Racism in your Game

However uncomfortable this subject can be in the real world, it can be a very important tool in your game world.

We are familiar with the concept of Fantasy Racism from Tolkien’s massive back-catalogue and his works have coloured how we see different races interacting. The default seems to be Dwarves and Elves don’t get along, the fantasy races look down on Humans and everyone hates Orcs and Goblins. There was also a hierarchy of Humans with Numenoreans at the top with the Haradrim and other corrupted humans at the bottom.

D&D does keep some of these tropes and there are traditionally evil and good aligned societies with all kinds of scope in between. Drow are generally evil, elves tend to be neutral or good, Dwarves, Goliaths and Gnomes are isolationists to a certain extent, Humans as empire builders and Half Orcs, Orcs and Goblins are shunned due to their chaotic natures. There is also a distinction between Humanoid and Monstrous races that superceeds inter Humanoid racism.

As a player it can be fun to play against type and be a Drow with a heart of gold like Drizzt Do'Urden. Being the underdog and an unsung hero is very tempting. If one of my players wanted to do this then this can be a very rewarding and fun experience for both of us as there are ways to essentially torture the character with social interactions. NPCs can verbally batter the PC and the PC can’t take the bait only show through their actions that they are better than the NPCs perception and ultimately the NPC themselves!

Racist structures tend to revolve around power and shared history so in your game this is something to consider. A human settlement may have been attacked by a Herd of Goliath who had come down from the mountains to plunder and make a name for themselves. This settlement is going to be very wary of anyone resembling a Goliath coming down the road. In my home game; a weakening of magic for nearly a century has caused the Dwarves to become the dominant power in Faerun because of their ability to build and create weapons of war without the aid of magic and their natural hardiness. They don’t like Gnomes as they could be a threat to them. A local Lord could have a hatred for one particular race and this could also lead to your party having to smuggle certain members of the party in and around the town they are in. Taking a look into the playable races from Volo’s Guide to Monsters, on page 118 it shows us the difference between Humanoid and Monstrous Races. Monstrous races such as Orcs, Goblins or Bugbears have an uphill battle in civilised areas due to their ancestry. Humanoids are the ‘civilised’ races and the Monstrous races are the ones that they had to drive out or defend themselves against. A Bugbear walking into the market could be mistaken by the town guard as a trespasser or even a looter without any indication of wrong doing, so when someone’s purse goes missing they will be the first suspect.

Another issue you should consider is the rarity of the race. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the locals will dislike you just that they stare at you. Imagine if a Red Dragonborn walked past you in the street, that would be something you’ve never seen before and your mind will be filled with questions! This can be a fun tool to use in social situations with either small children or old men. Young children have no filter and they will loudly ask embarrassing questions to their parents in public causing everyone to blush. With Old Men, they are just out of touch and will say the thing that the rest of the family doesn’t want them to say… think family Christmas Dinner when a political conversation strikes up.

This has been a difficult post to write because Race is used to mean two different things within the same rules text. Jeremy Crawford raised an issue with the term and has said that in future iterations of D&D that species will define the family root and Race would define what is currently the sub-race. So a Wood Elf would be of the Species Elf and the Race would be Wood. This was met with criticism because it was put up on twitter and attacked for being an appeasement of the PC brigade. This was mainly due to the lack of nuance you can get on twitter but also people wanting to be outraged, this was purely a cleaning up of the language in a rules book and nothing more in my opinion.

So I hope I’ve shown you how to use Fantasy Racism to give your game world a lived in feel. Conflicts happen and have happened for centuries causing built up tensions across Faerun. Using these little opportunities to have some role playing moments helps your players round out their characters.

Thanks for stopping by today,
May you roll well!