A Modest Proposal For Increased Diversity in D&D

I get (and suppot) the point of those Green Lantern panels and all, but… didn’t Green Lantern save the world, like, 220,000 times? That includes all skins, all animals, all philosophies, etc.

Very thoughtful article and the above quibble is not in response to anything, just an observation. I was happy to see Grant Morrison make the same point in Supergods.

Some of us in the D&D community are trying to change this at the grassroots level too. I started a Kickstarter to raise funds for diverse fantasy art, created by a diverse group of artists, some well-known, some starting out. We’ll release the art to Creative Commons under the Atttribution, Share-Alike license in hopes that players, DMs, bloggers, and smaller publishers will use this art in their games and products. If you’re interested, the project is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarahdarkmagic/prismatic-art-collection

So ..what percentage should it be before everyone is happy?
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Why not just let the artists create art, the game be a game.

Why is D&D being used for race baiting?

The Prismatic Art project is a primary example of race-baiting. The noble white girl from Dartmouth is going to rescue the minorities and help them play D&D? I just don’t beleive it. This is about white people making themselves feel like saviors.

The problem with labelling efforts like this as “race baiting” is that it basically means nobody can ever strive to change the world in a positive way because trolls on the internet who hide behind anonymity will just shoot it down as “race baiting,” all while not actually doing anything of value themselves. Well done, internet. Well done.

I have no issue with that, I have issue with the motivation behind it though.

Everything I’ve read on this seems to suggest that 1) “everyone is a racist by default” unless they have specifically dedicated themselves to a cause like this, but it’s the ultimate noble whitey cop-out.

Real racism is still out there- it involves violence, beatings and intimidation, not just “we didn’t make the dwarf into a black character this time..” By suggesting that art diversity (and check the census before you start calling out percentages of which character needs to be what color if thats the route you want to go) is racism, well you’ve essentially made ”racism” something that’s entirely excusable. A “whoops, I guess thats racist”, instead of the actual serious moral crime that racism really represents. Your goal was to draw more attention to racism, but the effect long term is the opposite.

The other implication of this new race-shame thing is the suggestion that the primary attribute of a person is actually his skin color, and you can be the wrong race (ie, white). But it is itself a direct repudiation of Martin Luther King’s famous speech: ”
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character.”

NOT be judged.

The content of your character (or character sheet) apparently doesn’t mean anything though, right? You have to have the right race (not the wrong one) and you need some noble whitey to recognize and save us all? It’s digusting.

All that work my generation did, ruined by the nobility.

Personally, I would say it depends on the motivation. If you want more diversity in D&D art and lore because you are simply promoting it for the sake of “diversity” then in my opinion it is either race baiting or just a bad idea.

If you want more diversity because you feel it will improve the game by making it more interesting, more challenging, more realistic, more aesthetically pleasing or any other valid reason then in my opinion it’s fine. The test for me is: Does this make sense in any regard other than racial politics? If yes, then it’s not race baiting.

When people think of high fantasy, they think of a generic middle ages europe with elves and dwarves. Why force them to change their image? It’s not hurting anybody. After all, this is Dungeons and Dragons and the whole point is to role play who you want to be. So if you want to be black, role play as a black person. Maybe they could release content packs specifically designed for players who want more diversity. Personally, I would not describe forcing Wizards of the Coast to insert more racially diverse characters as a positive change. Let them do what they want. If people don’t like it, they won’t buy it.

Thanks, ElToro.

There are plenty of problems in the world for all of us to fight in our own ways. We’ve chosen this one problem and are attempting to address it in our own way. You might not find it to be an important problem — or even find our attempts productive – and that’s totally fine. Continue promoting your values in your own way and we will do the same.

As for motivations, I can speak for myself. I grew up wishing there was a mixed-race Ghostbuster or a superhero I could dress as on Halloween. Now that I’m a grown art director for RPGs, I’ve made every effort to put a new face on fantasy heroes in my own products. (See the covers for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, The Book of Letters and Happy Birthday, Robot!) While doing so, I also want to promote the work of POC and female artists in the community, that’s why I’ve hired Liz Radtke, Amy Houser, Mori McLamb, Kari Fry and other female artists for my projects.

The Prismatic Art Collection is an effort to expand that outreach beyond my own games. More diverse art. More diversity among professional artists. That’s my goal.

Thanks again for your time, ElToro. If you want to discuss this with me personally, my email is gobi81 at gmail.

When people think of high fantasy, they think of a generic middle ages europe with elves and dwarves. Why force them to change their image?

Why? Because in my opinion its parochial and self-limiting. And its been done to death.

Why shouldn’t the default picture of the paladin be something we haven’t seen often depicted? Say, someone who would not look out of place in the army of Saladin?

Show the readers, of all stripes, there are far more to even the default classes than they previously imagined.

24. El Toro

I think your feeling of frustration is real and natural– “being in the right” is a privilege in and of itself, one that even the most self-checking folks are unable to part with. There is a very real way to trivialize issues ot race — to find ways of unburdening yourself, and of recasting yourself as the savior instead of part of the problem.

Here, I think, the key is that it isn’t strictly about race, but gender and all the different ways of being not white guy. Remember the kernel here: The post is about using a non-trivial platform (Tor.com) to call for more diversity in D&D, which everyone wants, and the comments draw attention to an independent project to encourage the same, led by a woman who wants to see more women in gaming and a person of color who wants to see more people of color in gaming. Neither one, I think, is inherently ignoble.

I don’t play D&D, but I’m a huge supporter of any attempts to diversify our fiction and recreation. I hope to see all the different cultures and ways of life represented in our many excellent book, games, and movies.

27&28

First, I will say I am indeed a white male. Not only that, but a white male who grew up in the midwest where at my high school there were less than 10 people who were not white. I probably view diversity and race relations different than a lot of people raised in different areas of the country or in larger cities because of that. I just don’t see it as a big deal. I respect people of all races, and when I do interact with people of other ethnic groups I get along just fine. I had several friends during college who were “diverse” and even lived for two years with a friend from India. I simply recognize that I want what I want and they want what they want. Those are sometimes different things based on each individual person’s preferences and that is fine.

For example — Yes I’m perfectly fine with a game that is primarily made up of white characters because it reflects my own life experiences. I think it’s interesting to add a few characters who are more “diverse” because they stand out and make the game more fun. I don’t want to buy a game which is made up of -for example- primarily black characters because I can’t relate to that. In the same way, I wouldn’t dislike, but also don’t actively seek out, a game that has the “proper ethnic ratios” either because in my own personal experience they don’t reflect the ratio I see every day on the streets.

There are people who want those things, and I believe that there should be games (yes, full games and not just content packs I wasn’t very clear in my last post) for them. In my opinion, the motto should be “To each his own.” Don’t force a company to change their products. Instead, seek out a company already selling or create your own product that reflects what you want. Which it sounds like the Primastic Art Collection is doing, so that is great. It’s not about making money, it’s just about providing choice. There are people like me who prefer the traditional, less diverse scenarios because that is what we relate to. There are people who prefer something else. Each group should be able to get what they want. (Sorry for the wall of text)

Hi,

Thanks for the article and subsequent generated discussion. I don’t want to get involved with the politcal discussion, but I would like to say that I personally would enjoy seeing more varied interpretations of the fantasy genre, especially in the modern, less traditional RPG world.

I would however, like to discuss the older versions of D&D (or AD&D) as you said they were based on euro-centric fantasy stories, so it is understandable they would use traditional european fantasy archetypes, such as knights, faeries, elves, trolls, etc. However, while briefly dismissing Oriental Adventures, you don’t even mention the Al-Qadim campaign (an arabian fantasy setting) or Maztica (aztec/inca fantasy) or even Dark Sun (future/alien apocalyptic fantasy) containing Brown Elves. I don’t think that these campaign settings should be so easily dismissed, they delved deeply into different (non-european) cultures and drew out interesting fanstasy environments with great sympathy. I for one discovered lots of interesting cultural histories and philosphies (fantasy and real-world) from some of the TSR source books and campaign backgrounds. I think some credit is due to some of the TSR staff of the 80s and 90s, they exposed a generation of RPG players to a bigger world view, and deserve some credit for that.

Thanks,
Steve.

leame@45: Yes I’m perfectly fine with a game that is primarily made up of white characters because it reflects my own life experiences. I think it’s interesting to add a few characters who are more “diverse” because they stand out and make the game more fun. I don’t want to buy a game which is made up of -for example- primarily black characters because I can’t relate to that.

The trouble is that white males like you and me get an awful lot of products that we can relate to. It’s nice, I suppose, that you want there to be mostly-black RPGs and mostly-Indian RPGs and mostly-Korean RPGs, but if you browse the gaming shelves you’ll see that for obvious economic reasons they don’t exist — or, if they do exist, they’re produced by small companies that don’t have the market penetration of D&D. For better or worse, D&D is the king of RPGs; if someone of a given skin color goes to a gaming con and wants to sit in on a game, they’re probably not going to find one tailored to their particular hue — unless that hue is white.

I grew up in New Hampshire — and let me say that the mountains aren’t the only thing that’s white up there. I knew exactly two black people in my high school. But you know what else New Hampshire doesn’t have? Dragons. Gelatinous cubes. Wands of wonder. It doesn’t have owlbears, unless you believe One-Tooth Joe. I was already stepping into an unfamiliar world when I chose to play D&D; why not put some people in it who were unfamiliar to fifteen-year-old me, too? That’s one of the great things about RPGs — they help you become familiar with new things. People growing up in near-monocultures, like you and me, need all the images of diversity we can get. The fact that they might make RPGs more approachable for people of other cultures is a side benefit.

The medieval world wasn’t so great for women, you know. Joan of Arc excepted, there weren’t a lot of female paladins. Someone choosing to play a “traditional” medieval game probably wouldn’t want to allow female thieves and fighters and clerics. But that person would be accused of excluding women from gaming. And, y’know, I haven’t seen complaints about the female adventurers in the PHB since the late 70s. Maybe they still complain, I dunno. But it is certainly true that today I know a lot of female gamers, which was a rare breed in the early days of RPGs. Seeing people like themselves in the source books and on the covers of Dragon probably helped bring them into the fold.

If you want to run a strict medieval Norse campaign, there’s nothing wrong with that — D&D is certainly flexible enough for that. If WotC wants to release an All-Thing Adventures expansion, that’s cool too. But why not make the default setting one that speaks to everybody?

As a Dungeon Master, to avoid similar problems, I usually establish what range of skin colors and “races” based on Earth ethnicities live in a certain region, and then when making a random characters (e.g. random dude on the street, a guard captain who’s got just two lines and isn’t meant to be important) I just roll for their appearance. Gender, ethnicity, hair color, etc., sometimes including a roll for race (actual fantasy race, i.e. lizardfolk, goblin, etc.). When designing important characters, I often have a particular concept in mind, and it carries a certain image in my head – which makes a lot of them white human males, cause that’s what I am.

So my “modest proposal”? When you choose a character to draw as a representation for the class, use this “random roll for appearance”. This way, with enough examples, all possible races, ethnicities, genders etc. should be represented fairly equally – or at the very least without an unintentional bias caused by your own person.

I read this article when it was boomeranged to me via twitter from Rich Burlew, also the Prismatic Art Project. As for my background, I’m half-black, from Chicago and I’ve gamed regularly with all sorts of folks since the early 90s.

I feel that, while the motivations in this article and the Prismatic Art project come from the very best and sincere of intentions, stuff like this really bothers me. When I sit down to play a videogame, especially an RPG where I can make my own character, and the skin slider only goes into “lightly browned” territory, I personally feel bad and even get a little angry that I can’t make a character that resonates with me, or who is me (but in armor and flying on a dragon and kicking ass.)

On the tabletop, it’s a different story. I’m not constrained by whatever art’s in the book. I’ve been gaming since my father ran a game where me and my brother were dwarves, constantly dying in Strahd and my father’s unfair d20 rolls. Sometimes I wish that I could have a cool representation of my character drawn, then I realize I have an art degree, and just do it. As for my friends who don’t have art degrees, if any of them wanted a depiction of their character, I or another friend or someone on the internet who likes money and exchanges drawings for said money facilitates that notion.

Because of this I really, really, really want to like the Prismatic Art project. My problem is I don’t like the feeling I get behind the project. It’s just insulting, like I need to be catered too. The game is about imagination, I don’t open D&D books and get all upset that it’s all European guys! I mean, it’s cool we have Salador Saans, Roy Greenhilts and all that, but I don’t like the feeling that WotC isn’t representing me because they can’t for whatever reason.

I don’t need people like Mordicai or Ms. Hurley fighting for me. My Dad’s black, and he learned to play D&D and showed it to me and my brother, back in the AD&D times. Hell, he played 1st edition, he still has his brown box packed away in the garage.

I just don’t understand all the “well, I feel left out of the genre” feelings going around. I can maybe understand it for women because a lot of fantasy art is objectification, but on the other hand I’m not a woman so I don’t know, I can only go by what my female friends tell me. Greyhawk is based on European fantasy, so I expect there to be mostly European people, and to tell you the truth, I like the fact that of the races of 4E that appear human almost half of them have art depicting people of non-caucasian descent. But to be honest, I find this article really unfair in pulling out books and counting when in Pathfinder all of the iconic characters are A) from Golarion which is a wholly different and more recent setting than freaking Greyhawk, and B) that half of the dang races in the 4E books are essentially monsters.

You’re not going to see a hispanic dragonborn.
There are no such things as asian devas.
Nobody’s ever going to see an albino teifling from the middle-east.

4E has more blue, green, purple, crystal, red, chitin and slimy skinned races than our basic melanin set. In fact, if I was to sit down and make an argument about “representing races” 4E would come out on top for taking the Gene Roddenberry approach.

Look guys, I know your intentions are pure, and you’re trying to “represent everybody”, but it really feels insulting to me. Like I can’t enjoy something and need to have all races included in certain products. I like and expect Golarion to look the way it looks because of the nature of that setting, and the nature of Pathfinder. And in 4E me and my friends expect that most of us are not going to be humans, or even humanlike (there’s always that one elf though.)

And, in the end, I do respect the Prismatic collection, but it still kind of offends me. I’m just tired of all my life people acting like I need to be catered to, or coddled. That I need to be represented. Sometimes, I agree (why can’t I play a black blood elf in World of Warcraft?) but in DnD? The escapist fantasy game powered by my imagination? I don’t really need help, and I don’t think many other people want that either.

Just, one or two characters of asian or hispanic or non-european descent, that’s cool. And if it’s like Golarion I’ll buy it because I like the middle-eastern and north african focus. But when I’m not interested in that, you don’t need to include everything to make me feel involved, y’know. The Prismatic Color Collection would be better, in my mind, if it was just like “here’s some extra character art types that aren’t seen as often in art for your games” instead of that cheesy line about “enough Luke’s and not enough Landos.”

I dunno, maybe my opinion’s in the minority (lol), or doesn’t matter at all. But it really does bug me. It feels like reverse-racism. Can’t I just stab goblins and burn kobolds without someone jumping in to “help represent me”?

I agree with Mordicai, but feel that both Wizards and Paizo will need to take things a few steps further in the long run—adjusting their editorial approach around topics like slavery, colonization, and the internal coherence of ‘other’ cultures within their worlds. Lengthier post at my blog, Alltogetherhuman.org.

59. Orphansmith

The Prismatic Art Collection isn’t about you exactly– it’s about a woman being pissed that, say, WotC produced maybe ten female miniatures for their D&D line and maybe half of those were non-sexualized. And then taking the next step– “Well, if this totally sucks for me, it probably also sucks for everyone else who isn’t looking to play a white guy.” If anything it’s more self-motivated than it seems.

61. Bernie S.

Yeah, this is for me a constant source of trouble when I play in “traditional” games; Paizo kind of doubles down on Orcs by making it explicit that they are inherently sinister and brutal as a race; that it’s sort of hard-coded into them in the same way that a +2 Dexterity is hard-coded into Elves. I suspect this is a version of The Nazi Principle– Nazis are so appealing as bad guys because you can kill them without feeling bad about it. In an adventure game that focuses on combat you want to have punching bags that you don’t feel bad about. Making Orcs somehow inherently inclined towards raiding villages (by the will of the gods or something? I’m not too up on the mythology of the Pathfinder setting) is lazy and problematic.

69. ElToro

A cursory examination of some of the twitter buzz — and I should reiterate that I disagree with you on a fundamental level — definitely seems a little inappropriate. Getting into an argument with someone and seeking support from your like-minded friends is fine; Twitter is, however, a very public space. The tone of your statements — 13 and 24 especially — was inappropriate and over-the-line and you deserved to be called out on it; but it’s still problematic to pretend to treat with someone who disagrees with you in a civil, intelligent way in one public space and then denigrate you as a troll in another equally public — but much safer and more agreeable — space. There’s clearly been a breakdown of civil discourse here; who fired the first shot is, as usual, immaterial.

I disagree with your complaints; I think you’re fixating on on an implication — that the Prismatic Art Collection is a charity project undertaken by white people to benefit minorities — that isn’t there but your outrage is real; the self-congratulatory trivialization of race issues is absolutely real. There’s no merit badge one can earn as a person of privilege that exempts one from being a person of privilege. The notion that you can do so is a very real and very insidious expression of that privilege– but I think you’re wrong in detecting it at work here.

It’s weird that I’ve never really thought about all of this bfore reading the article, much less the engaging conversation that came after. Honestly, I never really looked at the art work that much.

In my time as a D&D player, I’ve played a wide array of characters. A male Tiefling Paladin, for instance. A bald, female, dark skinned Halfling Monk, for another.

When envisioning my character, I’ve just always gone with what felt right for the character. Only now do I look back on it and wonder about it all. I guess I never really think about skin color when dealing with people, in or out of game.

Probably just me.

People are people, but yes, I agree, a broader view of people in the art, for the simple sake of the art, should be done. More real women, more real and engaging characters, just more than Middle America.

Well said, Mordicai. Do not mind those that stir unnecessary arguments or make baseless accustaions. We live in a diverse world, and play in diverse wrolds. There’s no reason it can’t be depicted on the page that way.

If it were, maybe I’d actually stop and look at the art more often.

“There are no such things as asian devas.”

I find this as a pretty staggering comment.

Why not? Because “deva” is a Sanskrit word still used in today’s world, for crying out loud! They missed a perfect opportunity to toss in lots and lots of cultural color put through fantasy filter!

That’s the saddest part of it all: missed opportunities. Instead of tickling our imaginations to spin things even further, ad astra, people seem to want to cling into the old way of things like a marmoset scared of everything around it. What happened to stimulating our imagination? Where did it go wrong, how come it is so bad to toss in possibilities? Why is portraying human alternatives to white hue and wispy gauze in a core rulebook so bad?

When I look at Ember’s picture in 3.5e, that Pathfinder warrior and other things shown here, my mind immediately begins to ask questions. What’s her story? Where did she come from? What kind of culture she came from? What’s the reason of being here, in this time, in this place? What kind of things I can deduce from her attire and equipment?

You know, interesting and useful questions.

I am a DM and I am a player; whenever I’m a DM, if a player can come up with interesting ideas of their own, I latch on them like a remora, because you can get cool stuff out of them and make a memorable campaign. So your PC grew up in a hidden monastery not on mountains, but the savannah. Hmmmm. What kind of survival conditions are required, how that would shape the culture… oh, you got your original inspiration from this old Ethiopian kingdom that once actually existed. How neat. Let me google and find more facts.

I have also found out that as I grow older, I’ve started to develop the attitude “meh, seen it already”. That is, what I’ve seen already is vaguely pseudo-Medieval Europe (but one without Moors, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Tartars, Greeks or Roma, who might have skin color darker than pure driven snow), with Germanic/Saxon/Nordic white guys (beard optional) doing it all. Maybe some evil wicked backstabby queens too. And this is not helping to tickle my imagination at all. Yawn.

So how about this: do not see this Prismatic Art project as some kind of weird tokenism effort — please see it as a way to tickle your imagination. Basically, it is one huge tickle-toolset created just for you, for your free use. FREE STUFF, MAN, FREE STUFF! That’s just as good as free beer!

Or not-use, if you don’t want to use it. No one can put a gun into your head and force you to use it in your games or books you plan to publish or for your characters. (If someone does hold a gun to your head, say you’ll comply and then call the cops on that nutso when they’re not doing it anymore.)

But I imagine it will see lots of use, because with that cast of artists, it can’t suck.

Obligatory disclosure:
1) I am a woman
2) of a color often called white, although “pasty-white with pink bits” is more accurate
3) from lower class semi-rural background (with a moderate degree of education and three years spent in university with cultural anthropology/folklore studies before IT lured me away) with ethnically normal-privileged situation typical to my native country
4) which, by the way, does not get portrayed in pseudo-medieval settings at all, despite once being an important exporter of stuff (tar, wood for ship masts) that was needed to build those seaworthy ships, and oh, whole lot of those luxurious furs rich people wore, linen, and butter, so I can totally see a merit in when other not-represented people ask these quite valid questions

I don’t get it. Really? I mean really?

I can honestly say I have no idea how many illustrations are in the books. I think the only illustrations I find useful are the size comparison chart and the weapon/armour images. Everything else goes into the ‘meh’ filter.

Should we just scrap those images altogether?

I’d rather that they spent QA time getting the rules/gameplay right rather than wondering whether enough black/asian/caucasian/hispanic/whatever are represented etc.

Heaven forbid if we put skin colour ‘blah’ as a rogue.. OMG DEMONIZATION!

Reading too much into something that truly is just a bunch of pigments. Get a packet of crayola crayons and colour it in yourself if it bugs you that much.

First point: I hate to break it to you, but the entire fantasy (and SF) genre is all made up. It has no obligation to conform any sort of guidelines for political correctness. I have no obligation to imagine a character being a particular race. I could just as easily imagine Conan as being black as I do white.

Second point: There are cultural reasons why the depiction of the fantasy genre has been overwhelmingly caucasian in the past. Largely the source material is overlaid against a backdrop of a fantastical Europe based on literature (and folk tales) of the same (le Mort D’Arthur, Beowulf, Grimm’s Fairy Tales). Following this the depictions followed a sort of idealized European cast (blonde barbarians at the gates and all). In the last 20-30 years you have seen the pallete of the genres expand as authors are less tied to the source material and seek the new and exotic in other ways. For the most part the authors of the source material so much of the genre is drawn on have been white men, naturally the authors tend towards self-identification with their characters, culture and surroundings. This has also been changing and people from more and more diverse backgrounds have been entering the industry, which improves the genre for the better.

Last point: Unless the narrative depends upon specific cultural signifigance, race has nothing to do with plot development or storytelling. Forcing it upon a medium that also embraces elves, unicorns and dragons is absurd and degrades the storytelling. In fantasy role-playing I am imagining the character as some aspect of myself. Whatever my race is and how I identify with that is going to be an influence that is unique to myself and how I fit race in with my identity.

I don’t think any case is improved by reducing race to a mere set piece in the story. If I am drafting a story and think “I have too many white folks here, I should throw in a couple browns, reds, yellows, and greens just to even it out.” Not only have I thrown in a lot of fluff that is not important to the narrative, I have also diminished race to a mere label and minimized its cultural significance. I would prefer to have my readers fill in these blanks themselves.

132. SarahDarkmagic

Perhaps I lost my point trying to prune down the post. Perhaps I should create the PowerPoint version.

1. Diversity (racial cultural etc) is good and important. The industry is getting more diverse every year. (Diversity -up arrow-)

2. Race and Culture should be approached within a context not within a vacuum. (importance of race and culture -up arrow- within the Fantasy industry)

3. The diversity we are seeing now is a development of the natural growth of the fantasy reaching and inspiring people outside of the traditional “white male” demographic. (Michael Moorcock, Robert E Howard -> Octavia Butler, Cherie Priest).

4. Enforcing a diversity through a blind application of “racial filters” appears to be pandering rather than progress. (Racial Quota -sadface- Racial Diveristy -happyface-)

Anecdote:
It’s been a long time since I was in the illustration biz’ (30 years) but I never found SF and Fantasy editors to be a group hard pressed to try new things. If it looked really cool, they would publish it. They just didn’t get a lot of racially diverse submissions (I will admit I didn’t submit much myself though not by design. My models were white, in my drawings they ended up looking white). I see very successful racially diverse portrayals within the genres as they come from a more diverse group of creators. This is what I see as key.

Perhaps now that the geeks are out and proud and real money is being made, that has changed and corporate marketeering has taken over to drive everything into the middle and there is an active force drving this homogenous view. What I see on the bookshelf disagrees with that conclusion.

133. Mordicai

See the above post (135. Shlepzig): I think we agree on a lot of things.

I think the main difference is that I see the industry becoming more diverse on its own. Significant progress has been made and continues to be made. I see the “problem” of racial homogeneity as one that is disappearing already as opposed to one that must be addressed.

The “default caucasian hero” wasn’t so much an enforced stereotype as something that just happened. Characters in genre fiction are becoming more complex and diverse which is something that is happening naturally. My preference is to let it continue to happen naturally. I feel that the forcing the issue by demanding racial diversity will push people towards more stereotypical or token portrayals of different races rather than ones that are complex and nuanced.

153. SarahDarkmagic

Thank you for the kudos, but I have been out of the business for a long time now. I am old (in a relative sense) now and find myself uttering things that old people say like “back in my day…”

The marketplace has changed. Firstly to find freelance work we had to relentlessly work cons and connections, respond to open calls for submissions in obscure industry publications. I was accustomed to submitting many iterations of work for publishers to get what they wanted (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse). The process took weeks as things were sent back and forth in the post (snail mail).

I would have thought that the information age would have improved the level of communication from publisher to provider (and provided both with an amazing marketplace for connections). I would have also thought the ubiquitous use of computer illustration tools would have simplified collaboration.

I am surprised to hear otherwise. I thank you for your view from the front lines. I will be looking up your project site and bookmarking it. I have two daughters with interest in the industry and should get myself more acquainted with the current state of the art.

The fact of the matter is the articel doesn’t go into what gaming in general and D&D specifially can do to attract a more diverse demographic. It doesn’t say let’s do A, B and C to attract a more diverse player field. The articel simply says that as a white man the author thinks there should be more characters of color represented. This is arogant in the same way the movie “The Help” is. It assumes that a white person is needed to usher in change and help those that are under represented or marginalized and that is an act of hubris.

Maybe I feel this way because the local gaming store I play at (Shout out to Red Cap’s Corner in Philly!!) is in a major city and near a college so the gaming crowd is about 50% college hipsters and 50% black kids all playing characters of every color and gender with no issues.

There are valid, real issues with RPGs in general being a “white boys club” but your article only mentions “attractign new players” not attracting DIVERSE players or FEMALE players. It in fact skirts the issue entirely and comes across (IMHO) as a poorly thought out op-ed piece that misses the bigger issue.
The articel ISN’T about the demographics of the actual players of the game, here in the real world. The article is about drawing in rule books, which I care very little about.

I think it’s probably important to point out that there is no such thing as “race” outside fantasy roleplaying. In D&D you have humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. IRL you have…. wait for it…. humans.

This silly, discredited, old idea that skin colour or diet or a couple of different holidays actually matter, has absolutely no basis whatsoever in biology, genetics, or any other kind of science.

There is no “race”. Period.

There’s just a whole raft of stupid ideas, and the human brain, which is (largely) an engine for making big conclusions from small data sets. E.g. “When I went to [Your Country Here] someone was rude to me, therefore people from [Your Country Here] are rude.”

If you want to infest your role-playing with these stupid ideas, that is of course entirely up to you and you’re perfectly entitled to do so.

However I will, politely, demur.

In D&D the gods are real and take active interest in the world. In D&D you can magically change your sex, perfectly and permanently. In D&D death isn’t permanent for rich people. In D&D evil actually exists and it isn’t the banal kind or the one-in-a-million serial killer kind.

There is so much, right there, to drive conflict, create story, and hold interest. And more! I’ve barely scraped the surface, and touched on merely the most obvious fantasy possibilities.

I honestly cannot tell you what color the elves are in the various worlds I’ve DMed over the 30 years I’ve played D&D. It never came up. I don’t know the “human race” of even one of the hundreds of human characters my friends have played. It never came up. Occasionally various players would describe the societies their characters were from (or I would), but I can hold my hand over my heart and tell you that skin color simply never came up. Compared to the backstory of “raised by wolves and then an ascetic group of monks that never spoke”, skin tone was simply a non-starter.

In my gaming group over the years were people who “represented” all the diversity that our planet has to offer in terms of backgrounds and skin pigmentation. “European” (whatever that means). “Asian” (whatever that means). “Latino” (whatever that means). “Islander” (whatever that means). Etc.

But our games simply never had any content that could be described as “race” in the terms that it’s being used in the discussion here. Why should they have?

The playing of D&D routinely creates worlds without count, societies without number, cultures as the grains of sand on the beach.

And yet you’re making an argument here, moricai, that I should somehow force into all that, or want to force into all that, some of the stupidest ideas ever to obsess the minds of humans?!

No.

Put whatever skin color you like on the characters in the source books, sure! The more the merrier! Blue. Neon orange. Silver. Scales. Feathers. Velcro. But rather than obsessing over some artificial “proportion” of white-v-black, why not advocate that the source book producers spend the time making sure the character art is really cool and interesting, rather than the “humanoid brandishing sword” we’ve seen so often?

Now that would be a useful campaign, and one I’d get thoroughly behind.

Let’s make fantasy roleplaying fantastic! More China Meiville and less Tolkien!

Really, whatever floats your boat. Let’s avoid one thing, though. Let’s not spend even a second shoe-horning into fantasy silly real-world “fantasies” like “race”.