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 the way you see 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.
Thank you so much for writing this. I've been devouring your blog all weekend for the first time and was thinking of asking for your thoughts in the current climate, and was ecstatic to see that I didn't need to after all. and you answered it exactly as I suspected you would, fairly and rationally. Great blog, I"ll be reading all week.
ReplyDeleteHello! I had some technical trouble with making comments lately (a browser issue, I think). Thanks for the kind words here and the other comments you left.
DeleteI haven't blogged much lately, as you noticed. I've been occupied with my professional research, writing, and family. There's a lot more to say about the current climate, as you put it, in role-playing games, but I am not really following much discussion.
“If you don’t like it just don’t play/watch/read/etc it” is a common cop-out to dismiss just about any criticism made about anything. This post is a perfect example of this phenomenon. You don’t really engage with any criticism anyone has made about any roleplaying game. You simply call them stupid and over-emotional for caring about RPGs at all.
ReplyDeleteI can’t believe Roger Ebert wasted his life writing about movies he did and didn’t like, thinking critically about the artform of cinema and all that. He should’ve just been less sensitive. Didn’t he know that if he didn’t like a movie, he didn’t have to watch it?
Greetings, Rosa! You missed the point of the post (in the title) and attribute to me things I didn’t say. I never said, “Don’t exercise criticism.” This post is criticism addressing other kinds of criticism underway at large lately concerning role-playing games. You may not know it, but there is a discussion going on in public about whether D&D is too “woke,” or not “inclusive” enough, a tug-of-war about which people are inflamed. Sometimes that argument has hinged on whether “diversity” in games is “historically correct” or “authentic” or not. Specifically, my post here says that this historical argument is not valid (the main point, referred to in the title of this post). Beyond engaging with criticism about game criticism, I am, furthermore, specifically criticizing efforts to police the imaginations of other gamers in racial terms.
DeleteLastly, there is a big difference between criticism of movies, which you bring up for comparison, and table-top roleplaying game products. When we watch a movie, it’s a complete finished product and the viewer is mostly passive. We have little choice about how a movie looks when it’s done and we are watching it, but players of table-top roleplaying games are doing something quite different. A role-playing game requires active participatory play to be used (unless it’s just the passive enjoyment of studying the game product without playing the game). Moreover, racial representations in the art of game books need not be imitated through play. My advice above is therefore “Don’t like it the way you see it? Don’t play it *that way*.” (Those last two words that you overlooked are critical.) Rather than saying, “Don’t play role-playing games,” I’m saying, “Do play as you wish, and you don’t have to ensure that it’s ‘historically authentic.'”
Funny because your argument "Moreover, racial representations in the art of game books need not be imitated through play" is the argument folks were making when the woke complained there was over representation of white males in the art.
DeleteAlthough I think the term "woke" is a mistake, I know what you mean. You have rightly noticed that this blog entry criticizes a general shortcoming of gamers, not one side of a social divide with favor to the other. It's another illustration of something I discussed some time ago in this blog, that our fantasies are projections of our realities. The implicit focus of the arguments these people make is the appearance of fantasy art in commercial products, not the actual use of the games. When it comes to imagination, we can't stop players from imagining, for example, uniformly white societies any more than we can force them to not be so. People imagine what they know. See my remark above about the US Civil Rights act for a short-cut explanation of the problem these people are fighting about.
DeleteThank the gods! A voice crying sense in the wilderness. We're of an era. I started playing in 79, stopped in the mid-90s, picked it up again in 2015. And a lot of the debate I see these days seems utterly contrary to the DIY ethos of free range creativity I recall from my youth. Thank you so much for reassuring me I'm not taking crazy pills!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kirk. I appreciate the kind words. What baffles me about the state of things now (as opposed to our youth) is how emotional people get about "the way to play," especially the anger when other people do things differently. Not that nerds didn't debate before, but I guess it's an effect of the internet. The other thing is how focused on just D&D (in any edition or clone or indie version) people are. There are signs of the big wave of 5e players starting to branch out, though, as we did in the '80s and '90s. We'll see. Happy new year to you.
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