Interesting. So, with artwork that is more faithful to the setting's actual lore, Greyhawk or something modeled after it would work just fine, from what you've said.
Oh, absolutely. Here's a link to the Flan entry and to a list of human ethnic groups of the Flanaess in the Greyhawk Wiki. Even those ethnic groups are just the ones that are found in Flanaess area of the setting (which serves as its main focus) and its immediate surroundings (like Hepmonoland). Outside of these areas there is little to no detail, just hints and references--such as the Celestial Empire of Shaofeng far to the west (that hints at an Asian-inspired setting). So, really, artwork that is devoted to the Greyhawk setting (assuming that it's done right) has the potential to be very ethnically diverse.
Awesome. Thank you. I would be fine with such a setting as the default.
I'd also be fine with roughly the southern half of Europe, along with the non European Mediterranean and North Africa, in the later Viking Era as a base for DnD. Maybe not quite perfectly matched up, though. And the Orient, of course. The Silk Road was an important and interesting part of history, that would add usefully to the DnD game.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Basically, I would enjoy a thriving Byzantine Empire, possibly in conflict with a Caliphate type group, some kind of Al-Andulus/Cordoba analog(really one of the most interesting points in European history), Italia during the time when Venice, Genoa and some others had bits and pieces of land throughout the Med, along with the Papal States, etc. Then, you can have the Vikings in the north, but depict them correctly, dammit. Trading more than raiding, with a strongly democratic society, and kings that can be deposed by a simple vote. The Allthing* is awesome, and should be used for DnD viking societies.
Then there's the British Isles, but of course we'd have to decide whether to go with ancient or medieval, ie celt or christendom, as they're very different.
Obviously, these would just be inspirations, not direct analogs.
..ummm... do white people in england actually call themselsves white english and or black english or do they say they are just english
or in spain for that matter..... or down in south africa??
I'm a UK government employee, so this is provided for information, rather than to make any point. The 'official' expression is 'black British', and there's a deal of back-and-forth about whether we call the white population just 'white British/Irish', or whether there's room for 'Welsh', 'Scottish', and 'English' on (for example) government forms. Also, here, 'Asian' by default tends to mean south Asian, not east Asian. The official government forms have one east Asian category called 'Chinese', and if you're Korean or Japanese or something, you're expected to select 'Other'. Referring to black people as just 'blacks' comes across as highly offensive to a British ear.
Spain and South Africa have their own systems for these things, and in view of (especially) South Africa's history in this regard, this is sensitive ground on which I prefer not to tread.
More relevantly, historic medieval and renaissance European cultures had a wide range of racial terms for themselves and others, of varying degrees of accuracy, usefulness, and offensiveness. Look up 'casta' on Wikipedia for the Spanish Empire's version. A fantasy setting with one or more dominant imperial powers might be characterised by those powers' attitude to their neighbours, including in racial terms. A sensitive topic, and one to be handled carefully, but with good narrative potential.
I think that there is room in the game and its art for (1) a broadly medieval-European setting with some non-majority people - as in Malory and von Eschenbach, as with the depictions of St Maurice, and so on - and ideally with at least one non-majority state (Cordoba or Granada, analogously, for example); (2) a deliberately cosmopolitan setting with an ethnic blend like modern London (300 languages spoken here at the last count), with room for every kind of class and character (eg Order of the Stick); (3) settings based on less familiar cultural backgrounds, such as Africa or south-east Asia, or entirely invented ones, in which the nominally European characters, if present at all, are the minority group (eg Earthsea). The core books themselves should (in my opinion) depict characters and scenes from all of the above.
Z.
Wow, thank you for all of that. BTW, "blacks" isn't the best term to use in the US, either. I've been vaguely uncomfortable this whole thread because of it, but not enough to say anything. Black people is slightly better, and works fine for casual conversation, and in official documents it should always be African American or similar.
FWIW.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
Note also that some of us never cared for/about Greyhawk, and so next to nothing about it. If something about Greyhawk gives the answers we're looking for, it would be helpful to point them out.
The Flanaess, the main focus area of the campaign, is partially made up of the original settlers of the region, the Flan peoples. Depending on who you ask the Flan appear as Native Americans or Nubians, light copper to deep dark brown skin, curly or wavy hair. There have always been arguments among Greyhawk fans about what real life correlations the races in the setting had.
The iconic character Icar, was clearly dark skinned, and when asked about his origins in an online chat group I was part of in the 90's Gary Gygax stated he was Flan, and Nubian in appearance.
Later in the late 90's The Scarlet brotherhood supplement was released for the setting. Included in the supplement were the Touv people, a new ethnic group to the south east of the main setting map. These people were black/brown skinned with brown or blue eyes. Some people retro-fitted Icar as a Touv and made/kept the Flan as Native American.
Greyhawk kept some real world cultures intact (sort of) with a human sacrificing quasi Mesoamerican culture (the Olman), and Persian and Arabic cultures with people of similar skin tone ( the Baklunish). The setting also has some deep contrasts to real life including a "white" culture that was nearly completly destroyed in a war with a morally superior Arabic culture.
I like the setting because it doesn't homogenise ethnic groups, each group has a separate pantheon of gods with some gods gaining new followers as the ethnic groups assimilate. The artwork for Greyhawk material clearly needs to be redone to show its ethnic diversity. The Flan and their gods, while clearly described as non-white, are depicted as white in the settings artwork. It’s clear that no effort was made on the part of the artists or the art directors to make them appear as they are in the settings written material.
Anyway, in the specific region Nancy is talking about would be 5-10% of people would be Flan so north African, or Native American (but not really like either), in appearance, 5-10% would be middle eastern in flesh tone and culture, 10% or so would be Nordic white, 40% Mediterranean, 30-40% mixed race. The Olman (Mesoamerican type peoples) and Touv would have a lower population percentage as they never directly migrated or warred with the region, maybe 1-2% each.
On a side note does anyone have any numbers on skin tones for the pre-painted plastic miniatures? Was there ANY ethnic diversity?
There was a few but it wasn't high. Captain of the Watch (black & female) and Dragonborn Totem Hero are two off the top of my head but I could dig through my boxs and find maybe 10 more.
With Asian looking ones it's a little different, since the features do not show up that well, you could really use any black haired mini to represent a light skinned Asian.
Along this lines very few minis have a darker but not black coloring (examples southern pacific, mixed race, or middle eastern), which probably would of been a good idea, since it would of been more ambigous, they were either so white (never seen the sun white), or so black you wouldn't mistake it for anything else.
Edit: Along the usage of black to desribe people of African descent (white or European isn't really good either) , there isn't really a good term at all. African American doesn't work since we really aren't talking about the Americas, or Africa, and doesn't take into account different groups who traveled from Africa (whites, groups like the Kho'san, etc.), second some people really don't associate their heritage with Africa. Using the term black kind of falls on the line of acceptable, and Dr. BadWolf brought that up. We could just say darker skinned all the time I guess. Truthfully culture determines what is acceptable, in the states their are words you would never use (unless your a jerk of some kind), but in Africa are not offensive at all, but at the reverse is true.
Yeah, I think for the purpose of this thread, we can just stick with blacks/black people. Although, I'd prefer black people, personally. "Blacks" has had, in my experience, a negative tone, whereas black people is just neutral. YMMV, of course.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
..ummm... do white people in england actually call themselsves white english and or black english or do they say they are just english
or in spain for that matter..... or down in south africa??
I'm a UK government employee, so this is provided for information, rather than to make any point. The 'official' expression is 'black British', and there's a deal of back-and-forth about whether we call the white population just 'white British/Irish', or whether there's room for 'Welsh', 'Scottish', and 'English' on (for example) government forms. Also, here, 'Asian' by default tends to mean south Asian, not east Asian. The official government forms have one east Asian category called 'Chinese', and if you're Korean or Japanese or something, you're expected to select 'Other'. Referring to black people as just 'blacks' comes across as highly offensive to a British ear.
Spain and South Africa have their own systems for these things, and in view of (especially) South Africa's history in this regard, this is sensitive ground on which I prefer not to tread.
More relevantly, historic medieval and renaissance European cultures had a wide range of racial terms for themselves and others, of varying degrees of accuracy, usefulness, and offensiveness. Look up 'casta' on Wikipedia for the Spanish Empire's version. A fantasy setting with one or more dominant imperial powers might be characterised by those powers' attitude to their neighbours, including in racial terms. A sensitive topic, and one to be handled carefully, but with good narrative potential.
I think that there is room in the game and its art for (1) a broadly medieval-European setting with some non-majority people - as in Malory and von Eschenbach, as with the depictions of St Maurice, and so on - and ideally with at least one non-majority state (Cordoba or Granada, analogously, for example); (2) a deliberately cosmopolitan setting with an ethnic blend like modern London (300 languages spoken here at the last count), with room for every kind of class and character (eg Order of the Stick); (3) settings based on less familiar cultural backgrounds, such as Africa or south-east Asia, or entirely invented ones, in which the nominally European characters, if present at all, are the minority group (eg Earthsea). The core books themselves should (in my opinion) depict characters and scenes from all of the above.
Z.
thank you that was very interesting atleast my curiousity is partially stated for now.
a mask everyone has at least two of, one they wear in public and another they wear in private.....
How you manage to consistently misinterpret "use this complex multiracial reality as a model" as "be almost exclusively monoracial with one race" is beyond me.
The consistent and recurring line "D&D should use Ancient and Medieval Europe as a baseline."
That's the problem. Ancient and medieval Europe was EXACTLY what you claim this person is NOT offering.
I think that people are having two major issues with this. One is that it's pretty debatable that historical (rather than fictional) Europe is more important as a source material than other parts of the world
A valid question that should be answered before deciding whether or not to use medieval Europe as a model... but it goes well beyond the question at issue.
and that 'baseline' D&D is more particularly well-suited to depicting Europeans than non-Europeans as a default
The same question from the opposite direction, more or less, and my answer is that it can depict anyone you want it to.
But closer to the topic at hand is, what specifically does saying that--"D&D should use Ancient and Medieval Europe as a baseline"--mean in direct relation to the topic at hand, greater representation of black people in D&D? I'm not sure that it is at all clear.
Considering that Europe, particularly southern Europe, has had black people since before the founding of Rome, it certainly does NOT mean that the person suggesting it wants to exclude black people.
And yet the suggestion is somehow interpreted as trying to exclude blacks, and the person offering it is condemned for that exclusion.
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
Of the humans depicted in the art of core books of the next edition of D&D, 10% should be black.
This is not about what appears in supplements, in terms of setting descriptions or art, but is specifically about the art depicting humans in the core books of the next edition and that 10% of them should be black.
This is not about the supposedly purely whiteness of north-western Europe in the 1100s of the really real world, but is specifically about the art depicting humans in the core books of the next edition and that 10% of them should be black.
Reviews Blog: thegrumpycelt.blogspot.com/ Image Gallery: grumpy-celt.deviantart.com/gallery/ --- Right, where was I...
Of the humans depicted in the art of core books of the next edition of D&D, 10% should be black.
This is not about what appears in supplements, in terms of setting descriptions or art, but is specifically about the art depicting humans in the core books of the next edition and that 10% of them should be black.
This is not about the supposedly purely whiteness of north-western Europe in the 1100s of the really real world, but is specifically about the art depicting humans in the core books of the next edition and that 10% of them should be black.
I'll say it again: Yes on more diversity for all races and cultures. No on quotas.
I'm pretty sure people are reacting to the word 'quota' because of its established negative connotations. It's established that fantasy artists tend to produce a low amount of diversity--that is, unless ethnicity is specified, artists tend to default to white. That being the case, is the problem with 'quotas' that WOTC should not ask for diversity, or is attaching arbitrary numeric goals the problem? And what about an arbitrary numeric goal is impacting artists or otherwise affecting 'quality'?
Also, if not a 'quota', what alternative method for measurably increasing diversity is available?
