Argument, and that nearly 40 decades of lore should be changed because some bored troons on Twitter discovered D&D during the lockdown. Like someone upthread said, you can't win with them, so the best thing to do is laugh and say "my orcs are badass and metal as fuck, guess that makes me racist."

Hey, I've done that in this thread. I like my orcs to be evil and savage. That way any outliers are extra-interesting.

After all, who are you going to pay more attention to? ISO-Standard Orc Warchief #3365, or the Orcish Arch-Necromancer wielding actual terrifying arcane power. Everybody forgets that the stat bonuses races get are meant for PCs and general characters, but the game is still the GM's. If my GM wants that Orc Sorcerer to have 20 Charisma and Druid spells in his spell list, then that's what's going to happen.

The 1e Dragonlance Kender had a racial ability called something like "reach into my pouch" and there was a percentile chart with all sorts of crazy and useless stuff they could whip out, but a clever player could do something with; I vaguely recall someone pulling out a set of chess pieces and using them like caltrops in a game I played in once. It was kind of neat, and if someone were actually possible of playing a kender (or a GM with nostalgia goggles on because of the new books coming out wanted to rework them as a viable race to not be so annoying), something like that would be better than "I steal everyone else's shit."

Honestly, this Kender tendency to steal bits and bobs feels more like something that shouldn't even be RP'd. If it's a compulsion, then it should just be assumed to happen in the background and only happen with small and irrelevant items. Only when it's relevant the GM, not the player, declares that something was stolen. Or when the Kender player decides to reach into his knapsack for something and rolls for it.

Don't get me started on that, it's bad enough there are people who think Tolkien was racist with how he described orcs.

I love these people. It's like they never actually read the fucking books. To quote the LotR wiki, since I can't be assed digging for my books... [orcs] were generally squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, bow-legged, with wide mouths and slant eyes, long arms, dark skin, and fangs.

That's the spitting image of your average Tyrone from the 'hood, isn't it? Particularly the slant eyes and pale skin, Dead ringers for black people. Really, put them in hoodies and you couldn't fucking tell. Tolkien's Orcs are much closer to Mongol caricatures than they have ever been to black people. Even more so since the man was English. Yeah, he was born in current-year South Africa but his family left when he was 3. I doubt he even saw more than a handful of black people in his life. He may have met Indians and Pakistanese men in World War I. Maybe some French colonial troops. But that's about it. Everbody seems to think every old-time author was just fucking HP Lovecraft by any other name.

You want to see insulting black stereotypes? Go watch fucking Bright. Or don't. It's shit.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

I love these people. It's like they never actually read the fucking books. To quote the LotR wiki, since I can't be assed digging for my books... [orcs] were generally squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, bow-legged, with wide mouths and slant eyes, long arms, dark skin, and fangs.

That's the spitting image of your average Tyrone from the 'hood, isn't it? Particularly the slant eyes and pale skin, Dead ringers for black people. Really, put them in hoodies and you couldn't fucking tell. Tolkien's Orcs are much closer to Mongol caricatures than they have ever been to black people. Even more so since the man was English. Yeah, he was born in current-year South Africa but his family left when he was 3. I doubt he even saw more than a handful of black people in his life. He may have met Indians and Pakistanese men in World War I. Maybe some French colonial troops. But that's about it. Everbody seems to think every old-time author was just fucking HP Lovecraft by any other name.

You want to see insulting black stereotypes? Go watch fucking Bright. Or don't. It's shit.

I like how the orcs in the movies and in D&D have tusks and not fangs according to this woman. There's a different between the two types of teeth. Not that I expect a woman who's blind to skin colour know anything about anatomy.

 

[Fictional Character]

I love these people. It's like they never actually read the fucking books. To quote the LotR wiki, since I can't be assed digging for my books... [orcs] were generally squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, bow-legged, with wide mouths and slant eyes, long arms, dark skin, and fangs.

That's the spitting image of your average Tyrone from the 'hood, isn't it? Particularly the slant eyes and pale skin, Dead ringers for black people. Really, put them in hoodies and you couldn't fucking tell. Tolkien's Orcs are much closer to Mongol caricatures than they have ever been to black people. Even more so since the man was English. Yeah, he was born in current-year South Africa but his family left when he was 3. I doubt he even saw more than a handful of black people in his life. He may have met Indians and Pakistanese men in World War I. Maybe some French colonial troops. But that's about it. Everbody seems to think every old-time author was just fucking HP Lovecraft by any other name.

LoTR has its black people and Mongols in Haradrim and Easterlings and while they don't get much time in the spotlight, there's enough to see that the Haradrim joined with Sauron because of centuries of mutual hostilities with Gondor, not because they're all evil and the Easterlings were also a similar alliance of convenience. (How it would have turned out in case of Sauron's victory is something ultimately unimportant.)

The orcs definitely aren't black people. If anything, the closest real-life analogue would be 19th/early 20th century British urban working class: people debased, divorced from beauty and turned monstrous by industrial exploitation.