There are arguments that D&D should, or should not be, “racially diverse,” because it was, or wasn’t, like that in the world “back then.”
Folks, D&D is usually not even attempting to represent a historical society. Even when it seems to be making the attempt, it’s still a fantasy representation based on other representations. It’s not relevant to argue about “what it was like back then” without any more specificity. Even then, the historical examples you happen to know will not cut it. They are not representative of the range of human experience.
The societies of fantasy worlds are bound by genre, not history. Genre is about common expectations and shared references, not actual events. Just make the fantasy as you wish within the limits of shareability, or keep it to yourself.
Many components of the fantasy genre are premised on incidental premodern or preindustrial representations, in the quest for the feeling of verisimilitude, to make the fantasy seem more real. Half-baked medievalism, exoticized antiquity, orientalism, and other peoples' religions, recycled from barely-remembered school courses, sensationalizing journalistic accounts, and fictional media are synthesized into genre features of fantasy. Accordingly, zealous D&D players fruitfully mine historical sources for fantasy material. The goal is not historical truth (a different endeavor, which historians pursue professionally). The goal is to share private fantasies socially to bring them to life.
Mostly, players of role-playing games know only a bit about their pet periods and places in history, making them quite ill-equipped to argue about this kind of thing. It doesn't stop them from trying, but the people whose main interest in history is just to find material for fantasy entertainment are often the worst historians.
Along these lines, people go back and forth about how “diverse” human societies were in history, but it should not come as a surprise that some societies were more “racially diverse” than others across thousands of years, just as today. It’s easy to find both insular preindustrial societies and cosmopolitan preindustrial societies. There is no point in arguing about this, because both types have existed, most societies ranging in between extreme types. If you think otherwise, you need to learn more about history.
In any case, you don’t need a license to make fantasies for either type. It’s even okay to fantasize about a kind of society that never existed. It’s fictional. The questions are, which kind of society is inspiring your fantasy, and, when it comes to role-playing games, does that kind of society inspire your friends to explore it with you?
D&D is a niche hobby commodity designed in the USA and marketed primarily to people in the USA. Players are so invested in the shared fantasy that they forget this. Then it comes as a surprise, to Americans and to non-Americans, to find that the content of the D&D fantasy reflects its ambient US-American culture. Gamers are actually surprised that the game has been changing along with that culture over a half century. They are more aware that D&D is fifty years old than they are that the US Civil Rights Act is sixty years old.
Most people (including most Americans) don’t like some aspects of American culture, of which D&D is a little part. It's safe to say that no version of D&D will ever be to everybody’s liking. There is good news, though: thousands of different tabletop roleplaying games exist. They look different and they work a little bit differently from each other here and there. If you don't like the way the book looks, or the things it says, try different games. Better yet: it’s very easy to make your own.
People may as well argue over which “lifestyle” is the “correct” one, before they argue whether D&D worlds should be “diverse” or not. Don’t like it? Easy! Don’t play it that way. There is no sense in whining while you wait for somebody else working for some company to make fantasy game books tailored for just your own specific idiosyncratic tastes in racial representation according to your most desired flavor of ideological purity. It’s very easy to make games as you want them to be. Or is your creativity so feeble?
You are as free to fantasize about cosmopolitan utopias celebrating individuals’ differences as you are to fantasize about uniformly and essentially different monolithic types of creatures locked in eternal conflict.
But if you are a gamer fragile with anger who feels personally outraged by what you perceive to be a “woke,” “diverse” imaginary world in which people who look and feel different are okay with each other—or if you are the type of utopian gamer who feels hurt when confronted by an illiberal fantasy world in which people are enslaved or have sharply distinguished gender roles or in which orcs are inherently evil—what can I say? You probably should stick to fantasy gaming with small groups of like-minded people, because the actual world is likely a hard place for you to “feel safe.” But no, you want to see your personal version of ideological purity wherever you look while you consume branded commodities as the member of a fan community. That’s a lot to ask for, but tantrums abound.
Wake up, nerds. It’s a fantasy game. You can imagine anything you want in private. Nobody’s stopping you. If you share it in public, congratulations, you’re a creator, although people will be free to comment. But if you are one of the consumers: why do you care what other gamers imagine? Why do you want them to imagine the same stuff as you? I’m serious when I ask these questions. You actually want other people's imaginary worlds to look racially just like your fantasies, no matter where they live or what they have experienced? You think you have the historical proof for how everybody else should imagine fantasy games? Really, wake up, my fellow hobbyists. Your fantasy is just the plastic wrap on your reality.
Comments
Post a Comment